Great suggestions. We're already considering alot of these options. The impending changes to the heart system is really quite a complicated beast to work through.
Is it just me, or did the new update made it so you can pick 3 Utopium off trees? Because I was playing the update last night, and that happened to me
Weird bug. I've only just discovered the 142nd job, but I unlocked the "Boom-de-ya-Dah" achievement for discovering 150 jobs.
This is the new scale for the cost of expansion: Level Cost 1 10,000 2 25,000 3 80,000 4 150,000 5 260,000 6 490,000 7 960,000 8 1,800,000 9 3,200,000 10 5,400,000 11 9,000,000 12 14,000,000 13 22,000,000 14 34,000,000 15 49,000,000 16 70,000,000 17 94,000,000 18 120,000,000 19 140,000,000 20 160,000,000 21 180,000,000 22 200,000,000 23 220,000,000 24 240,000,000 25 260,000,000 26 280,000,000 27 300,000,000 28 300,000,000 29 300,000,000 30 300,000,000 31 300,000,000 32 300,000,000 33 300,000,000 34 300,000,000 35 300,000,000 36 300,000,000 37 300,000,000 38 300,000,000 39 300,000,000 40 300,000,000 41 300,000,000 42 300,000,000 43 300,000,000 44 300,000,000 45 300,000,000 46 300,000,000 47 300,000,000 48 300,000,000 49 300,000,000 50 300,000,000 That means that at maximum without a discount, 40u = 300,000,000c, or rather 1u = 7,500,000. With a 50% discount, 1u = 3,750,000. However, the amount of coins that you can trade your utopium for also scales now too. Because of this, it is now a better deal to start trading utopium for coins and upgrading with coins rather than using the loophole option. If you have a 50% discount, then you should start trading utopium for coins at level 29. Because you will be able to trade 100u for around 380,000,000c, or about 3,800,000c per utopium. That's a better deal than the Law Firm. If you don't have any discount, you need to wait until level 32 before trading utopium for coins is a better deal than the loophole. But at level 32 you should be able to trade 100u for around 755,000,000c, or about 7,550,000c per utopium. That is assuming that the utopium to coins rate scales exponentially based on the same rate of increase as levels 21 - 24. I admit that I am basing those numbers on pure projection and speculation, but if someone at those levels could supply me with the actual trade rates it would allow me to provide much better figures. Also, the max level now is 50 at which point you would have 520 land (not counting the 5 bonus land from this update and any land that you've purchased from the Astro Church.)
That's been an option for a while, the odds are just low enough to make it a rare occurrence. Seems like there's even a +5 utopium code written in but inactive at this stage. I will say, though, that it seemed like they may have boosted the +1 utopium harvest rate, as I was getting them pretty rapidly this morning after the update. Might have been random luck though.
what to do with extra land/cash besides saving for next update? Thanks for that TRB4. I have to wonder, though... what is everyone doing with all of the extra land once they have completed the available population??? I have added a few duplicate buildings (mostly space ports/admins and an extra stadium, hero's tower, and circus so I could have male and female versions of some of the characters I really like ...love the male clown and hate the female clown ) Beyond that, and adding in lots of decor, which is nice, I can't imagine having too many multiples of many of the buildings just for the sake of expanding. I've seen some screenshots showing rows of the same kind of building replicated over and over, seemingly for income maximization, and can't say I'm really excited to create that (though not saying there's anything wrong with that!!). I also would agree that some option for an instant re-charge of all buildings would be welcome. It's the tedium/maintenance factor again. Every time I log back in only to see a sea of buildings I must click to reactivate is increasing motivation to stop logging in. It also makes me wary of expanding, cause that just means more buildings to maintain! It'd be great to have a power plant or whatever to do all buildings instantly, preferably for a minimum of at least an hour of activity.
Should probably mention right now that we are looking at decor really closely. Expect building decor to be relevant at all levels in an upcoming patch
Cool, thank you! That response just reinforces my impression that the game designers are making an effort to enhance the way the game plays rather than going after a quick buck. Some app games just seem to have more soul than others, for lack of a better word. And this game definitely has a quirky sort of soul that brings me back - nice work. I will say, on the topic of making money for the developers, though , that I paid the $.99 for the all-buildings upgrade. I would never pay for things like hearts, that I can earn in the game...what's the point, that removes the challenge of earning them, which is what playing games is all about for me? (But it's not a cheapskate kind of thing, I'm happy to support the development of good games in the right form.) BUT, I would readily pay small fees now and then ($1-$3) for new features - like an animal splicer, or alien species package - to add a new dimension, or a special package of new jobs/buildings, or something like a fancy monorail with moving train, etc. One of the other games I've enjoyed playing on my phone is TowerMadness and I always felt they did in-game purchases right, giving free new maps to play, but making you pay for packages of different kinds of maps, or new weapons that add dimension to the game without being required to play the basic free version of the game.
Registered so I could post here. Got the patch this morning and finally got the mutant gene. Thanks to Ivan and everyone else at LamdaMu and Chillingo for such a great game. I paid $1.99 for double production and don't regret it at all - very happy to support the team! I'm excited to hear about the ongoing plans for changes. One thing I want to ask about: I thought that the 25u limit per day applied to heart rewards, but today I got u from hearts after maxing it from trees. Was I wrong or is this a bug?
You mean since the update? Because, if what was reported previously is true: Tree reward: 0.0% chance for 5u and second entry of 3u [0 - 0] 90.0% chance for 100c [90 - 0] 5.0% chance for 1000c [95 - 90] 4.9% chance for 1u (10c if already obtained 25 from trees) [99.9 - 95] 0.1% chance for 3u (10c if already obtained 23 from trees) [100 - 99.9] then you probably just think you did.
Nope, you can continue to get utopium from the hearts after maxing out on the 25 from trees. So, technically, your daily u max is capped only by your luck, the rate of heart appearance (about one every 20 seconds) and your willingness to stick with it. Getting 40u/day is not that difficult, which always made me wonder why some people whined so much about the land expansion costs in the game.
Yeah, maybe my eyes are just imagining yields of grandeur. I'm taking a screenshot next time I imagine it, just to be safe haha
The update did not change the random drop rates of Trees or Heart Rewards. So all previously posted odds are still correct. Also, a 5u drop from a tree is currently impossible without hacking.
After playing a little while longer... +5 UTOPIUM... on a surprise. Silly me got confused between trees and hearts. Annnnnd I spoke too soon. Just got the mutant gene.
Two more quick suggestions Two more quick ideas for future versions of the game: Clone genders: Since the developers took the time to give many (all?) of the pixel employees a male and female version, it'd be nice to be able to choose the gender at the arrival center. New residences: Also, for future residences or building options, maybe something like the completely awesome SimCity2000 archologies: These have the space-like feel I'd personally love to see more of in the game.
You can pick the gender, if you think ahead. Whichever gender the un-spliced clone is will be the gender of the spliced clone. After I finished the first 155 jobs, I've been re-cloning the needed extras. I make sure I always clone the opposite gender of my first one.
