Progession Charting / Planning

[LucidCrux]

To get a good handle on progression, when boosts unlock and if any need tweaked, where the game drags and might need a little something (or the opposite, going too fast), and where the game is going as far as future mechanics and 'stages' of play.

[Dorus]

The really really early game is really really slow. I mean especially the first few hours-days. After that it picks up quite decent.

The second points where i ran into trouble was when i had to hunt down like 3000 kitty's, but only had like 300. Part of the problem was that Redunception unlocked really late for me. That's also the point where i cheated myself trough a little bit.

I was told at that time i should unlock logicat, didn't have it either then. Once logicat unlocked things got pretty fun again.

See also http://xkcd-time.wikia.com/wiki/Boosts and search where i say "I need some help. I’m at newpix 674, 304 Redundakitties, 26k glass chips, 9k glass blocks, all 10 glass ceilings, 70.9 TW castles, 285.3W sand/mNp, 117 Boosts"

[subanark]

I'm finding the grind to get blackprint pages (before you can use AA to print them) takes a really long time to complete. Currently, you can expect to get 1-2 per logicat after inf castles (less before then) and another 1 per hour while idle with shopping assistant buying crate keys during FA. You need 1070 blackprint pages to get to milo, and another 200 to get it to a reasonable speed. Personally I've done well over 1000 logicat puzzles to get this far and I'm really getting burned out doing this. Might I recommend a buff that lets you do 5 (and only 5) logicat at a time?

Additionally, temporal duplication with multibuy is way too powerful to get to inf castles. I was able to skip other buffs like window washing beanies, and it only took me a weekend, even after fumbling about to catapult myself to the Q level of castles (where it slowed down slightly).

As you said, early game is slow. But it is also rather punishing if you don't molpy down at NP 3, and later realize you should have (excluding the NP 50 window to save scum a temporal rift from DoRD, which I don't see mentioned anywhere in the wiki).

Ninja doesn't seem to help much early in the game, and could see a buff to encourage its use.

Glass doesn't provide any important uses early on, and not having enough when the time comes can be devastating to the pace of the game. It doesn't help that it takes away from sand while you build it up at a point where blast furnancing castles is important.

Goats are useless for quite a while.

I'm thinking that there should be a way to have multiple paths in order to further. Focusing on one resource too much should be rewarded with a way to trade using the excessive resource, either for another resource, or for a buff in its production. E.g. trade 10^(current glass chip production) castles to increase glass chip production by 1.

[eternaldensity]

Goats are useless for quite a while.

That's by design. They start out as a 'joke consolation prize' for losing at MHP. Then they end up being useful later on.

Might I recommend a buff that lets you do 5 (and only 5) logicat at a time?

I think the current multi-logicat system is powerful enough without making it available so soon.

I think most of my blackprints for the early blackprint boosts came from just idling with shopping assistant: there wasn't any multi-logicat at all back then.

[LucidCrux]

I agree. While this is an "incremental" game, there are definitely parts that seem meant to be "idle." People shouldn't be able to rush through everything, and there are in game means to get most things while idle even if it might take a bit longer than speedy players like. If something takes a huge amount of time though, that is different. But I don't remember early blackprints being one of those.

[Dorus]

I'm thinking that there should be a way to have multiple paths in order to further. Focusing on one resource too much should be rewarded with a way to trade using the excessive resource, either for another resource, or for a buff in its production. E.g. trade 10^(current glass chip production) castles to increase glass chip production by 1.

Focusing on one resource is the worse you can do in this game, if you don't learn that early, you are going to be missing out a lot of stuff. You can still grind into the later stages, and usually the later stages do allow you do make up for the stuff you missed early at a higher pace, but a just 1 for 1 trade would be really bad IMHO, you would skill tons of content that way.

I'm currently at the PC/AC stage, got plenty of logicat levels and blackprints, but i'm really low on goats and flux crystals (i never liked time travel untill really late, and goats seemed too useless), i'm making up on those now. I also never used molpy down, i tried it a while ago in a different browser, but my main game just kept progressing too fast. I still plan on a molpy down in the futher.

I do have to say some mechanics are hard to discover, but then, that also makes them fun to discover. I ran into negative newpix really early, while i saw tons of complains here that they where hard to find. On the other hand, i've had some issues figuring out time travel and multi-logicat.

[subanark]

Despite doing over 1000 logicat questions, I still can't do multi-logicat, nor can I do it until I get to Crouching Dragon, Sleeping Panther, or until I do around another 800 for panther rush level 4.

Blackprints didn't take long in a time sense, but I don't feel like they could be done without doing a lot of non-idle work (well this was before the last patch where buying keys when a crate was around would buy the crate for you). The issue is that blackprints don't accelerate on their own until you get milo. You can sit there during short pix doing 10 logicats every 30 minutes getting 15ish blackprints per shortpix (longpix if you don't have safety goggles) until you hit enough to get milo. Ideling gets you 1 per hour if you are lucky. The reason you may not remember it being so bad, is that there was other stuff happening at the same time, but if you neglect logicats you will need to eventually do the grind.

As for resource trading, I didn't say it was favorable, I said that you don't feel like you have to drop everything and work on another one while everything else stagnates while you build it up.

[LucidCrux]

With crates/vaults you shouldn't have to do a whole bunch of logicat grinding unless you are trying to speed through, in which case I don't see a problem. If people want to blow through content, then they have to grind logicats to do so. I dont' recall ever having to grind logicats, (I haven't really done grinding of anything) you can do other things until you get multi-puzzle solving.

But maybe we are forgetting something. Can you post your save for me to look around in? I'm not an expert on the game, but I can look. You can also try posting on reddit to see what suggestions people might have.

[subanark]

Vaults require AC 61 before you even get a chance. Getting to AC 60 requires 900 blackprints by itself, so going for milo is the better option. Crates and keys provide 1 black print a piece (if you smash open the crate). You are limited to 1 crate key while ideling per NP. That is 1400 hours which is about 2 months. My save is just past the grind, I'm now starting to make blackprints with milo now, so that is no longer a blocker to getting multi logicats (and in fact logicats won't help much at this point unless I'm going to push for panther rush level 4).

The way I see it, spending 1 hour a day should progress faster than 10 hours in a single sitting per week.

[eternaldensity]

You are limited to 1 crate key while ideling per NP.

No you're not.

(Unless someone broke Shopping Assistant)

[subanark]

From my understanding, shopping assistant only makes 1 purchase per mNP. This means that using the keygrinder buff generates at most 1 key on a DORD run (even if 17 happen at the same time). While ideling, DORD only happens once per NP, when newpixbots activate.

[subanark]

Maybe the issue isn't that blackprints are too slow, but rather you can speed though it at a pretty good rate. Grinding though 10 logicats per 1/2 hour, possibly more if you juggle rifts to get crate keys and panther pokes can just be draining, as you feel like your against the clock to get it all done in 1/2 hour. And the benefit from this is pretty big being able to get around 30x blackprints over ideling (assuming you idle on long pix).

[eternaldensity]

From my understanding, shopping assistant only makes 1 purchase per mNP. This means that using the keygrinder buff generates at most 1 key on a DORD run (even if 17 happen at the same time). While ideling, DORD only happens once per NP, when newpixbots activate.

Well, your understanding is incomplete.

(Or someone broke stuff that used to work.)

[subanark]

ok. your right. I guess it works now like that, although I don't think it worked like that in the past.

File this under being screwed by not understanding the rules then.

[eternaldensity]

What it ought to do is: factory automation DoRDs a key, and shopping assistant instantly buys it, then the next run of factory automation DoRDs another key and shopping assistant buys it too. You can get as many as 5 keys with enough Factory Automation, and I guess more if you have Between the Cracks or Aleph One, I guess maybe.

[LucidCrux]

Random things that could be included in more content: Towers Telescopes Survey Equipment "Pointing Devices" Drawing in the sand Learning new words USB stuff All kinds of other weird language, ink, writing related stuff Bandages First Aid Sleep Log stumps Stools Cups Gardening Plants Grapes Farming Rabbits Rock climbing Rope Picnic / Camp related Water barrels Houses Shacks Thatch Huts Yurts Tents Lots of different buildings Fences Gates Sun hat Actual castle related stuff Thrones Draw bridge Stairs Arches Library Desks Books Stained Glass Stars Astrology Constellations Comets / Shooting Stars Caves Race against time Stealing / Thievery Birds Insects Flooding / Water levels Village Family Rafts Boats String Cloth Wood (Any other waveney stuff wherever that post is) Stuff floating down river Deconstruction Navigating the rivers Rope Throwing All the characters at the end (They all named?) Bags as floating aids Kids Animals skins

[Dorus]

There is only one thing i cant wait to see, and that's #385

[MichealRein]

Me too, dorus.

Me too.

[waveney]

I haven't done anything for Silicon or the Raftcastle plot ideas until something gets a nod from ED.

I need something to do - it will be a long tme before I get enough Mysterious Maps for the next draconic stage. Idling my time raising AC, PR and TS levels. (AC by a few M/dip, PR by ~3/hr, TS by ~1/hr)

[LucidCrux]

That silicon stuff seems so detached from the time comic stuff. Not that everything in the game really relates too directly to it, but silicon and advanced computing stuff outside of cheesy stuff like newpixbots doesn't have the right flavor to me.

[subanark]

Maybe introduce the hat guy? He is the type to keep pushing things from extreme to way beyond extreme. Seems to be where the game has headed anyways.

[LucidCrux]

Started a spreadsheet, maybe that will help us figure things out and organize. I really don't know how exactly to even start organizing it, so I broke it into a few sheets (on the bottom) and put in a very tiny bit of random data. Please contribute and edit it to include existing stuff as well as possible ideas for future content. Maybe highlight idea stuff a certain color.

I don't think we really need to go so far as to include all the boosts on here (there are like 350) or anything, but if someone wants to try to go that far, it wouldn't hurt either.

It's set for public editing right now, but if people abuse it I guess I'd have to switch to permissions. I'd like to avoid that.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am7cRqNM146YdFVMVEpIcWVmbXVUR0pPYUxXbnFib2c&usp=sharing

[subanark]

I would recommend organizing it by "phase" for each column. That is what features get used at what point in progression. Something like: Beginning to start of dip dip to end of dip end of dip to Swedish chef Swedish chef to Glass ceiling Glass ceiling to inf sand rate inf sand rate to Automated assembly Automated assembly to First Molpy down Tier 1 prizes Tier 2 prizes Tier 3 prizes Tier 4 prizes

Each row would be the feature. And the cells could be color coded as to if the feature is: unavailable difficult to get expected to get at this point should have by now

This would help to provide a timeline on how the game progresses, which would allow you to fill in boosts where there are long stretches of the same stuff.

[waveney]

My current notes on ideas are here:

http://wavwebs.com/xkcd-time/SB_thoughts.odt

Most references to Flux need changing to something else now Flux can be Infinite, At the back of this is now the chain Wood -> Posts -> Thread. With Wood and Thread being the critical new Stuff, And I have been thinking about Wood and Thread based tools.

[MichealRein]

Anything to make the game more 'alive'.