ForumsGamesGemCraft:CS manafarm

8 2470
istvan_szabo_560
offline
istvan_szabo_560
1 posts
Nomad

Hi!

I have a question about mana farming. My kill gem has too much range and kills everything as soon as they appear on the screen. Is there a was to prevent this, so i can leech mana? (The manual way is very frustrating: removing my gem from the tower, then putting it back when monsters are close to my orb)

  • 8 Replies
Astroshak
offline
Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

Actually, there is.

Use a two-trap area setup.

Have your manafarm trap area, then between that and your orb, have a killtrap area. The killtrap area follows the same idea as the manafarm area : the trap in the middle, 6 amplifiers around it all boosting it, and a trap in front slowing the monsters. The difference is that instead of orange, the killtrap area uses yellow. The killing gem is also constructed slightly differently if you follow psorek's high level guide.

Use of a killing trap like that has the advantage of not requiring constant attention. You will want to upgrade it frequently. I'd recommend upgrading your manafarm area (trap, then amps) one cycle of whatever you are doing, then the killtra area (trap, then amps). This allows you to keep increasing the amount that you anger waves, increasing the experience you obtain as well as the mana earned for killing them.

But what about fliers and spires? I would suggest using a regular (IE - not supergemmed) Black/Yellow gem for those, yes, in a tower. Said tower has a number of amps around it (I tend to put it next to the killtrap's amps, in order to reduce the total number of amps necessary) with yellow gems in those amps. There is another amp nearby, as well. When a flier/spire appears, I'll move the B/Y gem from that amp into the tower. When the flier/spire is dead, I'll move it back to the amp.

I'll usually make this around the time that the first flier/spire shows up. I do not normally bother to boost the amps for the tower past that point. I have yet to find a need to.

That gem is not a supergem for another reason though : that is the gem I use to bomb the waves. Supergems just waste mana when it comes to wave bombing; if you use a 32 gem setup for your killgem (produces a grade 5 gem with grade 6 cost) and use that to bomb a wave, you'll get the same effect as if you had used a regular grade 5 gem, spending all that extra mana for nothing. But, because this IS also the gem that I bomb waves with, it will get upgraded (simple U upgrading) every so often, as higher mana levels permit me to use a higher grade gem for bombing.

Since he put in that code where the gem checks to see if the monster has a shot incoming that would kill it, having Chain Hit (aka Red) in that tower gem is a real bad idea.

InThrees
offline
InThrees
84 posts
Peasant

If i'm doing a serious mana farm I'll also set up multiple towers+amps so I can boost hits on lower level mana and hit gems, which then eventually get incorporated into the large main gems during the next upgrade cycle. This adds to the lag, though.

crazyworkins
offline
crazyworkins
34 posts
Herald

What's the general strategy for when the giants that force gem resocketing start coming. I usually switch to a tower, which deals with it, but usually wipes out all the monsters on screen - hampering my farming for a while.

Is it better to just have multiple traps along the path to catch whatever gets through (including more gem resocketing giants), or is a tower the best option?

Astroshak
offline
Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

If I can (if I think of it at the start and designate a location for it) I'll generally put a weaker killgem trap before the manafarm. This trap has no amps, but is powerful enough to kill those giants when they have NOT been angered.

I do not bomb those waves. I let them come and let them die and reset a trap that is otherwise incredibly weak. Feel free to dilute that trap's effectiveness with some orange if you like.

InThrees
offline
InThrees
84 posts
Peasant

Or if you have towers with red amps for farming hits on chain hit gems (either lower level kill gems or mana gems) that's enough to insta-gib unangered waves.

Astroshak
offline
Astroshak
268 posts
Peasant

The problem with farming hits like that is you wind up adding more red to your gems. You want to minimize its presence, allowing black to boost it, while avoiding squeezing it out entirely.

If you are going to be farming hits without red, you wind up with few enough hits that it seems a waste of time. If you farm hits with red, then you get the hits, but you add too much red to your final gem. Its a catch-22.

I'd suggest relying upon the speed of your gem to generate the hits, rather than the red, if you are going to farm hits (and kill off those unangered gem resetting giant waves) that way.

fractalman
offline
fractalman
636 posts
Nomad

Uh...no it's not an issue? The only way to change the base red is to change the combining scheme. Besides, the only reason for squeezing red is to make as much room for black and yellow as possible.
Note that extra red is in the AMPS, not the gem farming hits.

InThrees
offline
InThrees
84 posts
Peasant

@Astroshak - I don't follow. Maybe you think I'm farming hits with black/red or something, but I'm actually farming hits with direct descendants of the original 32 combine kill gem, so the red value is 1/32nd. (or mana gem descendants, too, of course.)

I.E. create a yellow 32 kill gem. Upgrade to 12 or 15, duplicate it a few times, use those dupes to farm hits, upgrade them to incorporate in the next upgrade of the 'real' kill gem. Keep a blank in an amp somewhere to dupe to repeat the process.

If I don't do that I can't get high hit values for gems (220 million is the highest I've ever gotten, btw, which is horrible compared to some of the screenshots I've seen) because I don't do the freeze thing usually. If there's no corrupted banishment I just let 1-3 superangered waves repeatedly banish until their banishment costs are 500k-2mil or more, and then kill them all with the kill gem normally kept in an amp, and then anger more waves for the next batch.

Showing 1-8 of 8