Infinite food in the thermal patch.

[gopuri]

So atm there is only one way to obtain infinite food supply in the current patch of the game.(or at least so i believe)

If you try to do blossoms you will eventually run out of fertilizer/contaminated water (it will take possible 100's if not 1000's of cycles, but it will happen eventually).

Running mush bars forever you will eventually run out of dirt since you will eventually not be able to keep up production of dirt via steaming polluted water.

So as of right nnow the only way is to Plant mealwood in boxes for 2 cycles, then dig them up before the 3rd cycle completes. If you do this you still get the seeds back. I've been told this is a bug, however if you want to have infinite worlds atm this is the only way.

 

(The only other way that i have not tested are 100% stress w/ vomit worlds. I do not know if you will produce enough cont water or not on those as i have not made one yet. If you are making fertiler with the fert generator, you will need 24000kg of water for one blossom plant. Since it runs for 20 cycles and only produces 5kcal you will need 4 of these per dupe. So if you can manage to get 96000kg of water every 20 cycles you can keep one dupe alive forever!!) This doesnt seem possible to me, but i honestly dont know the rates of vomit comets.

 

I realize that this is a bug and is likely to be patched eventually. I jsut hope they implement some way to get a fully renewable food source before they remove this. I did not mind previous worlds where running out of oxygen was your big colony-ending concern. But food jsut doesnt feel like it should be the primary reason that long colonies will fail atm.

 

Cheers, gopuri

 

[Dogbarian]

Can't quote source for you, but I've seen multiple posts about fish coming in future update/patch.  

[Samwaterston]

I've seen talk of using blossoms as a food generation source, and posts about how to plant seeds in "natural" soil using sand and storage box dropping . Do seeds planted this way need fertilizer?

[clamjam]

The blossom seeds do not need fertilizer when growing on natural ground.  I've been documenting my current attempt to make a sustainable blossom farm, and it is incredibly slow.  I'll share my notes with you guys.

First blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 22, roughly 1/4 through the day
First blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 26, very end of day just before night
First blossom seed growth - Cycle 32, 15% ; Cycle 39, 30% ; Cycle 53, 65% ; Cycle 62, 89%

Second blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 27, roughly 3/4 through the day
Second blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 32, time of day not observed

Third blossom seed planted on natural ground (by accident) - cycle 28, roughly 1/2 through the day
Third blossom seed has not begun to grow on cycle 58, due to structure impedance.  Third blossom seed swept to new location.

Fourth blossom seed planted on natural ground (by accident) - cycle 34, beginning of the day
Fourth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 38, time of day not observed

Fifth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 39, roughly 1/2 through the day
Fifth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 43, roughly 1/3 through the day

Sixth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 43, end of the day
Sixth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 49, roughly 3/4 through the day

Seventh blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 50, beginning of the day
Seventh blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 54, time of day not observed

Eighth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 54, roughly 3/4 through the day
Eighth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 58, roughly 1/2 through the day

Nineth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 58, roughly 1/2 through the day

 

So far, I'm 40 cycles into my attempt to build a sustainable blossom farm, and haven't harvested any of my semi-wild plants.  One of the reasons it is so slow (aside from the stunted growth rate from growing outside the planter boxes), is because any attempt to plant more than one blossom at a time will negate your efforts for the seeds that have already been placed on the ground.  The dupes will sweep more blossom seeds than instructed if they are anywhere near the area that's being worked.  To avoid this, it's best to wait until the most recently placed seed begins its growth before you place the next.

All in all, this is a high maintenance project that will require a large amount of space and micromanagement.  There is no chance for it to support more than a very small number of dupes.

[void0]

37 minutes ago, clamjam said:

The blossom seeds do not need fertilizer when growing on natural ground.  I've been documenting my current attempt to make a sustainable blossom farm, and it is incredibly slow.  I'll share my notes with you guys.

First blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 22, roughly 1/4 through the day
First blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 26, very end of day just before night
First blossom seed growth - Cycle 32, 15% ; Cycle 39, 30% ; Cycle 53, 65% ; Cycle 62, 89%

Second blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 27, roughly 3/4 through the day
Second blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 32, time of day not observed

Third blossom seed planted on natural ground (by accident) - cycle 28, roughly 1/2 through the day
Third blossom seed has not begun to grow on cycle 58, due to structure impedance.  Third blossom seed swept to new location.

Fourth blossom seed planted on natural ground (by accident) - cycle 34, beginning of the day
Fourth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 38, time of day not observed

Fifth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 39, roughly 1/2 through the day
Fifth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 43, roughly 1/3 through the day

Sixth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 43, end of the day
Sixth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 49, roughly 3/4 through the day

Seventh blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 50, beginning of the day
Seventh blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 54, time of day not observed

Eighth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 54, roughly 3/4 through the day
Eighth blossom seed growth cycle began - cycle 58, roughly 1/2 through the day

Nineth blossom seed planted on natural ground - cycle 58, roughly 1/2 through the day

 

So far, I'm 40 cycles into my attempt to build a sustainable blossom farm, and haven't harvested any of my semi-wild plants.  One of the reasons it is so slow (aside from the stunted growth rate from growing outside the planter boxes), is because any attempt to plant more than one blossom at a time will negate your efforts for the seeds that have already been placed on the ground.  The dupes will sweep more blossom seeds than instructed if they are anywhere near the area that's being worked.  To avoid this, it's best to wait until the most recently placed seed begins its growth before you place the next.

All in all, this is a high maintenance project that will require a large amount of space and micromanagement.  There is no chance for it to support more than a very small number of dupes.

 

Here are some plant facts

1. Plants grow 4 times slower in the wild.

2. Ground type, the seed rooted in, does not seem to affect growth speed.

3. Temperature differences does not seem to affect growth speed.

4. Takes 4 cycles to root in dirt, fertilizer, sandstone (tried sand but forgot to monitor but felt like it took much longer).

5. Takes 2 cycles from "harvest ready" to "wilt".

6. Takes 2 cycles from "wilt" to "food drop".

Blossoms example:

4 cycles to root, 40 cycle to first harvest, 8 cycles per remaining harvests (32).

5000kcal / (4+40+32) = 65kcal/cycle ... which means 16 plants per dupe to get 1040kcal / cycle.

Some more if you want "auto harvesting" as well

 

[clamjam]

Good stuff!  Thanks for the info

[Aisu Kitsune]

With the last patch its easier to take care for the blossoms and they give more food. I only have 7 of them and so far the 2 outhouses and a little bit mining, give me enough fertilizer to hold them healthy. So far 4 Dupe's and i have not that panic for food surply. ^~^

I look forword to the math geeks to make new calculations. :3

[mrCarlton]

you can also let a certain number of the blossoms rot which you can use as fertilizer.

Mealwood is very very finite, Blossoms are relatively easy to grow once you have a colony setup and the temperature and pressure controlled. When fertilizer starts to become a problem, you might have to actually scale up blossom production to get a supply of fertilizer.

[bzgzd]

44 minutes ago, mrCarlton said:

you can also let a certain number of the blossoms rot which you can use as fertilizer.

Mealwood is very very finite, Blossoms are relatively easy to grow once you have a colony setup and the temperature and pressure controlled. When fertilizer starts to become a problem, you might have to actually scale up blossom production to get a supply of fertilizer.

Can you breed them or multiply them somehow?

I didn't play much yet but after digging almost everything in start biome I have only 12 or 13 seeds... I have more hatch mobs than blossom seeds.

 

[clamjam]

Blossom seeds drop when your dupes eat the fruit, so they multiply pretty quickly once you get them going.

Edit: I actually haven't played since they released the hotfix, so this will be misleading if they changed that.

[Saturnus]

55 minutes ago, clamjam said:

Blossom seeds drop when your dupes eat the fruit, so they multiply pretty quickly once you get them going.

Edit: I actually haven't played since they released the hotfix, so this will be misleading if they changed that.

No no, I'm at over 100 seeds now, and started with 7.

[Blas88]

You could place seeds easier if you forbid storing them anywhere and distribute your seeds with planter box building and deconstructing.