Heat Lamps and Hydroponics - A Thought to Grow on

[Logrin]

A simple and no doubt oft brokered suggestion that seems suspiciously absent is the ability to cultivate crops regardless of inclement climate, shifting seasons or well within the walls of one’s chosen sanctum. This is less a suggestion on if this is a feature that SHOULD be present (The answer is yes, I should think), but rather a practical discussion on how best to implement it.

Unfortunately I’m not arguing from a point of personal experience, so I welcome anyone with actual familiarity on the subject to interject. With that out of the way I think several things are paramount:

*It should be more of an investment than traditional farming - There’s fertile earth to transport, water, light and temperature to regulate and provide and potters to construct. The transport and construction of a suitable environment in which to grow your plants is thus much more labor intensive than just sticking a seed in the dirt and thus the sort of endeavor one might pursue if living underground, within a fortified structure or even as a grow-on-the-go addition to vehicles.

*It lets you grow on your own terms - Assuming all is well with the set up hydroponics allow one to grow all year round, albeit offering up a less plentiful crop without a major investment in materials, time and power. Balanced by the risk that should you come up short on the electricity or water to keep conditions favorable the only thing you’ll have to show for the effort is a handful of wilted husks.

*They remain fragile and vulnerable - An unexpected zombie or nonplussed moose are more likely to obliterate your crop if its on artificial life support than sprouting out of the ground. Making sure nothing smashes, bashes or otherwise bungles your precious plants could foster a ferocious paranoia in some players I think. And really, isn’t that at the heart of hydroponics?

All that said, I haven’t an appropriate guess as to how much water and power it takes to raise a particular crop to maturity, nor any illuminating insights on modern methods or how they might change in the near future. Without which I may very well have simply rehashed something that has been asked for before. Hopefully someone more experienced can shed light on that.

[Malaxxor]

As someone who’s a bit interested in the topic, I can give a little insight and personal experience:

*It should be more of an investment than traditional farming - There’s fertile earth to transport, water, light and temperature to regulate and provide and potters to construct. The transport and construction of a suitable environment in which to grow your plants is thus much more labor intensive than just sticking a seed in the dirt and thus the sort of endeavor one might pursue if living underground, within a fortified structure or even as a grow-on-the-go addition to vehicles.

That depends. First of all, there’s no ‘fertile earth’ to transport - the big difference between hydroponics and normal farming is that hydroponics don’t need earth/soil in the traditional sense. Instead, hydroponics use a nutrion-less soil, most often in the form of special clay pellets. In game terms, perhaps one could either find those pellets in gardening stores or create them from regular clay (though I don’t know if that would work in RL).

Water, light and temperature isn’t really hard to regulate. All you need is one or two switch timers that one can find in nearly every electronics store. It can be tricky to set up for first timers, but everyone with at least a flicker of knowledge about electronics can set them up easily.

What you most people who suggest hydroponics system in the game seem to forget about is the fact that you need a nutrient solution - in addition to normal, clean water. So what you’d need is water, electricity and liquid nutritient solution. And you need LOTS of it if you want to farm a half-way useful amount of food. Not to mention that there are quite a few crops (like potatoes, for example) that can’t be grown in a hydroponics system. The only real benefit of such a system is that you could plant some crops independently of location. Admitelly, with some work you can get better harvests than normal farming, but that would use some elaborate strategies…

In regards to location: many people seem to think that hydroponic systems could be used in a vehicle. No. fucking. way. dude.

Plants are very delicate and fragile, especially the root system which is only partially protected in a hydroponics system. Even during normal driving, you’d damage the plants to the point of destruction in a matter of minutes.

*It lets you grow on your own terms - Assuming all is well with the set up hydroponics allow one to grow all year round, albeit offering up a less plentiful crop without a major investment in materials, time and power. Balanced by the risk that should you come up short on the electricity or water to keep conditions favorable the only thing you’ll have to show for the effort is a handful of wilted husks.

You already mentioned the important parts. Hydroponics is not simply ‘set up stuff and be done with it’, it’s an elaborate system that is prone to failure. However, the same is true for normal farming (which is the total opposite of ‘sticking a seed in the ground and wait’) and it’s pretty abstracted…

*They remain fragile and vulnerable - An unexpected zombie or nonplussed moose are more likely to obliterate your crop if its on artificial life support than sprouting out of the ground. Making sure nothing smashes, bashes or otherwise bungles your precious plants could foster a ferocious paranoia in some players I think. And really, isn’t that at the heart of hydroponics?

This is quite contrary to real life. One - if not the biggest - advantages of hydroponics is the fact that they are far less vulnerable to pests or other dangers. If you plant a crop out on the field, you have to somehow protect it from bugs, hungry animals, zombies, the weather, etc. That’s all a non-concern for a hydroponics system, at least if you build it somewhere reasonably safe. That said, neither of those things really matter in Cata, given the extremly simple representation of farming in the game.

My conclusion: it’s not really worth to include hydroponics in the game right now. All the advantages it provides in RL are completely irrelevant to the game, seeing that most problems it solves are non-existent in the game. In the end, you’d just have the same farming system we already have right now, just that it could be built somewhere underground (and take lots and lots of fertilizer and electricity). Some people really want to have hydroponics in their vehicles - which I guess is the driving motivation behind including such a system in the game - but that’s not going to happen without handwaving away major concerns. But seeing that we’re already handwaving away almost everything in regards to normal farming…

From a more realistic perspective, hydroponics wouldn’t be the go to solution to farming either. It’s nice toying around with such a system in your home garden, but if you really want to farm enough crops to live off of them, you’d probably have to build a hydroponics system on an industrial scale - which would not only require effort to set up, but also to maintain. However, in an apocalyptic scenario I’d probably build a small hydroponic greenhouse to grow some additional food during winter.

And besides: fuck hydroponics - AQUAponics is the way to go!

[Logrin]

Excellent reply Malaxxor, I greatly appreciate the time and effort taken to author it (Even if it was a damning fusillade against my suggestion :P) I restate however that, yes, farming (and thus hydroponics) are already abstracted to such a degree that they are the merest representations of themselves.

I think that’s perfectly fine.

From a player perspective farming should be as simple as planting seeds and expecting them to grow with a little time, water and fertilizer. Realism is important certainly, but I think the inclusion of nuclear nightlights, military lasers and teleportation already make a fair point for fun and function over accurate simulation. Being that this remains a suggestion as to how to implement hydroponics in a satisfactory way however, why don’t we take a cue from your own answer.

Aquaponics

Players could create a sustainable growing operation by combining a Rearing tank, Settling basin, Biofilter, Hydroponics subsystem and Sump. (Need not have them build each piece mind you, merely include a feasible amount of material ingredients in the recipe to represent them) Players could then have an ‘unfinished Aquaponics Tank’ that they’d need to finish by filling it with water and catching some fish. (Fishing is already in I believe) Bingo Bango, players can plant seeds, keep the system powered and sprinkle in protein powder as fish food. Costs more than current farming but lets players do so year long and where they like.

How’s that?

[kevin.granade]

Another maybe practical growing system that would be vehicle friendly is growing spirulina for vitamin supplementation. My understanding is you need circulation, light, and nutrients, it probably (?) Wouldn’t be as susceptible to vibration as hydroponics.

Regarding portable aquaponics, it seems like the major issue would be weight, is that fair? Seems like a prohibitive amount of water to be carting around, but I’m no expert.

Also regarding hydroponics, perhaps you could set up and grow for a season? It might be worth trading temporary immobility for some fresh foods.

Regarding benefits of hydroponics over field grown crops, if the norm for farming is, “barely cultivated”, perhaps we scale the yields accordingly (or assume they’re already scaled, frankly yields have no significant tuning AFAIK) and adjust up hydroponics yields to reflect the fact that they’re sheltered. That would require no additional hassle or detail but depict things more correctly.

[Logrin]

Weight seems like it should be enough of a concern to make slapping one on the side of a bicycle somewhat ill advised. You could even make the vehicle parts prohibitively fragile if you think it’s feasible to install some sort of growtainer within one’s favored mode of transport. Couldn’t hurt to start with stationary constructions and expand out from there though, I don’t imagine making something like this sufficiently portable is a small undertaking as far as skills are considered.

[_k1]

It should be possible to farm around lava in winter.

[Malaxxor]

Excellent reply Malaxxor, I greatly appreciate the time and effort taken to author it (Even if it was a damning fusillade against my suggestion :P) I restate however that, yes, farming (and thus hydroponics) are already abstracted to such a degree that they are the merest representations of themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t trying to shoot your idea down. It’s certainly not a bad suggestion - and certainly not worse than some other things to got through recently… - I simply tried to give some insight into the subject. In my opinion, hydroponics simply don’t provide any benefit to the player over normal farming, which makes it kinda useless, but seeing the amount of basically useless stuff we already have in game, I don’t think usefullness would be a deal-breaker.

So, how could a hydroponic system be included in the game? I guess that’s a question for someone who’s more adept at Cata code than I am. I think having it be a construction recipe that creates a farmable furniture item would be best, if that’s possible. That item would take some work and resources to be set up (pipes, plastic, water, some electronics, nutritient solution and clay pellets) and once harvested, it would turn into an “empty hydroponic culture” which could then be “repaired/refilled” through another recipe which would take water, nutritient solution and batteries. Admittedly, a really hacky way to do things.

In regards to aquaponics being portable: no. Even a small grow-bed (around the size of a signle tile) would require quite a large tank filled with water. The only “portable” farming I can think of would be so-called “space buckets” - essentially large plastic garbage cans outfitted with grow lamps and computer fans. There are step-by-step guides to create those things on the internet and they seem rather easy to build, but given that they are mostly used to grow not-so-illegal-anymore stuff I’m not sure if I can link to those guides. Actually, now that I think of it, space buckets could easily be implemented in Cata, in a similiar way to the portable charcoal kiln.

[pabrams]

However, the same is true for normal farming (which is the total opposite of ‘sticking a seed in the ground and wait’) and it’s pretty abstracted…

Sticking a seed in the ground and waiting is pretty much what my parents do in their backyard, aside from some occasional weeding, and in the long term, some fertilizer (but that could be as simple as doing all your pooping in the garden).

[pabrams]

However, the same is true for normal farming (which is the total opposite of ‘sticking a seed in the ground and wait’) and it’s pretty abstracted…

Sticking a seed in the ground and waiting is pretty much what my parents do in their backyard, aside from some occasional weeding, and in the long term, some fertilizer (but that could be as simple as doing all your pooping in the garden).

So, how could a hydroponic system be included in the game? I guess that's a question for someone who's more adept at Cata code than I am.

Well, not really, unless by 'how' you mean 'how to code it'.... it should be entirely possible to describe how it could be implemented (as long as you think it through carefully) without getting into precisely how to code it.

[Kulze]

What you most people who suggest hydroponics system in the game seem to forget about is the fact that you need a nutrient solution - in addition to normal, clean water. So what you'd need is water, electricity and liquid nutritient solution. And you need LOTS of it if you want to farm a half-way useful amount of food. Not to mention that there are quite a few crops (like potatoes, for example) that can't be grown in a hydroponics system. The only real benefit of such a system is that you could plant *some* crops independently of location. Admitelly, with some work you can get better harvests than normal farming, but that would use some elaborate strategies...

Potatoes can be grown in a hydroponics system, and it is done commercially as well.
Also, the nutrient solution is the least of a problem since it can be substituted. Also called Bioponics. Instead of a chemical (or biological) based nutrient solution probably not having all the needed trace minerals a plant needs to be healthy, one can use other plant matter which then is decomposed by bacterias over time and slowly. It is a very low maintenance system. Seeing a survivor doing it would also be quite easy, especially since it is an upcoming everyday technology for hobby farmers already, and seeing the game playing in ~2050 would mean it being omnipresent for the simple reason of it being so easy to do after all.
To implement it in the gameplay there definitely needs to be a proper way to power a base. Not those makeshift cars we have now, but a good solution for setting up several batteries, solar panels (makeshift ones with far worse efficiency as well!) wind turbines and the ability to power things in different z-levels (underground base).

In regards to location: many people seem to think that hydroponic systems could be used in a vehicle. No. fucking. way. dude.

It could be, but offroad, speeding, ramming and all similar things are definitely a sure way to kill off a plant immediately. There are some showcases of aquaponic system which are mobile for demonstrating purposes, and they work fine.

From a more realistic perspective, hydroponics wouldn't be the go to solution to farming either. It's nice toying around with such a system in your home garden, but if you really want to farm enough crops to live off of them, you'd probably have to build a hydroponics system on an industrial scale - which would not only require effort to set up, but also to maintain. However, in an apocalyptic scenario I'd probably build a small hydroponic greenhouse to grow some additional food during winter.

Proper high efficiency farming solutions focusing around hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics (ugh, so prone to failure!) or bioponics can sustain several personf of a single acre over the course of a whole year. In game that’s quite a small space actually. Implementing it is a great way to even the way for proper NPC implementation as well. Let NPCs take up the job of maintaining it, skilling towards a farming skill (we definitely need something like that, as farming is extremely easy, but only if done right.) together with mechanics and electronics would be a sensible way of doing it.

Players could create a sustainable growing operation by combining a Rearing tank, Settling basin, Biofilter, Hydroponics subsystem and Sump. (Need not have them build each piece mind you, merely include a feasible amount of material ingredients in the recipe to represent them) Players could then have an 'unfinished Aquaponics Tank' that they'd need to finish by filling it with water and catching some fish. (Fishing is already in I believe) Bingo Bango, players can plant seeds, keep the system powered and sprinkle in protein powder as fish food. Costs more than current farming but lets players do so year long and where they like.

Exactly what i would suggest, thought building up such a system is a fun thing in itself. Also, it’s quite easy to make IRL as well. You only need a fish tank (food grade 1000L containers are easy to come by and everywhere!) Which you can combine with 2 barrels. One is a vortex filter to keep out the solid parts of the grow bed, one is filled with clay bebbles for instance, giving bacterias a way to change nitrites into nitrates. This is the professional way of maintaining it easily. The easiest solution is a pump, bell siphon, gravel as growth medium, a 1000 Liter tank which is cut open (growth bed and underneath fish tank all in one) and a timer. Finished and running without any particular problems if maintained properly.

In the game we definitely need a small storage cell and a solar cell as well. The amount of food you get are 20 fish over their growth cycle (that’s low density as well) and easily 16 tomato plants, so quite the hefty amount. Add a vertical growth tower and make it high density, and you got ~60kg (estimate, probably a bit low end) of food from a single year.

Actually, since there is no heating in cataclysm: Heating elements as well!

Weight seems like it should be enough of a concern to make slapping one on the side of a bicycle somewhat ill advised. You could even make the vehicle parts prohibitively fragile if you think it's feasible to install some sort of growtainer within one's favored mode of transport. Couldn't hurt to start with stationary constructions and expand out from there though, I don't imagine making something like this sufficiently portable is a small undertaking as far as the implementation is concerned. What I think is easiest is making it use up energy, and as soon as the energy is used, the growing time is over. So 8000 Power per tile without a solar panel or cells, and the same happening with a smaller battery if solar should be used for it above ground.

What’s definitely needed is a way to make building feasable over several z-levels, but I’ll open a suggestion thread about it in a few minutes anyway as this is a huge undertaking definitely, it being the core game code after all.

Put the above mentioned construction on the back of a pickup, finished, it’s actually that easy, you just need a frame to support it.

Generally it could go this way: Empty Aquaponics/Hydroponics/Aeroponics/Bioponics system, filled system, finished system. Either make it so a filled battery of sufficient size (Whole season will be a full storage battery or 2) is needed and after a certain time it simply is done of inside a house.

[Malaxxor]

snip

I agree with pretty much all of your input, but you have to put them in relation to the current game and its restrictions. Right in your first paragraph you mention that we’d need proper base building with elecric circuits/grids, wind turbines, etc. And while I’d love to see things like this in game, we should rather do one step at a time and focus on simpler stuff that can be implemented easily. And in regards to hydroponics, this would mean - IMHO(!) - to focus on small scale-application of such a system, like the ones that are already used today by hobby gardeners.

From there, we could then expand functionality of such a system.

That said, even a simple system can’t really be implemented in a smooth way right now. Sure, there are some hacky ways to mimic the function of a hydroponics systems, but those ways are not really useful if we want to expand this system further - which I’d like to see eventually.

Or to put it more bluntly: we first need to establish a foundation on which we could build further upon.

Again, I’d suggest that we’d start with space buckets - they’re easily crafted by someone who has a bare minimum of skills, only use simple materials that can already be found in-game (with the exclusion of fans, perhaps) and are portable to booth. And from a coding perspective, they would give us a way to test a planting functionality for items/furniture, which is the biggest road block as far as I can see.