Hello there TSTO Agents…
Should you choose to accept this mission, you will be honored in ways that not only give you rewards worthy of your talents and dedication, but the well-deserved pride in taking on a job that seems tough to most, but can only be accomplished by someone of your amazing intelligence, fortitude and cunning.
You will be required to use every ounce of your power of reasoning to complete all of the tasks in this mission.
OR…you could just follow along below to get the math that will make this job so simple, that even a child with good math skills, or a Homer with a daughter with good math skills could complete it.
Here are the details…
First…and most important…you will need to be able to tell time. Or have access to a device that allows you to set a timer every 4 hours to remind you to log in, and “take care of business.”
Of course…”take care of business” is Spy Code for wiping out tons of secret intruders in our town. No wall, no legislation or vigilante group can do what you can with your own fleshy fingers. Because, the power of the “Tap” is the only thing that will rid your Springfield of spies, both seen, and unseen.
So…the FIRST order of the day, is to log in every 4 hours, and tap like crazy in the most critical places you need to tap…namely, where the bad guys are.
As you may have found out by now…the primary rewards you are seeking are Cheap Intel 
and Schematics 
(which are kind of spy maps, for those of you who are uninitiated in the ways of spying.
The Cheap Intel are used to move you along the main Prize Wheel (and yes, the numbers may seem daunting to a Rookie…)
And the Schematics are used for crafting prizes in the Hidden Research Facility (think “M” in the Bond Movies)…this is where you can buy your spy stuff…and additional buildings.
GET ONE THING STRAIGHT…before we start on the Math Part. These “Missions” are always easier than they seem at first. Know that particularly with the Crafting bit, and collecting Schematics, it is going to feel slow at first. But, like other “missions” the crafting part is the same through ALL THREE ACTS (no time limit between Acts)…and it will become EAsier to gather Schematics as the game progresses into Acts II and III. For the time being…know that you mostly earn Schematics by completing Dossiers (quests) in the Situation Room...and by getting them by tapping the Spies in your town, where they are awarded randomly. Just collect ’em as you get ’em…and be patient.
The primary area of interest in this “Mission” will be earning everything being offered in the Prize Track for Secret Agents. The Calendar for “staying on track” is HERE
I know…HOLYFREAKINSHIRT! 5,615 Per Day seems like a LOT of tapping to reach the daily goals. But, like I said…(and have with other updates), the MAGIC NUMBER for making this work is, “4.” (Not sure why I added the rabbit ears on the 4…but I guess it makes it look more mysterious and code-like).
Log in EVERY 4 Hours (within reason) and do two very important things…(OK…Two Important Things and One Mostly Important Thing).
#1… Go to the Agency Headquarters and Clear/Start every task that is available to play.
Every character that is able to earn (this will vary by the number of characters you have eligible to play) will earn 40 Intel every 4 hours. HQ- Will vary depending on how many characters you have. Most 800/4hrs (IF you purchase the Camera Hat Homer skin (which will pay 60/4hrs) and Mastermind Hank (80/4hrs). 280/4hrs if you only have freemium characters
Freemium earn 40/4hrs.- you can send – Homer, Apu, Cletus, Krusty, Skinner, Marge & Moe-
Premium earn 60/4hrs and include: Rex Banner, Tatum, Lurleen, Duffman, McBain, Gabbo, Arthur & Lucious, & Camera Hat Homer.
“Super Premium” earn 80/4hrs only consists of Mastermind Hank.
So…this is one time when the Premium/GottaHave’mALL folks do get a reward for their spending! But…even the lowliest of the Freemium players can earn 280 per hour…4-5 times a day. So, yes, the range is pretty big…and you may have to skip a sleep cycle to stay up with the Premium Players. But, you’re tough…right?
#2 – Go to the Surveillance Post and play the Drone Scan game…tap as many of the Standard and Elite Troops you can in 20 seconds (once the timer goes off). They pay out 10 for every standard guy you tap and 40 for every elite guy you tap.
This is what they look like…(clearly, anyone who doesn’t believe that “size matters” has never seen an Elite Trooper’s gun!).
When you are able to play, the Drone Shows Up Over your Building
Tap the Screen…and you are in for 20 seconds!
BUT HERE’S A TAPPING TIP…Don’t bother to try to identify them as they fly by the screen…it will cost you time and points. Just do what I do…lay your padular device in your lap and tap like crazy…you’ll likely hit a bunch of them. I average between 30-36 a tapping session…so that can earn another 350-500 every four hours.
#2.5B (that looks official, right?), Clear the Men In Tan (MIT…not to be confused with the college) from your town…at LEAST every 4 hours.
They generate at a rate of 1 every 10 minutes. But, you can’t have more than 15 in your town at a time…with 15 in the bank. You earn 12 Cheap Intel (CI…as in CIA without the A…or the EA….clever huh?). So….in the course of 4 hours, you will have 15 if you don’t log in more than 4 hours (because of the limitation) or 24 if you log in to clear a few. As they won’t spawn more than 1/10 minutes…fretting about keeping the town clear is kinda useless. You will receive a message that looks like this when you “Max Out On Men In Tan” (MOOMIT).
So…in short…to get the max number of CI, log in to wipe out the MIT at least every four hours…but at least once randomly at the two hour mark to get those in your bank. You’ll know when you have reached MOOMIT when you get the MOOMIT message (MOOMITM).
Confused yet? Well…nobody ever said spying was easy.
Now…this last part is pretty darned annoying in theory…but I guess seems to be standard for spy agencies all over the world. Namely, spying on your neighbors, while they spy on you. Come on…apparently EVERYBODY does it! They hack and leak and you hack and leak with pretty much everything at your disposal from social media, phones, internet viruses, to phishing email. And TONS of it is from our own government!!! Oh. Wait…are we still talking about TSTO? Hard to tell these days.
So…just like we do with our enemies AND our allies (apparently), we hack them, and they hack us. But, at least with your neighbors, it is all in good fun. (Right Angela?) Wait. Back to the game. It IS FUN in the game!
When you go to a neighbor’s town, and see the open Wifi Signals…Tap them to Earn 4 CI (limit three taps per neighbor…up to 90 actions or 30 neighbors). That’s 360 per day (you are limited to the 90 actions in a 24 hour period).
But, the fun doesn’t stop there! Your neighbors can do the same to you…and you will earn 1 CI (the reward for discovering a hack is far less rewarding than doing the hacking…ask Bernie!). It looks like this…and the “hacker” is revealed. And it doesn’t even take a Congressional committee to do it!! Hardly worth it…but fun to know who your friends/allies/enemies are!
Add to all of this, you get CI for completing tasks during the primary quest…more with your Daily Tasks…and upon completing the FINAL TASK Act I, you get another 500 CI as a bonus! WhooHoo!
So…to RECAP…
The “Mission is 78,610 CI collected over 14 days… that’s 5,615 per day. This Chart will help you figure out how you will do this…
THIS IS BASED ON MY MASTER SPY SCHEDULE of Tapping at 6A, 10A, 2P, 6P, 10P.
(Please don’t hack for donuts…that is bad play!)
Note from Alissa: Hacking Pat’s post for a minute…the Random Daily Quest rewards (because I know many of you will ask) is just an average per day from various things like the Questline and daily tasks. The questline will yield 1600 intel for Act 1 and when Daily Challenges popup that earn intel they payout 1,000 intel at a time. So that 500 Random Daily Quest Rewards is just a rough average of what you’ll get per day with the Daily Challenges and the questline…so don’t panic over not getting 500/day from this in reality. It’ll all even out throughout act 1.
So….Is it EAsy? Noooooooooooo…. But is it doable? YES!
You can DO IT! Because you are tough…and smart…and spies!
Why are schematics so hard to come by? I’ve earned 150 in just over 48 hours of steady game play, my last 20 or so MITs yielded none.
I’m wondering the same thing. I’ve played almost every 4 hours, I cashed in donuts for Hank’s volcano lair, and only crafted one item (that was like 40 schematics). I’m at 17k Intel, but only have 113 schematics…. WTH?
That works out to about 80 per day. 39 remaining days gives a total just over 3100.
Something is muy no bueños.
at this rate no one will get to craft much. after going to the surveillance post and activating it .. got 33 agents and only 1 schematic only 1.. just 1. I won’t even get my daily challenge done that is asking for 40 schematics.
Damn… that’s pretty good! I got a challenge yesterday to collect 40 schematics… 22 hours later and I have exactly 38. So I’m averaging 40 a day, which is rather woeful
A couple of questions about neighbors…
Is the 90 neighbor actions limit reset at the same time each day, or does it depend on when I start doing it each day?
Do neighbors have to be a certain level before they can play this event? That is, are some neighbors no help because they can’t tag back?
Regards
Forgot to say “Great work Patric and Alissa!”. Very timely with the info. I was just asking myself some questions answered in your post.
It’s based on your tapping time (when you started a “fresh” round by tapping the first neighbor for that day), not a preset time.
Well that’s good for me. Around 8am my time I’ll start.
Thanks
So, um… Anyone else suddenly not finding Men in Tan in their town? I rolled my stuff over at noon and tapped them all, and then come back at 4:10 (upon realizing the time) and find there are absolutely none to be found…
Reading through some of the other comments about the event, it might have been that the drone minigame nukes your town of MiT when you play it. A few hours later there was about 4-5 of them running around. Also saw one slip into his underground escape hatch when I was done playing the minigame 2 hours after that.
Good thing I found all the numbers I was looking for. Thanks! (Was looking for spawn rate of MIT)
mastermind hank scorpio gives 80 instead o
What’s the story with the drop package? I tap “view” but nothing happens!?
You probably have everything that they are offering…nothing to show you.
My drone game is centered just south of my mountains where there’s no usable land north. I’ve noticed there are soldiers I can’t see behind both mountains and tall buildings, as when I tap there, I’m clearing soldiers. So just a heads up to tap away if your drone centers on an obstructed area. There are probably more than you think.
After the Drone Scan game completes it annihilates any tan guys in your town. No need to go searching for them after the game ends. All you have to do is play the game every four hours to clear ALL tan guys and get max credit. No search and tap required.
Freemium earn 40/4hrs.- you can send – Homer, Apu, Cletus, Krusty, Skinner, Marge & Moe
Premium earn 60/4hrs. – you can send — Gabbo, Arthur & Lucious
(it does pay to have some Premium Characters)
I’m making benchmarks while logging in 4 times a day / every 4 hours (visiting Neighboreenos is a must to compensate!) 👍
Keep it simple / make it fun (don’t let EA irrigate your game play) 😋
Who is Arthur?
Thank you. Guess I never knew the name of the human.
Excellent post, sorry if off topic… My drone game crashes every time. Only able to tap max 3 or 4 then hangs, game crashes and then when back into the game, have to wait four more hours. So missing out. Any one else the same?
yes it kicks me out of the game, It also does it when a go to a friends town
How old is your device and what kind is it? Some older ones may not be able to handle all the action: eg characters, trains, spies etc.
You could try disconnecting the track from your train stations so they don’t move. That helped me when I had an older iPad…
Regards
Could well be the case, thanks. Coming up to 5years old, time to buy a new one… Seems ok now and then, will persevere.
Anyone else notice the tap radius in Krustyland has increased to match that of the main area of Springfield (which I’ve increased via the IRS building)? Or is it a glitch in my game?
“For the time being…know that you mostly earn Schematics by completing Dossiers (quests) in the Situation Room…”
Patric could you please clarify this statement? The dossier tasks pay intel and xp, plus 1000 bonus intel per day, and a prize after 9 days. I don’t see where the dossiers pay schematics. Alissa also mentioned this in her rundown post. So far the only schematics I have earned were
from a daily challenge.
We’re going off of the info in the game (the popups) but we’re with you, don’t see them either so far:
I can only assume it’ll come into play at some point…or EA really screwed up the wording.
Thanks for clarifying Alissa. Yes, it certainly does say that. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
I’m convinced you could avoid a lot of confusion among tappers if you would revert to the old calendar style where the first day just does not count.
According to your calendar I was way behind yesterday which I found hard to believe. So I looked again today and I had a perfect match which in the end means I will be way ahead if I just keep on doing what I’m doing.
I understand panic will increase website traffic but calendars not worth looking at will in the end reduce reader satisfaction and thus traffic
Um it’s not done to increase website traffic at all. The calendars used to be done by Bunny and now they’re done by Patric. Bunny had a way of doing them and Patric has his own way of doing them. In the end the results are the same…
But definitely not done to increase web traffic…the last thing on my mind is website traffic.
Crack me up!!!!
The suggestion that the calendar change is to draw traffic?
Bwahahaha.
Do you read most of the comments?
More confused and panicky viewers here is not what they want.
The calendar will be up to a day behind if you’re in an earlier time-zone.
The US’s time-zones are much earlier than here in Oz (Australia) as we get the new day before most of the world.
When reading the calendar you need to take that into account.
Do the calendar yourself if you don’t like it, did Patrick or Alissa charged you for it?, NO, do you have to pay for a membership to view all this helpIing posts?, NO, are providing any money to sustain the website?, NO… then limit yourself to write: “THANK YOU ALISSA AND PATRICK” on all your, lock from the inside on your way out…
are you providing*
on all your comments*
some words disappeared when I post, this iPad is going south fast…
Yeah… bite me. Lol!
hahaha
Thanks Patric.
I think you meant “Q” instead of “M”
I think the reason we go the calendars is do people DON’T panic. Sheesh.
sophie has a new 4hr task
I’ve never tried to strategize the game. Tappa tappa tappa
Exactly my “strategy” as well – I play when I can, which is usually under 5 “cycles” a day, but thanks to my being a long time & premium player I have made it through every event in time so far.
And I am guessing that you have to have the Film Set to use McBain?
Nevermind, McBain is the skin that comes with the Film Set for Wolfcastle.
Does anyone think the drop rate of schematics is quite low? In previous events, I always felt like the drop rate was a little light but regular play got you all the items usually quite comfortably. Here it seems very light. Just completed another 4 hour cycle and only accumulated 5-6 schematics.
In the last event I had enough crafting currency to get multiples of everything. I’m currently averaging 40 / day, which means I won’t be able to make even half of the craftables at the current rate. I really hope we get a lot more bonus schematics coming our way, or more ways to earn them. I realise we have 39 days to go, but it’s weird to have such a slow start
No event has had crafting currency start off this slow. In fact as I recall with Destination Springfield they decided they were paying out too much currency and lowered the payout from daily challenges. This time the most we can expect is 30 schematics for daily challenges. A patch is definitely needed otherwise no one is going to get to craft as much multiples as they want to.
SciFi was pretty slow. Most people got ahead of things because of the time glitch. But beyond that it was really slow.
The game kicks me out when I go to a friends town and kicks me out when I start the surveillance mini game. It’s done it since the update
Patric – I think there may have been a small miscalculation, although I may be mistaken.
I think Homer may have been counted twice in the 840. I went to check how much I was missing (all basic characters plus Tatum, Duffman, Gabbo, and Lucious = 520) and couldn’t come up with 840 based on all the Characters that are listed against what I have (+20 for Camera Hat Homer over basic Homer, 180 for other premiums (Rex, Lurleen and McBain) and 80 for “super” premium – I kept coming up 40 short to 800. Unless Homer earns 100 CI per intel job when you have the hat (I wouldn’t know since I don’t have him and don’t really plan on buying him)
Yup,Homer’s counted twice. That’s my mistake, i gave him those numbers, so it’s 800. Post is fixed 🙂
Awesome! Glad I could help, Alissa! 🙂
I’ve noticed that the walkie-talkie & binoculars icon appears at the Agency Headquarters when there’s tasks available for Springfield residents.
However, after I’ve assigned a task to everyone on the agency list, I still see the walkie-talkie/binocular icon bobbing up & down. This only occurs when Mona Simpson is not on a task but the icon vanishes as soon as you give her a task. Any thoughts on this?
Does using the Surveillance Post also clear the MIT? I thought it said that in the tutorial mission, but my event and crafting currencies don’t seem to budge much more than what I win in the Surveillance Post.
“think “M” in the Bond Movies”
I believe you meant to type “Q”, not “M”. Q was the gadget guy.
Quartermaster – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartermaster
Sorry to be a jerk, but it’s surely Q in Bond, rather than M. 😛
I’m getting 9-10 every time I use the drone. Is there a secret on where to place it?
I put it in an open field so I can see the people more clearly so they’re not obstructed by buildings. I usually hit between 28-36 per game.
I use multiple fingers like tappping on a typewriter and usually clear between 30 to 40 each time…admittedly easier on a pad than a phone…
Should be no problem in my A game, where I have lots of premium support for this event and am on the constant four-hour-cycle of purgatory for KEM farming anyway. But in my B game, where I usually only bother with 2 – 3 log-ins per day during events and sometime none at all, this looks pretty tough. Though I have seen EA adjust the payouts as the event progresses to make it EAsier.
Thanks Patric😀. Great detailed information/post. Thank you to all of you here, you do a great job. I’m loving this event. One of my favorites.
I didn’t start getting schematics on tapping the agents till today. I did not get them previously. I wonder if it was a IOS bug?
I got a flurry last night, but hardly any today…doesn’t seem to follow any pattern that I can see. I am on IOS and have gotten a total of 113 since Tuesday at 3pm, but 30 were given right away (don’t remember what for).
So…my actual return is more like 83 schematics in 48 hrs …comes to 1.7/hr or 40/day….oh boy…this is gonna take a while…