In my opinion it's too high. I'm grinding my way to X5 and 1750 points is an enormous price, I can only imagine the amount needed to reach the final X12 multiplier. It all boils down to how fast and how much of various milestone shapes you can produce and deliver. So far I have two milestone shapes running around the clock which amounts to ~100K shapes delivered every 1.5 minutes. At this point to get another operator level I need millions of shapes. 10 research points per level means I need to get 175 levels. It's dozens of hours of the game running idle, even if I automate other shapes. And it's only one step on the way to max rank.
It feels like multiplier levels cost was made so expensive to unlock just to ensure that you can't get them by just playing and having fun. If you get so far into the game you have things figured out and just copy'n'paste ready to use components. Dull repetition, only thought that goes into this process is choosing a place where to build your factory.
#Shapes multiplier unlock cost.
radiant hedge
radiant hedge
Ok, I just unlocked shape multiplier level 5 and the price for level 6 is 3500 research points. it's just insane.
north arch
I believe, from a game design perspective, it's meant to be a LATE late game upgrade
the purpose of it is not to encourage you to build less/smaller factories/mams, but is instead meant to help counter the limits that computer performance has on the game. it allows players in the ultra-late-game keep making actual progress while they physically can't build more factories due to hardware limitations
it helps to turn the leaderboard from "who has the best cpu" into "who has the best factory"
it doesn't completely eliminate that issue though, sadly.
if I may ask, how many space belts of each operator shapes are you producing? and how many mams do you have running?
radiant hedge
if I may ask, how many space belts of each operator shapes are you producing? an...
I have one MAM outputting 12 belts of shapes directly into the Vortex. Also I have 3 factories making 2 full space belts worth of shapes each, each making its own operator shape.
I'm not really eager to make more MAMs, cause supplying that one alone was a PITA.
Performance wise I'm already struggling a bit 'cause my i7-8700k shows its age already. ~50 fps when zoomed out dropping as low as 15 fps when over the platform with a lot of belts. They tend to tank fps the most now.
north arch
oh wow I had no idea they got THAT expensive.. I think the only way to get those research points quick would be to get a crosmam up and running but I totally understand not wanting to have to supply the damn thing
do you have multithreading turned on? it's off by default in game settings but I imagine you've got it on