You hardly need 12 farms as several of them fulfills all colony food needs and more
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Some people are in fact quite ambitious and want colonies that can support thousands of colonists which would require that much food production.
And you're just side-stepping the fact that Water Reclamation is still more efficient with Medium or even basic farming domes than dropping more Moisture Vaporators. Indeed unless they change it for Green Planet the Water Reclamation Spire can in fact have higher than 70% water saving as it benefits off manpower bonuses. There have been cases where players created farming domes with Water Reclamation that consume less water than a regular dome.
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How About having an initial soil Quality for newly-placed farms of ~10% and increase it by ~1% every Sol?
Maybe with two techs for higher ramp rate and for starting soil Quality of ~40%...
This way you push their Efficiency to later-game stages.
P.S. Sorry, Capital letters were changed by Forum Software. I don't know what to do About it.
Maybe with two techs for higher ramp rate and for starting soil Quality of ~40%...
This way you push their Efficiency to later-game stages.
P.S. Sorry, Capital letters were changed by Forum Software. I don't know what to do About it.
Extreme situations should never be the goal of developement. Starcraft was no balanced to make marine-only or no-gas challenges. Or Dwarf Fortress was not designed for no-iron games.
It is useful for thousands of colonists but for common casual games it is not.
It is useful for thousands of colonists but for common casual games it is not.
I find the issue with a water spire and a dedicated farming dome isn't a question of efficiency but one of delivery logistics. A centralized farming dome requires a bunch of shuttles to deliver that food to where it is needed. Dispersed farms in each dome might use more water but that is easy to get with evaporators and makes food delivery simple as its where the people are. You even get a comfort boost. This then lets you run Hanging Gardens with an ecologist ruler which makes apartments high comfort.
I do agree with the basic premise that hydro farms and especially fungal farms need something to make them more competitive with farms.
I do agree with the basic premise that hydro farms and especially fungal farms need something to make them more competitive with farms.
Passages mean you don't even need the people to live in the farming dome. So the only wedge that can't be a farm is the one you attach the passage to. Botanists like Luxury so make sure a casino is in the connecting dome, as well as all the needed services and voila a small dome with 5 farms plus 3 small wedge buildings.
As for distributing food. Yes, that will cost fuel and shuttle time. However in terms of savings on power and water consumed there is no comparison and with the slider for how much stock we can command a depot to hold there are no problems with delayed distribution.
Final note remember that with Space Race you can trade food for other materials. Generally they are only willing to trade it for metal or concrete but honestly that is enough. I can never get enough metal once I am established. So throwing 50 food every few sols out for 15 metal is a mega bargain to me.
Its not really a big issue when you consider two factors.
First, farming domes are not really location-dependent. You can always build a farming dome anywhere you want if you rely on Moisture Farms.
Second is that you can always use Transport Rovers to transfer food.
That said having a farm in each Dome is fine for backup food and the comfort bonus. But if you really want huge food production and a huge population a centralized farming dome is the most efficient way to do it.
There is nothing extreme about basic domes specialized for farming. It is simply misinformation to claim Water Reclamation is a bad building. Its actually one of the better spires.
Yep in many ways Food is the best trade export because you potentially don’t have to spend “finite” resources to produce huge amounts of it. Thats why In think Hydrophonics / Fungal need outright cash crops to be competitive - as cash can buy advanced resources.
Another idea to help Hydros and Fungals: introduce some small comfort bonus for a varied diet that will require food produced in those two.
I would suggest going even a bit further. Anyone remember the game Stronghold, where part of the happiness of your peasants was the variety of food (apples/cheese/bread/meat). Ever since I started playing Surviving Mars, I thought "Would it not be great to have something similar here?"
Yes, this makes tracking food more difficult as you have to keep stock not of a single food resource, but multiple variants, but it would IMO directly give fungal farms and hydroponics a late game purpose, since they provide additional food variety by default. And from a realism/immersion standpoint it would make it more believable. Who wants to only eat fruit and corn anyway?
As for early game, if I get the Soil Adaptation tech early enough, I often just import some 10 food initially and directly build a farm, and by the time the additional food runs out I have my first soy harvest, and it only gets better from there.
I've always found it amusing that my colonists are all happy and healthy eating nothing but a single crop.
Well they nerfed farms by giving them a competitor. I'll need to do a proper test but it looks like turkeys will devastate crops in cost and output. The out dome ranch is also a massive producer. I wouldn't be surprised if a full set of botanists will be able to make cows produce over 1,000 food.
Even better they don't use botanists. Both ranches are non-specialist buildings. Well, you don't get the early potential bonus but not requiring a specialist is much better I'd think. By default, ranches give 12 food per 6 workers at .9 water. By default regular farms are 11 food per 6 workers at 2.4 water. Though I don't believe the farm benefits for comfort apply to ranches. You also don't get the benefits of soil quality that averages out to ~14 food per day using basic crops. Then there's outdoor ranches with cattle that provide 25 food per day, 3 water, 9 workers.
Oxygen and power costs too for ranches, but I'm mostly ignoring those. Outside ranch is relatively expensive to build too and the time for cattle to mature is a fairly long time. Automation tech doesn't apply to ranches either.
So looks like if you handle the sanity loss for outdome buildings then the outdoor ranch is amazing. Also need the massive amount of water. If water's scarcer then the regular farms are pretty sweet too to stack up the water spires. Though not ranching makes vegans pretty desirable. Free comfort boost is nice.
Some more testing. Cow farming isn't as good as it seems, primarily due to storage size. Because it can only store up to 300 food any excess food from higher productivity is wasted and it takes a good bit before the building starts working because of the full storage. Still solid food production per person though.
Then there's open farms which are also very water hungry but food with no worker investment is pretty sweet.
Then there's open farms which are also very water hungry but food with no worker investment is pretty sweet.
Question, ¿Does the water spire affect buildings outside the dome but within its range, i.e. the fungal farm and outside ranch?
I do not have Laika yet, so I cannot comment on animal farms. But with open (plant) farms, it is IMO fine if they replace the other food options as the best one, because they are the result of a lot of investment into terraforming (and space and water).
The main problem is that you can (and I often do) make farming your first tech, and that's that for all other options before they ever appeared. Farms are not your best large-scale option, they are your best option in every scenario.
So yeah, IMO up the water upkeep and lower yields at low soil. Farms should be best with water reclamation and time, otherwise fungal/hydro.
The main problem is that you can (and I often do) make farming your first tech, and that's that for all other options before they ever appeared. Farms are not your best large-scale option, they are your best option in every scenario.
So yeah, IMO up the water upkeep and lower yields at low soil. Farms should be best with water reclamation and time, otherwise fungal/hydro.
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Make them start with 0% soil quality, after all it's Martian barren soil.
You're going to need to back that up, because I basically always go for at least 1000+ colonists, and it's a rule-of-thumb that a medium farming dome covers a mere 600 colonists. On top of that, you can almost always trade food for polymers and metals, the first of which is very much appreciated early-game, and the second of which is basically the most limiting late-game resource.
I strongly suspect the outdoor farms of GP are crazily powerful, but that's a reward for putting in a huge investment into terraforming Mars. I just wish it were easier to figure out exactly how much they're producing, other than "more than enough to feed 500 colonists a pop after I converted all my farm domes to Bloody Parasite* domes".
*i.e. workshops to get that achievement.
Anyways, with Green Planet: I'd need to double-check the numbers, but I'm pretty sure ranches occupy a distinct niche for the early game, where low water input and no specialists required make them a strong alternative to farms in those early sols, whereas later on, WRS-powered botanist-filled domes can provide outrageous amounts of food for relatively few colonists. As for later-game niches for hydroponics/fungal farms... I've got nothing that hasn't already been suggested.
So I made a separate post about this comparing in-dome ranches to hydroponics farms, and come bearing a complete set of statistics (attached). This doesn't include the advanced crops unlocked by Gene Adaptation (Quinoa, Seaweed, Fruit Trees etc.) because once you are that deep into the tech tree, then there are a bunch of other modifiers that could make direct comparisons difficult (for example, the tech that makes Botanists work with +20 production would barely make them win that comparison). tl;dr is at the bottom, labelled 'Conclusion'. These are the three 'competitions' or scenarios that I have used to determine which food producing building is the best:
Thriving colony. Maximise Food/Sol. This gives an option between Farms (Wheat,Soybeans,Potato), Ranch (Turkey), Hydroponics Farm (Leaf Crops), Fungal Farms, or Outside Ranch (Cow). The winner of the in-dome competition are ranches, producing 50% more per sol than both of the other two contenders (Farms and Hydroponics Farms respectively). The winner of the out-dome competition are Outside Ranches, producing 5 times as much food as a fungal farm.
Labour Shortage. Maximise Food/Labour. The available options are the same as Thriving Colony. Ranches win again with 2 food per sol of worker labour. The runner up is Farms with 1.5 food per sol of worker labour. Outside Ranches win the outside competition, producing a little over 3 times as much food per unit of labour than Fungal Farms.
Drought. Maximise Food/Water. This gives an option between Farms (Wheat), Ranch (Chicken), Hydroponics Farm (Microgreens), Fungal Farms, and Outside Ranches (Goat). The winner of the indome competition is Ranches again, by a landslide. Ranches produce 0.69 food per unit of water consumed. The best non-DLC option available is Fungal Farms (producing 0.42 food per unit of water), or Hydroponics Farms (Producing 0.35 food per unit of water). Notably, Outside Ranches produce the same amount of food/water when growing Goats than Fungal Farms, causing the outside competition to end in a tie.
Fast Food. Maximise food/sol, that can be produced immediately (within 2 sols). Outside Ranches forfeit this competition (by the time Pigs are fully grown, almost every colonist would have died, with the only survivors being those who found food, or who visited a clinic while starving), leading Fungal Farms to win the outside competition by default. Indoors, the competition is between Farm (50% soil, Wheat), Ranch (Rabbit), and Hydroponics Farm (Wheat Grass). The winner is a tie, with both the Hydroponics Farm and Rabbits producing 15 food in those two sols. Wheat Grass can be made in 1 sol meaning starvation can be completely avoided, while Rabbits can be made in 2 sols, meaning that starving colonists would take 25% health damage. However, Wheat Grass consumes 3 times as much water and needs 50% more skilled specialists.
Notes about the competition: Due to their small size, 3 Hydroponics Farms were used in this competition. This is a selling point for Hydroponics farms, in that they are able to be put in more spots. Farms require some technology to unlock, and technically so do cover crops, but they were added for completeness. Gene Adaptation crops and Breakthrough / Mystery techs were determined to be 'mid-game' and outside the scope of this comparison. Despite several people saying otherwise, I am 99% sure that Outside Ranches can run perfectly fine with 0% terraforming. I am unsure whether larger outside ranches start working when terraforming is complete, or if the oxygen and water restrictions are lifted or reduced, but I don't think that is the case, and even if it were, this would be 'late-game' and outside the scope of this comparison. Both forms of Ranches also do not use Botanists, but instead unskilled labourers, giving another reason to build them.
Conclusion: When should you build each of these options?
Hydroponics Farms: When you need food NOW! Wheat Grass produces the most food in a single sol. However, rabbit ranches can be just as good, albeit a little bit slower.
Farms: When you don't have the Project Laika DLC. With the Project Laika DLC they are outclassed in every respect by Turkey Ranches or Outside Cattle Ranches. Even in the very late game. Pay2Win Baby! Once you unlock Gene Adaptation, then Quinoa/Corn/Fruit Trees still loses the thriving colony / labour shortage comparison, only making 11.41 food per sol.
Fungal Farms: When you don't have the Project Laika DLC and when you don't have much water to spare. With the Project Laika DLC, they are outclassed in every respect to an Outside Ranch producing Goats.
Ranches: When you are just starting out in your first dome, when you have a crippling long-term water shortage, or when you don't want to build an out-dome building to make food (and get hit with the comfort penalty that that implies)
Outdoor Ranches: When you want to make food hand-over-foot, and you don't have a crippling long-term water shortage. Note, however, that Outdoor Ranches are expensive, require polymers for upkeep. However, even in a water shortage, Goats are pretty awesome (being better in food/sol than all vanilla buildings, better in food/labour than all vanilla buildings until farms with Quinoa/Corn/Fruit Trees, and being better in food/water than all vanilla buildings except for Fungal Farms, which they match)
[Edit history: Goats are the Outside Ranches option of choice in a drought, not cattle]
Thriving colony. Maximise Food/Sol. This gives an option between Farms (Wheat,Soybeans,Potato), Ranch (Turkey), Hydroponics Farm (Leaf Crops), Fungal Farms, or Outside Ranch (Cow). The winner of the in-dome competition are ranches, producing 50% more per sol than both of the other two contenders (Farms and Hydroponics Farms respectively). The winner of the out-dome competition are Outside Ranches, producing 5 times as much food as a fungal farm.
Labour Shortage. Maximise Food/Labour. The available options are the same as Thriving Colony. Ranches win again with 2 food per sol of worker labour. The runner up is Farms with 1.5 food per sol of worker labour. Outside Ranches win the outside competition, producing a little over 3 times as much food per unit of labour than Fungal Farms.
Drought. Maximise Food/Water. This gives an option between Farms (Wheat), Ranch (Chicken), Hydroponics Farm (Microgreens), Fungal Farms, and Outside Ranches (Goat). The winner of the indome competition is Ranches again, by a landslide. Ranches produce 0.69 food per unit of water consumed. The best non-DLC option available is Fungal Farms (producing 0.42 food per unit of water), or Hydroponics Farms (Producing 0.35 food per unit of water). Notably, Outside Ranches produce the same amount of food/water when growing Goats than Fungal Farms, causing the outside competition to end in a tie.
Fast Food. Maximise food/sol, that can be produced immediately (within 2 sols). Outside Ranches forfeit this competition (by the time Pigs are fully grown, almost every colonist would have died, with the only survivors being those who found food, or who visited a clinic while starving), leading Fungal Farms to win the outside competition by default. Indoors, the competition is between Farm (50% soil, Wheat), Ranch (Rabbit), and Hydroponics Farm (Wheat Grass). The winner is a tie, with both the Hydroponics Farm and Rabbits producing 15 food in those two sols. Wheat Grass can be made in 1 sol meaning starvation can be completely avoided, while Rabbits can be made in 2 sols, meaning that starving colonists would take 25% health damage. However, Wheat Grass consumes 3 times as much water and needs 50% more skilled specialists.
Notes about the competition: Due to their small size, 3 Hydroponics Farms were used in this competition. This is a selling point for Hydroponics farms, in that they are able to be put in more spots. Farms require some technology to unlock, and technically so do cover crops, but they were added for completeness. Gene Adaptation crops and Breakthrough / Mystery techs were determined to be 'mid-game' and outside the scope of this comparison. Despite several people saying otherwise, I am 99% sure that Outside Ranches can run perfectly fine with 0% terraforming. I am unsure whether larger outside ranches start working when terraforming is complete, or if the oxygen and water restrictions are lifted or reduced, but I don't think that is the case, and even if it were, this would be 'late-game' and outside the scope of this comparison. Both forms of Ranches also do not use Botanists, but instead unskilled labourers, giving another reason to build them.
Conclusion: When should you build each of these options?
Hydroponics Farms: When you need food NOW! Wheat Grass produces the most food in a single sol. However, rabbit ranches can be just as good, albeit a little bit slower.
Farms: When you don't have the Project Laika DLC. With the Project Laika DLC they are outclassed in every respect by Turkey Ranches or Outside Cattle Ranches. Even in the very late game. Pay2Win Baby! Once you unlock Gene Adaptation, then Quinoa/Corn/Fruit Trees still loses the thriving colony / labour shortage comparison, only making 11.41 food per sol.
Fungal Farms: When you don't have the Project Laika DLC and when you don't have much water to spare. With the Project Laika DLC, they are outclassed in every respect to an Outside Ranch producing Goats.
Ranches: When you are just starting out in your first dome, when you have a crippling long-term water shortage, or when you don't want to build an out-dome building to make food (and get hit with the comfort penalty that that implies)
Outdoor Ranches: When you want to make food hand-over-foot, and you don't have a crippling long-term water shortage. Note, however, that Outdoor Ranches are expensive, require polymers for upkeep. However, even in a water shortage, Goats are pretty awesome (being better in food/sol than all vanilla buildings, better in food/labour than all vanilla buildings until farms with Quinoa/Corn/Fruit Trees, and being better in food/water than all vanilla buildings except for Fungal Farms, which they match)
[Edit history: Goats are the Outside Ranches option of choice in a drought, not cattle]
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Good stuff @digitCruncher. Only thing I have to add is the malnourished weaklings (Vegans) are seemingly ubiquitous and the comfort bonus for not growing real food (meat) is valuable. Especially during the founder's phase.