Composter feels like a newbie trap

[POOO!]

Maybe it's just me, but the composter feels like a trap for newbies. I was leaning heavy into growing my own food as fast as I could early on and for a while it seemed like I was doing pretty good once I had botanical 2 researched then composters. I guess I had a good stock of fertilizer from salvaging because it took a while before I noticed the nearly 200 stack of biomass and my grow beds saying they were running out of fertilizer.

So I did what I thought I should and built more composters. Then more. And still more. They can't process through crap. Literally.

I know that the guys who have been playing since this came out in EA will all swarm to say "Just build chemical refineries." Yes that's what I ended up researching toward then building after looking up how the hell you keep up with 4 full sized grow beds. However it's only evident to those that have been playing for a long time and already know or if you break out of your game to look it up. There's nothing pointing you to the direction of chemical refiner=mass fertilizer.

I don't really care much for the cheat "mods" but if there were one that would double the output of the composter I would get it immediately, because as they are, composters are just a waste of space and resources.

[joori]

I had/have this issue and I'm a newbie to this game. I've clocked in over 50hrs so far and for a long time I've just been able to buy the fertilizer I need from different ships/trading hubs to satisfy my 4 grow beds from the salvage I've managed to gather. Bit of a micromanage but it worked well enough. I've just now researched the chemical refinery and am yet to build it but even with that I will still need to buy fert occassionally. I think the composter ratio is poop tbh, literally get jack all biomass and I have 10 pawns wanting to take a dump every day... Probably helps that I have 2 botanists lvl 7 and 6 tending to the grow beds.

[brighty]

I build it for not waste biomass pointlessly cause my storage filled up. At least we got some thing return.

[Flin Fredstone]

True, for biomatter they are not exactly useful. But it's not a waste either. I reckon though that a modder will tinker with the numbers and speed up the biomatter throughput perhaps.

Until then you can on occasssion eject the surplus into space. At the right time and with some immersion in mind it can be a bit funny.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3715384026

All that biomatter going Splat Splat Splat on the ship hulls.

[FalconerHG]

Originally posted by POOO!:

Maybe it's just me, but the composter feels like a trap for newbies. I was leaning heavy into growing my own food as fast as I could early on and for a while it seemed like I was doing pretty good once I had botanical 2 researched then composters. I guess I had a good stock of fertilizer from salvaging because it took a while before I noticed the nearly 200 stack of biomass and my grow beds saying they were running out of fertilizer.

So I did what I thought I should and built more composters. Then more. And still more. They can't process through crap. Literally.

I know that the guys who have been playing since this came out in EA will all swarm to say "Just build chemical refineries." Yes that's what I ended up researching toward then building after looking up how the hell you keep up with 4 full sized grow beds. However it's only evident to those that have been playing for a long time and already know or if you break out of your game to look it up. There's nothing pointing you to the direction of chemical refiner=mass fertilizer.

I don't really care much for the cheat "mods" but if there were one that would double the output of the composter I would get it immediately, because as they are, composters are just a waste of space and resources.

I never have enough Fertilizer, and I am always running out of Bio Mass. :)

[Nordil(Hun)]

Composter from biomass returns 0.1 water. The fertilizer is the added bonus.

A composter needs like ~100 biomass to make one single fertilizer and it takes like what 1-2 days or so to process a single biomass.

Composter is a decent option for chemical production as well, but that requires alien corpses.

But overall Composter is there to give you back water, not chemicals or fertilizer to my understanding.

Your best bet to produce fertilizer steadily is the chemical station.

(And i am saying this after i had a ship with 8 composters:D)

[CryonicSuspension]

Ai said that you need 50 leaves to make 1 bag of fertilizer. I keep 15 leaves on hand ( in case someone is buying them ) and throw everything else out the airlock.

I use the composter for bodies, and legs, because it makes water.

I don't think it makes much of a dent, because the composting time is so long, and you get so little. I'm using like 1.8 water a day for grow beds.

[starship]

On a small scale with enough resources, the chemical pathway (industry) is the easiest way to make fertilizer. But with a *ton* of crew and limited resources, not only will you be swimming in feces and urine and like dead plants, I mean bio-matter, you will be desperate for the constant stream of fertilizer and water and carbon.

So no, it is not a newbie trap, though it is also not necessarily something you need to do right away. But it sorta doesn't hurt to start doing it early so you don't end up with all of your storage occupied by bio-matter.

[Stardustfire]

Originally posted by POOO!:

Maybe it's just me, but the composter feels like a trap for newbies. I was leaning heavy into growing my own food as fast as I could early on and for a while it seemed like I was doing pretty good once I had botanical 2 researched then composters. I guess I had a good stock of fertilizer from salvaging because it took a while before I noticed the nearly 200 stack of biomass and my grow beds saying they were running out of fertilizer.

So I did what I thought I should and built more composters. Then more. And still more. They can't process through crap. Literally.

I know that the guys who have been playing since this came out in EA will all swarm to say "Just build chemical refineries." Yes that's what I ended up researching toward then building after looking up how the hell you keep up with 4 full sized grow beds. However it's only evident to those that have been playing for a long time and already know or if you break out of your game to look it up. There's nothing pointing you to the direction of chemical refiner=mass fertilizer.

I don't really care much for the cheat "mods" but if there were one that would double the output of the composter I would get it immediately, because as they are, composters are just a waste of space and resources.

congratulations, you seen the trap, ever new player falls to that. i was the same.
ok composter, its in line with the food production, so it must be the main source for fertilizer... hmm i cant get enove fertilizer with the biomass i get.....
composter is only a sidesource, the mainsource is the chemical factory.

[CryonicSuspension]

3 composters takes up too much horizontal space, that could be used for other things.

[POOO!]

Originally posted by Stardustfire:

congratulations, you seen the trap, ever new player falls to that. i was the same.
ok composter, its in line with the food production, so it must be the main source for fertilizer... hmm i cant get enove fertilizer with the biomass i get.....
composter is only a sidesource, the mainsource is the chemical factory.

Part of my problem with this is that instead of researching food you need to instead rush down industry to get to chemistry. As far as it mostly being used for water, it doesn't even feel that useful since ice is plentiful for the most part also when paired with the moisture collector in your grow room. So it seems the composter doesn't really serve much of a purpose.

[CryonicSuspension]

Ice is plentiful in the beginning... but after many snow cones...

I think that the composter needs some kind of buff to make it more useful.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by CryonicSuspension:

Ice is plentiful in the beginning... but after many snow cones...

I think that the composter needs some kind of buff to make it more useful.

Also ice depends on difficulty as well. However the best way to get water and ice is via trade and raiding along the hyperlane. (though it is also good to mine ice)

The problem is that composter regarding the amount it returns is decent.
The speed is the issue. I think biomass should be "processed" via the composter faster.
About 4 times faster. Then it would be a much more useful facility.

[sleels]

I had this similar experience in my last week getting into the game.

100% would fall for trap again

[Death Approaches]

you know, when one composter can't produce the output you want, build 2 more. build 11 more. it's the game. this is the detriment to the gain. nothing is free ever, something good takes time, effort, money, resources, hull space, mass/weight... you're describing SH mechanics like it's wrong or something. this is the game, you're playing it. I get you think it's slow processing, but as you yourself said, you're new. we're not. it's a pretty good setup, and very well playbalanced. you have decisions to make. even about, yep, organic matter composting.

anyway those kinds of things are not even mod-required, it just makes it easy, you can change the variable values for things like generator efficiency or output per second or a good amount simply editing one file in the .jar... remember this is a java game. most "mods" are the easier kind, where it's just .xml definitions of what you want changed and their new value. you can do a lot of it manually, too. but I recommend you don't take away your own fun, too... no challenge, no frustration, no risk... no fun.

I on a large ship I'll dedicate 4 to biomass. and I eject the rest of it into space when it starts to accumulate. the rest of the composters dedicated for bodies, cause while biomass give 0.1, bodies give 1. Water Master. remove his krisknife and into the deathstill he goes. water is life. a man's flesh is his own, but his water belongs to my crew. (and my space carrots)

[Alex_D]

In my opinion, and this is debatable, the true newbie trap is not prioritizing X1 generator, chemical and energy refinery techs for research.

As per composters, roughly each harvest from each square of a grow bed produces biomass. The composters have slots and take some time to process. Therefore I'd argue that for each 6-10 grow beds, one composter must be set to process biomatter if more than 3 (always save something for the algae dispenser).

Side rant: I'd like for BugByte to either add more decimals to the numbers displayed inside each facility contents, or redo the production mechanics so the numbers displayed match the quantities shown (this includes the kitchen recipes)
If one examines the game save, a facility that in-game says it has 0.9 units of something, may have actually 0.874999 or something in the text file of the save. This may lead to incorrect expectations from the Player about when something is due or if it needs to be produced.