Composter

The Composter turns organic material — crops, leaves, wood, biomass, even alien remains — into Fertilizer, the fluid that powers the high-yield fertilised crop recipes. It is the supply side of the fertilised farming loop: compost surplus crops into Fertilizer, pipe that Fertilizer back into your plots through an Irrigation Module, and harvest several times more per cycle.

In-game description
"Used to create fertilizer from organic products such as crops and leaves into fertilizer for a higher crop output"

Fertilizer and Water are fluids whose recipe amounts are given in litres, but represented in the game user interface as m³. 3000 liters is 3 m³.

How it works

  • Feed the Composter an organic input plus Water; it runs a compost recipe and outputs Fertilizer.

  • Most compost recipes share the same base numbers, so unless a recipe is different, each cycle takes 6 seconds and yields 3000 L (3 m³) of Fertilizer. Higher-value inputs (biomass, biofuel, alien remains) raise the output up to 4000–7500 L.

  • The Fertilizer output is a fluid, it must be moved by pipe into your plots.

Representative compost recipes

Recipe Input Fertilizer out Time Throughput

Compost: Wheat (and Carrot, Corn, Potato, Pumpkin, Yosse, Apple, Banana)

2x Crop + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

6 s

30 m³/min

Compost: Cotton

2x Cotton + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

10 s

18 m³/min

Compost: Mycelia

4x Mycelia + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

6 s

30 m³/min

Compost: Leaves

12x Leaves + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

6 s

30 m³/min

Compost: Wood

6x Wood + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

6 s

30 m³/min

Compost: Fabric

6x Fabric + 3 000x Water

3 000x (3 m³)

6 s

30 m³/min

Compost: Biomass

3x Biomass + 4 000x Water

4 000x (4 m³)

6 s

40 m³/min

Compost: Biofuel

4x Solid Biofuel + 4 000x Water

4 000x (4 m³)

6 s

40 m³/min

Compost: Alien Carapace

1x Spitter Remains + 7 500x Water

7 500x (7.5 m³)

6 s

75 m³/min

Most crop compost recipes use the same 6 s cycle and 3 000 mL Fertilizer output, changing only the input item. Compost: Cotton is the exception, with a longer 10 s cycle. (There are also Compost: Alien Organs and other minor variants.)

Building Information

Composter

Build Cost

12x Modular Frame
20x Cable
12x Rotor

Power

10 MW (consumed while running)

Inputs

An organic item (crop, leaves, wood, biomass, biofuel, alien remains…) + Water

Output

Fertilizer (fluid)

Milestones

Composter

Available with

HUB Tier 5 — "Fertiliser Buildings" milestone

The Composter unlocks at Tier 5, on the "Fertiliser Buildings" milestone (which also grants the compost recipes and a couple of alternate biomass recipes). Note this is before the fertilised crop recipes themselves, which unlock at Tier 6 — so you can build up a Fertilizer supply first, then switch plots to fertilised recipes.

Tips

  • Compost your surplus. Crops you are not eating or extracting seeds from are ideal Composter feedstock — 2 of almost any crop makes 3 m³ of Fertilizer.

  • Leaves and wood work too. Cheap biomass sources (leaves, wood) compost at the same 3 m³/6 s rate, so a nearby forest can feed the fertilised loop.

  • Match Fertilizer supply to plots. Each fertilised plot draws 15 m³/min of Fertilizer, so one crop-compost line (30 m³/min) supplies roughly two fertilised plots.

See also

References and Links