Energy & Tech Upgrades

Energy

Suns are the main source of energy: every sun you own adds 1 energy per minute to your balance, shown in the Tech panel. Collapsing a galaxy's black hole pays no energy directly, it permanently raises that rate by one per sun instead (see Prestige). Energy is never shared inside a clan.

A base is the other source of energy, paying out from its own super-probe upkeep instead of a prestige rate. No tech upgrade applies TO a base itself: what it burns, what it pays, what a level costs and how it fights are all unaffected by every entry below.

Tech upgrades

Nine upgrades, each running to level 100. They only help planets and swarms inside the radius of a sun or base owned by you or a clan ally; outside one, nothing is boosted. An owned base grants the radius the same way a sun does, growing with its level up to 10 grid units at level 10 (see Bases). Standing inside more than one radius at once never stacks the bonus.

• Velocity (+1%/lvl): swarms travel faster when launched from near a friendly sun or base, whether from a planet or the sun itself.
• Construction (+0.5%/lvl): boosted planets produce probes faster.
• Defense (+1%/lvl): when a boosted planet is attacked, its garrison counts for more. An attacker's send dial reads your level and marks the higher requirement, so this buys you probes rather than surprise.
• Assault (+1%/lvl): probes count for more when the swarm launched from near a friendly sun or base and the target is a planet or a meteorite. The same send dial reads your level and marks the lower requirement. Assault and Defense at the same level cancel exactly. A sun's garrison fights without tech on either side, so taking one always needs more than its full garrison.
• Toughness (0.5%/lvl): when a boosted planet holds off an attack, that share of the probes it would have lost survive. Against a wave of separate swarms it compounds.
• Salvage (0.5%/lvl): when a swarm launched near a friendly sun or base takes a planet, that share of the probes it spent breaking the garrison joins the new one. Toughness for the attacker, and it fires on every capture rather than only when you are attacked.
• Navigation (0.5%/lvl): a swarm launched near a friendly sun or base loses that much less crossing into another galaxy. A galaxy still inside its grace period is closed rather than expensive, and no level opens it.
• Terraforming (0.5%/lvl): a boosted planet pays that much less for its next level, so at level 100 a level-1 planet costs 50 probes instead of 100. Automations wait for the discounted price too.
• Conversion (0.5%/lvl): super-probes cost less to convert when the swarm launched from near a friendly sun or base, so at level 100 one costs 50 probes instead of 100. Automations keep the full price.

The four branches

The upgrades sit in four branches, and each one gates the tech that exploits a situation behind the tech that creates it. The first step in a branch needs level 20 in the one above it; the second needs level 40.

• Economy: Construction, then Terraforming, then Conversion.
• Offense: Assault, then Salvage.
• Defense: Defense, then Toughness.
• Logistics: Velocity, then Navigation.

A requirement only decides when an upgrade unlocks. Once you own a level in it, it stays open whatever else you spend.

What a level costs

A tech level costs 100 × the square of the level you are buying, in energy: 100 to reach level 1, 400 for level 2, 900 for level 3, 2,500 for level 5, and 1,000,000 for level 100.

Running one tech all the way to level 100 costs 33,835,000 energy in total, so the upper half of the tree is a long-term goal for players with several collapses behind them. This is separate from the planet upgrade cost, which is paid in probes.