Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
So we’ve spent the last couple of days talking about the Blueprint Caps from the Project Board. And now that we’re all (more or less) understanding what happens with the cap and how it’s reached, it’s time to take a look at the overall Math of the Monorail Event Act 1.
Once the caps were hit by some of you, immediate panic set it. Many of you were wondering exactly how you’re supposed to unlock all the Act 1 prizes with the cap imposed. So let’s break it down and take a look at all of the Blueprint earning ways for act 1….
So, let’s start with the Project Board itself..
Now that we know there is a Cap on how many Blueprints you can earn per day from the Project Board, we can get an understanding of just how many Blueprints you can earn via the Project Board for all of Act 1.
First, let me start with the same thing I said yesterday…This is NOT a cap on the total Blueprints you can earn. Some people out there are confusing a Project Board Cap with a Blueprint total cap. There is no cap on the maximum number of Blueprints you can earn in a day. The Project Board Cap is simply a cap on the number of Blueprints you can earn per day via the Project Board. There are other ways outside of the Project Board to earn Blueprints, and we’ll cover those below.
So now let’s take a look at these caps….
| Date | Cap | Increase |
| 8/11 | 4500 | |
| 8/12 | 9000 | +4500 |
| 8/13 | 13,500 | +4500 |
| 8/14 | 18,000 | +4500 |
| 8/15 | 22,500 | +4500 |
| 8/16 | 27,000 | +4500 |
| 8/17 | 31,500 | +4500 |
| 8/18 | 36,000 | +4500 |
| 8/19 | 45,000 | +9,000 |
| 8/20 | 54,000 | +9,000 |
| 8/21 | 63,000 | +9,000 |
| 8/22 | 72,000 | +9,000 |
Again a reminder: You’re allowed to earn 4,500 Blueprints from JUST turning in projects/day. Each day is a running total. So if you miss a day or don’t max out you can make it up the next day. The last 4 days of Act 1 (August 19th-22nd) the cap increases to 9,000/day.
It’s a running total and NOT an individual per day cap. The cap per day is set at 4,500.
Also important to note it’s not a hard 4,500. You can go slightly over it each day (depending on the projects you do) from what I’m seeing…BUT if you go over it the previous day, the next days amount will be lower. It balances out in the end, that by August 22nd you can earn a max of 72,000 Blueprints from the Project Board.
Once you clear the Prize Track the Cap is Lifted. So you’ll be able to earn loads of Blueprints to get Loads of Tracks. See below for more info on bonus tracks.
So from the project board you’ll earn 72,000 blueprints.
Of course 72,000 isn’t enough to unlock all of the prizes, as you’ll need 89,350 to get to Ray Patterson. So let’s take a look at some other Blueprint earning ways…
We’ll stay within the Project Board for the moment, as there are Daily Bonuses awarded each day you complete a set number of Projects at the Board. Here’s a look at those bonuses (and the tasks needed to earn it):
| Date | Bonus Payout | # of Projects Required |
| 8/11 | 1200 | 2 |
| 8/12 | 1200 | 2 |
| 8/13 | 1,200 | 2 |
| 8/14 | 1,800 | 3 |
| 8/15 | 1,200 | 2 |
| 8/16 | 1,800 | 3 |
| 8/17 | 2,400 | 4 |
| 8/18 | 1,200 | 2 |
| 8/19 | 1,800 | 3 |
| 8/20 | 1,800 | 3 |
| 8/21 | 1,200 | 2 |
| 8/22 | 3,000 | 5 |
So if you make all the bonuses throughout Act 1 you’ll earn an additional 19,800 Blueprints.
So right there just between the Project Board Projects and the bonuses you’re at 91,800 Blueprints…and boom you’ve earned all the prizes!
BUT knowing that you earn extra track pieces AFTER you clear the Prizes it’s certainly worth it to keep going. Plus if you decide you want to enjoy the last couple of weeks of August and miss a day or two of bonuses…let’s take a look at some of the other ways to earn Blueprints.
Neighbor Actions
You’ll earn Blueprints for Dumping Garbage on your Neighbors. And not just one or two, you’ll earn SIX blueprints/tap when you dump Garbage in your Neighbor’s town. So if you do 3taps/neighbor that’s 18 blueprints/town.
Now like most events, you will get capped on Neighbor Actions that can earn Blueprints/day. The cap for this event is 90 Actions (or 30 neighbors if you do 3 taps/town) per day.
So let’s breakdown the math….6 blueprints/action x 90 actions per day = 540 Blueprints/day.
Act 1 runs from 8/11-8/22 so 12 days of neighbor actions (at best). 540 actions/day x 12 days= 6,480 Blueprints from neighbor actions
Note: This will double to 12,960 if you purchased the Dumping Permit on the first day (the 11th).
So we’re at an additional 6,480 Blueprints from Neighbor Actions.
You’ll also earn an additional 1 Blueprint/building cleared in your own town, when neighbors dump garbage. I didn’t factor this into math because there are too many variables for it. It’s not a set number since it’s dependent on your neighbor dumping in your town and out of your control. So view those Blueprints from clearing buildings as a bonus.
And finally…
Possum Clearing
Possum’s start appearing in your game once you unlock the Monorail Station. To clear a possum all you do is tap on it, and each one will pay out 10 Blueprints.
Initially they’ll spawn in your town at a rate of 8 every 4hours. So that’s 80 Blueprints/4hrs from Possumes. So I always say if you get into your game every 4hrs while you’re awake, you can earn a ton. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think most of us can get into our games at least once every 4hrs to clear the possums (note: they don’t just appear, you have to tap the station to release them. You’ll see a possum icon floating over it when they’re ready). A general schedule is something like:
7am
11am
3pm
7pm
So at least 4 times clearing them per day, at 80 Blueprints/clearing you’re looking at 320 Blueprints/day from Possums at the most basic point. (there will be some of you that’ll get on 5-6 times/day to clear them…)
BUT the cool thing about this Event is the more track pieces you unlock, the more possums you’ll get/4hrs. BUT it does take a few pieces for the Possums to start increasing. Here’s what I’ve seen so far:
Station-11 Pieces- 8 Possums
12pieces-23pieces- 9 Possums
24pieces- 10 Possums (this is how many you’ll have once you max out the prize track)
So it looks like it increases by 1 every 12 tracks you put down. So there’s some potential to earn a bunch of extra possums/day (and that’ll help out when Act 2 and Act 3 hit). The more tracks you have, the more possums you’ll get.
So what happens when you unlock all the prizes? Is there incentive to continue getting blueprints? Well yes there is. You’ll earn MORE Monorail tracks! Here’s the details from Bunny on the Track Bonus….
AHEAD OF THE TRACK BONUS
This time around, the “Bonus” is a bit different. For every X amount of Blueprints beyond 89350 you earn, you will be able to get additional pieces of Tracks for your Monorail.
Word of caution on this one, if you are NOT in your town when you hit the bonus, any additional Blueprints collected may not count towards the Bonus (they will only add to your main total). So be careful. If you are close, you may want to go back to your Springfield just before you hit it. This is due to once it triggers the final prize, it will take a few minutes to go through all the pop ups for it. This causes the Bonus Round Pop Up to delay as you tap through them. That means any additional beyond the 89350 earned when you hit it will NOT count to the Ahead of the Track Bonus until you see the Pop Up. For instance if you earn 89450, the extra 100 will go to your total, but nothing will add to the Bonus until Ahead of the Track Bonus pops up. So the counts may be slightly off.
This is what I saw in my game…
Once you hit your 89350, you will see the Tap Finger pointing at your Task Menu towards a Track Piece Icon.
Tapping on the Track Piece Icon will then pop up the Ahead of the Track Bonus. You will see what the Current Amount of Additional Blueprints are required in order for you to earn ONE additional Piece of Rail Track to your game.
It seems this just keeps going and going and going. Each time adding more to the Required additional Blueprints to earn.
For instance
+1000
+2000
+3000
+4000
+5000
I am currently at earn +5000 more Blueprints.
Each time it only rewarded me the ONE piece of Rail Track when I hit the Required amount of Blueprints. It automatically jumped to the next amount as soon as I got the Track Piece Pop Up.
So no Bonus Donuts, but instead lots more Tracks.
So let’s sum it all up with a look at the potential Blueprints you can earn for Act 1:
Project Board- 72,000 blueprints.
Project Board Bonus- 19,800 blueprints
Neighbor Actions- 6,480 blueprints (if started collecting from neighbors on 8/11) Double that if you’ve had the Permit since 8/11.
Possums- 3,520/act 1 Blueprints, at the basic 8 Possums/4hrs..and if you clear them at least 4times/day. And assuming you clear it for 11 days (from the 12th-22nd)
For a total of 101,800. BUT remember, once you clear the Prizes the cap is completely lifted on the Project Board. So you should have no problem exceeding 101,000 and earning loads of bonus tracks!
And that my friends sums up this Monorail Math Post!
What are your thoughts on the math of this event? How are you doing with your Blueprint count so far? Are you visiting all your neighbors daily? Clearing those possums? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
I think you forgot about Little Lisa’s recycle plant. Gives you 350blueprints/4 hours, I think.
However, its premium 🙁
Didn’t forget. Didn’t include it because it’s premium. Most players won’t buy it so this post is the freemium way…
Thanks for mentioning the rate. I have been waiting to see it for a while. If one buys the plant today, that would result in 14000 blueprints at five harvests a day or roughly an extra almost 55 pieces of track this act (11200 for 4 harvests a day or a little more than 4 pieces of track). If purchased immediately and there was an instant build, then 21000 blueprints or 6 pieces at 5 harvests a day. Presumably it will continue contributing the next two acts and if it is at the same rate, then a total of 18 pieces of extra track max. 220 donuts for 18 pieces of track plus an ugly building (in my opinion, obviously) is too many donuts, esp. if the pieces are those 2 square variants.
Did the Bonus donut task vanish for you too?
And did anyone find donuts by dumping garbage onto friends houses? Because I didn’t since the event started. Thank you for your help 🙂
I fell like I’m in good shape! 24,189 blueprints. That’s over a quarter of blueprints earned and we’re not quite in quarter through the first act yet. Still, I’m gonna keep ferociously tapping until I know the goal has been attained.
your are very good at your maths.go to the top of class.
To my lovely and dear neighbours,
I have been playing TSTO for some time now. The Easter Event of 2014 already ticked me off as I could not get all items (but at least my Honeymoon was great). Now EA brought Springfield Heights and this other terrible event which more or less requires one to play the whole day; the 4 hour jobs were a pretty difficult when you have a day job, but at least I got everything done (without it impacting my work). I am unsure what EA thought when they decided to have 30, 60, 90, 120 second jobs. For a non timed event (Springfield Heights) maybe, but they probably got hit in the head.
What I am saying is, this is the cure I probably needed! Thank you for be such awesome neighbours and your support the past years!!
I love the opossums.My favorite gross thing about the event. Are people freaking out about the trash/stink lines on their Springfields? It seems a lot like graffiti. Personally I don’t care about it but I know some do.
So…I really am the only one who strongly dislikes this event? The monorail just doesn’t go. Especially this late into game development. I’m all about aesthetics and let’s face it, if you’re a long time player and have your town built your monorail is on the outside plots of land. I just can’t justify nuking my town to build around this one item.
Storage for me as soon as the event is over.
i’m not thrilled with this event, mainly due to the ridiculous cap restrictions, but i LOVE the addition of the monorail. it actually turned out better than i expected it would, and being able to place the tracks on roads/curbs/rivers allows you to easily integrate the monorail into your existing design, with a few adjustments here and there. so contrary to what you stated, the monorail goes just fine, regardless of how built out your town is. if you were truly all about aesthetics, you’d embrace the challenge and figure out a way to accommodate it in your town… and make it look good. 🚄
I have no monorail update yet. I’ve lgged out and dnr everything I can. I’m falling behind and an stuck doing the Springfield heights update still what gives???
You have to download the update from your app store
Thank you. I’m feeling a little thwarted at this point because I’m full up and Cobb’s out so it seemed the pacing might be off but it’s quite good to know that this is affecting everyone more or less evenly.
Been a long day amy mind is muddled.
What is meant by “clear the PRIZE TRACK” ?
Thanks
Win all the prizes. (ie unlock Ray Patterson)
I feel like this is the one event where there shouldn’t be a cap, it’s not bonuts, its monorail tracks which we need for our monorails! 🙂
And can we stick to Bunny’s calendar with this cap?
It’ll be hard with the cap. Early on you’ll be behind..but you’ll catch up and jump ahead quickly
Yeah, but the more track you get now, the fewer donuts you’re likely to spend to buy track later, after the event. (I’m just guessing that they’ll be available for purchase after the event, but I’d be really shocked if I’m wrong.) So, by limiting you on tracks now, they’re assuring themselves of more purchases later.
Great post, thanks. There is also one more way to earn blueprints, through daily play combo( 5th day prize is 5000 blueprints)
Ah i forgot about that!
Yep, a nice surprise this morning! Meant I had a chance to unlock a prize today.
Is anyone else’s blue print Project thing glitching? The second box is offering more blue prints than the third one. Anyone else?
Because it’s more expensive and you bought more.
No glitch – imagine these rewards as wheels in slot machine – there are different payouts and different requirements on each picture. They go from lowest to highest, when you hit the highest, the wheel returns to the lowest. You just have higher payout (+ material requirement) on second box (wheel) when third has already reset to lowest value.
Does anyone know if the track-bonus possums is per 12 tracks UNLOCKED or PLACED?
In other words, I have 12 bendy tracks in my inventory that I haven’t placed yet. Am I getting the possum bonus?
Placed. I had them sitting in my inventory, didn’t impact the count until i placed them in town.
Thanks for the info, just what I needed. I am usually pretty good at sorting this out but with this one I got confused and as time runs fast one has to sort it quick. I am well on track for some extra rails I hope. Today I should get level 4 prize.
Thanks again and…. Happy Birthday!
🙂
This post is right up my alley (I teach high school math, so I was anxiously waiting to see the numbers on this). I feel a lot better about the cap now after seeing it all worked out. I knew I was on pace compared to my average neighbors but couldn’t help but worry about falling behind. Thanks for all your hard work!!
I entered the contest but I didn’t get an email yet.
Most likely that means you didn’t win…we emailed all the winners to verify before posting here.
My project board just became active again after maxing out and it doesn’t appear to be capping me right now
lucky you… mine became active again yesterday after it maxed out, but it maxed out again after i completed 3 tasks for the daily a second time. would love to avoid the cap somehow……….
I wonder what will happen on that day with a 4500 cap, but you have to do 4 projets to get the bonus. It is often possible to reach 4500 blueprints already after 2 or 3 projects if you choose the big ones. Will the game let you continue until you have completed the daily challenge or will you miss out on the bonus that day if you are not careful?
You’ll have to do small ones…that’s why i posted the number of required projects too so you can be more conscience of it. You’ve really got to watch what you’re doing for those higher amounts…
The small ones are better anyway guys. Given you can easily make enough resources for projects due to the caps, the small projects are better because they give u donuts
Only 6. 6 is the max on donuts…so 3 times through the questline. So it really doesn’t matter too much which ones you choose with regards to donuts.
D’oh. I was going to get soooooo many donuts. Oh well.
Another great info filled post. Maths! A long time ago math was my best subject. Some might say my only good subject. Me fail English? Yes and often. But as I said that was a long time ago. I’ll leave the math for others nowadays. Short story long (to borrow a phrase) this time around I’m just going to play and have fun. I’ll hit my cap and reload for the next day then I’ll send everybody on longer tasks or maybe do some SH work but not going to worry about numbers and just enjoy the ride. 😀
I’m doing the same – certainly not stressing for act 1. It helps that the allowance rolls over and act 1 ends on a weekend. If I’m behind, I’ll just blitz it next weekend and hopefully catch up. Enjoyin’ the ride!
You also get 5000 blueprints now every 7 days instead of the mystery box. Got my 5k today and will get another 5k before Act 1 ends, so got luck with the timing.
Oops…every 5 days i mean. 🙂
When are we going to find out the winners from the keyword contest?
When those that I contacted email me back. Can’t post til ALL Winners are verified legally. 😉
Did y’all here that?? Email Bunny back! Now! My patience (patients) is wearing thin! Lol in all seriousness though I’m very excited to see who won!!
19/20 Responses. Just. One. More. 😉
I’ve been checking my email daily since the contest. Maybe the email is hiding from me. Am I the 20th winner?? If not, can I be??? Lol
Lol. Nope and nope. Gotta do it legally. 😉
Not to mention… I think you already won before. 😉
Shucks guess that means I didn’t win, just checked my email and nothing 🙁 Hope it was noticed that my email is .ca and not .com though, that could make a difference… 😀
*quietly lets everyone know that I actually DO know how to spell hear and tiptoes away*
“If you have won a prize from Addicts in the past 90 days, you are not eligible for this contest.”
I won a lego flanders 7 months ago, which is way past the 90 days stated in the rules. So, don’t count me out of the next contest. I am officially eligible, lol. I hope the next one is a designing contest, there is so much new game content to show off.
“Stupid flanders!”
I actually like the little lego flanders, we are both left handed, lol.
Thank you Addicts,
Happy tapping!
Winner 20 should be disqualified
Thanks for making this very clear to understand. I hope I can get loads of tracks!
Ok..this makes me feel a lot better lol. I’ll definitely get Ray and probably a few extra pieces, but I just really want Ray!
Under -Possum Clearing – section you said:
” So I always say if you get into your game every 4hrs while you’re awake, you can earn a ton. ”
So that means if I get into my game every 4hrs while ASLEEP – I won’t earn a ton? :p
eh, who needs 8 hours of sleep anyway?… Now, where was I and why am I covered in Cake??
lol you probably would sleep tap.. 😉
The other morning I woke up and got to tapping and sent my characters off for their morning chores when I apparently nodded off. I woke up a bit later and my iPad wasn’t on the bed nor on the floor. I looked over and it was still sitting on the shelf, where it had been since I placed it there the night before. Yep, sleep/dream tapping can and does happen lol
lol i’ve falling asleep tapping..and woken up to a dead phone. Or to a husband laughing at me 😉
When you say “loads more tracks” what are we talking about? 20 more? 30 more?
That is up to YOU and just how many more you get. 😉
Perhaps say “miles and miles of tracks”… lol
One other source of blueprints is every 5 days instead of getting cash from the daily bonus, you get 5000 blueprints
Glad to hear about the bonus tracks. Trying my best to have as much as possible. Best.Event.Ever!
There is also the daily bonus that adds 5,000 blueprints on the 5th day. This should add another 10,000 total.
Ah, you guys are amazing!
Thanks for the clarity!!!!
This post makes me feel better about it all. I was a bit harsh earlier today, but you helped me to better understand what’s going on with the math à la Monorail.
Thank you; it’s appreciated!