Idle Planet Miner is a relaxing, very slow paced idle game created by Iron Horse Games and available exclusively on Android. And we’re here today to help you get the most out of it by sharing some Idle Planet Miner cheats and tips for faster colonization of the universe.
You have to be extremely dedicated and committed to the game in order to unlock most of its features. The beginning is specifically slow, but with the perfect, relaxing music and casual approach that only requires you to log in for a few minutes every now and then, this game is a winner. And you’ll learn how to play it to get the most out of it faster.
So let’s not wast any time – instead, let’s check out Touch Tap Play’s Idle Planet Miner tips and tricks below.
Log in every 120 minutes
You don’t have many reasons to spend more than 5 minutes in the game after launching it (yet I still end up with 30+ minute sessions for some reason…)
Either way, the idea is to try to log in every 2 hours or sooner, because after two hours your mines stop working, no resources are created and you have no gains from this.
It’s extremely important to log in often to reset the counter in Idle Planet Miner because the game is very slow paced and resources are gathered slowly and crafted even slower. Therefore, you must make sure that your mines are always working, hence the need to log in every 120 minutes or so.
Upgrading planets vs research
At first, I thought that I should focus on researching everything as fast as possible because that’s how I will progress faster, but that is not necessarily how things work.
The thing with this game is that finding the balance and right thing to do is very difficult. Resources are always scarce and sometimes the things you can research won’t help you at all in terms of making your life easier. Therefore, my recommendation is to focus early on improving your planets and upgrading them as much as possible in order to produce as many resources as possible.
Craft as much as possible (try no never sell base resources as they are pretty much worthless), then sell. Rinse and repeat and upgrade your planets in the mean time in order to increase the flow of your resources. And then research.
But when you research, make sure you do it right: focus on the easiest thing that you can unlock next. Remember that some of the research projects are more important than others.
Early on in the game (before selling your first galaxy or two), I would say that extremely important are the research projects that give you extra planets and the Rover. Everything else doesn’t matter that much early on, when your main goal is to make enough money to bring value to your Galaxy in order to sell it.
Get the Rover ASAP
I mentioned this one earlier and I want to make sure that you understand the importance of this research milestone: when you get the Rover, you unlock time based missions which will give you some amazing rewards after a specific amount of time passes.
These rewards are usually premium currency, but can come in various shapes and quantities, from resources to all sorts of boosts. Really, consider the Rover the first thing you have to reach and research it ASAP. The sooner you get it, the sooner you start sending it to work and get all the goodies it has for you.
Smelt and craft
You should constantly do both activities, unlocking new recipes as long as they make sense. During your first run, Aluminmum Bars will be the most advanced thing you will produce, while the Hammer will be the most advanced crafting item (although I would recommend sticking to the Batteries).
Although crafting and smelting takes time, these products offer a lot more when sold that what you’d get from selling the base ingredients. So it’s definitely worth the trouble.
But don’t hoard on these items, especially not early on! Micromanage everything like a pro, decide what items you need to produce, which ones are required for your next research project and sell everything else. The money you get from selling the smelted and especially crafted products are really nice and they help you upgrade your planets faster.
Colonization is not important early on
In your first couple of galaxies, colonization is not as important as the fact that you unlock it early suggests. The requirements for even the first level of colonization are pretty big compared to the boosts that they offer, so don’t make them a priority. I do believe that you end up with more value early on if you simply sell all the resources required for colonizing a planet.
Things change after the second sale of your galaxy, when things move a bit faster and the boosts add up… but until then, don’t make colonization a focus for spending your resources.
Grab those free boosts (and the Beacon)
You can watch an ad in Idle Planet Miner for some nice free cash or every now and then to get your ships a boost. I recommend doing so heavily, especially after unlocking the Rover. I say that because the Rover gives you the chance to spend the points earned from watching ads on getting useful boosts for a set of planets.
Upgrade planets based on their output
Although for the most part money will be the deciding factor on how you will upgrade your planets, it doesn’t hurt to actually plan things ahead and upgrade them based on the resources that you need.
After the 6th planet, things start to get a bit more complicated as more advanced resources come into play. From that moment on, you should focus on the planets that give you the most of the highest element that you need.
I usually upgrade all the three stats (speed, cargo and mining rate) in a row to keep things even, but I always start with the speed as I have the impression that it matters the most when it comes to resource production.
But the most important part is to produce the item that you need and focus on that. For example, even if you have discovered Aluminum, if you still need Copper Wires and Batteries for your research and Colonization tasks, it makes no sense to focus on leveling up your Aluminum planets.
Assign (and re-assign) managers to your most important planets
Managers are extremely expensive – not only to purchase them, but also to unlock slots to actually get to use them – which makes micromanaging them extremely important as well.
Fortunately, you can assign and reassign them as you see fit. So just keep an eye on them, know the boosts that they offer and make sure that they’re always managing the planet that delivers the resources you need the most at that given time.
Sell your Galaxy often
Getting to a Galaxy that’s worth 10 million is an ordeal first time you play and even your second galaxy will take some time to get there.
Therefore, you should sell your Galaxy often: as soon as you get to 10 million, sell it! You get 10 credits for that, which gives you the chance to buy some rooms and get some nice boosts for your next play. These bonuses are extremely important and you should unlock them as fast as possible.
So if the value of your Galaxy isn’t growing fast enough, don’t wait for reaching the next milestone. You’re winning a lot more in terms of progress speed from selling it sooner and putting those credits to work!
This would be it for today’s guide for Idle Planet Miner. If you have additional tips or tricks to share with fellow players, don’t hesitate to do so by commenting below.
Hey how many resource and item is there
When you sell a galaxy, do you lose the free boosts you have accumulated? I just noticed I have a few.
When you sell, boost are lost until you research the beacon again.
When you sell, boost are lost until you research the beacon again.
Helpful tip
When using dark matter, wait until you have 60 units. Spend 20 on a planet boost, then spend 40 and skip time ahead one hour. The planet boost will last the whole hour.
Developer of the game here!
Appreciate the thoughtful write up about my game. Happy to hear you’ve enjoyed it so much. It’s feedback like this that makes me want to continue improving the game
Please do, this game is awesome!
How do you promote managers it will not let me.
You need to have 3 managers to promote the manager you want
Sorry that is confusing. Say you have 4 one star managers. Unasign all managers, select one, select promote manager, select the 3 avalible managers that ar left. Then the promotion button for the manager you selected to upgrade will light up. Now you press the promot button and it uses the 3 managers to promot the one. And now you have you have a better manager and 3 open slots for better managers later, when you can afford them
In the paragraph titled “Grab those free boosts (and the Beacon)” you refer to the rover twice. This should be beacon, not rover.
Wait until you have enough resources to craft for instance if you have 3 million copper and need batteries make sure you have at least enough wire or craft wire and batteries at the same time before hitting the boosts because you will get a lot more if it doesn’t run out and stop because you ran out of resources
Hi Fuddsworth
I have been playing since beta and have noticed once my galaxy reaches around 500 billion, my combined resources end up only equaling 1% galaxy value. The only way to grow my galexy is through watching adds. I have all of the mothership rooms, some are maxed and most are half way there. It seems like we need better ways to boost those values at higher builds.
I dont agree with the remark that selling ores is useless. You cant smelt all at the same time, you might have 5 ores coming in, but only 3 smelters. The lower ores are almost impossible to smelt then, so better to sell and use the money to improve planets with higher ores. This way you keep compounding your mining rewards
Agreed. Also, ore value can greatly increase with challenge stars. In one case my ore value was more than it’s corresponding alloy.
How do you assign the first manager?
My Galaxy value is at 35 million but I can not find where I sell it. Can someone help?
Bottom right corner of main screen
After you sell your galaxy, take the orange credits and buy just one of each new room until you get to BACKUP GENERATOR.
This will extend the amount of time that your system functions while idle. The more of these you get, the longer you can be away from the game. Eventually you can idle for 8 hours or more and mine while you sleep.
This strategy represented in this article is poor and misguided. Upgrading speed and cargo to be even with mining is pure folly. Why would you increase your cargo if you are not filling it to capacity in the first place? Why would you increase your speed when each trip doesn’t even fill your capacity either?
But the thing that takes the cake is telling people to sell their galaxy every time they reach $10M in value. This is utter nonsense. You get 10 credits for that – yet later in the game you need 1000’s. Are we really to sell our galaxies over 100 times? No, you need to maximize the curve and sell your galaxy when credit production slows down to a crawl.
Nice article. Poor advice.
I have been taking advantage of the Tapjoy rewards that are offered for playing other games. You will receive more dark matter than if you bought the $100 Dark Matter package through the game, and you’ll have enough dark matter to power smelt and craft through the 10x speedup and then skipping ahead an hour. I have done 2 of the Tapjoy offers and havent dropped below 20,000 Dark Matter.