From Botmaster to Recruitmaster: farming Botworld

I moved my efforts and will only update the Botworld Wiki from now on

Introduction

To farm Botworld efficiently, you will need:

Good recruits: efficient farming is your recruits doing the fighting, while you loot piles and chests.
Good routes: different places drop gold at varying amounts, and offer a different selection of Rare Materials
Good area knowledge: As you get to know the precise spawn location of every potential loot and mob for a given area, your performance there will significantly improve. Especially if your recruits are somewhat lacking

Gold comes from piles, chests, and bandits. The goal is to loot the most of the first two, and have your recruits defeat the most of the last, in the shortest time possible. Avoid all fights as much as possible, and if you can't, make them Multiple Fights so that you cut down on the loading time & make 10% more thanks to the Risky perk.

Some materials are easy to find in high return routes, others not so much. For these, your best bet is to keep an eye on the shop and farm gold to buy them at every occasion.

Every map has a number of potential spawn locations for loot (and mobs). It doesn't guarantee that there will be loot there, there can either be: Loot, Nothing, Trap turret, or Bandit Canon.

Young botmasters

(First, let me say that I don't think you should feel the need to dedicate yourself to farming before lvl 15 at the earliest. I started researching it when I was around lvl 17 myself, and it had been pretty easy to upgrade my main bots just doing the story, contracts & arena. )

At the early stages of the game, you will be both limited in your route options, and probably not have that great Recruits. You can still use these techniques, and will have to make up for your Recruits shortcomings with some extra micro-management and running to dodge mobs. Those you can't run, fight many at once.

The loss of gold/min will be made up for by the opportunity to train any bot you want to improve.

Invisibility is a huge help, just as much as the third recruit.

This route is rich in Evader Sprays and Splasher Explosive so you should be able to get a 2nd suitable recruit quite soon with such types of bots.

Relevant Business Upgrades

This is not an absolute ranking of all the upgrade, just of their relevance for farming. For example, you should definitively still upgrade the machines first !

Shared Scrap
Recruit Repair
Terrify
Metal Detector
Cannister Storage
Negociation
Treasure Hunter
Risk Reward
Shakedown (doesn't seem to have an effect on gold, just scrap)
Scavenger Training

Note: the weakest your recruits and the more you get into fights, the more valuable the last 2 get

Build up your Recruits

What's important is that your recruits can handle as many fights as possible, so you don't have to. Thus, give them your best bots & abilities when you go for a run.

I usually only keep to myself Chainer + a direct damage ability, so I can win a fight fast when I messed up and got into one. It's a great opportunity to train 2 new bots !

Now, for your recruits to do well, you want the mobs they'll face to be as weak as possible. Mobs are at the minimum 3 levels below your current level. So you want to keep your recruits level as close as possible to your own level.

Your own level is calculated from the average of your best 6 bots. Watch it and be careful when upgrading bots not to just push your top 6 through the roof and leave your recruits hanging.

If you don't have enough bots to have all your recruits well stuffed, concentrate your best bots in 1 then 2 of them. It's better to have 2 recruits who can fight, and one that you use only as a diversion, than to have 3 that will get down in no time.

Note: your bots will not gain any XP when used by Recruits. You'll have to train them yourself first !

Farming tips & tricks

Check out the far left of the shop for extra canisters (behind ads if you don't have the Mayoral Membership).

How to navigate a route

In most routes, you want to make sure your recruits can deal with the mobs that guard loot or block your way, while the rest is only optional. This may require some micro-management, usually by not deploying all 3 of them right from the start but keeping them to where they're the most needed.
Use the Bombardment gadget (lvl2) on large groups to help your recruits win fights easier and save up health (thx @birdsound#0152)
Tank the energy canons so it doesn't hurt your recruits instead.
Be very careful for them around mines.
A neat trick by @Atreyus#0204 that will tank your gold/min but save you canisters if you find yourself short: you can reset your current map (and loot) by leaving/re-entering the area by foot.

Completing contracts

A few contracts are not based upon a specific location and can be completed while running most routes:

Loot X chests / piles
Fight X bandits / Wild bots
Disarm X mines

You can cancel and reroll contracts that don't fit. It can't be worth it if you don't have the Mayoral Membership that allows you to skip ads though, and even then I don't do it anymore because it's very tedious actually.

Still, if you have such contracts, pick and chose a route that will allow you to complete it.

What makes a good farming route

can drop the type of materials you're looking for
can be completed by your recruits while fighting as little possible yourself (the goal is 0)
doesn't make you run around too much

The last two will allow you to get good gold/min performances. Data shows that the best routes are around 2-4 min/run, so if you're running for much longer consider trimming it down.

Keep it short, make bank !

** Best routes by resources**

A good route will have a high density of piles and chests, have the desired characteristics for the materials you're looking for, and have mostly bandits rather than wild bots.

You will always be looking for gold, but when you also need specifically some other materials it might be worth it to run an alternative route to have a chance to drop it. At 475 gold/rare drop, it's really worth to chose the right route for your needs. Even just Sparky Wires make it worth it to have wild bots in your route, even if that decreases your gold earnings. It's all about compromise.

Ordered by relevance, with details for each route in the post below:

Gold: Cobblestone Trail, Croaking Lake, Redleaf Ridge - Scrapeyard DZ (special)
Evader Sprays: Cobblestone Trail + River Run + Southbank, Croaking Lake, Cobblestone Trail
Splasher Explosives: Cobblestone Trail + River Run + Southbank, Redleaf Ridge, Cobblestone Trail
Tank Platings: Redleaf Ridge, Strange Monument + Grand Fissure
Chaser Cores: Strange Monument + Grand Fissure, Crater Dome, Scrapeyard DZ
Ancient ruins boat items: Crater Dome, Strange Monument

Botframes, Sniper Gyro, Brawler Battery, Support Chip, Essences are not location-dependant

Common & Special materials: check out the route summaries below and pick the one best suited according to its characteristics.

Routes performances & presentations

Below are short summaries for each the most interesting recorded routes. Check out #Farming Routes - run logs for the complete run logs of every route tested

Cobblestone Trail:

Trees, Water, Bandits
Drops: Evader, Splasher
73 gold/can, 35 gold/min, 2 min/run
note: performances rely 100% on your recruits fighting efficiently

Redleaf Ridge

High grounds, Trees, Bandits, Wild bots
Drops: Tanker, Splasher
62 gold/can, 24 gold/min, 2min30/run

Strange Monument + Grand Fissure

Ancient Ruins, High Ground, Trees, Bandits, Wild Bots, Mines
Drops: Tanker, Chaser Cores, Splasher
70 gold/can, 26 gold/min, 2min30/run

Crater Dome

Ancient Ruins, Trees, Bandits, Wild bots
Drops: Chaser, Splasher, Heavy Steel
50 gold/run, 13 gold/min, 3min/run

Cobblestone Trail + River Run + Southbank

Trees, Water, Bandits, Wild bots
Drops: Evader, Splasher (lots of them) 76 gold/can, 17 gold/min, 4min30/run
Loot piles at River Run, back and through the bandit Camp looting as you go, and along the shore to loot piles again.
note: can be done with lesser recruits made up for by dodging

Croaking Lake

Water, Trees, Bandits, Wild bots, Mines
Drops: Evader, Splasher (lots of them)
70 gold/can, 25 gold/min, 3min/run
Circle the lake: up left down right back close to the landing pad. note: can complete all types of contracts in a single location

Strange Monument

Ancient Ruins, Bandits, Wild bots, Mine
43 gold/can, 18 gold/min, 2min30/run
note: Crater Dome seems superior in every way if you have access to it.

Scrapeyard chests speedrun

Special Chests, Ancient Ruin, Water, Wild bots, Bandits
Drops: 2-4 special chests, so lots of mats randomly
2min/chest, 25-50 gold/min, 2-6min/run
note: obviously costs you a DZ trip.

Notes:

the values presented here are rough average of series of runs
the recorded time includes loading times in/out of the area

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Posted Aug 23, 2021, 6:12 PM UTC · edited

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