spawner farming

[Knightmare]

Does anyone do spawner farming like we do? IE take over a poi and destroy all but a few select spawners, place a turret/sentry gun + ammo box in the vicinity and drop your core in a power it back on for easy harvesting? the best place to do this in is the drone base so you can harvest golems for parts and kroguns for food/medical for cheap.

[Xzystance:TTV]

Sounds like something that should get fixed, I see that as an exploit, I dunno, what do the devs think?

[Targa]

Are you saying that the Alien spawners reactivate once you add a player core to the POI? Because this last update has them deactivate when you destroy the alien core.

[Siccaxe]

I don't view this as an exploit... fair use of the mechanics IMO. I don't so it, but it's a good idea. most crafting/survival games have a way to farm mobs, I like it. creativity at work.

[Knightmare]

Per patch notes 1.1.0
- NPC spawner blocks will now stay and re-spawn NPCs until spawner block is destroyed

patch notes 1.4.0
- If core is removed from enemy base, the teleporters stop spawning new enemies. If any new core is set (even a player core), they restart spawning.

they stop spawning when there is no core in a poi, if there is an alien or player core then they start respawning, so yes this is an exploit since you can farm the hell out of them and it was by game design.

[scotantaco]

I think the minigunners might have spoiled canned food, because they are always carrying stomach pills. But the large and small health kits are safe to eat... and their ammo seems to magically chamber in my weapons.

[liftallthepizzas]

Yes, I made a pre-alpha farm at one point, it was a lot more manual because the spawners only spawned three enemies then disappeared and the turrets wouldn't shoot them automatically. This is how the farms work in Alpha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrPLrUV8M

I'm considering building one in my Let's Play series for the fun of it.

[Targa]

I commented on the video, but I'll put it here also for those that don't go to YouTube to watch.

The resource cost vs rewards may or may not be advantageous to the player. I'd rather see it with Sentry Guns, and feed the ammo dropped by the aliens into the SG's to see whether it can be self-sustaining or not. It does seem to be a decent way to farm food and medikits if you're on a planet you don't have a base on. Quite frankly, I'm not too sure the developers are going to leave this "feature" in the game once they watch this video.

[liftallthepizzas]

I don't think they'll leave it that way either. I also don't think it's a huge exploit if it even is an exploit. If I could go out and gather those resources (or as many as I'll need) faster than I can farm them then it's not a big deal. I mean you aren't going to monopolize the universe because you spent weeks gathering an inventory full of medikits and a freighter full of canned veggies.

[Knightmare]

you say that but ive been farming iron golems for parts which are far more valuable and definately worth the ammo expenditure using a plasma turret on them, it costs a promethium pack and some parts but I get more parts out than I put in.

[liftallthepizzas]

That's not the point. Just because you can get more out than you put in does not make it an exploit or a problem. It costs only a couple promethium to make enough charges to mine out an entire deposit. Does that make mining an exploit or something that needs to be removed from the game?

The issue is whether or not it's significantly faster or gives someone an unfair advantage. A player can mine 100 ores a minute. Your one golem spawns once per two minutes. Do you get 200 ores worth of parts by looting a single golem. Can a player running a golem farm actually gather more resources than someone who is mining?

[times05]

Originally posted by Knightmare:

patch notes 1.4.0
- If core is removed from enemy base, the teleporters stop spawning new enemies. If any new core is set (even a player core), they restart spawning.

Is it still possible to set up farms like that?

I'm confused. You quote the patch notes and then several people continue discussing if farms like that are good/bad risk/reward, as if it's still possible.... is it? Anyone tried after 1.4?

[Knightmare]

@times05
this is current game 1.4.1 so yes its still possible,

@liftallthepizzas
I never said it was faster or efficient, only that you get more out than you put in, they drop stuff like reactors sometimes and multiples at that and reactors take alot of ingots to make since they are made of multiple components. Personally I just use the parts in the BP instead of putting them in a normal constructor, if I had the equivalent of minecrafts hoppers I could automate it further lol.

[Wisp Cat]

I have done some spawner farming when I was in a game I had set up to be resource poor (I could not make any ammo and had to rely on aliens for all of my ammo).

But mostly that feels really boring, so I mostly have tried to destroy the pads.

[Gherid_lacksGPS]

It's an exploit that I'd expect to be fixed. I find that boring as all hell and have never done it, though.

[Knightmare]

500+ hours in, gotta keep entertained somehow, hell I even warp backwards in my CV to test that out (and it does work albiet with strange side effects) and is it really an exploit when the dev's themselves tell you about it in the patch notes?