Farming Guide & Frequently Asked Questions
Greenhouses & Growth Modifiers
Farming yields can be heavily optimized using game mechanics to boost growth speeds and decrease duplicant labor:
- Greenhouse Rooms: Designation requires a Farm Station, size of 12-96 tiles, and solid boundaries. Allows farmers to tend crops.
- Farmer's Touch Buff: Applied by duplicants at the Farm Station. It costs 1 kg of Fertilizer per plant per cycle and doubles the growth speed.
- Temperature Constraints: Plants will immediately stop growing if they fall outside their temperature limits. For example, Sleet Wheat must be kept below 5°C, while Pincha Pepperplants must remain above 35°C.
Wild vs. Domestic Farming
Choosing whether to domesticate or leave crops wild is a foundational mid-game strategic choice.
- Domesticated: Grow quickly, allowing high-density farming in small rooms. However, they require constant resource inputs (dirt, water, slime, sulfur) and pipes, risking depletion of reserves.
- Wild (Pip Planted): Take exactly 4x longer to grow (e.g. 12 cycles for Mealwood instead of 3), but consume 0 resources. Ideal for zero-cost food systems if you set up wild Pip farms early.
Frequently Asked Questions
Domesticated crops are planted by duplicants in Planter Boxes, Farm Tiles, or Hydroponic Tiles. They grow at standard speeds but require constant resources (like Water, Dirt, Slime) and ambient temperatures. Wild crops grow naturally in dirt/sand blocks (often planted by Pips). They take exactly 4x longer to grow (e.g. Sleet Wheat takes 72 cycles instead of 18) but require 0 resources, 0 pipes, and 0 duplicant labor to grow, making them ideal for lag-free, infinite-sustainability colonies.
A Greenhouse is a room containing at least one Farm Station, has a size between 12 and 96 tiles, and is enclosed by solid walls/doors. Once built, a duplicant with the 'Crop Tending' skill can synthesize and apply 'Farmer's Touch' fertilizer to domesticated crops in the room. This doubles the plant's growth speed for 1 cycle.
Farmer's Touch doubles growth speed, which means the crop spends half as much time growing. While the crop's resource consumption rate per cycle remains unchanged, the total resource consumed per harvest is halved (except for the Fertilizer itself, which costs 1 kg/cycle).
Seeds exposed to radiation have a chance to mutate. High-tier mutations include: 1) Exuberant: +200% growth speed and +50% harvest yield, but consumes 50% more resources and drips Rot Piles. 2) Lush: +100% harvest yield, but -50% growth speed. 3) Wildish: grow at normal domesticated speed but consume 0 resources (can only be planted domestically).