Here is a suggestion for allowing players, not just the top ones, grow faster. As it stands right now, if I want to upgrade a mine...it would take 6 months of mine production to obtain it, then another 5 days to build...just for one mine level...as you get higher in the rankings, it gets harder to grow...so...finally, here is my suggestion to offset this and keep players interested in growing.

Accelerated mines for Metal, crystal, and deuterium. You would only be allowed one of each mine per universe. Max level for each accelerated mine would be level 3. Would require energy technology 15, Zorg plus feature of 25% max resource turned on, would also take up three planet fields instead of one. Would need metal mine level 30 or crystal mine level 28 or deut synth level 26 respectively to construct.

Cost and production would as follows:

Accelerated Metal Mine Cost Metal/Crystal Output Production Energy Needed

LVL 1 150.000.000/50.000.000 250.000/hr 63.468
LVL 2 225.000.000/75.000.000 375.000/hr 126.963
LVL 3 337.500.000/112.500.00 562.000/hr 253.926

Using the same formula for both crystal and deut...would just be more expensive for each of those mines...this works for miners...and fleeters...just think of all those sats that a fleeter can crash


This of course would be in addition to what your regular mines produce, if the plus option lapses then this disappears until renewed.

I dunno about requiring zorg plus, it would make this option only available to people with the money to buy rubies

All for accelerated mining, but don't ruby users have enough perks already? I know I know, they support the game and it's appreciated by players like myself - but I think the playing field is already tipped in their favor as it is, and a nice feature like this would only give ruby users more of an edge. One of the biggest factors that initially drew me to ZE was that it is FREE. Requiring rubies for a feature such as this doesn't do much for the average player in my opinion other than leave them at the bottom of the hill.

I can see your point choke...to take care of the ruby plus option, all Zorg would have to do is institute another form of research. Call it accelerated mining expansion...at level 2 you are allowed to build the metal mine, at level 4 you can build the crystal mine, and at level 7 you can build the deuterium synthesizer. Cost of said research would be around the same as Zorg physics.

I'd be up for the research option.

Research sounds much better than a ruby option. And at similar cost to Physics, it's definitely affordable. Perhaps similar completion times as well.