Farming – ICARUS

Even when it’s not required, growing your own food and herbs in ICARUS can provide a tactical advantage for some of the more challenging missions. And, when used efficiently, growing seeds in Dirt Mounds or Crop Plots can also be an excellent supplement for any camp setup — even your exploration settlements and outpost projects!

Whether your first interaction with the system was picking up a shovel, spotting a Crop Plot in the Tech Tree, or getting assigned farming tasks on a mission, you might have gotten confused about the process or wasted some materials trying.

However, this is precisely what this guide is for! Here you will find basics, details, and tips on growing plants in ICARUS: everything from what you can grow and how to grow it efficiently.

In ICARUS, growing a crop is very easy, and you can get started immediately by unlocking and crafting a Tier 1 Wooden Shovel, which only needs Wood (15), Stick (10), and Fiber (15). It’s a perfect match for a Low Storm, Comfortable Temperature zone, like Conifer or Riverlands (the Forest).

If you are at Tier 2 (level 10 or higher), you can craft a basic Crop Plot which will withstand slightly higher storms (or be safely placed inside a shelter), and a Tier 3 Iron Crop Plot is our recommended option for more permanent settlements.

We will go over the pros and cons of these options below, and review benefits of the higher-tier options!

Dirt Mounds or Crop Plots?

Unless you are in a volatile biome (think Arctic, Desert, etc.) or on a strict timer (a mission), all your seeds need can be easily fulfilled by a set of dirt mounds, especially since the game removed negative modifiers dirt mounds have previously had on crop growth.

• Dirt Mounds are more susceptible to weather events, since you can’t place them indoors. However, you can start using them on Tech Tier 1, which makes them a very cheap and accessible option for growing resources and food right away.
• Dirt Mounds are very easy to create in large clusters, making them a great option of quickly stocking up on a particular crop, catching up on Animal Feed, or farming for Wheat and Vegetable Oil for Biofuel production.

Yet, if you decide to invest into growing long-term, Crop Plots will be a better option for repeated yield.

• First of all, not only do the Crop Plots not disappear on harvest, but the crop in them will automatically reseed itself and retain any talent modifiers you have applied to it from your talents. Note, however, that the Plant Fatigue debuff will reduce growth speed and yield every time you harvest.
• Once you reach Tier 3, Glass Building Pieces will become an effective sheltering option for Crop Plots, removing storm concerns and offering an increased growth speed from the Greenhouse buff. Tier 4 and Orbital Crop Plots can self-light themselves also. And, while it may be more work than it is worth, water hookup might be an attractive option for automation of the process with Tier 3 Crop Plots and higher.

In other words: you will probably want to pick Dirt Mounds starting off, or for quick resource stock-ups, and Crop Plots for repeated growing projects in more permanent settlements.

Farming With a Shovel/Dirt Mound

How to Plant with a Shovel

The simplest and cheapest way to place down some dirt mounds is to:

• Unlock and craft a Wooden Shovel — Wood (15), Stick (10), and Fiber (15), crafted on Character
• Equip the shovel and then Right-Click on the ground to create dirt mounds
  • Feel free to dig in uneven lines, a lot, and right next to each other — these will disappear once you harvest and plants have no spacing requirements
• Place a desired seed on your quickbar and then equip it: you should see a green outline of the mature plant snapping to your dirt mound(s)
  • You can gather seeds you want to grow by gathering plants in the wild (use a Sickle to increase your chance of getting seeds), or bring them down in farming packets from the Orbit
• Left-Click to plant the seed

That’s it! We recommend you use a Sickle to harvest your crop once it’s ready.

These will take a day or two to grow, depending on the crop, so you can probably go out for the day and check in before you go to sleep. Make sure you do, though: without Fresh is Best talent a forgotten plant will eventually spoil.

All Dirt Mound Types & Stats

Our recommendation for early growing is a Wooden Shovel Dirt Mound on Tech Tier 1, and Iron Shovel on Tech Tier 2. Don’t worry too much about the Storm Damage in starting zones; we will discuss the specifics of how weather events affect your crops a bit later in the guide.

Improving on Dirt Mounds at Tier 3 and higher will probably lead you to working with Crop Plots (see next section), but you can also look into Platinum Shovels and Titanium Shovels or The Excavator for better Dirt Mounds, if this path is your preference.

For that, check out the stat table for these below.

Tool (Creates Dirt Mound)	Resists Storms Tier	Stats
Wooden Shovel	1 only	None
Iron Shovel or Seeding Cart	2 and below	-25% Tool Stamina Cost +25% Digging Rewards +10% Yield
Platinum Shovel	3 and below	-33% Tool Stamina Cost +50% Digging Rewards +20% Yield
Titanium Shovel	4 and below	-50% Tool Stamina Cost +75% Digging Rewards +20% Yield -20% Crop Wither Rate
The Excavator	6 and below	-25% Tool Stamina Cost +100% Digging Rewards Planted Crops will not Wither

Farming with Crop Plots

How Do I Craft a Crop Plot?

As soon as you advance to Tech Tier 2 and unlock the Crafting Bench, the basic Wood Crop Plot will be available for you to unlock and craft with Wood (8), Sulfur (10), and Dirt (20).

How to Get Dirt

• To get Dirt, get a Wooden Shovel or better (type of the shovel won’t affect quality of the material gathered)
• Left-Click anywhere on the ground in the Forest, Grassland, or Swamp Biome to Collect Dirt (you can dig as much as you would like)

Planting a Seed

• Once you’ve crafted a Crop Plot, deploy it anywhere you like (you can even plant in an unlit shelter or cave, but plants grow significantly faster in the sun)
• Place a desired seed on your quickbar and then equip it: you should see a green outline of the mature plant snapping to your dirt mound(s)
• Left-Click to plant the seed

Check our Dirt Mound section if you want more visual reference for equipping and planting your seeds.

That’s it! We recommend you use a Sickle to harvest your crop once it’s ready. We mention this in the Dirt Mound section, but you can check in on the progress at the end of the day — remember to do so, since without Fresh is Best talent a forgotten plant will eventually spoil.

All Crop Plot Types & Stats

Even a basic Wood Crop Plot will offer the re-seeding benefits, and unless you put in slow-growing plants right before multiple Tier 3 Storms hit (which you won’t see that often in the Forest), you will continue getting the yield you want. If you want to rarely (or, in an Open World Game, pretty much never) worry about storm damage, Iron Crop Plots will serve you just fine in the Forest.

If you are on a more difficult mission or bringing your Crop Plots to a more dangerous biome, you might want to consider the Hydroponic Crop Plot or, even better — an Aeroponic option from the Orbit, both of which you can (it’s optional) hook up to power for automatic lighting (“Perfect Lighting” modifier) to speed up the crop.

Tool (Creates Dirt Mound)	Resists Storms Tier	Features
Wood Crop Plot (Tier 2)	2 and below	None
Iron Crop Plot (Tier 3)	3 and below	Water Connection
Hydroponic Crop Plot (Tier 4)	4 and below	Water Connection Power Connection
Aeroponic Crop Plot (Orbit)	5 and below	Water Connection Power Connection +25% Growth Speed +25% Yield +25% Crop Spoil Time

Storm Resistance for Crops

Note that storms do not affect crops in games set to Easy difficulty (either Mission or Open World).

To give an example of how it works: on Normal difficulty and above, Dirt Mounds made by the Wooden Shovels will not take damage from Tier 0 and 1 Weather events (like Showers and Rain in the Forest), but they will deteriorate from Tier 2 weather and above. See the tables with all Dirt Mounds and Crop Plots in the dedicated sections above for their storm resistance.

Check the forecast reel in the top-right corner of your screen and compare the icons.

In starting areas on Normal difficulty, it’s relatively safe to use Wooden Crop Plots and Dirt Mounds dug by an Iron Shovel, which will be able to resist Tier 2 Storms. The most versatile long-term option which we personally recommend are Iron Crop Plots, that can resist up to Tier 3 and be hooked up to water supply for automation, if desired (though, a Watering Can and some rain will do just fine also).

Still, you don’t have to be all that worried if you are running missions that don’t involve weather challenges or an Open World session. Seeds are abundant, and the worst these storms will do is chip away at the crop quality, which will recover if the dirt mound is watered (and in the Forest you can expect frequent rain to take care of that). As long as the crop doesn’t reach quality 0, you will still be able to harvest it, albeit at a reduced yield. If your Crop Plot gets damaged, you can simply repair it with a hammer.

Farming in a more restrictive biome or with a weather challenge will require further considerations, but a self-lit high-tier Crop Plot (you can bring the best one right from the Orbit) should address all of them.

Inspecting a Crop Plot/Dirt Mound

Hovering over your Dirt Mound or Crop Plot will offer a stat summary and a column of “Modifiers”: a set of icons that reflect all of the buffs and debuffs your plant is experiencing — from the tool you used to dig up the mound/Crop Plot tier you deployed, to the water and sun status, to the Farming talents that applied when you planted the seed. Press [F] to inspect your Dirt Mound or Crop Plot in more detail.

• The Crop Growth Progress bar will fill up as the plant matures. Your Total Crop Growth Speed should also be noted in the interface
• Quality will deteriorate from Storms above the Dirt Mound/Crop Plot’s resistance, but only on Normal difficulty settings or higher, which we will discuss in the next section
• Make a note of Resists Tier X Storms note and icon: you can always compare the icon to your 3-Day Weather Forecast in the top-right corner
• You can also make note of Crop Plot’s Durability. Crop Plots can be easily repaired with a Hammer
• Check for Sun and Water modifiers: you can plant in the sun and water your crops for faster growth
• Check your Talent modifiers after them, if any to make note of how your Talent picks are affecting your plants

Farming Tips

How to Improve Yield and Speed?

We recommend you try planting some Berries or Fiber in a set of basic Dirt Mounds or Crop Plots first to gauge whether you even need to improve on the process — you might spend a lot of time and resources only to find out that you don’t even have the use for how much yield you are getting.

That being said, there are many ways to improve your growing speed and yield, from very easy improvements to something more complex:

• Use a Sickle to harvest your crop (Bone Sickle is available on Tier 1 and is easy to maintain) — this will increase the yield noticeably and increase the chance of getting back seeds
• Once at Tech Tier 2, craft an Iron Shovel for better yield and storm resistance Dirt Mounds, or place Crop Plots outside to avoid the need to dig and plant between harvests
• At Tier 2 you can also craft a Watering Can on an Anvil that has an impressively wide watering radius and speeds up crop growth (watered plants also gain the ability to recover from storms)
  • You can fill the Watering Can up at any water source, so you don’t need to waste your drinking water: a pond or even a cave stream will do
• At Tier 2 you can also craft a Wood Composter on a Crafting Bench that can turn Spoiled Plants and Sulfur into Fertilizer to increase growing speed and yield
  • You will be able to further upgrade it at the Herbalism Bench to add Storm resistance or recovery rate, or at the Chemistry Bench to improve the base effects
  • Fertilizers are applied in a similar way to how seeds are planted: by equipping and left-clicking on a Dirt Mound/Crop Plot
• Unlock relevant Cooking/Farming Talents for your character: you can easily unlock Green Thumb to increase growth speed, and down the line Fresh is Best will be excellent to take the stress off of watching plants since they will no longer wither
• Inside or even nearby Glass Building Pieces, the plants will get the Greenhouse buff that increases growing speed
• Remember that you can hook up Iron Crop Plots and better to a water source to set and forget (just remember to harvest). You can also hook up a Hydroponic or an Aeroponic Crop Plot to power for self-lighting and have a dedicated crop-growing cave with water hookups, if desired.
• Remember that hooking the Orbital Aeroponic Crop Plot to water or power is optional. You can benefit from Tier 5 storm resistance and growing bonuses unique to this Crop Plot by simply setting it down outside.

Other Tips

• Sugar Cane does not naturally grow on Icarus at all, so it might be of interest for you to bring Sugar Cane Farming Packets from the Orbit to farm Sugar Cubes and craft a couple of decent food recipes (Energy Bar crafted at Character will blow Berry & Seed Bar and Honeycomb Bar out of the water).
• Same goes for Rhubarb, Strawberry, and Avocado plants, which, unlike Sugar Cane, can be received via SMPL3 quests in Open World and Outposts in addition to their Orbital seed packets.

Bonus: While mostly inefficient, some of the most fun you can have with the Dirt Mounds is to implement the process with a mount and some carts: a Seeding Cart (crafted at Ranching Station) to create Iron Shovel level of Dirt Mounds, and then a Watering Cart (this one is especially inefficient due to the large radius of the Watering Can), followed by a Harvesting Cart to process your plants.

Should I Bother With Farming on Missions?

Your thinking about Farming might changea bit if you are on the clock. Without Cook/Farm talent specialization or a farming mission requirement, basic Crop Plots are most useful when you spend extended amount of time at a single base, doing something other than gather food.

Think about this: at its fastest, a basic Dirt Mound or a Crop Plot will take a day to produce just a bit of Wheat or Berries. If you are on the move, you can acquire tenfold of this amount within just a few minutes, and probably less if you are trying to collect specific species. Even in the Desert, reaching an oasis means acquiring far more plant food than your Squash crop plot could have produced by the time you get there.

However, if you are spending time at your base and focusing on stockpiling resources and construction, or if you put together a mining outpost and are spending a lot of time deep within the cave system — you can definitely get a lot out of a set of Dirt Mounds or Crop Plots, especially if you put together one of the few available cooking benches.

One notable exception: since you can grow herbs, it can be useful to set up a Yeast, Reed Flowers, Lilies, and Wheat Farm Patch in the Arctic or the Desert (keep in mind that you can find large patches of wild Reeds in the Desert Biome). However, out of these only Wheat can be brought in a Farming Packet.

These plants do not spoil, so if you plan on putting together some Anti-Poison remedies before fighting the Sandworm, or some Antibiotic concoctions against pneumonia, this can be a viable alternative to bringing the materials from the Forest or the Vaccines from the Orbit. Arctic and Desert travel involves long distances, so being able to prepare and carry some Beer to boost stamina for running can also be convenient (it does not spoil).

Another potential exception to this is having a character with talent points dedicated to the Cook/Farm tree, which we will be discussing next.

Greenhouse Growing

Aside from being in the shade or in the sun, your Crop Plots can also be placed inside a greenhouse — a building at least partially made out of glass building pieces, like a Glass Wall. This will give your non-powered Crop Plots a Greenhouse modifier and stack with the Perfect Lighting of your powered Hydroponic or Aeroponic plots. This modifier will negate any debuffs coming from the absence of light and boost your crop growth.

How Do I Get the Greenhouse State for my Crop Plots?

Currently, you can easily get the greenhouse state without constructing a full glass building: a single piece, like a Glass Wall will apply to a relatively large Crop Plot patch near it.

(In our experiment, a single Glass Wall attached to the outside of our house applied the greenhouse status to two of our 3×3 patches set next to each other. If placed at the center, it’s likely that it can boost at least a 9×9 patch, but that could get fixed in the future updates.)

Of course, you can always build a proper greenhouse for your plants: in that case, keep in mind that there is no Glass Floor piece, so you will have to substitute it with something durable — setting your glass pieces on a Wood Floor base might mean that a particularly nasty storm could destroy a big chunk of your farm.

We hope you found this ICARUS Farming Guide useful! If you have any questions, comments, or have some info we’re lacking, please let us know in the comment section below.