# 1. Quick start answers
| Question | Short answer | Evidence status |
|---|---|---|
| When should I sell my first galaxy? | u/AelixD: the 12.5 mil mark is the optimal time/credit investment; every credit after that takes more and more time. A player who sells at 12.5M reports 11 credits.[1][4] | Community Knowledge |
| What should I spend my first credits on? | u/sebkraj: open Mothership Rooms and max the level-11 rooms first;[1] u/strange143: balance unlocking new rooms and investing in the rooms you have.[3] | Community Knowledge |
| How do planets get more than 1 beam? | u/Dreacle: colonise the planets, some modules give an extra beam once colonised; u/Rhino1over: a module called beam highways counts 1 beam as 4.[6] | Community Knowledge |
| How do pink asteroid module bonuses stack? | u/No-Thanks4155: multiplicative, so a +7.5% module on a 10% base is 10.75%; u/The__Gerb: legendary 20% gives 0.12, mythic 30% 0.13, ancient 40% 0.14.[8] | Community Knowledge |
| Why would a time warp produce zero bars? | Players report that warps use offline production logic, which follows the production rate on the resource detail panel, not surges or specialist doubles, so a bar you only get from those can show 0 after a warp.[10] | Community Knowledge |
| What should I spend Dark Matter on? | u/brandonct: save 500 DM for the most expensive manager recruitment option; don’t bother with the 50 or 300 DM pulls. u/Willing-Bench1078 alternates 500 DM on a manager with 400 DM on two sets of 200 DM modules until you have four S-grade modules.[1] | Recommendation |
# 2. Selling your first galaxy (the 12.5M threshold)
Community Knowledge A new player asks about the 12.5 price they read about and whether upgrading the Mothership is the real permanent progression.[1] u/AelixD replies: “The 12.5 mil mark is just the optimal time/credit investment. Every credit after that takes more and more time to acquire, so diminishing returns.” They add that when you get faster it may feel tedious to sell every hour or a few times every hour, so depending on your play style you may let it go longer, and “you’ll want to go longer for challenges and tournaments anyway.”[1]
- Time to 12.5M: the original poster of thread 1wn79w3 says they can reach 12.5M (11 credits) in about an hour and fifteen minutes after a little under a month of play.[4]
- Mothership: u/Torxtank says the Mothership is “your first real permanent progression.”[1] u/Additional-Comb3111 says the typical measure of progress is reaching a higher Galaxy Value in the same amount of time, with Challenges (24-hour limit) and Tournaments (compete for Galaxy Value over 48 hours) as the defined systems for it.[1]
- Fast cycling: in thread 1wazd8x the original poster shares a “Sub 20 Minutes! new PB” and says they always use 1 Prod boost; u/M1sterM0g says that in 20 minutes they still can’t hit 10 mil, and u/DragonTaryth says a lot of it comes down to click speed and mental processing.[2]
# 3. Credit allocation & mothership room priority
- Lounge: Community Knowledge A player with 144 credits asks whether to buy new rooms “so I could get the lounge eventually”;[3] another player lists the Lounge as “(+Credits)” among their available rooms.[4] u/StudyLegitimate2550 (who says they are a consistent #1 Platinum player) gives an order: Robotics to level 4 first, then unlock the Lounge, then balance levels, prioritizing the level-11 rooms and the Lounge at a 2:1 ratio with Engineering, Forge and Workshop.[4] One player celebrates reaching a level 60 Lounge.[5]
- Level-11 rooms: Community Knowledge u/sebkraj: “The rooms that max out at level 11, max those first.”[1] u/Striker_AC44: max out the L11 rooms; one halves the crafting cost of items and another halves the smelting requirements.[11] u/StudyLegitimate2550 treats Robotics as one of the level-11 rooms and Engineering, Forge and Workshop as separate “main rooms”.[4]
- Robotics: Community Knowledge u/M1sterM0g: the rover room allows the higher class of searches, which get stars and higher managers; they are not for short galaxies but for “overnight duty” ones.[4] u/Rhino1over’s answer to the credits question is “Robotics 100%”.[3]
- Modules: Community Knowledge u/crowdedhoney: a blue in each slot is enough on modules for now; get rooms and manager slots into at least the mid-teens (with at least a 4⭐ in each manager slot) before going back to modules.[3]
# 4. Planet logistics, multiple beams & colonisation
Community Knowledge In thread 1wmvq5a[6] the original poster asks how a planet can get more than one beam and how it changes anything. u/Electrical_Rain_2721 says they have “4 beams per planet”. u/Dreacle: “Colonise the planets, some modules will give you an extra beam once you colonise them, and you get faster smelt/crafting speed the more beams you have.” u/Rhino1over: a module called beam highways counts 1 beam as 4 beams and “does wonders for smelt/craft speed per beam on the synth module perks”. u/Kenjamin1991: certain modules give multiple beams, and other modules then interact, such as “1.02x craft speed per beam.”[6]
Community Knowledge Colonisation: in thread 1why82k[7] the original poster shares a method for reaching colony level 10 on four planets, solely for event missions (one-star, four-star and six-star manager missions). Replies disagree about how current it is: u/YuriPup and u/Adventurous_Steak837 say that is the old system and the new one no longer behaves like that, while u/Striker_AC44 says you need roughly 230 in total across mining, speed and cargo for level 10 colonies. u/No-Thanks4155 says early planets won’t ask for resources beyond the recipes you have unlocked.[7]
# 5. Pink asteroids & multiplicative drop math
Community Knowledge In thread 1wmnhsx[8] a player asks why a +7.5% module doesn’t make 17.5%. u/im_just_thinking says the base is 0.1, so 0.1075 is “43/400 chance of getting a pink”. u/No-Thanks4155: it’s multiplicative, “10% x 7.5% so 10.75%”, and higher ones become OK since 20% brings it to 12% chance. u/The__Gerb: they use “tower math”; on legendary it is 20% (0.12 instead of 0.1), on mythic 30% (0.13) and on anc 40% (0.14), “really useful on those ones.”[8]
- +7.5% module: 10% × 1.075 = 10.75%.
- Legendary +20%: 12%. Mythic +30%: 13%. Ancient +40%: 14%.
Community Knowledge u/Mellikz says most epic tier mods are useless and that from legendary onward the pink chance is a must-have; u/im_just_thinking says it’s the only way to affect the pink chance and it’s very bad not to get some really important alloys in your galaxies.[8]
Recommendation Scanner choice (thread 1wnqxus[9]): u/Sordonir: unless you are a real endgame player (D in under 2 hours), the scan harmonizer is the answer “and it’s not even close.” u/Yurconale: “That extra pink asteroid and debris early in a new galaxy can provide a huge jump up.”[9]
# 6. Time warps & net production logic
Community Knowledge One original poster (thread 1wgps6z[10]) writes that time warps don’t take the Abandoned Smelter surge or the Smelting/Crafting Specialist (chance to double item) into consideration: “If you do a warp it will strictly follow the alloy/item production rate on the resource detail panel instead of the actual rate from all sources.” Their example: with lead on an Abandoned Smelter surge you may skip producing lead bars, but after a warp you could have about 0 steel because no lead bar is being produced in your smelters; the same applies to the 10% double production chance.[10] Other players, in separate r/IdlePlanetMiner threads, back this up: they describe a time warp as an hour of offline production with the same limits, and add that smelters and crafters are processed in slot order and that offline mining runs at a reduced rate (a player-reported figure, not official data). The Time Warps guide sets out those sources and how players avoid stalls.
# Related guides
Deep-dive guides on single questions, each built from community threads and linking back here:
- When to Sell Your Galaxy After the First One — 12.5M vs 100M vs 1B, and short vs long galaxies
- Credit Spending & Mothership Rooms — what players say about the Lounge and level-11 rooms
- Planet Beams & Colonisation — what players say about beams and Beam Highways
- Pink Asteroids Math & Drop Rates — the multiplicative math and scanner choice
- Time Warps Production Logic — offline production rules and why smelters stall
- Debris Scanner Drops — what sets drop size and items, and why backlogged planets count as zero
# 7. Midgame transition (debris, crafting & managers)
- Debris: Community Knowledge In thread 1wm2w60[11] the original poster says a lucky asteroid/debris drop can save a few hours of crafting/smelting, and describes getting 11k accumulators from debris. u/Striker_AC44: debris “still kills the endgame” (114 drops in 40 hours and still short of windmills); u/SilverSneakers: debris helps get going, but eventually you have the crafting power to power through without the luck.[11]
- Alternate recipes: Community Knowledge u/Striker_AC44 bought the alternate recipes; the Iridium cost for the nuclear reactor’s alternate recipe is 43 instead of 108.[11] In the Phase Gate thread, u/Firal1 says crafting costs were adjusted and phase gates are now easier, and u/bowcreek says robot, fusion capsule and teleporter drops let you craft PGs “until the cows come home”.[12]
- Managers and Personal Pulse: Community Knowledge u/MadMuirder: Personal Pulse gives all non-mining managers double secondary bonus; “Meta currently is all managers except mine/mine are non-mining primary, and you’ll use a handful of mine/mines as the top few managers on highest value planets for VPS purposes.”[13] In another thread a player with 45 six-star managers, all with Mining as primary, complains about the module,[14] and u/GoMLism says to pull modules until you get Personal Pulse and then make upgraded non-mining leaders.[14]
# 8. Tournaments & markets
- Markets: Community Knowledge In thread 1wfekls[15] u/Striker_AC44: “If you hit a market it’s easy enough (and justifiable) to switch over. But why waste crafting/smelting time on items worth 50% less than another item?” u/RubPuzzleheaded7919 builds Phase Gates unless a Neural Matrix market is coming, and banks PGs in case of a positive market; u/xtanol describes getting a x4 PG market with 30 minutes left.[15]
- Luck: Community Knowledge In thread 1wm2w60[11] u/DefinitelyNotATheist says the end-game is making it so you don’t rely on luck, while u/crowdedhoney says the luck factor is still there in the end game, it just switches to markets.[11]
- Module pulls: Community Knowledge In thread 1wcbmnp[16] u/DrKlitface believes you are guaranteed one S-tier on the first pull, u/DragonTaryth says “you definitely aren’t guaranteed”, and u/The__Gerb says you can’t pull epics that are not S-tier.[16]
# 9. Version sensitivity
- Community Knowledge: everything on this page is what named players say in the cited threads; none of it was verified in the game client.
- Version-sensitive: players mention a “new system” for colonisation[7] and a module rework that left the wiki’s module table incomplete (u/MadMuirder, thread 1wfwvpd);[13] treat older advice with care.
# 10. Sources & community credit
Primary community evidence includes real r/IdlePlanetMiner discussions collected via the approved Arctic Shift Photon Reddit API archive:
- New Player About to Sell First Galaxy (opens Reddit) — AelixD, Additional-Comb3111, Torxtank, sebkraj, brandonct, Willing-Bench1078 on selling the first galaxy, rooms and DM.
- Sub 20 Minutes! (opens Reddit) — the OP’s sub-20 minute PB; M1sterM0g and DragonTaryth replies.
- What should I spend my credits on? (opens Reddit) — Fuzzy-Disk8999, crowdedhoney, strange143, Rhino1over on rooms vs modules.
- New player. Need Mothership Room direction (opens Reddit) — StudyLegitimate2550 and M1sterM0g on room order and Robotics.
- LVL 60 LOUNGE 🎉🎉🎉 (opens Reddit) — a player’s level 60 Lounge post.
- How is it possible for a planet to get more than one beam? (opens Reddit) — Dreacle, Rhino1over, Kenjamin1991, Electrical_Rain_2721 on beams.
- Colony level 10 guide (opens Reddit) — the OP’s event-mission method; YuriPup, Adventurous_Steak837, Striker_AC44, No-Thanks4155 replies.
- Pink asteroids. Can someone do the math for me? (opens Reddit) — The__Gerb, No-Thanks4155, im_just_thinking, Mellikz on the pink asteroid math.
- Belt Sonar or Scan Harmonizer (opens Reddit) — Sordonir and Yurconale on Scan Harmonizer vs Belt Sonar.
- Is is possible to update the logic (coding) behind time warps? (opens Reddit) — the OP’s report on time warps and the resource detail panel.
- Mid to end game…… ¿random? (opens Reddit) — Striker_AC44, SilverSneakers, DefinitelyNotATheist, crowdedhoney on level-11 rooms, debris and luck.
- Phase Gate for life.. (opens Reddit) — RubPuzzleheaded7919, Firal1, bowcreek on Phase Gate vs Neural Matrix.
- Manager Meta (opens Reddit) — MadMuirder and Adventurous_Steak837 on manager roles and Personal Pulse.
- Playing without Personal Pulse 😡😥 (opens Reddit) — the OP, GoMLism and others on Personal Pulse.
- Tournament tactics and markets (opens Reddit) — Striker_AC44, RubPuzzleheaded7919, xtanol on markets.
- Just unlocked modules and got this in my free 10 (opens Reddit) — DrKlitface, DragonTaryth, The__Gerb on module pulls.
Evidence repo keeps slim corpus + consumer_pointer: consumer_pointer.json + corpus/foundation_corpus.json. Bulk Arctic packs stay in martinyyang/reddit-evidence-engine.