Add Fertilizer Pumps Back

[Mathenaut]

I got to admit, I see no way to allow to create "Soil" that cannot/will not be used to create as much farm than a nice biome.

This is the entire point and purpose of agriculture. Literally. Land reclamation and hydroponics are similar, save for convenience/cost. Cold environments here mostly just lack the means to refine your own structures, since you're heavily herded into whatever corner you first set up in (unless you have the component capital to relocate to optimum realestate).

[endders2]

the end all to this idea is a rather simplistic one that both makes it hard and tedious. Have a place to make peat moss and then have it to where you can increase soil to a 20% of what its base is via this method that decays at a exponential rate and requires near to constant farming.

Option two could be add in things to extract nutrients from rich soil, banishing it to gravel to be used in hydroponics, which in turn makes it much more efficient but only last per say 3 bins worth and 2 harvest making you have to decide to sacrifice your rich soil for efficiency.. etc which then it could also be sold by traders if you have a snow biome that doesn't even offer any soil. This method imo is balanced and keeps the try hard in the game.

[BetaSpectre]

I don't think that the pumps should be needed for farming.

There should be an option to buy certain flooring if none exists and use that flooring for farming IMO, and after a while the dirt floor loses nutrients and has to be replaced. If you've got a bad biome then you'd have to buy dirt flooring from a merchant, if not then the player can dig up dirt from the surrounding area.