When should I buy armies?

[Kraizy]

Should I get them as soon as I have enough prisoners or hold off till like I have twice the amount needed so that I still have enough prisoners to keep making civies?

[DUMBHA]

From what I remember of my Supernova 0 run, I bought them immediately to spend on the beginning army upgrades due to how cheap they were. and then bought the Free Prisoners Black Hole Park ASAP, as that perk only costs 1 Black Matter point. So I never had to worry about spending Prisoners again.

After that, I kept doing that till I reached the point I was able to max out the Armies Created LY bonus category, from then on I saved my prisoners till I could max it out, then did a 24H run to get the most out of the bonus.

[Silberfuchs]

Get and keep your first army asap.
Everything past the first should be spend on permanent army upgrades.

Colonization is an option as well, but that resets on BH. Hence is best left for a bit later when you have more armies to spare/burn.

[Cylare]

I'm currently on BH 3 and doing an army run, It's not feasible without the upgrade to keep them.

I kinda messed up though because I also bought the ''decrease citizen gen rate by 20 sec'' mistaking it for a faster prisoner buff. Even with the longer runs (sleeping and work time) the citizens don't add up compared to resetting for the light year multipliers.

Now I have no other BH upgrade so the run is pretty slow. Will get the army in time with the next BH.

[Darnavir]

First army enables garbage production. This is the reason to have at least 1 whenever it is possible. More than that can depend on circumstances - you weight the potential lost citizens against the army upgrades/colonization.

[Alt Q Q]

I suppose you are still at Supernova 0?

So far my habit is running without any army purchase/upgrades after a BH reset till i have enough LY to unlock citizen multipliers. After that, i will just cap army purchase where possible, and wait for the next LY reset.

Even though garbage production is unlock at 1 army, its cap at 750 armies (without upgrades) which reduces a garbage production run to 30s. The thing you need to look is overspending your army. the garbage production can be affected as a result and you will need to wait for another LY reset at least, I learn it the hard and end up running a LY run with min army and min garbage production.

[Kotli]

Early on you should get 1 army early for garbage production (assuming you not carried any over from previous) and buy the rest when you going to lose prisoners to either time travel or black hole.

PS drop keep prisoners for Quad prisoners as soon as you can get it.

In later BH around BH 8 after the first or 2nd run it wont matter to much when you buy the 750 armies for your run as you pretty much get the prisoners back in a matter of seconds.

[duregard]

Originally posted by DUMBHA:

From what I remember of my Supernova 0 run, I bought them immediately to spend on the beginning army upgrades due to how cheap they were. and then bought the Free Prisoners Black Hole Park ASAP, as that perk only costs 1 Black Matter point. So I never had to worry about spending Prisoners again.

Free Prisoners is a really bad investment though. At most it will give you one extra level of each type of army. It's better to just spend like 1% of your prisoners on armies throughout the BH run, then buy the extra few levels you get from the remaining 99% at the very end before switching BH.

Free Prisoners is not detrimental or anything, there are just so much better upgrades to get for a BH point that it's an absolute waste to get it.

[duregard]

Originally posted by Kraizy:

Should I get them as soon as I have enough prisoners or hold off till like I have twice the amount needed so that I still have enough prisoners to keep making civies?

As many have pointed out, get the first army quickly to unlock garbage.

You should buy armies strategically to get the most LY out of creating them, that means buying as many as you can in your longest LY runs of each BH, since the LY gain will be multiplied by your time bonus. Also later LY runs will tend to give more LY per base point due to various bonuses unlocked by progressing the game.

Buy as many as you can before BH travel. Spend them on upgrades and try to get at least one at the start of your next BH using the special upgrade for that.

[xxxDENNIMONxxx]

on the prisoners tab,,i see Okrooyds and Elerans is unlock from playing so far
been through 2 black holes..very close tpo the 3rd now..so at the bottom it says generate army ..there is 2 tabs at the bottom..they havenever been green..is it bugged or do i need saomething or a certain achievemant?

[Silberfuchs]

Originally posted by xxxDENNIMONxxx:

on the prisoners tab,,i see Okrooyds and Elerans is unlock from playing so far
been through 2 black holes..very close tpo the 3rd now..so at the bottom it says generate army ..there is 2 tabs at the bottom..they havenever been green..is it bugged or do i need saomething or a certain achievemant?

Armies are build by spending prisoners, but that requires around a thousand prisoners for the first army, and that number doubles each time you build an army.

[Kotli]

Originally posted by xxxDENNIMONxxx:

on the prisoners tab,,i see Okrooyds and Elerans is unlock from playing so far
been through 2 black holes..very close tpo the 3rd now..so at the bottom it says generate army ..there is 2 tabs at the bottom..they havenever been green..is it bugged or do i need saomething or a certain achievemant?

Planet 2 in the first 4 systems unlocks a new prisoner/citizen type.
The later prisoner types require far less to make an army than earlier ones but they are a much rarer drop until you get quad prisoners.

[xxxDENNIMONxxx]

ok thanks guys

[xxxDENNIMONxxx]

so i keep all prisoners when i travel or go through black hole ?
so generating a 1000 takes a long time

[Silberfuchs]

Originally posted by xxxDENNIMONxxx:

so i keep all prisoners when i travel or go through black hole ?
so generating a 1000 takes a long time

There is a blackhole perk that lets you keep your prisoners when you light year travel, without it they go poof.

But don't underestimate the bonuses you get from each light year travel and especially BH (blackhole), they make more than up for losing stuff.

Meanwhile armies only reset when you BH, they are kept on light year travel.