Is the farming station worth it?

[Errapel]

I started designing greenhouses to take advantage of the farming station, but is it worth the effort? How much faster do plants grow with it?

[Stonehammers]

From my experience, yes. I can't remember how much faster plants grow, but it is quite noticeable. If you aren't trying to feed that many duplicants however, then you probably won't see as much use from it.

[ExavierMacbeth]

Yes & No. It doubles the grow rate of the plants which can be handy if your trying to get new farms or food supplies online quickly. But I never seem to have enough fertalizer to run them continuously as its 5kg per plant per cycle & its all manual labor a dupe has to do.

[Yrame IV, a true I of the dragon]

Yes, especially if you are growing resource-intensive plants. While you have a farmer, it doubles the speed plants grow in. This means that you essentially get 2x the products for the same input, as inputs are daily.

[Errapel]

Hmm, so it's possibly worth it for plants that take ages to grow (like sleet wheat), but probably nto for mealworm plants. Ok, useful to know.

[Tarshaid]

As long as you don't need that food just right now (in which case mealwood got you covered), I wouldn't say it's that much about the growing time, but about how much ressources they consume. As soon as you're out of the early game starvation risk, you should without too much issues gather enough seeds to make your farms as big as you need them to be. Then the Farm station bonus of halving growth time means you need only half as many plants to sustain. Considering it takes time and fertilizer, whether it's a good trade is up to you.

For an easy example: Say you're growing Bristle blossom, and need 20 plants to sustain your colony. Each plant consumes 20kg of water/cycle, so you're draining 400kg of water each cycle. On top of that, there's the required lighting, which means a small amount of constant power drain and a not so small amount of heat generation, unless you manage to turn the area into a shinebug rave party.
Now if you use the farm station, you only need 10 plants to sustain, sparing you 200kg of water and a bunch of lamps, at the added cost of 50kg of fertilizer/cycle (if I'm not mistaken on fertilizer usage), and the dupe going each cycle to tend to the crops, while bristle blossom could grow on its own before.

[Errapel]

"Shinebug rave party" - Now THERE's a goal!


Hmm, that's a good break down of the pros and cons, thank you.

[Prometheus]

Its especially worth it for pepperplants. Once you got your meat going its more efficient to grow a few pepperplants and fertilize them than to grow a bunch.

[intenselygoodtime]

What is the bonus just for having the farm station "exist" in the room (i.e., room bonus) even prior to having a formally-trained Farmer to do the work? I had been in the habit of pre-building these as soon as I unlocked Farm & Hydrofarm tiles, partly for the sake of space/resource planning, and partly because I assumed there was a passive bonus as well.

[intenselygoodtime]

Originally posted by Errapel:

"Shinebug rave party" - Now THERE's a goal!

That is EXACTLY how I plan where my first farm-room is. I encase those little buggers with basic tiles and a cheap door the first time I get 3 of them in one place, and then carve out the room around them.

...but it's sad when their pathfinding gets them caught in a door tile because somehow an egg landed there, so they are trapped upon hatching. Rare, but required a costly reno-release project. (I.e., delete other stuff, build/extend around them, delete door they're trapped in)

[Errapel]

Originally posted by intenselygoodtime:

Originally posted by Errapel:

"Shinebug rave party" - Now THERE's a goal!

That is EXACTLY how I plan where my first farm-room is. I encase those little buggers with basic tiles and a cheap door the first time I get 3 of them in one place, and then carve out the room around them.

...but it's sad when their pathfinding gets them caught in a door tile because somehow an egg landed there, so they are trapped upon hatching. Rare, but required a costly reno-release project. (I.e., delete other stuff, build/extend around them, delete door they're trapped in)

I've found the only way to handle eggs stuck is to use an empty storage compactor in the room I want them, then set it to priority 9 and to only accept that egg.

[Hedning]

The bonus is +100% growth rate for 1 cycle, hence its total growth time doesn't matter. All that matters is how much it costs to grow the plant for one cycle.

The cost to fertilize is (using the synthesizer)
1.625kg pwater
2.708kg dirt
1.83kg phosphorite (which is easily infinite)

So for a sleet wheet which cost 5kg dirt and 20kg water it is definitely worth it.

Originally posted by intenselygoodtime:

What is the bonus just for having the farm station "exist" in the room

There's no passive bonus.

[SamuraiJones]

I haven't calculated it lately, but last time I looked, i also figured it was worth it for sleetwheet and peppernuts, but not for mealworm or bristles. didn't check the shrooms.

[Hedning]

I don't think mealwood can get fertilized.

Shrooms I don't think it is. Shrooms is my primary way to get rid of slime, and I never run out of slime before it is too low quality anyway. Even before the morale update I never used enough mushroom to run out of slime.

Bristle blossoms can definitely be worth it, since water often is the limiting factor in a base.