Hey Howdy Hey Tappers!
Well the jocks have left, bring on the nerds! It’s time for the Sci-Fi Event! EA teased it a few days ago and now it’s here! So buckle up, hunker down, and get out your app store to download the Sci-Fi Event!
Right now this is live on iOS, Android and Kindle users you know the drill…
Remember this is a APP STORE update. So you’ve got to go into your Google Play, Apple App or Kindle Store to see it. If you don’t see it appear on the “update list” try searching for Tapped Out and see if an update is available. If you STILL don’t see it, try hard closing the store and restarting your device.
Also remember, a few weeks ago we let you know that TSTO was no longer going to be compatible on older devices. So if you’re having issues getting the download to work, or seeing compatibility issues, that could be why. Check out this post for more details.
This will AUTO START for you with some dialogue from Fink and Homer (Lisa too), and you’ll be tasked with building the PolyVac (Free). You’ll then need Homer free for a 6s Task, followed by another 6s task & another 6s task. This will start a little more dialogue and eventually the main event stuff will kick in.
Back with more as I play through it… 🙂
So lots of twists and turns with this one guys. As always the BEST way to figure something out is to play through it. And remember, we’ll have full posts breaking down the ins, outs, ups, downs and what the heck am I doing wrongs as we move through the event. For now let’s quickly talk about the basics.
Act 1 Ends August 30th 7:00 GMT (3am EDT)
Event Ends September 20th
We’ll start with that’s in the store…
LOTS of premium offerings. Here’s a look at what’s available..
Freemium:
Holo-Large Hedge- $1500
Holo-Small Hedge- $500
Premium:
Black Hole- 10 Donuts (will not appear unless you already have the Super Collider)
Soul Extraction Institute- 100 Dounts. Earns $200, 22xp. Comes with Roboburns and Doggie Smithers.
Giant Robot- 75 Donuts. Earns 3% Bonus on all cash and XP
Springfield of Tomorrow Sign- 35 Donuts. Earns 1% Bonus on all cash and XP.
Robot Salvage License- 90 Donuts. Doubles rewards from neighbor Actions (tapping Robots). Does not unlock in store until you’ve unlocked friend actions, see below.
Freebies You’ll Get Via the Questline
PolyVac- Free, instant Build. Unlocks via part 1 of the main Act 1 Questline
Stephen Hawking- Character unlocks for free during Part 1 of the Act 1 Questline.
3D Printer- Free with part 1 of the Build Me A Solid questline. (it’s MASSIVE..9×11). This is where crafting is based out of.
Prizes…
As the normal trend, this event is broken up into Acts. 3 total Acts. For Act 1 you’ll need to collect Dark Matter…
Here are the breakdowns…
Skyberdine Systems- 1600
Future Duff Sign- 6,500
Simpson’s Hover Car- 12,000
Holo-Theater- 18,000
Sgt. Skinner- 24,000
How Do I Earn Dark Matter?
You can earn it by tapping Robots
Each Robot tapped yields 1 .
Here’s a reader tip from Echo006 in the comments on how to collect Robots Faster:
Hey Alissa!
I have found an easy and quick way to find all the robots roaming around your town!
1. Open the 3D Printer Crafting Screen
2. Click the button to level up with robot parts.
3. If you don’t have enough, click “Go to” and you will be sent the closest robot for you to tap!Hope this helps, please share it in the post so people find out about it early so they aren’t frantically searching for robots in their overcrowded towns!😀
And here’s a little video I quickly did demo’ing Echo’s comment, for those who are still confused:
ROBOT SPAWN RATE: Robots Spawn at a rate of 1/3 minutes. You can have a max of 30 in your town at once, with a bank of 50.
Tasks at the PolyVac. Various other Homers can perform tasks there, as well as Frank Grimes. Earns 33 for the Homers (each) and 66 for Frank (if you have him. He is premium).
Questline Completions. You’ll earn 25 for every part of the main questline you complete.
Friend Actions. Once unlocked you’ll earn 2 for every Robot you tap in a friend’s town. (unless you have the Salvage Card, in which case you’ll earn 4. Friend actions will not unlock until you’ve completed Dark Matters Part 7.
Various questline tasks. Various tasks in the questline will have a reward of attached to them. For Example, in What’s the Matter Pt. 2, both Ned and Hawking can earn instead of cash for their tasks.
SciFighter Minigame. Tap as many Robots as you can in 20 seconds and earn as the payout.
Neighbor Actions
You can Tap Robots in Neighbors towns
This unlocks after Dark Matters Part 7. Via Across the Multiverse. And From what I saw Other Springfield Does Not Have Robots to Tap.
You’ll earn 2 for every Robot Tapped in a Friend’s town. They are hard to see…so look closely. Your neighbor DOES NOT have to be at this point in the questline for you to see them in their town.
If you purchase the Salvage License, it’ll earn you 4 for every Robot Tapped in a Friend’s Town. Salvage License will appear in your store after you’ve completed the Across the Multiverse Questline.
New Land!
A new strip of land was added to the far right of our games. It’ll run from the mountain range down. (opposite end of the ocean)
Crafting
So the 3D Printer controls crafting. You’ve got to move through the questline to unlock it, fortunately it unlocks fairly early on.
Similar to the Casino Event you’ve got to unlock Levels to unlock more items to craft.
Crafting Currency for Act 1 
I’ve got to fully play around with crafting to fully breakdown the ins and outs of demoing and what Future Bucks do. Also to breakdown the level requirements. As you’ve guessed, i’ll have a full breakdown post on this…But for now here’s a breakdown of what you can craft at Level 1:
Holo Tulips- 40
Future Street Lamp- 100
Vacation to Venus Sign- 180
Those three are the only three currently unlocked, at Level 1.
SciFighter Mini Game
This is a fun little game to play, and a great way to earn more Dark Matter. Every 4hrs your PolyVac will reset and you can play this mini game. You’ll have to protect the PolyVac from the incoming robots.
So tap as many as you can in 20 seconds to save it.
As you may have guessed…we’ll have a full breakdown on this game in another post. But that’s enough to get you going for now.
Oh and these guys 
are Flash Blubs. You can earn 1/ day via the Power Plant, you’ll get 5 to start via the questline, and you can buy a pack in the store for donuts.
5 Flashes– 15 Donuts
Flashes will kill all of the robots in the area, during the mini game only, when used. A handy tool if you can’t keep up with the incoming Robots.
New Feature
There’s now a “Get Help” Button in our games to directly connect you with EA, should you need help in your game. Just find the Get Help icon (in your Store Menu is the easiest place to find it) and tap it:
And no, this won’t call 9-1-1 for you. So if you’re in an actual emergency….don’t use this feature 😉
This will bring up the EA Help Screen:
And if you hit Contact Us it’ll give you more options for getting in touch with EA:
Neat little feature, so now you don’t have to navigate their website to contact them. 🙂
And that’s it my friends..the full rundown on Act 1 of the Sci-Fi Event!
And before you ask here’s a list of what’s coming…
-Walkthrough Act 1, Turbo Tappin’ Version
-Calendar Act 1
-Should I Buys on all the premium content, even the Robot Card
-Crafting Breakdown
-PolyVac Game Breakdown
-And Much, Much More!
Sit tight, enjoy the game…and we’ll get back to you with more information once we’ve got it ready! 🙂
What are your thoughts on the Sci-Fi Event? Excited to have Stephen Hawking in the game? How about the robot battles? Excited for some futuristic content? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
Perhaps later in the event, a Coder Lisa costume and Conrad the sentient app (both from the episode “The Girl Code”) would make an appearance?
is stephen hawking the first celebrity character in springfield? or second counting matt groening? (just like that “other” game that is chock full of celebrity characters.)
There’s also George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Richard Nixon in the game.
Louis T- maybe The Rook means “living celebrities”….💜X
Oh, that’s possible. Though according to Futurama, Nixon is still alive (at least his head) in a jar somewhere. 😉
He’s alive in the Radioactive Man comics too as part of a shadow conspiracy.
Is it just my game or are some people not collecting dark matter and robot pieces when they visit towns? (Bonus points for people who can go check their games.) It was fine just a few minutes ago, but now (around 6:15 pm EDT) it just gives me cash and xp. I’m holding off on visiting towns now until I figure out what’s going on, but maybe I collected from x amount of towns and can’t do it anymore today?
Sounds like you just reached your limit for the day. Only the first 90 taps earn event currency.
How do I get the tetrahedron that I have been seeing in some friends towns?
It shows up randomly in your town for others to tap…which uscwhatvuiy should do when you see it another town.
For you KEM farmers (myself included) I just noticed that, with this update, the price of a KEM does not increase as you build more. Apologies if this has been pointed out already…
So, I finally caved and bought around 100 KEMs before EA fixes the pricing glitch. Normally, I hate house farming but I’m going to make an exception in this case. Especially, since I’m low on in game cash from donut farming and purchasing land. So, for now, sorry to all my neighbors for the eye sore until I rack enough of what I need😁
Same here. Never did any housing farm or store farms before but donuts been short lately so i wanna try this but it does take a lot time buying and selling every 4 hours
For the KEM farmor any other farming.. do we keep the 1st donut bonus box even if its 1 donut? Or should we spend 50k to try again?
I’ve just been taking whatever I get from the first box.
It takes me 20 KEM to gain a bonus level, which costs $4400 (it may cost you more or less depending on your multiplier) so I can get 12 sets of bonus for the cost of ‘trying again’ once.
With the KEM so cheap, I don’t think it makes much sense to pay for the chance at 1 or 2 extra donuts, when I can guarantee myself at least 12 more donuts (and realistically that will be 24 donuts on average from 12 bonus levels) for the same cost of building more KEMs.
Of course, how much money you have, how much land you have to build KEMs and your guess of how long it will take before EA patches this may affect your decision too, but that’s how I’m playing it.
Thanks for the info! My luck hasnt been good lately and i keep picking the wrong box.. waste 100k each time. That was with regular leveling up.
I have like 20 million saved. Should i buy all the lands and fill it up or just use the 6 or 7 plots of free lands to fill with kem each time.
I admit I’ve gone a little nuts with this glitch – almost to the point where I’m afraid to say how effective this is for fear of EArs listening in 🙂
I’ve cleared tons of land, and am cycling through about 1600 KEMs every four hours to generate about 160 donuts each time…it seems like a lot but at this price that’s only $264K after you sell them back each time.
I don’t think this glitch will last long, so I’m trying to take advantage while I still can. (And remember you want the XP Collider running the whole time to make this truly effective.)
Sounds like a lot of land….
MADCOOL- I had 480 MILLION in game cash and just used rat trap trucks & bloodmobiles with the XP Collider on to get Bonuts. I got an absolute heap. It took a while but I know with even ‘just’ 20 million I wouldn’t have the patience or want to spend the time doing it the K-E-M way. Decide soon tho, because if it’s a glitch EA will fix it soon enough. Enjoy your bounty however you do it😎X
What is KEM? N what do u mean by donut farming? Long time player, first time here
I know there are lots of good posts on this subject that you can search for, but in a nutshell:
You earn a lot of XP for building certain buildings – in this case the Kwik E Mart (KEM) and in the newest update, the price of these buildings has become super-cheap (at least until they patch it!) So if you build a bunch of these buildings, collect the XP and then sell them off right after, you can rack up a lot of experience in a short time, and every million XP gets you a bonus level with bonus donuts, hence the term ‘donut farming’
“KEM” is Kwik-E-Mart. As to the farming part, if you read through the comments, you’ll see it explained in several place recently. The short story is that it involves buying and selling KEMs to earn XP and, ultimately, donuts.
To be honest, I think every new player should take advantage of this glitch. Especially, since they are normally the ones who don’t have a large amount of in game cash saved up to donut farm with rat trap trucks or blood mobiles. It’s a good way to get a few extra sprinkles without breaking the bank while the KEMs glitch lasts.
Wondering what is up with the transportation device? Already owned it, no option to purchase the apparently ‘two new ones’. They appear as already available to me to transport to, click them, pops up saying they are in storage. However they are not in storage to be able to be placed. Any insight or thoughts on this? Am i the only one having this issue?
The optional ones will be offered later in the update.
They’re saying Frank Grimes – good old Grimey! – is only available for the next 12 days, even though he’s a permanent premium character. Is 160 donuts a sale price? I’m almost positive it’s not, but I can’t remember.
(I love having a place where I can ask these questions. You Springfieldianites are the best!)
That seems to be the same price as when Alissa wrote up her SIB article on him, last year: https://tstoaddicts.com/2015/04/09/should-i-spend-donuts-on-grimey-the-forgotten-grave/
Can someone please help me? I keep getting the device full message. I have plenty of space available and yet I’m still getting it. What’s going on?
It depends on the device. You may need to kill an App or two that you don’t use. There are loads of different kinds of memory in each format…so it’s really hard to tell. You should be able to manage your storage through your settings.
How unfortunate that computers are always more complex then the average consumers understanding. It is not our fault that there is constant confusion. Remember your first “blue screen of death” years ago being told that your machine has performed an “illegal operation”? I`m sure many 911 calls were placed because of that, when it was nothing more then one program not talking to another because of something simple. Even today simple weekly maintenance of clearing the cache on some apps that don`t need it, restarting your phone once a week or so, reinstalling just because… makes all the difference in the world for a crash free experience. The average consumer does not take the time to understand the complexities of their device, nor should they have to. Today with self-driving cars and rockets that land themselves on small floating platforms, astonishing pictures from Pluto and beyond and robots taking over our lives, lets hope someday soon we can have a device that takes care of us instead of us having to take care of it. For everyone experiencing crashes, lags, stutters and freezes, it is not your fault… We are all still waiting for THEM to solve it, because you shouldn`t have to… Never the less, what an amazing time we live in! Neighbor visiting problems or not….
I have an iPad with the latest version of iOS. I took down my mayhem code, deleted it, reinstalled it and everything’s fine, at least for now. Having an origin account is also extremely useful, as it helps save all your progress.
Sometimes, when that happens, the best thing to do is to uninstall TSTO altogether and then do a reinstall. I think it helps clear out some of the cache of old stuff for the game that you don’t need anymore.
I have an Android-device but I’m sure Apple devices are little to no different in this regard: Cache… The cache is a plague, it’s a little bit of space that tends to grow over time saving “useful data” for programs – most of which is completely pointless and never used. The cache tends to get full and also choke the rest of the free space. The solution is emptying out your cache and most – if not all – of your “device full” messages will disappear! Google it for instructions, hope that helps a little! 🙂
No cache problems with my iPadAir2 and my iPhoneSE. Even my old trusty iPad2 keeps solidering on with TSTO 🙂
How do you clear the cache on the iPad? I havent been able to figure it out…
Just copy/paste the exact question you just asked me: “How do you clear the cache on the iPad?” into Google and it’ll show you about half a dozen videos and countless tutorials around the web! 🙂
Oh man, I built so many KEMs that my game keeps crashing, and I haven’t even started to harvest them yet! Gonna have to tone it down a bit.
Crashing? Dang… that’s got to be a lot of buildings. Personally, my own Springfield is perfectly stable with a farm of 1,000 purple houses — in addition to all the other decorations, trees, buildings, etc. that come from playing this game for nearly two years.
If you really want to go down this path, you might consider just storing some of your non-revenue generating decos and such. Decorating is fun and all, but if you’re trying to farm hundreds of new buildings, then you’ll probably be more successful by playing an otherwise sparse Springfield. (Obviously, you also shouldn’t store any of your bonus enhancing decos, as they contribute to your farming revenue. … and don’t forget about the hidden XP bonuses on the Springfield Heights buildings!)
Naw, my town is all business: Just enough decos to max my Conformity bonus, and everything else is earning or providing bonuses. It ain’t pretty, but it brings home the bacon!
And it’s only 460 KEMs: My device is probably just too old.
Holy cow! That’s a lot at one time. I usually do approx 30-70 at a time & let them build. Of course it depends on how busy my day gets. I try to build more each time I harvest & it doesn’t take long to get a nice stash saved up. 😎 RachelS
I’m curious…if you’ve chose to forgo design in favor of turning your town into a big donut factory, then what’s the point of buying stuff with those donuts, if you’re not going to use the stuff to make your town look more interesting? I mean, characters are one thing, but building and decorations and such are only worth spending donuts on if you’re going to use them to design your town with (IMNSHO).
I’m not trying to say that you’re doing anything “wrong” – I mean, this is definitely a “whatever floats your boat” kind of game – but I’m really curious as to how you look at this.
I can’t speak for all freemium donut farmers, obviously… but my original theory on this was: focus on farming until I’ve bought everything that I actually want, and then refocus on decorating. That is to say, eventually I would be dumping my farm into the inventory — possibly by nuking, though it pains me greatly to even contemplate that — and redecorating the whole kibosh.
The problem with this theory is that EA keeps releasing tons of cool new stuff with each event, which makes it nigh impossible to ever get ahead of the curve and buy up *all* of the premium content that I’ve been coveting. Of course, that’s entirely by design, because EA wants to convert all of us freemium players into paying customers… so in order to remain a freemium player, and still “buy” the stuff I want, it’s looking increasingly like I’ll just have to keep farming until the world stops spinning. 😉
All of that said, though… I’m just not sure that I could bring myself to farm large quantities of Quik-E-Marts. Can you imagine turning on the XP Collider, and then abruptly feeling obligated to tap that farm every three minutes for hours on end, in order to maximize the revenue? Or worse, just imagine the nightmare scenario: having a huge farm of QEMs, such that it takes you three or more minutes to cycle through them all… meaning that you’re literally *constantly tapping*?? Yeeeeaaaaah… NO. I do enjoy the game, but I’m not willing to commit *that* much of my life to it. 🙂
What is a KEM?
Kwik-E-Mart
are robo burns and smithers unique playable characters(Indiividuals and not skins)?
Are they useful in the event?
Yes to both
And quite funny 😀
darn.. I guess I don’t have the super collider! That’s why I dont see the black hole!
Echo006 – thanks for the tip!! I did find robots in mu “Other Springfield”. Maybe it is on a different string than yours.
I dont have the option to purchase the ‘Black Hole’. It’s not in my store 🙁
Anyone else have the same concern? I did not get this before the event, so its not in my inventory.
The black hole only appears after you have the Springfield Supercollider. It comes with one…and then you can buy more after you have it. At least…that is what seems to be the case.
Ya, you are right. I thought I had it.. but it turns out I don’t! aww shucks. I actually wanted the Black hole.. it looks really neat. something different for my town at least. Oh well back to my crafting now to level up!
I can’t find the black hole in store? Can someone help me?
It’s not available unless you have the Super Collider
I got a second Black Hole for FREE 🙂
Up above, you said someone wrote an easy way to get robot parts, well on number 3, they say to click “Go to” and you will be sent the closest robot for you to tap…I can’t find “Go to” anywhere, am I not looking right?
You’ve got to go into your crafting section…and where it says level up, as long as you don’t have enough robot parts to do it…tap that
Thank you for that…although mine doesn’t say “Go to,” I still found it. Thanks again
Good update. Has anyone else noticed that Maggie’s hide-and-seek game seems to be fixed? Previously, the Maggie animation over the Playdough Factory would freeze up temporarily, and then I’d have to wait an extra minute or two after the audible chimes before the corresponding toy block countdown started on-screen, which then allowed me start looking for her; after the update, the animation, chimes and toy block countdown are all entirely back to normal.
As part of the update, all Kwik-E-Marts now cost $220 no matter how many you have (they also look a little different, too). I wonder how this effects KEM farming strategy? (something I was saving up money and about to start toying with)
It’s a glitch i’m sure…
Mine looks weird, too. I’d show you, but I don’t know how to upload a photo into comments. Its boxier and darker, and WAY harder to tap.
Well, I buying a lot of them for farming, that’s sure.
How do I earn robot parts??
By tapping Robots
😂😂😂😂😂😂😭😭😭😭😭😭. Early morning chuckle. Thank you😎…..💜X
Teleporters alpha and omega now have options to teleport to teleporters zeta and theta, so I guess it’s safe to say that more teleporters will hit the store at some point during the event.
NITRAMZ- I also noticed on the image that EA released too soon that the word ‘teleporter’ could just about be read in the background, so I guessed we’d probably get more or a re- release. I can’t wait for them. My town is a sprawling monster now😎….💜X
you get a free black hole from the super collider when Bart blocks the loo. I’ve allready got one from the event ages ago when the supercollider first came out. so I’ve not got 2 free black holes
Frink is missing from my store so I can’t purchase him. Did this just happen with the update?
That seems to be the question of the day… It looks like he will be reintroduced in some way in this update, so if you didn’t have him already, he was pulled. But, that is mere conjecture at this point.
How do you start ‘A Matter of Density Pt.1’, everyone in my house has it except for me?
You need the Super Collider
Is the Super Collider the same things as the XP Collider?
Nope it’s this one:
https://tstoaddicts.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/supercollider_menu.png
I had a black hole already and when I went to pull it out and plac it, I could no longer find it on my inventory.
Did you search the whole list? I had to go ALLL the way to the end of decorations to find mine.
checked again. still nothing. does it have any help with this update as far as bonus or anything?
I did ‘mislay’ mine as well, but when I started pt. 2 of the quest line, Lenny found it for me – walked right up to it and jumped in 🙂
If it is somewhere in your Springfield, and not it storage, that might work for you too.
What are the Future Bucks for?
Working on the crafting post. But it’s part of crafting..
I have a daily task to buy something using Future Bucks but when I go to the crafting section, I don’t know how to do that. Any advice? How does future bucks work?
Working on the crafting post…you can’t do it yet. Just leave the task for now, or skip it.
After the part of the storyline that has “ROBOTS ATTACK!” and when you see the event deadline for the first time, my IPad4 running the latest IOS (9.3.4), crashed and the app does not work.
I cleared my recently played history, tapped on Tapped Out again and it starts up the same part of the storyline again, therefore the glitch can’t be jumped over.
My system should not be affected by the new update because that is a software issue, not a hardware issue.
Also I have 6.3 GB of space left so a space issue should not be it either.
I would try a full uninstall and reinstall if it keeps happening at that spot. I know the game is crashing a lot right now with the event, but usually you can get back in and move past the spot. So it’s likely you just need a fresh install.
Looks like just turning off my IPad and turning it on again did the trick.
However, every time I click on this act’s prizes, the app glitches out.
Hopefully EA fix this very soon.
Having a seniors moment, i dont understand using the flash in the mini game, how do i use the flash before the robots get to destroy during the SciFighter .
Thanks
Deb
tap the camera in the top right corner when you’re in the game.
I got a quest to buy all demos of any item and use future bucks to get items…huh? Help 😢
Post is coming. I have to figure it out myself lol