I just wanted to start a thread asking Hello Games to remove the requirement to recharge the Hydroponic Planter. It just seems like an unnecessary requirement, and only added to make farming more like a chore. I don’t farm anymore because to maximize time spent versus money made you have to have a lot of plants, and I find the UI cumbersome and annoying to recharge the planters.
What are some of your thoughts, do you use the planters now? Do you find the recharge requirement necessary?
If you think that the requirement to recharge the hydroponic planter should be removed please like and comment below and hopefully Hello Games will take notice. Please post respectfully and peacefully. I still think that NMS is the best space game out there and the HG team is doing a great job at making it better.
It kind of feels like the recharge requirement is part of something larger HG may have planned for a future update, but at the moment it does make farming a huge chore. Like you said, the current UI is too cumbersome and makes farming into needless busy work.
Maybe if there was a way to recharge several planters at once, maybe using a craft-able power generator? Or even just being able to power all planters that are connected together from one source would help.
The planter change really is annoying. I’m going to follow Polyphemus’ suggestion and scrap them all, replacing them with Biodomes. In fact, I’m going to scrap my - formerly known as - Autonomous Mining Units. Not only is recharging them annoying, they use different resources every few units. And then half the time they won’t mine the resources I plop them on! Grah… now that’s seriously annoying. I don’t suppose they’d start harvesting omegon if I slap some on a nickel arch?
I’d be happy if a planter only needed powering up once.
Eg: Build it, plant a plant, then power it up. If you remove a plant then it needs repowering up but otherwise don’t have a planter requiring ongoing maintenance. We want less running about fiddling with chargers
Alternatively as @Wickerson suggests:
If HG (for whatever reason) seriously want planters to require charging, how about a single base power generator/reactor that requires fuelling up occasionally.
This could also be supplemented with a solar charge array. Maybe domes could be upgradable to double as solar catchers…?
Additionally I’d like an audible alert for when a planter generator/reactor system is almost out of fuel. "Base reactor fuel supply critical", so you can head home to sort it out.
I’m thinking something like:
A planter by itself needs charging.
Planters in a base (or freighter) can also be powered/charged by a system generator/reactor that uses fuel.
A generator/reactor can itself be partially charged by a dome (if in a base), which once completed makes a system almost self sufficient.
On a side note I’d love for an automatic harvest terminal (utilising storage vaults) to be added. Once full, it stops harvest storing.
That would help for ALL sorts of harvesting; be it in base planters or those various inefficient little harvesters for gas and minerals. (@stryker99)
We can teleport materials from exo to ship to suit so why not have auto fetch harvesting. Maybe the remote harvesters could be made way more efficient too.
Lessen the grinding so we can explore the galaxies!!!
I have planters in my freighter, I built vertical planter across from them and recharge them with the carbon. Since the latest update, recharging them has become a real chore, it wasnt horrible before. Now, when I try to select carbon from the inventory box, it goes all crazy and I end up selecting t9. It looks like there may be a four unit planter blacked out in my guide, I havent got the blueprint, yet. Is that what that is?. If so does it work any better?
Really??? How did you find that out?
Do you know how much longer it takes? It seems eternal…
I just presumed they stopped growing altogether and sometimes they’d reached maturity in my absence and the planters had used up their fuel before I came back.
Yeah there is a single charge four planter unit available. More efficient I think. I had it prior to restart in my freighter.
But… @ekult just said the planters actually do keep growing plants once they are out of fuel but it just slows down.
I’m going to test this and see just how long the variation is. I thought they stopped altogether and I’m thinking most everybody else on this thread thought so too.
I never charge the trays, and go on long trips, and then when returning they have grown. Might take hours though, depending on plant. The charge just basically sprays a mist of fertilizer.
Ok good to know.
So for those of us working hard to save $ then it pays to feed the planters but once established financially, you can scoot off and when you eventually return you’ve got a crop waiting.
Cool.
They still need to consider the above alternatives because the running about at charge time is pretty annoying.
I use biodomes since their introduction. I heard they require less base complexity, comparing to planters+rooms. This was key thing for me to rebuild base, when 1.2 was out. Now with absence of recharge need for biodomes, I’m not going to return to trays for planet base. Unless solar based power generators are introduced.
With 1.3 arrival I thought, that I’ve got “forever freighter”, because I did not want to dismantle freighter farm with old trays which were not require recharge. But then I noticed very long growth times and failed to find and install warp drive. So I have changed my freighter and rebuild farm on it using 4xTrays. I recharge them only when I urgently need some plants. It turned out that plants grow in new trays anyway. I would like to ask HG to improve plant collection, because very often, even pointing directly at a plant, I still get tray recharge menu.
I do not use AMUs, since I have mining beam maximized in my s-class experimental rifle multitool. I mine over a 1000 of resource within a single overheat cycle. And I do this only, when I urgently need big amount of resources. For example I changed space ship and need to rebuild tech. Otherwise I’m frequent at visiting trading posts to restock resources, including basic materials like iridium, nickel and etc.
I do this exact thing as well. The resources still regrow after I have visited a few systems. I only recharge the planters if I know I will be on my home planet for awhile.
I like this idea. It makes sense if power consumption needs to be in the game for items in your base. Although its not the cost the bothers me, but the fact the I keep interacting with the trays instead of collecting my plants.
This is how I always thought of “recharging” the planters. I didn’t think of it as a power/energy thing. I thought of it as giving the plants fertilizer (and silly me would try to choose carbon over plutonium to charge with since it was “organic”. Yes, that thought played out in my head everytime I would charge my trays.)
Having said that, I am not, nor do I consider myself a Farmer and I only have 10-12 trays. My plants are more a side-hustle thing. Something to do when I go back to base: harvest → sell. So it’s annoying for me, but I can see how it would be a huge chore for someone with far more trays than I.
And yes, I back up the notion that the plants still grow in the trays without them being charged.
Biodomes is probably the way to go. I had 5 at my pre 1.3 base but haven’t done it at the new base. So i looks like maybe I will be go that route again.
I never farmed pre-1.3. Biodomes seemed the way to go. No recharge, up to 16 slots for plant, and growth times are normal. Plus I’ve heard it uses fewer building points, so you can build larger bases. I would check out what others have been doing here if you haven’t already: https://forums.etarc.org/t/capitalist-ambitions-how-to-make-money-in-1-3/2987?u=xion4012
Same thought always passes through my head even though I’m certain it doesn’t make a difference at all. I also think “Mmm, Electrolytes” when I used an energy cell to charge them
Requiring planters to be charged makes sense. Just as real plants need soil with nutrients, water, and light…I see no problem there to be honest. Plus it creates a real purpose for wanting the Biodomes…which are amazing…so it’s win-win in every aspect here.
It’s what planets crave…