How to Make Hydroponics in RimWorld (1.6)
How to Make Hydroponics in RimWorld (1.6)
Research Hydroponics, drop a sun lamp, pack 20–24 basins in the lamp’s grow overlay, plant rice first, and budget 4300–4580 W daytime. A solar flare turns the whole farm off. Batteries do not save it. Keep dirt food.
RimWorld 1.6.4871Vanilla numbers. Ideology nutrifungus and Odyssey gravships are marked where they change the answer.
Sun lamp: 2900 W, 06:00–19:12
Basin: 70 W, fertility 2.8
Rice default · corn will not plant
Why the farm dies overnight
A hydroponics basin is a nutrient bath that has to stay powered. Cut the cable, brown out the grid, or eat a solar flare, and every plant in that basin starts rotting. Rice at 85 hit points is gone in about 8.5 hours. A solar flare lasts 0.15–0.5 days (about 3.6–12 hours), so a long flare can wipe rice and a short one often does not. Cold on top of a flare will finish anything the rot did not.
A solar flare disables every electrical device. Generators still exist. Batteries still hold charge. Nothing electric runs, including sun lamps, basins, heaters and coolers. Vanometric cells do not bypass this.
The durable answer is a non-electric food buffer: a dirt greenhouse under a sun lamp (plants pause in the dark, they do not rot from the basin), pemmican, packaged survival meals, or a freezer already stocked. Harvest anything close to grown when the flare letter drops if you have time.
One lamp, an aisle, then the watt stack
What you research and what you put down
Electricity (1600) unlocks the sun lamp. Hydroponics (700, requires Electricity) unlocks the basin. Construction skill 4 to build a basin. You cannot uninstall a basin, only deconstruct it.
Sun lamp
Grows plants indoors. Overlay radius 5.8 (the wiki often rounds this to 5.5). Overlight 7, glow 14. Heat 3 per second while on. Short-circuits in rain. Standing lamps top out around 50% light; plants need 51% to grow, so a standing lamp is not a grow light.
Hydroponics basin
Size 1×4, default facing east (a 4-wide strip). Default crop is rice. Sow tag Hydroponic. Cleanliness −3. Path cost 30, pass-through, so pawns can step on them slowly. Does not short in rain. Plants die if you deconstruct the basin under them.
Both still need plant-safe temperature (about 6–42 °C for full growth) and a roof if you want to control that temperature. The lamp is the light. The basin is only the dirt.
Pack the ~11×11 grow footprint
Center the lamp first. The grow overlay is a circle of radius 5.8, about 101 cells including the lamp. Twenty-four basins take 96 of those cells and leave four empty — the wiki squeeze. Growers then walk across basins (path cost 30). That works. It is slow, and it is a bad place to put the door.
A layout a pawn can actually use:
- Wall a room around the overlay. Concrete floor is enough.
- Put the sun lamp in the center, then paint basins into the gold circle. Default east rotation makes 4-wide strips. Mix north rotation on the sides.
- Leave a one-tile aisle from the door through the lamp. Twenty basins fit this. Do not put a basin on the cell inside or outside the door.
- Cooler in a wall, blue into the grow room. The lamp pushes 3 heat/s. A sealed box overheats without a dump. In a cold snap you also want a campfire ready, because the heater dies in a flare.
- Conduit every basin and the lamp. Stock 24 components before you decide to go to 24 basins.
20 basins
Day 4300 W (2900 + 1400). Night 1400 W. Real aisle. This is the room to build first.
24 basins
Day 4580 W (2900 + 1680). Night 1680 W. Four leftover tiles, no comfortable walk. Worth it once the 280 W extra is free.
Park the room next to the food wing so harvests walk into the freezer, not through bedrooms. The compact hub puts grow space on a short cable run.
Size the grid for the day peak, not the average
The lamp is on from 0.25 to 0.8 of the day (06:00–19:12), matching plant rest. Basins never sleep. Size generators against the daytime peak. Night is only the basins, which batteries can cover if solar is your day source. A flare ignores batteries.
| Building | Watts | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Sun lamp | 2900 | Only while scheduled on. 40 steel. Electricity. |
| Hydroponics basin | 70 | Always, if flicked on. 100 steel + 1 component. |
| Solar generator | 1700 peak | Sunlight only. 4×4. Solar panels research. |
| Wood-fired generator | 1000 | 22 wood per day. Always-on if fueled. |
| Chemfuel generator | 1000 | 4.5 chemfuel per day. Same watts as wood, not geothermal. |
| Geothermal generator | 3600 | Must sit on a steam geyser. 6×6. |
| Battery | 600 W-days | Night pad. Useless in a solar flare. Battery research. |
A 24-basin room at 4580 W day is one geothermal plus a solar at noon, or three solars on paper (3 × 1700 = 5100 peak). Night and eclipse drop solar to zero, so the basin floor still needs batteries or a fueled generator. Wood or chemfuel at 1000 W each are the always-on backup, not a 3600 W shortcut. See the battery page if the night floor is what you are missing.
Hydroponics power planner
Dial basin count and extra lamps. Daytime watts include every sun lamp. Night watts drop the lamps and leave only basins. Generator counts are ceilings against Core outputs: solar 1700 W, chemfuel 1000 W, wood-fired 1000 W, geothermal 3600 W.
Rice-first tip: 20 basins sit on the 4300 W daytime band. Keep rice until the freezer is healthy, then rotate slower crops.
What actually plants in a basin
The basin only accepts hydro-capable crops. If a plant is ground-only, the basin will not take it. Fertility 2.8 is a full 2.8× for rice (100% fertility sensitivity). Potatoes at 40% sensitivity land at 1.72×, so they gain less from the bath. Plants still rest from 19:12 to 06:00, same as the lamp.
| Crop | Grow days | Hydro? | When |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rice | 3 | Yes · default | First crop. Fastest refill while you finish wiring. |
| Potato | 5.8 | Yes | After rice is safe. Less sensitive to fertility, still fine. |
| Strawberry | 4.6 | Yes | Growing skill 5. Mood food, not calories. |
| Cotton | 8 | Yes | Cloth. Fine once meals are stable. |
| Healroot | 7 | Yes | Growing 8, slow sow. Indoor medicine. |
| Hops / smokeleaf / psychoid | 5 / 7.5 / 9 | Yes | Drug crops. Skill gates 3 / 4 / 6. |
| Corn | 11.3 | Ground only | Never in basins. Plant on soil. |
| Haygrass | 7 | Ground only | Animals eat hay. See the animal feeding page. |
| Devilstrand | 22.5 | Ground only | Needs Devilstrand research. Dirt greenhouse. |
| Nutrifungus | 6 | Hydro tag, dies in light | Ideology. A sun lamp kills it. Dark cave crop, not this room. |
Rice yield is 6 per plant, 0.05 nutrition each, four plants per basin. A 20-basin harvest is 480 rice, 24 nutrition. That is a buffer, not a reason to skip the kitchen.
Heat, vacuum, blight, dirt as a rival
Heat and cold
Full growth wants about 6–42 °C. The lamp is a 3 heat/s heater. Cool the sealed room. In a flare the cooler dies; a prohibited campfire with wood stacked next to it is the cold-snap backup.
Dirt under extra lamps
Two extra sun lamps on soil (80 steel for lamps, plus generators) can beat 24 basins on cost. Hydro wins when space, mountain, ice, or toxic fallout makes dirt expensive. Fallout outdoor plants die; a roofed lamp room does not. See toxic fallout.
Odyssey gravship
Deck substructure fertility is 0, so ground crops fail. Hydroponics is the ship farm if the room stays powered and pressurized. At vacuum 0.5 and up, plants stop growing and then die. Life support notes are on the life support page.
Blight and cleanliness
Each basin is −3 cleanliness. Blight still hits hydro crops except devilstrand (which will not plant here). Rice’s short cycle means a blighted room is a few days of food, not a season.
Console and multiplayer use the same basin, lamp and flare numbers. Mods that add extra hydro buildings or a solar-flare shield change this page; vanilla does not have a flare shield.
Sixty-second inspection
- Basin power and crop tag. Unpowered basins refuse to sow. Corn, haygrass, devilstrand and cocoa are ground-only. Flick the basin. Pick rice.
- Lamp schedule. A dark lamp at noon is a flare, a dead cable, or night (0.25–0.8 on). Standing lamps will not substitute.
- Grow overlay. A roofed room with no lamp, or a basin outside the 5.8 circle, sits in the dark. Overlay first, basins second.
- Mass die-off. That is a power cut. If a flare is still running, wait it out on stored food. Replant rice when the grid is stable.
- Temperature. Lamp heat with no cooler, or winter with no heater, cooks or freezes the room. Inspect temperature, not just light.
- Nutrifungus. It dies to any light. Keep it out of this room. Ideology dark-cave crop only.
Freezer, dirt greenhouse, ship
Store the rice in a freezer before a bumper cycle rots. A dirt greenhouse under extra sun lamps is cheaper than 24 basins if you have soil; hydro is the mountain / ice / fallout / gravship answer. Put the room on the food wing of the compact hub. Devilstrand stays on dirt: devilstrand planner.