As promised, I have now completed a week of KEM farming, doing my best to follow Safi’s system…which you can find here.
I begin, by once again stating that I have never really been a donut farmer of any sort, whether it be KEMs or Vehicles (Rat Trap Trucks/Bloodmobiles). I just never thought it was worth the grind, when you consider the value of the time spent. As I have written about in the past, Life Currency (time) is more valuable than almost anything, especially at my advancing age. And even in my current state of semi-semi-semi retirement (I would retire if I could, and didn’t have another wedding to pay for in February…but still find enough time to golf and tap), I find that I need to affix SOME monetary value on time spent grinding…whether it is for Bonuts (bonus donuts) or the “incredible prizes” offered during the latest TSTO events. (spoken with tongue planted firmly in cheek).
I have to admit…I was surprised by the results. I was equally surprised by how the “new normal” has changed my view on what the term “grinding” means.
In the end…there is a recent change in the game, that may make Donut Farming a thing of the past…or at least not as attractive.
And that thing is??
Railyard Farming (RF).
If…and I say if, (because there is no way to know at this point if the change is permanent), the Railyard has turned into a “Perpetual Donut Factory,” and, it may very well rival Donut farming for ROTT (Return On Tapping Time).
STOP!!!!!!! All of you hardcore donut farmers who are going to stop reading right here, to write some prolonged explanation of why “Donut Farming Rocks!!”…please don’t! There are several qualifiers to this “maybe,” and in the end, I am likely going to still be a fan of “Team Safi” who uses DF in a practical, measured way.
I’ll break down the method…and the results…in as clinical (unemotional and unbiased) way as I can.
IMPORTANT….FIRST OF ALL…This article is meant for someone who is new, or relatively new to Donut Farming. If you are already at “Level 939+” and have hundreds, if not thousands in Bonus % Multipliers… good for you. You are a TSTO God. Yay. We get it. You are obsessed…and have been obsessed for months, if not years. Whoop. Tee. Do! Strike up the band! Congrats!
This is about starting the process now…perhaps late in the game…and if it is worth the trouble and time to do so. Starting this process at level in the low 200s of level-dom, I am a good Base-Line Test Case.
****When I started this experiment…
I had 232 donuts in reserve.
My Bonus % was at 246%
I had 14,400,026 in game cash.
The BASICS…
Breaking down the “best methods” for DF, you need to start with a reasonable amount of cash. As in a few million at the very least. I say this, because unless you are fine with a very measured, slow, and perpetual grinding reality, you will want to generate more than a couple of donuts every 4 hours (the minimum time it takes to run a full cycle of Kwik-E-Mart farming/planting/harvesting).
In my case…I actually started with a little over 14 million in cash. This was reduced almost immediately to a little more than 10 million, because I had to buy some land, on which to farm, so I could keep the clutter on the periphery of my Springfield. You’ll want to do this for a couple of reasons. First, because DF is butt-ugly…but more important, managing KEMs (placing, harvesting) is best done in a controlled area, away from stuff you actually like.
Safi’s amazing charts lay out the return on investment…and the graduated cost of each KEM. But, for the purposes of time and space here, they start at 220 per KEM, and quickly move up to 14,400 a piece. So yes…placing 50-70 of them will cost you a ton of cash.
Using the XP Collider to Maximize Your Return is a must! However…as you will find out very quickly, it is also an immediate “Donut Deficit” in regards to your final Net Donut Profic (NDP).
In my case, I spent 20 donuts for a week’s worth of boosting. DD-20.
YOUR % MULTIPLIERS COUNT! But there is a cost…
It was clear right from the start, that at just 246% multiplier factor, I wasn’t going to maximize my return. But, the CATCH-22 to increase your multiplier, is that you need to SPEND DONUTS to buy things that earn multipliers. Yes, there are a handful of hidden “freebies” (we’ll cover that in another post), but for the most part, only PREMIUM items give you enough bump, to be worthwhile. However, trying to boost your multiplier, while you are farming, is a fool’s game…(it costs you more donuts than you will earn).
HOWEVER…if you are like me, you may have a ton of Bonus hidden in storage. I went through every item in my storage, and hit the little “Info” tab, where I was surprised to find a good number of items that earned Bonus %, that I had deemed too ugly or repetitive to put into my town. Satan’s Anvil…ugly…huge…but worth 5% bonus! Who knew? (Satan????)
After a half hour of digging and placing, I was able to increase my percentage all the way up to 276.5%. That actually made the difference between earning 4 donuts per cycle and 5 donuts per cycle. And, the bonus is permanent. So…all is good. I’ll get back to “Buying Bonus” in the recap.
My Method…
In my first KEM Crop/Harvest, before I realized that I had more % hiding in the attic, I placed 60 KEMs, and got 4 donuts in return, upon harvest. Remember, part of the process is selling back the KEMs after you harvest the XP/Cash. The resale value of KEM is the same as all other items, 25% of the purchase price. So if you spend $100,000 on KEM farming, you’ll get $25,000 when you sell them all back. Even after selling back all 60, I ended up with a Net Cash Loss of around $275,000.
Here is Safi’s Chart for the Cost of KEMs
The key figure here, is that for the first 25, you are going to spend
$75, 770 in cash. However, the NEXT 25 will cost you, 360,000. The same for every 25 after than. So…in my case, in order to get at LEAST 5 donuts per cycle (one every 12 KEMs harvested), I needed to spend $579,770 in game cash.
To try and offset that…I started sending ALL of my Springfielders on a 4-hour task (with a handful at 8, because they don’t have 4-hour), and collecting the cash/XP when I cleared them all every 4 hours. I was able to reduce my Net Cash Loss every cycle, to just a little over $234,000. In other words…I was spending at a rate of around $47,000 PER DONUT.
That’s OK if you have a ton of cash… Because, let’s be honest… Other than Land, there is almost NO OTHER USE FOR GAME CASH these days. EA has made it a “cashless society” except that you need cash to buy KEMs, to get donuts.
The NET RESULTS for One week of KEM Farming…
(Full disclosure…I actually missed 2 sessions of sending my peeps on 4-hour earning runs…so the cash outlay may have been reduced by a tad. But, I did farm/cycle every 4 hours, 4 times a day).
HOLD ON…That Looks GREAT!! That is a LOT of Donuts!!
Except…now subtract the “Free Donuts” I received from EA… (15 daily task bonus, and Halloween award). Now subtract the 9 donuts I earned from “Where’s Maggie?” (3 earned with each 48 hour cycle), and most important…Remove the 35 Donuts I earned from the Rail Yard (and yes, I’ll follow up on that).
That is a Net/Net of 104 Donuts,
at a cost of 105, 799 in game cash per donut.
BUT, YOU CAN DO IT FOR “FREE!!!” as some from Team Safi would argue? (and have). And yes…you can…as long as you figure out your Net Earnings for Sending your Sprinfieldians on 4-hour tasks, and collecting all of your building earnings. But, in my case, and in the case of most average players, that is going to limit how may KEM’s you can buy, without causing a deficit in your cash. Safi uses the example of 36 per cycle…in my case that earns 2.75 donuts per cycle…and would result in taking more than two days, just to recoup the cost of the XP Collider charge…and as a result, taking your Overall Net take down to between 60-72 total NET donuts earned for the week.
The Reality of Grinding…
At the top of the article, I made mention of the fact that the past few events have trained us to become 4-Hour Grinders. During an event, and even in some of the episode tie-ins, we “get it all” by doing simple tasks, every 4 hours, at least 4 times a day. Like dogs to Pavlov’s water dish, we have been trained to become semi-automatons, to set our alarms, tap, and go back to “Real Life.”
Ironically, many of us are complaining that the updates are too easy…that you only have to log in for a few seconds (30 seconds to a minute, tops) to perform the task required to earn the currency. Maybe once a day, you need to cash in your currency, or craft something, or place the prize that you earn. VERY easy…and a VERY small investment of Life Currency. It is in fact, and amazingly good ROTT.
To that end, I have become lazy about clearing my town of all of the earned income. I might do it once a day…tops. I rarely, if ever, send all of my Springfieldians to do 4-hour tasks…because it takes a lot more time to clear them all, and collect the reward.
What I heard time and time again from “Die Hard Donut Farmers” (most of whom have huge stashes of donuts, and Bonus Percentages exceeding 1.000%), is that it only takes them a couple of minutes, TOPS, to complete the harvest/sell/replace cycle…and they earn HUNDREDS of donuts a week…because they took the time to “Buy EVERYTHING” including multiples of every Premium Item that earns a % that they could…just to keep the cycle going.
I can’t even begin to calculate the time invested to get to that level...because it boggles the mind. And, to all of them saying “it doesn’t take much time,” I say…BULLSHIRT!
Using even the most basic calculation of time…a Premium Item that gives you a 1%-2% bonus, costs somewhere between 75-100 donuts. If you are doing it through KEM farming…that is a week of work. A WEEK. So…someone who has 1,000% has either spent a TON of time…or a TON of REAL MONEY, to get there. Period.
The FASTEST that I could place and collect 60+ KEMS, sell them…and then replace them, was about 3 minutes. However, that didn’t take into account having to clear all of my Springfieldians from the 4-hour task, as well as clear all of the earnings from the buildings. Even using the “finder” on the top left, it took at least another 3-5 minutes to clear the characters, and do a full search of my town to collect every dollar earned… and I was STILL in a deficit cash spending mode.
Instead, during a regular cycle, without KEM farming, I log on for a minute, every 2 hours…(which is far less than I check my phone for news updates these days), do my Rail Yard tasks, and move on. Every other time, I do the additional minute of doing the update/event tasks. And, I am done. No crazy math. No insane levels of land/KEM/XP management…just a lazy, fun way to play the game.
The Final Analysis…
95% of what is being offered by EA in these updates, just isn’t worth any more than a minimal investment of time. If I REALLY see something that I want…that is 100-150 donuts… I will gladly spend the $4.99 to round out what I need to have it, to offset the 40-50 donuts I earn in other ways easily. That represents about 1/10th of a billable production hour in my REAL life. I’ll just take a pass on the drink after work…or not.
Be honest. What was the last game prize or item that you wanted SO BADLY…you were willing to give up hours of your life to earn?
So…while it may have “only” taken me an additional 20-30 minutes a day to do this…(which is a very lenient estimate), that’s almost 6 hours of time in a week. Six hours you won’t get back. What’s your time worth? I certainly hope it is worth more than a $1 an hour. Because that is what you are “saving/earning” in real currency for the cost of buying donuts.
Time. I can’t stress this enough…is simply worth more than grinding for a week…or even a couple of days. A week’s worth of additional grinding and management for $4,99? Nope. Sorry. I’m just not that TSTO obsessed…or bored.
Rat Trap/Blood Mobile Farming as Time Saver?? – Kinda!
The overarching beauty of Farming Rat Trap Trucks or Blood Mobiles (there is no difference as I’ll show you), is that it is WAY faster. Mostly…kinda.
The math is way more simple…requires a ton less time…mostly…and the results are just about the same, if you are starting with the same amount of game cash.
I’ll do the same exact math, with the same exact cash and multipliers that I used for the KEM farming. The difference is, I can do this in less than an hour…as opposed to 7 days. LESS THAN AN HOUR…
Let’s start with the same 14,400,00o in game cash.
You don’t need a ton of land, because you can buy and sell the vehicles immediately…with no waiting. So, pick a parcel that will hold 10-15 vehicles and start buying and placing them…selling them back…then doing it over and over again, until you run out of game cash, or hit a level of donuts you want.
In the case of Rat Trap Delivery Trucks…
My game cash would buy me,
| CASH START | 14,400,000 |
| Rat Trap Delivery Trucks | 128 @ $112,500 ($150k less buy back of $37,500) |
| XP earned | 38,055,040 |
| Donuts Earned | 76 (@ 500K XP per donut) |
And Bloodmobiles have different math…but the same outcome in rewards.
| CASH START | 14,400,000 |
| Bloodmobiles | 145 @$99,000 ($132,000 less $33,000 Buy Back) |
| XP earned | 38,054,545 |
| Donuts Earned | 76 (@ 500K XP per donut) |
In both cases…subtract 5 donuts for the one-day XP Collider Charge…so 71 donuts Net, Net, Net…in an hour, max!
So Vehicle Farming is Waaaaaayyyyyy faster. Right?
Not so fast…
How long did it take to accumulate that game cash?? For me…unless I got into a pattern of sending/collecting/sending/collecting every 4 hours. It could take me weeks to earn another $14 Million.
So…if you don’t have a ton of game cash (less than $5 million) and want to take a longer, but less expensive route, perhaps even growing game cash while earning donuts, FIND YOUR DAILY EARNING LEVEL (Collecting your Rewards from buildings and characters) and don’t spend any more than that each day. You will slowly, but surely grow your donuts…but, you will need to keep up the grind every 4 hours…for days, weeks, and months. Oh. Wait. Kinda like the rest of the game!
FINAL CONCLUSION…
In the end, either method will pretty much force you to log on every 4 hours…forever. But, that seems to be the way the game is going anyway, so maybe you’ll just bite the donut, and spend the extra time to earn and burn!
Or…you can just do the Rail Yard…gather your daily challenge rewards (which are more donut-centric in non-event times) and stop sweating the occasional $4.99 for something you think you want.
OK. Bring it on. Convince me I’m wrong. But, for me…I just value my time more than KEM farming…or grinding for game cash, so I can Vehicle Farm. ESPECIALLY if the Rail Yard Donut Factory is a permanent feature. After all…I’m all about the Monorail. Monorail…monorail…monorail! And more donuts…with more rails…keeps me coming back!
Let us know what you think. We don’t all have to agree…to each his own. Right?
Bonus matters. I started with $80 million at level 335 and 357%, in June. At first, I farmed 90 KEM, and I took a week off twice to recover financially. I keep 25 donuts on hand to keep the charger going, but when I hit 31 donuts, I buy a mystery box.
I’m now at $37 million, level 939, and 1172% in early November. I farm 45 KEM and I always go for the three donuts each time, even though that’s not the most frugal. I don’t spend a lot of time on clearing every single building or sending everyone on tasks every time. I earn 18 donuts every four hours, and I make money.
I don’t stress about clocking in every four hours – I had to spend 6 donuts for Graystache because I took two whole days off from tapping during Act II – but when I wanted Angelica Button, I got her in a day and a half. I also usually get another bonut round from clearing my town because my % rate is so high.
My ultimate goal is to get to the point where I get my 18 donuts from 24 KEM, and I understand that to be around 2200%.
I may try monorailing, but playing every two hours doesn’t suit me at all, so I haven’t thus far.
HOLYFREAKINSHIRT… Read your FIRST line. “I started with 80 million.” How long did it take to accumulate 80 million???? Everything in your post makes you the exception…and not the average player. As I said in the BEGINNING of my post. Glad you are at the happy stage now…but, your numbers just seem obsessive to me. Sorry.
I started playing whatever year we had that thingamabob that vacuumed the ghosts up for THOH. Most days I played four times a day, and I had a few house farms and saved a lot of ingame cash. So, several years of play only got me to the mid-300’s in level and 80 million in cash. A few months of KEM farming got me maxed and minting IGC and donuts. The housefarms are almost all gone ( I have one batch of white houses I kind of like.)
I’m telling you, the bonus is everything.
Oh, and I don’t own all the land – that inexplicable desire to hoard IGC – and my one house farm is about 12 white houses that I don’t really need.
It’s funny that you think my play is obsessive when I might clock in every four hours, but monorail players are clocking in every two. *That* seems obsessive to me, but to each his own.
The last line is the important one.
No doubt. Completely agree. But it has taken you months/years to get there. No quick fix…that’s for sure!
I’m a Pragmatist and an Obnoxious-nist
How much time did I spend reading all of this? , and
How much time did Patric spend writing all of this?
EXACTLY!! The irony of being a blogger…spending more time to help people save time.
As long as everyone has fun doing it – time well spent. 😉
I totally agree it’s better just to buy the donuts that spend time farming them. But if you’re farming them, I don’t understand this maintaining a cash flow thing. If you have $10 million in cash, spend $8 million in whatever time frame you buy the XP multiplier. Then relax for a couple weeks, build up your cash again, and do it all over. This maintaining your cashflow thing is a waste of time. Go hard, rest, go hard again. You’ll spend less donuts on the XP multiplier and save time when you’re simply building up cash again.
It’s fine if that’s how you prefer to farm (which is the most important thing…this is, after all, a game), but I think your “math” about farming donuts is factually incorrect (unless, *maybe*, your multiplier is really, really low?).
Define, “really, really low.” I think you’d be amazed at where the majority of players are in the game. Those that cross into the 1,000% are an anomaly.
When you farm KEM you are continuously building a donut bank so you don’t have to burn through all your cash farming vehicles. The point of maintaining a balance of cash and not burning through it is when EA updates the game. When they do an update and release more land or tasks like the road to riches challenge or every once in a great while a new freemium item that costs in game cash, you have the cash to spend without having to necessarily stop farming.
What I don’t fully understand is the idea that farming is such a waste of time (unless you only login once a day or don’t play every day). If you grind like me, and are already taking the time to login a few times a day to do whatever, setting up a KEM farm doesn’t take that much more time. Then the plus is you are earning more donuts per visit, and building a reserve of donuts for when you really want something. I understand everyone doesn’t like to grind and spending real money is an instant reward in the game, but you still have to spend real time to earn that money.
For me farming is the way to go. I spend about the same amount of time playing as I would if I didn’t farm, I usually have donuts for what I want, and I keep my money in my pocket. As I stated in an earlier post, tap however you want, just remember spending money is spending time.
Seems like a good time for an update.
Level 7 to 863 in 207 days.
Current farm 24 KEMs. Cost: Less than $30K per donut.
Conclusion: So far, KEM farming is good anytime.
I started this record at lvl 7, during the middle of the Time Traveler event. Started with 2.75% bonus. Now is 228.5%. The main goal is decided when is it good time to KEM farm. At low levels it costs too much to farm much. Some time I only had enough cash to farm 4. I used to cash to play the game, i.e. by the required buildings, items, land, and houses to generate more.
The goals (1) Play the events (2) Play the game. (3) Don’t buy premium items, only the 6 donuts Mystery Boxes. (4) Find the point when one can generate enough donuts to buy the premium items. (5) Find the point to get rid of all the house farms.
Once I finished with the play of the original game levels, my cash accumulated. I could use the extra cash to buy more KEM farms or by houses. I made the choice to farm houses, my lowest current ROI is 84 days if I visit every 6 hours. Of course that decreases as my bonus increases in the future. I believe the extra cash will help when I increase beyond the 24th KEM, when each KEM is $14,400.
Some might disagree with buying Brown Houses, but since my visit to the town usually last 15 minutes. I can tap each house 3 times (burgers twice). Their ROI is 73 days with 3 taps.
PDF file of progress.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XAMnV9VFi3MlCLhsTPTAxiQXSw-2Kgc3
Update: found a error in date field. It is actually 150 days.
I agree with you Pat, that time is the most valuable currency we carry. It is a shame at how frivolously we spend it without a second thought. That being said, however; we choose to spend our time playing this silly little game. We all play the way we want to play. I will not condemn any one way to play, nor claim any way is better than another. I have been tapping it out since Halloween 2013, and within the last year or so have found KEM farming to suit my style of play. For years I was primarily a freemium player, and every once in a while I would purchase a few scratchers. I never liked spending real money though (the only justification to it is it supports the developers, which we need to do if we want this game to stick around). The return on money spent never seemed like a sound investment for me. I am already spending time, then to spend any significant amount of money (which also takes time to earn) just doesn’t make sense to me.
I enjoy spending time in my pocket-sized Springfield. I have always logged into my game multiple times a day. At first, I was not riding the KEM farming wagon. I supose I did not fully understand the concept. I would burn through my cash buying rat trap trucks or bloodmobiles to acquire enough donuts for the one premium item I was eyeballing at the time. Afterward, being left with no cash and no donuts. Then one day after hearing more arguments in favor of KEM farming, i decided to give it a try, and I have been a farmium player ever since. It really makes sense to me if you are already logging in multiple times a day (especially during events). My current bonus% is around 430 and I have just over 200 characters. I leave my collider on all the time buying the 10 day xp multiplier (25 donuts). I farm 54 KEMs (my magic number that keeps my in game cash climbing up steadily) and earn about a dozen donuts every time I login and clear my Springfield. So in a single day if I login 3 or 4 times (which I was doing even be for farming), I earn 35-50 donuts. That is not including any bonuts from the railyard, where’s Maggie or daily challenges. I must also mention again, I have been playing for a long time. My bonus% came from collecting premium items over time. I don’t have a giant lot of jet bikes or a fleet of knight boats. I use my farmed donuts to purchase things I want, not just to increase my bonus% to farm more donuts (not that there is anything wrong with that, if that is how you chose to play). I just tap it out the way that works for me within the parameters that EA has put forth, and with the time and money I choose to invest. And that is how we should all tap, our own way without criticizing someone else’s method of tapping.
Great Post! Thanks for your insight. The fact is, there is no “wrong way” or “right way” to tap. And in the end…we are ALL Tappers!
Good post. I am also normally buying only one thing of a kind, because my main goal is the design of my little Springfield… of course, if I get an Itchy&Scratchy-Wallpaper from a Burn’s surprise, I will place it and use the %-boost. I can’t fully understand Pat who is looking up his inventory to find stuff that get’s percentage… isn’t that the idea to get premium items to boost your percentage?! Especially as it boost your income from buildings and characters…
My advise for everyone: boost your percentage and then farm KEMs (after level 939 both at the same time, there is no priority). You cannot loose and it’s game mechanics, not cheating.
This is almost like the longest post in history of addicts. Thanks for the writing.
It may only be second to Safi’s original post! Lol!
You should have seen my first draft! It was 19 Microsoft Word single spaced pages long. 🙂
The final product was narrowed down to just 14 pages.
Yes, the endless railyard grinding is more profitable for less-than-level-939. But the sooner you hit 939, the sooner you can access the bonuts vs. the single-donut bonus.
Progress toward reaching 939 is part of the benefit KEM farming vs. Railyard grinding.
For people who lack the high bonus and the level 939, the key piece of advice is this. Do not buy that 26th KEM. Have enough space to place the 25x KEM to take you to 14,400-per and stop. You will very likely remain cash-flow positive and donut-positive.
For Patric, buying the 10-day XP Multiplier and logging in less frequently (3x a day) would mean a net donut LOSS of about 2 donut per-week as he moved toward level 939. Fortunately, railyard grinding is now available to replace the lost donuts.
Patric’s observed rate is 104 levels/week but at the lower-KEM-farm rate, it’d be more like 35 levels/week. But that still means he’d make 939 within 5 months, after which the donut return easily doubles.
Have to grind to get to the prize, and the prize is level 939.
Oh, and you get the Mount Simpson upgrades along the way. How can you stand looking at your town without Maggie’s mug on the rock? 🙂
It’s all a matter of time invested. But I get it. The sooner you start, the better off you are.
Very well written article. I am a KEM farmer and I know that it’s not for everyone, it gives me a reason to keep going into the game, even when I’m all done with an event. At the end of the day, TSTO is about playing the way that gives you the most enjoyment.
I want to touch on my experience with a couple things mentioned in the article. I would estimate that it takes me about 15 minutes to completely clear my town.
Also, I figured out that if I’m spending 30 donuts for an item with a 2% bonus and I clear my town 4.5 times a day, it takes a bit under 2 months for me to break even. This is assuming you are at level 939.
Thanks for validating that!
I am going to do a follow up on XP bonuses.
I’m hoping to get Safi’s help.
I timed myself at between 5-7 minutes per entry, including time to do the event-related taps. Then again, I design the town to use primarily 12/24 hour jobs to minimize the amount of time spent tapping.
The locations where characters would complete their tasks are arranged to help with tapping efficiency, including a couple of strategically placed Brown House (only 2x in Springfield). Income generating buildings are organized into clusters with similar earning time and the decorations which are placed to increase XP bonus goes into the interstitial spaces so entire sections are nicely designed but largely no-tap zones.
Back during my railyard grinding phase, it was turning into 8-10 minutes average plus about 3-4 minutes in the non-KEM clearing log-ins. Combined, that nearly tripled my in-game time…..
5-7 minutes…times 4…is a half hour a day. Times 7…times 365…times…well you get it. Railyard grinding literally takes me 15 seconds to 30 seconds. But it is muscle memory now. I have a flow…an automatic system that speeds it up.
Anyway. It is all time…that needs to be quantified by placing a value on the time spent…at whatever your actual dollar per hour earning power is in REAL life.
15-30 seconds for a Railyard grinding session is impossible unless you have a hacked game which increase your junk to infinite. I doubt you’re properly accounting for total time involved in railyard grinding.
The worst part of Railyard grinding is the periodic need to send characters on 30 second tasks to re-fill junkyard. You generated 1x railyard bonus per day, and I usually end up with a minimum of 7-10x rounds of 30s jobs to refill the junkyard within a single day even though I have every premium Railyard character. Worse when the railyard wants to consume junk.
Now… if you run BlueStack and then have some sort of pre-programmed macro to do the in-game clicks… that’d be different. For people playing on their phone/tablet devices, railyard grinding takes a lot of in-game taps and a lot of real-world time.
You are correct…that is overstated. What I do, is as I am doing “other tasks” (daily updates, clearing characters etc.) I have my “junk yard” filling up. Takes 2-3 30 second cycles. Then I fill any category that is empty (15 seconds), then I clear any earnings. But, as the actual TAPPING time is slight…I forgot to figure in the 30 second cycles in the Junk Yard.
So…yes. You are correct. The actual time TAPPING is short…but the time waiting for the Junk Yard to refill takes 1.5 – 2 minutes of waiting (while I am doing another task). It’s become muscle memory to me.
If you want to, you can deep the same kind of “muscle memory” to collecting and re-placing KEMs, which actually requires less mental energy than planning out rail yard tasks (“Which recycling should I send the hippie and/ or Jessie on? I need more metal, but I can do two round of that in the time I can do plastic, which I ask need some of….or I send one of them to do glass? Is there time to fit in another glass round before bed? Oh, wait…I need two plastic-recycling characters to do an event task, but only one glass-recycling character…how does that factor into my decision?….”)
I use who is available. No decision. I play the key tasks of the update first. Then the rail yard. Everyone else goes on 4-hour task to earn. Not rocket science.
You keep thinking this is an “either/or” thing. It’s not. You can do all of it…and currently, the Rail Yard is earning at least a level that is equal to my weekly net of KEM farming, if I am not going into a game cash deficit.
So twist all you want…KEM farming is ONE way to play…certainly not the ONLY way…and should be a part of a wider effort…
Absolutely. My KEM farm of 51x KEM’s is set up in an area that’s basically 3×2 blocks of land with an extra row.
I have a few bonsais (unsellable) to help align the first KEM and then I just keep tapping in the exact same spot on the screen. I usually don’t even have to look at the screen while doing this for ~40 seconds to place the 51x.
When it comes to cleanup, 2 group-selects sells all the KEMs. All the perimeter buildings/decorations are un-sellable so they remain in place. I tried expanding to have more KEM’s but it took too long.
The farm size I have is optimized for MY patience, and that’s what I suggest for everyone. See how many times you’re willing to tap/clear and stick with it.
Over the last year, the farm has gradually increased its yield from 4x bonut rounds to 5x and now to 6x. KEM-farming is a virtuous circle – the more you build up resources the greater the rewards.
It took a LOT longer in calendar-time for me to go from 400% to 500% than it took for me to go from 600% yo 700%….
You know a huge help is to keep a premium building with a task that everyone can do. I read that in the comments of Safi’s KEM post. I think it deserves its own post though.
But it’s a time saver. As an example, the last building that could do this was the Walking Kwik e Mart. To complete its questline you had to send Springfielders on a 4 hour job. And Apu on a 4 hour job. So what you do is never complete the questline by sending Apu on his 4 hour task. I put him on his 7 day task.
Go to the Unemployment Office and put everyone on a 4 hour job. They ALL go back to the Walking KEM. Or about 90% of the characters do. Bonus, they earn at premium rate. 1 tap to assign, 1 tap to clear.
I concur.
I have the Steel Mill, with Roscoe’s questline incomplete and now almost completely ignored.
This leaves me a task that sends almost 190 of 255 characters into one location.
Some strategic arranging of my town allows me to tap another building while the mill is off screen, causing it to clear, but not creating monstrous lag while the graphics for each character emerging from the mill.
Because it’s the night club, the kids don’t go to this task (30 or so of them). The Walking KEM might not have that limitation….
Kids can go to the walking KEM.
Once I save up x million dollars, I will charge the XP collider for 1 day. I will buy enough Rat Trap trucks and sell them back and get as many donuts as I can within that one day, without going below 5 million. Most of this is while I have having a “break” from life and am watching a TV show.
When not doing an event, I send everyone but the railroad people on 24 hour tasks. I will log in every 3-4 hours for the railroad. But if person isn’t needed for that particular currency, I will send them on a 4hr shift.
I don’t feel like it is too much wasted time, I do the Daily Tasks, the railroad and when I remember Where’s Maggie.
Again…sounds like you have a balanced method.
i think you finally get a chance to get some premium characters for free and i mean free. if you play normal and enjoy the game, 1 or 2 prem characters a week are a good thing to keep you motivated. it takes half a year to get them all at least, not to mention that there are stil levents which eat your donuts right away. so i think its a cool way to get things where you had to pay real money before. everything chilled
But don’t forget Itchy & Scratchy signs and News Vans is the way to go for multiplier bonus investment. Best donut spending ratio.
Don’t forget you can get Itchy and Scratchy Signs and News Vans for cheaper with mystery boxes. I think Safi or someone posted an article on the math of this a while ago.
The hardest part is getting your bonus multiplier high enough to earn cash back fast…after spending millions doing the blood mobile method imo. @ %140 bonus after (2.5 years of tapping) it takes me close to 3 weeks make back the 10 million i spend blood mobile farming.
Switch to KEMs instead of bloodmobiles (farming whatever huge incline will support without making too much of a dent in your cash reserves) and invest some of your donuts on rounds of 25 mystery boxes, which will increase your bonus percentage rapidly. (If you haven’t gotten the five beach hideaways, do that first…you can reasonably easily add 100 % to your bonus multiplier by doing that.)
That’s…… ah… comprehensive! 😀
And yeah… I think I still favor the “old-school” Rat Trap Truck exchange method.
I only do 32 KEMs at a time… Only have a multiplier of ~350%… Get 6 donuts every 4 hours. Don’t lose money, it’s always going up. I’m pretty comfortable where I’m at. I don’t feel like I’m getting too many donuts where I can just get everything. Although with the extra donuts from the railyard now, I might be making a bit much. Might try to lay off the railyard a bit. It’s just hard because it feels like a goal I need to reach but I never get to the end.
I think you are doing a pretty balance job. It doesn’t sound too excessive.
There is no “trick” in upping your bonus though. And clearly 350% is better than 275%.
“There is no “trick” in upping your bonus though.” That is only partially true. Here are some 5 tricks that you can use to jump-start your bonus earning potential.
1. As mentioned, check your inventory for items with a bonus payout. Do this after every update (even for minor updates). EA can grant bonus %’s to any item with any update. Typically the bonuses are awarded to prizes earned from previous events. They were (earned) free during the event w/ no bonus, but a bonus is added at a later date. I don’t recall EA ever granting a bonus % to any “craftable” items, it’s always been the items won for free from the prize track that have received bonus %.
2. For those looking to get the biggest bonus % for the buck (or donut) you need to buy the SH beach hideaways. The initial expense is 40 donuts, but afterwards each upgrade to the hideaway can be purchased with the normal SH currency (chairs, coffees, phones etc), and all of the additional hideaway pieces earn bonus %. Each fully upgraded hideaway produces a 20% bonus increase, and you can do this x5 for a total increase of 100%. The hideaway and all the upgrades must be placed to earn the bonus. This results in a 1% bonus increase for 2 donuts. This is a must for anyone who wants to increase their bonus %. Here is a post about all things hideaway: https://tstoaddicts.com/2016/09/22/should-you-buy-and-everything-else-you-need-to-know-about-the-beach-hideaway/
3. Buy and place all the SH buildings. You don’t have to upgrade the buildings (except for the hideaway as mentioned above), just buy and place them all in your town. All SH placed-buildings offer a hidden XP bonus. This bonus does NOT appear on the Conform-o-Meter popup. That is why it’s called a hidden bonus. There are posts here on this site that show what buildings offer what hidden XP bonus %, but suffice to say if you buy and place all the buildings you’ll gain an additional 253% bonus to your XP. Note this is to XP only, not on cash. This gets added to your bonus and then with the XP collider enabled it’s x5 (bonus + hidden bonus) x 5 = collider bonus. Note: this additional 253% bonus XP can be obtained for NO donut cost.
4. Buy mystery boxes. But only after you’ve purchased all the beach hideaways. Mystery boxes cost 6 donuts each and there are two items that you can get that offer bonus percentages (itchy *& scratchy sign 1%, news van 2%) . These items are not unique so you can obtain more and more of them. They are easy to place behind other buildings where they can’t be seen. Once you’ve gotten all the premium characters and premium items from the mystery box, you’ve got at least a 1/3 chance that your going to get crap. But those other times you’re going to get a bonus % item or free donuts (10 or 30), or a lard lad donuts (produces income). If you spend 40-60 donuts on mystery boxes you’ll almost always find that your bonus % increase outweighs the increase you’d get for anything that you can buy in the store.
5. Good deals do appear in the store from time to time if you watch for them. If you buy things in the store, figure out what the donut cost / % increase is. A good rule of thumb is that in the store a 1% bonus will generally cost you 20 donuts. You can definitely find many items that cost more than 20 donuts / 1% (stay away from these), but anything that offers a bonus % at a rate better than 20 donuts for 1% might be a good deal. Earlier this year you could buy a flag bundle in the store for 50 donuts. Placing all the flags awarded a 7.5% bonus increase or 6 2/3 donuts / 1%. This was a very good deal, and i know many people purchased several of these packs while they were available. More recently many of us had some black speed boats on rebate in the store. I think they were 40 donuts with a 20 donut rebate for a 2% increase. These were a good deal but you had to have 40 donuts to start with. In general the best “deals” will be on items with a small %. if a single item is offered for a 4, 5, 6, 7%+ bonus increase, it might look tempting to buy, but result in a horrible donut / % ratio. Do the math then make your decision.
For those looking for ways to boost your bonus % i hope these tips and tricks might be useful for you.
-Mark
BOOOOOM!!!!! Great Post! And a very good start to an article that I am going to write soon. We are researching the entire list of items that earn bonuses…so if you see it somewhere, pass it along.
All of this is great. But, it takes donuts to get the percentages…The BEST and Easiest really does seem to be the hidden SH multipliers, and the Beach Hideaways. I admittedly still have 4 I can buy…and will do so immediately. After that, there is a ratio of time spent to grind donuts to buy anything from Mystery Boxes to whatever else. If you are earning somewhere between 50-100 donuts a week through grinding of any format (which is a grind)…you can afford to by ONE mystery box. One.
So…what am I missing? It is a long…slow…grind to get to 1000%.
Homer Budda – Mystery Box – 6 donuts. Average less than 9 donuts per 1% increase.
Don‘t see a MB as a 6 donuts waste.
Provided you have a little donut buffer a MB costs only 3 donuts. Half of the spent 6 sprinkles will come back in form of 10 or 30.
??? Mystery boxes cost 6 donuts each…what’s with the 50-100 figure? A round of 25 mystery boxes (maybe that’s what you’re referring to?) costs between 58 and 88 net donuts for 9% return. (There’s one pattern that’s shorter than 25 boxes, so it costs less, but it also “only” yields 6%.)
Sandra…..for the love of God. Mystery boxes MIGHT give you something with a bonus (hence the mystery)…and that bonus might just be .25%. So you have spent 6 donuts for .25. Do that 4 times…and you MIGHT have a full 1% increase, at a cost of 24 donuts. Give it up. It takes TIME to earn the donuts. It takes game cash invested…and you have to factor the cost of the XP Collider charge (minimum of 5 donuts invested that breaks into your net return).
Man. Talk about a dog with a bone. But, I get it. You are “my way is the only way,” about this. Kinda done trying to make you realize that you aren’t making sense for the majority of players, who don’t have the time to invest.
I also forgot to mention there are several tasks in the game that offer an ability to win a bonus % item.
1. Launching your space shuttle
2. Have Homer smashing turtles
3. Have Lisa conquer the eliminator
The chance for earning premium items from these tasks is small, but they do add up over time. i probably have 20 Religan shrubs that i didn’t pay anything for.
Yep. Again. All it takes is time…and a minor obsession with winning “free stuff” that isn’t really free, if you affix a value on your real world time.
This is another gem of information! Totally overlooked/forgot Lightup Elder God from Homer’s Insanity Mode turtles gave you 1% bonus. I had a 3 left in my inventory that I hadn’t placed.
I also overlooked the topiary from the space shuttle launch. I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten any yet though because I didn’t have any in the inventory. I try to remember to launch though because of debris which can yield donuts.
I didn’t realize the Lisa eliminator gave nuclear warhead. I’ll have to try to remember that one. I’m not sure it’s as lucrative as other methods since it occupies Lisa for 12 hours, right?
I just received a nuke from the rocket ship. You can also clear the debris for donuts.
I send Lisa to the Eliminator overnight.
@markkuceraio
You rock! This is a gem of information!
I swear I had read most/all of the major bonus % increase guides and I must have overlooked the fact that you had to place all of the additional beach hideaway pieces. I already had all the extra pieces in my inventory today, placed them all, and boom +80% or so.
I wish I had all of your advice from point #2 that you made a month ago, before I started KEM farming. I’ve gone from like level ~170 to 399 in this path month, and I imagine I would have 20-30+ extra levels/donuts with that extra 80% bonus.
@Patric
Interesting post. It’s always good to hear another person’s perspective on time management and grinding. Looking forward to your article on all the ways to get extra bonus %.
Very well said. And I’m in no way telling you you’re doing it wrong. I used to farm in a totally unsustainable way: Get to about $20 million, turn in the XP collider for a few days, and then burn through my cash. Get the premium item I wanted and then work on replenishing my cash. Like you, if something was offered that I knew I couldn’t farm for before it left the store, I’d drop $5 to get it. Didn’t do this often.
Then I decided to follow Safi’s method. I sent my characters on 4-hour tasks, calculated how much they earned, and then used his chart to see where I’d get a zero-sum return (buying KEMs totaled the profits from 4-hour tasks). My magic number was 45 KEMs.
100% honest, hand to [insert your deity here]: My plan was to supplement my donuts this way, and every so often buy some to support EA. My bonus is at 500%, I have no plans to buy up bonus-earning items to reach the thousands, so Safi’s method would be employed from time-to-time, not all the time.
While the “not all the time” has not changed, the EA support has (for now). Spending an hour on the phone with offshore support, who was no help at all and expected me to place thousands of items from storage into my town in an attempt to find a character who disappeared upon storing them, AND who obviously knew nothing about the game…AND who began to treat me like I was a dummy…that changed how I felt about using my money to buy premium currency. This was right after I bought the SVT deal (his skin and the 130 donuts) for $5.
P.S. The problem persists, but I found the solution. If you want to try it out (I’ve tried it in three towns, my two and a friend’s), make sure you have beasts to enchant/capture or are fighting Montymort. I don’t know if this would work otherwise. If you store the Unicorn Wizard, he doesn’t show up in inventory. Go to an uncaptured, unenchanted beast or Montymort (if wizards have to fight him). Unicorn Wizard should show “in inventory,” click that and it takes you to him. From there, you can take him out. The screen will shift to where he is now…but it’ll glitch a bit and focus elsewhere. But he’ll still be out of inventory limbo and useable again.
ANYWAY…I digress.
My plan for the foreseeable future is to use KEM farming to get a sub-1000 donut cache. Once I’ve got that, I’ll stick with non-farming methods (Maggie, railyard, event bonuts). When I hit 200, back to farming.
I also don’t want to do this forever like other farmers. It adds to the grind, plus the money used could add to my bank, which in turn could be used towards Cecil’s tasks (something I’ve been meaning to do).
I know, I know…maybe this method takes away a revenue source from EA. But…like “regular” video games, I can’t bring myself to pay for extras if 1) the game isn’t any good, and 2) support sucks. My decision is squarely in #2.
Funny thing…#1 above applies to another EA game, Mass Effect Andromeda. They dropped all single player support, so I can’t bring myself to drop real-world cash for multiplayer.
/kinda-sorta rant 😂
Nice mini-rant!
I am actually in semi agreement with you. The problem I have currently, is that my Bonus is still at a paltry 276%…and that really changes the matrix in regards to earning power. It is a long haul at this point…we’ll see. I am thinking about going “full Safi” as well. But, I am also going to see if I can find a COMPLETE list of items that earn Bonus %…and cherry pick a few. We’ll see. Life gets in the way…and I do value my time.
My bonus benefited from the days of EA mess-ups; like wailing walls and tennis courts. Though with both, I didn’t go crazy. So it wasn’t like they accounted for a large percentage.
To be honest, I can’t remember how I got here. It’s been a slow climb, for sure. I’ve also had a bunch of stuff that didn’t originally have a bonus that now does.
So going back to what you said about checking inventory to see if you have bonus stuff stored, that’s definitely a place to start. EA has surprised us during a few events…feel like it hasnt happened for a while, though.
I’ll say this – going “full Safi,” after determing my zero-sum point, has made things a little easier. I could probably turn full-time farmer, but that would require constant grinding and might me feel a little dirty Hahahaha
But you definitely need a bigger bonus % to use it to supplement the desire to drop cash all the time , so good luck on raising yours! 😄
Here is the thing about “free”. It takes time. Would you say you get your paycheck for “free” because all it took you was time to get it?
The old adage – time is money – rings true here. If you make $15 per hour, you can earn a boatload in 7 hours. Or you can grind grind grind for “free”.
I am willing to bet that if you have a 270% bonus percentage, getting 2,400 doughnuts for “free” will take a lot longer than 7 hours.
Exactly. And if you make a lot more than $7 an hour…your time is more valuable in “real world” earning power, so $4.99 doesn’t seem like such an investment if you really want something. It’s all a matter of balance…
But here’s the thing…the time you spend in the game farming or whatever isn’t time you’d be didn’t making real-world money…it’s time your spending in front of the TV or whatever at the end of the day, and it’s fun, not work. Plus, it’s in little bits of time….no one’s going to pay you to do a job for two minutes for a prorated amount.
You are VASTLY underrating your time…and when you tap…and where. Many of us are self-employed. There is no “down time” so to speak, as every hour could be earning. Plus………… it is IMPOSSIBLE to take your “casual, do it when the mood strikes” approach, when farming require logging on every 4 hours, minimum…as do most of the updates. And…in your last sentence, you prove your naivete about how distracting mobile games, phones, etc. are to the work flow. Trust me…if I am in a meeting, or producing in the studio…or writing a reply to someone who doesn’t get it…I am taking more than “two minutes” away from work flow.
Sheesh. Just be glad that TSTO isn’t a REAL drug. Because the “fun part” of grinding obsessively is pretty much negated by what is clearly becoming an addiction to some.
It doesn’t require logging in every 4 hours. Or even every six hours. It is also like starting a bank account. The earlier you start, the faster it grows. Once I hit 1500 to 2000% (different games) I stopped buying Mystery Boxes, but still increased my % just by buying items I wanted.
We aren’t all addicts for no reason 😂
And please spare me your analysis of my “naivete” – you’re missing my point and the only thing I can’t tell is whether you’re really not getting what I’m saying (which is what I’m hoping) or whether you’re pretending not to understand to suit your skewed narrative about me.
I’m well aware how distracting it is to the work flow. But my typical tapping schedule is in the bathroom in the morning (can’t work in there), at lunch time (could work through lunch, I guess…are you suggesting that’s healthier than taking a real break?), in the evening, when I’m done working for the day and am either on the phone with my mom or eating dinner and watching tv, and a couple of hours before bedtime, when I’m watching T.V.. If you’re working during all of those times, can I share with you some articles about work addiction?
I think you are missing MY point. Your schedule is YOUR schedule. Loads of people don’t have the luxury, or inclination, to pull out of a concentrated work flow two-four times a day. I tap at 6A-10A-2P-6P-10P…when I am not doing something else. It just isn’t on my radar when I am in the middle of a meeting, researching an article, creating in the studio, or in the middle of marketing calls…OR on the golf course. Everyone has different lives…and you are grossly underestimating the time you spend on your phone, tapping or cruising the site. The number of comments you post alone would make my point.
You naivete has to do with not understanding that others may have more complicated lives than you.
The point is to use your free time to play a relaxing game in a way you enjoy to generate the donuts so you don’t have to spend your earn money. If your don’t find KEM farming enjoyable, don’t do it. If you don’t have free time, don’t KEM farm. But like anything a little bit of effort on the front end can reap rewards later on.
Exactly. I get it. And am NOT putting down farming. I am calling out those who don’t realize the investment of time has to be accounted for in the final equation.
Ok I had to read this twice Pat but you still aren’t making sense… to me anyway? :/
How can you compare the grind at the monorail where you have to log in every 1,2,3 hours using up a lot of your characters all day to building kems every 4 hrs which uses no characters? The monorail seems much more time consuming and less cost effective.
Not sure about Patric, but the railyard stuff feels much more like part of the game than KEM farming. And it doesn’t swallow up so much cash. That being said, I still only get donuts from that maybe twice a week, because I send the recyclers once a day, maybe two. No time during the day.
That was actually nicer when it was only possible once a week. I would fill the recyclables up to bursting, and finish it in a day or two. The constant resetting makes it feel much more like a chore/grinding/farming…
It is a chore…but takes FAR less time that the full cycle of donut farming. I am getting at least 5 donuts a day…and sometimes more. But, we’ll see if it is permanent or not.
If you’re getting five donuts a day from recycling, you’re playing way more than I am! I don’t think I’ve ever finished the rail yard tasks in one day….I don’t play enough for that. And I’m not exactly a casual player! If you’re farming “correctly,” there is no way that getting to the 25,000 rail yard blueprints tasks less time than farming a modest number of KEMs. And, if you’re busy for at least some of the day, it’s gonna be hard to check in every hour.
I’m with Brooders in this one…I can’t get what you’re saying to made sense on this point. (OTOH, I do understand what aabend380 is saying about the rail yard tasks feeling more like part of playing the game…)
My point was…. Rail Yard currently earns about 5 donuts every 1.25 days for me (I’ve been keeping track). It takes a lot less time than clearing my entire town…or sending all of my characters on 4-hour tasks.
But, I am placing the Rail Yard into the “Do this as well” if you want to maximize your donut yield, without losing game cash, category. It isn’t for everyone…but is an alternative, or an “also” for some.
And no. I don’t expect people who never liked the Rail Yard, to suddenly like/use it…any more than I expect people who don’t like donut farming to suddenly try/love it.
Yes, the monorail is time consuming, and it also takes away the XP and $ earning potential for all for those characters, some of which are premium (or have premium skins (mr. burns super skin in particular). I suspect that at this point no one is doing the monorail tasks for track. If you want to go this route you almost certainly need to buy all the extra characters that help with the rail yard. otherwise you will find that it is almost impossible to do railyard + any event as they will require the same core set of characters.
I think it’s important to mention that KEM farming comes in two phases.. the first phase is really just speeding up the leveling up process to reach 939. One donut per level is great and def worth the net effort, but the real farming (phase two) comes once the tapper reaches 939 and starts receiving the choice of three donut boxes. That’s when things really take off, it’ll blow your mind.
If any tapper (Patric or anyone else) thinks it’s worth it during the leveling up phase, you haven’t seen anything yet. KEM farm at 939 for awhile and you’ll be saying: why didn’t I start this over a year ago!?!
True enough — but the math gets a bit more complicated at that point as well, since you’re paying 50K for each level-up chance at more donuts. I think that Patric chose a pretty clean path for comparing the two most popular methods of donut farming, by not factoring that in — though it probably does impact the comparison with Railyard farming, if you consider it a one-or-the-other situation. (The classic “why-not-both?.jpeg” image might handily apply here.)
I agree… the math does get more complicated when considering paying for extra boxes, that’s why I didn’t mention it. 😜 But even if you don’t pay for any extra boxes, you’re still gonna be making more donuts than during the leveling up phase of KEM farming because you’re not going to pick just one donut each time (sometimes you will get two or three).
But I’m with you when it comes to the railyard… why does it have to be one or the other? If you ask me, every single tapper should be doing both 24/7/365.
Math is easy (is it?):
below 939, you’ll get 1 D / 500,000 XP, no cost
939+ you’ll get 2 D / 1,000,000 XP, no cost (average) – same rate, no change.
BUT
If you pay 50,000 $ only when you get 1 D (with a chance of 1/3) you’ll get
2.5 D / 1 Mio XP, 16,667 $ cost (average, always 2 or 3 D)
If you go to extremes you’ll get
3 D / 1 Mio XP, 50,000 $ cost (average, always 3). This is where you should sacrifice some KEM, if you must, for more donuts. You need money!
Thus build a house farm (with increasing income as your bonus will raise) to increase your donut outcome per KEM.
And spend some donuts (1/3 would be fine, since you get the 3rd for ingame cash, for nearly free) in Mystery Boxes to increase your bonus, thus the donuts per KEM AND your cash which you can reinvest in KEM and/or more houses.
Math isn’t easy.
This is a complicated economy model where one parameter influences the others and the way YOU should go isn’t determined. It depends on YOUR way of playing this game and the goals YOU have.
After half a year I have a reasonable house farm, 72 KEM on the run (currently paying only if 1 D appears) and wish to grow no more. Design is more important for me. But bonus… 546.25% + 153% (Heights) = 39.96 x XP… there’s more to achieve 😀
That was very interesting, thanks for sharing this experiment with us. But there is one point that bothers me. You wrote:
“Using even the most basic calculation of time…a Premium Item that gives you a 1%-2% bonus, costs somewhere between 75-100 donuts.”
What do you mean with this ? A Jet Engine Bike costs 30 Donuts and has 2% Multiplier. 20 Donuts while in the Vault. That’s 10 Donuts for 1 % or if you go for mystery boxes 7-8 Donuts for 1 %. The players with multipliers in the thousands have a ton of these stuff in their towns normally. Mostly it’s just hidden behind big buildings. That makes a huge difference regarding the time and/or money spent. It’s still a lot, but in comparison to 75-100 Donuts for 1/2% it’s a whole different kind of story.
Yes. There are a couple of these “hidden gems.” But, players who have “thousands” of these, also have some really weird looking towns. And even at 20 donuts each…you’d have to buy 50 of them to boost your Bonus by 100%…500 to boost it by 1,000. Do the math…then figure out how long it takes you to grind for that 1m500 or 15m000 donuts…and I think you start to see what I am talking about. Right? You have to have the donuts to buy the jet engine bikes…
You aren’t doing the math/time to GET the donuts to BUY the %. So…sorry…no matter what your multiplier cost…it is a TON of time…or money spent.
Nope – nothing “weird looking” about my town…pretty much all of my billboards and news vans (except the very few I’ve intentionally integrated into my design) are hidden away behind buildings and large decorations. And it’s not 20 donuts each (much less 75 or 100!!), if you’re using the mystery boxes approach.
WHICH COST DONUTS!! Sandra…not going to argue this with you. But, you really need to pull out a calculator and figure out how much time you have invested in GETTING to where you are now. It took months…if not years.
The issue I have with donut farmers who post “It’s easy,” is that it isn’t. Not at all. It takes time, and a ton of management of resources (including hiding all of your bonus stuff to make your town pretty). At some point, to ignore the vast amount of time vested in reaching your levels, becomes “the denial of addictive behavior.” So…please…there is NO “easy/fast/quick/inexpensive” way to reach these levels, without affixing a value on your REAL WORLD time.
Stop kidding yourself with the “Mystery Box” approach. No matter what you “win,” it costs you donuts to get there…and the percentage increase is incremental…which means more time…not including the time it takes to EARN the donuts.
I *never* said it was quick, in terms of elapsed time…of course it took many months to get to where I am! Where did I say otherwise? The only thing I said was quick was the actual act of farming a round of KEMs. And if you’re completing the rail yard daily, you’re playing much more obsessively than I am….seems like a case of, at best, the pot calling the kettle black (but not even that, because it didn’t sound like I play as frequently as you do throughout the day).
Who has a town that doesn’t look weird? Lol 😁
I’ve seen some GORGEOUS towns… real works of art. Hard to find time to design, if you are grinding 24/7. But, I get it. Compromises must be made!
My town is a work of art. My art 😎
I didn’t want to argue on the time or money spent for 100 or 1000 %. I’m just saying that calculating with 75-100 Donuts for 1% is a lot different than calculating with 7 – 8 Donuts (Mysterie boxes) or 10 Donuts (JEB in vault) for 1%. Yours and mine are both extreme examples, but I think the average lays in between somewhere, maybe 30-40 Donuts for 1% for “normal” items. The rest I totally agree with you, it’s a freaking lot of money or time needed to get a high %, even with Mysterie Boxes or Jet Engine Bikes. I did the math a lot of times, so your assumption of the 75-100 Donuts for 1-2% directly jumped into my face. I just found it very high, nothing more 😉
I think you are right…I was really using that as an example of if you were buying them outright when offered. Basically making the point that buying a new premium item doesn’t pan out for the %. I am doing more research on this…and will work up something for next week. Pretty interesting when you take it to a Donut Cost per % point level.
TLDR every word of it, but your bonus percentage is garbage so of course the results are going to be garbage, and you aren’t getting much out of it.
It takes donuts to make donuts. Invest in the multiplier and build your way up to 1000% like most of the hardcore Addicts who have been playing everyday for years have done already. You don’t do that, so you aren’t playing the same way a lot of the people in the community reading this right now are playing.
(Or don’t… just keep sloooowly grinding away on the monorail and spending money on donuts. Some people have to continue spending money on this game so we all have something to play!)
For the record, 5 years…lots of money spent in this game and my bonus % is only 650ish. I mean, and I founded the site called Addicts….
I said build your way up to %1000, which you have done so far being at 650 you are more than half way there..
Pat, I didn’t say your Multiplier “needs to be %1000” so I don’t know why you quoted me as saying that. But you need to build it up a lot more in order for it to be more effective, as you already know..
Pimp…I do believe I said that in the very first few paragraphs. But, you are incorrect…the vast majority of players do NOT play the way you do. That is why I wrote the article. I just replied to another comment about the cost of raising your percentage. At this point, saying that my multiplier “needs to be 1000%” is like telling me that “I need to have at least a million in my retirement fund.” Yes. That would be great. But, I don’t. It will take a tone of time, and donuts to get there.
I think those that do not build on bonus and kem farm are quickly becoming the minority Pat. You need only look at EA and other forums to see that. :/
Sorry I can’t “like” your comment for you 😛
What most players on blogs or forums don’t get, is that they are minority…but the majority. They are the truly obsessed.
Millions upon millions play the game casually. A very small percentage actually participate in forums or blog comments.
Our own stats reflect that.
“The vast majority of players do not play the way you do.”
No Patric, YOU are not playing the way a vast majority of players are. You have a tiny bonus % and just barely hit level 939!!!
Hahah 😂
Pffft. Seriously? Have another beer.
And you have a tiny…er…uhm…tapper?
have to agree Patric outwith the addict world many players are quite casual …….but just because people play differently doesnt mean one way is right or wrong.
The singular focus on bonus-% is strange to me. I have been playing for a long time, and spent quite a bit of money on the game, and my percentage is at about 800-something. But I refuse to put out every ugly thing that has a bonus attached, just to raise it. Plus, it feels like people are farming for donuts, that they spend to raise their bonus, in order to farm for more donuts, that they then spend to raise their bonus, to get more donuts… ad infinitum. I also find the discussion on Alissa’s SIBs about the ‘usefulness’ of items rather surreal. It’s a game, it’s supposed to be fun! I’d rather buy stuff I enjoy. Even if it neither earns money nor adds to the percentage. Like NPCs. Love watching and/or tapping most of them. Still can’t go past a zombie without making it go kersplat. 🙂
It’s not ad infinitum. Once you reach a high enough percentage, you can stop farming to get donuts to raise your bonus percentage. I stopped buying mystery boxes months ago. I put in the work a while ago, and now I’m just sitting back and reaping the benefits. 🙂
But you “put in the work.” To my point…
No self sustaining city is made without putting in some work! 😀
It less than a year I was able to increase from 351 to 1690% in my “C” game. What I was able to do in that time, buy all the premium items I wanted, play the events, etc. I hid the ugly items (vans, billboards) behind buildings. At at the end of period redesigned my game, getting rid of all the farms (except a small KEM farm). Now I generate extra cash and donuts to grab the new items as they come off and buy the ones I missed before (just a few hundred donuts away).
I can now relax. I don’t have to worry about the 4 hour schedule. (OK, I am playing 4 games and I didn’t really worry about the 4 hour schedule and I wasn’t not relax – I find the game relaxing). Instead of wondering what I was missing, I now get to play the complete event.
At some point…I will do a post on the term “obsessive,” and it will start with people playing “C” games. LOL!
I think I mentioned this before. Game A, start. Game A encounters glitch, takes EA a month and a half to fix, in meanwhile start game B. Assigned B to email address, accidentally start game “C”. Play occasionally when “falling into it” while switching between games A and B. Use games B and C to get different premium items. Find out about KEM farming. Now able to get everything. Use different games to emphasize different designs. Now just sit back and relax.
Wow. You are a lot more patient/persistent than I am. If it took that long for EA to fix something for me, I would have been “outa here!”
I am a former chess and poker player, I guess I learned patience from playing them. I guess you can say TSTO has saved me a lot of time I would have spent at the Casinos. If you want to win at poker you can spend an hour at the table playing only one or two hands.
Not sure how to take that…there are other options than TSTO and Casinos. But, if you are saving money that would have been lost in a casino, I get it.
Cash wise, I was a break-even player. But you earn comps. So if you add up all the free food, drinks, cards, t-shirts, etc I made more than what it cost me drive to the boats (Casinos). Considering the rake, tips, etc, being break-even was pretty good. Later I played “free” tournament poker at bars, hotels, etc. You could win prizes like poker chip sets, free food, etc.
Yes! I also rather save the time, and spend some money every now and then. I tried Donut farming, but contrary to popular opinion it takes up quite some time every 4h, especially if you not only buy and sell KEM, but also send Springfielders on jobs to earn back the cash.
I rather work about two hours overtime at my regular job every six months to buy a boatload of donuts, instead of investing 10 to 15 minutes every 4 hours…
You can get a benefit from KEM farming no matter what your level or how often you do it. It will just take longer. A small farm 4-12-24 KEMs will still help. There is a point about when it advantageous to turn the collider on.
Yep. TIME…which has an actual “real world” value.
Time has real world value. Just like the time I spend writing here. But many people can multi task. Watching TV, play the game at the same time. Waiting in line (or other task), play the game. Obviously, some of us have enough time to read and respond to the posts.
Well…don’t get me started on how much “earning/valuable” time is spent watching TV. I am more “project driven.” I admit to “watching” way more than I should…but mostly have it turned on in the background while doing real work. Like blogging…LOL!
In the end free is free and I love free things, plus I still try to remember that I’m playing a game not trying to crack The DaVinci Code.
I am KEM farming, if there are interesting offers. Which is not right now.
During events like the current one, when I don’t really care about the game, I just set everyone on 24 hr tasks and build up my cash. So in case something good shows up in the future and KEM farming is not enough, I can convert my cash with trucks.
While you did this experiment for a week, did you ignore the event tasks? Whether you did or didn’t, would there be a significant difference in the outcome, either a lose of income by doing the battles or a difference in bonuts?
I haven’t farmed. Like you, if I really want something I’ll spend real money. I’ve been pleased with the railway “glitch”. I’m getting the five donuts at least once a day, hitting the million mark about five times a week and then Maggie twice a week, so that’s 46 bonuts a week if my math is correct. I’m happy with that.
I’m not sure if I’ll give a farm method a try or not. I’m not as “into” the game as I used to be. It seems more of a chore these days then fun……a lot to do with the prizes. Even my town suffers because I haven’t taken the time to do a lot of makeovers and shifting of buildings to make it look like I want it to. Mostly because it takes too long to store, then hunt for those items to re-locate them. I must have several hundreds of storage items that are useless, and unable to get rid of. Too tedious to sort through to do all the makeovers I want to do.
Thanks for the post as always….you guys ROCK!
Yes, but How often do you have to log in and play to complete the Railyard though? I get that getting 25k blueprints and 5 donuts once a day is doable. But you’re logging in to play even more often right? We’ve all seen those “metal days” where you need 160 metal to get 1600 blueprints or whatever. Over and over. Those days suck. You’re popping in every 1/2/3 hours
Agree with all you said. I farm occasionally now but spent hundreds of real dollars and untold hours grinding for every friend visit donut and garbage donut and spending them on anything to increase my %. For years.
I leave the collider on always, but farm maybe 2-3 times a week. I get about 6 donuts a day from jobs due to my strategy from day one to buy characters and bonus % items only.
That works for me. I could get a ton more but not interested in grinding anymore.
I think it’s a reward for me anyway. I was obsessed with having everything. I spent a ton of money on this game. Easter 14 probably cost me $60+ in scratchers until I got everything. Then fortunately for me when I went on disability and couldn’t afford doughnuts anymore was when my percent of bonus and income were enough to farm. It was grinding but I was really broke and I still wanted everything. I figured after a few hundred dollars and then some, it was only fair. I think I’m now at the point where I no longer farm, of something new comes up I’ll sell Trucks. No way am I ever touching the railyard again. Way too much work and I have a rail running all through my town and and over 200 pieces of each style of track in my inventory.
Thanks for the info. Well explained. I will do the blood truck and rat trap. This will be good. Thanks again.
My head hurts
Embrace your inner farmer. You know you want to.