Hydro Basin Pro Tip

Started by Rock5, October 07, 2017, 12:32:43 AM

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Rock5

This just occurred to me and I've never seen any mention of it before.

I don't usually use Hydroponic Basins, because of the inherent power loss risk, but as I'm setting up an extended drug growing region I realized I could set it up without using conduits. So no danger of Zzzt events. All I had to do is put the power, i.e. Solar Panels, outside in the corner of the growing room. In that location the Sunlamp will reach. I never realized before that the Sunlamp can reach outside the growing area room diagonally. Then I realized that, with enough power and batteries, it would be immune to eclipses. That only leaves Solar Flares.

It occurred to me this would be ideal for hydroponic set ups as it's vital to reduce the risk of power outages. I just did a quick mock up and found that it's a bit tricky handling the distribution of power but doable.

I think the lower risk of this idea would make a lot of people reconsider hydroponics. What do you think? Has anyone done something like this before? Has it been mentioned before and I just missed it?

If anyone has done this before this would be a great time to share your set ups.

Update: I finally finished playing a game with no conduits after getting the idea from the comments in this topic. Here's the final map.

There are no conduits on the whole map. There are a total of 39 Solar generators, 1 Wind Turbine and 1 Fueled generator.

Notes:
- You can't use a Wind turbine outside a growing area to power the sunlamp because the wind turbine doesn't have power in the corner, so you have to use solar (or fueled).
- Where you need a lot of power, such as near your workshop, it's good to start with a wind turbine so you can add up to 3 solar generators as you need more power.
- Place batteries carefully to extend the range of power in the direction you need.
- You can only use geothermal power if there are vents in the perimeter of your base. In my case there were none.
- Switching off sunlamps during a solar eclipse is an easy way to save power for heaters during cold weather or for hydroponic basins so you don't loose your crop, instead of having a larger number of batteries. Although having a large number of batteries is a perfectly fine solution too.
- You can sometimes put solar panels in a room, open a hole in the roof and still maintain an acceptable temperature. I did this in my stockpile room at the top. I think the way it works is the temperature in the room will get closer and closer to the outside temperature as you get closer to opening a quarter of the roof. At about a quarter of the roof open, the whole room becomes equalized with the outdoors temperature. This is from some testing I did a while back. So the bigger the room the less affect opening the roof for one solar panel will make.
- When I moved my kitchen and freezer to the bottom right and decided to finally put some entertainments stuff down, I had to use fueled generator to power the megascreen tv as it was too far under the mountain. I was in a wooded biome so it wasn't an issue. Probably, with a lot of wood available it's probably viable to have a conduit free mountain base using fueled generators. I don't know if fueled generators produce heat. If so a large number of them might generate too much heat.
- You need to make use of the reconnect button make sure devices are connected to the right power grid and to move devices to grids that have more power to spare.
- When I found the valley in the bottom right with little viable soil I decided to go full hydroponics. I just barely managed to fit enough solar panels to power it. It's best to plan fit as much power as possible in those tight places even if you don't need all of it. Then you can just build what you need and you have room to add extra latter if needed. If you don't plan to add extra later you might find that when you do need extra power that you can't add it because of how you places your power.
- Now to numbers. In this location I found that 2 solar panels was not enough power to keep a regular greenhouse powered. I found that 5 solars per 2 sunlamps works. With the 2 full hydro growing zones down the bottom I was aiming for about 9 in all. Four in the cardinal directions, so east, west south and north. These were to power about 8 basins each. Then I have a cluster of 5 solars in the middle that was to power the remaining 16 basins, 2 solar lamps and heating and cooling. Although I didn't have the full 48 basins I think my calculations are correct. Note that I was careful to place the 5 solars to make room for a 6th which I didn't need but can add later if I do.

I think that's about it.

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Limdood

switchable battery banks can accomplish similar results.

One big problem is people using hydroponics for:
1) growing where it is too cold to otherwise grow
2) growing deep in mountains

This encompasses MOST (as far as i'm aware) reasons for hydroponics.  In the first case, you can't have a portion of the room open to sky, and must place the solar panels outside the room, which, while possible, is awkward.

In the second case, you have no option to set up a solar panel close enough the the garden to matter.

One trick that DOES work, and will save you some solar panels (or better yet, wind power generators in cold biomes), is to place batteries adjacent to the generator (JUST roof the batteries).  NO CONDUIT.  Any number of generators, all touching, and any number of batteries, all touching each other and the generator, and all roofed.  The Zzzzt event requires conduit in order to fire successfully....no conduit?  Zzzt can't happen, no matter how full batteries are.

This is just one of a large number of tricks used to mitigate Zzzt (which honestly makes no sense in game for the frequency at which it happens).  Another common one is to hollow out a HUGE cavern and cover it with conduit connected to your main power grid...every square.  The Zzzt event picks a random piece of conduit to explode...if a cavern has 900 pieces of conduit and your base only has 100, then there is a 90% chance that any Zzzt event will fire in the conduit room.  A bank of batteries pre-powered with a switch adjacent to them will get your base back online in moments (also, the conduit supposedly prevents infestations in those tiles).

Rock5

Switchable batteries is a well talked about tactic. The problem with it is, it doesn't stop Zzzzt events, just helps to mitigate the consequences. If for any reason you can't immediately go switch on your backup batteries you will still loose your crops.

I can think of another reason for hydroponics besides cold biomes and cave dwellers. The efficiency of hydroponics increases as soil quality decreases. If I have rich soil available I would never use hydroponics. I believe, power wise, their produce per power is about the same. On normal soil I think hydroponics if significantly more efficient but I would probably still use soil because that's what I'm used to. If only low quality soil was available I would seriously consider going hydro only by end game.

Quote from: Limdood on October 07, 2017, 09:27:31 AM
One trick that DOES work, and will save you some solar panels (or better yet, wind power generators in cold biomes), is to place batteries adjacent to the generator (JUST roof the batteries).  NO CONDUIT.  Any number of generators, all touching, and any number of batteries, all touching each other and the generator, and all roofed.  The Zzzzt event requires conduit in order to fire successfully....no conduit?  Zzzt can't happen, no matter how full batteries are.

That's exactly what I was talking about, the power and batteries outside of the climate controlled hydroponics room with no conduits. In the corner where the sunlamp will still reach.

Quote from: Limdood on October 07, 2017, 09:27:31 AMAnother common one is to hollow out a HUGE cavern and cover it with conduit connected to your main power grid...every square.  The Zzzt event picks a random piece of conduit to explode...if a cavern has 900 pieces of conduit and your base only has 100, then there is a 90% chance that any Zzzt event will fire in the conduit room.  A bank of batteries pre-powered with a switch adjacent to them will get your base back online in moments (also, the conduit supposedly prevents infestations in those tiles).

I don't know if I like this idea. Again, the Zzzzt event still happens. And what if you have a shortage of steel?

I didn't know you could use conduits to control infestations. That's a handy tip. Oops. I just checked. Conduits DO NOT stop infestations. If it did in the past, it must have changed.
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SpaceDorf

#3
I always got away by using lavish amounts of parallel power lines, so whereever a zzzt happens, it may suck my batteries dry and I have to switch to the backup set, but never ever is there any place in my colony without power.

Except Ion Storms  Solar Flares .. can't do anything there without mods.
As a short fix, keep some torches in storage so light and temperature are kept.
Campfire may be better, but can't be uninstalled for storage.
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Nameless

If you are really don't like zzzt event, don't build any battery at all :)

SpaceDorf

Quote from: Nameless on October 07, 2017, 11:56:25 AM
If you are really don't like zzzt event, don't build any battery at all :)

Or power lines,
or powered buildings.

Batteries don't normally create a cable fire, but explode directly, which is a completely different event.
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Rock5

Quote from: SpaceDorf on October 07, 2017, 11:49:12 AM
I always got away by using lavish amounts of parallel power lines, so whereever a zzzt happens, it may suck my batteries dry and I have to switch to the backup set, but never ever is there any place in my colony without power.
Yes! Redundancy is key. I never loose connections because of Zzzt or any other reason. But we are talking about growing zones here and hydroponic rooms in particular. The danger is not that the conduit is severed but that the battery is drained and your plants will die unless you can switch your back up power in time.

Anyway, I've never liked using switchable batteries the few times I've tried them. Too finicky to use. That's why I really like this idea of avoiding the Zzzt events altogether.

Quote from: SpaceDorf on October 07, 2017, 11:49:12 AM
Except Ion Storms  Solar Flares .. can't do anything there without mods.
As a short fix, keep some torches in storage so light and temperature are kept.
Campfire may be better, but can't be uninstalled for storage.
Campfires are a good idea for greenhouses, and I've used them many times, even in my living areas, but doesn't help your hydroponics if you loose power. You sort of can uninstall them by deconstructing them and getting back some of the materials.

Quote from: Nameless on October 07, 2017, 11:56:25 AM
If you are really don't like zzzt event, don't build any battery at all :)
Yes. That's the usual way to avoid them. I've done that in the past. I haven't done it lately because it seems a lot harder to do. Maybe something was balance in recent alphas to make it harder not to use batteries. Mind you, I usually only have 1 battery for most of the game.
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Canute

Quote from: SpaceDorf on October 07, 2017, 02:18:54 PM
Quote from: Nameless on October 07, 2017, 11:56:25 AM
If you are really don't like zzzt event, don't build any battery at all :)

Or power lines,
or powered buildings.

Batteries don't normally create a cable fire, but explode directly, which is a completely different event.
When you don't use batteries, you don't have stored power and don't have any consequence.
No consequence you got when you don't have conduits too, but it is easyer to power your network with fueled generators, then to have no conduits but batteries and solar/wind.
But without mods, it is hard to fuel up these generators with hydroponics.



TheMeInTeam

It's not THAT hard to avoid conduits without going nuts on resource costs:



OP's tip is quite helpful.  It's annoying for hydro basins, because you'll have to use more than that corner (you need to power basins too, not just sun lamp), but for regular indoor growing it shouldn't be hard to set it up.

Avoiding conduits is harder for mountain bases though.  Both fueled generators and using/swapping batteries ultimately require hauling to maintain power.  I do this for deep drilling with batteries (you can see me charging batteries on the geothermal for that purpose), but it'd be a pain to do it w/o automation constantly in an entire base.

Rock5

Wow. I was thinking it would be an interesting challenge yo make a whole base without conduits. I'm definitely going to try it some day.

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on October 08, 2017, 12:30:11 PM
OP's tip is quite helpful.  It's annoying for hydro basins, because you'll have to use more than that corner (you need to power basins too, not just sun lamp), but for regular indoor growing it shouldn't be hard to set it up.
When I did my test mock up I found that I needed to cover 3 sides. I had a solar on top covering 8 basins, a solar on one side covering 8 basins and a few solars in the corner opposite to cover the last 8 basins and the sunlamp, and any cooling and heating. It makes for an ugly shape so making an efficient use of space will be tricky.
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TheMeInTeam

#10
It's not all that hard to avoid conduits on outdoor bases if you plan ahead.  Mountain bases will be annoying though.

For the off object that isn't constant use (like orbital trade beacons) you can just haul a battery to them when trade ship passes by that will buy unneeded weapons for example.  Deep drills and even turrets can be powered similarly, though I don't like using turrets (sometimes I use them to steer sappers, but they don't need to be powered for that to work). 

That leaves work rooms (temperature penalty avoidance), bedrooms/hospital, and cooler as the primary things that need power.  You can calc power draw of work stations and place solar + battery so their draw is a bit less than average power of solar (so battery charges) and avoid most micro while not losing much efficiency compared to running conduits (barely any).  In the above case I was short on components in mid-game and couldn't build a multi-analyzer fast enough, so I just went to geothermal early since there was a vent there.  2-3 solar panels and bothering to turn off the ground-penetrating scanner would have done the same job otherwise, charging the batteries to swap and powering that stuff.

Really zzzt should be considered a downside of mountain bases like infestations :p.

That said, making a grow room using only wind + battery (relevant to tribe on ice sheet or sea ice) w/o conduit should be doable also by wedging said battery into the corner.  You'd need 2-3 windmills though.  Fortunately doors don't block windmills but 25 resources/door adds up fast when spamming 2 thick!

Murdo

Limdood's large cavern suggestion isn't about redundancy, but rather gaming the probability system. When the game has a ZZZT queued up, presumably all active power lines are potential targets. By creating a nest of wires several times bigger than all the wires in your base, you're basically painting a target on an unused area and playing the odds that the event will strike there instead of somewhere important.

People do the same thing to mitigate the odds of an infestation: mine out a series of tunnels and chambers away from the base that all have ideal conditions for an infestation event, so that there's a a fair to good chance the event will hit outside your mountain base instead of your living/dining room.

It'd be interesting if the game had a more intricate system for choosing target locations that would lead to more strategic planning and even more challenge by nefarious storytellers, but for the moment I think RNGesus still has the wheel.

Rock5

This post gave me the idea to try a full conduit free base. I just finished playing such a game. See my comments about it on the first post.
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=35954.msg369681#msg369681
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sadpickle

What about using wood-burning generators to power hydroponic setups?

According to the wiki, sun lamps take 2900W when lit. You can fit 24 hydro into a sun lamps' radius, 24 x 70w per is 1680, which gives us a peak power usage of 4,580W. With each generator producing 1000 you would need 5 to keep everything running. But when the sun lamps switch off you would only need 2 to keep the hydro from losing power. Generators produce heat, so if they're inside the greenhouse you might not even need heaters, leaving 420w (my favorite number, ha) leftover.

I'm not sure this is viable without an enormous amount of space to grow trees (75 x 5 = 375 wood every 3 days or so) but I'm no expert, maybe there is a workaround.

Hans Lemurson

If you have land to grow trees, you can just farm it for crops instead. 

If you have to grow indoors, then I think it might still be possible to make a Self-Powering Tree farm, if you don't mind using 90% of your land and labor to just keep the lights on.  Or 200%.  I haven't checked the math in Alpha 17.
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