Highlights
- Resources are gathered from specific spots in Lightyear Frontier, not randomly spawned around the map like in most farming sims.
- Choose a homestead location wisely for smooth daily collecting routines in the game, such as by building near resource-rich areas.
- Different regions like Edge Cliff, Lowland Plains, and Stepstone Peak offer unique resources and are strategically beneficial for building bases.
Lightyear Frontier is a farming sim with a focus on finding resources in the wild, and an upgrade tree that would feel more at home in an open-world survival crafting game. Unlike most games of its kind, almost every resource that would normally randomly spawn on the map or be available for farming is instead gathered from specific spots, which refill every couple of days.
Resources that spawn in predictable parts of the map include aluminum and coal, two of the game’s most important starting materials. Later on, players will be able to harvest crystals of various colors, iron, copper, and even unique alien materials. As is the case for most great mining games, a good homestead location is essential for making the daily collecting routine go smoothly. Here are the best places where players can build their home base.
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7 Edge Cliff
A Cramped Copper Farming Spot
Edge Cliff, together with Pine Heights, is one of the regions of Lightyear Frontier that can be unlocked right as the game begins. But unlike Pine Heights, Edge Cliff is quite far from the game’s starting location. It’s also much more cramped than any other starting location.
Still, Edge Cliff is one of the early spots in the game for farming copper. It’s also the only location where players can find Caroots, the game’s version of carrots, an important crop that is used for producing Caroot Oil. All things considered, placing a base next to Edge Cliff comes with some benefits, even if it might be too cramped for any serious attempt at farming.
6 Lowland Plains
Iron, Crystals, and Green Flat Fields
The Lowland Plains are one of the last areas that the player will unlock, since cleaning the place of its weeds requires the two Harvester Power upgrades. While this means the player will unlock the Lowland Plains and Mountainside Coast at about the same time, the two regions are actually quite different.
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Players who make their base camp in the Lowland Plains will find plenty of iron and some blue crystals, even though this is hardly the best area for farming crystals. On top of that, the Lowland Plains are also full of flat, green terrain, which is the ideal place to grow a large farm. This location also hides one of the few Pond Pitchers in the game, a plant that, once grown to full size, will create a small but replenishable source of water.
5 Stepstone Peak
A Stable Source Of Iron
Stepstone Peak will likely be the third area that players unlock, requiring only one mech upgrade to be cleared of all purple ooze and noxious weeds. Once the player has rendered this zone habitable, Stepstone Peak becomes one of the best early sources of iron in the whole game. It also has a lovely pond and plenty of terrain for farming.
While it might be a bit cramped, a home in Stepstone Peak will grant players all the necessities to grow their base and then some. A nice source of iron is especially useful, as is the position on the map, which makes many other areas easy to reach.
4 Mountainside Coast
For A Great Seaside Farm
Mountainside Coast comes with a couple of major downsides. For one, it’s one of the last regions available to the player, as it requires the highest Irrigation Hose powerup. It’s also quite isolated, sharing a border with just two regions. That said, it has a large coast surrounded by plenty of potential farmland, making this region a farmer’s dream.
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Mountainside Coast also comes with easy access to a variety of materials, from Yellow Crystals to iron and coal. It’s quite far from any aluminum farming spots, but by the time players even get the chance to build here, this resource will have lost most of its usefulness.
3 The Northern Meadows
Good Minerals and Fresh Water
The Meadows is the game’s starting location, making this place a great base location for beginners. A large plain with only a handful of forests and water sources, The Meadows is also the largest area in the game and contains some of the best locations for farming. This is because it is the largest continuous flat area in the entire game, except perhaps for the Lowland Plains
Building the base camp on a large flat field is a must for those players who want to focus on building a large farm. Another necessity is the presence of a body of water nearby. Water is vital to success, at least until the Pond Pitcher, a water-producing plant, becomes available. The northern half of The Meadows has both a small lake and a beach, making it ideal for this purpose.
2 Pine Heights
Great Early Game Minerals
Pine Heights is one of the first areas that the player can unlock. Even if it’s unlikely to be the location of the player’s first base, it’s still close to The Meadows and rich in minerals like aluminum, coal, and red crystals. There isn’t too much space for farming, except for a small pond to the south, but the large fields of The Meadows are close by.
Pine Heights might not be the best location to build a main base of operation, but it might be worth placing a small homestead and a couple of crates here. This will make it easier to come over for some mining.
1 The Middle Meadows
Large Fields And Great Nearby Regions
The central part of The Meadows features large fields, a small lake, some forestry, and easy access to the nearby regions of the Yellow Forest and Pine Heights. These two regions are important because of how rich they are in materials: aluminum, coal, and red crystal from Pine Heights; Zappertwig and blue crystals from the Yellow Forest.
The Meadows are all quite similar, with the exception of the southern half, full of trees and home to a unique alien structure. Because of this, choosing between the north and the center of this region comes down to how fast they lead to other parts of the world. The north is closer to Pine Heights and some early resources, while the center more easily leads to the part of the map that unlocks later in the game.
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