How much should I Micro-Upgrade?

[Lhamster 4,081]

 

There has already been an article by hogree here giving advice on what things you should Micro-Upgrade (MU) but there is another question to ask: “How much should I Micro-Upgrade?” The main constraint will of course be your budget, made up of how many crystals you currently have, and how many you expect to get in the near future.

 

Once you have your budget, the two main things that will influence your decision on how far to MU are the price of the upgrade, and the total price up to that upgrade. The two ways you will reach a point when you stop are as follows: You may feel that 7000 crystals is too much for 1.0 more protection and stop. Or decide you can afford to spend 50,000 crystals out of your budget on protection and it reaches that total at a certain upgrade so you stop, even if you think the next upgrade is worth it.

 

Some parameters are more important than others, so spending more on them is an option to consider. For weapons, damage is the main upgrade to do, as that increases the main point of the weapon, to damage and destroy other tanks. All the other parameters are secondary, although there is still a hierarchy, reload time is more important than rotation speed or range as it indirectly increases how much damage can be done. For hulls, there are two main parameters, health and speed, as the combination/ratio of these two is what defines the hull and why you picked the hull in the first place. Unfortunately, these main parameters are also usually the most expensive.

 

Another thing to take into consideration is how much the cost goes up each time, take for example, M3 Smoky damage, you start at around 1000 crystals for a 0.5 increase, but within five upgrades, you're paying over 12,000 crystals for less than half of that. In this case, you may decide only to do two upgrades due to the large increases in price each time. On the other hand, take reload time for M3 Isida. Upgrades start at 174 crystals, and go up to 5952 crystals. In this case you may decide that it is worth doing all the upgrades as they aren't that expensive, and only go up by a few 100 crystals each time.

 

If you are MUing multiple items at the same time and are on a limited budget (That probably applies to most of us) deciding where MUs are needed the most will also influence how far you MU. For example, you may be MUing both Freeze and Railgun. You do five upgrades of Freeze reload time, and wish to do more, but you decide that MUing Railgun's damage is more important and so you upgrade that instead of more Freeze upgrades.

 

Giving advice on exactly how far to go on M0, M1, M2 and M3 is probably too much for one article. However, I will give brief overviews.

 

M0

 

At M0, it is hardly worth doing any MUs, except maybe the first few of your hull's health/speed or weapon's damage, due to them being very cheap, and as pretty soon you'll be upgrading to M1 and those MUs will be gone. Most people at the ranks of M0 will also not have the crystals spare to afford any, and will want to concentrate on expanding their garage instead.

 

M1

 

At M1, it's pretty much the same. Not many are worth doing, except a couple at the start of the main parameters which are cheap and give a bigger improvement. Again, those at M1 ranks will most likely not have the crystals to afford a lot of MUs.

 

M2

 

MUs become more worthwhile at M2, although I wouldn't advise doing them to the extent of M3s. Buying a few of the cheap upgrades on the secondary parameters is also a possibility.

 

M3

 

The main time to do MUs is when you have M3 equipment (Some of you reading this may not have got there yet, but you can keep this in mind for later). At M3, there are no more 'M' upgrades that will wipe your MUs, and everyone is more experienced, so sometimes the smallest difference can decide if you win or lose.

 

MUs are naturally more expensive at this level, so only choosing a few hulls and weapons, then being selective with which parameters to upgrade can be a sensible idea and cut your costs massively.

 

It has been suggested that doing around two fifths of the MUs brings the most effective upgrades while keeping costs down. This equates to the following table:

 

 

The only other thing to mention is the time it takes to upgrade, although I don't this will be a factor at all in deciding how far to go. If after considering all the other factors, you want the upgrade, I doubt you will say ”I won't do it due to the time”, instead you will just wait it out as you think the upgrade is worth it.

 

In conclusion, how far to MU is totally up to you, there is no right or wrong answer, however this article has hopefully given you some ways of making that decision.

 

Edited May 13, 2014 by Lhamster

[williew 1,999]

Great article! I enjoyed it :)

[Mr.SV.ENS 738]

NIce :)

[doduobird 315]

good :D nice table

[Cook.My.Sock 269]

Awesome article :) Keep it up Lhamster :)

[HydroBolt 15]

Awesome article  :) Keep it up Lhamster i wanna read more :3 :)

[A.I.M.B.0.T 173]

Helpful as I thought , Keep up the good work :)

[Aero.v2.0 1,456]

Very nice job :)

[monton_senior 15]

fair enough

[rokar123 11]

Nice :)

[MentallyDeranged 740]

I love micro upgrading,It's really usefull that you micro upgraded fully and then buy that thing you want for only 20 % or lower than 20% of original price.Beside of that you can get that 20 % by ranking up or getting daily bonuses.For example a wasp m1 and railgun m2 user (I don't recommend micro upgrading m1 turrets due to low time to buy m2s since they buy m1s),So he/she can micro upgrade wasp fully until he/she get colonel rank!Beside of that he/she will get maximum advantage:

Hornet m2s have about 10.40 speed

Wasp m1 that fully be micro upgraded can reach a speed of about 11.70!

Look how micro upgrades do!

In my alternative account i have wasp m1 (Warrant officer 1) and i micro upgraded its speed by 6  or 7 speed,Now it have a decent speed of 11.15!

When i move, it seems to be that im using 3x nitros against hornet m0s!So this is it.

 

 

^{# I just wanted to say goods of micro upgrades#}

[waterboy567 15]

hey also tell what hazel rah said some mu are not effective 

[CrAzY.TT 17]

Great and helpful, thanks Lham ;)

[RAG1NG 4]

what I would do to know which parameter is the most cost effective - take the amount it will add, divide it by both the cost and the base stat, then compare with others.

 

say Wasp M1 Protection - 3.8 (1st upgrade) / (96 * 95.4) = 4.14 x 10^-4

                                          2.5 (2nd upgrade)/ (225*95.4) = 1.16 x 10^-4

      Wasp M1 Top speed - 0.1 (1st upgrade) / (144*10.79)=6.44 x 10^-5

 

as you can see, Protection MUs is so much more worth it than Top speed MUs for Wasp M1. however, the second protection MU's cost effectiveness is only one fourth of the first MU so watch out as you keep upgrading one parameter, the other parameters' first upgrade may be more cost effective.

Edited June 6, 2014 by RAG1NG

[ariking777 940]

^Necroposting, no? A bit of a long time since the last post except for the one above me was made..

[RAG1NG 4]

 

last post wasn't at least a month ago yet. and the topic is so important yet not talked about much that big gaps between posts are to be expected.

besides, MU discount tomorrow!

Edited June 7, 2014 by RAG1NG

[Eragon 13,876]

Nice guide, i wish the old reporter system would return 

[wild001 786]

I have done almost all the MUs for my rail and hornet combo,

 

 

I have done some graphs on how to buy and when to buy based on graphs, you can read more about my research on MUs on my guide.

 

[Guide] Graph Statistics on Best Way to MU rail and hornet m3

 

but one simple conclusion for me is, it is microupgrade, so you need to buy to full to get big upgrade,

 

so MU fully one parameter first before next if you know you will use it as your main weapon/hull in the future

[Cn.epH 47]

I'm micro-upgrading my clay and rock and Rico and rail and hunter and hornet xD

Edited June 10, 2014 by Cn.epH

[jazz20 1,181]

Well now, people can MU an item and still play with it without having to wait for it to completely and fully finish  ^_^

[1stsuperwhitedragon 408]

Great -_- , a evil reporter -_-

but awesome :)

Edited May 12, 2015 by 1stsuperwhitedragon

[viratno2 146]

i have m1 wasp 17 times upgraded, i want to fully mu it to m2. how much will it cost? i have 53 k crystals.