Sun Lamps unlocked with Hydroponics

[linkxsc]

Looked for something similar in search, couldn't find one so here it is.

So here I is, watching some lets-plays. And I've noticed a terrible problem with people at this game. Everyone always uses sunlamps for all their lightsources. Then they complain about their extreme power drain which they don't understand why its happening. It's not really a bad thing and all. They all learn eventually. But how about a little thing to help them out.

Sunlamps aren't available to build until Hydroponics. They're really kinda worthless until you have your indoor potatoes. Also the "you finished researching" notice, would have a quick explanation of their use, and a notifier for their extreme power drain.

Also ninjaing what many others have said. Make it so lights when being places show their "lit" area, much like turrets currently show their targetting range. Its a quick simple thing to add that jsut makes life easier for the player.

[Semmy]

i dont agree on the making life easier for the players.
Let them figure some things out for themselves. Ive seen players with complete schematics on how to place and do stuff. That part of looking at how the game works is a big portion of the fun for me personally.

I do think that sunlamps should indeed come with hydrophonics research or maybe even as a research themselves.

Like you figure out hydrophonics. But dammmmmmmm not enough light inside from the small tiny lamps lets go invent a bigger better lamp.

[Stickle]

Sun lamps need to be reworked IMO, anyway. The fact that two adjacent standing lamps are cheaper, use less resources, draw less power, and have a larger brightly lit radius than a sun lamp makes them superfluous. How often are you really so short on space that you can't afford that one extra tile for a second light?

I still often use sun lamps for atmosphere, but as far as efficiency goes it's absolutely the wrong choice.

[Workload]

For plants to grow they need the right spectrum and UV. A normal light can't grow a plant to produce flowers/food. Not matter how bright it is
Maybe make normal lights not grown them at all.

Also I would get into the fact they need a day and night cycle. Think that's how they know what season it is and when to bare there product/veg/fruit/flowers  and go into respiration.

Don't have to do this but maybe make the sun lamps turn off when its dark outside so plants inside get this affect. Cause without a night cycle plants simple can't go into respiration, which lets them combine sugars with oxygen to form carbohydrates, that make them grow

Plants grow about the same speed at night and day.

[Galileus]

Don't have to do this but maybe make the sun lamps turn off when its dark outside so plants inside get this affect. Cause without a night cycle plants simple can't go into respiration, which lets them combine sugars with oxygen to form carbohydrates, that make them grow

Plants grow about the same speed at night and day.

That would really mess up things. You would need to build sun lamps and normal lamps - so that at night people don't get the happiness kick - and would take whole "things grow faster with light" mechanic out. Not to mention current system is simply intuitive - feed light to grow plants at night. Get into that whole day-night growing acceleration but then why sunlamps hydroponics what is happening I'm lost already! It's game logic - it's not going to follow real world if it doesn't need to

[Workload]

Don't have to do this but maybe make the sun lamps turn off when its dark outside so plants inside get this affect. Cause without a night cycle plants simple can't go into respiration, which lets them combine sugars with oxygen to form carbohydrates, that make them grow

Plants grow about the same speed at night and day.

That would really mess up things. You would need to build sun lamps and normal lamps - so that at night people don't get the happiness kick - and would take whole "things grow faster with light" mechanic out. Not to mention current system is simply intuitive - feed light to grow plants at night. Get into that whole day-night growing acceleration but then why sunlamps hydroponics what is happening I'm lost already! It's game logic - it's not going to follow real world if it doesn't need to

That's the point and dude that's why its says Don't have to im just letting you know how plants work and saying that normal lights can't grow plants at all. Maybe you could turn this option on and off but I rather not make things difficult. 

And what are you talking about happiness kick. If you use normal lights your people should be fine. Unless they were taking care of the plants at night, which they are not awake that often anyways during that time.
I agree it would mess things up maybe, so I was just saying.

    ------>But for a fact plants can't grow under normal lights<------

[linkxsc]

I dunno. I did an experiment back in 8th grade with growing some plants indoors under normal lights and they grew, however nowhere near as good as the outdoors,windowsill, and the "sunlight"(forget what it was actually called)

And as for the happiness kick. Though most of your people should be asleep at night, I often end up having 1 person awake doing whatever (fixing walls, repairing conduits and such, which deteriorate WAY too fast IMO). Even more annoying is the fact that they get a happiness penalty for eating raw food. But then they get another for eating food paste, when those are our only 2 options at the time.

Really though, I often find that a nice big room with 6-8 tables producing food and 2 lamps is more than enough for the existing game food needs. Usually it'll hit a point where I have literally, thousands of food. And can almost buyout passing ships.

[Wopian]

You know the 4 things that grow plants is 1) Light, 2) Carbon Dioxide, 3) minerals and 4) water.

Plants simply don't grow when they don't have enough light (i.e sunset to sunrise). The more light the faster they grow - given they have the rest.

If water is implemented it would be nice to have water tanks or something similar to store water to feed the plants. Also a water cable for auto watering (researchable)

Also forcing sun lamps off at night really punches many users right in the face. I for one use sun lamps because they look way better than standing lamps and can afford to waste 90 million watts on lights.

[Ford_Prefect]

Ok.  I am a farmer.  So let me clear up some misunderstandings here.

Some plants determine when they should produce fruit based on how long the day is.  As you have moved to an alien planet orbiting a gas giant, these plants wouldn't work except in a completely artificial light environment.

Other plants grow for x period of time.  Giving them 24/7 sunlight would cause these plants to yield more grain/crop (if you give them extra water, nutrients, etc) because they can process more nutrients in the given time.

And the third set of crops require x heat units.  Putting them under 24/7 sunlight would mean that they yield the same amount, but it would take half the time to produce the same crop.

[Ford_Prefect]

Oh.  I think having sunlamps being unlocked by hydroponics (or being a tech you have to research before you can research hydroponics) is a good idea.

[linkxsc]

Really in truly, I found a good use for sunlamps now.

Actually its for hydroponics tables too. Seeing as a large room can keep your colonists busy a lot, but often you want to shut it off so they'll go and do other work. Just use sunlamps. Shut off all the other lights in your base nice with a doubleclick, and run your potatoburners

[Merry76]

So here I is, watching some lets-plays. And I've noticed a terrible problem with people at this game. Everyone always uses sunlamps for all their lightsources. Then they complain about their extreme power drain which they don't understand why its happening. It's not really a bad thing and all. They all learn eventually. But how about a little thing to help them out.

You could also just park a sunlamp next to a normal Potato plantation if you do not rush to hydroponics (at the moment you probably should, but when hydroponics moves lower into the tech tree, this may change). If we bind a special lamp to hydroponics benches this wont be possible anymore.

I also have a few "outdoors" hydroponics outdoors, for those pesky radiation storms (those for some reason neither harm potatoes, wildlife or people...). Sunlight still works, and the sunlamps are shorted out.

So, not in favour of denying sun lamps because some people cant see the horrendous power costs of a SUN lamp.

[Bob Buddha]

Main issue I have with all lights is that the colonist should have the ability to turn lights on and off themselves according to need.  IE a one-person room where the person is going to sleep, they would naturally turn off the light. 

A sun-lamp should have a timer function.  Real-world grow lights aren't on full time, 18 hrs a day at most.  Another possibility would to give the lights a different tint, IE purplish like modern LED grow lights.  A plant doesn't use the whole spectrum but more than just red and blue.  A futuristic glow light would look nothing like a floor lamp.

PS, in the future, grow lights, and all lights will likely be LED or OLED.  Keep with the sci-fi scheme and ditch the metal halide or hi pressure sodium.

[linkxsc]

Main issue I have with all lights is that the colonist should have the ability to turn lights on and off themselves according to need.  IE a one-person room where the person is going to sleep, they would naturally turn off the light. 

A sun-lamp should have a timer function.  Real-world grow lights aren't on full time, 18 hrs a day at most.  Another possibility would to give the lights a different tint, IE purplish like modern LED grow lights.  A plant doesn't use the whole spectrum but more than just red and blue.  A futuristic glow light would look nothing like a floor lamp.

PS, in the future, grow lights, and all lights will likely be LED or OLED.  Keep with the sci-fi scheme and ditch the metal halide or hi pressure sodium.

Thought the LED ones still used a pretty big amount of power anyways.
Baffled me though that regular standing lamps pull 125w. Would kinda like to see the ability to research better lights in general. I mean, modern CFLs are nice and use ~25w of power to do lighting that a 100w incandescent can.

[Galileus]

Baffled me though that regular standing lamps pull 125w

Video game logic.