For the HYDROPONICS: Stockpile mission, ACS has tasked you to build and furnish a greenhouse to cultivate crops on the planet surface for study back on the orbital station. This guide will take you through the steps to complete the objectives and point out how to shave a couple hours off the mission.
Construct crop plots in a greenhouse (glass building)
Deposit listed grown (in a crop plot) resources in cargo pod
Rewards
250
Variants Modifiers
Creature melee damage: -50%
Creature health: -50%
Creature movement speed: -10%
Bear spawn rate: -50%
Lion spawn rate: -10%
Polar bear spawn rate: -50%
Wolf spawn rate: -10%
Aggressive creatures perception: -50%
Neutral creatures perception: -50%
Passive creatures perception: -50%
Experience gain: -25%
Creature melee damage: +20%
Creature health: +30%
Creature movement speed: +10%
Aggressive creatures perception: +30%
Neutral creatures perception: +30%
Passive creatures perception: +30%
Scorpion spawn rate: +30%
Lion spawn rate: +30%
Wolf spawn rate: +30%
Experience gain: +25%
Player respawn count: 3
Prospect Notes
HYDROPONICS: Stockpile is an oddly-named mission, since you don’t actually need to make any of the hydroponics workstations. The delivery requirements are minimal as well. This level is designed to demonstrate the revamped farming system, and most of the necessary equipment to grow crops in a greenhouse is provided for you. The greenhouse itself, however, is not included, so this mission is part-Construction, as well.
The Cargo Pod lands next to the farming equipment crate on the shore of a nearby lake
Note: Grown by Prospector
There is a special designation for produce which is grown by a prospector in a Crop Plot instead of harvested from the flora by hand (or with a sickle.) If a fruit or vegetable was grown in a Crop Plot, a yellow star will show up in the lower-left corner of the usual icon. (If it helps, think about stickers on grocery store produce that tell you where it was grown.) Keep this in mind, since only grown produce will satisfy the stockpile requirements.
Notice that the produce grown by the prospector and produce harvested by hand do not stack together. The old icebox just got a little smaller
Preparing for HYDROPONICS
Part of the mission is to build a greenhouse capable of housing several Crop Plots. Tier 3 workstations are required, but steel and more advanced materials are not.
Orbital Equipment (Optional): A Gatherer’s Backpack may make it easier to haul ore to a central base, and the Canteen from the workshop will make watering the crop plots much easier.
Threats are minimal, since there are no bears in the area, and the forest wolves are usually sparse and under Level 30. So, basic foods and armor are sufficient. Storm activity will increase to moderately hostile over the duration of the mission, so it is advisable to develop quickly or to build a wooden lightning rod (5-6 stacked wooden pillars) while you upgrade the exterior walls to stone.
This stockpile mission has a significant construction component, as well as a production component. These two tasks can be completed concurrently to save time. The faster you go, the greater the chance you will encounter only mild weather, as its intensity grows with time.
The carrots, corn, and pumpkins do not need to be grown in the greenhouse, so you can start farming as soon as you pick up the crop plots
Step 1: A Farmer’s Care Package
ACS has decided to provide everything you need to start your new life as an extraterrestrial horticulturist
All the farming equipment you will need (minus the greenhouse) is provided in a Supply Crate near the Cargo Pod. When you touch down, head to the marked location near the lake to cause the Cargo Pod to drop in. Pick up all the equipment from the supply crate to satisfy the mission objective and store everything but the Crop Plots (two wooden and two metal). Place the Crop Plots down near the lake and where you want to set up your base.
Harvest some Corn, Pumpkins, or Carrots by hand, and immediately plant them to start the growing cycle. You don’t need to plant inside a greenhouse:the most effective boost to growth yield will come from building and deploying additional crop plots. A dozen of crop plots total is enough to ensure you meet the Stockpile requirements in one growth cycle.
You can cram four crop plots into a single tile by overlapping their edges
Fertilizer and the water pump are not necessary for this step, but as you set them up you can use them to accelerate the growth process. As you grow the required amount of each crop, drop the harvested crops off in the Cargo Pod so they do not spoil.You can reseed the crop plots with part of the harvest if you do not grow enough the first time. Use a water container (e.g., Waterskin) to water the crops whenever the crop plots dry out to get the growth rate bonus.
Step 2: Making Fertilizer
Part of the objective requires you to fertilize the crop plots in the greenhouse, so you will have to craft some fertilizer using the Wood Composter. If you haven’t done so already, find the wood composter among the supplies you received from the mission crate and deploy it in a sheltered location.
This prospect has a bumper crop of corn, making it the perfect raw material for Fertilizer
The Wood Composter will accelerate the decay of biological material (meat and plants). Once plant items in there are spoiled, it will be converted into Fertilizer (this does not apply to meat).
There are several plentiful fields of wild corn near the lake, and berries will work as well. It is best to harvest corn with a sickle to take advantage of the production bonus. (For the bonus, it does not matter if the corn is on the stalk or the ground.)
Step 3: Power the Water Pump
While the crops are growing and the Fertilizer is crafting, you can set up the powered water pump and connect it to your crop plots. Grab the Water Pump, the Solar Panel, the Wiring Tool, and the Piping Tool from the supply crate. Place the Water Pump inside the lake near the shore as well as your crop plots, if possible (although, it is not required to connect the pump to the plots).
Equip the Piping Tool and connect the Water Pump to the ground to place a node (activate the tool with a LMB click on the pump). Then, connect it to one of the metal crop plots. You can start a new pipeline from any pipe node to connect multiple crop plots to the same water pump.
Building near the lake makes it easy to integrate a water pump into your base’s architecture
Place the Solar Panel on dry ground or a platform, ideally in a place where it is exposed to the sun for much of the daylight hours and is safe from predators. Equip the Wiring Tool and connect the Solar Panel to the Water Pump, placing nodes on the ground as necessary.
Wait a moment for the Water Pump to become powered, and then turn it on manually at the Pump to satisfy the mission objective. If you use the pump to water the crop plots, you will have to turn the pump on every day after the sun hits the solar panel. The loss of power at night will automatically shut off the water pump.
The Glassworking Bench is massive (more than one full tile), so pick up unused workstations to make space
Once you fabricate the Glass building pieces (e.g., the Glass Wall) in the Glassworking Bench, it is time to make your greenhouse. It is okay to make it an extension of your base.
A 1×1 greenhouse may not have enough deployable glass pieces to achieve the maximum bonus of +50%. Each piece increases the bonus until the maximum is reached. A few Glass Walls (perhaps only one) was enough to give four Crop Plots a greenhouse bonus and meet the mission objective: it is not necessary to achieve the maximum greenhouse bonus possible.
A 1×1 floor plan is possible, and a floor is not necessary. You can place glass elements directly on horizontal pillars
To satisfy the full greenhouse mission objective, however, you have to simultaneously water and fertilize four crop plots with greenhouse bonuses. Add at least one bag of fertilizer to each crop plot, and equip and fill a water container (e.g., Waterskin) to water each crop plot. Alternatively, if you built extra metal plots, you can connect them to your powered water pump using the piping tool and turn it on.
Completing the Mission
If you have been placing the required crops into the Cargo Pod to prevent them from spoiling (as we have suggested), you will automatically satisfy the HYDROPONICS objective. If not, use your greenhouse to finish off the Stockpile objective (Step 1), and the mission.
Head back to orbit by interacting with the Dropship when you are ready, and collect your reward. (As of the time this walkthrough was written, the nearby exotics vein in J14 is inactive, so there is no optional extraction objective this time.)
Hope you enjoyed the mission and found this walkthrough helpful. Have any tips or comments you want to share? Leave them for us below! Let us know when you complete the mission — did you go and set up a high-tech greenhouse in your own Outpost afterwards?
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SurvivalSherpa
SurvivalSherpa is an avid gamer spending most of his time at the nexus of the survival, crafting, building, and role playing genres on any platform, especially to test indie titles in EA. AFK, life is about work and education in STEM fields, reading fantasy, and sipping great coffee in the Pacific Northwest.
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Supply Crate near the Cargo Pod. When you touch down, head to the marked location near the lake to cause the Cargo Pod to drop in. Pick up all the equipment from the supply crate to satisfy the mission objective and store everything but the 
