How do you get dirt?

[Oni Noob]

How do you get the cultivable soil dirt?

[Neotuck]

It's found naturally in the starting biome

You can also make it by boiling polluted water or cooking fertilizer 

[Oni Noob]

2 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

It's found naturally in the starting biome

You can also make it by boiling polluted water or cooking fertilizer 

Boiling? So when I boil polluted water it just pop up at the bottom? Boil around 100c+?

Is Cooking fertilizer  = creating ferlizer in fertilizer synthesizer??

[Neotuck]

9 minutes ago, Oni Noob said:

Boiling? So when I boil polluted water it just pop up at the bottom? Boil around 100c+?

actually it's 125C, 100C is for clean water and yes the dirt drops at the bottom when the PW turns into steam (here's a pic) 

9 minutes ago, Oni Noob said:

Is Cooking fertilizer  = creating ferlizer in fertilizer synthesizer??

No that's different, if you raise the temperature of fertilizer to 125C it changes into dirt, the same thing happens if you heat algae or slime to 125C but those are worth more than dirt so most players prefer cooking fertilizer 

[Oni Noob]

wow didnt know that. I thought dirt is everywhere and easy to get.

[Vilda]

8 hours ago, Oni Noob said:

I thought dirt is everywhere and easy to get.

Only the starting biome and not really needed after certain point. Only thing that consumes it is Mealwood and you want to move beyond that because of the low food quality.

[Neotuck]

13 minutes ago, Vilda said:

Only the starting biome and not really needed after certain point. Only thing that consumes it is Mealwood and you want to move beyond that because of the low food quality.

Outhouses also use dirt.  Some players use them as a good alternative when water is getting low

[Vilda]

6 minutes ago, Neotuck said:

Outhouses also use dirt.  Some players use them as a good alternative when water is getting low

Eh, true. I always move to latrines so not really remember that.

Running low on water is a weird concept I know nothing about Latrines especially, I make a closed circuit with a sieve and then actually have to worry about water overflow.
And since rock crusher, sand is not really a finite resource.

[Neotuck]

Guess I use outhouses mostly to spawn morbs, also dirt is needed for research 

[Vilda]

1 minute ago, Neotuck said:

dirt is needed for research 

Sure but that is a finite amount. I was thinking in which scenario would someone worry about getting more dirt than is readily available, hence the mealwood (and outhouse)

[Saturnus]

If you don't have access to clay you also need dirt to make farm tiles and planter boxes. 

[Vilda]

 I did not bother to name everything that needs dirt, just those that use it perpetually. 

Would take a lot of tiles and boxes to run out of starting dirt. And then you can reconstruct them to get it back.

[Saturnus]

I just mentioned it for completeness. Usually people run out because they make mush bars far later in the game than they should. Even mealwood farming doesn't take that much dirt. But my standard advice to people that do before their research is complete is to stop everything that uses dirt immediately, especially mush bars and meal wood, and deconstruct all farm tiles and planter boxes of dirt to regain enough dirt to complete the research.

Even if it means starving some dupes to death, it is more important to save some dirt to complete the research.

[Jigsawn]

I've just ran out of dirt in the late game, but really annoyingly I need 10Kg more to finish the final point of research on the last thing on the research tree! My own fault for making mealwood even when I had other food sources.

I'll probably try to boil polluted water (thanks for the suggestion) to get the rest. But are there any sources of dirt I might be missing? I dismantled my mealwood farms to get some. How about flower pots? I dismantled one and just got granite back. Any other bits of dirt hiding in buildings I can extract?

[Saturnus]

If it's late game, probably easiest to cook fertilizer (or algae/slime). Boiling polluted water is really time consuming as you need to boil away 10 tonnes (12½ full tiles) of polluted water to get 10kg of dirt. And if you're boiling polluted water you already have the temperature to convert the slime/algae/fertilizer directly into dirt. 

[Oni Noob]

I forgot to ask, how do you cook fertilizer whats your method on heating it?

[Jigsawn]

8 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

If it's late game, probably easiest to cook fertilizer (or algae/slime). Boiling polluted water is really time consuming as you need to boil away 10 tonnes (12½ full tiles) of polluted water to get 10kg of dirt. And if you're boiling polluted water you already have the temperature to convert the slime/algae/fertilizer directly into dirt. 

Oh wow, ok, thanks - you just saved me a load of pain! So can I just drop slime/algae/fertilizer into a nice hot place and it will convert as soon as it gets hot enough?

[Saturnus]

Just now, Jigsawn said:

Oh wow, ok, thanks - you just saved me a load of pain! So can I just drop slime/algae/fertilizer into a nice hot place and it will convert as soon as it gets hot enough?

yup

[Luminite2]

13 minutes ago, Saturnus said:

If it's late game, probably easiest to cook fertilizer (or algae/slime). Boiling polluted water is really time consuming as you need to boil away 10 tonnes (12½ full tiles) of polluted water to get 10kg of dirt. And if you're boiling polluted water you already have the temperature to convert the slime/algae/fertilizer directly into dirt. 

I believe that the conversion amount is 1%, not 0.1%, so it should only take 1 tonne. Baking fertilizer is still probably a better bet though.

[Saturnus]

Just now, Luminite2 said:

I believe that the conversion amount is 1%, not 0.1%, so it should only take 1 tonne. Baking fertilizer is still probably a better bet though.

Nope. It's 0.1%. It's been demonstrated numerous times. Although if you have contrary evidence that it's been changed with the ranching upgrade that would be nice to know.

[Neotuck]

18 minutes ago, Oni Noob said:

I forgot to ask, how do you cook fertilizer whats your method on heating it?

There are many ways, personally I like to heat a little oil with a tempidizer under some metal tiles and place the fertilizer on top

[FIXBUGFIXBUGFIX]

20 minutes ago, Jigsawn said:

Oh wow, ok, thanks - you just saved me a load of pain! So can I just drop slime/algae/fertilizer into a nice hot place and it will convert as soon as it gets hot enough?

And don't forget dirt will convert to sand as soon as it gets hot enough. So you should pick them up in time.

[chemie]

1 hour ago, R9MX4 said:

And don't forget dirt will convert to sand as soon as it gets hot enough. So you should pick them up in time.

And sand to glass.  I had a metal volcano in ice biome and the heat melts polluted ice, makes PW, which creates dirt then sand then glass when that molten metal erupts 

[Vilda]

Depending on your map, you might find some dirt outside of the starting biome

[FullMetalArthur]

5 hours ago, Vilda said:

Running low on water is a weird concept I know nothing about Latrines especially, I make a closed circuit with a sieve and then actually have to worry about water overflow.

I make a small exit conected to a balm lilly farm plot (the one that needs pipes for irrigation) and since balm lilly grows anywhere it consumes the excess polluted water nicely. Of course I conect a liquid valve with 50gr/s so it doesnt take all the polluted water.