MacDrums Guide to Buildings

This is a copy of MacDrum's posts on the Kongregate forums that has been formatted for wiki.

MacDrum Beat 1.0 - The Foundry
It never ceases to entertain me to play Iron Rage and have the most important resource be steel. Heh, even the Journal says Foundries produce iron not steel.

Now, I’m sure some would say something else is more important, but steel is like that perfect garnish for every dish. All resources go best with a side of steel. Steel and fuel = buildings; steel and ammo = mechanical devices; steel and recruits = troops. If you are building, likely you will need something plus steel.

Yet, steel is so unforgiving. For me, it’s the rarest of drops; least likely to be in a chest and least likely to be found at a resource point for that sweet 600. Foundries produce steel at 10 / hour less than an equivalent level production building; though they do get a 15% boost from technology. You will find that sweet spot for Steel at level 7 (72/hour); having to push past the weak level 8 +8 / hour before you can again gain +10 per level. The command center gives you 700 more steel per day, 200 at level 4 and 500 at level 9.

Steel can be purchased between 6.67 and 5 to 1 gold. This is pretty expensive as resources go. The key ration for collecting steel is the middle “can.” The other items will just pile up.

Final Thoughts: Steel is the most predictable of resources. I can best estimate when I can build again by relying on factory production and ignoring lucky drops. Don't forget to upgrade steel into wheels! You will need a ton of those for positions and walkers.

MacDrum Beat 1.1 - The Oil Rig
Steel is the most important resource of all. And so is oil. :stuck_out_tongue: Honestly, I think one’s preference between oil and steel defines one’s play style. I am a builder; so I love steel. But if you are a grinder, oil is your resource. You can spot an oil man, because they know exactly where to get the best hero experience per oil drop.

Usually, an oil man has a sector reserved on the world map for repetitive grinding and a quick surrender before that area is conquered. Sadly, I lost my last of these areas to Renzler dropping a landing pod on the winning circle! Renzler! Dammit man…control your droppings.

Oil, like steel, is predictable in terms of production. PVP chest drops carry extra oil to keep you in the arena and resource drops are only a touch more frequent than steel. Oil Rigs are +10 more efficient than foundries until that sweet level 10 where they get a +20 boost! A 15% boost tech is available to research. As usual, level 7 Oil Rigs gives the special +12/hour boost followed by the weak +8/hour at level 8. The command center gives you 700 more steel per day, 200 at level 3 and 500 at level 8.

Oil is half the price of Steel in the Gold shop. Like steel, your best deals are the first 3, with oil having a special price match at 1200 and 300 buys both being 12 to 1 (steel is 6 to 1) so you can always tank up to continue that PVP grind.

Unlike steel, oil has three key collectibles! The first, third and fourth dropped in significantly lower quantities for me than the other two. Oil collections are not a common drop for me as a result.

Final Thought: Oil usually is coming out my ears until an event starts; then I’m wishing I had all three Oil Rigs at level 10 pumping out 138 oil per hour each. Consider the timing for the next event. If an event is about to start, you want a FULL oil reserve. Consider stopping your endless grind to tank up; otherwise your only option may be spending gold to have oil to win that must have new item.

MacDrum Beat 1.2 – The Armory
Ammunition is the first of the “additional resource required” resources. It is the thing you add to something else to make what you want. In my opinion, ammunition is the most boring of all the resources.

I do have to pause and comment on the manufacturing physics of Iron Rage. Want to build something? Take some steel or fuel or ionite or recruits and spray “ammo” at it and it will turn into armor or a vehicle or artillery. What? Iron Rage uses ammo instead of studs, nails, screws and thread? Oh well, let’s just consider this “general” munitions instead. Especially considering you spray your rifle with ammo and then it never runs out of bullets. LOL I guess the dev’s did not want to program logistics into the game.

Ammunition is the first of the resources where you can rely on resource world drops and chests to supplement your production. There is a mid-game “pinch” where you need large amounts of armor to get final levels on troops, but after you are through it you will find ammo is being dumped into artillery to dump the artillery in grotto hoping for conversions to steel or something useful. Armory matches the Oil Rig production per level curve with the +20 first level start, and +10 per level after that. If there is a +12/+8 cycle it occurs earlier than the other buildings (not apparent at level 7 to 8). So far, armory is the resource that does not receive a +15% research gain. The command center gives you 600 more ammo per day, 100 at level 1 and 500 at level 7. This demonstrates Ammo’s boring nature; the dev's give it to you first. Ammo is slightly cheaper to buy in the shop than fuel. Why would you ever do that when it is so readily found?

The second shell design, which looks like a gas bomb, is the key drop for collections. This collection has dropped a lot for me and I commonly have sets in reserve for the more expensive uses of ammo.

Final Thought: You either need to build two Armories and level them up or build three Armories and let them stay mid-level. If I had it to do again, I would save a precious building space and just go with two bigger Armories.

Additional credit from the one and only SunPu! Ammo is usually about a 2;1 ratio over steel for building things.

MacDrum Beat 1.3 - The Ionite mine
Ionite is the second "additional resource required." Whereas ammunition represents mechanical work effort; ionite represents "Tesla" work effort. This half-way between physics and magic represents the new science frontier of Iron Rage. This is not Steam Punk; this is Ionite Punk.

Ionite is the most frustrating resource to manage. Usually, it is required in large quantities for buildings, research, calibration or certain skill training in the Biology Lab and Hall of Heroes. Small quantities can only be consumed by producing new artillery. However, as artillery is plentiful from chests, spamming ionite off this way is kind of pointless. This is the only resource I readily dump in grotto. Envision this blue stuff everywhere. Makes me think of the TV Show: "The Expanse."

So, this leaves you with a quandary as to how much production you need. This is especially challenging because ionite is the spam drop from resource points and chests. While you are desperately seeking recruits, iron or oil, ionite is what you will likely find. What will you do with excess of the stuff? Either you will cap, temporarily halting production, or you will wait for ionite to build for your next major use.

There are two MAJOR exceptions: 1) Ardheim Industries Factory 103. Making those turrets took a lot of ionite and was the major reason I built a second Ionite mine. I never needed so much ionite as when I was researching, calibrating AND trying to build out the turret manufacturing. 2) Bio Lab for Lycan will require extra ionite.

Ionite mines have similar production levels as Foundries with only +10 first level start, the level 7 +12 boost, the level 8 anemic +8 boost, and no bonus +10 at level 10. Ionite does have a +15% production research boost. But unlike steel, the command center only drops 200 per day at level 5 and there is no collection for ionite.

FINAL THOUGHT: Do not let the comparison to steel production fool you. The lower need and use of this resource do not require extra mines. I have two ionite mines at 9 and 8 and have no plans to build a third mine. I would enhance production carefully, either developing it for one of the exceptions or waiting until new uses for this stuff are added to the game.

FINAL FINAL THOUGHT: If you have alembics and patience, you can burn ionite off refining research resources to higher levels in the Alchemical Laboratory. This is super tedious and not useful considering how many level 3 research items will drop from the world map resource points. Eventually, this becomes a "big ticket' use when you use it to build the 6 hour and 12 hour items, but this is a discussion for when we get to Alchemical Laboratory.

MacDrum Beat 1.4 – The Eight Quarters
Recruits are the third and final “additional resource required.” Unlike the other four resources, recruits come from eight quarters. Recruits, in the economy of Iron Rage, are used (killed?) at a rapid rate; for training of your units and heroes; building the flywheel; and being spent to acquire advanced troops. Usually, you will find recruits consumed with iron and ammo, acting as an “third” resource instead of ionite.

Man, it is dangerous to work in manufacturing in Iron Rage! I would rather be a stormtrooper in a landing pod, than the blood sacrifice required to output flywheels.

Quarters are broken into two areas, the upper and lower section. Quarters cannot be moved. Each area has four quarters which can only obtain a maximum level as follows:

Upper Area (15 levels)
 * Bridge Quarter (3)
 * Infantry Quarter (4)
 * Officer Quarter (4)
 * Central Quarter (4)

Lower Area (16 levels)
 * Port Quarter (5) <- yes, we all know THAT wandering soldier
 * Residential Quarter (3)
 * Sleeping Quarter (4)
 * Elite Quarter (4)

Levelling quarters up is not fun because quarters, especially in the lower area, are VERY expensive and have fast build times. You will get the quarter into production quickly but will be unable to start new construction due to the fact your warehouse is now empty.

There is no means to extend the maximum level. When you build a quarter, it jumps to level 2 at 12 recruits per hour. This sets a flat rate of 6 recruits per level. With 31 total levels, your maximum production is 186 recruits per hour. There is no research bonus. THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM!

With other resources averaging 10 per hour and upgradable to level 10, your recruit output will rapidly fall behind. For example, my 27 levels of iron production are pumping out 311 iron. Therefore, I am collecting recruits at 60% of my iron production. And I can add another +34.5 iron/hour to that in time.

To survive you will seek recruits in chests and the world map. Those 600 recruits really are a big win when you consider they represent over 3 hours of output. You will cheer when a chest drops that 2nd belt buckle, the key to another collection for 500 more recruits. I even fish for recruits so as to find that sweet +50. (Fish for recruits?) Fortunately, recruits drop regularly, but still you will want more!

You get another 300 recruits per day from the command center; 100 at level 2 and 200 at level 6. Recruits are the most expensive resource to buy, running between 3.3 to 4.3 recruits per gold. OUCH! Too rich for my blood; which is why using recruits requires strategic planning.

FINAL THOUGHT: Recruits are eventually going to be your scarcest commodity; level these buildings quickly. For me, quarters were the third building to reach maximum level.

MacDrum Beat 1.5 – The Assembly Workshop
Congratulations Commander! You have mastered the basic five resources and are ready for deeper strategic decisions than you have faced before. The first of these come from the Assembly Workshop’s output – the Flywheel. And the recruit consumption of these bloody wheels is a doozy of a decision to make because it consumes recruits – the rarest resource; and steel – the most important resource.

The flywheel can be built in two modes:
 * Level 1: Inefficient at 100 steel / 100 recruits per flywheel but 10 minutes to produce
 * Level 2: Efficient at 50 steel / 50 recruits per flywheel and 1 hour for three flywheels

Additional levels just produce more flywheels at less time efficiency. The resource cost is the same per wheel as level 2 (50 of each resource per wheel). Levels above 6 are unknown and may not exist.
 * Level 3: 5 wheels in 2 hours (250 of each resource)
 * Level 4: 10 wheels in 5 hours (500 of each resource)
 * Level 5: 25 wheels in 14 hours -- I stopped here as this covers an overnight build (1250 of each resource)
 * Level 6: 50 wheels in 1 day 12 hours (2500 of each resource)

Ok, now remember our discussion in 1.4 – Quarters. There we learned that maximum hourly recruit production was 186 with a daily production of 4764 recruits + random drops.

In 14 hours, 2604 recruits are produced, but 1250 may go to flywheels, leaving a net 1534 recruits. 40% of my recruit production is being consumed in flywheels!!! If I am active during the day and add two more 5 hour builds, I am producing 45 wheels per day while using 2250 of my daily 4764 recruits. That's almost half of my recruit production capacity.

Now consider the strategic tradeoff: Recruits are used when training levels for units and heroes and building units. At 2514 recruits remaining per day, it would be almost 4 days to have 10000 recruits for a high level training. Some of the final quarters require that many recruits! And this estimate is if you are at maximum recruit production! Remember how recruits are the most expensive in terms of gold? Ouch! There go my precious recruits if I go for a flywheel based strategy!

Flywheels are consumed in upgrading the Assembly Workshop; calibrating your machine gun and mortar emplacements in the Design Bureau; training Vehicles in the Tank Factory; upgrading your Tank Factory; and upgrading your Weapon Workshop.

So, ultimately, the use of flywheels are driven by my desire for: strong emplacements (machine gun and mortar); strong vehicles (the walker being the first); and making equipment for my base units.

First Thought: do not build up the buildings that use Flywheels until you have Flywheel production nailed down. I built Design Bureau and Tank Factory first and survived off Flywheel chest drops for a bit, but was really stuck once I built the Weapon Workshop before upgrading the Assembly Workshop enough.

Second Thought: Future building reports will discuss the use of flywheels in depth. Suffice it to say for now, after you reach level 17 emplacements, the numbers of flywheels required to continue calibrating are in the thousands. The number of recruits consumed to get there is staggering. So use flywheels with great care! Especially, as you can fritter flywheels away quickly if you do not focus on where you will consume them. Perhaps, after getting the emplacements built, you should not use this building at all until you are satisfied with your quarter upgrading and unit training levels. You should note that most early buys are in increments of 250 wheels and doubling from there.

Final Thought: Flywheel drops are generally related to pvp chests, convoy chests and pvp league rewards. Occasionally, they also drop as a convoy reward.

MacDrum Beat 1.6 – The Arsenal
Wrapping up the second tier resources is the resonator; product of the Arsenal. Remember how boring ammunition is? Well, let’s talk about upgrading ammunition into resonators instead!

This building is quite similar to the Assembly Workshop, without the stress. Resonators are made from that happy combination of ammunition and ionite. Yup, overproducing ionite and ammunition and you do not need more artillery shells? Pump out a few resonators.

The combination of ammunition and ionite represents exactly the use of resonators that you would expect. Besides being paired with Flywheels for the same building upgrades and for emplacement calibration, resonators are the catalyst when combined with research resources to calibrate artillery; whereas flywheels instead are the catalyst for developing vehicles (that have no wheels -.-). In case you were wondering, calibration is to artillery and emplacements as training is to troops; it is how you “level up” these items.

You might also note that flywheels are associated with health points for emplacements; whereas resonators are associated with attack. Generally, you will need MORE flywheels in this game, but when you spend resources, the higher purchase quantity per level if any will be resonators. Therefore, this building was a later build for me, trailing the Assembly Workshop until I actively needed components beyond those found in chests to continue levelling up artillery and emplacements.

The resonator can be built in two modes:
 * Level 1: Inefficient at 200 ammo / 200 ionite per resonator but 10 minutes to produce
 * Level 2: Efficient at 100 ammo / 100 ionite per resonator and 2 hours for three resonators (300 of each resource total)

Additional levels just produce more resonators at less time efficiency. The resource cost is the same per resonator as level 2 (100 of each resource per resonator).
 * Level 3: 5 resonators in 4 hours (500 of each resource)
 * Level 4: 10 resonators in 10 hours (1000 of each resource) -- I stopped here as this covers an overnight build
 * Level 5: 25 resonators in 1 day 4 hours (2500 of each resource)
 * Level 6: 50 resonators in 3 days (5000 of each resource)

Levels above 6 are unknown and may not exist.

Note how almost none of the timing matches up well with the Assembly Workshop. Hmpfh.

Unlike flywheels, resonators have NEVER been a resource crunch for me: 1) they use less important resources 2) despite being slower to acquire quantity, there use is far more limited.

Resonators can be found in chests, but not in huge quantities. I remember racing out to build these thinking this may be the next precious resource after flywheel...that has never materialized. If you want resonators, you should plan on building them. Occasionally, they also drop as a convoy reward. Ultimately, they just are piling up daily for when I finally get those last two levels of attack bonuses for my emplacements.

Final Thought: I imagine the quantity needed for the final two levels of attach upgrades for emplacements will require a staggering number of resonators. For now, I am not there due to the inability to acquire the necessary flywheels.

MacDrum Beat 1.7 – The Academy “Science” Function and the Tower of Alchemy
What kind of title is that? The next story in the Harry Potter series?

There is one final resource building to cover: research points from the two named buildings above.

Drawings, genetic material, ionite and occult can be converted into mechanic, genetic, tesla and occultism research points. Resource points are then spent with ionite to create boosts to your units (similar to training); increase speed of production; boost Captain Walker (meh) and unlock new units and artillery.

The resources produce as follows:
 * Level 1: 1-3 RPs 3 minutes (5 to 15 in 15 minutes)
 * Level 2: 5-10 RPs 15 minutes (20-40 in 1 hour)
 * Level 3: 10-25 RPs 1 hour (30-75 in 3 hours)
 * Level 4: 25-50 RPs 3 hours
 * Level 5: 50-100 RPs 6 hours
 * Level 6: 100-200 RPs 12 hours -- Hey! You can sleep through the night!
 * Level 7: 200-400 RPs 24 hours
 * Level 8: 400-800 RPs 48 hours

First Thought: for the first three levels if you are into idle games, you can out-grind the comparable items. After that, from level 4 on, the level is merely 2x the prior level. However, see the third thought.

Second Thought: if you are using a +25% command center skin, you want to run the 1 hour or more to get a guarantee of the 25% bonus. Under that, you usually only get +1 for the level 2 and nothing for the level 1.

Third Thought: As you advance in sector conquest on the world map, your random drop locations grow to be 10 in number. Also, the locations advance from dropping level 1 stuff to level 2 and 3 stuff to finally only dropping level 4 stuff. So, if you plan on playing the lottery in grotto, hold onto those level 1 2 and 3 items. You will only find them in chests once you level up to the level 4 resource drop. You will need these often in grotto and will run out quick.

Final Thought: there is NO way you will ever run out of materials to convert into research points unless you fail to adequately grind up chests and the world map or bankrupt yourself. Only once did I experience a shortage very early in the game when I aggressively pursued having both buildings operable early. The shortage did not last.

Bonus Building: The Tower of Alchemy The tower of alchemy allows a second resource item to be converted into research points. The level of the building minus 1 indicates the level of the resource that can be converted. For example, my level 7 Tower can convert level 6 items. A level 8 is available, but I have not built it; therefore, I do not know if you can build a level 9 to run the 48 hour items which were added to the game after initial launch. The unlock for the levels is conquering stars in the 2nd storyline world: “Overthrow.” Don’t worry that the mission table doesn’t show the higher tower levels, they will continue to unlock. I did not record the threshholds but level 8 requires 80 stars and 4 days. Therefore, I guess 1 level per 10 stars.

I strongly recommend making this building as soon as possible. It costs you nothing but time and the troops to conquer the necessary stars. You will need HUGE quantities of resource points; so the sooner you start making them the fewer times your research will halt while waiting for resource points.

MacDrum Beat 1.8 – The Command Center
The last resource building is the Command Center. We have discussed in each resource building the drops that come from the command center, but for the last: at level 10 you get 25 gold daily. As a “builder” player archetype, this was my first and immediate building plan in the game.

But I need to make friends to get these resources you say? No, you don’t. Just do the following…click on every name in chat and add that person as a friend. Need more? Go into the faction area of the command center. Click on confrontation. Click on a faction. Add all those people from the faction list as friends through the My Kong > My Friends > add friends feature. Just paste all the names in there and now you can fill in your whole command center! No need for the forum friends list, though you can use that too. I just don’t know how “fresh” it is.

Speaking of friends, if you have valued these blogs and have not set your “referral” yet, consider pasting my link: in your Referrals>Invite field. I get rewarded as you level up, so I will be even more motivated to keep this blog going! If you gave this reward to whoever brought you in the game, good job...now level up and get them some rewards! PS: this link works for no other mechanism, so please don’t spam the link in chat and chose your invite reward recipient wisely. I gave mine to some random dude who doesn’t play. Sigh :(

Please note, the command center sets the maximum limit for the level of your other buildings. Early on in the game, you will be bouncing between levelling up resource buildings and then levelling the command center and/or the quarry. At first the mission tree will guide you to do this in a sequence. I recommend not following that, but rather focusing on getting those free resources flowing asap through a focused effort on the command center and only building to support that.

The command center is very expensive to build. I strongly recommend storing your iron and oil collections to relieve any warehouse limitations until you get that 25 gold daily going. Stay focused...the gold is really worth it.

Final Thought: Styles are super helpful. They give a 25% boost to two resources and one research type. Also, you might get a 50% tax bonus. So save these skins until you are at level 10. To get the most value out of a skin, save up ALL your production that is boosted to max the resource building capacity and make sure your research components are ready for a new load. Preferably, this is timed to occur just after the new day dawns and you have not yet grabbed your taxation from the command center. Load the skin; draw your maximum from your resource buildings, netting +25%; draw your taxes netting +50%; and start your research getting the 25% faster time and hopefully collecting a 25% on what just finished. This way you can grab taxes again just before your timer runs out. Make sure you do a final collection too as you don’t get a 25% boost on anything uncollected. PS: Watch out for the 1 day skin sale. It is NOT the 7 day skin and therefore, I question the cost benefit.

NOTE: you can use Rebuilding to reorganize some of the location of your buildings. Have fun laying out the perfect fortress!

MacDrum Beat 1.9 – The Warehouse & The Economics of Resources
Hand in hand with raising the command center to level 10 is the first of our resource support buildings, the Warehouse. The Warehouse stores 1000 of a resource per level. When you spend resources it must come from the Warehouse. Resources located in your resource buildings DO NOT COUNT! Command Center Styles increase this amount of storage by 2k; so a level 10 warehouse can hold 12k resources of each type with skin, your maximum capacity possible.

So, “capping” is when your warehouse is full and your mines are full. This would be 1k times your warehouse level + 100 * your total levels of resource buildings of a given type. At this point, no new resources can be generated. Remember, you can only spend from your warehouse; so the resources in the mines will only serve to refill the warehouse after your next consumption. (Those poor recruits are put in storage for how long? Exactly what is going on in the barracks to produce all these recruits from the Port Quarter?)

To exceed the warehouse capacity level you will need any additional resources required to come from collections, resource points, fishing, mission rewards and resource purchasing for gold or kreds. These sources will boost your resources in Warehouse regardless of capacity. Exceeding the warehouse capacity just blocks you from collecting from a resource building. Warehouse resources would then be spent, preferably prior to capping on a resource building's innate storage.

Resource buildings are “set” to cap regardless of level between 7.5 to 8.5 hours. Ammo and Fuel produce at (Level +1 per mine+1 per level 10 mine)10 per hour; Steel and Ionite product at Level10 per hour and recruits produce at Level*6 per hour. Remember to add a 15% bonus for fuel, steel and ionite if you have the right technology. Remember to add a 25% bonus if you have the right Style for the Command Center.

Note, resource buildings gain any resource boost upon collection, not as speedier collection time. So if you have the 15% tech, collect on 7/14/20 (+1/+2/+3) and if you have the 25% Style bonus, collect on 4/8/12/16/20 (+1 through +5). Therefore, if you have both bonuses, best to collect in 20 increments. Note, if you have more than 20, just consider each multiple of 20 a set and look at where you are at to collect the next 20 of the resource. Example: Collect on 7/14/20 is the same as 27/34/40 or 127/134/140. The bonuses are received upon collection independently of each other.

Divide your warehouse capacity by the various production rates and you will have the number of hours to fill up your warehouse. Also, you can divide the resources required to build your next building by your hourly production rate to determine how long until you have the resources on hand to make that building. This is handy because often you build the warehouse to have the capacity to store the resources necessary to upgrade the next level of a given building.

For example, if I need 7500 fuel and I have 24 levels of Oil Rigs in 3 Rigs (none level 10), my Oil Production is 310.5 per hour and it will take 1 day and 15 minutes to have the oil available. Similar levels of the other resources would result as follows:
 * Fuel 310.5 per hour 24.15 hours to 7500
 * Steel 276 per hour 27.17 hours to 7500
 * Ammo 270 per hour 27.78 hours to 7500
 * Ionite 276 per hour 27.17 hours to 7500
 * Recruits 144 per hour 52.08 hours to 7500

Note: .1 hour is 6 minutes.

A tool is provided on the Resource page of my google spreadsheet “wiki”. Just load in your resource levels and it can calculate your production rates for you. 

Looking back to the production rates above, you can immediately see the immense pinch on recruits considering you need roughly 1k recruits per level for a faction unit (almost 7 hours per 1000) and the serious pinch in steel given that it is used matched to either fuel 1 for 1 for upgrading buildings or ammo usually 1 steel to 2 ammo and (2 recruit or 2 ionite) for training units and heroes. Ionite replaces ammo for lycans and certain hero skills.

Costs escalate rapidly in this game; for example, buildings start at 5k for level 8, 7.5k for level 9 and 10k for level 10. Faction units are generally 1000 per level trained. See the spreadsheet for base unit resource requirements. Therefore, plan on your resource lead times and levels of production rates accordingly.

Final Thought: to balance all the various resource production rates, I maxed out my Warehouse second, just after the Command Center. That way, I could store the masses of resources needed for my next large buys while having more time before capping on a resource that was ready earlier. Even then, I love that 2000 storage Style boost to prevent capping.

MacDrum Beat 1.10 – Alchemical Laboratory
The support building for research is the Alchemical Laboratory. Essentially, this allows you to burn ionite to “refine” research components into higher quality components. We shall discuss when and why you might want to do this.

First, to upgrade the Laboratory you need the pesky Alembic. These are produced by completing the Map in your Journal. The map fragments are dropped from the unpleasant three hour chests that drop as follows:
 * Sabotage resource point = 1 chest
 * Abandoned Outpost Expedition = 3 chests upon completion.

Those three hour chests really mess up my chest timing, usually appearing when I’d prefer to be collecting and leaving me with 1 hour chests just before I go to bed. To add insult to injury, they drop one map fragment and lower quality extra items when compared to even a 1 hour chest. So once you get your Alembics, I cannot recommend collecting more of these chests; especially, if you have not bought additional chest slots.

Of all my least favorite memories in the game, one has to be the pursuit of Alembics. The 20 map Alembics do drop randomly, which means that a distribution will likely leave you with multiples of all but one fragment needed to get your Alembic. There are sales and maybe a mission reward that assists, but frankly chasing these fragments are about as fun as going to the dentist…yes the dentist will eventually pull all the fingers and devices out of your mouth, but did it end fast enough?

The building has seven levels. The higher levels require multiple Alembics. The levels work as follows: And finally, conversion of Alembics for free to level 7 resources.
 * 3 level 1 resources to 1 level 2 resource for 3 minutes and 25 to 75 ionite
 * 2 level 2 resources to 1 level 3 resource for 15 minutes and 75 to 125 ionite
 * 2 level 3 resources to 1 level 4 resource for 1 hour and 155 to 225 ionite
 * 2 level 4 resources to 1 level 5 resource for 3 hours and 350 to 450 ionite
 * 2 level 5 resources to 1 level 6 resource for 6 hours and 550 to 750 ionite -- stopped here
 * 2 level 6 resources to 1 level 7 resource for 12 hours and 750 to 1250 ionite

Please note, the cost from lowest to highest is Mechanics, Genetics, Ionite and then Occult. Don’t worry about the Occult costs; this resource is the most common dropped in the world map and the least valuable in tech trees. UNLESS THIS IS A SCAM and those level 10 Occult Techs truly dominate the game. Resurrection anyone?

Early on I used the Alchemical Laboratory to burn off excess ionite. DO NOT DO THIS! There are only two legitimate uses for this building.

The first use is for creating level 6 research resources. These take 12 hours to convert to research points. I burn exactly two every night while I sleep peaceful dreams of marauders jumping over fences to get away from Claus’ AOE attack. Therefore, I’m always refining so I have two of the research type I am presently pursuing. With two six hour builds per day, I can always have two for the next night.

The second use is for Grotto. You will have WAY more resource components than you can ever convert to research points. The excess then go to Grotto. Now remember, as you conquer sectors, the resource points on the world map promote until they are only dropping the Level 4 research resources, which take 3 hours to burn. At this point, you are limited to very restricted sourcing of Level 1 through 3 from chests, dailies, and missions. SAVE THESE FOR GROTTO! As we discussed in the Command Center, Level 1 and 2 are inefficient conversions to resource points if wearing a Style or unless addicted to idle games. At least in the Grotto, they can be used for the random rewards granted by the chests in there. Once you run out of a particular type of resource component, the Alchemical Laboratory may allow you to refine the missing pieces required to trade for your next Grotto chest.

Final Thought: Who would ever of thought this building would take this much text?!?!?!?

MacDrum Beat 1.11 – The Treasury
So, this should have been a “resource” building, but I did not put it in the right order. As tonight was an epic Superiority climb between Iniquitas and I, this building will serve as a short blog break.

The Treasury, unlike the standard building, does not “upgrade” through resource consumption. Instead, every time you reach a Player level increment of 5, starting at 10, you will be refunded a percentage of all gold you have spent prior to that level. NOTE: collecting resets your spent gold to zero for starting to accumulate your next refund. It’s been a long time, but ROAero helped me do some guesswork that the levels are as follows:

NOTE: I do not know what happens if you pass the next trigger level and do not pull your gold (did not want to risk it). You can wait to pull, just acquiring gold at the prior level. The concern here is that you would then be losing out on time for accumulate under the next higher percentage for the next higher level. Either way, you need to manage these rare refund events.

This mechanism is that age old early adopter Pay to Play pitch to get you to pay real world dollars: the sooner you realize you are staying and will invest in the game, the sooner you should buy and spend gold so that it gets refunded and can be re refunded every five levels.

Even if you are just going to be a gold farmer without being an investor, the Treasury will be a generous source of gold if you play it right. For me tho, the lower percent refunds did NOT lure me in, but I did play the tower for buy / refunds at 25 and 30. Therefore, I waited to harvest gold until just before I popped 25 and 30, using the experience from finishing story maps (best free gold source) to push me over the level threshold when I had decided on my next big gold spend.

And to play it right is pretty simple: you want to MAXIMIZE your gold and then spend it all just prior to levelling up. Then boom….you harvest that gold and can respend it before you reach the next 5 level advance.

That’s pretty much it. When I get close to a level 5 boost, I go into a gold harvesting mode, maybe make a gold buy, spend the gold and reap what is essentially a 20% to 25% refund off of what I just spent. Just don’t go hog wild gushing gold uselessly!

The top priorities for gold is generally viewed as follows:
 * 1) Appearances for your best storm troopers, infantry and whatever support troops you run. For me, I just love that new lycan skin.
 * 2) Building up your emplacements (machine guns and mortars)
 * 3) Upgrading or acquiring a Hero Training Slot
 * 4) Equipping your heroes (though this is risky with the anticipated inflation of hero power recently demonstrated with the color grading of heroes)
 * 5) Ardheim turret construction now that the premium turret is scarce. These are handy for certain convoys.
 * 6) Enhancing your favorite artillery. (maybe not)
 * 7) Generally, obtaining resources rather than waiting for the right combination to start your next training or upgrade session.
 * 8) Managing real world timing. If you are facing losing too many hours before your next opportunity to adjust your builds, maybe a cheap completion can save you hours by starting your next project early. The best of these for me was speeding up the long days of Command Center (timed with one of my Treasury pulls because 3 early days came with a 75 gold rebate from level 10) and Barracks.

I do not spend gold on the following:
 * 1) The fisherman
 * 2) Speeding up chest unlocks
 * 3) Speeding up unit construction
 * 4) Speeding up obtaining resource points
 * 5) Artillery (except my favorite one)
 * 6) Unlocking too many Training Slots
 * 7) Unit Skins that are not the highest quality as they do not stack
 * 8) Repairing equipment (1 gold per 1 use * the quality level of the gear – so epic gear is 4 gold/1 health point)

Happy gold mining! Be frugal. Gee this was more work than I thought it would be.

MacDrum Beat 1.12 - The Fisherman
Continuing on after a pause for PVP and Superiority, we are down to the final two resource buidlings on the original Osterberg map, the gambling spots: the Fisherman and the Grotto. First up, the Fisherman.

Everyday, you get ten simple bait. When the Fisherman launched, we received a smattering of the other baits. The descriptions of the other baits relates to targetting certain reward types. Not being a person who enjoys slot machines, I have avoided these buys and leave it to someone else to recommend not gambling on these items. For me, the regular bait is frustrating, time consuming and frequently failing enough that I have no interest in dumping gold here.

My general opinion is as follows:
 * 1) Fish when you are low on resources, the "win" zone seems to appear more often when low on resources.
 * 2) Watch for the center circle to go grey and lose ANY color. The color means do not click. Often the blue circle will hover on top of the central circle. If its not grey, do not click.
 * 3) Beware the grey-no-blue circle jump. The grey needs to hold a moment to get the reward. Click fast because if its too late, you lose too!
 * 4) Sometimes the blue circle just doesn't want to go away. Leave the fisherman and come back later if it does not give you some grey circle pull opportunities.

I have tried the following techniques in fishing.
 * 1) Hover over the circle and click quick if grey. I find this not the most effective and more boring then watching my tea pot boil.
 * 2) Sweep the mouse just outside of the blue circle. Flow your mouse arrow out and back with the growing lessening circle. Play music and pretend you are dancing to pass the time. As you sweep in, if it turns grey, quickly finish the sweep and click. Carpal Tunnel anyone? I found this method to increase my accuracy, decrease my boredom and wear out my wrist. Shake weight anyone?
 * 3) Stay outside of the blue circle with your mouse and "pounce" like a cat when the grey appears as the blue circle disappears. Keep lots of viziene ready as you get dry eyeball from not blinking.

What is your best technique?

Final Thought: Why is this in this game?

MacDrum Beat 1.13 - The Grotto
So, fortunately, the Fisherman just unlocks after clearing a certain spot on the base map; Grotto instead requires an investment of resources.

Remember all those tier I to III resource components piling up? Here you can invest them with white premium troops and resources to toss them in the hopper and hope to get something useful out.

Before clicking madly to send off your resources, realize that the quality of the chests and length of time to unlock them step up in increments of five. For me, I usually shoot for the tier III and IV chests because I like their output the best. Each chest takes one hour to be pulled from the boat and then another set period of time to unlock on a pallet. It appears to be one hour per level of the chest.

To obtain these chests, you donate the required number of components via a click. Start at the top and work your way down as generally the top rows require less to buy a step up the incremental ladder than the bottom row. Here you can discard excess resource materials, over production of resources or troops, and super useful stuff that should not be thrown out like flywheels. So count the items you are willing to lose carefully before moving too high up the incremental ladder as you CANNOT cancel an item you have donated.

That's about it. I have been happy to occassionally get a smattering of iron or a blue level piece of equipment, but generally only use the Grotto about once a week.

Final Thought: If you really want to maximize the frequency of use of the Grotto, maximize ammo and ionite production and have your Artillery Factory producing 24x7. Also, frequently use the Alchemical Laboratory to upgrade resources to get the combinations you need.

Ultimately, Grotto is a LOT of effort for little reward; so do not make this a priority. When we loudly begged for a recycle center, this is what we got instead.