Farming the Dark Fog & their Tech! | Step-By-Step 2024 Masterclass | #11

[@Warshadows]

Honestly watch the master class has really helped me out building my own galaxy, thank you so much for the class

[@SteveBonds]

Thanks for all the great tips. This video will definitely take more than one run-through to unpack. Due to the way the spacing of buildings changes with latitude, the Dark Fog Farm is very fussy about where it can be built. It works if the "front line" of battlefield analysis bases are around 5 degrees of latitude and the remainder of the blueprint extends through the equator. At 0 degrees, the line of assemblers is too close and at 10 degrees, the battlefield analysis bases are too close. Hopefully us builders can arrange for there to be a conveniently located base to farm within those restrictions.

[@TheDutchActuary]

Larger builds like this usually have similar problems (chemical labs in particular are annoying that way) when build somewhat compact. Some of the other builds can run into similar issues at certain latitudes. I would recommend force-placing the blueprint in the location you want it, and then replacing the few building that get pressed out. As long as you keep an eye on what shows red while placing the build, it's only a matter of seconds.

[@SteveBonds]

@@TheDutchActuary I may work on a design which decouples the linear "front line" from the rest of the build so it can be more precisely placed at the right distance from the base and then "cabled in" via belts to the rest of the build. However, right now I'm having too much fun flying all over the universe powered by the NEW SUPER AWESOME YELLOW POWER THAT YOU MADE POSSIBLE! Thanks for your excellent video and insights into how to level the farm quickly.

[@TheDutchActuary]

Yellow power goes BRRRRRRRRRRRR@@SteveBonds

[@brendanwolf274]

Thank you for this video! I was especially waiting for this one. Please keep up the good work!

[@adamscott2706]

I'm honestly amazed by watching some of these videos. Came here to see how to make battlefield analyzers pick up and not drop stuff and learned that you can daisy chain Deuterium power stations?!?!?! Haha... guess I don't know what I don't know! Awesome videos though... very well done.

[@adilazimdegilx]

Thank you for this master class series. It really helped me out when I returned for the dark fog update. I just wanna ask something about farming dark fog. Can you push them until only they have only on single star system and farm them like this in that system? I know they eventually send seeds to other system but seeds can only origin from hives right? So they can only send one from that system each time? Also what happens if you destroy hive core in that system as well (keeping the relay stations)? Relay stations should build the hive again eventually but does that save you some time before next seed is sent? What I'm asking basically is can you create a best case scenario for you to both farm dark fog and have rest of the star cluster for yourself? The goal is to have the least distractions from incoming seeds/attacks etc. while focusing on branching of your factory (It's fine if you don't need to intervene the attacks but obviously I dont want to build a permanent defense system to everywhere )

[@TheDutchActuary]

You can definitely just destroy 99% of the dark fog and keep a little ' zoo ' to look at how cute they are, and farm them while you're at it. At that point you cleared dozens of systems though, so you're likely at a point where just sneezing in their direction should wipe out entire planets ;)

[@adilazimdegilx]

@@TheDutchActuary Thanks, basically I just wanna focus on my factory as in dark fog is not there, but I really want those new buildings to update and upgrade my blueprints and create new/compact/efficient ones while spreading my factory. I'm currently on like 10 star system but the dark fog is basically in every other star system already. So in every 20-30min I get a warning of new seed incoming to one of my mining outpost and I have to go there to clear it. Which is not difficult in any way, it's just a nuisance especially for a slow and laid back player like me who enjoys working on blueprints for hours for better efficiency, tidyness and compactness. So in theory, I can search for maybe a single planet star system, wipe every other hive in other systems but that one, leave only few relay stations and build a defense like in this video, maybe cover rest of the planet with shields so no new relay stations cand land and farm them without needing to warp around to keep the peace in my star cluster. I guess occasionally I'd still have to go there to deal with the hive to prevent them to get bigger and send seeds/space assaults but I wouldn't mind that as long as it is in maybe every couple hours rather than every 20min. Well, back to peacekeeping. Factory must grow 😁

[@delroyclarke1989]

Love the episode, keep it up ❤ 😊 will you be doing a blueprint for it?

[@TheDutchActuary]

It's already up!

[@ElliottHansen]

Thanks a bunch for this. Is this also possible on passive difficulty? Im currently trying to finish a few more endgame researches to unlock some achievements so i don't want to start over yet.

[@TheDutchActuary]

I am not entirely sure, but as long as you can draw in the dark fog to the farm by attacking them, it should still work. You may need to build the farm even closer to the enemy base (but not so close your turrets take out the entire thing).

[@williamskiba6786]

Q: can you get the dark hive rare drops with the default difficulty setting? Or must you ramp it up to get those rares?

[@TheDutchActuary]

The drops are determined by the experience level of your dark fog enemy. On lower difficulty, they start out on a lower level - which means they will be easier to defeat and drop lower tier items. However, just keep fighting the same bases over and over and they will level up eventually. A farm like the one I've shown here should do the trick even on the lowest difficulty levels (it will just take a little longer)

[@williamskiba6786]

@@TheDutchActuary Thanks much - I've gotten them up to level 20 after about 6 hours. By that time, I was getting a TON of low level drops that clog up the belt loop. Initially, I tried filter sorters to dump each item into its own chest, then ran around and manually deleted them (shift-delete), but that got tedious real quick. So, I configuried the inventory squares in the battlefield analysis base to the specific items I want to keep, and then blocked all other squares with the "input/output partitions" slider. However, it seems that those settings cannot be copied/pasted, so it is a bit of chore to manually set them in all the bases.

[@TheDutchActuary]

@@williamskiba6786 In the battlefield analysis base there is a filter you can set that prevents low level drops entirely. You can filter out so you only get the items you want/need. This makes sure you don't have to set up complicated filters in the base itself, as the clogging up with ' unwanted items ' shouldn't happen. If you do set up a system like you've described, copy/paste the first building you've set up and it should copy those settings into the next one as well. Make a blueprint out of it if you want to use it on other planets! (also, 6 hours? :O Try blasting the enemy nonstop with heavy plasma etc. Might speed things up a bit!)

[@Lugzan0]

the xp that the dark fog is based on the damage received so if you use plasma the splash damage counts every unit

[@TheDutchActuary]

To add to this: it also counts the ' overkill ' damage. So lasers stop shooting the exact moment the unit dies, but the plasma might deal 5 times the required damage to kill a unit.

[@Fky12345]

I de-activated the rocket launchers completely for space (Space= OFF) otherwise they may kill the Alpha Hive andit prevent the Dark Fog base on the ground from re-spawning. The farm would be dead on this spot after the alpha hive in space later attacks. Also make sure your farm is not so close. The Planetery Shield of the farm should not cover the Dark Fog Relay Station on the ground. It would prevent a re-spawn also I think.

[@TheDutchActuary]

You shouldn't be destroying the relay station on the farm spot (which means the shield isn't a problem, because no respawning needs to happen). Main reason the build is so close to the base is that this will have it non-stop attack you, rather than spawn in waves.

[@af4043]

No, YOU are awesome!

[@petrpavelka7248]

I found the dark fog farm annoying to deal with for a few reasons: - on high difficulty settings you can loose building even with a setup like this, sometimes air units decide to attack turrets first no matter what your build is and simply keep shooting it until it gets destroyed - you annoy hive really quickly and on max difficulty you usually have 3 hives each attacking with 180 ships, that requires some serious defenses, because unit themselves also have much more hp - the more units are attacking and more turrets are active the higher the UPS impact is, with several farms it is basically slide show - circular belt designs are doomed to get stuck eventually because some resource overflows, drop selection filter is global so if you have multiple farms you might not be consuming resources evenly or logistic system decides to prioritize certain station over the others, then the whole thing stops, while you are half a galaxy away. - additional relays will eventually try to land on the planet, it would be easy to shoot them down with missiles, but that would take down relay above farm too, so the only way is placing plasma turrets in a way that it can't shoot farming relay and hope that new relay comes from direction where it can shot down by plasma turret. I already had a relay land in a blind spot and attack farm from the back.

[@TheDutchActuary]

Yup, although it is extremely fun to build a farm it's definitely not without its issues. It is also why I don't recommend building it until the late game, because those very late-game resources are at least worth getting (mostly anti-matter and the yellow & anti matter fuel rods). Impact on the UPS is definitely massive (which holds for the attacking fleets as well)

[@tsplag5977]

I'm really struggling with hydrogen in my save, It seems all of the methods of getting hydrogen make byproducts that I'm just not using enough of so the hydrogen stops being produced. What have you done for your hydrogen production?

[@TheDutchActuary]

Gas giants! 2-3 of those and you should be swimming in the stuff, along with the extra you get from the rare nanotube recipe and oil production. If you're really starving for hydrogen, you can crack the oil to turn it into even more hydrogen. I've never found this to be neccessary though.

[@SteveBonds]

How about a fresh TDA-style Antimatter Rod blueprint?

[@TheDutchActuary]

But but but, the precious antimatter should go into white science *cries out in optimization fury*

[@milt9833]

Buuut you’re using antimatter rods here!

[@themipos]

Some of those darkfog drops don´t show up in my filter, could it be cause they are too low level?

[@TheDutchActuary]

Yes! They only start showing up in the filter once the Dark Fog has dropped them at least once. They start doing so as the level increases.

[@taykearn6179]

@@TheDutchActuary seems like to research the related tech will unlock the item on the drop filter, like the Core will only unlock after research of antimatter fuel rod, even if the base level reach lvl30

[@quttu1709]

The dark fog levels faster if u use Splash dmg on them, think its a bug in the game

[@TheDutchActuary]

I expect the game registers damage done and translates that into XP. Splash damage = " overkill " while for example laser turrets do ' exactly enough' damage to each unit. Blasting the enemies with anti-matter capsules for example levels them up ridicously fast.

[@dreyer9000]

Think they lvl fast because your to close 🤔

[@TheDutchActuary]

Yup! Keeping them agitated increases their leveling speed FAST

[@morgenstern7865]

Do you have a discord or smt?

[@TheDutchActuary]

I currently do not