John Chapman's Guide to The Big Farm Theory
Game Hints & Tips
- There are several points in the game where you need to harvest crops or animals which may not be easy to find. You can always find at least two on the Professor's farm though. Go get those two then go back home. Then return to the Professor's farm and you'll find another two ready to click on. You can do this again to get another one. If in your 'Warehouse > Other section' you have any 'Friend's Golden Action' you can keep doing this.
- Need to break rocks or chop trees on someone else's farm? You can't do this on the Professor's farm since there are no rocks and only decorative trees. (There are some if you visit the Prof's island - click the ship) If you can't find them on a farm move your mouse over a building. It may go partly transparent and reveal a rock or small tree there.
- Don't feed the cat until morning. There's no point in feeding it just before you go to bed.
- Beware - in the mission 'Cow's dinner' (about level 23) where you have to clear 8 stones on your farm, if someone else clears them you DON'T get the stone credited towards the target. There are quite a few missions like this. The answer is to do everything you need to do before accepting help.
- If you have a lot of animal items to sell then use the 'Sell' button. It saves an extra click but beware - know the sale value of each adult animal and confirm that you do want to sell it. It's easy to sell an immature animal or even worse - a building.
Adult animal values Chicken $250 Pig $1,150 Rabbit $3,600 Turkey $675 Goat $1,800 Goose $4,350 Cow $700 Sheep $2,700 Horse $4,500 - It's very unfriendly to leave your farm with nothing to do on it. Always try to leave it with lots for your visitors to do, even if that means planting a few strawberries near the entrance. Constantly leave them with nothing and don't be surprised if you are un-friended. If you get sick of the game then leave your farm with at least 6 crops to pick and don't accept help from anyone.
- Wilted crops give a better reward to visitors than normal crops but it's nice to have the option of choosing either. Some missions ask you to harvest crops at your neighbors. Wilted crops don't count.
- If you REALLY want to help your friends then:
- Put all your farm buildings and decorations at the back of your farm - not near the entrance.
- Plant crops and trees near where you enter a farm. Plant at least 6 crops because if you have the last expansion and the dog you get 6 'help your friends.'
- Always have some trees on your farm - preferably near the entrance.
- Try to avoid making the last chop on a tree, especially on low level players - leave it for the owner to complete it.
- If someone is about level 19 - don't break the rocks on their farm (see #4 above). They will need the metal you get from them. If you break them - they don't get it. Much beyond level 23 and they will have learnt the lesson 'harvest what you need' BEFORE you let the neighbors in.
- If the person you are helping is around level 30 - feed chickens. They will need the eggs from them to make glue.
- When you feed other people's animals feed rabbits then sheep then goats, pigs, cows, turkeys and chickens in that order.
- On level 20 and beyond you will have a constant need for metal. This comes from breaking rocks. Your farm will 'grow' new rocks at the rate of 2-4 per day. Break them as soon as they appear - before you let any of your friends help. Remember there are three other sources of metal - The nanochests (you get five per day), as a bonus from the magneto and the collection of precious stones.
- When accepting gifts always click the 'Thank' button before you click 'Accept'. That way the person sending you the gift gets one too. The only disadvantage of this is that you can't then send them a different gift.
- When accepting gifts or hovering over a friend's icon at the bottom, you can see their 'wish list'. If you mouse over the non-grayed icons you can see how many of these you have. provided you have at least one you can send them the item but beware - it comes from your stock. It's possible to send a large number of these items and it doesn't count in the '1 gift per day' limit.
- When getting help from a friend:
- It's probably a bit late to tell you this but the very first leopard chicken offered takes 20 seconds between feeds and gives 1 XP and 2 money. You'll often get food also. It's a quick way of getting XP at the start.
- If you want to improve your 'comfort' level but don't want to clutter your farm, buy 'White wicket gates gates' for $50 and position them behind buildings where they won't be seen. As a bonus, rocks will no longer appear there. When trying to increase your comfort, the item which gives you the most comfort per cash is the white wicket gate. Not only is it low cost but it also takes up little space. You can stack lots of them behind buildings. They wil also fit on top of paths
Move your pointer over this image to see what I mean. - Here's the scenario:
You accept help from a friend... 
...and click their icon to go to where they are harvesting... 
...but as you click the icon changes and you reject help from the next friend The solution is to always click the top of the friend's icon which will put your pointer above the 'No' button.
- Need to harvest 30 pumpkins (or any other crop) on a neighbor's farm? Look up the missions which require you to sow them using the Mission list. Pumpkins are required around level 14 and 20. Scroll your friend list to people at those levels. Not many people have pumpkins though and you might not find 30 - maybe only 15 at one location. If you have 'Friends golden action' available, get those 15 and move on to the next friend - then go back. You'll find there are now 10 pumpkins available and you can use 'Friends golden action' to get those (25 so far). Move on and back and you can get the remaining 5.
- Need an item which you have to ask friends for? Send the request to the people at the top of your messages list. They are probably on-line and playing the game. Failing that open a second browser window (not a tab) and watch your home page for Big Farm Theory action in it.
- Have you noticed accounts with LOTS of rocks, trees and wilted crops? These are dummy accounts set up to help people. You can harvest crops e.t.c. there but your friend help will be rejected by the site's owner. You get the reward and the next day the crops will be there to harvest again. Example Zymer Dee's farm
- The Energy bar will hold more than 999 energy (Not sure about more than 9,999)
- It's possible to get a combo award planting and harvesting strawberries with no cat and no speed-up elixir. You'll need a space 10 x 8 to plant in, lots of cash and at least 250 energy available. Plant in a pattern where the end position is next to the start. Plant, collect the XP star. Repeat this until you get back to the start. By this time the strawberries you first planted will be ripe so you can harvest, collect the XP star and so on until you get back to the beginning where you can start planting again. Slow and steady works.
- If you have lots of neighbors it's possible to get a combo from them harvesting your crops and chopping trees BUT ONLY if the cat has not been fed. Let your neighbor get at least two items ahead of you before you start collecting the XP stars. That way you'll have a little flexibility to deal with the neighbors who run all over the place. If you get one of those do some harvesting yourself. Obviously you'll need lots of crops and animals to tend.
- Sometimes a mission will ask you to increase your comfort score by X points. If you know about this mission you can remove decor items before you get the mission by putting them in storage. Once you've been given the mission just take them out of storage and you'll achieve the mission without buying or making anything.
Example: Wonderful birds V asks you to gain +600 comfort
- A Warning! (No longer applies - fixed)
There are some people sending out multiple butterfly, precious stones or herbarium collection items. You see these in your request center messages. These items normally appear in your gifts NOT in 'messages'.
If you quickly click through your messages, this doesn't quite work as you expect. You will not get any of the items gifted. Once you click the Accept button (as I did in the picture) a 'Thanks' button will take its place. If you click it you will LOSE that item if you already have one. Some people seem to use some sort of trick to 'give' items they do not have. In this case, this thanks button effectively steals items from your collections.
What you should do - Watch out for these items in your messages. Click the 'Accept' but DON'T click the 'Thanks' button. When you click to get more messages or to return to the game these items will disappear.
It is safe to click 'Thanks' for energy, paint or other non-collection items that you can gift. There is a standard Facebook trick for sending multiple gifts in games which is safe and does work but I'm NOT going to explain that - don't ask! - The 'lost island' ship
A new expansion is available. To use it you have to repair the ship at the entrance. This is NOT worth doing early in the game. It will just use up resources you will need for other expansions and buildings. Don't repair the ship until you have entered expansion 5 in the bottom right corner of your game. To complete the ship you need to have 1,000 fuel which you won't get much before level 50. The only exception to this would be if you are prepared to use 1,000 gold to fuel the ship - That would cost you $110 US (£68).
- If you need to harvest rocks at your neighbors don't forget the island! If their ship is complete, use it to go there. You may find lots of rocks. The professor's island has rocks and trees too.
- Never remove the last tree from an area on your farm. If you do, you'll have to buy trees when you need them. As long as there is at least one tree in an area then more trees will grow at that place. If you don't harvest them they will grow until they need 15 clicks to chop them down. The same is NOT true for rocks so it's safe to remove them completely.
- If travelling between farms and especially going to an island seems to take a long time then use a speed-up elixir. It cuts down the time to travel to an island dramatically.
- If you are at a high level then set aside an area on the island and in it keep 10 of each type of animal 1 feed short of being adult. Don't feed them or allow visitors to feed them - either use a blocker or reject neighbor help. When you get missions which require you to raise X animals, you'll find them a huge help.
- When you accept neighbor help this ONLY applies to the area you are working in. E.g. if you are on the island visitors will only help there. If you are on the mainland visitors will NOT go to your island and work there.
- Buildings for animals added to the island will ONLY allow you to place animals on the island NOT on the mainland.
- Are you tired of clicking to accept gifts in the messages window? If so you need to install an auto-clicker. I use a free one available at http://www.advanced-mouse-auto-clicker.com/free-mouse-auto-clicker.html
To use it set the click interval to 2/10ths of a second (If you have a really fast connection and computer try 1/10th second). Don't start it yet though. Go to your game window and open the message window. Click the first message then press Ctrl + F2. Just move your pointer over the message and it will activate it without you clicking. Be careful what you move your pointer over because it is clicking for you five times a second! To stop it working press Ctrl +F3
An autoclicker makes collecting messages much quicker. With care you can use them in other areas of the game also. It works for adding fertilizer and harvesting crops. They are great for getting combos.
BE CAUTIOUS when downloading them. Often 'extras' will be downloaded and installed if you don't watch out for them and decline them. - Try adding this link to your bookmarks toolbar Requests You should be able to just drag it there. If clicked it will open the messages window of Big Farm Theory. (Cheat hint: you can Ctrl click to open multiple tabs of it but I'm going to leave you to figure out how that helps).
- You don't have to accept friend help. If it gets in the way then position the 'No' button over a blank area of your farm and use tip 31 autoclicker to get rid of the popup. Doing this won't prevent your friends from getting their visit rewards. There are some missions which require you to accept friend help though so it's not a good idea always.
- Once you've bought the second expansion, where the blast furnace is, you can move the blast furnace to a new location even if you have not repaired the bridge yet.
- Gifts - 'Accept' and 'Thank'
The 'thank' button only appears if paint, energy, glass, motors or bolts are being gifted. If you click 'thank' you will both get the item.
If you click 'accept' then only you will get the item. This leaves you free to send a different item back.
To help your neighbor out - USE THE THANK BUTTON!
Accept/thank gifts BEFORE you deal with messages because you may get double gifts. - Did you know that you can put animals with a single square footprint, in the middle of a bridge? Chickens and rabbits for example:
Small decorations fit too. Useful to know if you are desperately short of space. - Apart from strawberries, which require constant attention and lots of energy, to earm $100 per hour and 20 XP per hour
If you want Experience points (XP)
Until level 15 cucumbers earn you the most XP per hour
From level 15 to 20 melons earn the most XP per hour
From level 21 to 61 onions earn the most XP per hour
From level 62 blackcurrents earn the most XP per hour
If you want money
Until level 20 cucumbers earn the most money ($10 per hour)
From level 21 to 57 melons earn the most money ($11.25 per hour)
From level 58 to 61 lemons earn the most money ($11.36 per hour)
From level 62 to 63 blackcurrants earn the most money ($15.71 per hour)
From level 64 rice earns the most money ($16.07 per hour)
