Mines!
So mines are a huge part of this game…in fact without them you can not play.And the bigger they are, the more res you make…but the more they cost and the less of a gain they provide.It is because of this loss of efficiency that lines must be upgraded uniformly across all planets (meaning that if you have 20/16/15 on one planet, dont upgrade any of its mines again until all planets have 20/16/15 or you will lose efficiency).As I speak on mines realize that I do not consider the time required to pay for the mine in terms of mine cost divided by total mine production (as do many other players).Instead I consider break even time in terms of mine cost divided by the difference in mine production (as the total mine production equals previous production plus the difference in mine production at current level).This makes for much longer break even times but gives a reasonable idea of how long the mine has to run at the current level to pay for the upgrade before it.Metal mine 0-1 takes only 15 minutes to pay for itself.Metal mine 9-10 takes 2 hours and 15 minutes, 19-20 requires 1 day, 6hours and 29-30 requires a whopping 3.33 weeks to cover itself.An important note here is that in a permaverse such as GE2 all mines will eventually break even…And so levels are much less important than in a tourney verse where efficiency reigns supreme.As for this misguided thought that Metal mine level should be 2 levels higher than crystal which should be 2 levels higher than deut….That is lazy thinking and (as I am fairly good at math) not the approach I feel a developing n00b should consider.That said, as far as lazy goes it is a fairly effective method that will get the job done if one does not wish to do the legwork to figure out optimal build orders.Assuming one can conduct optimal 3:2:1 trades an optimal level to shoot for is 31/26/27 (yes with deut mines one lvl higher than crystal!).However, as the recent recession has shown, crystal can become more valuable and deut less, so at 2:1:1 trade rates we see an optimal at 31/29/26.If you are a fleeter, than deut is your limiting factor and you may want to consider the first mine set as optimal for you.
