Gnorping your way into Compression 10 (and winning the game)

My 17 talent point build for reaching Compression 10, with an analysis of it included (because I'm a nerd).

Talent Points

My carefully picked out talents, from across 30 hours of gameplay.
Now, this setup may require 17 points, which is a lot, but it will let you reach compression 10 with ease! Not all of these are useful endgame, but they surely help out in the process.

[PART 1] Buildings, and why they are the way they are

The core element of the game! As this is no usual idle game, maxing out everything and waiting for things to work out is not exactly the correct way to go. So, here is a build I used along with the talents above!

The buildings are presented in the rough order I built them in, just in case someone really wants to stay close to the guide.

The Shard Stash

• Auto-House - keep it on if you please, but personally, it gets in the way when you're trying to save up shards.
  
• The Express - fundamental to progress.
  
• Slam Club - not used at all, but bought it anyway.
  
• House of Shards - fundamental to progress.
  
• Build Housing - you can never have too many gnorps. That being said, feel free to buy as many as you please.
  
• Additional Housing - becomes fundamental the further you go, and is generally really worth it. You can never have too many gnorps.

The Express

• Work - always working, never stopping.
  
• Attunement: Mountaineer - By the sheer amounts of mountaineers we will be having, their boost is oh-so worth it.
  
• Runner - you may never have too many gnorps, but you sure as hell can have too many runners. Speaking from experience! Therefore, 20 is the optimal amount, as it will both let the Zygnorps attune themselves to them, but will also be efficient enough.
  
• Capacity - not exactly necessary later on, but it doesn't hurt to upgrade it.
  
• Speed - best to max out.
  
• G.E.E.T. Protocol - fundamental to progress. It's best to max it out to max out efficiency.
  
• Breaktime - buy it once, and then never give them a break ever again. Otherwise, you will lose the capacity buff. You don't want that!
  
• Delivery rush! - really useful, considering your runners will end up stuck at the very beginning of the shard field.
  
• Teleportation - a waste of good Zybellium. Seriously, I think that thing makes them go slower, in result ruining efficiency.

Slam Club

Yeah... It's empty. It's not really worth it. No in-depth guide here. Moving on.

House of Shards

It's pretty straightforward, but I had the need to include it.
We will not be buying robotics, as it is pretty useless to me, and a waste of 3 fine gnorps that could be doing something else.
But, hey, if drones are your thing, then by all means, go for it. Useless tho.

Rock Analysis Lab

• Weakspot Discovery - highly useful early on. Worth every shard, considering how many of these we will be spawning.
  
• Weakspot Frequency - every second counts.
  
• Weakspot Weakspot - because weakspots have weakspots. We love efficiency.
  
• Reclamation Nullification - barely used it, not my thing.
  
• Zybellium Agitator - you'll want those 3 bonus Zybellium, trust me. Who wouldn't?
  
• Zybellium Collection - fundamental to progress.
  
• Balloon Gunner - with our skills, will summon rockets and shoot a lot of arrows. Real fast.

Archery Range

• Fire - fire shreds, and isn't annoying like ice is.
  
• Rocket Arrows - high damage output and affects gatlegnorp type arrows.
  
• Fire Arrows - since we're using them, we must have them. Pretty simple.
  
• Ice Arrows - despite not using them at all, it's worth buying them, as one of our talents will award us with free gnorps. Yay!
  
• Zybellium Arrows - I've never bought them. Ever. I have no idea if they're good. If they are, I wouldn't know. We don't need them here though!

Cocoa Cafe

• Climb - let 'em tear the mountain to shreds. Sometimes it's worth it to give them a break, to stop the mountaineers from preventing us from reaching certain compression levels.
  
• Attunement: Hulk - this is really the only choice you have. And it's the best one you could ever make! Later on individual pieces become so compressed, they're impossible to move by other means. This greatly increases their efficiency.
  
• Mountaineer - just like runners, you can have too many of these, except if you do, the mountaineers will roam around doing nothing. What a waste! With our talent which lets them bring a friend along, 25 is the highest reasonable number to have. That means 50 gnorps for half the price! Rejoice!
  
• Improved digging - upgrade it too many times, and they'll become a menace that'll ruin your shard pile. Upgrading until the gnorp cost starts showing 6 (which is, I believe, upgrading 6 times? oh the coincidence) seems like the most optimal choice.
  
• Digging width - max it out, it's cheap later on and totally worth it.
  
• King of the Pile - after all, why not? Experiment a little with resting and climbing to make sure the king collects 4 crowns, make sure he does it alone though! The crowns will carry on to other gnorps later on thanks to one of our talents.

Gnorp Propulsion Lab

• Attunement: Weakspots - with so many weakspots appearing every second, it's best to have little helpers around who will activate them for you.
  
• Bomber - their only purpose here is activating weakspots for us. However, if you have a spare Zybellium around, they could also shoot pocket rockets.
  
• Timeshift impact - not worth it with our current setup, as they deal barely any damage and don't receive bonus rockets upon impact.
  
• Ultra Boost - not a damage build, not worth it at all.
  
• Concentration - not a damage build, not worth it at all.
  
• Pocket Rockets - as I said, only if you have a spare Zybellium around. Otherwise, not worth your time.

Gun V. Rock

• Modern Warfare - thanks to our talents, grenades will reduce the time needed for a weakspot to spawn. You can have as many as you please, they're only really expensive in terms of shards.
  
• Gatlegnorp - since we unlocked rocket arrows, we might as well put them to use. On top of that, these guys will spawn rockets.
  
• Gatlegnorp: Ammo - accomodate him. Get him that ammo. Watch in ave, as the rain of arrows flies by.
  
• Grenade Launcher - unlocks "Modern Warfare". Prior to unlocking it, you can use fire arrows.
  
• Sticky, Floral Residue - reduces the time needed for gnorps to return to the rock after recoil, which means more damage per second.

[PART 2] Buildings, and why they are the way they are

Academy

• Attunement: Runners - you have enough! Feel free to switch between them and the mountaineer option (you also have enough!), depending which one is collecting more at a given moment.
  
• Zygnorp - it doesn't hurt to have 3. After all, you have all that bonus Zybellium to spare! They should become your most efficient unit in no time.
  
• Drone Attunement - drones? What are drones? Never heard of 'em.
  
• Mountaineer Attunement - fundamental to our setup.

The YX1-AB

• Enable - why would you ever disable those? Beats me!
  
• X-rockets - the more the better!
  
• Y-rockets - you really can't have enough rockets!
  
• Vulnerability - a must have, considering all the damage it outputs, and how it retuns reclaimed shards. Activate it fast enough, it's as if you've never lost a shard!

The Garden

• Blue / Green / Red - all of them are useful, so keep them all checked! Later on, however, hulks (red) might become a bit of a problem, by collecting a ton (I mean, a TON) of shards and ruining your pile. Disable them then, and let 'em return whenever you're ready.
  
• Flower Power - generally worth it, makes sure the garden never runs out of flower power, creating a constant flow of altered gnorps.
  
• Amplified Observation - worth it. No questions asked.
  
• Enriched Puke - worth it. No questions asked.
  
• Singular Shockwave - worth it. No questions asked.

Shrine

• Find the Chosen - fundamental to progress.
  
• Accord: Reversal - reduces the amount of shards the rock reclaims. Worth.
  
• Accord: Overdrive - this innocent little guy with a mystical sword will become your most powerful asset when combined with Accord: Power.
  
• Accord: Power - an insanely good accord when combined with our multiplier growth talent. Dare I say, it's fundamental to our progress. Good stuff.

Damage and Collection

This is how your Damage and Collection should look like after following this guide!



The numbers may be higher than yours, but that's okay. It's all from the multiplier growth that grew while I was writing this guide with the game on in the background!

BONUS - 19 talent point addendum

A slightly more advanced build requiring 19 talent points.
It's the exact same as the 17 points one, simply with two new additions to it.





Since rockets will automatically activate weakspots now, Bombers will become useless. This little upgrade gives them a little bit more functionality, by utilizing rockets and timeshift impact instead. Both mountaineers and their friends are capable of sending out rockets thanks to this newly picked out attunement. Don't you just love efficiency!
Noted, in this build we have 2 Zygnorps instead of 3.

Speedrun Mode

The results of testing out the 19 points setup in Speedrun Mode.
As you can see, it works like a charm!

Conclusion

I started making this guide the moment I hit Compression 10, so you can be sure this setup came fresh out of testing. Feel free to alter this setup in any way you please!



All comments, suggestions and the like are welcome.

Happy gnorping :3

[Lin+chu]

Yes I found out pretty early on that the ice arrows were useless when compared to the fire arrows… especially when combined with the “Superhot” and “Popcorn” Talents which totally amplify that damage output!! Thanks for the guide! :)

[Blueray]

☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️ this is the purple guy
☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️copy and paste him in every guide comment
☪️⬜⬛☪️☪️⬜⬛☪️so he can take over the workshop and finally
☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️☪️stop being depressed and murdering 5 children
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
☪️⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛☪️
☪️⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛☪️
☪️☪️⬛⬛⬛⬛☪️☪️ yes

[Eevil Beaver-=FMF=-]

compression
or
depression?

[Zapizza]

I have to add that ice arrows should NOT be added to the gunners. grenades increase the overdrive bar and makes the sword swings from the shrine VERY strong, so ungodly strong that it does more than twice the damage of rockets. Put ice arrows on the archers and that is it

[Blinky]

the way it works is, with the upgrade bought. you'll need to wait for your next compression event. When that happens, you'll get 1 zybe as normal, however a 5 minute timer will begin.

If you manage to reach compression a second time within this 5 minute period, you'll get the regular zybe from the compression PLUS 1 EXTRA. And, since you just reached a new compression event, the 5 minute timer will start once again, and if you compress AGAIN within this new 5 minute timer, you'll get another extra zybe.

This effect can only occur 3 times, meaning you can only get 3 extra zybe from it, which is still very worth it. To see the 5 minute timer, pay attention on the right side of the screen, where you have your perks displayed. The Zybellium Agitator perk will be on the left side of the list, greyed out initially. When a 5 minute timer was initiated, it'll become white and slowly the color with fade from it.

[InfiniteDrillWorks]

can someone please explain to me how Zybellium Agitator works? i invested in the trait, i bought the upgrade in-game but i dont see any extra zybe... am i supposed to press something or do they just appear on their own?

[Fiddy]

Also, investing in a few rifles is a good idea once you start using ice, as it takes 6 hits to proc

[Fiddy]

This guide is missing something huge: Ice arrows.

In the early stages of the game, fire arrows are better, but ice doubles *all* incoming damage. Once you've got rocket miniguns going, ice is literally thousands of times better than fire.

[lemmington]

a few things: fire is great at the beginning and useless at the end, ice just doubles all damage it takes so it scales really well late game. (DO NOT take the supershatter perk, it makes ice uselss)

gun bullet damage scale with compression, so the arrow upgrade is a downgrade compression 6 and up.
drones are useful after compression 7 as they easily outpace runners at that point and the baby drones are the best damage option lategame.

[ariaventuri]

It comes with the "Agitated Zybe" talent, found in the bottom right corner cluster of the talent tree!