Post by gingerbear on Apr 4, 2013 14:01:30 GMT -5
Warning! This mini guide works only as long as the building system isn't reworked.
So, where there is something collectible that you can spend on more important stuff, there is farming, too. However, you can do it efficiently too, which may seem slow at start, but pays out pretty well later on.
The basic concept for efficient farming is to select a sector you wish to farm off, and a neighbouring sector that serves as lateral income if you wouldn't want to "waste" buildings from the farmed sector. Then before destroying the towers, building up every grid bonus buildings.
Probably most of you noticed that certain buildings have a +5% Grid shard drop for medium/large sized buildings. One of such building might not do much, but as there are 3 cities generally in a sector, and likely each of those cities will have at least 2-6 such buildings, it can quickly add up.
Need numbers to be convinced? Me and Yarrrr did some "build up and farm" in the past days, with the following results (2 sectors):
- Drill Station main building giving 32k gridshards, around 79k in total if we count the lateral buildings plus the ocassional drops from the minions dying all around.
- Watch Tower giving up to 15k gridshards
- Grid Control Tower giving between 8k and 10k gridshards
- (other mid/small size buildings also buffed for some 50% loot)
So, how does one goes about it?
In case you are lazy to look up the buildings to level up, here are some tips (locations may change, but they generally they keep their relative position in the 4 rotating directions. Right/left decided from the center towards the branching direction):
Red-ish building tree:
Cost: 10k
Location: right side of the triangle.
Cost: 40k
Location: 2nd from the left in the 40k line
Blue/purple tech-tree:
Cost: 40k
Location: blue-tech tree, right in 40k line
Same stat building with the name "Attenuated Stasis Condenser"
Cost: 40k
Location: middle in 40k line
Cost: 40k
Location: left side of 40k line
Same stat building with the name "Ducted Potential Calibrator"
Pink Tech-tree:
Cost: 40k
Location: 40k line, right
Building with same stats with the name "Stasis Condenser".
Pink tech tree has a lot of upgrades for small round enemies, and some for medium round enemies too! I didn't bother with those much yet. (Although mid sized super tank pays well.)
Teal Tech-tree:
Teal tech tree works with medium sized enemies. Not good if you aim for GCT's or Drills, but perfect if you have plenty of super tanks and watch towers.
Cost:40k
The entire 40k line is grid income. With "all" in the middle, round buildings on the right, and quads on the left.
Green Tech-tree:
Green tech tree has gridshard bonuses for small enemies in the 40k line. That is not really worth spending on if you have the other trees available still unbuilt.
Note that these descriptions say "structures" or "enemies". Given that there are buildings that affect "vehicles", I assume that "enemies" work for both buildings and vehicles. Since vehicles don't give too many shards, we don't bother building up shard bonuses only for them.
TL;DR:
For quad mid size: red, teal. Large: blue
For round mid size: pink, teal. Large: blue
(optional small size: pink, green)
So, where there is something collectible that you can spend on more important stuff, there is farming, too. However, you can do it efficiently too, which may seem slow at start, but pays out pretty well later on.
The basic concept for efficient farming is to select a sector you wish to farm off, and a neighbouring sector that serves as lateral income if you wouldn't want to "waste" buildings from the farmed sector. Then before destroying the towers, building up every grid bonus buildings.
Probably most of you noticed that certain buildings have a +5% Grid shard drop for medium/large sized buildings. One of such building might not do much, but as there are 3 cities generally in a sector, and likely each of those cities will have at least 2-6 such buildings, it can quickly add up.
Need numbers to be convinced? Me and Yarrrr did some "build up and farm" in the past days, with the following results (2 sectors):
- Drill Station main building giving 32k gridshards, around 79k in total if we count the lateral buildings plus the ocassional drops from the minions dying all around.
- Watch Tower giving up to 15k gridshards
- Grid Control Tower giving between 8k and 10k gridshards
- (other mid/small size buildings also buffed for some 50% loot)
So, how does one goes about it?
- Select a sector that has plenty of the buildings mentioned before. Here is a very good catalog of building sizes and shapes, so you can moreless see on a zoomed-out map what it has.
- Check if the sector has at least 2, preferably 3 easily accessible cities that have the proper building tech-tree for your farming targets. For example if you see plenty of watch towers, you look for quadrilateral building bonuses, preferably medium sized. If all you can see are Grid Control Towers, then you need large round building buffers.
- Level each city to level 5. The grid bonuses generally lay in the 10k-20k-40k area, the better ones in the 40k, of course.
- Check which points the buffer buildings are, and build the neccessary sub-buildings to reach them. You may not waste your shards on further leveling the city, neither building other structures that lead away from your current goal.
- Farm gridshard in the neighbouring sectors or in the same sector from buildings that won't likely be affected by the bonus, and pump up the buildings as fast as you can. It helps if you do it in company, since a building drops loot for everyone involved, so basically you multiply the total income by the number of the party.
- Once everything built up, begin clearing the relevant buildings. Enjoy the extra money!
In case you are lazy to look up the buildings to level up, here are some tips (locations may change, but they generally they keep their relative position in the 4 rotating directions. Right/left decided from the center towards the branching direction):
Red-ish building tree:
Cost: 10k
Location: right side of the triangle.
Cost: 40k
Location: 2nd from the left in the 40k line
Blue/purple tech-tree:
Cost: 40k
Location: blue-tech tree, right in 40k line
Same stat building with the name "Attenuated Stasis Condenser"
Cost: 40k
Location: middle in 40k line
Cost: 40k
Location: left side of 40k line
Same stat building with the name "Ducted Potential Calibrator"
Pink Tech-tree:
Cost: 40k
Location: 40k line, right
Building with same stats with the name "Stasis Condenser".
Pink tech tree has a lot of upgrades for small round enemies, and some for medium round enemies too! I didn't bother with those much yet. (Although mid sized super tank pays well.)
Teal Tech-tree:
Teal tech tree works with medium sized enemies. Not good if you aim for GCT's or Drills, but perfect if you have plenty of super tanks and watch towers.
Cost:40k
The entire 40k line is grid income. With "all" in the middle, round buildings on the right, and quads on the left.
Green Tech-tree:
Green tech tree has gridshard bonuses for small enemies in the 40k line. That is not really worth spending on if you have the other trees available still unbuilt.
Note that these descriptions say "structures" or "enemies". Given that there are buildings that affect "vehicles", I assume that "enemies" work for both buildings and vehicles. Since vehicles don't give too many shards, we don't bother building up shard bonuses only for them.
TL;DR:
For quad mid size: red, teal. Large: blue
For round mid size: pink, teal. Large: blue
(optional small size: pink, green)