Andromeda Heart Guide

This page is intended as a guide for those who have completed their first time travel (or are close to doing so), and are now overwhelmed by the challenges of the second map. Note that while writing this, I'm still far from completing the Andromeda Heart galaxy myself, so this guide is still developing. The guide is not meant to be comprehensive. A lot of good advice is available in a lot of good places. I will - knowingly or not - repeat some of that, but only where I feel it is particularly relevant once you have come this far.

Further, of course, where I'm going into details what to do, when, don't take that as a prescription. There's more that one playing style. I'm following mine, and you're following yours. But I hope, sharing my experience will give you a somewhat better basis for making your choices.

Your very first peak into the Andromeda Heart

Ok, if you are like me, you've read the advice to time travel as soon as you conquered Xora Tauri, but now that you've come this far, you want to risk a first peak, at least. A good choice. The first planet, Solidad, is not inhabitated, and you can just colonize it right away, for an easy 5 influence points (remember that those are one of the factors determining, how may technology points you earn). If you can afford another level of Interstellar Travel, you'll see two more planets with scarily powerful defenders. Yet, on a somewhat closer look, the three fleets defending Alfari have lots of ships, but a mere 1M max power. Have you built an Anger of Perseus ship (or two or three)? That will be invincible, here, and if you have some time to spare, you can use that to slowly grind down the opponent fleets (battles resulting in a draw will not award any XP, but they will still diminish the enemy fleet). Those 580 extra points of influence are nothing to sneer at.

With Alfari taken, you'll also gain access to Karan Art of War, but that's just too "expensive" to be of any use just yet.

After your first time warp

Your second visit to the second map will probably not be all that much longer than the first. Don't worry about the missions, yet. Much, much later, you'll have to finish either the Wharian cult or the Juini mission lines, in order to proceed to map three. But believe me, you are not even close to that point, yet, and there is no additional benefit to completing either mission.

If you spent your TP, wisely, this time, you should be able to conquer Alfari, Xenovirgo, and at least the first two Seals. The former will give you access to Karan Nuclear Physics research. See below for some words on this, but this, too, will not really help you much, yet. Also, with Xenovirgo conquered, you'll have access to Uranium, without having to ship it through the Space Gate. And yet, esp. with Methane, and Hydrogen being hard to come by, you will probably not be able to set up any meaningful level of production on map two, yet. What's more interesting about the three planets is that they will be super productive for Cryo-Research. So ship in lots of Circuit, build as many Cryogenic Labs as you can, and you should easily double (or more) your research point income. Whether or not you conquer any further planets on this run, you may want to spend some time, collecting those research points, in order to maximize the TP earned on your next time travel.

Some more specific hints (for your second visit to Andromeda Heart, or whenever you need them)

• You are aware of the research calculator tool, right? Otherwise, visit it right now. It's not just for figuring out how many TP you will earn. For instance, you certainly want to save some TP to invest into Quris Art of War (to point out just one), but the points that you will spend on Geology, you want to spend early. Thus you really want to plan ahead!
• While solar power does not really supply much energy on Xenovirgo, it is advisable to place 10 or 20 panels, there. Why? In case an auto-route happens to pick up all Thorium, that will be your only source of energy left on Xenovirgo. And at least it will be enough to bootstrap the Thorium/Uranium collection, again.

Some words on Karan Nuclear Physics

• Beware of Karan Nuclear Physics. Upgrading this to level 2, causes all of your existing nukes to start consuming Thorium. This has the potential to really mess up your supply lines in the Perseus Arm. Thus, after upgrading KNP to level 1, take some time to build enough Thorium Caesium Extractors in both galaxies, and wait for some stock to build up. Only then, you can consider the next levels.
• As another advice on Karan Nuclear Physics: Upgrading beyond level 1 is probably not worth it, until you can afford to reach level 6 or so, and the thought of sparing a few million engines is no longer prohibitive, and you know where to get Caesium. At that point, however, Karan Labs will rapidly become your main source of RP income, with each level of KNP boosting research points by a massive 20%.
• As a final point on Karan Labs: On radioactive planets, these produce twice as many RP as on other planets. So place your buildings wisely, esp. while Caesium is still scarce.

Can you breathe without Hydrogen?

By now, you have found out, that Hydrogen is not readily available in the Andromeda Heart. Essentially this is not going to change much, although there is at least one Gas Giant planet (Demeter, at a lousy 6x Hydrogen, though), and Ammonia (available not much earlier) is also going to help some. Now, one option might be to ship Hydrogen from your surplus in the Perseus Arm. Do as you please, but I dislike having to ship running resources, manually. So, if you want to hear my advise: Do not build any Fusion Reactors on Map two. The Andromeda Heart runs on fission, not fusion, i.e. Thorium/Uranium, and quite nicely so. While your Karan Nuclear Physics is not developed that may seem to little, but at that point there is not much use in building up significant production in the Andromeda Heart, anyway. Later, your Thorium Reactors will scale to be super-powerful. (Admittedly, in a later phase, I am building some Fusion reactors on Map 2, notably on the Carbon planets. Anyway, you get the idea: Don't rush head-first into fusion just because that used to be a great choice, earlier.)

But what about Nanotubes and Batteries? At first, you'll have to supply those from the Perseus Arm. Later it will be helpful to employ some Electrolyzers. Some levels in Hydrology will obviously be helpful in that. While you don't hope on getting to Map 3, conquering some of the Juini planets will provide plenty of water, and also allow you to build Nanotube Domes (if you don't want to attack the Juini, the Ammonia planets - harder to conquer - will also allow the construction of Nanotube Domes). Much later, Demeter will be the first planet, where a Methane Aggregator starts making some sense. Even then, that won't come close to competing with your Nanotube Domes, until you have at least Chemical Engineering 60+. Although that is cheap on TP, don't bother with that, just yet. You probably won't be able to conquer Demeter until after your third time warp.

After your second time warp

(For reference, IIRC, I had around 60k TP at this stage). Ok, third time in the Andromeda Heart. Time to conquer the second galaxy, yet? Not really. But you should be able to take another couple of planets. As those award a lot of influence points, that translates into a nice gain in TP. Keep in mind that while influence points correspond roughly to difficulty, some of the time you will find one of the later planets easier to conquer than one of the earlier ones. By this time you are certainly aware of the battle calculator. Use it a lot.

Much in this run is going to be pretty straight-forward, which does not mean boring, however. It will also be the first run where Karan Art of War, Space Mining, and possibly Karan Nuclear Physics, are starting to play a role. Also, you should be able to set up some engine factories on Seal of Death, which, speeding up your battle fleet, really helps increasing the playing fun.

Hints that may come in handy around this stage of the game

• Even now, you will still be producing most of your battle fleet in the Perseus arm. Remember to keep ramping up your production, there.
• Short on Antimatter? One option is to build several Space Gates (on the same planet). This reduces the transport cost.
• By now you have a bunch of levels in QAoW, and in Electronics. Combined that has quite an impact on your battle fleet: Sky Dragon is turning into the backbone of your fleet. Build them in millions, build them in billions (ok billions is for your next run). Because you can: All those 30% boots to your Circuit production really stack up.
• On a related note: You are aware of the ships calculator? Definitely worth checking once in a while, as a supplement to the battle calculator.
• Space Mining is pretty obvious. Focus it on the resources that are hardest to come by.
• In case you are wondering: Don't worry about Meissnerium, Superconductors, etc, yet. These will not do anything (let alone become useful) until you have unlocked Protohalean Science, which is still way out of reach at this point.

One step back: Streamlining the early stage after time warp

• By now, making your way through the Perseus Arm may start feeling a little tedious. A large part of that is setting up your auto-routes. To help with that, before warping, build as many Time Machines are you can afford. This increases the number of Orion Cargo ships you start out with. Consider adding a thousand Andromeda Cargos to your Ishar Gate hub fleet, and building (at least) one time machine on every planet of the Perseus arm.
• I had this idea much later, so not sure, from what point it starts being feasible: Since Promision allows to produce almost everything, there is no real need to set up elaborate supply chains, early on. Do colonize planets to unlock their tech, but don't bother producing anything on most, just yet. You probably want to team up Promision with Vasilis (for cryo and coolant), but most others you'll just leave isolated, until you have conquered Zelera. Then you can produce as many Orion Cargos as you need (initially, even producing your robots on Promision, too), set up your hub planet on Ishtar gate, and create the auto-routes just once, instead of babysitting them during that early phase of truly exponential growth. This strategy may not be optimal in terms of absolute time, but it needs a lot less clicks and attention.
• After that, conquering Antaris is your next prime goal, for obvious reasons (QAoW).
  

After your third time warp

The further we go, the more your experience and mine will be diverging. Anyway, after my third time travel, I had around 800k TP. Is that enough to conquer the Andromeda Heart, finally? With a wise research setup, and an active but patient playing style, maybe so. Personally, however, as I hit my first major road blocks at Auriga, I decided I to give up on that idea. Note that is isn't just the military aspect (I actually proceeded to conquer everything but the last two planets on the same run): To unlock Protohalean Science, you need to get Karan Nuclear Physics to level 20, and that alone would have taken me almost three weeks from where I stood. So rather, I decided to collect as many more influence points as I could, and start afresh. YMMV. Anyway, some discoveries that you may make around this time:

• Unlocking Nitrogen Chemistry on Auriga is nice in that it allows to to ramp up your Coolant (and thus Engine) production in the Andromeda Heart, considerably, despite the lack of Methane. There is no real benefit to having a lot of levels in this tech just now, though, so don't waste your technology points.
• Magellan will finally give you Caesium on Map 2. You will probably want to use a miner fleet to boost your extraction.
• Those Light's Mexager ships are a real nuisance. Having lots of engines on your fleet helps some.
• If you really want to push the limits, and you don't mind investing some extra time, the "Empire" government option will start becoming interesting. Note that there is no downside to changing your government repeatedly (only an 8 hour hiatus between changes), so you can cycle between Technocratic Republic, Empire, and (e.g.) Merchant Federation (for building ships) as needed. (A bit of a cheat: Time it so that you switch to Empire only at the end of the day. Don't leave the game running like this. Rather, after completing your battles, shut down the game, and go to sleep. When starting again - after eight hours or more - switch back to Technocratic Republic, immediately, thus giving you the research boost for all of your idle bonus phase).

After your fourth time warp

Our numbers will be vastily different, by now, but after my fourth time travel, I had 8.8 million TP. Is that finally enough to reach Galaxy 3? Yes, definitely. But don't expect it to be a walk in the park. So let's look at the steps to take and the remaining obstacles:

Getting ready to proceed to Map 3

• As already mentioned, to get to Map 3, you will have to finish either the Wahrian Cult or the Juini mission line. Pick the Juini missions. Not just because of the long term consequences, detailed, elsewhere, but also the Seals will be much more valuable to have, for producing research points, and engines, engines, engines. Do note that you must not attack the Seals until you have finished the first Juini quest! The Juini missions will not be available, otherwise.
• Also, after capturing Volor Ashtar, do not attach the Juini planets just yet! That would still cancel the remaining quests. You will have to wait until you really have that Space Gate Gamma.
• Talking about Volor Ashtar: The defence fleet there is impressive even at close to 9M TP. Check the battle calculator to find out, whether and how you can beat it. Interestingly, for me, a shortage of Antimatter in the Perseus Arm delayed my progress a little, as I could not send my reinforcement fleet of 40B Sky Dragons in one go...
• As already mentioned, you need Karan Nuclear Physics level 20+ to unlock Protohalean Science. You did spend your TP wisely?
• Afterwards you still need to build 7 Space Gate Alpha and 7 Space Gate Beta on Volor Ashtar. The former should not be too much trouble, by now. The latter means a total investment of 6.35B Osmium und 12.7B Rhodium. You may want to start ramping up your production, early. Don't forget about the Medusa Miners! Xenovirgo and Xora Tauri are particularly interesting, as they have nice multipliers for both Rhodium and Osmium.
• Now, to actually use your Space Gate Gamma, you need Dark Matter. I encourage you to look up the production chain for that, too. You will find that - among other requirements - you will at least need 10M/s Nanotubes, for a continuous production. (Of course, a sustained production is not a hard requirement to proceed. However, you will have to produce quite a quantity in order to set warp a fleet strong enough to set foot in the Void.)