Sun lamp
Sun lamp
Lights an area brightly enough to grow crops.
Base Stats
- Type
- Furniture
- Mass
- 4.5 kg
- HP
- 50
Building
- Size
- 1
- Placeable
- Yes
- Power
- - 2900 W
Sun lamps provide artificial light to roofed growing zones (greenhouses) at high power expense (2,900 watts). A sun lamp will illuminate tiles within a five-block radius at 100% and outside tiles at only 50% or less. Sun lamps automatically turn themselves off at night to save power while the plants are resting. Once installed, the lamp menu offers the option to create a growing zone that matches its radius. Sun lamps become available after researching Electricity.
Short circuits
Rain on a powered sun lamp will cause short circuits and fires. A roof will prevent this.
If the area is unroofed, you can simply switch the sun lamp off.
Greenhouses
Sun lamps allow indoor plantations but don't produce heat, so heaters may be required to attain proper conditions for plant growth. Solar flares will cut the energy power so prepare a shelf with emergency wood to build campfires to keep the room temperature above -10C. Double-width walls provide more insulation against temperature changes (and thus save power with heaters or coolers), as well as better protection from attacks.
Hydroponics basins increase the growing rate in low fertility tiles but are dependent on electricity, without power all plants on it will die soon.
In previous versions of the game, the sun lamp menu allowed you to automatically create a growing zone within its light radius. However, in 1.0 you need to place this zone manually.
A sun lamp's growing zone can be made as a plus sign (+) in which each line is 5 tiles wide by 11 tiles long, with a 9 by 9 square in the middle. You can use the Planning tool to map this zone before placing your sun lamp.
The lamp blueprint will show the outline of its light radius until it is placed. Once the blueprint has been placed, the light radius won't be visible again until the lamp has been built.