Overview
This guide is primarily aimed at those new to EGS but may also be helpful to those who still suffer from dreaded crop death. The overall aim is to help people to construct farms that regularly produce food for their characters without them having to worry about replacing plants all the time.This guide will work for both CV and BA greenhouses.
1.0 Introduction
This guide is primarily aimed at those new to EGS but may also be helpful to those who still suffer from dreaded crop death. The overall aim is to help people to construct farms that regularly produce food for their characters without them having to worry about replacing plants all the time.
This guide will work for both CV and BA greenhouses.
2.0 Causes of Plant Death
There are six main reasons why your plants will die, these are:
1. No Power.
2. No oxygen,
3. Low or High Temperatures,
4. Radiation,
5. Lack of UV light and
6. Game Bugs.
One or all of these may contribute to survivalist’s problems and leave you with a mess to clean up and a lot of re-potting to do.
2.1 Power.
Power management is key!!! Everything you need to keep your plants alive needs power. If you are on a MP server, and other people are in your playfield, everything will keep running so you need to have large reserves to ensure power doesn’t run out. On a SP game, not so much of an issue but make sure you regularly keep your fuel tanks topped up. If you lose the lights – plants die, lose the O2, plants die, Power off, temperature goes to ambient.
One way to help is to have a base solely for the greenhouse and another base for everything else. Some of the new fancy items like the furnace can be a huge drain on your power so keeping them separate will ensure that if they empty your fuel reserves, your separate greenhouse is still good to go and it only needs to power a few grow lights and maybe a ventilator.
2.2 Oxygen.
Forget what you know about normal world photosynthesis, in the Empyrion Galaxy plants need oxygen to survive!
If you have a base set up on a planet in a breathable atmosphere you do not need a ventilator in your room. The atmosphere will always contain O2 regardless of whether the room is sealed or not. If you are building a farm in a base on a planet without a breathable atmosphere, you will need to have a ventilator to supply the O2. On all CV greenhouses, always have a ventilator otherwise, whenever you go to space your plants will all die!
2.3 Temperature.
All plants need to be maintained between 22-25 degrees C (71.6-77 Fahrenheit) to maintain growth. A small bit outside this range and the plants will stop growing. A long way outside of this range and all your plants will die.
The only way to control this temperature is to have your greenhouse in a completely sealed room. All blocks that make up the walls, floor and ceiling of your room need to be the airtight varieties. If your Base / CV is powered on and the room is airtight, the temperature will always remain constant at 22 degrees. This is important as if you build somewhere like Masperon where you can get temperatures of over 100, or in space down to -200 degrees, nothing will ever live for you.
2.4 Radiation.
I wont say much about this as radiation problems are treated using the same methods as for temperature control, so read the above again 😊.
Note though that some devices produce radiation and can kill plants (as well as yourself) if they are too close to your grow plots. The main culprits are:
1. Fuel Tanks
2. Generators and
3. Warp Drives (CV only obviously)
2.5 Lack of UV light.
All plants need light to grow. If you have them in a sealed room you will need to place grow lights above the plots. If you have your grow plants outside with no roof, they can use the ambient light and save you some power. But please see the points on whether to build inside or outside below.
Even inside, what people need to be careful of is using the ‘T’ kay to toggle the lights. This will switch off the grow lights as well as the normal lights. If you leave the grow lights off to long, your plants will die.
I have also on occasion thought I was pointing at my SV and pressed ‘y’ to power it down not realising that I actually switched off my base. Or, letting the base run out of power. This will obviously leave your grow lights off which will result in the death of your crops. Always ensure power!!!
2.6 Game Bugs.
We obviously all know that this game, while amazing, is still in early development and has been prone to bugs. If anyone wants to assist in increasing this list, let me know, but make sure you also report it to the dev’s in the bug report forum. Some that I have come across:
1. Making changes to other parts of the base. Haven’t seen this come up in a while, but I have had in the past built my lovely greenhouses only to later make alterations to the external walls in other parts of the base. For some reason, this has killed the plants off. Don’t know why, but try and put your greenhouse in last and if you need to make future alterations, just be prepared to re-plant your crops.
2. Dedicated, private server leaving the playfield. I have not experienced this myself, but I have seen a report recently where all players on the server left the playfield where their garden was and on their return, everything was dead. Just be prepared to have to replant at some stage is the only advice I can offer.
3. Some reports of bases getting too cold in breathable atmospheres without a ventilator and this temperature killing off crops. Not sure if this is a bug, or the fact that I can keep my bases at 22 degrees without a ventilator is the bug. Either way – add a ventilator if you want to be extra sure to avoid this.
3.0 Building Your Farm
3.1 Inside or Out?
On temperate planets with breathable atmospheres like Akua, it is possible to put your grow plots outside. The temperature is generally alright and you can use the natural sunlight to grow your plants. The benefits of this is that in large growing operations, you are saving power by not having to run so many grow lights. However, what you lose all the time is plant growth at night… you are only getting your UV for half the time in a day so your yield is half what you can get from indoor greenhouses.
You also risk crop death… depending on what biome of the planet you build in, there may be low temperature problems during the night that will kill crops or high temps during the day that will do the same.
Can crops grow outside? Yes. Should you? I think the risks are too great, and on the scale I build my farms, I hate having to replant them all.
3.2 The Indoor Greenhouse Layout.
3.2.1 Plots and grow lights.
Will add a screenshot later, but from floor to ceiling inclusive, I like to have five blocks in height. They should be filled like:
1. Ceiling Block.
2. Grow Light
3. Plant
4. Grow Plot
5. Floor block.
Now, strictly speaking, the floor block is not required as the grow plot is airtight, but I always err on the side of caution, and you never know when someone may try to drill at you from underneath.
If you arrange these in a 3×3 formation, only the very centre group will need the grow light as one light covers a 3×3 area.
3.2.2 Ventilators
Ventilator blocks are airtight, and if you are in a CV or any Base not in breathable atmosphere you will need to have one of these.
The same as for ventilating other areas in your base, you will need somewhere a number of O2 tanks filled up with oxygen. You must have the same qty (or more) of oxygen stored in those tanks than is required to fill your rooms otherwise it wont work. Eg if you only have 1 small o2 tank for the whole base, then there won’t be enough stored O2 to fill the space you need. If in doubt, add more O2 Tanks.
3.2.3 Doors
You obviously need to be able to get into your greenhouse and this is where doors come in. Some varieties of doors are NOT airtight. With your door selected and ready to place, click your right mouse button to pull up the different door options. Hover the mouse over each and they will say in their details ‘airtight=true’ or ‘airtight=false’. Only use the ‘true’ ones!
I like to have my greenhouses completely separate from the rest of the structures airtightness and o2 supply to reduce the chances of failure.
3.2.4 Other Components
I like to have my greenhouse completely separate from all other things and rooms. The only stuff I put in the greenhouse is concrete blocks (or steel for CV’s), armoured automatic doors (they are airtight), grow plots, plants and grow lights. This way I know that everything is being sealed properly.
When you are starting out though, and don’t quite have the material to build expansive facilities, people often try to include fridges, food processors, O2 tanks, fuel tanks and generators in the same area as their grow plots. A lot of these blocks are NOT airtight, so don’t use them in place of wall blocks… maintain your wall integrity and then you’ll know it is always sealed. Also, watch out for generators as the produce a lot of heat and if they are close to your grow plots, they will kill off the surrounding plants.
If you are ever in doubt about what blocks are airtight, hover the mouse over them in you inventory and it will state it in the build information.
4.0 What Plants To Grow?
4.1 Sprouts
Try and get a good supply of sprouts in case you don’t manage to avoid plant death. On your first few harvests, convert at lease half to sprouts so you know there is always a back up for your self. The type and qty all depends on how much you want to grow and how many grow plots you have in your farm. There is no point in having 1000 sprouts if your farm is only 9 grow plots, especially when sprouts also need nutrient solution.
4.2 Biofuel
Akua berries are the best to grow for this as they have a fast grow time and relatively brief time until they spoil. The spoiled food can then be used to make biofuel. Biofuel is required for only the initial game stages to run your T1 Drill, but after that, in emergencies can be put into your base or ships for power. It is also nice to keep a supply of spoiled food for making nutrient solution when needed.
4.2 Canned Vegetables.
This is the most common staple of EGS players. You need equal parts of tomatoes, durians and pumpkins to make these. You will also need steel plate. The are good as the give you 150 food and have the longest time prior to spoiling (350min).
4.3 Canned Meat.
Another good staple food and from the greenhouse, only requires tomatoes. This is however a bit more of a hassle as you need to collect raw meat. The best way to do this is to equip a harvester module to the front of you HV and go run down packs of animals. The harvester will kill them, but not collect the meat, so you still have to jump out and pick everything up.
4.4 Corn
I will put this one into its own category as the only real reason you will make corn is to convert it into plastic (also need other, non-plant materials). Plastic is used in making deco blocks and also in the production of emergency rations. You don’t need much, as 1 corn equates to 20 plastic so you can build up a supply very quickly.
4.5 Emergency Rations.
These are hard to make, but worthwhile to have a stack of 10 or so at each base and in each CV, that way you can get 500 food when required and as the don’t spoil, never have to worry about them being kept somewhere powered. What you need to grow for these are:
1. Pearthing fruits,
2. Wheat (for bread),
3. Durians,
4. Fibre, and
5. Corn (see above).
You need a bunch of other stuff too like egg plant parts and meat, but these can only be gathered by hand.
4.6 Aloe Vera.
Easy to grow, and you will use this in the making of med packs. Med packs are always handy as the don’t spoil, however, once used there is a delay as the health only increases slowly.
Sometimes I think it is just easier to camp on a Zirax spawn point and get all the med packs they drop though than growing out and finding alien plasma in large qty’s.
4.7 Textured Plant Protein.
This stuff is great! You must be careful how you store it as it has a short duration spoiling time, but it gives you the same health as a large med pack, but it gives you that health instantaneously. No more waiting while cowering in a lift shaft before going at those Zirax again!