Issue with Hydroponics?

[Mathenaut]

Is it just me, or is there something off with Hydroponics in a9?

For some reason I have some fraction of my plants just randomly die. They're fully powered and far as I can tell, nothing is disrupting that. Some of the plants just randomly.. disappear and need to be replanted.

Worst effect is on the devilstrand, which I can't seem to produce any of at this rate.

[jwfischer]

I saw this too but I have a few animals inside my base roaming around and just assumed they ate them..

[Boboid]

Haven't noticed this and I've been running massive cotton hydroponics because I've been playing Cyberstorm lately.
I'd automatically attribute it to animals eating your plants.

Seriously though don't grow devilstrand in Hydroponics
It's not subject to Blights so its perfectly safe to just plant massive fields of it away from your base and wait it out.
Better than spending a bunch of steel and power on Hydro which will probably die to a conduit failure, eclipse, or solar flare.

[b0rsuk]

I think I noticed too, but it was on the edge of the area lit by sunlamp. I think they just plant too much, and I didn't care enough to painstakingly create a planting zone. Wait a second, I have an idea ! See you in the Suggestions subforum.

I don't know what you mean about devilstrand. This thing takes forever to grow, and I didn't manage to harvest a single one in the game I just won. First the winter came (I planted it late in Apr-Sept), then I put it in hydroponics because I was fed up. I even had a solar flare, but it didn't kill my mushrooms. I'm too smart for that. I created a campfire in my hothouse and it kept them from freezing to death.

[CodyRex123]

I don't tend to use Hydroponics, i would if i felt i could build a room for them fast enough, but am good with just the small farms outside my compound, It takes forever for them to even pick the food off the fields and i cant make the Hydroponic room cold to have food not spoil.

[Mathenaut]

That's the thing, though. My hydroponics room doesn't have animals inside of it.

This happens with other plants, too. I just don't notice it as easily because they grow fast, but an out-of-place mushroom stands out.

Will try another world/game and see if it keeps up.

[Xav]

Sounds to me like the temperature dropped too low.

Test it by planting a growing outside just past the growing season.  Your growers will plant the zone because the daytime temperature will acceptable for plant growth, but overnight the temperature outside will drop and the new plants will die off.  Next morning, the colonists will replant if the temperature is high enough, but the plants will die again that night.  I figure the same thing could happen in a hydroponics area if the temp dropped their too.

[Mathenaut]

Oh no, I cut that off at the bit early on. Plants don't grow at-all outside of proper temperature, so I have a pair of heaters inside to keep everything at 35C

Though, perhaps I'm missing something. This wonky business happens during the non-growing season (even when it isn't cold enough to kill them).

[Boboid]

No, the growing season is more an indication of when it'll be in the correct temp range to grow plants. It shouldn't have any affect on hydroponic setups with temperature control.

Can you by any chance post a picture of your setup? It'd also help if you have noticed any pattern to the plants which died.

[skullywag]

Itll definitley be temperature related.

[b0rsuk]

While we're at it, what does it mean "not growing now (resting)" ? Is it to cap devilstrand grow rate and prevent people from putting sunlamps outside, to provide light at night ?

[skullywag]

Nighttime. Plants dont grow 25hrs a day anymore.

[Gennadios]

What about power consumption? Hydroponics basins literally kill plants when the power goes out, is the colony suffering from brown-outs or shortages?

[lusername]

Temperature kills would be all or nothing, though. You won't get SOME of the plants going missing, they will ALL die. One moment you have a freshly planted field of crops, the next moment everything is dead and the room is empty. The thing which kills a percentage of crops at random is probably the omnipresent crop blight. The majority of any crop you attemot to plant will be lost to crop blight.

What about power consumption? Hydroponics basins literally kill plants when the power goes out, is the colony suffering from brown-outs or shortages?

Power kills would also be all or nothing. Either you lose the entire bin (and probably all of them), or they all live. Since solar flares happen constantly, this "Everything Instantly Dies" effect basically renders hydroponics useless because no crop will ever reach completion in hydroponics.

[b0rsuk]

Let's not forget hydroponics grow much faster, so when a random disaster wipes out your plants, you lose fewer days of work. The exception is solar flare, which has a fixed duration not related to crop growing cycle.