To use hydroponics, the first thing you’ll need to do is to select hydroponics in the research menu.
The line on the right says that the hydroponics allows you to build tables to rapidly grow crops indoors regardless of rain or outdoor weather. After you have researched the hydroponic tables, you will be able to make hydroponic basins. These basins will pop up in the production tab. But first, you need to do a different thing. You have to lay down a sun lamp. This will supply sunlight for all of your crops that are indoors.
After you have put the sunlamp down, you will be able to see the range here. To my knowledge, it’s the most efficient way to place the tables because you can place sixteen different tables within the sunlamps range, and that is a great amount. I don’t think there is any other way to fit more.
The advantage of using hydroponics is that crops grow extremely fast; they are protected from the weather and seasons don’t matter. The only disadvantage of using hydroponics is that if the power is cut, then all the crops will die, as you can see here.
That is the only disadvantage, but in order to overcome this problem, you can think of some batteries or geothermal generators or something like this. Make sure that your crops get a constant source of power.