We independently assess all our recommendations. Purchases through our links may earn us a commission.
Farming in RimWorld is an extremely important aspect of the game. Your colonists will almost certainly starve to death if you don’t build a rice paddy as soon as you land on your new homeworld. Depending on the soil around you (and the mods you have installed), you might be in a tough spot when it comes to farmable land.
The answer to this problem is a sun lamp and hydroponic basins. However, you can easily misuse your resources if you’re not careful. That’s why it’s best to keep the following setup in mind when trying to build the most optimal and best hydroponic setup in RimWorld.
The Basics of Hydroponics in RimWorld
To start using hydroponic basins, you’ll need to research them at the research bench. You’ll also need to have unlocked sun lamps, but you should already have that once you have researched electricity. The combination of sun lamps and hydroponic basins is exactly what you need to build the ultimate hydroponic setup.
Hydroponics help grow crops faster than they would in normal soil and also allows you to grow crops year-round since you can do this inside, where you can control the temperature, making it easier to survive in extreme biomes. That being said, you will have to worry about power outages, as the plants can quickly die if the basins and lights are off for an extended period of time.
You’ll also only be able to grow certain plants in the basins: Potatoes, rice, strawberries, cotton, hops, smokeleaf, psychoid, and healroot. With all of the above in mind, let’s now take a look at the best and most optimal hydroponic setup in RimWorld.
Optimal Hydroponic Setup in Rimworld
The most optimal setup crams 24 hydroponic basins into the area around a sun lamp, leaving just four tiles empty. If built in a cave or inside, you can place walls here to support the roof. We’ve included an image above if you need help fitting the 24 basins in the sun lamp’s radius.
This setup will use about 4580 watts of power during the day and just 1680 watts at night. You can easily power this setup with three solar generators or a geothermal generator and two solar generators.
The best part about this setup is how little space it uses. You can easily fill the map with this modular design and produce enough food to feed an army. Just remember to have a backup source of power or batteries, as a power outage can easily kill your crops and render your hard work useless.
Other Things to Consider
While we said that you could put pillars in the four empty tiles, you might want to consider putting fire poppers or heaters in those locations instead. The heaters will keep your crops warm if you’re in a colder biome, while the fire poppers can immediately extinguish any sort of flame that might pop up due to an electrical short circuit or attack from raiders, saving your crops and your colonists from starvation.
Wrap Up
That’s just about everything you need to know to build the most efficient and best hydroponic layout in RimWorld. This setup uses the least amount of power for the most hydroponic basins while still leaving room for heaters, fire poppers, or pillars to support a roof. Its design can easily be scaled up using more sun lamps, but it’s just as good on its own to support a small colony of up to five pawns. Just remember to keep an eye out for power outages, and you’ll be golden.
