Overview
Tips and tricks for efficient play, including optimal sequence of bonuses. Includes mild spoilers of game mechanics.
Tips and Tricks
MAIN SECTION
During busy phases with a lot of options for upgrades I focus on adding Life or Civilization units if the max quantity I can add in 20 seconds will boost my income accrual by 10% or more. Once those are exhausted, I switch to the Research panel.
Life and Research achievements trigger at 25, 50, 100, 150 and 250 units – achievements are clickable for bonuses in their tab (click the grayed-out achievement to trigger the bonus), save them for after you unlock Singularity (and preferably after you’ve seriously ‘walled’ at the end of each simulation run, since they can add significantly to your megabits). Some later achievements are clickable for Darwin cubes — a small icon shows at lower right of each achievement for the type of bonus that will be given. Some of those trigger points for Life also activate new Research for that life.
Quantum Charges (yellow floating atomic-looking things) and comet clickables appear to be poor deals for the cube they cost to activate. x2 income boost is a far more efficient use of cubes.
Restart simulation at the point you can afford at least one new Reality Engine purchase.
The 4-cube Entropy and Idea burst boosts increase in 10x increments with based on your income, so if you think a boost isn’t a good deal, check again after you’ve levered up your income a bit as it may have increased significantly. You can exploit this to ‘chain’ boosts for rapid advancement: take a burst boost, use it to select a breakthrough Life or Research such as Cyborg or Human Expedition, then take another boost at 10x the previous one.
DINOSAURS
In this section of the game, a somewhat different set of metaphors take over the user interface. You’re collecting cards to boost dinosaur traits and adding counts of each dinosaur species to hit targets, giving you “mutagen” which will allow you to unlock the traits you have enough cards for (don’t worry, it should make sense after playing for a bit).
You can click on a dinosaur’s magnifying glass (under their progress bar) to see the associated traits. This is a relatively easy way to see if your key currency-producing dinos are ready for upgrade.
My general priorities in the dinosaur side of the game, working through them in batches and cycling through the list:
- 1) Geode targets: these unlock trait cards, give mutagen, and open up asteroid cycles. I try to pick up any of these that can be done in a realistic amount of time before selecting an asteroid extinction.
- 2) Adding more dinos to top performers
- 3) Hitting count targets (10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 250) of lower-level dinos to gain mutagen. The increasing counts give progressively higher mutagen rewards. For instance, reaching 10 of a particular dino gives 2 mutagen, while 150 dinos gives 20 mutagen.
Take a break from watching green progress bars to check trait cards occasionally, spending mutagen to upgrade. You’ll probably need to upgrade traits for top 2-3 dinosaurs only (those with best currency gain/second). If you have unspent mutagen it will survive an asteroid extinction and you can use it in the next cycle. However, getting a new trait card and progressing the first few levels can boost a species significantly, so check this after starting on a new card.
You can also pick up a free geode from the lightning bolt tab once every 4 hours.
The first upgrade is free for each card, so grab those when you see them.
Guide version info
Last edit: 30 December 2019 (playing main branch – beta version may vary)