How to farm rings [UPDATED 23/07/2013]

Overview

I present you three ways of farming rings (if you don’t know them already).

Introduction

Hi there! If you’re here, it means you’re at least curious about these methods. Well, both of the first methods are quite simple but may be tedious, and the second method depends a lot on your luck and/or patience. The third method is the quickest but requires cheating.

Method 1: Sonic way

• Light Speed Shoes

*Having Crystal Ring is optional, but I highly recommend it since it makes the lightspeed dash charging faster*

1. Get to a button that generates ring trails. I suggest the one at the hotel, since it’s quicker and easier to get back to it;
   

2. Charge the lightspeed dash and then click the button (if the lights didn’t already);
3. Dash through the trail;
4. Return to the button and repeat until you’re satisfied or can’t stand anymore;
5. Go to an Action Stage and finish it to add the rings to your account. I suggest Emerald Coast, since it’s very hard to hit an enemy or spike there.

You may waste around 7~9 seconds with this method for each “round” (“round” = charging, stepping on the button, dashing and returning), or even less than this, depending on your skill to return to the button.
Pro: It’s quicker than Knuckles’ method – it’s Sonic, after all.
Con: You need to keep getting the rings and returning.

Method 2: Knuckles Way

• Knuckles
• Shovel Claws

1. Get Knuckles and go to Station Square.
2. The hardest part: go dig around the beach and places with grass until you find yourself a Magnetic/Electric Shield power-up. It can take from seconds to hours. I don’t know the mechanics for digging, but the results seem to be random, so it’ll depend entirely on your luck. You can get every non-ring Item Box from Knuckles’ exclusive skill, even the Invincibility and Bomb items. How the game decides where and when you’ll get them, though, I have no idea.
3. After finding the blue shield, go to the Hotel and press the button upstairs. You know, the one that generates a ring trail so you can get the Crystal Ring as Sonic.
   

4. Leave Knuckles on the button and go do something else. Don’t minimize the game, as it will pause. I believe that if you let it in windowed mode, it won’t pause, so you can still do something on the computer. If you’re playing fullscreen, you can still browse YouTube™ and other websites with the Steam overlay without pausing the game.
5. Once you got the desired or the maximum amount of rings, go to any level and finish it quickly, so the rings will be added to your ring account. I suggest Casinopolis since it has less enemies.

IMPORTANT: Entering an Action Stage or Chao Garden or changing Adventure Fields will make you lose the shield and any power-ups that are still active.

You get 1 ring per second with this method, so you’ll need 16min33s to get 999 rings.
Pro: You can do anything else while wait for the ring counter reach 999.
Con: You need the Shield and may waste a lot of time after it.

Method 3: Cheater Way

For the lazy ones, a good news: I tested and the cheating method present in the 2004/GC version still works fine.

• Access to Station Square’s Chao Garden
• At least one item at the Station Square’s Chao Garden

1. Go to your Chao Garden at the Station Square;
2. Get at least one item there (the higher the selling price, the better); If you don’t have money to buy one, get a Golden Chao Egg (it’s the first from the 3 “hidden” Eggs that you gain access when you begin a new game, so it won’t be hard – just start a new file and finish Emerald Coast and you’ll be able to put it on your Garden), its eggshell can be sold for 250 ring;
3. Get out of the Garden or Pause > Exit Game so the game can save;
4. Now, close the game (you can alt+f4 to make things faster) and go to the following folder:
   %userprofile%DocumentsSEGASonic Adventure DXSAVEDATA

   You should find at least 2 files: SonicAdventure01.snc and SonicAdventureChaoGarden.snc;

5. Copy SonicAdventureChaoGarden.snc and make a backup (in another folder somewhere away from the SEGA folder, just in case);
6. Run the game and go to your Station Square’s Garden;
7. Sell all of the items you got there before;
8. Exit the Garden/Adventure;
9. Close the game;
10. Now COPY (It’s bolded, underlined and uppercased because it’s important, you know?) the backup of the SonicAdventureChaoGarden.snc you made on Step 5 and paste it in the SAVEDATA folder, overwriting the previous one;
11. Repeat from Step 6 until you’re satisfied;
12. Close the game and overwrite the file in SAVEDATA for the backup one last time.

Yeah, you can’t get it back, sure

It’s obviously the quickest method, depending on the items you’re selling.
Pro: Well, it’s fast and effective.
Con: It’s cheating.

Tips & Notes

• With Knuckles, as far as I tested (that means that I may be wrong), from the two shield types, I could only get one per playthrough. So, if you get a Green/Normal Shield, change levels then return to Station Square, or pause, exit game, then re-enter it.
• You can still get extra lifes even after you reach 999 rings.
• Since the hotel button generates 7 rings at a time, you’ll need to repeat the Sonic method 142~143 times to get 994~999 rings.
• Even if you ignore the unknown time to get the Magnetic Shield, it would be better to get 999 rings with Sonic, if you’re fast enough to get back to the button (and if you’re not lazy enough).
• While playing as Knuckles, go looking for the shield for a couple of time inbetween stages. For example, once you finish the first stage, Speed Highway, instead of returning to it for the Level B, go to the second stage, Casinopolis. In the way, go through the grass fields and beach to look for the shield, avoiding going back. If you manage to find one, go get 999 rings at the hotel and then go save them. After this, go to Casinopolis. If you don’t find a shield, just proceed to Casinopolis. If you’re not in the mood to search for the shield even for a couple of minutes, then don’t play as Knuckles. If he is the last character for you, then I suggest you start generating some will to look for a shield.
• While playing as Sonic, whenever you need to go to Station Square, stop by the hotel or the casino area to get a couple of rings. No need to go all the way to 999. Set a minimum for yourself and then continue your journey once you reach it.
• By cheating in a similar way of that of the third method, you can buy infinite items to your Gardens without losing rings – instead of backuping the SonicAdventureChaoGarden.snc file, backup the SonicAdventure01.snc (If you use more than one save slot, then get the number according to the one you use in the game), then just keep copying and pasting it until you’re done buying.
• To make things easier for the third method, before backuping the save data, put all of the items you wish to sell near the entrance, like this:
  

Personal Opinion

Sonic’s way is faster and don’t require you to look for a shield that may or may not take forever to appear, but Knuckles’ lets you waste about 15min of your life with something else, so go according with your mood: If you’re willing to keeping moving in circles for a while, then go for Sonic. If you want to get a shield and watch something or play in a handheld or mobile, then get Knuckles.

About method #3, well, it’s cheating and it’s cheap and you shouldn’t use it… But stopping to think of it, 2k for a cardboard box is too much…. Yeah, #3 is awesome.

That’s it!

Hope it can be helpful 🙂

Until next guide!