Ideas wanted for automated hydroponic sleet wheat farm.

[Errapel]

Every time I start a game, I set some goals of what I'd like to achieve this time. And so far I've (eventually) achieved all of them. I've gotten my oil industry up and running. I've sent dupes into space. I'm by no means a great player, but with over 500 hours in this game, I'm somewhat competent.

Except for this one goal. My dream is to have an automated hydroponic sleet wheat farm. I have tried over and over again, so many different methods. All fall short to a greater or lesser degree. I know I can get free sleet wheat from just grabbing what grows naturally, but I enjoy a challenge and I just really like the idea of having a functioning farm.

My main problem is water temp. Sleet wheat will only grow in temps below 5 C. Ok. But water freezes at 0 C. That gives me a narrow window. Need to keep water temp between 0 and 5 C.

I've tried using the Thermo Aquatuner, but I'll either not get water cold enough, or make it so cold it freezes the pipes. It also takes a lot of power and requires me having a polluted water tank close to my farm so I can keep the Thermo Aquatuner in it and not have too long between that and my farm. This has rarely been practical for whatever world seed I'm working with.

So I moved on to the thermo-nullifier. This I like a lot. I create a nice big room around it, with airlock at the bottom. Pump out all the air, then pump in hydrogen. I use a high pressure vent so the whole room is packed with it. I usually have a lot of excess hydrogen because my SPOMs often overproduce it. I run my liquid pipes through this radiator style. I tend to use regular pipes because I'm going to break them and refined metal for radiative pipes is never around when I need it. Besides, the room gets super cold, so if I pick a material for my regular pipes that has high thermal conductivity, I don't need radiative pipes. On either side I put a liquid shut off valve. I usually attach this to clock sensors because I've yet to find a way to automate this to my satisfaction. I've also taken to adding a water valve to decrease the volume of water passing through.

My problem? Either I let too much water through and it sits around in my farm heating it up somehow, while simultainiously freezing in the pipes around the thermo nullifier. OR I never get enough water going through and the plants don't grow.

I have yet to find a viable solution to this problem, and I'm convinced there MUST be one. I'm just not good enough at automation yet to figure it out.

So, suggestions to improve this system would be greatly appreciated!

[buchecker]

Need to keep water temp between 0 and 5 C.

Actually you dont. You just need to make sure the water doesnt raise the overall temperature too much. Which can be tricky because water has such a high heat capacity so if the water is much above 5 degrees it might heat up the surroundings too much. Have you tried insulated pipes with water thats slightly higher than 5 degress while cooling the air to well below zero?

[Errapel]

I haven't but that's worth a try.

[Milo de Vries]

If you do want the water itself in the range, easiest way I can think of would be to have several water reservoirs, with automation set up to keep them as near as full as possible.

Reservoirs automatically average out all liquid contained in them - extremely efficient way to evenly distribute heat or cooling. Then all you need is temp sensors on the output pipe that either allow it to flow to the farm or circulate it back for heating/cooling

[Perpetual_Retrospect]

Originally posted by Errapel:

Every time I start a game, I set some goals of what I'd like to achieve this time. And so far I've (eventually) achieved all of them. I've gotten my oil industry up and running. I've sent dupes into space. I'm by no means a great player, but with over 500 hours in this game, I'm somewhat competent.

Except for this one goal. My dream is to have an automated hydroponic sleet wheat farm. I have tried over and over again, so many different methods. All fall short to a greater or lesser degree. I know I can get free sleet wheat from just grabbing what grows naturally, but I enjoy a challenge and I just really like the idea of having a functioning farm.

My main problem is water temp. Sleet wheat will only grow in temps below 5 C. Ok. But water freezes at 0 C. That gives me a narrow window. Need to keep water temp between 0 and 5 C.

I've tried using the Thermo Aquatuner, but I'll either not get water cold enough, or make it so cold it freezes the pipes. It also takes a lot of power and requires me having a polluted water tank close to my farm so I can keep the Thermo Aquatuner in it and not have too long between that and my farm. This has rarely been practical for whatever world seed I'm working with.

So I moved on to the thermo-nullifier. This I like a lot. I create a nice big room around it, with airlock at the bottom. Pump out all the air, then pump in hydrogen. I use a high pressure vent so the whole room is packed with it. I usually have a lot of excess hydrogen because my SPOMs often overproduce it. I run my liquid pipes through this radiator style. I tend to use regular pipes because I'm going to break them and refined metal for radiative pipes is never around when I need it. Besides, the room gets super cold, so if I pick a material for my regular pipes that has high thermal conductivity, I don't need radiative pipes. On either side I put a liquid shut off valve. I usually attach this to clock sensors because I've yet to find a way to automate this to my satisfaction. I've also taken to adding a water valve to decrease the volume of water passing through.

My problem? Either I let too much water through and it sits around in my farm heating it up somehow, while simultainiously freezing in the pipes around the thermo nullifier. OR I never get enough water going through and the plants don't grow.

I have yet to find a viable solution to this problem, and I'm convinced there MUST be one. I'm just not good enough at automation yet to figure it out.

So, suggestions to improve this system would be greatly appreciated!

If you have access to space and high enough level rockets/research i'd go get some fullerene and make super coolant in the MF.

Then build a 2 wide cooling loop in the farm using whatever radiant pipe, an oil cooled thermo-aquatuner setup, and a few pipe thermo sensors to control temp. Cycle/replace the oil around the steel (or higher) aquatuner when it gets too hot. 2000kg of super coolant should fill a loop or two, but will take awhile to acquire all the fullerene.

The setup should maintain -10F in a 96 tile farm thats being fed ~190F water for around 100-150kj power a cycle, with farm temps and water temps in the pipes feeding the farm remaining relatively stable.

Sure there are better ways but this has worked for me late-game.

[Strygald]

The simplest solution is often the best, in this case basic automation:

Replace the foundation with horizontal doors and use a thermo sensor to open them before the temperature falls below 0c, water in pipes will never freeze then.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1740980332

You can also use the thermo sensor to disable thermal aquatuners or wizardworts in a similar fashion, freezing water becomes a thing of the past.

[Lifepath [CdE]]

My Sleet farm is real simple : radiant pipe with -35° Hydrogen and cool water (20°) brought in ceramic pipes.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198167052960/screenshot/804367798107512202

[Errapel]

Some awesome ideas, thank you all!

[Errapel]

OK so it took me a while because I did other things, but I now have a largely automated sleet wheat farm that seems to work with minimal fuss. It's certainly not the most efficient system, but I'm just glad to have a system at all.

Here's the water pipes, the water is piped in with insulated pipes (because it goes through the cold biome, I don't want the water to freeze and break the pipes, or warm up the area too much). There's a shut off valve, which I've connected to an 'AND' gate. That gate's connected to a clock sensor (in case I need an override) and a 'NOT' Gate connected to a liquid element sensor. So, whenever the pipe detects there's water in it, it closes the liquid shut-off.

After the shut-off valve I have a liquid valve to reduce flow rate. I'm still fiddling with that, but I think for this farm the sweet spot is somewhere between 2500 g/s and 5000g/s.

From there the water works its way through the super cooled room with the thermal nulifier. At the end it's connected to a liquid shut off. That's currently just connected to a clock and a liquid element sensor that's hanging in mid air (I re-arranged the pipes...).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761851026

The pipes in the sleet wheat farm are ceramic insulated so I don't need to get the water temp down quite so far. I went a little overboard and used diamond temp shift plates throughout the farm to help with the cooling.

(and automation: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761850493 )

The cooling is a large room filled with hydrogen, some of which is pumped into the nulifier. At the top I have a pump. That pumps the hydrogen in a little radiator loop through the farm, then drops it back in the cold room to chill down again.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1761850774


As I said, this is far from the most efficient solution. I know I've made a lot of mistakes here. But it's a start. I welcome feedback, and I hope it's helpful to anyone trying the same thing.