Portal world resource comparison: which world to farm and when

Scope boundary

This page is a planning guide: start with the resource bottleneck, compare risk and access, then assemble a multi-world farming session. It intentionally does not act as the exhaustive lookup sheet. Use the Portal World resource comparison table when the world is already chosen and you need the detailed per-world reference.

Portal world reset schedule

Portal-world resources use the shared timer: midnight between Tuesday/Wednesday and midnight between Saturday/Sunday (twice weekly, in-game time). Player-placed items and structures generally persist through resets. Only natural resources refresh. The Locations page says resources do not refresh while a player is inside or shortly after first discovery; leave the world and confirm the reset message before assuming a depleted route has refilled.

Do not treat that persistence rule as protection for cookware left on native stoves. In a May 2024 Steam report, Lunar Omen described losing pots from Flathill's permanent arcade stove while outside the world during a reset. This is a dated community observation, not a guarantee about every current build. As a precaution, remove Cooking Pots and Frying Pans from native stoves and store them in player-placed storage before leaving the world.

The current Flathill Wiki original independently gives the stronger, specific warning that pots or pans left on its stoves during a reset are lost with their contents. Keep the general staging rule separate from that native-stove case: player-placed storage does not itself regenerate native loot, and placing an item is not the same operation as collecting a refreshed world resource.

Facility boundary: Cascade Facility sectors, including Office and Security, do not reset in this manner.

Portal world comparison table

Decision guide by resource need

Need medical supplies: Rise's wall Medkits respawn, but they are containers, not direct healing consumables. Check their contents before counting the run as a refill; the item page lists Bandages and Iodine Tablets, while Healing Syringes and Splints are chance drops.

Need Power Cells: Flathill. Power Cell locations confirmed. Bring movement gear, not combat gear.

Need Steel Cable for crafting: Train World. Priority loot target on every visit.

Target Mine Crates specifically. Their table lists one Steel Cable at 100%, and the Train page identifies the world as a renewable source of these nodes. Do not assume every train prop yields cable or count already-looted crates as fresh until the world's reset has actually completed.

Need Night Essence for crafting or the Canaan portal in Cascade Labs: Use the fixed pickups and fishing sources in the Night Realm, or make a deliberate Reaper run in the Security Sector. The Reaper page documents Night Essence from Laser, Holy, or X-Ray damage and an approximately 2.5-minute drop cooldown; entering and leaving the Night Realm can reset that cooldown (Reaper source).

Need Anteverse materials (Gel, Carapace, Carbuncle): Mycofields is a focused source for these named targets: collect native Gel, harvest Scuttlebugs for Carapace, and target the listed mushroom-creature drops. Choose it for that material need, not an unmeasured cross-world yield ranking. Confirm heat and spore protection before entering.

Need early food / wheat for farming: Far Garden. Its entrance is on Office Sector Level 3, making it an early route once that floor is reached, not an unconditional starting-room pickup.

Choose by bottleneck, not by world name

Before entering a portal world, write the bottleneck in one sentence. If the sentence is vague, the route is not ready.

This prevents the common loop where a player farms a familiar portal because it is available, not because it solves the current problem.

Common mistakes

Farming a world by habit rather than by need: Check your current crafting queue and resource shortfalls before selecting a portal world for a session.

Ignoring collection state: A depleted route benefits from a completed reset, but an untouched route can still hold its native loot before the next boundary. Being a day before reset does not mean anyone has picked it. Check both prior harvesting and player presence rather than assuming the calendar alone determines output.

Not tracking what you took: Record the pickups and containers cleared on your route, together with the last confirmed reset. Check that record before revisiting, and confirm players have left the world before expecting a refresh. This is a planning checklist, not a claim about which depletion indicators the game's interface does or does not show (reset conditions).

How to plan a farming session

Use this three-step process before each session:

1. Identify your resource need. What are you crafting or preparing for? List the materials.
2. Match need to world. Use the comparison table to identify which portal world provides those materials.
3. Check reset timing. A recently completed reset is the best time to run a depleted route. If you have not collected its resources since the last reset, there is no reason to wait for another boundary.

Reset timing optimization

The twice-weekly timer tells you when native resources can refresh, not a guaranteed maximum or minimum yield by day. There is no special 24-hour collection bonus established by the reset rule. For efficiency:

• Depleted route: Revisit after a completed reset with players outside the world
• Uncollected route: Visit when the resource is needed, even before the next reset
• Exception: Emergency resupply: visit regardless of timer if you're out of a critical resource

Multi-world session planning

Some sessions benefit from visiting two portal worlds in sequence. Effective combinations:

Before combining Mycofields with difficult sector content, check the actual condition of the character and equipment after extraction. The location page documents heat and spore protection, so damage is not an inevitable toll of a properly prepared visit. This is an editorial stop check: if the run consumed health, supplies, or useful equipment durability, recover before the next fight.

Reset-day checklist

On a reset day, do not visit every world automatically. Use this checklist:

1. Check the current crafting or route blocker.
2. Match that blocker to one portal world.
3. Confirm the world has reset.
4. Empty inventory for the target resource.
5. Leave after the target is collected.

This keeps reset timing useful without turning the session into a checklist of chores.

When not to use this guide

This comparison selects seven farming destinations within the guide's version 1.4 scope; it is not the full base-game world list. Locations also lists worlds such as Canaan, Shadowgate, Praetorium, Albatross, and others not compared here. For later changes, check the Abiotic Factor news and updates guide and the linked current originals rather than treating these seven rows as exhaustive.

The comparison also assumes you've unlocked the portal worlds listed. Worlds you haven't reached yet are not farming options regardless of their resource profile. If you're in early game, Far Garden and Flathill are your accessible options: optimize within those constraints rather than planning around worlds you can't reach yet.

Protection gear checklist by world

Each portal world has different environmental hazards. Bringing the wrong protection wastes the trip.

The optional and packing columns are editorial choices for a declared farming goal, not universal equipment bans. Keep ammunition and backup tools that the planned fights require; leave excess weight rather than assuming a ranged weapon is ineffective because a route has close encounters.

The carry-weight warning is about the documented overload penalties, not a backpack-specific fall-damage multiplier. Check the weight bar before committing to a route segment and reduce excess loot when it compromises movement. Falls can injure legs, but that separate hazard does not establish a weight multiplier.

Mycofields is the most punishing destination for wrong gear. The location page recommends the Fire Proximity Suit or a total of +3 heat resistance and also recommends an Airtight Seal against spores. Treat those as entry checks, not as optional optimization (Mycofields source).

An armor rating alone does not establish that the loadout meets those heat and spore checks. Evaluate the actual protection properties rather than rejecting all light armor by category. The location's heat-resistance recommendation is not evidence that ordinary fire damage universally bypasses low armor; this checklist does not assume such a damage interaction or promise fire immunity.

Renewable target confidence by world

Exact yield depends on which fixed pickups, containers, enemies, and optional areas a route includes. The Wiki does not provide one authoritative per-run total for every world, so this guide does not invent a weekly output estimate. Instead, use the verified renewable target and the condition that makes the run repeatable.

The Voussoir location entry explicitly identifies the Barrel and Water Coolers as renewable liquid-container sources. This row is not a promise that every collectible in Voussoir returns after a reset. Keep optional collectible pickups on a separate route checklist; confirm an item's own recurrence before including it in a repeatable farming quota. Finding it once establishes its location, not its respawn behavior.

The distinction matters: Portal World resets refresh native resources on the shared schedule, while the Reaper's Night Essence behavior is documented on the entity page. Do not convert either mechanic into a guaranteed weekly total.

See also

• Night Realm Walkthrough
• Flathill Complete Guide
• Rise Portal First Visit Guide
• Mycofields Survival Guide
• Portal World Reset Strategy