| Stats Affected: | Description: Knowledge of farming crops. This not only affects the speed that you can gather your crops, it also affects the yield when harvesting. In other words, unskilled farmers will mess up some of your crops. |
| -Harvesting speed -Harvesting yield | |
| Ways to Train: | |
| -Work hard | |
| -Trades- | |
Farming is the ability to obtain output from farm buildings. It affects the success rate (further multiplied by the specific environment score of the crop) of harvesting crops and the amount of time it takes to harvest them. The ability can be trained by harvesting crops and by using the Grain Silo.
| Racial Experience Multipliers | |
|---|---|
| Negative Multiplier: -Cannibal (Race) -Cannibal Skav -Deadhive Soldier -Hive Soldier Drone -Scorchlander -Shek -Southern Hive Soldier Drone |
Positive Multiplier: -Deadhive Prince -Deadhive Worker -Greenlander -Hive Worker Drone -Southern Hive Worker Drone |
| All multipliers are either 0.8x or 1.2x unless marked otherwise. | |
Recruits[]
Slave Recruits can be expected to have high farming levels. The Unique Recruits who are known to have high farming levels are Green Finger and Miu.
Environment[]
There are three different environments in Kenshi. Some crops only grow well in specific environments. Players can find out the environment of their surrounding area through Prospecting. Environments are based on Zone boundaries. Zones can have multiple environments and so the environmental effect on farming is cumulative.
| Cactus | Cotton | Greenfruit | Hemp | Riceweed | Wheatstraw | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arid | 100% | 0% | 0% | 40% | 0% | 50% |
| Green | 0% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 0% | 100% |
| Swamp | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 100% | 0% |
Crop growth rates are also dependent on the fertility of the surrounding area. Information on fertility can also be found through prospecting.
Players can avoid being affected by environments and fertility for certain crops by researching and constructing hydroponics.
Buildings and Technologies[]
Standard Farms[]
| Farm | Technology | Cost to Learn |
|---|---|---|
| Cactus Farm | Cactus Farming | 2 Cactus, 2 Books |
| Cotton Farm | Cotton Farming | 2 Cotton, 2 Books |
| Riceweed Farm | Riceweed Farming | 2 Riceweed, 2 Books |
| Wheat Farm | Wheatstraw Farming | 2 Wheatstraw, 2 Books |
| Hemp Farm | Hemp Farming | 2 Hemp, 2 Books |
| Vegetable Farm | Given from Start | 2 Greenfruit, 2 Books |
Hydroponics[]
After researching Hydroponics, which requires Research Bench V (5) and an AI Core, characters can research ways to grow specific crops indoors. Hydroponics allows factions to settle anywhere without concern for the area's Environment.
Farm Outputs[]
After researching the standard farms, characters can build differently sized farms (Small/Medium/Large/XL). Farms can be upgraded or downgraded.
All sizes and types of farms have the same "physical" size when placed in the game world. You can always start by building small farms and then upgrade the farm to the next tier once you've harvested enough. Any (harvested) crops still left in the farm will count towards the upgrade. In other words, if you had 15 Cotton in a small Cotton farm and then upgraded it to Medium it would not need any additional crops put in.
Hydroponic farms can only be built in one size which all have only 10 plants, but each one gives multiple crops when harvested. Combined with shorter growth times, this means that hydroponics can outperform regular farms.
| Farm Type | Crops Available for Farming | Plants Needed to Build |
Number of Crops |
Input |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small | Cactus, Cotton, Greenfruit, Hemp, Riceweed, Wheatstraw | 10 of Crop | Variable | Water |
| Medium | Cactus, Cotton, Greenfruit, Hemp, Riceweed, Wheatstraw | 25 of Crop (Cactus & Hemp 20, Rice 30) | Variable | Water |
| Large | Cactus, Cotton, Greenfruit, Hemp, Riceweed, Wheatstraw | 40 of Crop (Cactus & Hemp 30, Rice 50) | Variable | Water |
| Extra Large | Cactus, Cotton, Wheatstraw | 60 of Crop (Cactus 40) | Variable | Water |
| Hydroponic | Greenfruit, Hemp, Riceweed, Wheatstraw | 10 of Crop,
4 Iron Plates, |
Variable | Water,
10 Power |
| Crop | Water per day | Growth time (hours) | Harvest time | Produce |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cactus | 2 | 24 | S: 3h, M: 6h, L: 9h, XL: 12h | S: 16, M: 32, L: 48, XL: 64 |
| Cotton | 10 | 30 | S: 2h48m, M: 5h37m, L: 8h26m, XL: 11h20m | S: 30, M: 60, L: 90, XL: 121 |
| Greenfruit | 10 | 23.33 | S: 1h52m, M: 3h16m, L: 4h35m | S: 40, M: 70, L: 98 |
| Hemp | 6 | 21.6 | S: 2h20m, M: 3h45m, L: 6h | S: 25, M: 36, L:64 |
| Riceweed | 10 | 15 | S: 2h48m, M: 5h09m, L: 7h35m | S: 30, M: 55, L: 81 |
| Wheatstraw | 5 | 22 | S: 2h20m, M: 4h41m, L: 7h01m, XL: 9h22m | S: 25, M: 50, L: 75, XL: 100 |
| Hydroponic Greenfruit | 5 | 15 | 1h04m | 36 |
| Hydroponic Hemp | 5 | 10 | 52m | 30 |
| Hydroponic Riceweed | 10 | 10 | 1h41m | 54 |
| Hydroponic Wheatstraw | 5 | 14 | 1h04m | 36 |
Dangers[]
In certain biomes and regions, River Raptors or Swamp Raptors may attempt to eat your crops. This causes your characters to attack them which in turn either leads to free skin and meat or dead farmers. They seem to be drawn to farms when they are around half grown.
Hemp Farms are illegal in the United Cities.
Training[]
Having trained farmers before starting a base can be essential, because untrained ones will waste many crops and will likely lead to a food shortage in your base. You can find farmer recruits, but training characters in farming can be done beforehand in towns with crop buildings:
- Nobody will take offense with your characters operating the farms (unlike using machines built inside NPC homes or stores)
- Taking the crops from the farms is displayed as having a stealing chance, but the crops do not get a stolen tag or give the "Committing crime" status, so there is no risk involved in taking or selling the crops
- Thanks to the above, characters can be assigned jobs in the town farms. If you buy a house there and build appropriate storage containers, the training process will be fully automated
- Lastly, not having an outpost means your characters won't have to deal with raids and pests (River Raptor / Swamp Raptor)
Towns in The Swamp are a great place to do this:
- Crops in the swamp do not require watering, which is a major logistical bottleneck in other locations
- Riceweed and Hemp have the fastest growth rates (among the non-hydroponic farms), which means less downtime when training compared to other crops
- The southern Swamp Village might be the best place for pure farming training, as it has 9 rice farms[1]
- Shark has only 3 riceweed farms, but also has 6 hemp farms, so it is still good for training while offering more shops and buildings to buy, making it more comfortable to set up in
- As a bonus, training on riceweed and hemp enables crafting food (Rice Bowl) and fabrics, which train cooking and laboring as well
With races which have a positive farming exp multiplier (e.g. Greenlander, Hive Worker Drone), reaching a level 25 in farming takes only 2 in-game days with this method. Races with no multiplier (like Skeletons) reach around level 15 in that time. Level 25 means that the crop yield is around 89%, which is a yield at which you can safely grow food in a base.
Farming in towns[]
Hydroponics make it possible to grow food in towns, but this is severely limited by the availability of water, on top of requiring advanced research.
General Shops and similar stores sell water barrels, but it's usually only 6-8 per day. Even in towns with multiple shops which sell water, maintaining production by buying water is unreliable and requires manual upkeep. Other than that, there are two ways of sustaining hydroponics in towns:
- Building rain collectors on roofs
- Building hydroponics on roofs; unlike rain collectors, hydroponics will collect water even in acid rain
Areas which have both rain and purchasable buildings which allow building on their roofs are exceedingly rare. Several possible locations are:
- Black Desert City has acid rain and a single Metal Wallhouse to buy; the limited space might pose a challenge in building other machines inside though
- Brink has a Stephouse to sell and a decent amount of rain, making it possibly the best location for this. One of the seasons in Stormgap Coast is light acid rain, so it might be worth to balance the roof space between both hydroponics and rain collectors
- The Hook has a waystation with a single building to buy and Clownsteady with many buildings, however it needs confirming whether the region has enough rain to sustain farms. Its placement on the map also doesn't make it a great place for a base of operations
- Bad Teeth has a Longhouse to buy, but Okran's Pride has only light rain, so sustainability is questionable
Lastly, one might simply build a water well outpost near any town of their choice. However, making this method viable requires manual hauling and preferably tier II wells and power in order to not require laborers. It is worth noting that if this outpost unloads, water will stop being collected.
Note that producing Bread (and therefore also Meatwraps and Foodcubes) is not possible in towns because Grain Silos cannot be built inside buildings.
Footnotes[]
- ↑ Farm size (S/M/L) is also important in the efficiency of traning, as the bigger ones have more plants to harvest, and experience is granted per plant harvest. The farms in the swamp seem to be always size Large though.