Idle Port Tycoon is a new mobile title from Gismart’s, which is currently available on iOS and Android platforms. With a mere two weeks following its release, Idle Port Tycoon has already amassed well over a million downloads. The game has likewise seized respectable spots within top ten lists of games worldwide and continues to maintain a growing number of players since launch. If you are crunched for free time to spend on other types of games and want a hyper-casual game you can play in short spans of time, then you may want to try your hands on Idle Port Tycoon!
Not as evident when you jump in on Idle Port Tycoon, but the premise is that the threat of an alien attack against Earth looms in the horizon and Earth’s last hope has travelled to the past to ready the supplies for building defenses. As you establish each port to speed up manufacturing, there is constant earning with no chance for any losses. However, you must continue to upgrade and broaden the supplies production and delivery to speed up profits that need to be re-invested elsewhere.
Idle Port Tycoon actually does not have any sort of tutorials included and, in truth, the same is hardly needed given the level of simplicity that its controls and game mechanics has. Given that you will always earn profits no matter what, there will be no instances of losing in the game, making it a totally stress and pressure-free experience you can play and enjoy regardless of how much or how little your spare time is.
If you are particularly interested in how to maximize your profits and unlock lanes and ports quicker, then check out our Idle Port Tycoon tips, cheats and strategies. Our Idle Port Tycoon beginner’s guide is all you need to maximize your earnings with every second you spend on the game!
1. Balance All Upgrades Out
No idle clicker game we know of has showcased as many interdependent production facilities as the ports in Idle Port Tycoon. When you jump into the game, you may be initially overwhelmed by the six tabs below the screen segregating areas of the ports into sections, each with 2 to 4 upgrade points. From the ship crane down to the trains, there are a total of 18 upgrade points you can invest in and that is only considering the first lane. There are 5 lanes per port and the game currently holds 3 ports now.
There is, of course no pressure to reach the last port as it takes a while to get to that. Regardless of how you play Idle Port Tycoon, though, you are bound to get there at some point. The overall length of time it takes to do so depends partly on how much time you actually spend on the game and how well you strategize around earned profits and upgrade investments.
Given that the former may be beyond your control as idle clicker games are, after all, a preferred game for those who have very limited free time, at least bank on the latter and polish your strategy towards investing profits earned into upgrade options for maximum efficiency.
Naturally, each level of upgrade costs more as the upgrade level increases. Each section has an upgrade for profits while the rest relate to the section’s overall efficiency. Each succeeding tab or section naturally costs more to unlock and exhibit more expensive upgrade options as well, ultimately creating a wide selection of investment options that have huge variances in terms of cost. The decision points will therefore be in line with whether or not you should go for the more expensive upgrade choices or not, and to focus on a particular upgrade type like profits ahead of everything else.
In truth, while boosting profitability under each section seems like a very attractive option to prioritize, upgrades that affect efficiency indirectly boost profits as well. Faster movement speed of trucks as well as faster spawns also mean that profits roll in faster. While more expensive investments promise higher returns, the aggregate income you can gain from cheaper options may exceed that as well.
Considering everything, therefore, the most efficient way to invest under normal circumstances, is to bank on the most affordable upgrade options and get as many upgrade perks with the money you have. In the event that you wind up with a huge amount of earnings and be able to afford huge expenditures like unlocking new lanes or new sections in the current lane, then you should go for it. These instances usually occur whenever you level up or log back into the game after a long break.
No upgrade point is more important than the other and, similarly, no section should be prioritized over the next. As such, you should always consider balancing all upgrades out, not just within the section, but more importantly, across each one within the lane. In some cases, there will be visual indicators of a lack of balance across upgrades. Beyond chokepoints that will be relatively visible over time, there are emojis that will appear on areas that need improvement as far as efficiency is concerned, so be sure to be on a lookout for these.
2. Invest Cash As Soon As Possible
Beyond making better investment and return of profits through balancing across the different upgrade points, another major point of focus to keep tabs on is idle cash. As expected, you will continue to earn money as soon as you jump into the game and with every bit of tap and upgrade point you invest in, earnings exponentially increase.
While you need to try your best to ensure that upgrades are balanced across upgrade points and sections within the lane, it is important to ensure that you invest as much of your earnings as soon as you can and leave as little idle cash as possible. This is because the sooner money is invested into any upgrade point, the sooner it boosts your subsequent earnings. This is most especially important if you are about to stay idle within the game or will be logging out of it. As a general trick to fast progress, emptying out your cash is the way to go to get more of it back.
3. Level Up Immediately
Every bit of tap, profit, and upgrade you o in Idle Port Tycoon earns you experience points that fill the level bar at the upper right side of the screen. Once it fills up, clicking on it will reward you with tons of cash that can definitely boost your income progression and lead to several small upgrades or sufficient to purchase an expensive one. There are no penalties for clicking on it late, though, except that the level bar will not begin to fill up until after you empty it out with a level up.
With so many things going on along with the overabundance of catchy objects that grant extra bonuses, it will be very easy to miss the level up button and you will most likely miss it a few times within the first 5 or 6 levels. As such, try to make it a habit to look at the screen in its entirety and only consider a few things to keep an eye on. These would be idle cash, drones and glowing containers, and the level up button. Everything else should perform normally provided that the upgrades are balanced well enough and in case some sections perform faster than others, the angry emojis will be hard to miss.
4. Catch Those Drones
Relative to the boost that huge lumps of cash can give and the rate at which you will be able to purchase upgrades with them, the drones that hover around are another set of incentives that tremendously boost the progress of active players.
In essence, Ile Port Tycoon will let you earn profits even if you just stare at the screen, or do anything else after leaving the app open to play on its own. If you do have the luxury of time to play actively and pay attention to your screen, however, your overall progress will boost by more than twice as much.
This is largely attributable to the drones as well as the highly noticeable glowing containers that randomly appear. Tapping on these will drop huge amounts of cash and may even reward you with diamonds. As such, if you are playing actively, it is best to try and catch each one that appears on your screen. There will be options to claim more rewards from each one you tap by playing some video ads, but the same is not at all necessary to earn the rewards they contain.
Take note that some drones fly faster than others and as your production line grows more efficient, the special containers that contain rewards also move faster across the screen. Additionally, as your port grows and you begin to yield higher profits, the amount of cash you can earn from drones and special crates proportionally increase as well, making it well worth it to tap on them whenever you can whether you are on the beginner port or the end-game zones.
If you are in a mood for an exorbitant amount of income within a relatively short period of time, then play very actively whenever you have the double income booster activated and continuously tap on the screen to hasten production up as well as catch drones that float by.
5. Light Tapping Is Sufficient
By design, idle clicker games continuously play on its own without much need for activity or intervention from the player. However, rewards are typically proportionate to the amount of clicks or taps the player makes. While some games do require rapid taps on the screen for the best results, Idle Port Tycoon only needs you top lightly, and comparatively slower than most idle clicker games, to get the best out of doing so.
If you notice, you will see the huge x1 icon at the upper right side of the screen. This reflects the speed at which your port is doing its business, tapping a bit or superfast will only give you a 2x boost and will never get past that so just the same, settle with light and slow taps that you can do even while not being absolutely focused on the game. Again, we mentioned that active playing will reap you much better rewards in Idle Port Tycoon but if you are playing it while doing something else like watching a movie, at least lightly tap the screen to double your earnings.
6. Max Out One Lane First
After completely unlocking all the sections on the current lane, your port will only be tended to for upgrades to max it out but before you do, chances are that you will have enough cash to unlock the next lane. This may be the time that you will notice an arrow at the right side of your screen. You can tap on it and switch to a next tier lane where everything is exponentially more expensive but the earnings are commensurate to the investment amount.
Naturally, unlocking sections on the new lane, as well as purchasing upgrades for each new section, will cost a lot more than the most expensive upgrade points in the previous lane.With that, you should continue purchasing upgrades with the former lane and only spend for the new one when you come across a huge bulk of cash.
Another thing to consider here is that while the newly opened port has more potential to earn you a lot more cash, being bare that it is early on leaves it to only earn a fraction of what the previous port can earn. Do note that all opened lanes will continue to earn whether you are viewing them or not. The point of variance between gained profit lies on which one you are on given that the tapping action you do will only impact the lane you are viewing.
Given this scenario, recommend continuing to stay with your older lane, even when you have completely upgraded it so long as you are in the mood to tap away for double productivity. You should only switch to the new lane when making investments and should only stay to tap there once it begins to earn more than the older lane.
7. Watch Ads For Various Boosts
If it is a free-to-play mobile game that hardly has anything under the store to sell, then chances are that it will have some ads included. As various ads have long since been a part of free mobile games, it should be easy enough to accept it as a fair trade off for getting to play a game for free. While there may still be people who get annoyed by seeing ads within games, it is important to realize that these ads are actually what keeps these game around for everyone to enjoy without spending a dime.
Although Idle Port Tycoon employs ads that pop up randomly while you are playing, a lot of the ads you will see are entirely voluntary and provides decent returns that help you boost your progress in the game. To begin with, one of the things you should do as soon as you play the game is to activate the reward multiplier that appears at the upper left side of your screen. Doing so plays a 15 to 30-second video ad but subsequently doubles income earned for the next 5 minutes or so.
As we mentioned earlier, tapping on drones and special crates gives a huge pile of cash and watching an ad while doing so, earns you 3x as many earnings. Levelling up and claiming the level up rewards also presents an opportunity to watch ads for a similar multiplier. Beyond all that, watching a certain number of video ads can earn you diamonds, which is a premium currency in the game. Every bit of opportunity to earn free diamonds should not be wasted as this currency is not easy to collect and has great uses.
8. Collect Achievement Rewards
There are currently only two types of achievements in Idle Port Tycoon. One relates to section upgrades and the other is linked to lane upgrades. Whenever you max out a level of a particular section in a port or lane, you will receive 5 diamonds. Completely upgrading a lane earns you 20 diamonds.
This may again be difficult to notice considering the plethora of happenings in your busy port so be sure to check the gift box icon at the lower right side of your screen to check your progress with these achievements.
9. Save Diamonds For Collectibles
As we mentioned above, diamonds stand as the premium currency in Idle Port Tycoon and is a resource way harder to obtain and save compared to cash. At the shop where you can also view through the gift box icon, you can actually spend diamonds for temporary boosts that double your income for a certain period of time. As much as this is a tempting offer, though, there are free ways to obtain profit boosts and the exertion of more active playing can also lead to higher income.
What we would recommend for you to save those hard-earned diamonds for, instead, are the collectible pieces that you can collect and assemble to receive buffs that further boost income. Take note that you can watch an ad once a day to open a normal box for collectible pieces. Spending 150 diamonds for the special box, however, gives you more pieces and may likely even unlock one collectible for you if you are lucky.
We do not actually recommend purchasing specific pieces until after you have earned a lot of pieces and assembled most collectibles as they are expensive. Given the cost of these specific pieces and the probability of securing the same from the special box, you are most certainly getting your diamonds’ worth from the latter.
10. No Wi-Fi Means No Ads
If you are not a fan of video ads in mobile games or simply want to play continuously without any sort of interruptions, then feel free to turn your Wi-Fi or mobile data off and enjoy Idle Port Tycoon offline. Take note that while doing so rids you of ads that pop up randomly, it will also prohibit you from taking advantage of perks that can only be obtained after watching some ads. Likewise you can freely switch between online and offline play so you can enjoy uninterrupted offline plays at one time and enjoy ad-boosted progression on other instances.
That completes our list of the best Idle Port Tycoon tips, cheats and strategies. Again, we would like to note that while you can play the game any way you want, more active playing and strategizing around upgrades are key to faster progress. Do not be overwhelmed by the towering costs of the latter lanes and areas as the proportionate boost of income you will earn makes progress between one lane from another not much that far off.
We certainly hope that you learned a great deal from tips and tricks we shared and that you enjoyed reading this guide. If you would like to share your very own discoveries with us as well as our readers, feel free to drop us a line!