17 supers: +225%AP, 10 artifact slots:

Thirty-third Super Ascend!

New bonus: +25% AP
Kept: Insane A$B, ACampB, Legendary AV, TW, SAC, RCB, MD, CB, BMB, TMB, Epic MCB, TS, FH, Rare HB, MB, SS
Bonuses: +14 slots, +400% AP, 0.8^3 dig time

Once again my new Legendary (TMB) spent nearly the whole SA upgrading, but I did have it available at the end, which was nice. I did some calculations before on whether BMB or TMB was generally better and the answer seems to be usually BMB, although there are a number of levels where TMB is better. But, do you know what's even better? Both!

That aside, with the additional AP this time around I was indeed able to skip over EH (from China directly to Hex Earth), and I also skipped over Fort Harbor (less exciting because it's very easy) and ended up swapping out 1045 AD for 1066 AD (mostly neutral). Shaving out those two levels (FH, and AU) makes for a ~4h faster SA.

Speaking of China, it was definitely much less annoying than EH, so I think I'll keep doing that now that it's viable.

I reluctantly ended up starting the upgrade of MCB to Legendary as I didn't find a backup for my HB, and going a whole SA (and change) without one would be painful now. It's starting to feel like there's no more useful Legendaries to get, none of the remaining options are particularly compelling. At the same time, the least uncompelling ones have been avoiding showing up, so I may end up with pure fodder Legendaries soon.

Next up: +25% AP, Legendary MCB

How many upgrades do you need to skip from China to Hex Earth?

nupogodi, normally i upgrade skip level to 2 and skip Triskelion and US, then upgrade it to 6 and complete Europe Huge and use super skip level to reach Hex Earth. You need to complete Europe Huge in order to ascend anyway.

From EH you need CSL6 plus a super-SL to reach Hex Earth. Thus, counting backwards from EH to China we get CSL10 + super-SL, which is indeed the correct answer.

You are correct that you still need to complete EH if you plan to ascend. I haven't ascended for quite a few SAs now, this was the first time I saw the Super Ascend button without an Ascend button below it though.

4325 supers +55100%ap(552x), 60 slots, 61 dig speed(36hr dig takes 0.16sec), 200,200 start ap


Finished all the tech runs, and all the idle achievements. Got idle time to 14 days.
Decided I wanted more AP bonus. Supered ~2000 more times.
Gave up the less useful artifacts, to make super clicking faster.
Lost seven more insane artifacts, by not clicking them.
642,008 from Hardened Far Land and 50 coin, purchased most of the advancements.

Finally did it, Super Ascend #1 :D

Thats epic Ivan!

Congrats MkTsu, what artifacts did you take with you?

Am very casual about it all, so don't judge :P

Insane Alloy Values
Army Camp Boost that is still upgrading to Epic
and the 25% is what I ended up with carrying over o7

I have super-ascended a twenty-sixth time.

Boon chosen: +1 artifact carryover

Total boons: +300% AP, +14 artifact

Artifacts carried over:

* Insane Army Cache Boost
* Insane Army Camp Boost
* Legendary Alloy Values
* Legendary Supercharge Army Camp
* Legendary Time Warp
* Legendary Mercenary Discount
* Legendary Resource Cache Boost
* Legendary Cache Boost
* Legendary Bonus Money Boost (upgrade)
* Epic Hospital Boost
* Rare Money Cache Boost (upgrade)
* Rare Item Values (upgrade)
* Rare Efficient Smelters (wzib fodder)
* Rare Craft Double (wzib fodder)
* Uncommon Inspire Mercenaries (sidegrade)
* Common Hospital Discount

Next time: maybe another +1 artifact

Go ivan

I can dig hex Earth in 1 minute.

Edited 10/22/2024 12:00:40

Wow

Thirty-fourth Super Ascend!

New bonus: +1 slot
Kept: Insane A$B, ACampB, Legendary AV, TW, SAC, RCB, MD, CB, BMB, TMB, MCB, Rare HB, IM, MB, SS, BMB, Uncommon HB
Bonuses: +15 slots, +400% AP, 0.8^3 dig time

Well, RNG made me a liar again. One of my yolo Rare digs turned up an Uncommon HB which I had been looking for a backup of, but I had already started crunching the Rare IM, so another slot it is. Thankfully, that does decide the next Legendary at least (HB).

The extra AP this time ended up radically changing my path through the mid levels. Normally I max ICM after my first HFL run, but the main reason for that was to prepare full economy (IASV, MD and ICM) for HOT, which used to be necessary when I still took it to L3 hospitals and when I didn't have an MD artifact, but hasn't actually been necessary there for a long time. So I left taking that for much later (it's still needed for Hex Earth). With both that revelation and the extra AP I was able to take CSL in time to skip over Reconq (yay!) and move straight to Fort Harbor, with HOT after that. Usually I would proceed to HRome after that, but because I skipped so far I didn't end up having the AP to get the requisite CSL and AM for HRome, so I actually played HScandi again, which fixed the AP problem and was faster than doing a regular level because it meant I could comfortably TW through the hospital upgrade on HRome.

I only have a few SAs worth of SL left so I scoped out Plateau Assault, which pretty clearly calls for at least a SAC and an IM, but seems doable, albeit tricky.

Next up: +25% AP, Legendary HB (next SA)

@mr_fancy_pants
I love your posts, that darn RNG always making you a liar.

I know, so insensitive of that RNG to actually give me the artifacts I'm looking for!

Thanks though. It's nice to know that somebody enjoys the posts.

Thirty-fifth Super Ascend!

New bonus: +25% AP
Kept: Insane A$B, ACampB, Legendary AV, TW, SAC, RCB, MD, CB, BMB, TMB, MCB, Epic HB, TS, SS, Rare HB, IM, Uncommon SM
Bonuses: +15 slots, +425% AP, 0.8^3 dig time

Much to some people's disappointment, RNG did not make me a liar this time, as things actually went according to plan. The Legendary MCB is still cooking (straddling 3 SAs again) for another 3h. I ended up realizing this time that I didn't need to play HRome before China, so I didn't. Last SA I played it out of habit.

It's starting to feel like it's about time to pick another Insane to make, I'm undecided on what's next though, the remaining candidates are substantially less compelling than A$B and ACampB. It's also starting to feel like there's no more useful Legendaries to pick up, so the next Insane will probably be composed of at least partially pure fodder.

Next up: +25% AP, Legendary HB (this SA)

how are people getting through these stages so fast? just took me like 6 months or sometime to super ascend for a 5th time

how are people getting through these stages so fast? just took me like 6 months or sometime to super ascend for a 5th time

By the time you hit SA6 you should have some pretty decent artifact wealth and at least a couple +%AP boosts. Those make a big difference in both getting your AM up to where it needs to be faster and also reducing the required armies from AM to clear a level, as well as getting you to the first market faster.

In general, a level should look like*:
- cache surf + CRA to first market (<1h)
- drain market, buy mercs and repeat until you have all Hospitals and Markets (~5-10m)
- upgrade hospitals if needed (0-4h)
- clear the remaining 80-90% of the level (~5-10m)

On SA1, you won't have a good enough AV artifact to do this, and even if you did, you would come up short on armies anyways, because your AM isn't high enough. That means there's another step after the last one above which reads something like "- wait on army camps/drafting to fill the army shortfall (hours, days, weeks, ...)", which is by far the slowest part of an Idle level. This is why AM is the most important advancement to take and one of the reasons why A$B is one of the most popular artifacts (and almost certainly the best first Insane) - they're the most effective way to shrink and eventually eliminate this step entirely. Once you get there, you too can start knocking over levels in basically the time it takes to upgrade the Hospitals.

One wild guess: Are you dumping a whole lot of AP into IACP? If so, that's a trap and will be a big reason why you're going so slowly. IACP seduces you in the early levels where it still makes a difference, but it rapidly becomes irrelevant (moreso the later you get in the levels) and drains AP that could have been spent on AM.

* The early levels (before Far Land) have mediocre to non-existent cache surfs, and the very early ones lack Markets entirely. This makes them a constant boondoggle and generally problematic/slow. For a 6 month long SA they're probably a drop in the bucket for you still.

ahhh interesting. I do a little IACP but will stop. have insane alloy, army cache, time warp and army camp production as artifacts.

is joint strike still the premier advancement or should it all go to additional mercs? How far up do people generally boost it, 150%?

what's cache surf and CRA? do you even upgrade army camps, or anything really? or put all money to mercs and hospital, ignoring the skill tree?

Edited 10/29/2024 18:03:31