This game is all about how much time you're willing to put into it, and has no need for skill whatsoever. Not willing to put in the time? Then open up the wallet. But...for what? What fun part is there? Telling your workers to make item after item is repetitive, quests have zero involvement from you other than sending people out, and it takes too much time to actually make meaningful upgrades to the city. The nice artwork is possibly the only good part of the game...
Pagani400: Pass in front of the oyster a few times. It will open up to try and damage you, and after doing this a few times it will open up for good, letting you get the pearl.
Torai: That already exists. Go to the Manufacturing Bay where you made the upgrades. At the bottom, there are two buttons, one for Components, one for Upgrades. If you click on the Components button, you can craft any of the components directly.
It's nice to see a follow up to Glean at last. But, while it's a fun game, it does have some problems. The engineering screen is wholly unnecessary since there's no reason to downgrade parts. Research is nifty but clunky, since there's no way to save partial recipes. And some items, like pearls, pure water, and chitin, are present in quantities too small for the demand. Pure water is especially bad, with chitin a close second.
While I don't have a problem with missions in general, the way they're used here is problematic. Only being able to go after one, randomly chosen mission at a time slows progress down even further. Personally, I would prefer if all missions were open at once, since many of them are identical except for the amount. However, the three-at-a-time that's standard in other games would be preferable to the current system.
In addition, several of the descriptions show typos, and the names of some miscellaneous items are Device 1 instead of something specific. While they don't detract from the gameplay, it's sloppy...
There's no question that I'm enjoying the game, but there's some aspects about it that are problematic. Specifically, progress is very slow, even if you focus on missions and achievements over simple height. I believe that the reason for this is that the game is much stingier with cash than the previous installments. If all of the sweets gave 2-5 times as much value, it would be much less grindy. Maybe even 10 times, but that might be a little much.
Want to switch weapons so that you can see if a different set is more effective on the current level? Congratulations, you now get to spend three times as long getting it up to par...
If you ever revisit this game, a fun challenge mode might be one where you have to survive the boss's full song, without dying/getting hit at all, depending on how hard you want it to be.
 "How Dare You"){kind=icon}
 "Space Flash Arena"){kind=icon}
 "Swords & Potions 2"){kind=icon}
 "Dynetzzle"){kind=icon}
 "Glean 2 Preview"){kind=icon}
 "Deep Sea Hunter 2"){kind=icon}
 "Battalion Commander 2"){kind=icon}
 "me and the key"){kind=icon}
 "Into Space 3: Xmas Story"){kind=icon}
 "Live Puzzle 2 Christmas"){kind=icon}
 "Bloons Super Monkey 2"){kind=icon}
 "10 More Bullets"){kind=icon}
 "Bullet Audyssey"){kind=icon}
Pure water was fixed in the last patch, you can get it from chests in aquatic environments, also you get more chitin from the deeper worms.