In part 1 of our not-so-tiny guide to Tiny Death Star, we covered the basics - levels, Bitizens, and the Elevator. Now we're going to take the high-speed elevator to the tips and tricks level, where we'll stock up on Tiny Death Star Bux, VIPs, and Quests. Finally, we'll meet some special characters and watch some scenes.
Bux
Bux are Tiny Death Star's premium currency, and as such they are hard to come by and terribly valuable. The fastest ways of getting Bux in Tiny Death Star are:
- Build new floors, you get one Bux per floor built
- Put Bitizens in their Dream Jobs, the first time this happens to a given Bitizen, you get a Bux
- Completing a "Find the Bitizen" quest will grant you a Bux. This appears randomly as you play.
- Fully stocking a floor sometimes (rarely) gives you a Bux
- Taking a Bitizen to their floor in the elevator (rarely) gives you a Bux
Of course, you could also spend money to buy Bux. But here at WOTS, we don't do that.
You can also complete "special offers" to get some free Bux. You can earn a nice chunk of free Bux here, but there's always a catch. Sometimes you have to install a bunch of apps and give them lord-knows-what permissions to all your data. Or you can just give all your personal information away, and watch a torrent of spam overflow your mailbox. Alternatively, you could sign up for some paid service or open a new credit card. Because, really, who doesn't need a new credit card?
Pro Tip Be very wary of these offers. If you are prone to infecting your machines with spyware, or you don't even know what spyware is, I'd steer clear of this area. Seriously, buying Bux is cheaper than dealing with malicious software on your phone if you must go this route.
The "watch a video" ones tend to be the safest and easiest, and I've not run into anything particularly sleazy from doing that. However, there are only a few of these at any given time, so you're not going to get a whole bunch of free Bux this way.
Pro Tip If you've got Bux, what should you spend them on? The two most important things to spend Bux on are:
- Upgrading your Elevator. The Elevator will move faster and will grant more credits per trip.
- Upgrading your levels. An upgraded level holds more stock (roughly 10-20% more) in all of its slots.
Each of these upgrades costs progressively more Bux each time you choose to upgrade. Level upgrade costs go up Death-Star-wide over time, and are also more expensive depending on the current upgrade level of that level.
Most of the time-based restrictions in the game can be immediately bypassed by using Bux. This is generally a terrible investment of Bux. Really, you want to save them for upgrades rather than spend them to skip the wait. This game is all about waiting, so get used to it, or, y'know, play a different game. (Seriously...)
VIPs
VIPs are special consumable Bitizens who can give you special benefits when they are used. VIPs appear randomly, and you can either use them immediately, or save them for later. You can only store 5 VIPs in your Arrivals level, though, so eventually you'll have to use one for something.
The types of VIPs are:
- Level Mover - The Level Mover swaps your levels around, which normally costs 1 Bux. This can be useful for organizational purposes, or for moving your full Residential levels towards the Arrival level, which can be useful if you're not going to take Bitizens to these levels often. (See the Elevators section for why you might choose to not send Bitizens to your full Residential levels)
- Recruiting Officer - Completely fills a Residential level. This one is best used when you've just built a Residential level, or after you go through a round of mass Evictions to make room for more highly-skilled Bitizens.
- Upgrader - Bumps the upgrade level of a Death Star level by one.
- Big Spender - The Big Spender buys all of one random good on sale on the level you take him to.
- Celebrity - The Celebrity speeds up the rate of sale of goods on a given level.
- Worker - Deducts 3 hours from any timers running on the level he's taken to. Great for long stock times or late in the game where levels take forever to build.
Pro Tip VIPs tend to be worth more the bigger and more upgraded your tower is. For instance, the Upgrader VIP will upgrade a level. The amount of Bux this saves you depends on how upgraded the level already was. Thus, you should use him to upgrade a level that already has a pretty high level in order to get the most value you can out of him.
Imperial Levels and Quests
Imperial levels are the odd ones out. Imperial levels in Tiny Death Star are used solely for quests. Tiny Darth Vader's hologram on the level below Arrivals will give you quests to produce items on your Imperial levels. Completing these quests yields credits, and sometimes it's a lot of credits. Thus, it's beneficial to pay attention to these quests.
In order for an Imperial Level to produce a quest item, you'll need a Supply Officer, which is a type of VIP. Supply Officers sometimes arrive at the Death Star on their own, but they can also be bought for 1,000 credits. Whether or not this makes sense financially depends on how much the quest is worth.
Pro Tip The more quests you do for Tiny Darth Vader, the more levels you'll have to build in order to get the goods you need. If the credit reward is low, you might consider putting off the construction of a new Imperial Level until you're producing credits a bit faster.
Finally, there are also quests that the Tiny Emperor will give you. These can be thought of like a tutorial of sorts. The rewards are pretty slim for these, so I wouldn't go out of my way to complete them past the first few where they're essentially obvious and good advice.
Scenes and Special Bitizens
Occasionally while playing, you'll get a special scene or see a special Bitizen.
The scenes are generally little homages to the Star Wars films. You'll get a Bitizen in your elevator who wants to go to a particular floor, and once there the scene will occur. These can then later be viewed in your Album in the menu.
Special Bitizens are characters from Star Wars lore that will occasionally show up in your Death Star. Usually when they do, you'll have to find them and tap on the floor they're on in order to add them to your Album. After that, they will occasionally visit your Death Star again. They don't appear to do anything unique or special, they're just there for entertainment.