[L|652] Crops only grow during day.

[Ford_Prefect]

What happens: Crops don't grow at night when under sunlamps.  Even though they have light and the correct temperature.
What is expected:  When exposed to correct temp/light, they should grow continually.

[Coenmcj]

This is intentional and has been happening since alpha 7 (Possibly before)

[Ford_Prefect]

I am a farmer in real life. 

With grow lights, many plants will grow faster as you can expose them for longer periods of time to light than you can outdoors.

For strawberries you can give them 16hours on/8off under a growlight. http://www.ehow.com/how_8087479_grow-strawberries-under-grow-light.html  (Accelerated growth under a glowlight)

Cotton would only grow if you mimicked natural daylight as it is photo-period sensitive. (no change in speed)

Potato tubers growth would be accelerated as we don't care about the flowering of the potato plant, we just eat and clone the plant using its tubers.  (The flowering of the potato plant is photosensitive. We don't eat the true fruit of the potato though, because its deadly (the potato is part of the nightshade family))

[Fernbhoy]

no one questioned the real life of how it works, it's done this way to stop indoor farms being too overpowered.

[StorymasterQ]

Wait, true potato plants are deadly? Like, poisonous or just unpalatable for humans? The things i learn...

[Rhadamant]

Wait, true potato plants are deadly? Like, poisonous or just unpalatable for humans? The things i learn...

A lot of vegetables in the nightshade family are poisonous, or at least parts of them are. Most nightshade family plants have foliage and leaves that are toxic. Hell, even apple seeds are poisonous if you eat enough of em.

[bertscha]

THIS ISNT REAL LIFE.

[Cimanyd]

With grow lights, many plants will grow faster as you can expose them for longer periods of time to light than you can outdoors.

Just a note. There is a short time each day when it's not "night" as far as the plants are concerned, but it's still not "brightly lit" outside. So plants by a sunlamp do grow a little faster overall, just not the huge amount faster that you'd get from 24 hours compared to daylight only.

This may be even more important, depending on the latitude, in A9.
Dec 10 changelog

• Wrote a new time-of-day calculator that determines a proper sun glow from latitude, time of year, and time of day. Now, equatorial regions have the same long days year-round, while northern areas have shallow days or varying lengths, and can even have no proper night at certain times of year.

As I've said before, if there's one thing I'd like changed about it, it's for sun lamps to automatically turn off during plant-night, to avoid the waste of power. That's even more plausible now that we have the heaters and coolers that turn on and off automatically, with normal ("high") power use when on, and low when off. Why can't sunlamps work like that?

[nils]

THIS ISNT REAL LIFE.

That's a really, really dumb way to object to the OP's bug report.

Indeed, the point of sunlamps - in this game - is to make plants grow in darkness. Plants don't care if it's chronological day or night. That the OP has real life expertise just makes his report more valid.

It's either a bug or bad design. Balance can - and must - be achieved in a way that doesn't break the game's metaphor.

[Fernbhoy]

How is it a bug when it's doing exactly as it's designed too though?

[Wex]

It's a bug because we don't have anymore the full year growing time of alpha 7.
Those 2 months of growing temperature, should very well be fully used with sun lamps.

[Cimanyd]

It's a bug because we don't have anymore the full year growing time of alpha 7.
Those 2 months of growing temperature, should very well be fully used with sun lamps.

If you're growing under a roof (the only time you usually would use sun lamps), enclose the area and heat it, and then you can grow year round.

Plants don't care if it's chronological day or night. That the OP has real life expertise just makes his report more valid.

Did you notice this:

Cotton would only grow if you mimicked natural daylight as it is photo-period sensitive. (no change in speed)

"All plants grow much faster under sunlamps than under normal daylight" wouldn't be realistic either.

[Ford_Prefect]

Yeah.  This probably isn't a proper bug, but more of me being confused by the interface.
Suggestions:
1.  Don't have the plants say they aren't growing because its night, when they are under sunlamps.  Instead have them say the plants are resting.  Because of the text, I thought there was a bug where the plants thought it was too dark to grow... instead of it being a game balance decision.
2.  The idea of the grow lights automatically turning off and on was a good one.  Having a timer is pretty standard for grow lights and would provide another visual indication of why and when the plants aren't growing.

[Tynan]

Good rewording suggestion Ford. I'll use that.

And yes, this is intentional and by design. Otherwise sunlamps are way too OP.