In general:
The most common products created through farming currently are Circuit Boards, Liquid Explosives and Living Glass to make money with. Each of these products can sell well depending on market value at a trading location.
Each of the above products require a variation of farming crops. These crops each have their own harvest times and yield. To maximise the amount of crops you can farm, it is suggested to find the best location (planet) for the crop you require most, to be able to grow outside. Growing crops inside is more expensive as it requires additional building. It will however always be a combination of inside/outside crops, unless you wish to farm everything inside.
Pay attention to the harvest times, because you may want some time in-between farming to do other things. For example: Living Glass requires Frostwort, Coprite and Gamma Root. Frostwort grows in 15 minutes, while Coprite and Gamma Root both take 30 minutes to grow. To maximise harvesting you would have to do your rounds every 15 minutes, unless you double the amount of Frostwort to allow for 30 minutes rounds.
As mentioned before, Bio-Domes are cheapest and easiest to use compared to using Trays which require to be built inside a structure. So to maximise profits, make sure to build Bio-Domes with just a single door entrance for those crops that require to be grown indoors. Make sure to put one Bio-Dome on top the main Base building, including a Ladder for the full 16 slots, while all others will have 13.
For calculating profits several things need to be taken into account and depending on circumstances (crop to grow outside), product to make, and additional needs, can be tricky to fully calculate ahead of time, although not impossible. The total amount of points allowed is 2000, of which the default Base already uses 20 points. For max profit, add the 16 slot Bio-Dome to this main Base plus a Ladder and you can subtract an additional 45 points. Any additional points used for needs like Storage Containers, Save Point, Landing Pad, etc., can be subtracted ahead of time as well, to know how many points you have to work with for the crops and extra Bio-Domes.
Example:
- Main Base: 20
- Bio-Dome: 40
- Ladder: 5
- 10 Storage Containers: 9*5+1=46
- Save Point: 20
- Landing Pad: 50
Total points left: 2000-181=1819
This now leaves you with a good starting point to calculate the additional points available for the crops and Bio-Domes, while already having 16 slots available for crops to grow inside. From here on, it will be somewhat tricky to further calculate what is possible. I would suggest to check a single product recipe, calculate the amount of planting slots required and the amount of points that will use. You have 13 slots for each additional Bio-Dome/Door added and usually the amount of indoor crops is not quite equal to 13. I will attempt a calculation for Living Glass on a Radiated planet for max profit below, using the above calculated starting setup:
Living Glass example
Based on earlier mentioned base setup, 15 mins. harvest round, max profit.
Points left: 1819
Each Living Glass requires:
-
2 Coprite (indoors)
2 slots / 10 points -
2.5 Frostwort (indoors)
2.5 slots / 12.5 points
(due to harvesting twice per 30 mins.) -
8 Gamma Root (outdoors)
0 slots / 40 points
I can already put 3 times this recipe inside the 16 slot dome:
-
Coprite and Frostwort (indoors)
3*(2+2.5)=13.5 slots / 3*(10+12.5)=67.5 points -
Gamma Root (outdoors)
0 slots / 3*40=120 points
Current sub-total: 1819-(67.5+120)=1631.5 points, with 2.5 slots remaining.
Now to continue with the more tricky part, which is to estimate/calculate the amount of additional Bio-Domes possible. Each additional Bio-Dome/Door combo costs 45 points and has 13 slots. For exact calculation, we need to calculate the amount of recipe that fits these 13 slots, lets call that n:
-
n equals 2 Coprite and 2.5 Frostwort to fit 13 slots
n=13/(2+2.5)=13/4.5 (=2.8888) times the recipe per Bio-Dome -
Bio-Dome/Door
45 points -
Filled up
13 slots / 13*5=65 points -
Cost per Bio-Dome for Gamma Root
n*8*5=520/4.5 (=115.5555) points -
Total cost per full Bio-Dome and Gamma Root
45+65+(520/4.5)=1015/4.5 (=225.5555) points
We have 1631.5 points remaining, so we need to divide by the cost of each additional Bio-Dome to calculate the amount possible:
-
Bio-Domes possible
1631.5/(1015/4.5)=7.2333(rounded up)
This means:
-
Total slots for Coprite and Frostworth
16+7*13 slots=107 slots -
Amount of recipes indoors for Coprite and Frostwort
107/(2+2.5)=107/4.5=23.7778
We have to round that up to 23, meaning we will have some slots left empty.
-
Total Coprite (indoors)
23*2=46 -
Total Frostwort (indoors)
23*2.5=57.5=58 -
Total Gamma Root (outdoors)
23*8=184
Now let’s verify:
- Main Base: 20
- Bio-Dome: 40
- Ladder: 5
- 10 Storage Containers: 9*5+1=46
- Save Point: 20
- Landing Pad: 50
- 7 additional Bio-Domes = 7*40=280
- 7 additional Doors = 7*5=35
- Frostwort (indoors) = 58*5=290
- Coprite (indoors) = 46*5=230
- Gamma Root (outdoors) = 184*5=920
Total points spent: 1936
So this means 23 Living Glass each 30 minutes, when harvesting every 15 minutes due to the Frostwort growth time. 3 slots remain empty, 107-(46+58)=107-104=3 and you have half the yield of 1 Froswort = 25 Frostwort left over each 15 minutes harvest round. There are also 64 points left over to spend on other things. 23 LG/30mins. equals about 32mil./hr
You can check costs for building here:
https://forums.etarc.org/t/nms-building-table-version-1-34/3031
Additional tips:
- Geo Bays can be placed outside Base boundary to not have them count towards Base Build points. The vehicles can be used for storage if wanted.
- When owning a freighter, you could have your Storage Containers there.
- A Save Point is not required if you have your Space Ship near, to enter/exit.
Hoping no mistakes were made and this is useful in any way … 