Plants

Plants are a category of stationary in-game entities composed of genetically engineered biological slime that occupy a certain amount of space.

They are typically modeled after real-world plants (or plant-like organisms). In the game, plants serve a wide range of purposes: some can be harvested for food or directly consumed by critters, some produce industrial materials, and others are used for environmental decoration.

Growth Conditions

Different plants have different growth requirements, such as temperature, pressure, light, and radiation. Domesticated crops often also require irrigation and fertilization.

A plant will only grow normally when all required conditions are met; otherwise, growth will pause or the plant may even die.

Temperature

Each plant has its own growth temperature range. If its internal temperature exceeds this range, the plant will wilt and display a message indicating that growth has stopped due to “Plant Temperature.”

In addition, plants also have a survival temperature range. If the temperature exceeds this broader range, a plant that has already wilted due to temperature will die outright.

Regardless of growth direction, a plant exchanges heat only with the tile containing its root and the tile directly below it.

The game displays only the growth temperature range and does not show the survival temperature range. Typically, the growth range is fully contained within the survival range.

Pressure

Some plants have requirements regarding the type or mass of gas/liquid elements within the space they occupy.

If the designated area does not contain suitable elements or the pressure is inappropriate, the plant will usually wilt after a few seconds, displaying a message that growth has stopped due to “Environment” or “Pressure.”

Burial

If a solid tile occupies the same space as a plant, the plant will stop growing due to “Burial.”

Common causes include falling natural tiles from above or solidification caused by phase changes of elements.

For Arbor Trees, their trunks and mature branches can automatically dig out falling natural tiles that bury them.

In addition, buildings such as ladders or conveyor rails do not count as solid tiles and will not cause burial, but they also cannot overlap with plants.

Exception

The Oxyfern is an exception. When its temperature drops below the game-defined minimum survival temperature, it still remains within its growth temperature range.

As a result, it does not wilt due to temperature and therefore will not die from temperature-related causes.

To reflect actual behavior, its minimum survival temperature is treated as equal to its minimum growth temperature in its wiki entry.

If you want, I can rewrite this into a more “official wiki tone” like the Oxygen Not Included wiki style (more concise + templated).