_This guide was written at v1.4.39. As of v1.5.42 there is an extra building upgrade tier, which makes the gem requirements both more relaxed and easier to reach. Still surprisingly accurate overall as of v2.3.2. Therefore I would still recommend getting at least close to the lower end of the suggested gem ranges before trying to do things, but stop Mercs when you can’t double your gems in a 1h run._ This guide is to help you make it through the Research phase of R16 reasonably quickly, without wasting time on upgrades that are too hard to get or take a really long time when they would be much faster later, and without getting lost amid the complexity of it all. I will try to avoid giving away spoilers to people who don’t want to see them.  # **Contents** 0.x Before starting Research (gem requirements, how the interface works, theory, jargon) 1. Starting Research, getting to 1/10 (Research Points spent) in each Faction. 2. Pushing to the 50s and picking up the easy Researches 3. Pushing to the 80s 4. Getting Alchemy 105 5. Pushing to the 135s 6. Unlocking the rest of the quick Researches 7. Unlocking the harder Researches in the quickest combinations Appendix 1 – List of R16 Researches by Stage to Unlock Them Appendix 2 – Spoilers (Build to Use for Each Run) This first post will just be Section 0 – a lot of discussion about how to approach research and what you need to know that you didn’t need to know before. Particularly useful to people who are struggling but want to avoid spoilers will be Section 0.3: Working out Research requirements. Post 2 will contain the main content of the guide, but without unnecessary spoilers. Post 3 contains the Appendices.  # **Section 0: Before starting Research: What you need to know** #_Section 0 Contents_ 0.1: When to start Research 0.2: How Research works 0.3: Working out Research requirements 0.4: How this guide works 0.5: Jargon in Research phase 0.6: General build tactics  # **0.1: When to start Research** Research becomes available at R16. You will see a quest upgrade when you play a Vanilla Faction (**Good/Evil, but don't join Dwarf/Drow!**) which requires you to build a large number of a building that is focussed on by that Faction, and when you complete that you unlock the Unique Building upgrade which costs 10Ttg/1e103 gold. After buying that, you unlock another new upgrade which costs 10Notg/1e121 gold plus 1M FCs of your current Faction. You will need to do several Mercenary runs to get to the point where it’s affordable. Even once it’s affordable, you won’t be able to make much progress, so I’m going to say don’t bother even thinking about Research until 100Dvg-1Tvg (e71-72) gems. You can get there in various ways (Lightning Forge, Innkeeper, IGOT – or there might be a much better way later). What is important, though, is to **keep excavations low**. Keep them below about 800 before trying to start Research – you will need a LOT of Research runs before reincarnating. If you are already over about 1300 excavations by the time you get to 100Dvg/e71 gems without touching Research, I would have to recommend just skipping it until R17 (it’s possible by focussing harder on Elves, pushing to a higher gem count (around 10Tvg/1e73) before starting and using a lot more of the Elf/Druid Bloodlines, but it’s painful).  # **0.2: How Research works** Once you buy the Unique Building upgrade (remember, join a Good/Evil Faction, and **don't join Dwarf/Drow!**), a small button to the top right of the Upgrades tab which says ‘Research’. When you open this you will have 6 large buttons in the middle of the screen. These are the ‘Research Trees’. You unlock one per Faction. Spending Research Points by clicking on these big buttons makes small buttons appear beneath them, and they also significantly boost the power of the associated Faction. The more Research points you spend, the more buttons become visible. Each button is an upgrade, many of which are incredibly powerful, so this is going to get fun! Once an upgrade is visible it becomes possible to unlock. Unlocked upgrades will have a red ‘x’ if you are the wrong Faction to buy them, greyed out if you either cannot afford them or have bought too many upgrades in that tree ( **there is a limit of 4 per tree** , but you can choose a different 4 each run), not greyed out if they are buyable or a green tick if you have bought them. Locked upgrades are greyed out, with either a ‘!’ (unlockable with current Faction) or a ‘?’ (not unlockable with current Faction) on the image, and the tooltip will show you ‘???’ and ‘Progress: x%’. The progress percentage is the only clue you get as to how the Research actually unlocks, so this can get a bit bewildering. You can either look up what the requirements are, or you can work them out. It’s hard to work them out when you are focussing on lots of them at once, so this guide is being written to let you focus only on what’s important and easy at the time, which means you don’t have to worry about keeping dozens of Research requirements in your head at the same time. Upgrades come in 4 types: - Unlockable by any Vanilla Faction, used by any Faction - Unlockable by one Faction, used by any Faction - Unlockable by one Faction, used by itself - Unlockable by one Faction, used by different Faction All the upgrades at the same number of research points are of the same type (e.g. all of the 25s are unlocked by one Faction, used by itself).  # **0.3: Working out Research requirements** To work out what a Research requirement is, your only definite clue is the percentage. If a Research is one that you are currently or about to be working on, here are some pointers on how to work out its requirements. ANY game variable you can think of could be a Research requirement (most of them are ‘this game’, but a sizeable minority are ‘this Reincarnation’). To easily work it out, you need to find a way of changing a variable by a large amount, quickly, without significantly changing many others. A good way of doing this is to look at the Research tab as soon as you can afford the Unique Building upgrade, look at the percentage, and then look at it again every time you do something important (buy a lot of a building, buy loads of upgrades, buy loads of Royal Exchanges, cast a lot of spells, cast a lot of a particular spell, do a bunch of excavations…). The Stats tab is your friend. Most of the Research requirements are at pretty round numbers (e.g. 750 or 25000) or game-lore-signficant numbers (like 666). If something is moving very slowly and doesn’t seem to go down when you abdicate, it is probably a ‘this Reincarnation’ stat. If it does go down when you abdicate, it is a ‘this game’ stat. If you can’t make it move, make sure you look at the tooltip before you abdicate any long runs. If it’s difficult to work out what a requirement is, try thinking about what the Faction that unlocked the Research tree is good at, or what makes that Faction better (or the same, but for the Faction that does the unlocking). Try reading over the normal Faction upgrade tooltips for clues as to what might come up. For example, Elves have a clear theme which might be involved at some stage…  # **0.4: How this guide works** This guide is to get you through Research as quickly as possible without forcibly giving away many spoilers. I will specify which unlocks are easy to do and when, but I won’t immediately tell you the build to use, or the Research requirement. Research requirements are available on the wikia page (linked at the bottom of Appendix 2), but I hope you’ll find it fun to work through the Research puzzles and only use the spoilers when you get stuck! I will tell you when is a good time to focus on unlocks and when to focus on spending more Research points, and I will specify and code each separate run you should do (which lets you see which unlocks are best done together). If it is the first run of Section 3, it will be run 3.1, or the 5th run of section 6 will be run 6.5. This should facilitate easier discussion and quicker identification of whether or not you’re trying to do something at the right stage.  # **0.5: Jargon in Research phase** You will need to know the following jargon to understand what I’m saying: - FC = Faction Coin - RP = Research Point - RE = Royal Exchange - Vanilla Faction = one of the original six Good/Evil Factions (Fairy to Demon) - Invisible = Research upgrade exists but not bought enough RPs to make it unlockable - Visible = technically unlockable, but may require a different Faction (if ‘?’ is on the button) - Unlocked = requirements met, can buy if correct Faction and have enough gold - codes like A105 = Alchemy 105 – Letter is for the tree, number is the number showing on the upgrade button (which is how many RP need spent in that tree to make it visible)  # **0.6: General build tactics** At R16 there are few choices you will have to make until the end of R16. Each build is basically a blend of the base Faction and the Bloodline, and towards the end of R16 you will need to start **remembering to leave upgrades out because you can only buy 4 in each tree**. Each run should only have one main objective, so base your build entirely on whatever that may be. Things to consider for a Faction (get VERY familiar with all of these): - Gold production - FC production - Max mana/mana regen/spell-casting frequency - Maximum spell combo achievable (and how long it would take to improve the combo) - Building costs - Special abilities/unique things that their upgrades are based on Things to consider for a Bloodline: - This guide was written when Faceless gave you FCs. It now does something else, so use it when you think it’ll help - Goblin lets you get a LOT more buildings than a production increase ever would - It’s a lot easier to keep Angel going than you expect - Druid or Demon _might_ allow you to get a higher production than Titan through better spell combos (or you could wait for Vacuumancy) or higher gem bonus - A really strong Bloodstream can easily make a Bloodline 10x stronger

# **Section 1: Starting Research, getting to 1/10 (Research Points spent) in each tree** Read sections 0.1 and 0.2 (and the jargon section 0.5 if this confuses you!). You need to play a vanilla Faction, get their unique building up to a certain number, then buy the upgrade that costs a pile of gold plus 1M FCs of your current Faction. I assume you’ll excavate for this. Don’t spend all your FCs on REs – you can use them to spend RPs in other branches if you have the gold for it. You will notice that some Researches open up at 1RP and immediately get unlocked, and others open at 10RP. The ones at 10RP need a certain number of buildings. This is the perfect time to practice working out what the research requirements are – see how many buildings, and of what type, you will need to use to unlock each upgrade, and then you can go to the Faction that unlocks the upgrade to see if you were right (if you can do it without using excavations). Cut the runs off when you run out of gold or FCs, as long as you open the research tree (buying the 1M FC upgrade, not even buying the first RP in the tree) for that Faction that’s all that really matters at this stage – once you have all six open, you can move to Section 2.  # **Section 2: Pushing to the 50s and picking up the easy Researches** Now we’re going to start caring about unlocking things, but first you have to make them visible. The gold you need to spend with each RP increases x1.5 each time, and the FC cost is (RP number)^3, which means you need about 2.37M FCs plus 1.3Qaqag (1.3e135) gold to get to RP55 in each tree (total cost is 7.7Qaqag gold and 2.37M FCs from each vanilla Faction). That’s your goal for now – and this is run 2.1. It doesn’t need to all be in a single run, but to be honest it’s not that hard. Because of the FC requirement, I would suggest not buying more than about 90-100 of each vanilla RE, and it’s not a problem to use excavations to get the FCs here. Run 2.1 can be done with several different Factions, and at 100Dvg/e71 gems it can be done as a single run in under an hour with at least 1. Now that everything up to 55RPs is visible, it’s time to go about unlocking things. These are the easy ones that are quick that you should do now, with associated run numbers: - Run 2.2: S30 (S30 gives you an upgrade called Vacuumancy, which is vital to later runs – it increases your max mana and mana regeneration over time, which sometimes allows you to get a significantly better max combo than before if you leave it for a few hours), C10 if not already unlocked, A30 if reasonably close - Run 2.3: D50, S10 if not already unlocked, C25 if reasonably close - Run 2.4: E30 and E50, W25, A10 if not already unlocked - Run 2.5: A25 (optional – takes 4h if you have made no progress towards it so far), D10 if not already unlocked, W50 (if VERY close) - Run 2.6: E10 if not already unlocked - Run 2.7: (entirely optional, all of this will be covered in run 5.1 anyway so don’t use excavations) W10, E25, C50 Might take a bit longer, but can be done now if you want (not recommended for anything other than A25 and A30): - Run 2.8: C25, D55, A55 (C25 could be on run 7.3, D55 and A55 should be done before run 7.3) - A30 (already included above, can be easily unlocked in run 7.5) - A25 (already included above, can easily be unlocked on run 7.3 if desired), W50 (run 7.1 and potentially run 7.3 will help a lot towards this) - D25 (unlocked in run 7.1) Unreasonable to attempt now: - S50 - A50 - [in most cases it would be a massive waste of time, so] W50 During all of your section 2 runs, the more inroads you can make on RPs, the easier it will be to do section 3. Spare FCs should be used for RPs instead of REs, as this will save you excavations.  # **Section 3: Pushing to the 80s** Run 3.1 has many viable Factions. You are going to want to pick one that has good production, and also reasonable FC production if you don’t have many cheap excavations to use (handy if you can keep them below 900 at this stage). Don’t expect it to be a particularly quick run, but if you’re getting nowhere remotely close after 4h you’re doing it wrong. You should have S30: Vacuumancy, so you might need to wait a while before you can get a more useful spell combo working (scrying for mana is also a good tactic) – take this into account before deciding to quit a run. If you’re making progress, once you get 80 RPs spent in each tree you can abdicate, but not before! Costs of reaching RP80 from RP55 = 193Qiqag/1.93e140 gold and 8.13M FCs in each tree (so it’s usually fine to do this with excavations). Runs 3.2 and 3.3 should unlock C80 and E80. They might be the same run, it might even happen in run 3.1, but either way, they should be reasonably quick. Now take a breather, the next bit is where it starts to get hard.  # **Section 4: Getting Alchemy 105** [SPOILER ALERT, although it’s a bit late…] The next upgrades pop up at 105 RPs. It’s REALLY hard to get enough gold to get there (you might need Vacuumancy to grow enough to allow a better spell combo to what you can do at the start of the run), so focus on just getting there in Alchemy, which is a huge production booster once unlocked. Again, you will need a lot of FCs to buy all the RPs, so either use cheap excavations (don’t go much over 1000!) or choose a Faction with good FC gain for this run. Expect it to be quite long (4-12h+). Run 4.1 has several viable options. Once you have A105 visible, only keep going on the run if you can easily spend more RPs on other trees (quick to get both gold and FCs). You almost certainly won’t be able to unlock it this run. Then if you didn’t unlock it, abdicate and unlock it on run 4.2, and you will be able to make serious progress on your next run!  # **Section 5: Pushing to the 135s** Run 5.1. This is the only time I’m going to tell you specifically which Faction to use, because otherwise it will be really annoying. It’s time to go Elf (with D50 unlocked), probably with Titan Bloodline. This is because they are good for FC gain, reasonable for production and most importantly: C120 and C135 have similar unlock requirements and both give decent production boosts, but unlocking C135 is limited to be Elf-only, so this saves you a long-ish run in section 6/7. **I do not recommend reaching 135RP using excavations!** If you go much over 1100 you are going to slow down your runs later in the reincarnation. This is going to be another relatively long run. If not using an autoclicker, it will need to last about 5h minimum to unlock C135, but afterwards all you will need to do is unlock runs and it will then be easy to make lots of gems, so celebrate; you’re almost there! Again, if you’re at the stage of waiting for Vacuumancy to get a better spell combo, that is a good time to build up clicks and bank lots of FCs for using later. I’d suggest not buying more than 110 of each vanilla RE until you have spent your RPs. Also, this is the first run you’re likely to hit the limit of 4 upgrades per tree. You will really regret buying C80! _If you skipped Run 2.7, check you’ve unlocked W10, E25 and C50 before abdicating. For C50 you’ll need to do a lot of Tax Collections – have that on second priority after Moon Blessing. This is generally a good strategy during buildup phases on Research runs because it makes D55 and several other upgrades grow faster._  # **Section 6: Unlocking the rest of the quick researches** All of the following researches are now easy to unlock with the right build in just a few minutes. They might require previously unlocked researches to get there! Spellcraft: (run 6.1) 135 Craftsmanship: (run 6.2) you probably have everything if you followed the guide, otherwise 50, 105, 120 and 135 take 2-5h, get them on or before run 7.3 Divine: nothing fast Economics: nothing fast at Tvg/e72 gems Alchemy: (run 6.3) 135 might be quick. If not, don’t worry, it will be very quick by the time you get to run 7.5 Warfare: (run 6.4) 135 (might require Merc runs first)  # **Section 7: Unlocking the harder researches in the quickest combinations** This section is possibly the most useful, and I will do my best to give minimal spoilers. Again, I won’t tell you the build to use, you should be able to work that out after you work out the requirements for each Research. I assume you have EVERY upgrade already listed in section 6 and section 2. Sometimes they will be absolutely vital. The following runs are best done in order. If the upgrade is one of the key points of the run it will be listed outside of brackets/parentheses (). Design your build based on these. If it is something you should get that run if you don’t already have it, it will be in brackets: (Mxx) If it is something you can probably unlock but not vital that run, it will be queried in square brackets: [Mxx?] 7.1: D25 + A50 [+ D55? + A55? + W50?]. I would advise an overnight for this. 7.2: D135 (+ D55 + A55) Now it’s finally time to make some gems (run 7.3)! You should be used to long-ish runs by now (it might still take a fair amount of time to be able to buy A105), but the good news is that by the end of the run you will have much higher mana regen, and once you get to buying the 135s you’ll have no problem doing a full combo with any Faction. Base your build on production, not mana (because it will come!), so you probably want to take Titan or Fairy (if you’ve gone Fairy) Bloodline. By this point, there’s a small chance you’ll have a phenomenal offline bonus. It’s worth comparing to your online bonus from spell-casting, especially early on in a run if you can’t cast a full combo. 7.4: E135 _LAST MAJOR RUN_ 7.5: S50 + A120 (+ A30) [+ W120?]. Much of S50 and A120 can be offline. You possibly still need these, but they can all be done on the same run. If you need anything else you haven’t followed the guide! 7.6: W120 + W50 + A25 W120 (or W50) should be your very last unlock at R16. After that, it’s time to earn any remaining gems, burn all your excavations if you want and reincarnate! Don’t worry, R17+ researches are much less complicated.

# **Appendix 1 – List of R16 Researches by Stage to Unlock Them** Spellcraft: 1: 1 10: 1 30: 2.2 50: 7.5 105: 4.1 or 5.1 135: 6.1 Craftsmanship: 1: 1 10: 1 25: 2 to 7 50: 5.1 (or 2.7) 80: 3.1 or 3.2 105: 5.1 (or 4.1) 120: 5.1 (or 6.2) 135: 5.1 (or 6.2) Divine: 1: 1 10: 1 25: 7.1 50: 2.3 55: 2 to 7 135: 7.2 Economics: 1: 1 10: 1 25: 5.1 (or 2.7) 30: 2.4 50: 2.4 80: 3.3 135: 7.4 Alchemy: 1: 1 10: 1 25-1: 2 to 7 (suggested early) 25-2: 2 to 7 (suggested early) 50: 7.1 55: 2 to 7 105: 4.1 or 4.2 120: 7.5 135: 6.3 or 7 Warfare: 1: 1 10: 1 (or 5.1, or 2.7) 25: 2.4 50: 2 to 7 (likely to be 7.1 or later) 120: 7.5 or 7.6 135: 6.4  # **Appendix 2 – Spoilers (Build to Use for Each Run)** Each run ID will have mouseover text (like xkcd!). Hover your mouse over the run ID to see what build to make if you’re stuck on that run. The format used is [Faction]/[Bloodline] – [special instructions if applicable] (e.g. ‘Elf/Dwarf – use Moon Blessing for 3h to build clicks’ means an Elf build with Dwarven Bloodline, and for the first 3 hours you should concentrate on building clicks to make more assistants). **Note: some spoilers also contain Research requirements** _Run IDs_ _If the upgrade is one of the key points of the run it will be listed outside of brackets/parentheses (). Design your build based on these. If it is something you should get that run if you don’t already have it, it will be in brackets: (Mxx) If it is something you can probably unlock but not vital that run, it will be in square brackets: [Mxx]_ [2.1](http://fake.url "Fairy/Fairy, or several other options"): Get to RP55 [2.2](http://fake.url "Fairy/Fairy"): S30 (C10) [A30] [2.3](http://fake.url "Angel/Goblin"): D50 (S10) [C25] [2.4](http://fake.url "Goblin/Titan"): E30 E50 W25 (A10) [2.5](http://fake.url "Demon/Druid"): (D10) [A25] [W50] [2.6](http://fake.url "Undead/Goblin"): (E10) [2.7](http://fake.url "Elf/Elf"): [W10] [E25] [C50] [2.8](http://fake.url "Angel/Druid"): [C25] [D55] [A55] [3.1](http://fake.url "Fairy/Fairy"): Get to RP80 [3.2](http://fake.url "Any/Goblin"): C80 [3.3](http://fake.url "Fairy/Goblin"): E80 [4.1](http://fake.url "Fairy/Fairy"): Make A105 visible (RP105 in Alchemy only) [4.2](http://fake.url "Fairy/Goblin"): Unlock A105 [5.1](http://fake.url "Elf/Titan - just build clicks/FC until full combo is easy"): Get to RP135 [6.1](http://fake.url "Fairy/Goblin"): S135 [6.2](http://fake.url "Elf/Elf - just make sure Moon Blessing is always running"): (C105) (C120) (C135) [6.3](http://fake.url "Undead/Any"): [A135] [6.4](http://fake.url "Demon/Any"): W135 [7.1](http://fake.url "Undead/Druid"): D25 A50 [D55] [A55] [W50] [7.2](http://fake.url "Angel/Druid"): D135 (D55) (A55) [7.3](http://fake.url "Fairy/Fairy works, so does Elf/Titan, or if you still need to unlock A25 and/or W50 Demon/Titan will be a really good option after a couple of hours working on the unlocks"): Earn a big pile of gems [7.4](http://fake.url "Goblin/Goblin"): E135 [7.5](http://fake.url "Fairy/Faceless - note: when guide was first written this was Fairy/Goblin and took a long time, can probably be moved much earlier and the whole of Research could be easier since Faceless Bloodline was changed to give max mana, but if you've followed a 1 year plus old guide completely blindly to this point you don't deserve to do it faster than people who apply a little bit of their own mental effort! :P"): S50 A120 (A30) [W120] [7.6](http://fake.url "Demon/Undead"): (W120) (W50) (A25) That link for the Research page of the wiki: http://realm-grinder.wikia.com/wiki/Research (contains positions, names, requirements, costs, effects, some formulas).

Demon with various bloodlines is decent. I think the Titan bloodline is the best at the 1 Dvg level (unlike Goblins before the patch where Demon bloodline was the best.) Edenlight used Demon with Angel bloodline from 100 Uvg in R17. One difference with Demons, though, is that they take a long time to reach the 120s and 135s too. It isn’t all done at 105 like some other factions.

I did most of my grinding through it with goblins, mostly with titan bloodline

> *Originally posted by **[why\_amihere](/forums/8945/topics/562011?page=1#posts-9862716):*** > > See topic title – is this desperately wanted? I did look for a guide like this a few times, but have to admit that I also quite enjoyed having to figure things out myself for a change even though this naturally involved several mistakes. Perhaps a compromise might make sense for this guide, namely to not publish the exact build for each research node, but only which order would be most efficient.

So grrrmpf, if I said which _groupings_ of upgrades to unlock at the same time without actually saying ‘Fairy + Goblin Bloodline’ (for example), would that stop from spoiling too much? I would link another forum page which says what everything is for people who needed it, but I could avoid giving away too much that way. This would still let you to work out what each research actually is and the best build to get there, without actually giving away too much detail. If I write a guide, I fully intend on spoiling the thing about A105 being very key. Do you find that ok to give away? EDIT: By the way, good point, I had been going to say ‘use Faction x with Bloodline y to unlock Axxx, Sxxx and Dxxx on the same run in as little time as possible’ – I’d hate to follow a guide like that. Just listing the things that can be unlocked together efficiently is a big time-saver, and people who want to read spoilers can refer to a linked list that tells you the unlock requirements. EDIT2: I’m going to write a brief section in post 2 this evening. Can you critique it for how good it is at not spoiling stuff?

I will be glad to help if I can.

For me, the honest answer is: Don’t. Do an IGOT run until you have enough gems to reincarnate, then go back to the vanilla factions for research points. Don’t try to unlock researches while also trying to increase gems. I found trying to claw my way up the research ladder at 1 Dvg gems to be so painful that I wish I hadn’t done it, and that was even before the so many rounds of nerfs that I can’t keep them straight any more.

Ok, I’ve done samples for sections 4, 5 and 7 to try to give a flavour of what I’m currently thinking style- and spoiler-wise. Feedback would be much appreciated (either in forum, PM or in chat).

I’d definitely really appreciate a guide like this. Personally spoilers seem like a bit of a non-issue for a game like this but maybe other people feel differently.

Yes, please, offer us your path of experience in an organized way. I’m just before this phase now (R16, e68 gems in short IGOT towards e71 (?)). The first installment you wrote is just right as (not) spoiling too much. You may also recommend a link directly to: [http://realm-grinder.wikia.com/wiki/Research](http://realm-grinder.wikia.com/wiki/Research) frankly, that is where spoilers are for those who don’t want to grope in the dark. From that plus some pure reasoning, good solutions can result… but experience and hindsight can always show more ways and avoid frustrations and blunders.

@amy That level of spoiler looks perfectly fine to me. @bgibbons I started my research project at about 1e71 in R16, i.e. did one IGOT after Lightning Forge ran out of steam. Took quite a while indeed, but as I mentioned above almost certainly included many mistakes. I don’t consider myself qualified to provide advice, but it is clearly very feasible to complete all R16 researches and make it to R17 on a research build.

I Did the same grrrmpf, started at around e69 gems, did researches till 50, went back for a copule LFs to 2e70 and then researched from there. Most of the time I liked elves to buy researches, but there are other options. Elves are taking me from e72 to e75 quite steadily (faster than an igot run for sure)

The only thing I’m confused on so far is the limit of 4 upgrades per tree. Does that mean only 4 upgrades can be earned each reincarnation, or that we have to pick and choose which upgrades we are going for (closing the others off permanently)? I’m planning to run through as much of the research phase without spoilers as possible, but don’t want to do anything potentially game breaking, or make a decision that will really set me back (ie. wasting too many research points in a given branch, or unlocking the wrong upgrades). Is there anything like this that should be avoided, or is it fairly safe to just go for any unlocks that can be hit at a given point?

The limits are for each run. No limitations carry over after abdication. So it’s safe to buy and unlock research nodes. “Research points” are just a maximum value for each research branch, you can’t misspend those either.

I like your primer here. Now I just need you to write up step 2, where I’m actually at, so I can figure out how to get somewhere with all this. Am I really going to need to do 2+ day runs for most of these 50s? You talk about waiting for Vacuumancy to build, but… that is crazy slow. I guess with Druidline, it’s a bit faster, but still. Anyway, yeah, very looking forward to more details.

7.1: D25 + A50 [+ W50?]. A50 is for Angel, you know.

> *Originally posted by **[Darkmint](/forums/8945/topics/562011?page=1#posts-9869868):*** > > 7.1: D25 + A50 [+ W50?]. > A50 is for Angel, you know. A50 is unlocked by Undead, you know. Used by Angel.

Guide is complete (other than minor editing/tweaking/checking my spelling and making sure I’m not saying the same thing 5 times). Feedback is very welcome!

Can I get some thoughts on how important D55 is to making progress? Specifically I’m finding getting E135 a pain after getting all the other quick ones. I’m guessing D55 would help with getting it, and it might allow you to make gems on run 6.1 instead of just barely getting enough gold to do spend all the 136th RPs.

From my experience, D55 is fantastic in an Elves/Goblins/Demons run to stack your multiplier.

> *Originally posted by **[Elswyyr](/forums/8945/topics/562011?page=1#posts-9873059):*** > > From my experience, D55 is fantastic in an Elves/Goblins/Demons run to stack your multiplier. I don’t think it actually makes too huge a difference before that long Elf run to spend the 135 RPs in each tree while building up tons of clicks (run I designated 5.1). I think I should just move 6.3 (E135 unlock) into section 7 after 7.2, and advise against trying to earn gems until you have completed that. What do you think?

I’m doing the E135 run right now (99% done and clawing at the forum in my impatience). I’ve got D55, and it would be utterly impossible without it. (Well, maybe if I’d stuck out some more LF runs or something; I started all this at e69 gems instead of 70+.) Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to buy the 80s, and this would’ve taken days instead of 5 1/2 hours (for what should’ve been a “quick run”!) I took the time to get D55 back in stage 2, focusing way too hard on unlocking everything rather than trying to find a good money-maker to buy up my researches. It’s paying off now, but I’m honestly not sure I wouldn’t have been better off running IGOT to reincarnation and doing all of this on R17 or at least with e75 gems or something. So… yeah, maybe move E135 to later. Or D55 to earlier? S105 would’ve made it notably quicker to get D55.

Asmora, I’ve moved it to the run after you earn a pile of gems – there’s no point spending 5h on a run that doesn’t boost production much and can be done really fast with more gems! I’ve also moved the D55 run to before earning a pile of gems, because it helps that piling up the gems a LOT!