Compare economic investments.

Know what each mine does

Metal funds much of your construction and fleet growth. Crystal is often the limiting material for research and advanced infrastructure. Deuterium is both a construction/research resource and the fuel for operations. Mines provide recurring income while you are offline, but only within energy and storage constraints. An upgrade raises future production; it does not immediately deliver a lump sum of resources.

The standard mine-output terms at full power and ×1 economy are 30 × L × 1.1^L for metal, 20 × L × 1.1^L for crystal, and 10 × L × 1.1^L × (1.44 − 0.004 × Tmax) for deuterium. Tmax is the planet’s maximum temperature. These terms exclude natural base income, slot bonuses, class, Plasma Technology, lifeforms and other modifiers. Multiply resource production by economy speed, then account for your actual bonuses. Do not multiply the power requirement by economy speed.

Early production and infrastructure

1. Open Resources and inspect the Metal Mine, Crystal Mine, Deuterium Synthesizer and Solar Plant. Read the next-level cost, completion time and energy demand.
2. Use the Solar Plant to support the next mine increase. Check the energy balance after completion; persistent shortages mean the mine is not delivering its intended full output.
3. Build metal and crystal capacity toward a named early unlock. If crystal is delaying that unlock, increase crystal rather than following a fixed metal-to-crystal level ratio.
4. Develop deuterium before research and ship fuel become the bottleneck. Do not drain all fuel into a queue once you have ships to move.
5. Open Facilities for Robotics Factory, Shipyard and Research Lab only as the next unlock requires them. Use the technology tree to see the missing levels.
6. Before your break, check when each resource will fill storage. Spend on the planned upgrade, improve storage when justified, and establish cargo logistics as ships become available. Return to Resources to verify the result.

Measure before you spend

Start on one planet. Write down hourly metal, crystal and deuterium output, available energy, storage space and free fields. Record your class and the universe economy speed next to those numbers. Use the values actually displayed, including active bonuses. A guide written for a different universe cannot supply your production forecast. Refresh the screen after a queue finishes before comparing the result.

Mines need energy, storage limits production, and facilities provide infrastructure rather than direct mine output. These are different problems. An energy shortage is not fixed by another mine, and more storage will not help if you habitually leave a large, profitable stockpile undefended.

Name the next constraint

1. Choose one concrete goal: start the next mine, unlock a colony ship, or fund the next research. Write down the required resources and deadline.
2. Subtract resources already available and place safe incoming deliveries at their scheduled arrival times. Compare the first time each required resource is available, rather than counting a future shipment as current stock.
3. Check whether energy, fields, storage or construction time will block the upgrade. Add the necessary supporting work to the plan.
4. Reserve flight fuel and enough cargo capacity to protect the remaining resources. Spend only the balance.

Compare the complete investment

For an income upgrade, divide its full cost by the additional daily income it enables. Keep unlike resources separate unless you explicitly choose a conversion ratio for planning. That ratio is an assumption, not a guaranteed trade offer. Include required energy infrastructure and subtract additional operating costs where relevant.

Compare the next level on several planets, not just your largest planet. A small improvement to a developing colony may be easier to fund and leave the account less dependent on one location. Do not call a facility a bad investment simply because it has no direct payback: evaluate the construction delay it removes.

Make the offline interval affordable

Current stock plus hourly production multiplied by hours away is an unconstrained forecast. Compare it with each resource’s storage capacity; once storage fills, that mine stops accumulating more. Include timed deliveries, rewards and queued spending separately. If storage fills too soon, an earlier collection, planned spending or a storage upgrade can prevent the lost production. Storage is a buffer, not a security system.

Solar satellites are ships and can be destroyed. Fusion consumes deuterium. Evaluate energy options with their operational risks and net production rather than only their purchase price. Keep a small written recovery plan for a power loss: which mines can be reduced temporarily and what you would rebuild first.

Verify the result

After completion, check actual output, energy balance and the next storage limit. If the gain differs from your estimate, inspect production settings and bonus expiry before making the same purchase elsewhere. End the session with a named next upgrade and a resource target. Avoid filling queues merely because something is affordable; a deliberate empty queue can be better than an irrelevant expense.

Compare the change, not the total

An upgrade earns its return through the difference between the old and new account. For a mine, compare the next level's production with the current level under the same settings. For Plasma or a global Lifeform effect, add the changes across every affected planet. Exclude resource deliveries that would have arrived anyway.

A practical comparison has three lines: the up-front cost; the added daily production; and the new daily operating cost. Include the next required power project, extra fusion fuel and any storage or cargo that is genuinely necessary to use the increase. If the upgrade fits existing spare capacity, do not charge it for infrastructure you already own.

With planning values M = 1, C = 1.5 and D = 3, metal-equivalent value is M + 1.5C + 3D. These weights correspond to a 3:2:1 exchange assumption, not a promised trade. Use the same weights for spending and income. If Deuterium is your operational constraint, test a higher value as well.

Simple payback in days = full incremental cost / additional net daily income. If additional net income is zero or negative, there is no positive simple payback. For a real recovery date, include funding time, construction/research delay and any lost production before completion. Simple payback does not model reinvestment, attacks, bonus expiry or future account growth.

A real baseline mine comparison

The classic cost of target level L is floor(base cost × growth factor^(L−1)), separately for each resource. Metal Mine costs start at 60 Metal / 15 Crystal and grow ×1.5; Crystal at 48 Metal / 24 Crystal and ×1.6; Deuterium at 225 Metal / 75 Crystal and ×1.5. Metal and Crystal demand 10 × L × 1.1^L energy; Deuterium demands 20 × L × 1.1^L. Economy speed multiplies output, not these power terms. See the formula reference and maintained building reference.

Example assumptions: mines 30/25/25, ×8 economy, slot 8, Tmax +40°C, full production; no class, Plasma, officer, item, Lifeform or crawler effects. Prerequisites are already owned, and at least 781 energy is spare, so each alternative can run without new power. Costs are classic costs before discounts. Income and energy changes are shown before game display rounding.

Metal narrowly wins this deliberately limited comparison. Crystal can still be the sensible next purchase if it is holding up a useful research, and extra power costs could change the order. A colder planet improves the Deuterium candidate; a different position changes the metal/crystal base. Recalculate after every purchase rather than converting this one example into a permanent mine ratio.

Find the actual waiting-time bottleneck

For a named goal with no future deliveries or spending, subtract resources already available from each required resource and divide each remaining deficit by that resource’s reliable net production. The largest result controls the funding time in that simplified model. A positive deficit with no positive income has no finite waiting time. For an actual schedule, add each delivery only when it arrives, subtract planned spending when it occurs, and find the first time all required balances are available together. Subtracting a future cargo immediately can predict a purchase before its resources arrive.

Suppose the remaining deficits are 200,000 M, 150,000 C and 20,000 D, and net production is 20,000/5,000/2,000 per hour. The waits are 10, 30 and 10 hours. More metal does not shorten the 30-hour crystal wait. Any upgrade bought first also consumes resources and takes time, so compare the whole completion date rather than the new production rate alone.

For example, a 100,000-Crystal goal with no current stock and 5,000 Crystal per hour takes 20 hours without deliveries. If 100,000 Crystal is due after 12 hours, the goal becomes fundable at hour 12, not immediately. A delivery due after 30 hours would not shorten the original 20-hour wait. This example assumes no storage constraint, other spending or delivery loss.

Value the storage you will actually use

For positive net production, time to full is (capacity − current stock) / hourly production, provided stock is below capacity and no other events intervene. Once a resource reaches its production limit, extending the absence does not keep adding mine income at the old rate. Check each resource separately and include queued costs, incoming cargo and rewards at their actual times. The basic economy reference documents the storage stop.

At 600,000 stock, 1,000,000 capacity and 50,000 per hour, storage fills in eight hours. A twelve-hour absence would lose up to 200,000 production compared with an unconstrained forecast. A larger store is useful if it prevents that recurring loss; an earlier collection can solve the same problem. More storage does not reduce the value an attacker can see sitting on the planet.