Brain tree limpet farming - Limpets exploding

SlickPBW

S
metatheurgist said:
Can't wait for them to fix the exploit that lets people drop into stations extra quick with SCA! ;)
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THAT would turn whining into an Olympic sport around these parts!

Edit: Actually that one doesn't bother me. If someone wants to give up a module slot for that, it's a design choice. I have never used SCA; don't know a thing about it. Not interested.
 
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DemiserofD

D
If I could add one feature to an SRV, it'd be a grappling hook that could be used to reel the materials in from awkward places. I don't mind harvesting mats from brain trees or crystals, but the way mats often get stuck in places I can't get to them is very frustrating.
 

Dougie

Dougie
DemiserofD said:
If I could add one feature to an SRV, it'd be a grappling hook that could be used to reel the materials in from awkward places. I don't mind harvesting mats from brain trees or crystals, but the way mats often get stuck in places I can't get to them is very frustrating.
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You can get out and kick the mat when on foot. I found I had to crouch, look directly at the thing and move forward, the mat then rolled forward. I was at Koli Discii and occasionally a tube of antimony (or whatever) would land between containers, I just got out and kicked the thing into the open.

Not done it at crystalline spire sites though I was ready to - things hung up in brain trees are another matter but I was able to get them by driving the srv under / at the overhanging branch.
 

DemiserofD

D
Em Why said:
You can get out and kick the mat when on foot. I found I had to crouch, look directly at the thing and move forward, the mat then rolled forward. I was at Koli Discii and occasionally a tube of antimony (or whatever) would land between containers, I just got out and kicked the thing into the open.

Not done it at crystalline spire sites though I was ready to - things hung up in brain trees are another matter but I was able to get them by driving the srv under / at the overhanging branch.
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If we could actually pick up mats on foot that'd be nice too. Unfortunately the process of moving things on foot feels very accidental and unintended.
 

CMDR Lefty Jackson

CMDR Lefty Jackson
DemiserofD said:
If we could actually pick up mats on foot that'd be nice too. Unfortunately the process of moving things on foot feels very accidental and unintended.
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Yep, on foot would be handy.

Moving objects around on foot "feels" like maybe that could be considered an exploit, or is it just another way of doing a task with the tools available?

Heck, on foot, I'd pick up rocks and throw at them if I could. It adds to the variety of things that a player can do. Humans get bored quick, they need a variety of stuff to mess with.
 

DemiserofD

D
CMDR Lefty Jackson said:
Yep, on foot would be handy.

Moving objects around on foot "feels" like maybe that could be considered an exploit, or is it just another way of doing a task with the tools available?

Heck, on foot, I'd pick up rocks and throw at them if I could. It adds to the variety of things that a player can do. Humans get bored quick, they need a variety of stuff to mess with.
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I've always thought it'd be neat if you could have your ship hover overhead and you could go down, grab materials on foot, and throw them up to be collected by your waiting limpets. It'd only work on low-g worlds, of course, but it'd be cool.

You could do the same in lieu of High Grade Emissions too, actually. EVA over to a wrecked ship(just the outside, no need to get TOO ambitious) and use your laser cutter to cut off pieces of the ship and throw them back to your ship to be collected.
 

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
IstvaanDCIV said:
Was it an exploit? It's not something I've ever felt the need to do myself, the forests can get thick enough that the SRV method has always felt adequate to me. But it only seemed a little bit cheesy to me at worst.
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The fact that people were abusing technical limitations of the game to fill their material bins with pretty much no effort whatsoever?

Sounds like an exploit to me :)
 

Archvillain

Archvillain
You can still use limpets; from what I've heard it's more difficult now and requires a different technique but still possible. I haven't tried it yet but apparently you want to send them out so their path is slightly closer to horizontal than vertical, meanwhile the slightest movement of your ship while they're working can doom them.

(The fact that a key part of the technique has always been "place your ship where your graphics settings cause the trees to despawn" makes it pretty clearly an exploit, but apparently the exploit can still be done if you're careful enough)

This updated technique came after the exploit was fixed. There has been a minor game update since then but the patch notes didn't mention any additional limpet changes, so it's unlikely but possible that another tweak was made
 
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SlickPBW

S
Ok, I just completed an SRV run at the Brain Trees at HR 3230 3 a a, and since it's been a while for me doing these SRV runs, here's all the improvements that I noticed since my last mat gathering run there:

  • Even though the mats still get hung up in the trees sometimes, I had a 100% success rate getting the mat; either by gently bumping the tree with my SRV (and cargo scoop open), or by doing a mini jump to touch the mat. They have obviously slightly increased the SRV's "scoop radius" since my last material run here.
  • I actually tried several times to get my SRV stuck in the trees and I could always get out by boosting away, so they definitely fixed that bug too.
  • I remember in the past that bumping a Brain Tree would sometimes cause a wild jump and crash that could launch the SRV up in a weird tumble. I tried to reproduce this several times without it happening.
  • I was able to fully fill the following raw mat bins from roughly 1/2 full in each: Fe, Ni, Tc, Se, Mn, and S. This took me around 45-60 minutes. I was not rushing and probably could have achieved the same result with a dedicated 30 minute speed run once on the ground.
  • Since all the frustrating bugs seem to have been eliminated, I actually found it relaxing because it had been a while since I drove an SRV; the scenery was awesome and the "day" went from "noon" to "dusk" during that trip, and I just took my time.


So, my $0.02 worth of advice is: just do it the intended way and enjoy it. Between Brain Trees, lower level mats being collected naturally during mining and the other G4 mats besides Se available at the Crystal Forests, all raw mats have a clear and efficient gathering method; other options are missions and cargo crates at the crashed ships. Obviously, material traders are available if desired also.
 

anShpan

A
SlickPBW said:
I had a 100% success rate getting the mat; either by gently bumping the tree with my SRV (and cargo scoop open), or by doing a mini jump to touch the mat.
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Same here. Always preferred to drive SRV little more to the process of watching how at least half of my Limpets are dying for nothing.
 

geoffrey.hdt

geoffrey.hdt
I used the limpets exploit in the past, and by comparison the SRV collectin is actually not bad, as long as you focus on shooting the "Phloem excrections" for the G4 mats, then drive to the next patch beside.
Slightly longer than using limpets, but less mind dumbing and, actually, pretty relaxing.
Yeah, jumping the SRV is necessary most of the time, but that's part of the fun ;)
 

Kerttuli9000

K
Definitely trickier than before, but still works with few adjustments. Assuming nothing changed in the last week or so, since the last raw farm.

Aim & fire vertically at the patch as before (Flak / Adv. launchers / however you prefer to pop the brain berries)
Reverse vertically to 600-1000m (Whatever's your magic number sweet spot for mesh culling & limpet range) - YMMW, bit of experimenting helps
Pitch to 0, open cargo hatch, clear target & deploy limpets (leveling pitch to 0 seemed critical vs. before, much fewer limp deaths)
Enjoy the ambiance while the wee dudes buzz around

Side note: the standard collector limpet controllers seemed to work much more reliably; universals, mining, op etc ones mostly just wanted to orbit about the hatch and not give a damn about unmarked loot. Or, the just crash and die.

As for the ethics: yeah sure if you feel like this being borderline kooky for your taste, there's always the SRV harvesting method, Dav's hope rally + crosstrade, pirate mission farming etc. But OP specifically asked for the state of the method in question so here goes & went. Hope it helps. Less grind means more fun at actual gaming <3
 

aRJay

aRJay
The amount of attention to the mechanics of how the software works takes this over that borderline by more than enough to describe it as worse than kooky.
 

Kerttuli9000

K
Didn't take too much attention tbh at all. More of a question of which aspects of the game (as in, a chosen entertainment in a pretty kooky real world) does one enjoy and which parts do they not. And then opting to ease the parts they deem as a chore, while aiming for their most enjoyable parts to the fullest.

Plenty of grind and gatekeeping in the real world, after all, if one feels for it.

Some enjoy sidewindering to Sag A, some enjoy filling their exobio bingo, some enjoy seeing how the game mechanics work. It's all good yeah? o7
 

Koma Pahu

Koma Pahu
Kerttuli9000 said:
As for the ethics: yeah sure if you feel like this being borderline kooky for your taste, there's always the SRV harvesting method, Dav's hope rally + crosstrade, pirate mission farming etc. But OP specifically asked for the state of the method in question so here goes & went. Hope it helps. Less grind means more fun at actual gaming <3
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True. I have no issues with people using limpets, for me it’s more fun to use the SRV though and therefore less of a grind.

Although, FDev do have a right to remove the option if it’s not how they intended their game to be played.
 
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