In general, idle clicker business sim titles bank on the same core gameplay mechanics where you will always grow and move forward with your business without any fears of losses or game-overs. Despite an overabundance of titles on both the App Store and Google Play, idle clicker games are among the most popular mobile game genres, especially since they cater to a wide range of audience.
Whether you are a casual player who has very limited free time to spend on games or a gamer open to enjoying adventures across various game genres, there are at least one or a couple of idle clicker games that you can dive into and revel in. Just about every business, imaginable or otherwise, has been assimilated by an idle clicker game. For the most part, you do not even necessarily have to be interested in a particular theme or business venture for your interest to be captivated by the game.
RSGapps’ Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon is a retro-styled idle clicker business sim game that lets you explore the energy industry and capitalize on it by converting energy to cash. There are plenty of structures to construct and upgrade and an abundance of others to research as well. The path towards complete domination of the energy industry does not end at the starting island as profits you amass through the sale of energy will ultimately lead to purchasing even more lands to industrialize and grow your business from.
The initial tutorial session or a rather quick guide that greets you in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon is even shorter than the usual one you get from casual idle clicker games. It proves to be sufficient, though, as it covers everything you need to know to get started. Tips will always appear to guide you in addition to the short description every item has.
There is hardly anything to stop you from continuing to grow your enterprise after building your first structure. However, if you plan to become the best and biggest energy tycoon, you came to the right place. Our Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon Guide comes with useful tips, tricks and strategies to grow your energy company!
1. Keep As Little Idle Cash As Possible
One of the key main features that distinguish idle clicker business sim games from other genres is that it is practically a given that you will continue to earn money or resources as soon as your adventure starts and that it will continue to grow regardless of how you manage it moving forward. Players who do not have as much free time to fully enjoy games that require some time to invest often satisfy their gaming cravings with just quick dips into the game, without necessarily having to commit to certain schedules or duration of immersion.
For players who have experience with any other game genre, the usual mindset is that you have to exercise a certain level of prudence when it comes to utilizing resources, be it the basic currency or even the most common resources. After all, part of a game’s addictive elements cater to the hoarder in each player as there is a delight in witnessing your resources grow in numbers from tens to hundreds, and even to denominations too many to count.
In the case of idle clicker business sim games, however, the basic strategy is to spend resources as they come as expenditures in games like Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon equates to investments, meaning that the more you spend, the more you earn. This is a notion you can quickly put to test as you purchase your first set of windmills in the game and soon afterward reap income that more than makes up for the cash you invested.
More earnings lead to more opportunities to build, research, and upgrade, carrying with it more complex machinations and processes. However, the same idea or strategy will still apply throughout your adventure.
2. Prioritize Investments Based On The Price
Continuing from our initial strategy of keeping as little idle cash as possible comes a more strategic approach toward spending. Comparable to all sorts of purchases and upgrades in just about any video game, progression follows a relative increase in price tags as well. Given the growth of income that comes with progression, you will always be able to afford most of the options available to you. At some point, some may not be readily affordable outright, but you will always be able to afford everything when the time comes.
An increase in the price of practically the same item does not necessarily merit an increase in efficacy or impact. In this sense, an upgrade from level 1 to level 2 will have just the same effect as upgrading from level 10 to 11. However, the quantifiable amount of improvement, whether in real numbers or percentages will stand consistent across each upgrade.
Let us take upgrade options as an example. For the Wind Turbine, each upgrade level increases its power production by 50%. The upgrade cost from level 1 to level 2 is $700 but the succeeding upgrade costs will grow exponentially with each new level. To some extent, it would seem fair since the extra 50% boost will always apply to a bigger number than the previous one but then, there are also plenty of upgrade options available that could give you an equal or even better value for the same or lower amount of money you need to spend.
With plenty of upgrade options as well as competing needs to build new or additional structures, every bit of cash you invest should follow a strategic plan. Do not get us wrong, though, as simply choosing to empty your stock of idle cash is already a big step in the right direction. The purpose of our second strategy is to maximize returns even further to ensure that you are progressing and growing your energy company at a much faster and more efficient rate.
For the most part, upgrade costs will naturally exceed the costs of construction as the latter’s price does not necessarily increase based on quantity. The task of prioritizing would normally center around choosing from among the numerous upgrades you have. As you choose and upgrade an item, keep in mind that the subsequent upgrade cost may become more expensive than other options, especially since the increase in upgrade costs exponentially grows from one level to the next.
Although our basic recommendation is to stick with this consideration, there will naturally be some exceptions to this rule. In your quest to balance out requirements and outputs with some of your structures, you will sometimes need to push forward with specific upgrades. There will come a time as well when a specific type of structure may become a lot less practical to keep, in which case you may opt to completely disregard upgrades relating to them.
3. Invest In Both Quantity And Quality
Maximizing profitability in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon goes a bit deeper than what conventional idle clicker business sim games require. For one, there is more freedom in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon concerning the number of units you want to have of a certain structure and the number of upgrades invested in each one as well. Expectedly, more freedom makes for a less linear experience and less restrictive decisions but it also makes the task of maximizing profits more challenging.
Maximizing idle returns means achieving the perfect balance between quantity and quality in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon. You need to put up as many of the structures as you need and at the same time keep upgrading them as far as your cash allows. It is not as simple as that, though, since the many different structures you can build in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon also has their unique function, some of which may even be dependent on others.
Likewise, balancing across the different upgrade options should also mean prioritizing those that benefit you more, given your choice of structures to put up with the limited yet expandable space allotted for your business. Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon starts you off with the wind turbine, which directly generates energy so long as they are running. You will keep tapping on each one to activate them early on but full automation follows quickly. Energy, as is, will not be useful to you yet so you will need to construct a small office that automatically sells energy.
Moving forward, heat will become your main source of energy. Different structures you can research and build will be able to automatically generate heat and you will need generators to convert heat into energy. You will now have to balance the ratio of heat production units with generators you have to ensure that the heat produced is sufficiently converted into energy. Likewise, balancing generators with offices or banks is important to ensure that all energy you produce will be converted into cash.
4. Apply Some Basic Math
The ultimate quest towards reaching maximum efficiency in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon takes a little more effort than the usual idle clicker business sim game. Although we already touched on the concept of balancing between the number of facilities or structures and their respective qualities relative to upgrade levels, a higher upgrade level or the number of facilities for each structure type does not automatically mean better for your enterprise.
Both quantity and quality should be kept in balance for maximum profits. Of course, the limited space on land available to you can be restrictive as far as building new structures is concerned but the idea of simply building on every available space almost only applies to the wind turbine and small office combo. The idea initially and simply revolves around the former generating energy and the latter selling that energy to earn cash.
With the introduction of solar panels and small generators, as the initial set of facilities that will give your production line a little more complexity, balancing heat outputs, energy conversion, and energy sales become more and more critical. At their most basic form, solar panels can produce 10 heat and small generators can convert 10 heat into 10 power. A small office automatically sells 10 power as well so if all these structures do not have any upgrades, a simple ratio of 1:1:1 will keep everything balanced.
With small offices unlocking earlier and its upgrade costs cheaper, you are bound to be able to sell faster than you can generate energy. At the same time, a 1:1 ratio of solar panels to small generators will pose no problems. The thing is, you will inevitably have to upgrade the solar panel and the small generator, making the numbers a little more difficult to balance. Too much heat going into generators will destroy the generators and solar panels unable to transfer the heat they generate will destroy them as well.
Generators can connect to a structure above, below, or beside them. This means that every structure that generates heat can connect up to 4 generators simultaneously. The same works vice versa as 4 distinct structures can likewise be connected to the same generator. In a sense, this is convenient yet challenging to work with given the space limitations you constantly have in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon.
You should consider building a generator or a couple of generators first before the structure that you want to connect to it. At all times, be sure to check the capacity of the generator relative to the structure you want to put beside it especially since you will not be able to keep track of the numbers if you are purchasing upgrades one after another. Based on our experience, you may have an initial scenario where 2 generators are required to support a single heat source but after purchasing several upgrades, a single generator subsequently was able to handle 2 structures attached to it.
You will soon have access to a coal burner, which starts off being able to generate 680 heat, and access to a medium generator to pair up with it will come at a much later time. At this point, however, your generator will already be several upgrade levels ahead, making it somewhat feasible to set up coal burners paired with small generators. Although it is not likely that you will start with a 1:1 ratio of coal burners and generators, you should have a decent enough understanding of how to balance outputs of heat and energy intakes to keep your structures from exploding.
Keep in mind that these circumstances are just an introduction to the complex side of managing your energy enterprise in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon. Geothermal Reactors, Arc Reactors, Tesla Reactors, and plenty more heat production plants will become available moving forward as bigger generators to convert heat to energy, and bigger offices to convert energy to cash become available as well.
Despite numerous possible challenges arising from balancing the numbers, it all boils down to the necessity of keeping tabs on each structure’s capacity, via the build window, and making simple computations to ensure the most efficient flow of heat, energy, and cash.
5. Ensure More Space For Expansions
Progress in idle clicker business sim games, just like enterprises in real life, necessitate change, and change is almost always attributable to advancement or improvement. With this in mind, it is rather simple and easy to understand how often change takes place relative to your ever-expanding conglomerate in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon.
Every bit of facility or structure you build, every research conducted, and every upgrade purchased takes you a step forward but at some point in your enterprise’s growth and development, the main hindrance will relate to the available space you have for new and additional structures to build.
Islands are not just made up of empty spaces, trees, and mountains are occupying some spaces. You will need axes to cut down trees and dynamites to blow up and tear down mountains. Each of these impediments requires 4 of the respective resources to be removed and you can only use 1 axe and 1 dynamite once every hour. Both resources will also be obtainable through video ads you need to watch.
As space will ultimately become your most precious resource, you need to always make progress in terms of ensuring new ones as you move forward. Additional islands can be unlocked with cash but the exponential increase in costs from one new area to the next ensures that it will take longer and longer for you to be able to afford subsequent area purchases.
Within the areas available to you, an equally strong determination is recommended to clear up hindrances for expansion. As much as possible, make it a habit to use axes and dynamites as regularly as you can, following cool-down periods in between.
In Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon, there is an option to remove previously built structures. You can initiate this by clicking on the “x” button on the left side menu, then selecting the structures to be removed, and finally confirming their removal. Initially, you will need to use this relative to the layout of facilities that need proper pairing up, like generators and coal burners. As these do not link diagonally, and horizontally and vertically aligned ones may work differently from what you had planned, it becomes natural to make changes to how they are connected.
A bigger step towards clearing more space and moving forward with progress involves letting go of inferior or obsolete structures. There is hardly anything compared to this feature in conventional idle clicker business sim games and it is a step that some players may be hesitant to take. However, Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon’s core design leads to the availability of better structures with each step forward, and every structure follows the same space requirement.
For example, unlocking the big office should prompt you to replace small offices with them. Small offices initially sell 10 power at a time while big offices sell 200. In this sense, placing 1 big office is as effective as 20 small offices although it cost more. You can remove all the small offices you have and put up big offices in their place or simply build enough big offices to yield the same selling capacity for the moment.
This same concept applies to generators and even structures that generate heat. Having coal burners would make you want to let go of solar panels. At this point in your adventure, you should even consider letting go of wind turbines as the energy they generate can be deemed insignificant in contrast with what coal burners and generators can provide you.
In this regard as well, it is recommended to stop purchasing upgrades for structures you no longer need. Without any need for wind turbines, you should concurrently ignore spending on increasing its power production and lifetime. The same goes for solar panels, and at some point, even coal burners.
6. Take Advantage Of Freebies And Ad Boosts
Video ads have always been expected to be part of free mobile games, most especially casual and hyper-casual types. While some free games on mobile can rely on premium purchases or micro-transactions to remain free for everyone to enjoy, most casual games like Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon, which can be fully enjoyed without the need for purchases, need advertisements to ensure their continued existence.
What some players find somewhat distracting or even annoying are video ads that pop up randomly while you play. Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon does have its share of those ads but most of it will only be played following an explicit confirmation from you. Ad boosts are abundant in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon but you are never forced to see any of the advertisements. After all, you can play the game entirely offline.
If you want to avoid seeing any advertisements while playing Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon, you simply need to turn off the Wi-Fi or mobile data in your device. This guarantees that no advertisements will randomly pop up. However, this will also prevent you from taking advantage of any ad boosts. The gift box that randomly pops up at the upper right side of the screen is unaffected by online connectivity, which means you can continue to enjoy obtaining free cash from it even if you are offline.
We have already mentioned the need to continuously and regularly clear up spaces in the areas you control. Trees and mountains will, unfortunately, have to be let go for the sake of progress and you will need axes and dynamites to do so. Both require 4 of the materials and you can get them by playing video ads.
Automation becomes available to you in Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon quickly and conveniently. Once your structures have been automated, you will be able to obtain idle earnings without any limit. Idle earnings will continue to flow even if you are offline and away from the game and there are no caps as well relative to how long you can keep on earning.
When you finally hop back into Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon, you will be presented with information on how long you have been away as well as the cash and research points you accumulated during that period. An ad offer will likewise be presented and you can double the amounts you accumulated at the low cost of playing a 15 to 30-second video ad. This is certainly well worth the small effort and becomes more valuable the farther you progress in your adventure.
The gift box containing cash is a nice feature that lets you earn a little extra on the side without much effort. The amount of cash you get from the gift box may not be that much but when you see the ad offer pop up on the upper right side of the screen, indicated by a video play button, you should know that this will grant you a much bigger lump of cash. As it turns out, Nikola Tesla will be visiting you and you can accept a huge sum of cash from him if you choose to play a short video ad.
Finally, you might be wondering about that octopus floating just to the right of the initial area you will work on. This octopus relates to the effectiveness of the offices you have and leveling it up improves the effectiveness of your office by 5%. This is a bonus effectiveness rate that goes on top of upgrades and will be beneficial to you throughout the entire adventure. Playing a video ad here increases the level of the octopus by 1 and earns you a 5% effectiveness increase for your offices. There is a cool-down period of 15 minutes after playing an ad.
And that sums up all the tips, tricks and strategies we have for Reactor: Energy Sector Tycoon. We feel that we have more than satisfactorily covered everything but if you happen to stumble upon some tricks of your own, feel free to share them with us in the comments!