Pip farm

Pips are remarkable because they are able to plant plants in natural blocks (except especially hard ones: diamond, obsidian, abyssalite). As a result, we get a wild plant that does not require dupes work, fertilizer or irrigation (requiring other conditions - atmosphere, lighting), but grows 4 times slower.

Thus, we can create "free" farms, but 4 times larger in size.

Pips Properties

 * Feeding: arbor tree, 9% of branch growth
 * Produces: dirt, 20 kg/cycle
 * Breeding: 2% (wild), 17% (tame)
 * Incubation: 5% (basic), 25% (incubator)
 * Minimum room size: 12 cells/critter
 * Lifespan: 100 cycles
 * Temperature: -30...70ºC

Creation of natural blocks
If you have already removed natural blocks, they can be created in the following ways: For Pip to start planting, you need to drop the necessary seeds into the room where you plan to plant, or place a storage bin from which Pip will pull them out himself. The main problem is that Pips will not plant in a series. There are the following rules for planting Pips:
 * 1) Breaking down a mechanized airlock surrounded by tiles (simplest, fig. 1)
 * 2) Heating a little algae above 125°C: by pouring hot liquid (crude oil, petroleum, glass, etc., fig. 2) or by heating the tile with a liquid tepidizer (fig. 3), a space heater, a AT or a hot water pipe
 * 3) Freezing water, polluted water, brine (suitable for cold biomes and plants)
 * Atmosphere >100 g/cell and temperature suitable for the plant (+-50°C)
 * No buildings in the planting area (wires, pipes, tempshift plates are not in the way)
 * No more than 2 plants in the planting area (5 cells up and to the right, 6 cells down and to the left).

Planting should be done by opening access to the desired cell gradually, from right to left, blocking other places with a building, such as a ladder. And then from top to bottom if the farm will be multi-storey.

For most plants a planting scheme of 1 through 1 (in the screenshot 1st floor) or 3 through 3 (2nd floor) will be fine. For normal growth of branches of the arbor tree, you need a scheme as on the bottom floor, and you need to immediately limit the growth of its branches in the right direction. You have to limit branch growth in any cramped environment, not just when planting with Pip. For the middle tree to have a place to grow its 5 branches, the side trees need to let their branches go out.

Also note the height of the ceilings. If the highest floor can be any height, all other floors must be 5 cells high, counting the floor.

Screens 2 and 3 show the intermediate planting stage and the final stage.

Pip Farm
Pips are primarily used for planting wild trees. Here Pips are used primarily as producers of dirt, lumber, etc. Naturally, you can borrow Pips from the farm at any time if you need them for planting somewhere else.

The layout consists of a 96-cell farm and a incubator. This screen shows the farm before the trees are planted:

If an egg moves on the conveyor rail and the total number of eggs and Pips is less than 8, the egg is transferred to the incubator. If more, then to the drowning room (see here) or to the egg cracker. There you can also take everything else from the farm.

Conveyor Sensor - Eggs of Pips. Critter Sensor <8.

If the incubator is already occupied, the surplus egg will be carried by the right auto-sweeper outside the farm. Even if the surplus egg is placed in the incubator by the dupes, the incubator will be disabled, the incubation rate will drop to the base rate.

And don't rush to tame Pips. Wild plants probably won't have time to grow before Pip dies of starvation. As an option, you could temporarily plant a couple of twig trees dupes on an hydroponic farm, but not in a plant box. Pips, like Drecko, will only be able to reach the plant in the crate from the wall or ceiling.

You can only remove medium ladders after the plant has grown and the branches have begun to grow. If you remove them earlier, the branches of neighboring plants that interfere with the middle tree can be cut off.

Arbor Acorn Farm


You need a lot of acorns to create large Arbor tree farms. The farm shown in the screenshot will give you 5 acorns per cycle.

Plant the Arbor tree as described in this article. Create water traps. The branches will die in the liquid and Pip will collect the acorns. The upper (non-submerged) branches will be enough to feed him. He'll lay an egg before dying, the farm will run indefinitely.

The farm can be simplified by planting 2 plants, and the fluid column can be 3 cells high. Or even simpler: a 2-cell high pole, flush with the floor, and 1 Pip for each tree.

Conclusions
The farm requires a minimum of dupes labor, and produces in 1 cycle:


 * kg of dirt
 * kg of lumber
 * kg of shell
 * kcal of meat

The lumber is enough for 0.67 ethanol distillers, which is enough to generate 667 watts in a petroleum generator.

''If you like Bugs in the game, on the principle of planting a few (as many as you have the patience for) plants in one cell by Pips, you can increase farm productivity tenfold. The same article shows a method of planting plants in flower pots. The result is that the plant no longer requires fertilizer for its growth.''

Blueprint
Pip farm