Slime Rancher – Free Ranging (Guide)

Slime Rancher - Free Ranging  (Guide)
Slime Rancher - Free Ranging (Guide)

This is a very simple starter’s guide on how to Free Range.

What is Free Ranging?

Free ranging is a method of farming plorts from slimes that doesn’t involve corrals. Instead of corrals, the slimes freely roam in a closed off, but wide area, with their favorite fruits and veggies growing in the plots instead of the corrals being there. The wide but closed off area doesn’t have to be fully closed off either, just enough so that there’s a wall over around 90% of the area. (Think the Grotto Ranch Expansion, for example)

This might seem a little odd at first. Obviously, the slimes can walk out of that semi-closed off space, right? And you are absolutely right. They can. But if you are going to free range, you will need to be prepared to just bring them back in.

You might already seem skeptical. You don’t want to be chasing after your precious Pink Hunter Largos after they escape for long periods of time. Although, the chance of them fully escaping is rather low, and if they do you can just suck the largo up, and bring it back. Also, the profit you get from using this method of farming plorts is a massive improvement from the regular old “corral” method.

Quite obviously, you do not have to switch to free ranging if you are financially stable using the corral method. Although, if you do decide to try free ranging, please note that it is an investment. You will end up spending thousands of newbucks on gardens and their upgrades.

So, now you think you are ready to learn the basics of free ranging. And you’re probably correct. But, if this section makes free ranging seem unsatisfying for you, I wouldn’t continue.

How to Start

Obviously, you are interested in learning how to Free Range.

Free ranging is simple at it’s core. Basically, it boils down to this. Make gardens. Upgrade those gardens. Put a lot of largos in the enclosed space. Very simple. But you may be wondering which slimes to pick to create these largos. After all, you wouldn’t want to choose two low-value slimes, such as tabbies and pinks. Well, I’ll answer that question. Actually, you will. In the next section.

Choosing Largos to Maximize Profit

With so many combinations, it would be impossible for me to hand pick the perfect largos for you to use. So, I’ve compiled 4 questions to help you choose.

Look at the following checklist.

  • Easy to manage
  • Favorite food is easily farmable
  • Plorts are worth more than 25 at their highest value
  • Largos are easy to create in large quantities

Answer these “questions” for yourself, for the two slimes of your choice.
If you said yes at least to the first “question” on the list, you might have made a very good choice.
Let’s take a Pink Hunter and a Honey Tabby for this, as an example.

For the Pink Hunter slime, let’s start with the pink slime. It’s easy to manage, doesn’t have a favorite food, plorts don’t reach higher than 25 at their highest value, and they are easily able to become largos in large quantities. Second, the hunter. They are fairly easy to manage, their favorite food isn’t easily farmable, their plorts are worth much more than 25 at their highest value, and if you give their plorts to other slimes instead of vice versa, they are easy to create in large quantities.

While the Pink Hunter may be a good choice for those not willing to completely give up corrals, anyone who wants serious amounts of newbucks would not pick the Pink Hunter, mainly because their one favorite food isn’t readily available and, compared to other largos, they do not make many newbucks. Also, they are not super easy to manage, as if you are not ready for free ranching, you could find yourself dead in seconds because of Hunter largos’ wild nature.

So, let’s try the Honey Tabby.

First, the honey slime. Easy to manage, favorite food is VERY easy to farm, their plorts are worth more than 25 at their highest quantity, and are easily able to be turned into largos in astounding quantities. Now, the tabby. They are also easy to manage, the favorite food is semi-easy to farm, their plorts are worth about 25 newbucks at their highest value, and they can easily be turned into largos, just like the honey slime.
This largo doesn’t have many downsides. The main downside is the fact that the tabby’s favorite isn’t super easy to farm, but the fact that they both even have a favorite food and one of said foods is very readily availible redeems this. Honey Tabbies make an average amount of newbucks, and don’t turn feral because of their wild nature, in which they may or may not even have.

Any person who wants serious profit from free ranging would easily choose the Honey Tabby over the Pink Hunter.

Although, just because this is the case doesn’t mean that Hunter largos or Pink largos are necessarily bad. In fact, I believe that some of the best largos are in fact Hunters. Let’s not get into that now, though. That’s for the next section.

My Top 5

So, now you’ve chosen your largos, that you will use to make many many newbucks. Although, you may ask, what are my top favorites? Well, I’ll keep it short and sweet. I will list my top 5, give reasons as to why, and then just end this guide so you don’t have to torture yourself any more than you already have. Here we go.

Please note these are not in any particular order.

  • Phosphor Hunter
    Easy to manage. Cuberries are very easy to farm, and the only inconvenience really is the light-sensitive thing. It is easily bypassable, though, by just putting them in the Grotto as opposed to, say the Overgrowth.
    They also make a quite nice amount of newbucks, for being easy to manage. As long as you have enough cuberry trees to feed them all, I’d say you should definitely try caring for these guys. Also, they’re incredibly cute. 
  • Honey Tabby
    One of the easiest to manage, although they don’t make very good profit. If I had to choose between either Phosphor Hunters or these guys, I would choose the Phosphor Hunter. Although, if you do have multiple places you’d like to free range, I’d say get both of em. 
  • Nukes (Aka Rad+Boom)
    Haven’t spent a lot of time caring for these guys. They’re kind of a handful because of the radiation and explosion, but they make very good income. You just have to be very very careful. If you don’t have at least the 3rd health upgrade, I wouldn’t reccommend them.
  • Pink Hunters
    Very good for people using the corral method along with these guys. They eat everything, and the Hunter plorts alone could boost income by a little bit. Although, if you’re only free ranching, do not use these unless you don’t want as many newbucks. 
  • Rock Crystals
    These guys make more newbucks than Pink Hunters for sure, but aren’t the best way to get newbucks. If you are going to free range this type of largo, when harvesting plorts make sure to bring some water to get rid of the crystals they spawn, and be careful. In my opinion, they aren’t worth the risk but it’s really up to you.
Originally posted by Fluffy

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