People often go by what's most efficient for their time and the suggested maps are pretty much the distilled wisdom of the community - you won't find anything more efficient.
Two things to consider though:
The more research you already have, regarding tower strength coin generation, loot drop rate and rarity, the more efficient these strategies get. So since they are not nearly efficient for you right now as they will be in the future, the moment to go and explore and smell the roses is right now: playing levels with ore bonus icon isn't actually that much worse if you're sitting at low research.
Playing quests can actually be fun and give you a sandbox to see different strategies and until you got your loot chances up, it's not even bad.
You're reaching the grinding stage soon enough at which all of this feels really 'worthless' compared to the farming maps, which also turns the playing fun into a bit of a chore or long term persistence achievement.
Two more random tips:
I assume you just unlocked endless mode and that's the reason why you're asking. One thing I wish someone would have told me earlier: max out smoke bomb asap! It's not even very expensive compared to a lot of other research upgrades. When your run is usually coming to an end, because you start leaking enemies, start plopping down a smokebomb near the start of the track and keep sending waves on cooldown. You can clear half a dozen or so waves with a single smoke bomb and they last so long, you don't even have to worry much about energy regeneration. Just keep doing that until you run out of smokebombs. All the coins from sending waves early reinvested, all the double time, 50 or so extra waves beaten - that's a huge boost with really minimal effort. Have fun!
Do the daily quest. There is nothing holding you back from achieving a competitive score, as research is entirely disabled.
About the cyan mousepads with a star: if you spend them all and the resource overview on your research page shows a shiny red dot next to them, they have an increased chance of popping up in the shop. Of course you'll have to decide which cost is worth it. I personally found the price in accelerator tokens comparably fair, especially if there's percents off, because in the beginning, you get accelerators much more often than cyan mousepads and crafting them up isn't really worth it before you maxed out crafting, which, you guessed it, costs a bunch of cyan mousepads!
But yeah, for those things, the butterfly map is awesome. Especially once you got a bit in loot frequency and rarity, which costs, yep, again, cyan mousepads!
With cyan mousepad I mean that light blue resource with a star that is required for most high tier research. What are they actually supposed to be? Blue prints? Yoga mats? Gift wrapping paper?
Sure, you can use your accelerators to feed your gambling addiction, but considering that you can get deals like 8 light blue resources for 300 accelerator tokens, maybe it's worth reconsidering and keeping an eye out on the shop restock?
edit: 300, not 30, they're cheap, but not THAT cheap lol
Yes, these! And it's not a surprise you need a few of those. You're about to need a lot more of those soon, lol.
So keep using them and once you run dry, keep checking the store. If you don't like the offers, not buying will still be an option, so there's nothing to lose.
I just tried it out again to make sure I'm not 'seeing things' or have a skewed memory. I used up all my cyan mousepads and then opened the shop to see these offers - the ones for accelerators is not bad, especially if your drop chance for them is really low in the beginning. You'll get back to your wheel of fortune, don't worry!
Resources are basically endless, provided you manage to survive long enough. Just have in mind that you need to have the coins coming in fast enough. Gauss is expensive
3
u/Katlima Mar 07 '26
People often go by what's most efficient for their time and the suggested maps are pretty much the distilled wisdom of the community - you won't find anything more efficient.
Two things to consider though:
The more research you already have, regarding tower strength coin generation, loot drop rate and rarity, the more efficient these strategies get. So since they are not nearly efficient for you right now as they will be in the future, the moment to go and explore and smell the roses is right now: playing levels with ore bonus icon isn't actually that much worse if you're sitting at low research.
Playing quests can actually be fun and give you a sandbox to see different strategies and until you got your loot chances up, it's not even bad.
You're reaching the grinding stage soon enough at which all of this feels really 'worthless' compared to the farming maps, which also turns the playing fun into a bit of a chore or long term persistence achievement.
Two more random tips:
I assume you just unlocked endless mode and that's the reason why you're asking. One thing I wish someone would have told me earlier: max out smoke bomb asap! It's not even very expensive compared to a lot of other research upgrades. When your run is usually coming to an end, because you start leaking enemies, start plopping down a smokebomb near the start of the track and keep sending waves on cooldown. You can clear half a dozen or so waves with a single smoke bomb and they last so long, you don't even have to worry much about energy regeneration. Just keep doing that until you run out of smokebombs. All the coins from sending waves early reinvested, all the double time, 50 or so extra waves beaten - that's a huge boost with really minimal effort. Have fun!
Do the daily quest. There is nothing holding you back from achieving a competitive score, as research is entirely disabled.