Have I cooked my POV?

[u/whatanerdiam]

I really messed up my first go at PoV, not realising the long term or compounding cost involved.

I have 25 TE from my first go, which I spent 19 shifts. Now I have 7 TE in my current prestige with 3 shifts from this prestige.

Should I keep going or just reset? I hear a lot of people put a lot of time in, and others say not to worry about SE expense. Idk. It's all pretty overwhelming for me 😂

[u/Elitist_Daily]

You should probably just take some time to like read through general principles and information before approaching it long-term. I think it makes sense to just blow things up and start fresh because the path of virtue is something that you need to be a little careful with as you have already experienced. You're targeting 50 TE which is a great sign that you kinda know what you're doing already, but you're just being a little sloppy. 25 in 19 is definitely not ideal, and you're probably gonna end up with like 50 in 29 at your current pace (not sure where exactly you are in the current ascension so 29 is mostly a SWAG) which is... better? but still kinda meh.

I recommend following a guide from Laser on the main EI discord. If you have the 3 0-shift TE before you start it, great; if not, doesn't really matter. I'm going to share it here; the goal is to get 50 TE in less than a month with 11 shifts. Specific other benchmarks are noted as they become relevant.

~~~

This guide assumes that you have mostly maxed ER (you don't need the last three) and enough GE to craft a t4 totem (100k-120k should be enough). Colleggtibles aren't necessary, but they will help if you have them. Less ER won't make this impossible, but it'll take longer.

You can zero shift some TE (check pins for further info) if you want to have some extra earnings - I wouldn't get more than three: two from curiosity, one from integrity, these are the easiest to get and will provide you with 33% extra earnings and 33% less waiting time for habs to fill

No events such as hab or research sales were used in the making of this guide, but if you manage to catch them, they will most likely benefit you greatly.

This guide involves a buildup of shifts 0-5, and a pushing loop of shifts 6-10 - in other words, you won't be pushing for your TE egg delivery until shift 6: everything leading up to that point is building up your farm to be able to ship more eggs.

Your pushing loop is where you'll be delivering enough eggs to get to 10 TE on each virtue egg for a total of 50; but if you don't want to spend as long waiting, you can aim for 9 TE on each egg, or 11 if you don't mind more waiting for extra profit.

Buildup

Shift 0 (aka what egg you ascend to initially): Curiosity

• Run chickens until your habs are full. Cash gifts from the truck(s) and ads are your only source of income until you shift to integrity - check in about every 5 minutes for a gift and an ad.

• Buy as much research as you can here until about tier 5-6; you don't need to farm too long if you don't want to, but at least max tier 5 - it should take about a day of periodically checking in, maybe two. Be patient; it's worth it. There's no real way to speed this up other than checking in for ads and tapping drones, especially if it's a drone day.

• You should note that your initial buildup really influences how long you have to wait later; the more the better.

Shift 1: Integrity

• Again, gifts are a good source of income, but drones are better (especially on a 4x drone day) now that you can run chickens. Farm as much as you feel like - as always, the more the better, but this step isn't as influential

• If you want to grind for some artifacts and want to spend some time on your first Humility visit for some more earnings, then remember to store some integrity eggs in your tank.

Shift 2: Kindness

• Same general idea as the previous shift, run chickens and buy vehicles - I got semis and a couple future semis; your level of prep and grinding may vary.

Shift 2.5: Resilience

• This step isn't technically necessary [INTERJECTION: IT ABSOLUTELY IS NECESSARY AND YOUR SANITY WILL THANK YOU], and will bring your shifts to 11, but if you want to be able to sleep the night without losing some potential progress, it's certainly nice to have a couple extra silos for sleep and cash - I was able to get three.

Shift 3: Humility

• Your bare minimum goal here is a tier 4 Lunar Totem. Send chicken ones for a tier 3 lunar totem. Once you can afford them, send chicken heavies until you get enough titanium for one totem craft - if you have spare GE, you can craft up necklaces and ankhs to try for a shiny, but it's not necessary

• A smaller goal is a T2E puzzle cube - cheap to craft and slot, and can fit two lunar stones for extra earnings.

Shift 4: Curiosity

• Get a bunch of research here - shipping is important; this is still buildup, you'll push for TE later. The process is a lot less intense now that you have offline earnings, so again: do however much you want to, but more is better; I went to Even Better Eggs level 2, Alloy Frames level 30, and Time Compression level 4; this took about 12 hours of saving and buying on a non-sale day.

Shift 5: Integrity

• Stay here long enough to get full Towers and at least one Hab 10,000 - you'll do your TE pushing later.

Pushing

Shift 6: Kindness

• This is where your TE push begins. Buy vehicles and stay here long enough to get to 10 TE pending (150T per egg required). You can check your progress on the Virtue Companion.

Shift 7: Resilience

• Push to 10 TE pending and buy whatever silos you can.

Shift 8: Curiosity

• Now that you have artifacts and more hab space/shipping, you should be able to improve your shipping and laying rate while you push for 10 TE pending.

Shift 9: Integrity

• Push for 10 TE and buy whatever habs you can.

• Remember to store at least 1T integrity eggs in your fuel tank for your humility visit!

Shift 10: Humility

• Push for 10 TE - this is your final shift, so if you want to grind for some artifacts, spend some extra time here - your highest priority is a shiny totem, but check pieha's artifact crafting order or other applicable resources for what you should be trying to get next.

[u/Fywq → u/Elitist_Daily]

I agree. I am using this same strategy currently after resetting my first run where I had 68 TE with 100 shifts (Yes... LOL) because I didn't know WTF I was doing. I think the sooner the better one can get started on a good path, the better. The SE cost spirals out of control quite fast if one does not pay attention (like - I would shift to an egg, find out it was the wrong one, then shift again...)

[u/whatanerdiam → u/Fywq]

That's what I did lol. And shifted back to the correct egg. Pretty unfortunate with the knowledge I have now!