I am disappointed that growing rapeseed in a standard greenhouse can't produce enough conola oil to power itself if it's all converted into solid fuel. At least, it doesn't seem like it empircally. I haven't run the math. The math is hard to run because it seems like there isn't a fixed yield, just an average yield with a fair degree of variability. That does accurately model agriculture, and it's fun to a certain extent, and it also has the effect of making the math much harder.

And then the various buildings used for growing things being all different sizes and taking very different inputs means that I have to either plan out my builds with lots of future knowledge to leave all kinds of space so I can rip out old things and put in new things with a minimum of fuss, or rip up the whole build every time I need to do a tech upgrade.

I like the graphics people have made. They are nice looking. I do think the greenhouse could look less 'clean'. The stuff is supposed to be built by one guy with makeshift parts.

I think the idea is really interesting. The energy mechanic adds to the survival element of the game. Now, not only do you have to hide from the native fauna long enough to build up your military infrastructure to such a point that you can deal with them, but you also have to build a food growing infrastructure quickly enough not to starve, and automate it well enough that you don't spend your entire time tending it.

I also think you've thought out the various crops you can grow and how they are used and processed fairly well. And the positive feedback loops are somewhat complex and interesting to set up.

It also requires decisions about production that are more than just "Let's try to produce as much of this as possible.". You end up producing far more plant mesh than you need for either composting or research, so some of it should go to making straw bales, but how much?

Making chemical plants require 'spice crystals' forces people to engage more of the mod than just keeping themselves from starving and encourages exploration of the canola oil replacing petroleum pathway. It's just sad that's not rewarding enough to be worthwhile. 10 greenhouses of rapeseed consuming 4 megawatts of power are not enough to keep even one refinery going full speed processing canola oil. And I think you'd need about the capacity of 1.5 canola oil refineries to produce more than 4MW of solid fuel (i.e. 2 solid fuel blocks every 3 seconds because boilers are only 50% efficient).

In order for canola oil processing to be worth it with level 1 greenhouses, you'd have to produce enough oil to power two greenhouses with one greenhouse of canola oil output.

As another thought, it would be interesting if you renamed and redid the plant artwork to be flora that was largely unrecognizable and alien looking. Either that, or the player starts with seed packets from Earth, but that kills the 'hunting for plants' mechanic.

Well, I ran the numbers, and I was wrong. If I assume the average number of extra rapeseed produced per harvest is 26, then here is how it works out, first with the units...

rapeseed/sec * oil/rapseed = oil/sec = 26/810 * 40/2 = 52 canola oil / 81 sec

canola / sec * light oil/canola * solid fuel/light oil = solid fuel / sec
52 / 81 * 60 / 100 * 1 / 10 = 26 solid fuel / 675 seconds

canola / sec * pet gas / canola * solid fuel / pet gas = solid fuel / sec
52 / 81 * 10 / 100 * 1 / 20 = 13 solid fuel / 4050 seconds
26 / 675 + 13 / 4050 = total solid fuel / sec = 169 solid fuel / 4050 seconds

megajuoule / solid fuel * burner efficiency * solid fuel / sec = megajoule / sec = megawatts

25 / 1 * 1/2 * 169 / 4050 = 169 / 324 ≅ 0.5216 MW = 521.6 KW.

A greenhouse takes 400 KW.

So, you produce just 20% more rapeseeds than you need to power the greenhouse. After accounting for other overhead (the steam and electricity needed for the cracking, and for powering the assemblers and inserters to automate the process), you probably do not much better than breaking even for 10 greenhouses.

Once you move to greenhouse 2's you get 2.6 times the product for 2 times the power (and a bunch more space) so that's an excess of about 556 KW worth, or 69% more out than you put in. And, of course, there's the second level of fertilization with all of its attendant hassles which buys you even more production.

Still, on a space basis, they're about as efficient as solar panels, discounting the overhead. But they're a very large pain to set up compared to solar panels.

And you would have to have gigantic farms with maybe hundreds of greenhouses to produce enough rapeseed to produce all the plastic, lube, and sulphur you need in addition to being able to self-power the farms.

The rapeseed wasn't meant to make solid fuel and burn it. You can use solar/nuclear power. But the numbers are definetely interesting and I have also realized, that the greenhouses consume too much power. Will fix soon!