Ephemeral nodes pop up again after "tapping" surrounding regular nodes

[nranola]

I found out about this farming technique recently, but I'm now wondering if this method is a feature of the game or if it's something that can be considered an exploit. Ephemeral nodes can be made to appear several times within its active timeframe by "tapping" surrounding regular nodes.

This is a call for clarification more than anything as I was sent a generic automated response when I tried to email support regarding this.

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Time: Any time that ephemeral mining/botany nodes are active
Frequency: Always
In-game time: Any of these, but for testing purposes, let's use 16:00 to 20:00
Area and coordinates: Sea of Clouds (34, 30)
Steps:
1. Switch to Miner class
2. Open ephemeral mining node (34, 30)
3. Gather items from ephemeral mining node
4. Open mining node (31, 31)
5. Exit mining node (31, 31) without gathering anything
6. Open mining node (32, 30)
7. Exit mining node (32, 30) without gathering anything
8. IF EPHEMERAL NODE STILL HAS NOT APPEARED, open mining node (35, 29)
9. IF EPHEMERAL NODE STILL HAS NOT APPEARED, exit mining node (35, 29) without gathering anything
10. Ephemeral mining node appears
11. Repeat step 2