Also, I just portalled, and it started me at zone 12. Not sure why, or how to increase starting zone. Maybe it will eventually start me on zone 20, and I can go straight to the map.
That would be the liquification thing:
You’ve beaten the (first) Spire, and the highest level you have reached is about 240, I’m guessing. 
The liquified zones do not disappear, instead it appears that they get compressed into a single enemy (a Liquimp), which gives you the various things you’d get from beating the zone normally.
Thanks for the info.
- Phew! at last. But holy Mhuira, Mother of Og, does everything get hard all of a sudden! ! ! I’ve got to go all the way down to 174 just to farm efficiently. And I scored a 181 level map at 76% difficulty - still couldn’t get off the first square! ! !
I hate to portal, because I waited to do my void maps here. I’ll leave it farming overnight, and maybe things will be looking up in the morning. . . 
I’m guessing that doing Anger in a minute basically requires liquifying the first 20 levels. By the time you’re doing that, the one level of overkill you’ll need will be utterly trivial, and you’ll almost certainly have both hyperspeeds.
I don’t think Portal Generator is relevant, as the achievement requires completion of DoA, not skipping it.
RE: Map size vs total loot
I’m running the Mapology challenge2, which means I can’t farm maps; I can only run one map per level. Normally, I make a map as small as possible in order to pick up all the equipment upgrades in as few passes as possible. But in the case of limited runs, is it to my advantage loot-wise to make a larger map?
IOW is the total amount of loot on a level 100 map set by the map, and then divided among whatever number of cells I’m willing to pay for? Or is the amount of loot set by the individual cell, resulting in more overall loot per run in a larger sized map?
Anybody know?
Larger maps give more loot. Loot is not diluted in any way by larger maps. There’s actually a slight boost based on cell number (cell 100 of a map or zone gives about 25% more loot than cell 1).
It looks like you’ll need to clear the level 500 spire to be able to do imploded star in 5 minutes. It’ll require at least 150 liquimps as you only have time for 20 complete zones (really less than 20 - the 150 liquimps is 3 more zones of guys too), which you’ll have if you get both masteries and clear the level 500 spire for 30% at (at least) zone 500. So I guess it’s still in the range that he’s written story for, if not still many months ahead of grinding helium into the quadrillions most likely.
Likely a hundred or so quadrillion. I’m at 16.7e15, and managed to push to z476 this week. I’m adjusting to not buying any nurseries until z450 this time, to see if it gets me much more. If I can’t get to z480 reasonably, I’m going to go back through my Challenge2s, which are mostly all at z400 to squeeze more blood from this stone.
Finally beat the first Spire! Now just stuck on 233 every damn game
Hey, me too! Well, the Spire part anyway. My highest zone is stuck at 231. Maybe Looting II will finally get me moving.
I used the Lead Challenge2 to prepare for the spire. Ran it up to Zone 199 cell 95, then farmed the level 200 Bionic overnight with Lead’s double resources from all sources. Then in the morning I ran Trimple of Doom to double my metal to 50 Spd, bought a handful of Arbalests and Gambesons, easily ran level 215 Bionic with the attack boost from Lead, upgraded equipment to XLI and XLII, bought 20 minutes worth of Geneticists, respec’d for maximum attack and Coordination, and abandoned the Challenge2. I planned to run the Spire just as far as the Gigastation drop at cell 20, but ended up completing the whole thing with no deaths.
Now the perk calculator at zvx.nero.run is suggesting I redirect 27% of my Helium to Looting II, at the expense of Coordinated and Carpentry. So far I don’t like it. Thoughts, anyone?
Yeah, I noticed that too. If you change the amount of helium you have, it changes as well. Maybe it is saying go for max looting until you have over 1B helium and then change?
I generally don’t buy nurseries unless I “need” them: when I have no way to survive a strike without increasing my Health via Geneticists and thus Nurseries, or at least when the progress without more HP is entirely too slow and I have plenty available still to buy. I tend to end up with more unbought or at least complete overkill when I decide to portal because of being conservative with using them, so I’m slowly becoming less conservative in using them.
As for Challenge2, I have them staggered so that there’s a continuum between how close the most recently run and the least recently run ones are to my maximum level. I update the one last run when I think I can get far enough to hit a certain increase which slowly goes up as I get farther based on my total bonus.
I must be doing something right. Beat the time achievements for the first Spire except for the last one the other night, without even trying to. And this morning, beat the Spire with no losses!
Up to 245 as well.
So I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m into Corruption and I can make it a few zones in before the going gets too slow. Is it worth scrying for Dark Essence yet, or should I wait until I can get to higher zones where it drops more than one unit at a time? I’ve managed to score enough of it to unlock my first mastery (I went with the turkimp one since that looked the most useful for speeding through the first stage of a run) - what else is most useful of what’s available to me or will be soon?
These are the 3 I got in the first row so I don’t have to run those maps to get them now:
Portal Generator - Automatically unlock Portal after clearing level 20. Also grants the 45 He.
Bounty Hunter - Automatically unlock Bounty after clearing level 15
Home Detector - Automatically unlock Mansion, Hotel, Nursery, Resort, Gateway, Wormhole and Collector after clearing the zone they drop at.
What is your progress on Challenge2? This is a really good time to get them upgraded to start a new push through Corruption.
I’m only at 95% right now. There’s a few I haven’t attempted yet.
Portal Generator is popular, but I haven’t gotten it yet. There’s never a rush to get the portal, so I just run the map at my convenience during a run. I’ll run it for prestiges on a regular run, or save it for later if I’m doing a speed run.
Here’s the order I got Masteries in:
- Bounty Hunter
- Home Detector (these first two helped with speed runs and made the early game less hassle)
- Turkimp Trainer I (just to get a 3rd useful one from the 1st row)
Unlocked 2nd row:
4. Headstart I
5. Foremany (didn’t seem like a big deal, but I love it)
6. Metallic Coat
7. Void Power I
Unlocked 3rd row:
8. Headstart II
9. Map Reducer I
I’m really looking forward to Blacksmithery and Autostructure. Hopefully then I can progress thru all the low-helium zones without having to constantly manage maps and builds for a couple hours.
How does autostructure work? How does it decide which structures to build?
I mean, I hope it doesn’t use all my metal for warpstations when I need it for weapons upgrades.
Is it worth having? I’d have to purchase Double Build first, which doesn’t seem terribly important. It’s therefore a pretty expensive purchase.