I am aware a T3 Aclhemist gets me a more efficient solution, however for unprecedented bad luck I have never seen a T3 or T4 alchemist.
I have canvased pretty much everywhere looking for the T3 Alchemist for hours and days at a time without success. Did I mention bad luck? Excepting only Volcano for other reasons.
I have learned (thanks @biggcane55) that you can buy a T3 alchemist with a bit of luck. (jfc here we go again, but at least I can keep trying with accumulated gold all at once)
I’ve also learned pickaxes behave differently than I thought and that resource mechanics are not what they were when I first settled on tool usage habits. So thanks for that realignment @DaVice
I play mostly solo or with one or two friends on private servers, so it’s not like I can crowd source a T3 or steal one.
This also doesn’t really work the way I thought it did, so see the first edit below.
Edit: The one caveat I just discovered is that it does waste grubs. I must have had some really good luck while I was monitoring it to confirm. I got 5 exotics in a row, but grubs do in fact get wasted on the other fish types, and you lose the grub without gaining the fish. So only do this if you don’t want to waste time on the trash fish and don’t mind losing grubs.
Is it worth mentioning (I hope) how I optimize oil farming?
Obviously we go for fish traps, and an endless supply of grubs with a compost box and some compost in it. But… the one thing I do that I haven’t noticed anyone else mention is controlling what fish show up in the trap so you aren’t wasting time on trash fish.
This depends on 2 facts. The slot count in the fish trap (5) and the fact you can’t catch fish if there isn’t a free slot available to receive it or a stack that hasn’t maxed out.
Load up a fish trap with a stack of grubs and top it up regularly until it’s full of fish. You should have at least one stack of 50 Exotic fish, and some mix of the other 2 fish types stacked 50 deep each.
Remove all fish except the Exotic fish.
Fill 3 slots with anything, rock, plant fiber whatever.
Shift drag the exotic fish to your inventory, and change the count to N-1 where N is the stack count. So if you have a stack of 50, remove 49. Now you have 1 exotic fish, and 3 slots of trash a fish can’t occupy, and one slot for grubs.
Fill up the empty slot with grubs.
Wait.
Now the only fish you can catch is Exotic fish, which you can then transform into oil 1-to-1. You can leave this unattended and never waste time on unwanted fish so long as you always leave at least one exotic fish in the trap.
You still have to get the ichor and bark. The fish factory collects all the time without you having to collect anything, and then you can use the bark and ichor for something else. Plus, I’ve always had bad luck finding T3 alchemists so I’ve made due.
There’s quite a few common spawns for both T3 and T4.
All in all farming in proper spec and BB tools will net you much more oil than “passive” (micromanaged) fish farming. In fact, probably more than you know what to do with (ahem, maybe fuel).
You’re saying collecting fish to make oil while running through a dungeon instead of harvesting bark and ichor instead of running the dungeon has no merit at all?
I don’t enjoy mindlessly hitting inanimate objects or critters that might as well not fight back to collect a resource when I could be exploring or collecting much more valuable resources elsewhere.
So if it’s all the same to you, how about I spend time on the things I want to spend time on (Including finding ways to automate things) and you the things you want to spend time on?
As it happens though, per the edit, this doesn’t work the way it seemed to at first. I just got lucky. So all this does is auto trash the junk fish.
No reason for any of us to get upset over this. I have Fish factories going on most of my active servers because it’s just free fish however I don’t limit it to just exotic since I use the unsavory and savory for composting and special buff fish but the exotics due get pressed into oil. I also use a pickaxe in harvesting so I get free bark when farming wood. Now the only thing that I have to actively go for is ichor but that is easy enough on both maps but more so on Siptah since the devolved fleshy bits you get from the monsters in the vaults are 10 ichor a piece so it’s a bi-product of eldarium runs. In EL, spiders and komodos are the way to go…easily farm 1500 ichor with a pick while going for crystal.
Theoretically, common spawns. Every one I’ve tried, sometimes for 8 hours at a stretch, has failed to give me a T3 to say nothing of a T4 Alchemist. I’ve never even seen a T4 alchemist much less been equipped to snag it. Like I said, bad luck.
And I agree up to a point, if I had one fish trap, and one press, sure the alchemist beats the press. But I have no illusions of ever having multiple T3 or T4 alchemists in my solo play.
So I basically have the option of NO oil, or what oil I can get. The more fish traps and presses I build the faster I can get oil since I do not have (currently, who knows maybe the randomization gods will finally grant me a boon one day) the option of a T3 Alchemist.
Lol, not upset, just seemed strange to assert that this approach is useless, full stop. And I don’t typically use pickaxes, as I usually only need one or the other in bark or wood. I go through wood far faster than I do bark. Which might change if I do ever find a T3 alchemist, but for now it won’t.
I thought your whole M.O. was to be super efficient. An axe will net you wood and branches. A pick will net you bark and resin. A pickaxe will net you all four (wood, branches, bark & resin) in the same quantities that a regular axe or pick (of equal quality) would’ve yielded. So regardless of whether you need wood or bark, why would you not want to harvest both in the same swing?
Absolutely your own choice. We have a couple players on our server who don’t look at ichor as something to waste. It takes time to come around, but soon you’ll be trying it. The oil payoff is insane.
Fish for oil is 100% the way to go until you get the thrall. But you’re focusing way too much on it as opposed to getting the thrall.
On any of my playthroughs I’ve been able to get T3 or T4 thralls of almost any stripe by hitting every camp they frequent at in repetition. Bad luck or not, I think you’re just a little hard headed on your approach.
The community has tested all these methods ad nauseum.
I have my weird castle on a knoll near the Galleon, because it is my belief serious players will head to the outskirts of the Pirate Ship first and secure a T2 or 3 Alky. There are so many spawns in the camps alone.
I’ve been thinking of a cleaner way to feed my thralls than Cream of Exile, tbh. Small Feesh seem like a great alternative. Since OP is pre-feeding their traps they might have an abundance of small fish and thus expect that a time sink is universal.
The grand aspect of Conan Exiles is multitasking. Like I’m saying, sometimes it takes a bit to break through the old set of rules. Heck I have pals who refuse to respec.
