(the) Gnorp Apologue

(the) Gnorp Apologue

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100G+ Collection Rate Guide
By ashaaa
Guide to achieving 100G+ Collection Rate in level 10 of Gnorp Apologue (in 7 days). AKA: guide to achieving 70G+ collection rate in 3 days. A step by step guide to get the maximum possible damage and collection rate late-game.

Minimum Requirements:
17 Talent Points
~72 hours play time minimum (for this run)

Minimum Required active talents:
Motivation, Extra Housing, Timeshift Delivery, Notes, Project Constellation, Frostfire, Deals, Combo Power, Operation Pocket Rocket Timeshift Retainment, Agitated Zybe, Gnorpcalibur Unleashed, Done Capacity

Recommended additional active talents:
Hiking Buddy, Runner Backstop, Bathe in Fire, Popcorn, Superhot, Bigger Pile, Explosive Exposition, The Higher the Pile, Arrow's Last Hurrah, Don't Eat That, Modern Warfare
   
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The path to 100G
TLDR; I misread a reddit post and thought the OP said they managed to get 60T collection rate. Challenge accepted! After 13 playthroughs, I realized my mistake but not before I had a recipe for getting over 100G collection and over 200G damage.



Backstory...

This all started when I saw a reddit thread somewhere with a user claiming they had reached 60G collection, and had personally purchased 35 drones in level 9.

I decided this was a challenge, and began to play the game from start to finish and learn through trial and error what works and what doesn't, without relying on any online guides. This gave me some valuable insights that helped me debunk some popular theories.

Ironically, at some point I forgot that OP had said "60G" and I got it in my crazy head that they actually said "60T", and so every time I reached end-game without being even close to making 60T collection rate, I would start over and try something different.

Eventually I realized my mistake, but not before I had achieved over 100G (145G as of time of writing this guide) on my 13th playthrough. The entire process of research and development from when I purchased the game until now took about a month. For the run in which I have over 140G collection, I began on 3/19 at 18:00, and ended at 3/26 at 12:00 at the time of writing.


Speaking of time... many players could reach insane numbers if they let the game run long enough. I decided I wanted to create the fastest, most efficient path with the best long-term rewards should the player wish to drag it out. The minimum time required to achieve at least 75G is around 72 hours of play time. This guide will get you there in 3 days, but my final numbers are from about a week of play time.

The concept:

The basic concept revolves around the importance of the bomber skill Timeshift and its synergy with some important talents. I did away with the popular idea of using grenades to speed up weakspot discovery, because in late-game the price for new riflegnorps is too high and my dreams of having 1000 weakspots could never be realized.

Instead, this build relies on two main ingredients to get the massive numbers: speed (via timeshift), and drone babies.

Additional notes:

  • While I would freaking LOVE to send pocket rockets to the mountaineers to massively increase the number of rockets, I had to abandon this idea in my 11th playthrough. It turns out the game's performance can't handle that many rockets for some reason, and the lag became crippling (and my PC is no slouch)
  • Once you have a minimum number of runners, getting massive increases to collection rate is easier by adding bombers rather than runners, due to the Timeshift Delivery
  • If you're at a stage where drones are important, be careful about clicking anything within the Stash, as the clicks can propagate through the menu and hit your drones, destroying them (this sadly ruined one of my playthroughs)
Levels 1 + 2
Note: I detailed the steps down to the order in which to purchase buildings, because I am OCD and the building placement actually affects the efficiency due to how far gnorps have to move to get places.

Talent Points

If you haven't achieved the minimum of 17 talent points yet, you can still use some of the methods from this guide to help get yourself there faster. However, this guide is mainly for seasoned players who want an additional challenge.

Required Talents:
Motivation, Extra Housing, Timeshift Delivery, Notes, Project Constellation, Frostfire, Deals, Combo Power, Operation Pocket Rocket Timeshift Retainment, Agitated Zybe, Gnorpcalibur Unleashed, Done Capacity

Optional / Recommended:
Hiking Buddy, Runner Backstop, Bathe in Fire, Popcorn, Superhot, Bigger Pile, Explosive Exposition, The Higher the Pile, Arrow's Last Hurrah, Don't Eat That, Modern Warfare

Note: Modern Warfare could be exchanged for Future To The Back for great effect. I only chose Modern Warfare because I wanted to test the theory that I could get 1000 weakspots, but sadly this was impossible. If I did another playthrough, I would switch these skills.

DO NOT PICK:
The following talents may make this guide harder or impossible...
Supershatter (nerfs shatter),
Descent of the King (wasted zybe point),
Reclamation Mitigation (could reduce the chance that runners pass the halfway point necessary for Motivation),
Vulnerability Empowerment (wasted zybe point)

For the full list of both required and optional / recommended talents, you'll need 23 talent points. Most of the additional points go into QoL skills that just make the run a little bit easier:


...


Note: The time estimated between level 1 and level 9 will take about 45 minutes, after which the game must "bake" (aka sit idle with limited interaction) for about 72 hours.

First Steps

1. Purchase express
2. Purchase some runners and capacity
3. Purchase house of shards
4. Purchase cafe (mountaineers have less distance to walk)
5. Purchase propulsion lab (you'll be clicking this a lot, so keep it close to the pile)
6. Purchase 20 runners
7. Purchase 10 capacity
8. Purchase 20 bombers
9. Purchase speed
10. Purchase breaktime, let the pile compress
11. Purchase rock analysis (closer to zybe pickup)
12. Purchase all rock analysis items that don't cost zybe, except for weakspot weakspot
13. Purchase timeshift x2
14. Set bombers to trigger weakspots (to prevent the pile from compressing accidentally)
15. Purchase some housing
16. Purchase slam club
17. Purchase 1 slammer (only ever need 1)
18. Purchase robotics
19. Purchase gun vs rock
20. Purchase archery (more fun when the arrows are further away)
21. Purchase fire and ice arrows, immediately switch arrows to normal
22. Purchase delivery rush
23. Purchase 1 riflegnorp
24. Switch arrows to fire
25. Increase capacity to 20
26. Purchase max speed
27. Increase riflegnorps to 3
28. Increase bombers to 30
29. Purchase all other buildings that don't cost zybe
30. Purchase geet
31. Purchase YX1
32. Purchase shrine
33. Let it "bake" for 20 minutes or so until have at least 500k saved and at least 20 spare gnorps

When ready to compress to level 3 and beyond...

1. Find the chosen and wait for the sword
2. Turn on all accords
3. Purchase balloon gunner
4. Switch arrows to ice
Levels 3 through 8
Note: You'll need to compress as fast as possible during this time until you've exhausted the Zybe Agitator. You can tell it has been exhausted when it stays grey on a new level:


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1. Purchase additional housing
2. Max slammer combos and jumps


...

3. Timeshift x2 (for a total of 4)
4. Purchase pocket rockets
5. Purchase Garden
6. Enable puke and eye, disable power


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7. Purchase enriched puke
8. Purchase amplified observation
9. Purchase sticky floral residue
10. Purchase grenade launcher
11. Purchase flower power
12. Purchase reclamation nullification
13. Purchase three zygnorp, attune to runners
14. Purchase weakspot weakspot


...

15. Attune bombers to zygnorp
16. Purchase 20 mountaineers (do not increase their digging or columns yet)
17. Attune runners to mountaineers

Continue to purchase bombers, runners, and capacity. Purchase some drones on level 8 if you want to get through the steps for level 9 faster.

Level 8 Screenshot:
Level 9
We'll be staying on level 9 for 48~72 hours or more depending on your preference in order to build up drones for making drone babies, so the first thing we have to do is control compression and put on the brakes.

1. Switch arrows to fire (ice will cause compression, and you don't want that)
2. Disable puke (puke will cause compression)
3. Attune bombers to zybegnorps
4. Attune runners to zybegnorps
5. Attune mountaineers to hulks
6. Purchase concentration
7. Purchase ultraboost
8. Continue to purchase bombers, runners, capacity, rockets, and drones and nothing else that would risk early compression

The goal here is to buy as many drones as you can before level 10. How many drones depends on your patience.

For my run, I stopped at 35 drones because after that it becomes a half-day wait or more to make enough money for the next drone. However, if someone wants to beat my score, this is where you would do it theoretically.

Drone Prices

1-25: Negligible if you have followed the guide until now
25: 83 G
26: 124 G
27: 186 G
28: 279 G
29: 419 G
30: 628 G
31: 943 G
32: 1.41 T
33: 2.12 T
34: 3.18 T
35: 4.77 T (~72 hours on level 9 to get to here, bombers can raise collection rate by about 3G per day. ~14.5T to purchase all drones 1-35 at once.)
36: 7.16 T (extra ~12 hours to get here)
37: 10.74 T (extra ~14 hours to get here)
38: 16.10 T
39: 24.16 T
40: 36.23 T

Level 9 notes:

  • Using only bombers that are purchased with the Gnorps that are naturally spawned every 10 minutes by your talents, bombers can raise collection rate by about 3G per 24 hours
  • Adding more runners is eventually unnecessary due to the massive speed boost from Timeshift Delivery. I stopped at an arbitrary 80 runners and 57 capacity that seemed more than sufficient.
  • Adding more rockets eventually becomes so expensive that it's counterproductive to purchasing more drones. I stopped at 15Y 13X.
  • As time goes on, making small adjustments can have catastrophic consequences. During one iteration, I tried turning on puke after having about 370 bombers and a massive amount of rockets because I was getting impatient and wanted to speed things up. The instant the puke hit the rock, the level compressed almost immediately.
  • When ready to compress, simply turn on Puke and Ice Arrows. I compressed after 48 hours on level 9 with 488 bombers, 80 runners, 62 capacity, 14 riflegnorps, 35 drones, 15Y13X rockets and I started level 10 with 35G collection before purchasing adaptive learning.
  • As a reminder, mouse clicks propogate through the building menus, so be careful clicking the Stash menu as you might accidentally destroy one of your drones (and then have to start the whole playthrough over)

Level 9 Screenshot:
Level 10 - Profit
1. Put final zybe in Adaptive Learning
2. Turn on eye and puke, no power.
3. Attune runners to mountaineers
4. Purchase 10 drones to unlock the slammer attunement, then destroy the drones once unlocked (they actually reduce collection rates at this point by stealing from the runners)
5. Max out mountaineers (eventually)


...

6. Continue to increase bombers, rockets, runners, and capacity
7. Profit...

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You should begin level 10 making about 35G collection, which should jump to around 70G after you purchase Adaptive Learning.

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Now that we've gotten here, let's go over what's actually happening:

The drones you purchased made 2x as many babies.
The Drone Capacity talent makes this possible.

The 70+ babies you've spawned are hitting the rock between 40 and 90 times per attack.
This is possible because of your one Slammer with his beefed up combos.

Because of the Motivation talent, your slammer gets +5% chance to combo every time a runner passes the halfway point between the stash and the rock. With a total of 6x timeshift between your 4 timeshift zybe points and the zybegnorp attunement, your 80+ runners are passing the halfway point an astronomical number of times per second, meaning your Slammer just keeps slamming!

With Adaptive Learning, the baby drones hit the rock more times based on the number of combos your slammer performs. This is the key to this combination of skills.

Pocket rockets are supercharged
Focusing your purchasing on mostly bombers to the exclusion of everything else has done a few things...

First, it's created an insane number of Y rockets due to the Operation Pocket Rocket Timeshift Retainment talent.

Second, it's supercharged your arrows which are blasting the rock at hundreds of times per second, while also setting up a never-ending cycle of 4 seconds of 2x damage due to shatter.

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Finally, it's increased your collection rate incredibly by speeding up the runners to crazy speeds. This also has synergy with your zybegnorps while they are attuned to the runners, who are in turn attuned to the mountaineers for extra capacity.

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Massive collection means massive purchasing power
The enhanced collection rate means you can purchase more damage, faster. The main things you'll be spending money on at this point are rockets and of course, housing.


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You can also play with purchasing riflegnorps at this time, though I found that had diminishing returns even with the weakspot + grenades talent. If I did one more playthrough, I would set the riflegnorps to do ice while the archery range does fire, might be fun.

Super-damage Weirdness

There are a couple of quirky things I noticed whenever the damage gets this high. First and foremost, as I mentioned previously, it's impossible to attune bombers to mountaineers for the extra Pocket Rockets because it breaks the game and causes tremendous lag. I'm not sure how many bombers this requires, but for example I currently have 100 mountaineers and 773 bombers...

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There's also this strange orbital effect that happens between the reclamation mitigation, the rockets, the mountaineers throwing things, the zybegnorps, etc. I'm not sure what causes it, but you'll know you've reached the massive collection numbers when you start seeing the rings of saturn in your "cloud" of shards:



...

I hope you've enjoyed this guide!

Or at the very least, I hope you get a kick out of how ridiculously obsessive-compulsive I got with this game. I think I'll take a break for now. I hope someone tries to beat this record (if it is a record... has anyone attempted this yet? Not sure..)

Oh, and maybe I should actually complete the game. I still don't know what happens if you purchase the Railgun! I never got that far... :)

10 Comments
when using zybellium, whats better?
4 timeshift impact + 3 zygnorps (like in the guide)
4 timeshift impact + 1 zygnorps + zybellium arrow (riflenorps should go ice, or modern warfare?
2 timeshift impact + 3 zygnorps + zybellium arrow (for riflenorps the question remains, ice or modern warfare?
just to confirm, last zybellium is for additional housing or?
Slime_Borg 4 Jul @ 5:43am 
Great guide. Well done
loganjamesalex 2 Jul @ 1:30am 
spent it on additional housing for over 100 extra gnorps
loganjamesalex 1 Jul @ 1:47am 
a.k.a. I followed the guide and I have an extra zybe
loganjamesalex 1 Jul @ 1:40am 
what do you spend the zybe from tier 9 on?
Katan 22 Jun @ 7:26pm 
update at ~80x multi(so around 2/3 your playtime) and dps is at 7.5G.

If you want to try again i'd reccomend focusing on riflegnorps, nades, zybe arrows, and lots more runners( i like to keep a square amnt as of now of runners and bombers for now).

From what I found bombers arent that useful yet for me in dmg but they increase the zybe arrows and collection. might have to give them the dmg upgrades soon.

the no hulk only director strat is going p hard. increased range = faster runner pickup = no chance for compression. I also set my drones to far and not highest. makes drone pickups more consistent and reduces misinputs due to runners.

I can say your guide helped steer the way to a crazy run ty. took a week of theorycrafting and accidentally comressing randomly when I was asleep to get to here for me.
Katan 22 Jun @ 3:31pm 
After doing all this i am on ~24hr of farming ~6G. bottlenecked by gnorps. havent bought my slammer yet so my drones dont giga increase damage. need to get more runners first so I dont risk compression.
Bought adaptive learning early cause I forgot one run and so never again.
kept on buying houses as I realized in the long run it would exponentially increase my collection rate. at least until it got as expensive as my 25th drone

zybe upgrades(stage 9): total 12 zybellium

timeshift impact - 5
zybe arrows - 2
flower power - 2
adaptive learning - 1
vulnerability - 1
zygnorp - 1

gnorps:
~80 bombers
14 riflegnorps
~110 runners
12x 13y rockets

accord: overdrive power
Katan 22 Jun @ 3:30pm 
I had a similar build. my only changes were

1. no mountaineers. still buy cafe for the runner upgrades

2. shit ton more runners. like 2x 3x what you had. makes it so compression on wave 9 is impossible accidentally

3. no hulk so max directors max range increase on shards

4. no pocket rockets. lag is crippling

5. zybe arrows so you get an approx 1.7x multi from my findings on wave 9 without risking compression.

6. 1 zygnorp instead of 3. you still get the runner attunement. bombers should be attuned to blowing up weakspots.

7. dont get the rocket talent project constellation. causes early compression stage 9

8. farm a bit more on stage 8 for ~20ish drones. takes like 12hrs max but makes max dmg output stage 9 double.

9. gunners need grenade talent. makes sword dude deal massive dps.
S.P. 17 May @ 8:18am 
just did it today, maybe 10 mins?
DaWelkinator 12 May @ 12:33pm 
Hey There,

I believe I've followed the guide to a T, but I *seem* to be stuck on 8/10, unable to compress. How long did it take for you to compress to 9/10?