Best starting plan?

[Ruca [PT]]

I have played a few playthroughs already but with the recent update and changes I honestly am a bit lost and confused.

Due to some issues I have just started a New Game and I am now at the point of still digging with Shovel, Buckets and Pan. Despite the fact of having to buy items that keeps disapearing I have a fair amount of coins to spend but I'm not sure wich way I should go now.

I am quite confused on how Ram drill works. I know it digs the dirt on top but why would I dig a hole to get that machine inside digging the dirt above it? Isn't it better to get the Goliath digging downwards?
Both machines will need to be moved to other spots eventually or even other claim but in the long run accounting further expansion and late game setup, wich will be the best system for efficiency and biggest earnings?

Still at first claim and I intend to stay on it at least until I find the Secret Item(if I need to dig the whole claim so be it) and I have a considerable hole in a diagonal mine shaft shape going parallel to the river with a few tin sheets making a ramp to get in and out. But I'm not sure what would be my best bet now because the game doesn't give me objectives or sugestions on tiered steps or anything.
So I come here asking for opinions about what others do and progress so I can have a basic idea of what steps to take.

Edit: Does it worth to bet on the Blueprints system, buy Workbench and tool early?
Do the blueprint items increase gold value considerably to the point of beating craftables like Rings, Necklaces(even with Market value bonuses) and making them more profitable?
Or the Blueprints system basically have no use except for crafting the items we use and saving us money on the long run?

I appreciate any experiences shared and sugestions are also welcome.
Thank you.

[japanaman2]

The blueprint items are mostly for decorating your building if you so choose to other wise they are only needed to craft the item before them for some gain when you sell it which really does not matter much as you will be swimming in coins before you even dig your 1st shovel full.

To start you do not even need to break ground until you are ready to automate. take the pan from the starter items and go to the shop pickup a fishing rod. Do not buy it at 1st! You can fish now that it is in your hand. Stand on the table facing the bridge place your pan where the fish will land to capture many at once for easy transporting and fish until you can buy the rod then move your operation down to the fish market grab a bed, and place it next to the river by the fish market (The fish market it is on the road below the starting shop and to your left) where you will now be fishing from since it is closer so you can next to change the market price.Then fish for about 2 hours, Now you will have enough for your 1st phase of automation.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2169608421

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2171947612

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2171947914

items for starting automation.
1 ram drill
1 belt
1 harvester
1 sorter
1 pan
1 box
1 short ramp
1 pole
And some pipe to hook everything together.

If you are done fishing or not you can fish up to this point then sell your stuff raw by having everything fall into a pan at the end of the sorter or keep fishing while the ram drill breaks to get to the next steps faster this 1st set up is only to just speed up the process you can just keep fishing and ignore it until you fully want to build if you want to up to you really.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2119795653

The ram drills work by placing 1 normal shovel of dirt under them (Note: this dirt never has to be refreshed though a David or re put down at all once it is in place.) to do this place a box down anywhere you want your ram drill to stand then shovel 1 shovel full of dirt with the basic shovel in the center of the top of the box then you can place your ram drill on top of it if you do not have the pipe to connect yet or remove the box as the box is now not used once your piping supports the drill or it is in place. ram drill will always produce dirt as if it were top level but can have the dirt the make combine by hitting with other dirt to forum large chunks of dirt which when processed wither by the harvester or by hand will produce larger sized resources.

The reason to dig a hole besides artifact hunting is to give yourself more vertical head room when building a system that uses gravity to feed dirt down instead of lines going outward with expensive belts that most like to build into.

The harvester can safely take 4 ram drills per every 4 levels up to 3 levels so about 12 drills on 1 harvester once you have a deep enough hole worth of dirt provided 1 of the ram drills on each level is 1 pipe more out then the other 3 (as a cross would look like) with out clogging. It will form a ring of bounce dirt over time but for the most part will not clog. Then you build up from that in the same pattern with your hole to give the next amount of dirt enough fall time so lower layers process before they get there building out with the time delay may be easier to do with clever tin ramp placements.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2151781045

Then then all goes on to 1 belt (which can be expanded upon later if you want to build more of the same as above with a second harvester with connecting belts feeding to the same sorting station) and into the 4 sorters which will auto center out the end from there you only still want normal crucibles sitting on top of furnaces which are covered by foundation instead of the all in 1 smelter reason for this is the mold on the smelter will not auto heat the bars so you still want to move the crucibles manually now with the bar heated in the mold cut to size in the mold and then craft.

Hope it helps happy mining.

[Ruca [PT]]

Wow,
I wasn't expecting something so detailed. You really put a lot of work into this post and I really appreciate that. Thank you.

Well, honestly the starting sugestion it's like an exploit and I'm not a fan of that kind of gameplay but I don't judge. Anyway I already digged a fair hole, bought the Smelting set and Grinder to produce craftables, a few ramps, pump and pipes and got around 3k coins so I think that I can buy the rest of the rig you sugest. And is allways good to know a way out when something like game over happens.

The blueprint items disappointed me, well I guess I was expecting that those were real money makers but I guess not. Good to know.

I will try a setup like the one you show on the screenshot when I have more time to play but I tried a quick setup with the ram drill and it didn't spit dirt while I shoveled dirt underneath but got it working when I shoveled on top of it.
Anyway, I did not had the time to experiment further and assemble the whole production line yet but in time I will.

I think that later moving to Goliaths lwill help digging for the Secret Items(between us, would be nice if those unlocked the Giant Shard at the Blueprint shop, right?!).

[Lions_Den]

The ram drill you don't have to shovel dirt for. Just place it on the ground and connect it up and it will keep spewing out dirt until the end of time. I have a small setup of around 8 ram drills and while they only spit out dirt that has the smallest value of stuff in it, in around 5 minutes I can accumulate around 10k coins just from making gold and iron objects. I haven't played with the David and Goliath yet but I have purchased one of each to try out soon.

[Skymera]

Don't even bother with fishing or anything like that. Just mine.

Mine enough gold to buy a pickaxe. Use that on the first plot to dig to bedrock.
Now get 5 buckets, some pipes and a pump and build a basic pipe system to pump water into a pan.

Do some mining in your freshly dug hole, smelt some bars and sell them until you have a few thousand coins (wont take long at all) and then begin planning your automated system.

I've stuck with ram drills thus far. 20 on one conveyor going to a single harvester and a second conveyor / harvester with 6 more drills.

[Ruca [PT]]

My thoughts on this.

I will do some experimenting with 1-2 Rams and then with 1-2 Goliath aswell and the results will speak for themselves.
I honestly don't see a proper way to do things because the game feels like that when we are able to build a system that works decently we wont need more Gold/money as there are no objectives or sense of progress past buying those.
Anyway thank you guys for the answers and I will give it a try on the sugestions.

[Geffin]

the first thing i do is dig down at a angle to bed rock than pan my first gold from dirt chunks i make down there also catching a few dozen fish for some good starter cash. but yeah i skip that small nuggy stuff on top. then when i have enough cash i dig out a large spot under ground and build my first rig on the bedrock to mine the big nuggy stuff. big nugs also seem to jam less on the belts so thats why all my opperations are under ground at all my digs. also the the look and feel of being under ground makes me feel more like im really mineing. corse if you are useing ram drill you only get small nuggs but i dig and plop dirt on the rig to boost my gold worth at the start wile the ram dose its little thing. now with the david and goliath combo wooh all my sites are pumpin with the big nuggs.

[japanaman2]

Ok since the 1.3 update the ram drills have a lot less spitting force so my last suggestion has changed slightly for the better on using gravity, and it is a ton more compact and can much better be copy pasted, and daisy chained to the same sorting system check it out in the screen shots.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2174975196

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2175756484

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2174975151

it is only has a with of 5. meaning you can easily copy paste it and daisy chain them to the same sorting system. This system is currently at 17 ram drills on 1 harvester in 3 directions using mostly gravity and a slide with just 1 centering belt at the end to to move the dirt. I have other screen shots with more views on it as well if you want to look them up and plan to build it.

Now I bring this up as this is the main reason behind what I meant as what you can do with the hole you dug out. Since I am only on the starting plot with this i have already hit the top of the build limit of how high it can be built but if you were to dig it out you can expand on the number of drills the deeper you go.

To answer your boat shard question: While the shard on the ship would be nice. I don"t think it will fit in the crucible to melt so we would have to burn it a few times at the scrapyard to melt it down.

[Ruca [PT]]

Watta insane rig you got there lol

I haven't played much more since the start so I'm still messing around with a couple of rams and an harvester and a pair of sorters but running short on coins for proper piping so I'm not at the point of getting a dozen machines, wich btw it's kinda confusing to me.
By past experiences I had some issues with systems clogging up and stuff so I have to go step by step to see the results and improve gradually.
This last update brought some changes, game physics a pain right now, the keyboard controls are a bit messed up and I keep losing tools and bars, example is that I have lost 2 Saws in a single 1 hour session where both have vanished when dropped on the ground, while placing a Gold Bar on a crucible it was shot high to the sky to never be seen again as the day before the same have happened with a Shard bar so it's a little frustrating to play Hydroneer now and I'm not playing much to avoid losing stuff.

That's a nice sugestion for a big rig but probably I wont reach that stage. It will be a big help starting and gathering coins to buy all the expensive stuff I need for my second objective. Like every player I want the Holy Grail wich is to get those big nuggets but I also want to dig the site to find the Secrets it holds.
That said I could dig using the pickaxe but I'm planning, more on the long run, to use Goliaths wich can help digging holes but doesn't waste the paydirt.

[AngusMcBeth]

Ruca, when you save your game, try not to leave items sitting on pay dirt, leave them on a foundation you have placed or on ground you can't dig. I have not lost any items since I started doing this.

I missed ram drills out, not worth the trouble.

If you want to get rich quick....

Start new game

pan
1. water supply pipe
pan
2. furnace, crucible and mold
pan
3. gem polishing stone
pan
4. pick axe
pan
5 buy plot at 960c (the plot with no surface water) and move all your stuff to your new plot

6. use pick axe to dig to the bottom of your new plot, you will find water there. (it goes deep!)

7. Pan till you get enough to start automating with david and goliath setup....the nuggets are huge down there! They are so large they will pop out your pan when you scrub dirt.

8. Become rich.


Hope this helps.

[Ruca [PT]]

I don't need to start a new game because I already have all the stuff to make craftables plus a few foundations and sheet plates, some different pipes with 5 filters already, harvester and ram so at this point it's easier to buy the claim and move there.
I'm only missing the pickaxe to dig the access shaft to the bottom but honestly I don't know if it's trustfull when it comes to find the Relic. If the pickaxe deletes the Relic like it does with the paydirt I will lose one of my objectives. If it does delete the Relics I have to dig with the shovel. There are low chances to hit the spot I don't want to but don't make me starting to talk about bad luck, you'd be amazed.
Anyway when reaching the bottom and water, either pan or a basic auto-system probably will be faster than at the first claim earning coins to buy everything and upgrade the whole process. Pan having the advantage to see the Shinny balls that barely fit on the crucible, sweet!
Probably it's what I'll be doing tomorrow.
Nice sugestion AngusMcBeth. Thank you.