Tips and Tricks

[Wingblaze]

I thought I'd try to assemble some beginner tips and tricks for folks and hopefully encourage others to share theirs. There are some spoilers I guess as far as machines but nothing story-wise.

1. Hunting microbes doesn't appear to consume any energy, so if you're tired but the day is young, it's something you can still do.

2. The microbe composting machine: this is obvious in hindsight, but there are four kinds of fertilizers - 70%, 50%, 30% and random 30-70%, colored green, yellow, red, and purple respectively. The type you get from the composting machine relates directly to the microbes you put in (good, neutral, bad, and wild). Personally I started selling the red and purple ones and only composting the green and yellow.

3. Meteorite extraction is a VERY slow process. You might be better off selling the regular ones and only crushing the rare ones.

4. It takes 3 night's sleep to get to a new destination. You can always mine a planet, then leave late in the day to cut the amount of time you're stuck on the ship.

5. You do not need to be right next to something to interact with it. The range is about 3 squares. This can help when setting up farming plots, or just not having to spend time walking up to everything.

6. The hoverboard is a nice upgrade to have.

7. When looking for a crew member to turn in a quest, you can look in the social tab and click on that person. Next to their picture is a targeting bullseye. Click it and it will tell you what deck that crew member is on right now.

8. Progression for captain levels happens at the end of the quarter. However the only reward seems to be money - your skills don't seem to improve.

9. Your primary income seems to be from farming crops and xenos (livestock). (I'm still working on determining the best crops for profit per day, but bear in mind there is a wide variation).

10. Buybot sells a variety of things but at a markup from the usual price.

What useful things have you learned?

EDIT: adding a few from others

11. If you keep accidentally using tools and consuming stamina, keep the microbe detector as your active tool to avoid that. (from Kittycat0510)

12. Most planets have items you can forage up by right clicking on the item. Things like seaweed or flowers might be something you can grab and use. (from Kittycat0510)

13. The xeno habitat has a little panel on it and if you click on it, you can upgrade it to auto feed the residents for 1000g. This also lets you move it. (from ivyfoo)

[kittykat0510]

These are all great tips! Kinda related to your first tip but if you're like me and keep accidentally using your tools then keep the microbe detector as your active tool so you don't waste stamina.
Here's another. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out but there are items you can pick up on each planet if you right click (don't know what it is on controller). The seaweed on the second planet is great for emergency boosts of stamina especially if your struggling to find those space radishes.

[ivyfoo]

This is a great list!

If you click on the panel to your xeno habitat you can upgrade it to auto feed. This also allows you to move it.

[KingDing-DongofPooPooMountain]

For #5, I think it's actually about 4 squares! I have a 24 planter row (8x3) with gardening bots in the middle. If you stand where the 2nd row gardening bot is, you can reach all 24 squares.

For #8, Progression for captain levels actually reward you cooking equipment, and you should be able to unlock all the cooking tools by rank 7. Cooking takes way too long for good income, but great for traversing planets and gift giving.

And for #9, Best crops to profit from are pumpkin , ginger, and pineapple. The most profitable tree to grow is A.V.O (avocado) .

[Bob]

For #9, it's worth noting that each machine you make effectively makes money for you. Farm plots grow crops for money, fiber weavers upgrade some xeno/crop products into more expensive cloth, juicers and the like will turn crops into more valuable juice, etc. Many machines take 1 or more days to run, but as long as you have the ingredients and keep them running, they're making you money.

For #10, buybot also sells Xeno eggs. It's a great way to fill out your ranches! Buying full blocks helps with making machines as well.

For #12, the forageables can often be recycled as well! Tumbleweeds recycle into xeno feed, pet rocks into more rocks, etc. If the foraged item is called a "Resource" it can probably be recycled. Recycling shells gives sand as well, which can be a great supplement when you need glass.

As a new tip:
Build more than one of each machine! As you upgrade your watering setup, build more crops. Run multiple furnaces, run multiple recyclers, run multiple meteorite refiners, etc. The only limit is having enough inputs.

And another new tip:
If you're running low on scrap metal, hardware parts, recycled parts, or wires, you can buy them down at the shop on deck 6. They're fairly cheap, and will assist you with making more stuff. Scrap metal is especially cheap at 2 bucks per metal, which means that each scrap cube is only 10 bucks. Expect to buy a lot of scrap if you make a lot of machines.

[Brig]

The red gel you get from blobs can be put into the medicine machine to generate an energy potion.

If you're after a specific resource, you can just flick back and forth between explore points on a planet. If you see the resource you want mine it, then flick to another, rather than continuing to hunt for beacons. This can also make halfway decent money if you pick up any flowers/pet rocks/etc before each reset.

[Tenoshii]

Originally posted by Bob:

For #12, the forageables can often be recycled as well! Tumbleweeds recycle into xeno feed, pet rocks into more rocks, etc. If the foraged item is called a "Resource" it can probably be recycled. Recycling shells gives sand as well, which can be a great supplement when you need glass.

Wow, can't believe after over 40 hours of play it didn't occur to me to try this. Nice tip!

[delerium76]

Something I just figured out today is, you can actually recycle microbes in the green recycler! From what I can tell these types give this item:
Good: Minerals
Bad: Cosmic Jelly
Neutral: Aluminum Ore
Wild: Soil Sample

Finally a use for bad microbes since they can be converted to cosmic jelly and then turned into energy tonics in the medicine machine! The good microbes make the best fertilizer so it's not worth it but you could convert them into minerals and minerals into vitamins.

[Wingblaze]

Lost socks can be recycled into some useful things.

[ohener]

When buying items in bulk if you press the minus button it will cycle straight from 1 to 100, making it easier to buy 100 scrap metal at a time without your fingers getting sore.

[delerium76]

So in delving deeper into the recycler and microbes, I found out that at a certain point, the higher rank microbes start giving different things. So far I've found the following:

Good: Tough Bacteria (rank 6) = health tonic
Bad: super Strep Bacteria (rank 4) = 12 cosmic jelly
Bad: E. Coli (rank 6) = 2 electro plasma
Neutral: Sea Sparkle (rank 6) = 8 copper ore
Wild: Water Flea (rank 5) = 1 energy potion

From my data, it seems like rank 1-4 microbes give the items in my previous post, but each higher rank gives more items. Super status on a microbe also seems to increase the quantity. Recycling rank 5 and 6 items give different (better) items, which I listed in this post above. rank 5 usually gives 1 item and rank 6 gives 2 items (except the ore). Anyway, figured I'd add to my tip that even more unique stuff can come from microbe recycling.