Stalker Teeth revisited

[adritheonly]

(Yes, I saw the other post but it is 6 yrs old.)
I am having a heck of a time getting stalker teeth and have followed each piece of advise I've come across plus scoured the wiki and watched a few vids to boot.
Nope.
Method 1: find some stalkers and drop a grav trap and some scrap metal.
Uhh nope. The stalkers appear to have joined a gym since that advise last worked and will happily swim off with the scrap and dragging the trap into the blue yonder. I got one tooth after a lengthy search for scrap.
Method 2: set up a scanner room and search for the teeth. Fantastic! That simple? Nope. The ones you find will all have migrated to some nether zone where not even a grav trap will cajole them to the surface.
Method 3: Build a surround with I tubes and reinforced floors and place a stalker and scrap in the enclosed space. mine is open to the sky so there is no chance they can escape over the top and 3 high so there is plenty of space. Oh man! That one really got to me. Watching the stalker swim through the floor with the scrap just broke my will to live after all that effort.

Question is: what is the latest way to get a decent amount of teeth that does not involve spawning teeth with devcommands or loading a mod or using any of the above methods?

[seven]

I always found plenty just searching the stalkers scrap hoards. Or you can feed them a scrap piece and they often drop a tooth. Sometimes they bite though.

[Issac Brock]

When I used a grav trap I loaded on about four or five scrap metal pieces.

Also; I don't know if this made the difference or not; I did this at a location where there already was 1) a piece of scrap metal 2) an active stalker working that piece of scrap metal and lastly 3) there was a stalker tooth present. I don't know if it was those three previous points or not but during one daylight period I sat there in my seamoth and everytime there was one or two teeth to collect I would go grab them and by the end of the day I had well over a dozen.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by Issac Brock:

When I used a grav trap I loaded on about four or five scrap metal pieces.

OK. good point. I used only one piece of scrap so maybe many more would keep the trap from being dragged off.

Originally posted by Issac Brock:

Also; I don't know if this made the difference or not; I did this at a location where there already was 1) a piece of scrap metal 2) an active stalker working that piece of scrap metal and lastly 3) there was a stalker tooth present. I don't know if it was those three previous points or not but during one daylight period I sat there in my seamoth and everytime there was one or two teeth to collect I would go grab them and by the end of the day I had well over a dozen.

Also worth a try, i.e. don't try and set up the scenario find an existing scenario.

Thanks! Will try. At this point I will try anything.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by seven:

I always found plenty just searching the stalkers scrap hoards. Or you can feed them a scrap piece and they often drop a tooth. Sometimes they bite though.

I'm not sure I understand the concept "stalkers scrap hoards". I might have cleared out most scrap metal before I understood that stalkers deposit them in specific caches. How do one find these?

[seven]

Yeah, I meant their caches. Just swim through a creepvine forest and see where they are hanging out, then search below them. There might be no scrap but you can still find teeth. I just revisited an old playthrough and found 10 teeth in a couple minutes this way. I also had extensively harvested scrap in that game and still found teeth.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by seven:

Yeah, I meant their caches. Just swim through a creepvine forest and see where they are hanging out, then search below them. There might be no scrap but you can still find teeth. I just revisited an old playthrough and found 10 teeth in a couple minutes this way. I also had extensively harvested scrap in that game and still found teeth.

OK. so patience and exploring more is the way to go here. I guess I am being impatient because I was already in the ILZ when I realised that if my Cyclops gets killed, I have no spare teeth to replace either it or the Prawn.

[dreamrider]

I always found plenty just searching the narrow floor of the Kelp Forest ravine that cuts into the southern part of the main Safe Shallows area.

And/or watching a couple of Stalkers stealing a bit of scrap back and forth in a bondary area between SS and KF.

BTW, there are ways to anchor a grav trap so that a Stalker can't haul it off. Easiest is to place two grave traps, one in each end of a coral tube with a fairly narrow waist. Then drop a bit of scrap near the mid-point. Won't be 100%, but mostly the two grav traps will keep each other from drifting off, and the two traps + coral tube will keep a Stalker from dragging off the scrap.

Plus...you will collect food fish.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

I always found plenty just searching the narrow floor of the Kelp Forest ravine that cuts into the southern part of the main Safe Shallows area.

I somehow only ever sail over that area on the way to the Crag fields, that's worth a try too.

Originally posted by dreamrider:

And/or watching a couple of Stalkers stealing a bit of scrap back and forth in a bondary area between SS and KF.

My main base is at the Northern thernal vent in the SS which has KF to left and right of it. So finding them is not a problem, getting their teeth to stay above the surface for long enough for me to find them is. I have released 3 Stalkers from eggs into my immediate surrounds though and they might be acting different than the wild ones.

Originally posted by dreamrider:

BTW, there are ways to anchor a grav trap so that a Stalker can't haul it off. Easiest is to place two grave traps, one in each end of a coral tube with a fairly narrow waist. Then drop a bit of scrap near the mid-point. Won't be 100%, but mostly the two grav traps will keep each other from drifting off, and the two traps + coral tube will keep a Stalker from dragging off the scrap.

Good point i only used one grav trap in the structure I built. In too much of a hurry to try and see if more than one would reinforce each other. I did however notice in the past that a grav trap too close to my base would take my food Reggies right out of their tank into the ocean outside. This is the part that bugs me, that no-one seems to discuss: Why are creatures able to move through build pieces as if they are ghosts? It looks more like a code conflict than deliberate game design to me.

[penner3]

Patience really is the key. You have to watch the stalkers and see where they like to hang out. There seem to be certain locations where they want to bring the metal to, and they're different in each playthrough. If you can find a group of at least two or three stalkers, and encourage them by dropping more metal, you can then just watch them. It really does take patience though. In this game, in general, more stuff happens when you're around.

I have experimented with growing stalkers in the aquarium, then building a remote area with scrap metal and creepvine for them to hang out in. This creates a very reliable tooth farm, though it is time consuming to set up.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by penner3:

Patience really is the key. You have to watch the stalkers and see where they like to hang out. There seem to be certain locations where they want to bring the metal to, and they're different in each playthrough. If you can find a group of at least two or three stalkers, and encourage them by dropping more metal, you can then just watch them. It really does take patience though. In this game, in general, more stuff happens when you're around.

I have experimented with growing stalkers in the aquarium, then building a remote area with scrap metal and creepvine for them to hang out in. This creates a very reliable tooth farm, though it is time consuming to set up.

Yes, I was wondering about that. I built the tooth farm but my stalker just sailed through the floor, taking the scrap with him. Would the external grow beds on the floor stop this ability?

[Darth Cervantes]

I built my stalker tooth farm in one of those caves, specifically the big crater in the dunes that has that cave that goes to an alien room (I think one of the ones with ion cubes), its a nice space with a small cave entrance that is easy to block off. I squeezed one of the tubular compartments into that opening and have to enter and exit through a door. 2 stalkers and a grav trap and 2 salvages, lots of teeth

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by adritheonly:

Originally posted by penner3:

Patience really is the key. You have to watch the stalkers and see where they like to hang out. There seem to be certain locations where they want to bring the metal to, and they're different in each playthrough. If you can find a group of at least two or three stalkers, and encourage them by dropping more metal, you can then just watch them. It really does take patience though. In this game, in general, more stuff happens when you're around.

I have experimented with growing stalkers in the aquarium, then building a remote area with scrap metal and creepvine for them to hang out in. This creates a very reliable tooth farm, though it is time consuming to set up.

Yes, I was wondering about that. I built the tooth farm but my stalker just sailed through the floor, taking the scrap with him. Would the external grow beds on the floor stop this ability?

Scrap that idea, they sail straight through the growbeds reinforced floors, etc. Now the scrapmetal disappear under the surface. Just going to have to dismantle everything and try and follow the other advise I got, i.e. forget about farming, dismantle farm and simply go to new areas after replacing the scrapmetal I just lost and try again in virgin stalker country where I've not changed anything.

[penner3]

Originally posted by adritheonly:

Would the external grow beds on the floor stop this ability?

Possibly. I've done this twice, once in a wide flat area in the grassy plateaus and once on one of the floating islands. I built two foundations, then two growbeds at opposite corners of the rectangle, and planted creepvine in them. (On the theory that the stalkers would feel more at home.) I dumped a load of metal salvage in the middle.

After I had deposited 4-5 tank-grown stalkers above that, they started to produce teeth rapidly -- but again, mostly while I was watching. It really seems as if most activity pretty much shuts down when you go away. But while I was sitting there, with that many stalkers and that much metal, the teeth just rained down and I was just plucking them out of the water before they even hit the deck.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by Darth Cervantes:

I built my stalker tooth farm in one of those caves, specifically the big crater in the dunes that has that cave that goes to an alien room (I think one of the ones with ion cubes), its a nice space with a small cave entrance that is easy to block off. I squeezed one of the tubular compartments into that opening and have to enter and exit through a door. 2 stalkers and a grav trap and 2 salvages, lots of teeth

I'm trying to find enough teeth in the event I lose Cyclops, Prawn or my latest Moth's two upgrades. Going into the Dunes might be tempting fate just a tad, wouldn't it? Haven't been there because of so much there that loves eating vehicles. To explain, I am infection level 4 now and warpers simply hunt me down wherever I go.

[adritheonly]

Originally posted by penner3:

Originally posted by adritheonly:

Would the external grow beds on the floor stop this ability?

Possibly. I've done this twice, once in a wide flat area in the grassy plateaus and once on one of the floating islands. I built two foundations, then two growbeds at opposite corners of the rectangle, and planted creepvine in them. (On the theory that the stalkers would feel more at home.) I dumped a load of metal salvage in the middle.

After I had deposited 4-5 tank-grown stalkers above that, they started to produce teeth rapidly -- but again, mostly while I was watching. It really seems as if most activity pretty much shuts down when you go away. But while I was sitting there, with that many stalkers and that much metal, the teeth just rained down and I was just plucking them out of the water before they even hit the deck.

Do you not have the problem of them going through the floor and swimming away with the scrap at all? I've just tried again with new stalkers and more grav traps, metal etc. I'm starting to feel as if my game is bugged and I have no mods, changed nothing about the code at all.