This. So annoying. Also, you have to get the angle just right to be able to harvest the plants. It doesn’t work (at least for me) coming at them straight on. If we must have rechargeable planters (though I’d prefer some of the alternatives discussed above), I’d suggest making the interaction area for recharging be a small panel on the base of the planter and not the entire planter mesh.
If on PS4 I’ve found moving slowly at an angle to the planter while holding down the ■ button improves the chances of getting the plant only. Also position the target dot on about the upper middle of the plant while greatly avoiding lining up with the rear of the planter or the post holding the top of the planter.
Also when fueling up; I store all my Th & P Isotopes elsewhere and fill up on tons of Carbon only. Once I activate the planter recharge, I then move the curser diagonally down to the right keeping the stupid swinging refuel icon stretching towards the lower right. Upon activating it, I move diagonally down to the right further, onto the menu so then the fuel inventory which slides about is easy as you can grab anything your curser lands on because its all the same fuel.
Once I’m done, I store all my carbon and retrieve my previously stored P and Th.
I use carbon because I’m land based but the main trick is to have only the fuel you want to use so you dont have to fiddle and to aim towards the lower right so it can’t swing about so much.
I hope that made sense… 
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Bonus points for Idiocracy reference!
I agree recharging should be removed.
That feature killed farming as something for people to do.
My wife loves to do that but not now.
I only do it for making cash.
Sure you can make the domes that don’t need to be recharged.
I use a base as a teleport activation mostly.
My freighter is where I live.
Having to go out and buy food instead of growing is costing me in fuel, units, and other resources.
lol
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It only “killed farming” for people who don’t understand the changes. Farming has been far more enhanced and something that takes a lot more planning. It is no longer a dumb task of waiting for something to grow, harvesting and selling. You now have to account for needing and making many recipes and ingredients but on that same note you can now make far more valuable items…we’re talking 18 million a piece items. So you won’t be harvesting and creating stuff every 10 or 20 minutes but if you can properly plan your farm with all the proper ingredients you can make tens if not hundreds of millions every couple of hours. Don’t like having to fuel the planters? Then build some Biodomes. Again…they only ruined farming for the simple minded and the lazy but if you have any kind of capacity for planning there’s untold riches to be made from farming like never before.
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Farming only got a little more complicated. Swap the planter for bidomes. The recipes need 2 or 3 ingredients instead of one. It’s still pretty much mass production, but yeah, more planning is needed.
Have you seen what goes into that 18 mil item? There’s 4+ stages, with multiple components at each. Totally not worth the effort.
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Oh I have seen all that goes in the 18 mil items…actually I now have 13 of the 15 new recipes…but I 100% disagree on them not being worth it. It’s A LOT of resources to make and gather and you need atmospheric harvesters on three different types of planets and lots more…but it’s all about streamlining the process. Doing the math…how much to grwow of each item vs total # of items you can grow and how many harvesters needed to make how many items and so on…but once you’ve got it all worked out there are ungodly profits to be made. I look forward to it so much…very exciting stuff. You can’t get by on being a simple farmer anymore…you need to be a smart high tech manufacturer and THAT is amazing.
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yes i realize that … cookie cutter base … all would end up looking the same in some form.
I thought farming was broken with the introduction of hydroponic fuelling. I realise it was to balance the credit making potential of explorers, farmers, traders etc. They made fuel much more plentiful but you’re right it’s too labour intensive keeping even a small farm functioning. I simply dismantled my Freighter farm and use Domes at my Home Base. No fuel or labour required. Just harvesting.
Can confirm that planters do indeed still grow plants without charge but it has taken quite some time.
(1-2hrs)
Had a gravatino, a Albumem Pearl and Sack Venom as decorations & after I picked them, I didnt bother refreshing the planter & sure enough they have grown.
Good news for explorers with freighter nurseries left unattended for long periods. You still get a harvest. 
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Planters are bugged…they definitely shouldn’t “grow without a charge” and I don’t think they actually do…it’s just that a charge is supposed to last over 2 hours but unless you sit next to them and don’t move they tend to lose that charge much faster and at inconsistent times…some sooner than others etc. But the 1 to 2 hours has nothing to do with the planter “not being charged”…some of the plants now do actually take 2 hours to grow…others take one hour, some take 30 minutes, and one or two grow in 16 minutes. But the upcoming patch, now in experimental, should address at least some of the issues the planters are having so we’ll see. For the time being I found that if you do NOT return to the base/freighter after charging the planters the plants do grow fully as intended so the bug where planters lose charge seems at least partially related to us returning to their location and making the game reload the area.
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I was going off info from a previous post so I decided to test it out…
Go away for ages, come back, got plants.
Tested true. Maybe a bug, maybe not. Works though.
Agree; the planters are inconsistently timed. Got one that uses twice the fuel of other 5.
To clarify; I left the planters already out of fuel with 3 plants (saplings). Came back after exploring & all 3 were ready to harvest again.
Some dome plants were ready to go while the long term ones popped up shortly after.
Didn’t notice any disruption in any cycles from leaving base but admittedly I am going off approximate times only.
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I tested the Large Hydrophonic trays without fuel on PC at my base without leaving. Nothing would grow at all, so decided to recharge them, let them go empty and then check. Still no growth at all while remaining in the area with empty of charge Large Hydrophonic trays. So interesting to see how leaving apparently does grow the crops. Maybe charge is only loaded when actually in the area, so when not in the area, it does not care for charge and crops will grow regardless? Curious if the same thing happens on all platforms (PS4) and if Base or Freighter makes a diff or even if the single Tray has different behaviour.
I might duplicate your test using 2 smaller planters with same plants, one charged one not. Hang about like you did (doing chores) & see if it replicates your results on PS4.
AFTER
I’ll try to replicate my earlier results by leaving leaving for an 2 hours (timed).
I don’t care if its a bug or not, I just want to know if it works reliably.
Maybe it’s all relative, you spend an hour in front of the planters with no charge and they don’t grow, but when you go off exploring, for an hour and come back, years have actually passed from the perspective of the planter, hence the growth…
God bless Interstellar
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@Mad-Hatter No I meant that if you do charge the planters and stay away until the plants grow fully(can be up to 2 hours for some plants) then the planters will not glitch out and lose their charge which would stop your plants from growing. I have never observed the planters growing plants without charge.
I’ll see if it does it again.
No charge & left for 2 hours.
If its reliable then its usable, if its not…well then it’s a just a nuisance.
For plants like Solanium, the 2 hr growth time in the description might be referring to charged trays or biodomes, and maybe actually take longer without charging.
The plants definitely grow without charge but I would not recommend hanging around for 2 hours waiting. ‘A watched pot never boils’
I find it annoying honestly. The UI is what makes it really annoying. If we could recharge a group of planters that are all right next to each other all at once that could make more sense.
What I find to be extremely annoying is overtime you move your freighter the planters empty, this makes no sense to me, it feels like a punishment anytime you move your freighter.
Well, the 4 planter trays are grouped and only take one charge for all 4, and it should save a lot of your goods in the cache when you change freighter. If you do it often enough, you end up with a lot of stuff in there, or some people prefer to dismantle everything manually before upgrading freighter.