Hydroneer

Hydroneer

476 ratings
Easy Beginner Machine
By Gromps
This guide will show YOU how to make a small contraption to farm money early in the game.
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Simple Cash Farm Mk. I
First off, the image below is how our farm will look finished. It will only have the bare minimum for now, but we'll get to potential expansions later.

Required Parts for Mk. I
For our small cutesy contraption, we will need the following parts:

The Heart and Soul of our Farm

  • Used Iron Drill - 430c
  • Used Iron Harvester - 320c
Both of which you can find in the used parts shop close to your starting location.

The Connections

  • 1 Straight Pipe - 22c
  • 1 T-Shaped Pipe - 28c
  • 1 Curve Pipe - 25c
  • 1 Intake Pipe - 36c
Bonus Tip:
Use your Wooden Cart to carry all of your pipes, and items in general, at once. And don't forget to buy Tool Bags (220c) as a backup, in case your machines or pipes break.

Cost
So, if we do the math, we come up with a sum of 861c that we require for our little machine.

Bonus Way

If you get bored by all the diggin' 'n' stuff and don't mind spending 52c on a fishing pole, harvesting the river is another valid and nice way to reach our money goal.

The Magic~
Try to build the contraption like this:

Once you've placed both machines and our pipes, make sure to grab your shovel and place one (1) patch of dirt riiiiiight under our drill.
Really, only one small patch is enough for it to work, pinky promise~ :b

Also, remember to check if the drill is on (the lever has to be pointing up) and place your pan close to our harvester so you don't have to pick every ore up yourself.

If everything is set up correctly, the drill now automatically spits dirt into our harvester and, in return, into our pan.
The Sky is the Limit
Now, this is definitely a really solid setup, but what if you want more?

Don't fret, I'll also show you a little idea for an expansion I went with. But like they say,
"The Sky is the Limit" :b

Gromp's Mk. II
If you want to build something along the lines of the picture above, this is what you'll need in addition to the parts you already have:

  • 10 Straight Pipes - 22c each
  • 1 T-Shaped Pipe - 28c
  • 5 Curved Pipes - 25c each

We will also want some of those tasty conveyor belts, which you can find at the shop here:


  • 1 Straight Conveyor - 220c
  • 1 Vertical Conveyor - 323c
  • 1 (or more) Splitter Conveyor - 532c each

Some extra goodies that aren't required but which I definitely recommend:
  • 1 Valve Hook - 85c
  • 1 Pressure Tank - 142c
  • 2 Funnels - 110c each
  • 2 Water Filter Hooks - 174c each
  • 1 Smelter - 1320c
  • 3 Concrete Floors - 5c each
  • 1 extra Pan - 12c
Pressure tanks allow you to reset your water pressure back up to 100% if you put in either a raw shard (the blue glowy crystals), or a bar. Eventually you will need them because the pressure drops by 3% (2.5% with Tier 2 pipes) with each pipe path.

The Water Filters, on the other hand, increase the quality of the water. Each gives 2 points, while you can have a max of 10 quality points per water intake.
Higher quality water damages your machines less, so that is always nice. C:

Cost
If you use my recommendation for parts, your total cash, which you'll need for the new upgrade, will come to around 3590c.

Damn, that sounds like a lot...

However, with our little cash farm that we already have, it shouldn't take long for us to get to this goal. :b
Additionally, you can also always keep fishing while you wait for your machine to give you that sweet, sweet ore~
Setup of the Mk. II
If you already successfully built the Mk. I, setting this one up will be a breeze for ya.
Try to follow the guide of the images below, or mix it up and build your own version~ C:


Keep in mind that the conveyors have to be connected with pipes as well. I recommend placing a pipe and then just putting the conveyor on the same building square as the initial pipe. Or in reverse, but the conveyors need those pipes. :b

After building it, put the resources you would like to filter out on the tray of the conveyer splitter, like in the third image above.
Loadsamoney and Finishing Words
Congrats!!!

You should now have a fully functioning machine that allows you to easily produce ore and, thus, money.

If bigger expansions are on your mind, with new drills or harvesters, you'll need to use the Icehelm Forge to craft them. If you want to know more about it, check out my little guide below. C:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2806761835

Hopefully I was able to share some new and fun ideas with you. C:
This is my very first guide, so if you think this was helpful, please remember to rate and favorite it. <3



Lemme know your feedback and thoughts in the comments. I'm happy for all of them in advance!
74 Comments
Everettee 1 Aug @ 4:27pm 
yea steam has a messed up chat i could barely sent this message
apature 3 Apr @ 1:47pm 
the best way would be to get a pickaxe and dig out a big enough area in the starting area to then put it there, like 4 good chunks of cloutium sell for like 2k( i recommend the t2 pickaxe cus its faster)
MDuh 13 Mar @ 5:07pm 
Thanks. I just modified your Mk. II design to have the drill to be on the bottom and I'm getting heavier chunks plus a new ore type.
Gromps  [author] 13 Mar @ 1:32pm 
The deeper your dirt is, the more and bigger resource chunks you'll get. And you'll also find new resources, which are needed for upgrades. :Neko:
MDuh 12 Mar @ 3:44pm 
how big of a difference if it's on the ground like this vs when it's pretty deep? I'm seeing talks about depth multiplier, does it give new ores not found in overworld or just heavier ores?
Arkonix 16 Feb @ 6:05pm 
so how do I turn the lever on for the drill?
Badmiral Kempkens 23 Dec, 2024 @ 3:06am 
In Mk. III you could add a gem polisher
[Soa]The_Last_UtopianTTV 11 Sep, 2024 @ 8:29pm 
with mkII i sort gems in first one and power shards in second one. then i put a hand sorter on the end and sorted ore into iron and gold buckets
Laser Eyes 6 Jul, 2024 @ 3:07pm 
For the Mk. I, I had a problem with ores bouncing out of the pan, so I backed my truck bed right next to it and it fit. No more ore bouncing away, it looks awful, and like it shouldn't work, but it does.
ibbles 3 Jul, 2024 @ 12:43pm 
this is great!