There were a lot of new factors introduced by 1.3, and I don’t fully understand them all yet. Not only is there a law of supply and demand, but each planetary system has a different economic basis, too. I think your standing with the local faction may also be a factor. There may be other influences, too (perhaps hostility levels?). They all seem to work together, making it extremely difficult to know exactly what’s going on, or precisely what financial performance you can expect.
I may just be lucky with my home planet and the product I’m selling. But it’s working for me, so it can be done.
So, it seems like that I should not complain at all that my home planet has been changed from lush to low radioactive, as I can easily grow Gamma Root there now (it already does btw). I already have enough Frostwort and Coprite plants to effectively kickstart the production of Living Glass, so I may go that way as well.
I hope that Mordite plants and the shrooms can be turned into something useful as well, otherwise they’re getting replaced.
They’re more expensive to set up, but they hold more plants than a room full of trays, you don’t need to fuel them, and they make a much more efficient use of your build limit - i.e. you can have a lot more domes than you can rooms full of trays. You can grow anything in them. Plant them up once, and they grow forever.
Just be careful to plan your base so the domes have as few doorways as possible. Ideally, each dome should only have one. Doorways cut down your planting space dramatically.
I did wonder this… I saw a pre 1.3 biodome NipNip farm on the tube, and it seemed viable (crops were collected externally too!)… I wondered if like Hydro-trays, did 1.3 alter the domes? From what you’re saying, it seems they’ve balanced the benefits towards bio-dome use … Sure it still has it downsides i.e, build space (physical restrictions), doorway access, cost to build. I definitely cannot bear the thought of dozens of trays all needing to be re-fueled just to grind even harder with the farming. F-dat.
I had a NipNip farm in trays in 1.2 - it worked fine, and paid for everything I needed.
When I did a restart for 1.3, I tried the same thing, and very quickly discovered my mistake. NipNip is no longer as valuable as it once was (comparatively - everything else is more expensive). NipNip now takes much longer to grow, and the hydroponic trays have been nerfed by the requirement to fuel them.
It was largely this discovery, and my search for the best alternatives, that led me to create this thread in the first place.
I don’t know that biodomes have improved much in 1.3 - I think it’s more that other methods have become more difficult and time-consuming.
Oh, and I haven’t found a way to collect plants externally from the current biodomes. So if you do find a way, please let me know.
Another benefit to Biodomes is that once it’s built, you can plant straight away. In other words, you don’t need to build a square room + Hydroponic Trays or lots of Cuboid Rooms + Hydroponic Trays which significantly cuts down on the all importnat complexity limit.
To maximize growing space further, build the Biodome on top of an existing room and install a ladder between the two, giving you access to all the planting spaces.
I haven’t really experimented with this myself yet but can you build a Biodome on your Freighter?
Trouble with ladder access is AFAIK it requires a round building underneath the dome. And the round buildings contribute to your build limit, reducing the number of domes you can have.
I believe you can use ladders in cuboid rooms, unless cuboid rooms have the same build count as round rooms? I’m not too sure how the build count works, would be nice if there was some sort of meter that showed how much room is left
What we need is a competition to design the most efficient dome farm. Winner gets bragging rights. Maximum planting space, but allowing for outside planting, too (outside plants also contribute to complexity).
Yeah that would b cool! I realised that too, I think you should be able to plant them outside your build area if they grow in that bio and you should be able to plant plants on any planet where they can grow, put a waypoint so potentially you can have multiple outside farms in one system
That would be great! I have the feeling someone will manage some glitch where the biodomes will stuck in mid-air with just a ladder below and a sea of nip-Herer growing under… If it comes with a tutorial, I’m all for it!
I actually tried all kinds of ways to have an entrance to a dome from below, but the only way possibly is with a big room below. I focused on Living glass though and have not looked into other options yet. I do however assume that a contest would be a combination of looks and yield?
Here are some results of a few tests I have done: 1 Living Glass = 2 Coprite (30mins), 8 Gamma Root (30mins), 2x2.5 Frost Crystal (15mins)
Domes with entrance from below:
This would come to a max of 12 domes total, including on the main base building
Yield: 192/12.5=15.36 Living Glass every 30 mins (harvest time not included)
Requirements: 12 Domes, 11 Round Rooms, 11 Doors, 12 Stairs
Domes with doors:
Totals 18 domes, including on the main base building
Yield: 234/12.5=18.72 Living Glass every 30 mins (harvest time not included)
Requirements: 18 Domes, 17 Doors, 1 Stair
Cuboid Rooms will not come close, no matter what smart setup is tried, with a choice to add Carbon Standers or not to feed the trays. Probably around 11 Living Glass per 30 minutes, depending on setup.
into a bucket of fungal mould 
repeat, until you have six of them, leave to steep until the mixtures goes all acidy.
