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Question GAI Hydro-Farm

C B Wright

Active Member
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246
The GAI Hydro-Farm plot has been one of my go-to plots for a while, mostly because I really like the look of the bathtub contraptions used to grow plants (and you can put them on platforms!) I used them so often I actually forgot which add on they came from (sorry mytigio) so in this new and improved playthrough (designed not to crash all the time) I was alarmed when I couldn't find them.

I'd recently upgraded to the latest version of Industrial Cities, and I note that in your descriptions of plots the GAI Hydro-Farm is gated behind having to build a robot factory first. Has that always been the case? I have distinct memories of the hydro-farm being one of the very first plots I build in Sanctuary, before any factories are put down at all, but I could have been unwittingly exploiting a bug or something in an earlier version.

I also notice there's a plot called "Hydroponics Experiment" that looks like the GAI Hydro-Farm, but with only a single bathtub. Is that new? Is it connected to the GAI Hydro-Farm in any way?
 
last i remember the improvable version just like with the one by one guard station has a open one that can only do level one called hydro research before the factory is built
 
Except that I'm positive in a previous playthrough the GAI Hydro-Farm was the very first plot I laid down in Sanctuary. I assigned Marcy to it. I have no trouble believing your description is the way it's supposed to go -- but I'm wondering if that process had been broken in earlier versions, or if I may have stumbled upon an obscure bug where the farm can remain unlocked across different games. Or something.
 
That's the hydraulic research plot at level 1. But the gai farm, when you first lay it down (unassigned) shows up as a bunch of empty bathtubs sitting in the middle of the plot.
 
if i remember the info on the page for that they are the same plot now. The research is the version you can build right away the gai farm is with the factory. it has been that way for at lest a update or two i think
 
Ah, that explains it. I'm bad about checking for updates and the last version I was on was about three behind!
 
So, the life of the hydroponics plot went like this:

IN THE BEGINNING... it was a plot gated entirely behind the Domestic Robotics advanced industrial plot. And it was good and as the creator intended, better then a normal farm in all respects!

BUT LO! I found out that this meant folks could get a farm that would never build, as the random selection algorithm would still select the hydroponics plot even though there were no buildings that could be placed upon. So the creator made level 1 available at all times, and reduced it to 2 food produced, however the plot could never upgrade beyond level 1 until such time as the Domestic Robitics advanced industrial plot was had. This is likely the time frame you were using the plot in.

The issue is that with RoTC or cityplans in general, this meant you could end up with a bunch of farms that would never exceed 2 food. That's not good :(

SO! After RoTC was released I updated the plot to have 2 branches, 1 branch is always available (Hydroponics Research) and produce as a normal farm. The other branch of the farm is only available after the Domestic Robotics plot is built in the settlement and is back to providing more then standard farm food.
 
Ah! That makes sense. I confess I never thought about it farther than OMG YOU GROW CROPS IN BATHTUBS THAT'S SO COOL :-D
 
Ah! That makes sense. I confess I never thought about it farther than OMG YOU GROW CROPS IN BATHTUBS THAT'S SO COOL :-D

Basically the way it should work is level 3 of the hydroponics research farm is almost identical to level 1 of the normal one that has the Mr. Handy tending the crops.

edit: It's probably worth noting, these are technically the same plot, it uses the branching plots system from the Advanced Industrial in order to create a single farm with 2 paths
 
edit: It's probably worth noting, these are technically the same plot, it uses the branching plots system from the Advanced Industrial in order to create a single farm with 2 paths

Does that mean if you build the special robot factory all the Hydroponics research farms automatically convert over to the GAI Hydro Farms?
 
Does that mean if you build the special robot factory all the Hydroponics research farms automatically convert over to the GAI Hydro Farms?

No, the just opens up the second branch, there really isn't a good way to swap in the way you mention there
 
@mytigio there isn't a way to have the plot only allow one upgrade path until the other prerequisite is met? It would be similar to some of the advanced industrial plots where they require other facilities to be present to upgrade down a certain path but have other options available as well.

On my recent play through I had a settlement build several of the research plots because I assumed that once the GAI building was present I could upgrade the plots but that isn't the case, it's actually a separate plot so I had to wreck and rebuild that type from scratch.

Also of note, the research plots do not upgrade on their own like other agriculture plots, you have to manually select them to upgrade. Is that intentional too?

Thanks and as always, keep up the great work.
 
@mytigio there isn't a way to have the plot only allow one upgrade path until the other prerequisite is met? It would be similar to some of the advanced industrial plots where they require other facilities to be present to upgrade down a certain path but have other options available as well.

On my recent play through I had a settlement build several of the research plots because I assumed that once the GAI building was present I could upgrade the plots but that isn't the case, it's actually a separate plot so I had to wreck and rebuild that type from scratch.

Also of note, the research plots do not upgrade on their own like other agriculture plots, you have to manually select them to upgrade. Is that intentional too?

Thanks and as always, keep up the great work.
I can make it so a plot is locked until conditions are met (that's what happens with GAI plot now, it's locked until the advanced industrial plot is built).

what you cannot do is the opposite (I can't remove a plot line if a condition is met, kinggath didn't provide any method for checking on the absence of an AV as a condition for selection, and frankly the effort to do add in that function for myself far exceeds my willingness to do it :P). Thus, hydroponics research is always available, but the GAI becomes available only after you build the proper factory.

Manual upgrades: yes, it's because this farm (due to the branching and the conditions) is considered an "Advanced Plot" (just like an Advanced Industrial plot). Honestly I think I went a bit off the reservation of what kinggath intended with these, so he opted to call the setting in the holotape "Advanced Plot Upgrades: Manual/Automatic" instead of "Branching Plot Upgrades: Manual/Automatic" which is what the setting actually controls.

You can set the farm to automatic upgrades in the ASAM sensor however.
 
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