Sleet wheat farming and Fractions (PSA-lite)

JRup · April 12, 2021

One thing that is eventually seen when farming sleet wheat is busted pipes. Unless insulation piping is used, that is.

But what if you don't have or want to use insulation just for that.

Then you break out the calculator and hope for the best. We then find out that a nice ratio is 100 g/s of water per each 3 plants (Some will say 99.99 g/s, but more on that soon). Because of that continuous farming is a breeze, right?

Not really, and here's the problem: Fractions and computers. Any time a plant has some funny irrigation requirement like 33.3 g/s it is actually 33 + ⅓ g/s (33 and a third if your web browser no likey unicode char.)

Multiply by 3 and you get 100g/s. Quick mafs.

So far so good? Well, close but no cigar.

ONI being a game run on our "modern" computers means we're bound by binary numbers in the long run and the number three is some loathsome existence when it comes to fractions.

That said, you can settle for 99.99 g/s and have the last plant on the piping line flicker every once and then because it's missing some irrigation occasionally. Or use 100g/s and either pipe the leftover liquid back into the loop prior to the regulator or go the vent-delete route.

How much water are we talking about?

Per my careful observation I can reliably say that we're talking about approximately 96.5 mcg. That's right, these are micro grams that add up. And funnily enough, these blobs of liquid don't exchange temperature with the pipe no matter what because it's that small an amount. (When 2 packets stack, then we get 193 mcg)

When will I see that water?

The hydroponic farm's internal liquid storage is about 5kg so after filling, it moves on or accumulates in the pipe. (A rather long time)

Without further ado, some illustrative screenshots. I only use the freshest molten glacier water to feed my sleet wheat.

Spoiler

My ice maker makes the glacier, and it is cooled by an AETN in turn.

Flow rate: