Probably Stolen Hydroponics Guide: Unlocking Farming, Water and Minerals, Huge Nutrifruit and the Best Crops

To start hydroponics in Probably Stolen, put a water container, a Hydroponic Nutrient Tablet, an energy cell and a seed in a Hydroponic System. It grows overnight and harvests itself. The size of the harvest depends on Growth Score, and Growth Score only stays at 100 with clean water and Minerals inside the seed's range. Clean water has almost no Minerals of its own, so always add tablets. A default Nutrifruit Seed takes 2 nights and gives 7 fruit, all Huge at 100 Growth Score.

How do you unlock hydroponics?

There are two ways in.

1. Hydroponic Farmer start. 450 Credits and rent of 240. You get two Hydroponic Systems: an Old Hydroponic System and a normal one, plus an Energy Cell, two Eco Modules, two Ruined Modules, Nutrifruit Seed ×2, Fillerweed Seed ×2, a Hydroponic Nutrient Tablet Bottle, the Hydroponic Farming Manual and some water. Retired Farmer is already unlocked.
2. Retired Farmer in Wild's Network. 350, with no prerequisite. You immediately get an Old Hydroponic System, the Hydroponic Farming Manual, three Nutrifruit Seeds, two Fillerweed Seeds, two Nutrient Tablets and two small water rations.

The Old Hydroponic System comes with its own energy cell, 2 L of Ghostwater and four modules you cannot take out: three Glitched Modules (+15 Performance, −15 Efficiency each) and a Ruined Module. That is +45 Performance, so it grows a little faster but draws 11 power a night instead of 8.

The Retired Farmer comes the day after you unlock him, then every Friday. He always sells a Hydroponic System, the manual, seeds for all seven crops, a Packet of Nutrifruit Seeds (nine seeds), tablets and a tablet bottle, a Plant Analyzer, an AquaScan, Water Filters and a Jug of Water. Each hydroponic module is a 50% chance, the Nutrifruit Hydroponic Module 66%. Once Retired Farmer is unlocked, Dr. Jackson can also stock Hydroponic Systems and hydroponic modules.

Editing plant genetics is a separate upgrade, Plant Genetics (1,250), which needs Retired Farmer. See the DNA Manipulator guide.

How do you use the Hydroponic System?

The machine has slots for an energy cell, modules, a water container and one seed, plus an output tray and the instruction sheet. The game's own Quick Start Guide puts it in four steps.

1. Insert a water container. Any container fits: a bottle, a 2 L bottle, a Water Jug. The machine has no tank of its own and is not fed by a Moisture Farm. Each night the plant drinks its water use once.
2. Add Minerals. Drop Hydroponic Nutrient Tablets into the water until the Minerals are inside the seed's range. The amounts are below.
3. Insert an energy cell and the seed. A Hydroponic System uses 8 power a night. One machine grows one seed at a time.
4. Wait. It grows overnight. When the plant is ripe it is harvested into the output tray automatically and the seed is used up, except a Bloomberry, which stays in and regrows.

If the energy cell is flat or the water would not cover the night, the machine pauses. It keeps its progress and Growth Score, so you lose nothing but time. While a seed is growing you cannot take it out or change the modules; use a Hatchet on the machine to pull the plant.

When the output tray is full, the harvest goes to a hopper if one is attached, then into your storage. Collect it in the morning.

Use the Plant Analyzer on a seed to see its Required Work, Harvest Quantity, Water Usage, Optimal Nutriment Range and current Growth Score.

Which crops can you grow?

There are seven seeds. The table shows them as you buy them, before any DNA editing.

Seed	Growth needed	Nights	Harvest	Water / night	Minerals	Contaminant limit
Nutrifruit Seed	16	2	7	100 ml	0.5–2.5%	0.15%
Kotton Seed	43	6	13	250 ml	2–5%	0.06%
Dream Cap Spores	28	4	8	100 ml	1.75–3.25%	0.1%
Coffee Beans	21	3	8	100 ml	1.75–3.25%	0.1%
Fillerweed Seed	8	1	5	451 ml	0–2%	Immune
Hydroreed Seed	18	3	1 per module	20 ml	0–2%	Immune
Bloomberry Seed	22 → 12	3 → 2	6	100 ml	1.25–2.75%	0.1%

• Nutrifruit: the starter crop. Food, the only crop that can be Huge. Default seeds return no seeds (see below).
• Kotton Fiber: the slowest and most valuable. Very sensitive to dirty water and needs more Minerals than anything else.
• Dream Cap: low-level contraband. Used for Dream Dust in the chemist guide, or turned into food with a module.
• Coffee Beans: the beans are also the seeds, so one harvest gives you eight seeds back. Sold as a household good, and the base for Caffeine Pills.
• Fillerweed: grows in one night and is not harmed by dirty water or Minerals outside its range, but drinks 451 ml a night. Cheap food.
• Hydroreed: grows nothing. It cleans the water it sits in, and with the Hydroreed Filter Hydroponic Module it makes Hydroreed Filters.
• BloomBerry: perennial. After the first harvest it stays in the machine and regrows in 12 growth instead of 22. Used for wine.

How do you get the water and Minerals right?

Each point of growth checks the water once. Minerals below the seed's Optimal Nutriment Range cost 1 Growth Score, above it 0.5. Contaminants cost more, and each one is checked separately. Growth Score never recovers during a harvest. A Bloomberry starts again at 100 with each regrowth.

Clean water has almost no Minerals. Minerals are 15% of what makes natural water impure, so Pure Water has close to 0%, High-Quality Water about 0.15% and Basewater about 0.3%. That is below the range of every crop except Fillerweed and Hydroreed. The game's manual says it is usually better to have too much Minerals than not enough, and the numbers agree: too many costs half as much as too few.

Each Hydroponic Nutrient Tablet holds 15 ml of Minerals. Minerals are measured against the water in the container, so the same tablet counts for more in a small bottle.

Seed	Aim for	1 L	2 L	6 L
Nutrifruit Seed	1.5%	1	2	6
Kotton Seed	3.5%	2.33	4.67	14
Dream Cap Spores	2.5%	1.67	3.33	10
Coffee Beans	2.5%	1.67	3.33	10
Bloomberry Seed	2%	1.33	2.67	8

Two things move the Minerals during a long run. The plant drinks water every night but uses very little Minerals, so the percentage creeps up as the container empties. Topping up with clean water brings it back down. Aim near the middle of the range in a small bottle, and use a big container if you do not want to check it every day.

Contaminants are the other half. Organic waste, microbes, chemical contaminants, heavy metals, acid and base each cost Growth Score once they pass about 0.1% of the water. The table shows a whole harvest in natural water with the Minerals topped up.

Seed	99.9%	99.5%	99%	98%	96%	90%
Nutrifruit Seed	100	100	92	73	42	0
Kotton Seed	100	68	11	0	0	0
Dream Cap Spores	100	95	79	21	0	0
Coffee Beans	100	96	84	40	0	0
Bloomberry Seed	100	97	88	58	0	0

So Nutrifruit is happy in 99.5% water, but Kotton really needs Pure Water, and Basewater or worse ruins every crop except Fillerweed and Hydroreed. How much a full harvest loses for each problem:

Seed	Too few Minerals	Too many Minerals	0.2% contaminant	0.5% contaminant	1% contaminant
Nutrifruit Seed	−16	−8	−3	−10	−26
Kotton Seed	−43	−22	−22	−87	−100
Dream Cap Spores	−28	−14	−6	−23	−46
Coffee Beans	−21	−11	−5	−17	−34
Fillerweed Seed	−8	−4	0	0	0
Bloomberry Seed	−22	−11	−6	−22	−44

Making Pure Water is covered in the water guide. A Hydroreed in the same machine helps too: each night it removes about 28% of every contaminant in its water, but not the Minerals. One three-night Hydroreed cycle takes Rustwater to about Ghostwater and Basewater to High-Quality Water, and you can then use that water for another crop.

How do you grow a Huge Nutrifruit?

Growth Score at harvest decides how big everything is. Nutrifruit never loses quantity for a low score, only size. Kotton and Dream Cap lose part of the harvest below 71.

Growth Score	7 Nutrifruit	13 Kotton Fiber
0–15	7 Small	7 Small
16–30	4 Small · 3 Normal	5 Small · 3 Normal
31–50	2 Small · 5 Normal	3 Small · 7 Normal
51–70	7 Normal	12 Normal
71–80	5 Normal · 2 Large	10 Normal · 3 Large
81–90	2 Normal · 5 Large	3 Normal · 10 Large
91–95	7 Large	13 Large
96–99	3 Large · 4 HugeQuality above 100: 7 Huge	13 Large
100	7 Huge	13 Large

For Huge Nutrifruit:

1. Use Pure Water. 99.5% water also works for Nutrifruit, which has a little resistance to contaminants.
2. Add Nutrient Tablets until the Minerals are between 0.5% and 2.5%: one tablet in a 2 L bottle is 0.75%.
3. Keep the power and water up for the two nights. Pausing does not cost Growth Score, it only delays the harvest.
4. Check with the Plant Analyzer before the last night. 100 gives all Huge. At 96–99 half are Huge, or all of them with more than 100 Quality on the Hydroponic System.

A Huge Nutrifruit is worth 32 against 12 for a normal one and has 960 kcal, which makes it the best rat food you can grow (see rat ranching). Your first one unlocks the Green Thumb achievement, one of the rarest in the game (achievements).

How much Performance and Quality do you need?

The machine's instruction sheet lists the module stats:

• Performance speeds up growth at half strength. Every 25 Performance adds 1 growth a night to the base 8. Any negative Performance drops it to 7 straight away.
• Quality adds half its value as a percentage to the harvest, before module bonuses. 100 Quality is +50%.
• Efficiency cuts power use: 8 minus 8 × Efficiency ÷ 100.

Seed	Performance → nights per harvest
Nutrifruit Seed	0 → 2 · 200 → 1
Kotton Seed	0 → 6 · 25 → 5 · 75 → 4 · 175 → 3 · 350 → 2 · 875 → 1
Dream Cap Spores	0 → 4 · 50 → 3 · 150 → 2 · 500 → 1
Coffee Beans	0 → 3 · 75 → 2 · 325 → 1
Fillerweed Seed	0 → 1
Hydroreed Seed	0 → 3 · 25 → 2 · 250 → 1
Bloomberry Seed	0 → 2 · 100 → 1

Performance only pays when it reaches the next step: 100 Performance does nothing for Nutrifruit, 200 halves its time. Faster nights do not change how much Growth Score a harvest loses, because the water is checked once per point of growth, not per night.

Enter the machine's totals and the water conditions to see how many nights a harvest takes, what Growth Score it ends on and what the harvest is worth.

What do the hydroponic modules do?

Each crop has its own module. They only do something for that crop.

Module bonuses are added after Quality, so Quality does not multiply them. If both Dream Cap modules are installed, the Neutralizer wins and you get Meal Cap. A Module Bay Expansion Kit fits the Hydroponic System if you run out of room.

How do you get seeds back after a harvest?

The default Nutrifruit Seeds carry the Infertile trait at a strength that destroys every returned seed. When you leak the data drive in Eleanor's story, the next day every new Nutrifruit Seed is fertile and gives three seeds per harvest. The ones you already own stay Infertile and drop in value from 40 to 4. Until then, buy the nine-seed packet from the Retired Farmer each Friday. Leaking also ends the Nutrifruit Seed Shortage event.

Where do you sell hydroponic crops?

• Food buyers take Nutrifruit, Fillerweed, Bloomberry and Meal Cap. Food has by far the most buyers.
• Material buyers take Kotton Fiber and Kotton Fabric.
• Household buyers take Coffee Beans and Hydroreed Filters.
• Dream Cap is contraband: Shady Buyers and Shady Merchants. Read the contraband guide before you keep a stack of it in the store.

Nobody buys seeds. Three events move food prices: Bad Nutrifruit Harvest raises food by 50% for 3 days, Nutrifruit Seed Shortage raises food by 33% for 2 days, and Nutrifruit Harvest lowers food by 20% for a few days. Nutrifruit Harvest never happens on its own; it only comes from paying the Shady Customer for that information (how it works).

Hang a food sign to draw buyers, see display cases and neon signs.

Which crop makes the most money?

At 100 Growth Score, 0 Performance and 0 Quality, by base value:

Seed	Harvest	Base value	Nights	Per night
Kotton Seedwith Kotton Auto Loom	13 Kotton Fabric	845	6	140.83
Kotton Seed	13 Large	780	6	130
Nutrifruit Seed	7 Huge	224	2	112
Coffee Beans	8 Normal	224	3	74.67
Dream Cap Spores	8 Large	248	4	62
Fillerweed Seed	1 Small · 4 Normal	51	1	51
Bloomberry Seed	6 Normal	84	2	42

Kotton wins only if you can give it Pure Water every time; at 99% water it ends a harvest at 11 Growth Score, loses half the harvest and the rest is Small. Nutrifruit is the reliable earner. Bloomberry and Coffee are worth more as wine and Caffeine Pills than as raw crops. Compared with the other production lines, a Hydroponic System earns less a night than a well-run water business (money making), but it costs 300 and very little upkeep.

Daily routine

1. Morning. Collect the harvest from the output tray. Replant annual seeds straight away.
2. Check the water. Top up containers that will not last the night, and add a tablet when the Minerals have fallen into the bottom of the range.
3. Swap energy cells. One Hydroponic System uses 8 power a night.
4. Scan with the Plant Analyzer. If Growth Score has dropped, the water is the reason: check it with an AquaScan before the next seed.
5. Sell. Put food out for food buyers; keep Dream Cap out of sight.

Why is my harvest bad?

• Not enough Minerals. The most common cause. Clean water is almost mineral-free, so every point of growth costs 1 Growth Score. Add tablets.
• The water is not clean enough. Even 99% water costs Kotton most of its harvest. Check the worst contaminant with an AquaScan.
• Too many Minerals. Over the top of the range costs 0.5 a point. Dilute with clean water.
• It is slower than expected. Negative Performance from crop modules or Eco Modules drops growth below 8 a night. The Kotton Auto Loom alone is −50%.
• No seeds came back. Default Nutrifruit Seeds are Infertile; Fillerweed returns none with its Production module.