Gathering materials can be a tough job. For increasing productivity, you can use Construction to produce special buildings that aid you in harvesting materials.
Harvesters
They are used to produce non-organic materials. They operate 3 hours and can be placed only in PvP zones near a keep your faction control or flags in conflict towns.
To start, pick up a place. You must be in some distance from the keep and the terrain must be plain, free of nodes, mobs, buildings and players around. After you choose a place, double click it or right click -> Use. You have placed harvester now. It should immediately spawn a barrel nearby - pick it up, this is how harvester produce materials for you. Also click your harvester from time to time, it produces materials in itself and putting to its 'bin'.
Right after placing a building, spawn rate of barrels is low, average is one per every 10 minutes. But after more time, barrels will spawn faster. Highest spawning rate is in last hour of harvester operating. Observe your System messages chat - it will warn you if harvester is about to expire.
Barrels can be picked up by anyone, so placing a harvester is risky. To prevent giving materials to your enemy for free, you can deconstruct your harvester by clicking it and choosing "Deconstruct this camp". Enemy will get nothing, but you loose your building. Items in bin however can be picked up only by you. If keep that you placed harvester nearby change its owner, building is lost.
Note that particular places have higher spawn rate of certain materials. To check that you can use Harvesting Prospector to indicate where you can get more resources you need. Also using a First-Class Harvester Fuel will bring you more resources than normal. Combine knowledge from harvesting prospector with first-class fuel to get maximum performance.
Farms
Farms are used to produce organic resources, plants and animals. Unlike harvesters, they can be placed outside PvP zones, the only restriction in flat, unobstructed terrain. Also, you need seeds or cloning kits to produce anything with a Farm. Farms operate for 6 hours, and can be extended by using Deluxe Farm Maintenance Kit.
To produce anything you need to have seeds or cloning kits, that can be crafted by Nature skill (for example Seeds 1 Instructions) . Craft it before placing a farm, otherwise you would waste it's time. The amount of seeds depends of size of your farm. The more plots your farm has, the more seeds you will need.
- Shacks have 3 plots, can produce 3 resource nodes at once
- Cabins have 6 plots, can produce 6 resource nodes at once
- Frontier Homesteads have 9 plots, can produce 9 resource nodes at once
Ok, if you have supply of seeds, you can place your farm. Choose a place with flat terrain with nothing else close to it and double click it in inventory or right click -> use. Then the farm will be built and ready to use.
To sow seeds or to use cloning kits, go to fenced area of your farm. You will see grey piles of dirt - those are plots. Click on one of them, then go to your inventory, right click on your seeds and select "Use". Fill other plots as well. Materials will grow some time before you can harvest them, usually its 10-15 minutes (Basic Shiva Weed is special, need 1h 30 min to grow). The message on screen will inform you that your crops are ready. After that, go to your crops, click on them and select "Harvest". Do this as fast as possible, as the time they grow dont affect the quantity of resources gathered. Harvested goods go to crate inside the building, where they can be picked up.
Farms buildings can also be used as part of roleplaying or sort of "players mobile base" - all of them contain mailbox and sector vault, cabins also have a barter vault and homesteads have a crafting workshop.
To extend productivity, there are marketplace items to improve your farm. Deluxe Farm Maintenance Kit extends the time farm will operate. First-Class Fodder increases the amount of materials gathered, Genetic Enhancer gives a chance to get double as many materials each harvest. Placing farm in PvP zone increases amount of materials as well, and other players can't steal your crops.
The following are some results of Intermediate Seeds/Cloning Kits.
Chickens give 2-4 Cracked Eggs
Roaches give 2-4 Impure Biological Chemical
Mushrooms give 2-4 Impure Botanic Chemical and have a chance to give Impure Antibiotics at a lower rate.
HARVESTING CROPS / LIVESTOCK
Basic Stump - 7 minutes 15 seconds
Questionable Grain Seeds - 7 minutes 10 seconds