Why do people like Chlorine Expansion?

[zOldBulldog]

Almost everybody these days says that Chlorine Expansion is a better method than Cobalt market crashing to make money, but I really don't understand why.

I tried both methods and this is what I noticed:

Chlorine Expansion
- If you don't have an Oxygen farm it takes forever waiting at a station (even a 3 star) to get enough oxygen to operate it.
- Even if you have an Oxygen farm you still have to manually feed the refiners and they only generate under half a stack before they decide to quit and demand babysitting.
* So in my opinion this is fine to generate a few million or tens of millions early in the game, but it quickly runs out of steam for the long run... it is just too manually intensive.
* It would be a very different story of course if you could have input and output pipes for refiners and were able to connect pipes to the base storage units. Then you could set it up and forget it.

Cobalt market crashing
- You can get it boot-started with the same expansion method you use for Chlorine. All you really need is about 3 stacks of Oxygen. Once you have 10 stacks you are set to start.
- You crash a single 3-star station and buy it all back at 80% off. Then you keep buying from the landing ships at 80% off until you can fill 2 base storage units with Cobalt. Yes, you still have to sit around a base shopping, but you can buy and scrap ships while doing it so that it is not too mind-numbing.
- Then you go station hopping crashing them all and every new system you find. Money problems gone.

And yes... I do know that a good Indium farm is better than the above methods for the long run.


In summary... I can see using chlorine expansion a couple times for very early cash, then switch to cobalt market crashing and finally setting up a proper indium farm. Am I wrong? If so, can you please explain why and how?

[opazed]

No, I guess you are right.

[IndecisiveMe]

I'm pretty sure there's no right or wrong way to play this game. Everyone gets something different out of it, so just do you and everyone else can do what they want.

I use chlorine expansion early game and that's pretty much all I do to boost units. I don't care about crashing markets, I sell to the ships that fly in.

[knighttemplar1960]

I don't use either one in the early game. I start off shooting a few asteroids and sell the gold, silver, and platinum. I use that to start buying trade goods and every time I warp I make a sale or a buy. After I've found a few wealthy systems the first 3 minutes of my play time are just teleporting from station to station buying and selling.

I make 10-20 million in that first 3-5 minutes. More than enough cash to get every thing you need to set up your activated Indium farm. I think the devs know this is the most quick and powerful way to make start up cash and its the reason that trade goods along the expedition route don't work the way they do in the rest of the game.

[Ograus]

is is a matter of taste
some players like market crashing others dislike
some players like chlorine expansions others dislike
some players like big mines, others dislike
some players like crafting others dislike
....
...
..
.

chlorine expansion can get even more interesting, when one does "space station hopping" and does not only shop for oxygene but for residual goop for nanite-refining, metal plates to build nice big mines,....

[Grimmslayer73]

If it were not for the refineries losing their contents it would be worth doing however I'm not going to stand there while it runs a 20 minute cycle. Because of this I don't use refiners at all.

[Kitsune Dzelda]

Meanwhile as Im just happy Storm Crystals Exist...

And that i can use my Photon Cannon on the Staship as a faux Mining Laser.

[Danjonkovich]

Originally posted by Kitsune Dzelda:

Meanwhile as Im just happy Storm Crystals Exist...

And that i can use my Photon Cannon on the Staship as a faux Mining Laser.

I think a fully upgraded infra knife is the best for mining, followed by the photon canon

[Ograus]

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

If it were not for the refineries losing their contents it would be worth doing however I'm not going to stand there while it runs a 20 minute cycle. Because of this I don't use refiners at all.

chlorine takes 4:05 for 4096 units as a product in one refiner
(x2 big + x3 med refiners ->20.480 clorine in 4:05)

"goop cycle" takes 40:57 for 4096 units for first 3 steps in one refiner
(x2 big + x3 med refiners ->20.480 units in 40:57)
step 1: Residual Goop -> Viscous Fluids (1:1)
step 2: Viscous Fluids -> Living Slime (1:1)
step 3: Living Slime,-> Runaway Mould (1:1)
step 4: Runaway Mould -> Nanite Cluster (5:1)
step 4:9990 Runaway Mould -> 1999 Nanite Cluster (5:1) in 19:57

so best do "goop cycle", while watching a movie, reading a book,...

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Ograus:

Originally posted by Grimmslayer73:

If it were not for the refineries losing their contents it would be worth doing however I'm not going to stand there while it runs a 20 minute cycle. Because of this I don't use refiners at all.

chlorine takes 4:05 for 4096 units as a product in one refiner
(x2 big + x3 med refiners ->20.480 clorine in 4:05)

"goop cycle" takes 40:57 for 4096 units for first 3 steps in one refiner
(x2 big + x3 med refiners ->20.480 units in 40:57)
step 1: Residual Goop -> Viscous Fluids (1:1)
step 2: Viscous Fluids -> Living Slime (1:1)
step 3: Living Slime,-> Runaway Mould (1:1)
step 4: Runaway Mould -> Nanite Cluster (5:1)
step 4:9990 Runaway Mould -> 1999 Nanite Cluster (5:1) in 19:57

so best do "goop cycle", while watching a movie, reading a book,...

I just use my in exo suit refiner to refine goop as I find it.

[Wizard of Woz]

Personally I think anything involving the refiners is dumb. They are glitchy and unreliable. Especially since there are so many other, and way less boring ways, to make money.

[Aurelia]

Scouring stations for S class scanner mods with fauna/flora scan bonuses isn't a bad option either. getting 300k per fauna scan, and 150k for every flower or tree, isn't a bad deal.

[Ograus]

refiners are not a solution for all problems and every thime
but at certain points they have their use
that, later in game there are much more efficient options for certain problems,....

similar to the use of solar panels,...

[Mr. Bufferlow]

There is no right way and almost every path you choose leads to excessive wealth in the game. Do what feels fun. If it feels grindy- stop doing that.

I just follow the tutorial and build a farm, get the right BPs and craft high value items. I sell what I currently can make until I reach the big ticket items.

I take a pretty laid back approach because I know the outcome is always the same. I end up with Billions of credits and thousands of nanites and really have no need for them anymore.

[zOldBulldog]

For what it's worth... after struggling to earn enough cash through Chlorine expansion I used Cobalt expansion to collect 2 base containers full of Cobalt, then revisited every station I stopped at during the Expedition, crashing the economy with those 40 stacks. By the end of it I had gone from about 100k to 1.8 Billion. Sold my Cobalt stock and now I won't have to worry about about cash for a very long time, if ever.

[Barmy Nimrod]

I did a three step progression for building wealth in space bucks:

1) Chlorine production
2) Cryo-Pump crafting (100 at a time)
3) Stasis devise crafting. (100 at a time)

I focused about 20 hours one weekend on nothing but manufacturing facilities until I had all the blueprints. Then built farms for all the resources. I'd rather click a button 2500 times, in about 45 minutes, to make 1.5B space bucks than refine/buy 250 stacks of Chlorine or 275 stacks if Ionized Cobalt for the same amount of money.

I did however, linger on SS platforms scrapping ships and selling the upgrades as well as buying pugneum, platinum and goop to refine for nanites.