Anyone cook with Fertilizer?

[Dosephshih]

Just note that fertilizer would be turn into dirt at 125C.
So is it feasible to make dirt at this path?

Can i just drop the fertilizer into hot oil or steam to change it to Dirt?

[psusi]

27 minutes ago, Dosephshih said:

Just note that fertilizer would be turn into dirt at 125C.
So is it feasible to make dirt at this path?

Can i just drop the fertilizer into hot oil or steam to change it to Dirt?

Yes, but the problem is that when it does, it becomes a solid tile of dirt, and then you have to have a duplicant or auto miner dig it up and then it looses half of its mass.

[NurdRage]

I did that a few times when i was in dire need of dirt to grow food or perform research. I just loaded a storage compactor with 20k fertilizer in a steam room with 240C steam and let it sit. Took a few cycles but it got there.

Only problem was that the dirt would turn into tiles and so digging it would destroy half the mass. But since it was an emergency i ate the loss.

Most of the time if i need dirt i go the ethanol/arbor tree composting route, produces a steady amount of dirt but requires dupe labor to turn the compost piles.

 

[Dosephshih]

4 minutes ago, NurdRage said:

I did that a few times when i was in dire need of dirt to grow food or perform research. I just loaded a storage compactor with 20k fertilizer in a steam room with 240C steam and let it sit. Took a few cycles but it got there.

Only problem was that the dirt would turn into tiles and so digging it would destroy half the mass. But since it was an emergency i ate the loss.

Most of the time if i need dirt i go the ethanol/arbor tree composting route, produces a steady amount of dirt but requires dupe labor to turn the compost piles.

 

I see, actually i am thinking if it is feasible to avoid it turning into tiles.

If we make the fertilizer, 36kg of dirt will give 72kg of fertilizer. If it must turn into tiles, then it will lost the intention of making extra dirt.

[NurdRage]

oh you're actually making the fertilizer using the fertilizer synthesizer? Keep in mind you also need lots of polluted water and phosphorite. 

The ethanol/arbor tree cycle is much more efficient and I think its self-sustaining.

If you just need small amounts of dirt on a continual basis, then a water sieve (and composting the polluted dirt it produces) might also be an option.

[Dosephshih]

12 minutes ago, NurdRage said:

oh you're actually making the fertilizer using the fertilizer synthesizer? Keep in mind you also need lots of polluted water and phosphorite. 

The ethanol/arbor tree cycle is much more efficient and I think its self-sustaining.

If you just need small amounts of dirt on a continual basis, then a water sieve (and composting the polluted dirt it produces) might also be an option.

Yes, sure, the only difference is compost need dupes operation. 

I am just thinking if it is a feasible path. 

May be it is the reasons nobody doing this way.

[NurdRage]

What do you need the dirt for exactly?

Might be more prudent to minimize that usage rather than try to save dupe-time automating dirt production.

 

[crypticorb]

Another method to get dirt is to ranch pips. Pips eating trees drop dirt, just like ranching dreckos eating mealwood or peppernuts gives phosphorite.

This still requires duplicant interaction, as ranching is a very very time intensive operation, moreso even than compost piles.

 

The concept of getting dirt from cooking fertilizer has been around for a loooooong time, because once upon a time dirt was non-renewable and actually rather limited for long-term survival bases. Back then fertilizer synthesizers were also the primary method of generating natural gas, rather than an annoying byproduct. Despite the name, fertilizer was the less useful product of fertilizer synthesizers, and people were coming up with all kinds of wonky builds for cooking fertilizer into dirt using magma.

Despite all the insanely creative methods that people came up with, they all sucked. Mostly due to the tile forming problem, and 50% mass loss because of it.

[OxCD]

5 hours ago, Dosephshih said:

I see, actually i am thinking if it is feasible to avoid it turning into tiles.

Nop it's not. And if someone finally end up to find a way, it should be glitched.

If you cook and dig, 65g dirt used for 120g ferti, 120g ferti cooked then dug out, is 60g dirt. You lose 5g dirt per equation (and also phosphorite and pH2O used for ferti).

You only get positive dirt input if you didn't use the fertilizer synthesizer, that means you've found the ferti into the wild (no way to find ferti using rockets so far).

[yoakenashi]

I haven't tried it myself, but since they've allowed us to compost balm lily flower, wouldn't that be the best way to create dirt for free?

[Coolthulhu]

Even if you somehow managed to cook dirt without losing half of it, it wouldn't be much better than pips.

According to https://oni-db.com/details/squirrel a glum pip will make 4kg/cycle, consuming 8% of a branch. Wild tree grows 7*1/(4*4.5)=~39% of a branch per cycle and takes 42/3 = 14 tiles, meaning pips at maximum wild plant density should be able to make 4*(~39%/8%)/14 = ~1.4 kg/(cycle*tile). Pips are labor free if they never get cramped. Un-cramping would require machinery, but we have space for it above wild plants. Pips fear drowning, which makes egg hatching labor-free, allowing infinite pip density.

And back to fertilizer maker: 4x4 footprint (when base is included) producing (72-39) kg/cycle = 33 kg/cycle, giving 33/16=~2.06 kg/cycle, disregarding the loss from mass halving at dig. Not much better than pips and that's disregarding pwater cost, energy cost, cooking cost, lime+meat from pips.

Of course pips have a hidden meta-cost: wasting tons of CPU power on needless AI. We need unethical factory farming - pips tied up and force-fed.

[Lifegrow]

This was my take a while back - this was with algae, but it's virtually identical with fertilizer. It still has mass loss, but is way more hands-off than using compost heaps.