UPGRADES! What to do and when to do it!

Introduction

Meow y'all! It's Angela (again.) At early stages in the game and even later on, our earned funds can always be a little tight. Even in higher levels, we do have the gold for it but it's still expensive AND time consuming. We still find ourselves asking: Which furniture should I do first?

So today, we'll talk about upgrades and when to hit them!

Racks

We have four types: Vertical Racks, Table, Shelves and Mannequins. You probably didn't think much about how many of each you have. You just wanted the additional energy they give, right? That's basically the purpose of upgrading them.

TIP! Planning your racks based on what you usually craft is also a way to keep your racks full. For example, I mainly craft spears and potions. My fodders are rings, amulets and scrolls! I never have to worry about keeping my racks full, because spears and potions go to where they need to be. The tables I have are hidden from customers so they can't sweep off its contents. It's kept in my shop for when I craft shields, daggers and bows for tasks, additional energy AND maintaining heavy customer flow!

Upgrading racks increases our maximum energy cap and gives us more energy per smalltalk. That's the main point of having the highest maximum amount of energy you can get your hands on. Small Talk successes grants +10% energy from what you're missing to maximum.

This is just from small talk. You should also have items you discount and sell for additional energy.

Now, to decide if your current maximum energy is enough for smooth selling, you need to know what your highest selling items require for Surcharge Energy. For players who did not buy the Engineer (Roxanne), our current highest-selling item would be the Tier 7 spear, Royal Halberd which requires 480 energy to surcharge.

Some players aim for just a little over 480, I say AIM HIGHER. By that, I mean 960 energy (double the 480) and higher. In this example, our maximum energy is set to 1,000 and I will use Hauberk, a T4 Heavy Armor for discount (+45) and my counter is level 12, which gives +21 energy per sale.

Starting from 0/1000

Small Talk 1: 100/1000

Discount (+45): 145/1000

Sell (+21): 166/1000

Small Talk 2: 249/1000

Discount and Sell (45+21=66): 315/1000

Small Talk 3: 383/1000

Discount and Sell (+66): 449/1000

Small Talk 4: 504/1000, Surcharge, Sell.

From there you will see, I only needed 4 successful small talks and 3 Hauberks to sell 1 Halberd. Not having a high enough energy will require more small talks and discount items. Also add in backfires, and a chain of it if you're unlucky. For every backfire, you lose 7% of your maximum amount.*

Maximum Energy on the date of computation is 1,238.

542 to 456 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

414 to 328 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

164 to 78 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

134 to 48 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

293 to 207 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

363 to 277 (-86) = 0.0686 or 7% of 1,238

To terrorize you further, check this small talk chart for people who has 100 as their maximum amount and imagine how many successful small talks they need just to surcharge Scroll of Sparks, a tier 3 scroll that required 85 energy:

TIP! Why I'm saying this is that: It's not advisable to small talk when your energy is already over 50%. As you can see in the chart, the higher your energy gets, the lower you get from Smalltalk Successes. Technically, you're losing energy.

(But If I were you, i'd be more worried about small talking at over 50% energy than Backfires.)

Bins

Our lovely, lovely bins. They are essential for our crafting needs, but of course you already know that. For me, upgrading them and making sure you have the highest cap possible is highly beneficial. This way, you can craft more things despite your resource regeneration rate. With bigger bins, you'll have more remaining resources to use for crafting while your bins try to catch up.

Here, we will use Royal Halberd as example:

In the charts, you will see that I could craft 4 Royal Halberds every 33 minutes because my bins are big enough to craft them initially from zero, but to maintain a constant flow of crafting, I only do 4 when I log in at full bins and the rest of the halberds following that goes for 3 a time. Like I said, the resource regeneration rate. If I crafted 4 Halberds all the time, I will run out of resources.

It will need 536 wood, 136 ironwood, and 32 oil.

Initially, I will be left with 14 wood, 74 ironwood, and 188 oil. In 2009.34 seconds or 33 mins and 29 seconds.

Wood: 15 x 33.5 = 502.5 (round up to 503) + 4 (remaining) = 510

Ironwood: 3.5 x 33.5 = 117.25 (round down to 117) + 74 (remaining) = 191

With the current wood amount of 510 I'm lacking 26 wood to craft the 4th one for the 2nd set of 4. The Ironwood was able to keep up as I will only need 136, but it will leave me with 55 ironwood. We can get to the 3rd set of 4 (by getting the investment bonus from Lumberyard) and my ironwood will be down to 36. We can still make it to 4th set (by getting more wood from Lumberyard Bonus), but my ironwood will be down to 17, (+117 = 134) and it won't be enough to craft the 4th one. We can invest in Ironwood Sawmill for that extra 2pcs or wait it out for a minute. However, you may have already lost more gold than your 4 Halberds are worth by constantly investing for that bonus wood. Not to mention, it has a limit of 10x per day, too.

(I did not include oil in the computation, but I'd have ran out of it too because I also craft 3 Potions of Renewal along with Royal Halberds. Since it is faster to craft compared to spears, it will also take more oil.)

Counter

I consider the counter to be a long term investment in our shops. At earlier stages in the game, high-leveled counter is a luxury, but not entirely useless. That additional energy per sale that you're getting may not seem much, but it stacks.

Most people don't upgrade this until they're stable enough on profit to afford upgrading the counter. This will be expensive (gold wise) especially after level 11, but (I think) the constant +21 energy per sale from my level 12 counter is worth it.

Tip?! Maybe! People keep asking though, how to make a lot of gold? It's a combination of these 3. Balance: Your racks providing you enough energy to surcharge efficiently, your bins keeping up with constant crafting that you don't run out of items to sell + extra energy from counter every sale!

Your guildmates can HELP you!

Once you've helped a member on a furniture, you can't help them for that upgrade anymore unless you wanna rush their upgrade with gems. A player can only receive a maximum of 5 helps per furniture upgrade.

There are instances when you can help them twice, but only if they have both a furniture upgrade and a shop expansion going on at the same time. Again, just 5 helps. Once they get their 5 helps from other guild members, you can't help them anymore.

Tip! This is usually done in bigger guilds where most players' upgrades take days to finish: Rushing each other's upgrades with gems! Did you know that upgrading a furniture with gold+gems is cheaper? (gem-wise, of course.) We usually buy an upgrade with gold and after 5 helps, rush it with gems ourselves. But!!! If you can find someone in your guild be your gem-rush buddy, you'll both spend 10% less on rushing upgrades!

Also, more GUILD COINS for everyone!

TL;DR? Here's what to upgrade in order: (1) Racks,(2) Bins, (3) Counter.