Farming
Which farm plant pays best? The Gravitino Host: about 470,676 units a plant a day, sold at a space station. NipNip Buds sell for 2.46 to 2.59 times their value, but they grow slower.
The plants
A base grows 12 farm plants. Each gives a fixed harvest when it is ripe, and the harvest sells at a trade terminal. The table runs by what a plant earns in a day of growing, harvested as soon as it ripens.
| Plant | Yields | Grows in | Units a harvest | A harvest sells for | A plant a day | Most to plant |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mordite Root | Mordite | 8 h | 25 | 925 to 975 | 2,850 | 41,143 |
| Echinocactus | Cactus Flesh | 16 h | 100 | 2,590 to 2,730 | 3,990 | 82,286 |
| Gutrot Flower | Faecium | 4 h | 25 | 694 to 731 | 4,275 | 20,571 |
| Star Bramble | Star Bulb | 4 h | 25 | 740 to 780 | 4,560 | 20,571 |
| Fungal Cluster | Fungal Mould | 4 h | 50 | 740 to 780 | 4,560 | 20,571 |
| Gamma Weed | Gamma Root | 4 h | 50 | 740 to 780 | 4,560 | 20,571 |
| Solar Vine | Solanium | 16 h | 50 | 3,238 to 3,412 | 4,988 | 82,286 |
| Frostwort | Frost Crystal | 1 h | 50 | 555 to 585 | 13,680 | 5,143 |
| Albumen Pearl Orb | Albumen Pearl | 2 h | 1 | 10,321 to 10,534 | 125,126 | 10,286 |
| NipNip | NipNip Buds | 4 h | 1 | 43,738 to 46,102 | 269,520 | 20,571 |
| Venom Urchin | Sac Venom | 3 h 20 min | 1 | 58,976 to 60,192 | 429,005 | 17,143 |
| Gravitino Host | Gravitino Ball | 2 h | 1 | 38,823 to 39,623 | 470,676 | 10,286 |
Every plant but the Echinocactus needs the Haz-Mat Gauntlet to harvest, an exosuit module you build. The plants that give a stack of a resource (Frost Crystal, Star Bulb, Fungal Mould, Gamma Root, Faecium, Mordite, Solanium, Cactus Flesh) are worth little to sell; they are for crafting and refining.
How much to plant
Gathering is a hold of the interact key, 0.7 of a second a plant, so an hour of holding picks about 5,143 plants; the step to the next plant comes on top. Plant no more than you can gather before the first ones ripen again: a Gravitino Host ripens in 2 h, so about 10,286 plants fill one round, worth about 403,436,880 units at full price. NipNip ripens in 4 h: 20,571 plants, about 924,067,584 units. A crop that big sells at full price only spread over many stations, as below, and selling takes time on top of that.
Where to sell
A space station pays more than a terminal on a planet or a freighter. Every system draws its own price, so the same crop fetches a little more in one system than in the next.
Selling lowers the price of what you sell, at that terminal only. For a product such as Gravitino Balls, every 1,000 units sold take 0.3 off the multiplier; for a stacked resource, every 10,000 units take 0.1. The price comes back slowly: one unit's worth a minute for a product. So a big crop sells best split over several stations.
NipNip Buds are contraband. Outside a pirate system they sell with the smuggler's markup, 2.66 times: 2.46 to 2.59 times their value at a space station, 2.26 to 2.39 times at a planet terminal. In a pirate system they sell near their value.
A crop against a crashed Interceptor
A claimed Sentinel Interceptor at class C sells for 4,200,000 to 34,500,000 units, by its cargo slots, as Interceptor prices shows. One Interceptor a crop's growing time is worth as much as hundreds of Gravitino Hosts, so farming pays for those who build a big farm and sell over many stations; Sentinel Interceptors says where the wrecks lie.
What the game's items are worth to keep, and where they come from, is in the guides.