Remove Recharge Hydroponic Planter Requirement

Ihave setup a small farm for T5 crafting of stuff I get from mission rewards and so far I never had to recharge the planters. Not a single one

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That’s good news about the longer recharge times for the planters! Definitely a step in the right direction and takes some of the grind out of farming.

I have to recharge eventually but not for a good few hours if on-planet. If teleporting out and returning, all charges depleted is something that remains for me, still inclined to wonder if this is intentional…apart from one rogue ‘planter of opposites’ I have, is sometimes suddenly out of charge when all have only just been topped up or, when returning from travels to find the rest red, then this one will be blue. These differences though, I have grown to be rather fond of, the black (red? blue? only it knew) electric sheep of the planter family, would be a shame to normalise it just because…

if it was intentional after being gone then the plants should be ready to harvest !!! :slight_smile:

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Yes, they are! Is a nice upside indeed if I am ever in a hurry, then a quick TP out and back will see them grown (apart from the rogue one, charged still but ungrown, only starts to grow again upon my return), fortunately as well I have plenty of trees and shrubs to mine for carbon recharges :palm_tree::herb:

I also have a rouge planter that disharges the moment I leave (sits there pulsing red with nothing grown).
I can’t complain though because I have 7 other planters in the same room that simply don’t need charging. They show empty but glow blue and everytime I turn my back on them they grow a crop.
Odd.

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Odd planters that don’t like it when we leave…interesting. Maybe they are having a human-infected-korvax-like moment where in a future update, interact will have them suddenly speak instead of allowing us to re-fuel them, declaring the plant it contains to be its child…

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As a follow up to previous planter discussions:

If I leave my base long enough for a bio-dome crop to grow, upon my return ALL (except 1) of my planters have a crop, even though I don’t fuel them up.
2 pulse red but grow anyway* and the others are all glowing blue. Of these blue ones, a couple actually show a pulsing red empty planter in the refuel menu while the rest show blue.
Totally inconsistent but at present it is in my favour.

*(One of the red pulsing ones refuses to grow unless I’m actually around so it is out of sync with the rest). Maybe its covered under warrantee :grin:

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I agree with the general TANSTAAFL concept that was introduced with the recharching. In general, introducing more complexity and thought to base building is a good thing in my Book.

But NMS should steer clear of micro management. Why not have, say, a central reactor to your base, that can be charged real good (say, a charge capacity of 10’000 Plutonium or so), so you can fill the thing up and be at peace for a while? General power requirements could be introduced for building types so the Base feels a bit more involved (No hazard protection if base is out of power). Make a little tech-tree to research more efficient reactors. There could also be stuff like solar panels that don’t need recharching, but are weak, or geothermal or somesuch that provides a lot of free power but is very expensive to build.

So now the player has the option to build a reactor he’ll have to recharge every now and then, build a lot of solar panels that will eat into the building limit, or make a huge investment into a tech that will set his mind at ease for the rest of the game.

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Just wanted to let people know my experience of recharging trays. I find it fun as most plants require looking after and tending so it adds a touch of realism to the science fiction. I don’t find it a bother as I have carbon growing beside then end of each row.

Better still though I have discovered it is simpler to buy Power Gel from my galactic terminal built at my farm. The trays also accept those :smiley:. A tray with a Power Gel seems never to lose power. Just very, very slowly. I don’t have to top up the trays for several days. (Or has something changed in an update I am not aware of?)

I think there may be a few bugs still causing inconsistencies with timing but I can’t tell if it is differences between using Power Gels or only carbon. I do like having to feed my plants and sometimes seeing and hearing them grow and pop-up with a ‘pop’!

Love the fine mist animation when things are operational. I hope that continues in updates.

For weeks now I have only had a farm on a freighter so don’t know if this is consistent with a planet base.

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For me either it is a bug or intentional. Most plants like potatoes and tomatoes never crop at the same time. I did swap my single planters for quad trays and things are more consistent now. I also started using the longer lasting Power Gel and simply buy it from a galactic terminal at my base.

I just thought, why couldn’t HG introduce a little farm robot we could feed with fuel to tend our plants? Like the cult science fiction film Silent Running (1972). Might even add a touch of needed humour. There is a good article with pics here http://www.frontrowreviews.co.uk/live_events/silent-running-at-the-eden-project-days-of-fear-and-wonder-report/31573

silentrunning

And curiously Eden Project Biodomes in real life from the UK. Photo by Stephen Oxborrow.
silent-running-Stephen-Oxborrow-2014

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This should be tested. Have you tried filling one with power gel and one with carbon to see if there is a difference? It would be pretty funny if we’ve been using the “wrong” fuel this whole time :joy:

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Yes I did try that. A short while ago but this may need to be tested again as I just read in this thread tray times may have been extended before needing topping up? But please maybe others could also test this.

I think I did get longer times but then I didn’t time anything perfectly. I just discovered they could be accepted into the trays and partly assumed this was intentional. I’ll have to check if they fill up the trays the same amount too. One advantage I didnt have to just rely on carbon or a return trip to a planet to find some or wait for it to grow in the seed trays. The power gel is very cheap to buy,

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I’ve converted my old pre-1.3 Freighter Insulating Gel farm to now create Liquid Explosives. At first the trays were red, then the most recent update removed the red glow from the trays.

I’ve harvested quite a few times and have not recharged the trays once. The growing times are also consistent with the advertised times (Mordite = 1hr, Echinocactus = 2hrs, Fungal Mold = 30mins).

Currently have about 30 Liquid explosives sitting in storage after just a couple of days of intensive (for me) farming awaiting selling, so you can do the maths on that one to see how much crop I’ve harvested without ever charging my trays.

EDIT: I currently have 70 Fungal Mold and 40 EchinoCactus growing in the original pre-1.3 Hydroponic Trays on board my freighter.

Hey @Oshoryu,
Could you look at your charged planters & check their charging menu (with the silly swinging icon) & let me know whether: the picture of the tray in the menu is glowing blue or pulsing red… and the anount of fuel they appear to have/not have?
I’m still trying to decypher what’s going on with the 1.3+ planters and the more info the better. :slight_smile:

Hey, yeah the trays always shower a mist over the crop, they were red, but 1.37 update changed them back to blue.

Won’t be able to check the actual planters menu themselves until tomorrow night, but it’ll be the first thing I do check!

I have summoned my freighter a fair bit lately and have heard that that can reset the charges too so maybe that’s what’s happened to me.

Regarding the behaviour of planters, we haven’t revealed enough patterns amongst inconsistencies to decypher as yet, have we. Sometimes they even change within a single game save. Literally no sooner have I posted something here about them before now, I have gone in to find what I said is no longer the case, then play for a few hours flying about exploring/discovering, then nip back to spend a few hours cultivating there and find things going differently again. So as they appear to be mid-tweak (is my guess) in response to so many bug reports, our best bet might be to embrace their quirkiness for now (and the lovely biodomes) while HG do all they can to iron out the rumples.

I’ll still keep checking what I can as well though. @johnnycloud/@Xion4012 I’ll do the powergel test tonight into tomorrow and report back (Eden project though yes, is a gorgeous place and what a location it would be for a nms gathering!).

My planters are not charged.
All have a plant of some sort in it and all glow blue with mist as if they were charged.
All show a red pulsing, uncharged planter with no fuel in the recharge menu.
If I leave my system for a period of time exploring, all plants have grown in my absence when I return provided the adequate time period for growth has passed (just like biodomes).

My theory is: they now require an initial charge when first built/planted but after that will continue to opperate so long as you leave.
Does that theory work with other people…?

I have a disturbing development:

Since 1.37 (when my planters changed from red back to blue) I have harvested a total of 46 Liquid Explosive from 70 Fungal Mold and 40 Echinocacti.

Last night, the planters mysteriously turned back to the red glow. I harvested the Fungal Mold and checked back after 30mins and there was no growth whatsoever.

I also needed to increase my crops to 72 FM and 48 EC, as soon as I planted them the trays went red.

Summary:

This activity has made it impossible to determine the factors. As (someone who knows the dark art of Maths) can work out I got a fair bit of crop. This is immediately contradicted by the new trays turning red almost instantly putting flight to the “New Trays are charged” theory.

Once 1.38 drops on PS4 I can scan the plants to see remaining growth time, it would be interesting to see what these are on.

I have also heard that summoning your freighter to different systems can reset the trays, haven’t summoned for a while but I have done and maybe this is what has given the existing trays such a long life?

Hmmmm. :thinking: