Early Alpha Growing Zone

[Dr. Z]

So in the early Alphas there where growing zones with a set amount of tiles which where supposed to supply 1-2 people. So now I wonder if those zones were 4*5 or 4*6 (or even 5*6?) tiles big, because this is important when deciding how big my zones should be. Maybe you could add this in the description becasue I think this is a rather importent info.

[Valdemar FIN]

Well, nowadays the zone-to-meal-ratio depends on plant type, soil fertility, and whether food was cooked in paste dispenser (which may have nutrient resynthesis), or in cooking stove (in which case it depends on the type of meal produced).

There is just too many variables to reliably say ''3 square farm supports 2 people'' or something like that.

[TheXIIILightning]

I think a good way of thinking for that problem, is something along this line.
"Is that area big enough? Yes? Let's make it a few tiles bigger then!"
Trust me, it is better to have extra food lying around, than to have no food for when a blight hits and destroys your crops.

4 x 7 for each crop is ideal to feed 3 colonists early on, as you can easily hunt a few animals if you need a little extra. ^^

[KugelBlitz]

I find that for a long time you don't even need a growing area. On the desert this is a bit harder but you really don't even need it. I usually build my first farm after I get 1 or 2 new colonists.

[Barley]

Used to be I didn't use farms at all. There we so many bushes in the forest biome that I could just pick them periodically until the hydroponics lab was up ~15 colonists.

Alpha 7 seemed to nerf the berry bushes though since I haven't seen nearly as many on my maps. That or I have just been picking the wrong places.

[Tynan]

Alpha 7 seemed to nerf the berry bushes though since I haven't seen nearly as many on my maps. That or I have just been picking the wrong places.

They were nerfed, they were way OP.

[wolfman1911]

Alpha 7 seemed to nerf the berry bushes though since I haven't seen nearly as many on my maps. That or I have just been picking the wrong places.

They were nerfed, they were way OP.

I don't know if it was intended or not, but something about the statement that berry bushes were overpowered amuses me greatly.

[skullywag]

Is there anyway we can have some kind of bill on growing plots. Id like to define how much raw stuff i have in storage...i hate mess...im looking in to modding this onto hydropics at least right now.

[Dr. Z]

Maybe set a stockpile wich allows exactly the amount of stuff you want (maybe modifie stack capability) with a high priority and another stockpile with lower priority, so when the HP stockpile is full you know you have what you want and the other one is like a dumping stockpile but a reserve for bad times, especially food you can never have enough of.

[Lecos]

If you make that secondary/low-prio stockpile your trade beacon stockpile then you can just sell your excess raw food when a fitting trader shows up. You can always hold some back if you want to keep a reserve as well.

[skullywag]

that's what I do but doesn't stop the harvesting as the plant grows to full.

[Dr. Z]

Then you have to turn off the job in the overview, but I really don't recommend doing so, this can easily haunt you.