Bio Engineer Archive

Ok to start off I 'd like to aplogise if this post is answered elsewhere - yes I have tried the search and couldn't find anything...

Right Iam just working on hunting 4 to become aBE (I have the 10k med craft exp) on my wookie and I've read the posts regarding 80k meat and 135k flora to make it to MBE. My question is that I'm thinking of buying a(micro) flora farm or two to help with the resources but I find that all the crafting materials from the bazaar are keeping me poor (running at about 20k cash even with doing missions occassionally) so:

a) how much are flora farms?

b) can I place it or do I need someone to survey a site first?

c) how much (roughly) do flora farms produce per day?

If it helps I'm not that interested in grinding, I wanna make MBE but am quite happy for that to take some time and I wanna enjoy the journey...

Omaccaryyhnarra the wookie

marksman 0.1.0.0

scout 3.0.3.0

medic 0.1.0.4

dont get a micro, get a large.

i know it seems like overkill now, but selling extra resources is an easy way to finance your trip to MBE. the large will quickly pay for itself and after that it can pay for all the meat you will need to buy.

to answer your questions:

a) micros are 5-10kand larges are 100-130k on my server

b) you can place it wherever you want and you are pretty much always gonna land on at least four resources (likely more like 8-10) and one of them is bound to be decent. with the micro i would suggest dropping it wherever is most convinient and just harvesting the flora with the highest % at any time and just keep it in that spot. if you are getting the large just ask people around what flora resource is good quality to harvest and have someone survey you a good spot for it. as soon as you drop it down start mining the good stuff and get as much as you can before it quits. once the good resource is gone, start harvesting whatever has the highest % for grinding flora. it should only take a day or two on a decent percent to get enough flora for a few days (depends on how hard you are grinding, for you this may last quite a while if you are taking your time). rinse and repeat with a new high quality resource at a new location. resources are probably the easiest thing to sell. once you have the high quality stuff drop some in the bazaar for5 or6 cpu depending on just how good it is and keep some with you while you ask around if anyone is looking for it. people cant get enough of good resources. you will find someone who will buy it all up and ask when you are gonna have more very easily.

c) it depends on the % they are on (and the quality also now.. thats a new thing im not sure)but i thinkmicros make around 500-1kper day and larges make around 5-9k per day. my memory is fuzzy though i could be wrong on the micro. it may be more or less. the large is definitely right cause i left one on some wood for a week and got 67k units.

If you only have marksman, scout and medic, I'd suggest getting novice artisan so you can do your own surveying and later have a vendor to sell your clones, tissues, pet-stims and vita packs.

I'd also suggest an Automated Flora Farm (medium) that's experimented to 9 or 10 BER (Base Extraction Rate). That'll cost twice the power and credits per day that a micro costs but pull more than twice the resources. The best a High Capacity Flora Farm (heavy) can get is 13 BER but costs 3 times the credits and power per day of a micro and that increase would be the same as using a medium and small together. Somediums are more efficient.

I agree that a medium harvester is the most efficient. You'll also want to get either a wind or solar power generator or you'll have to buy power. Place the generator first, let it build up some reserves of power. The same thing applies to power as flora resources...the solar is more efficient -- but you need less power than you do the flora food, so a wind generator would probably provide enough.

I can get a medium harvester for anywhere from 5-25k on Starsider, depending on who I get it from. Maybe post on your server's trade board?

You can place the harvesters/generator(s) yourself. It's best to try and get someone to survey out a good spot, I think. Just do a search on people who are Master Artisans or Surveyors and ask them if they'll do a surveying job for a reasonable fee.

When I had them (this was before the base extraction rate was really visibly experimentable, I guess) I got about 1k out of micro flora farms if they were on at least a 70% spot, 3k-ish out of a medium and 5k-ish out of a heavy. I never like putting a harvester down on anything less than 50% unless I simply can't find anything better.

Since you're going to want (if not outright need) several different kinds of harvestable resources, I second the recommendation that you pick up Novice Artisan and go up the Survey line. I'm not sold on needing Business, myself...you can sell single items out of the Bazzar, crates out of your backpack, and can probably find someone who'd be willing to host your product for a cut. But I really think Surveyor is a good idea to get all that Talusian Water & Fungi, Dantooine Berries, Tatooine Fiberplast, Lokian Wild Wheat,Endorian flowers and generic Class 4 Petro Fuel (when you can find it), Known Reactive Gas, Unknown Radioactives, Flora Structural (wood) & Flowers needed for pet meds and tissues.

I had the best experience gains when I gave tissues to a tailor to make into panels of cloth. If you can possibly find a tailor or chef who'd be willing to use your tissues/food additives, go for it. Even if they only practice making the panels/food, it's still good experience for you. As noted elsewhere on the board, though, make sure you're online when they're using your tissues.