Self-Sufficient Hydrogen Farm

Overview

This factory produces between 95 and 190 units of hydrogen per month by processing crops grown across four greenhouses. The design is highly self-sufficient: it only requires seawater for desalination, and small amounts of dirt, limestone, and sulphur to generate its own fertilizer. However, hooking up an external water supply will increase your total hydrogen output.

Note: All output calculations are based on Standard difficulty settings for Weather, Rain, and Farm Yield, with a target Greenhouse Soil Fertility of 140%. All values listed are units per month

Blueprint Stages

Stage 1: Initial Rump-Up

This starter blueprint contains 2 greenhouses, the crop and basic processing equipment needed to handle your first harvest and kickstart fertilizer production.

• Hydrogen Output: ~25 units.
• Not sustainable long-term. It cannot produce enough water to feed its own greenhouses yet. It is strictly designed to rapidly ramp up production for the next stage.
• Requires a continuous external water supply during this phase. This stage normally takes 18 months, but feeding Fertilizer II directly into the storage tank reduces the boot time to 10 months.
• Once the Fertilizer II tank is full, apply the Stage 2 blueprint (if running no edicts or Farm Boost Edict I). If you have Farm Boost Edict II or III active, skip directly to Stage 3 – Boost.

Stage 2: Standard Production blueprint

Can be placed over Stage 1 or built from scratch on a greenfield site. (Note: Building from a greenfield requires more initial water and takes longer to stabilize than upgrading from Stage 1).

Warning: The processing equipment in Stage 2 will bottleneck if you try to apply Farm Boost Edicts tear 2 or 3. Upgrade to Stage 3 to handle higher throughput.

Stage 3 – Boost: High Edict Capacity

Apply this blueprint on top of Stage 1 or Stage 2, or build it from scratch (requires heavy initial water inputs to prime the system). This layout adds the extra machinery needed to process high-yield edict crops without choking. The blueprint can be used with No farm boost and Farm Boost Edict I as well, though a portion of equipment will sit idle.

Stage 3 – More Gas: Alternative Configuration

This blueprint upgrades and reworks the Stage 2 setup to prioritize maximum Hydrogen output instead of handling edict boosts. It expands the footprint by adding a 5th greenhouse dedicated to Corn and Canola, alongside the extra machinery required to process them. Do not stack this configuration with the standard Stage 3 Boost layout.

Production Note: Listed numbers are yearly averages. Actual real-time output fluctuates based on crop rotation and weather cycles. Expect a 20% drop in production during dry weather, and a 20% spike when it rains.

Blueprint Requirements

To build and run this factory at its full listed scale, your game must have the following buildings and recipes unlocked:

• Fermentation Tank
• Food Processor (with the Sugar Production recipe unlocked)
• Anaerobic Digester (with the Sugar Cane recipe unlocked)
• Mill (with the Canola to Cooking Oil recipe unlocked)
• Thermal Desalinator
• Greenhouse II: You can temporarily use Greenhouse Tier 1 instead, but note that the entire farm's total Hydrogen output will drop by 17% due to lower initial crop yields.
• Chemical Plant II: This can be replaced with Chemical Plant I only if your total Hydrogen production remains below 105 units/month. If you downgrade to Chemical Plant I, you will also need to construct a second Ammonia Plant to keep up with fertilizer demands.
• Mixer II: While the farm will technically function with a Mixer I, your total fertilizer production will fall below the required level to maintain 140% soil fertility.

Optional Optimization: External Water Supply

Supplying external water considerably scales up your Hydrogen generation. This happens because Corn, which is normally burned for steam production, is freed up to go straight into your Digesters, yielding more gas.

• Potential Bottlenecks: As less conn required for production steam the rest may overwhelm your default Digesters, causing Corn to back up and choke your conveyor belts—which drops overall hydrogen output. Add more Digesters if you see belts backing up.
• Secondary Bottleneck: If your Fuel Gas storage tank stays completely full, your next bottleneck is reforming capacity. Add a Hydrogen Reformer to clear it

Water-Boosted Performance (Stage 2 & Stage 3 – Boost Blueprints)

Raw Material Consumption

• Internal Process Hydrogen: 9.5 pre month (recycled automatically)
• Dirt Input: 12 pre month
• Sulphur Input: 7 pre month
• Limestone Input: 7 pre month

How the Factory Works

1. Crop Processing: Four greenhouses (5 in the More Gas variant) grow Sugar Cane, Corn, and Canola in precise ratios.
2. Sorting & Cracking: Conveyors sort the crop outputs. Canola goes to oil mills for Cooking Oil. Sugar Cane goes into buffers for Ethanol production, with any overflow routed to Digesters. Cooking Oil and Ethanol are combined in Chemical Plants II to synthesize Diesel.
3. Gas Conversion: The primary refining stage cracks Diesel into Naphtha, and the secondary stage produces Fuel Gas and byproduct hydrogen. Fuel Gas from both the cracking units and the anaerobic digesters is processed through Hydrogen Reformers to the final output.
4. Steam & Thermal Balancing: Corn acts as your primary heat source; it is converted into animal feed and fed directly to your Boilers to generate process steam. Excess waste steam is dumped into Thermal Desalinators to produce fresh water for the factory.
5. Byproducts & Recycling: Spent animal feed from the mills is recycled into the boilers. Biomass left over from sugar processing is converted into compost for organic fertilizer, with any remaining residue burned in the boilers for heat.
6. Internal Deductions: A small fraction of the generated Hydrogen (~9.5 units/month) is automatically diverted back into the loop to produce Ammonia for Fertilizer I. Note: All values shown in the tables above already have this internal consumption subtracted; they represent true, usable factory output.
7. Fertilizer Self-Sufficiency: The factory loop fully covers the Fertilizer II requirements for all of its greenhouses. While it produces some essential ingredients internally (like compost from biomass, ammonia, oxygen), you must continuously supply Dirt, Sulphur, and Limestone to keep the fertilizer production line running

Optimization Suggestions

• CO2 Carbon Capture (Graphite Production): This farm produces a massive amount of Carbon Dioxide as a byproduct—approximately 80% of your total Hydrogen output. Instead of venting it all, you can place a Chemical Plant II nearby using the C02 to Graphite recipe. Simply connect a pipe to the Pipe Balancer positioned right before the large Smokestack. This setup will harvest an extra 3 to 6 units of Graphite per month.