Mid to Late Game Doldrums

Solution 1:

I am at the same point in the game, about, and I have found that there are a few things going on. One, yes you have to grind for unobtanium and get your alloy production super quick in order to get Eludium, as you know. Unobtanium comes from a combo of lunar outposts, and general resource boosters such as space elevators and orbital arrays. Also at the same time building up uranium through plant crackers and general boosters, including getting as many magnetos and reactors as you possibly can. Once you get Planet Buster then your uranium is a lot better.

Alloy, for me, was a matter of getting a lot of factories on steel, and having a gigantic amount of ships to trade for titanium. In general, I try to have a factory on as many things as I can, including expensive tankers and kerosenes, and the basics such as slabs and beams. Some people don't like factories but I think they are great, plus they give you a nice craft bonus.

Then the other thing is anti-matter. Yes it is true that you can't really get that much right now, but at about my second or third run where I made real progress in space, I found that I am able to get enough antimatter to get, well, more antimatter, I guess. I have also been working on getting unicorns and alicorns, same as you.

What I see coming down the line is that I will reset about now, whenever I have a few easy days to check back in frequently, and then begin a reset frenzy, where I try to play up to the point where I can get a bunch of chronospheres, reset, let my faith bonus and all my stored resources make my next run a little bit faster, and do this again and again, collecting paragon along the way and getting all the metaphysics purchased. It is kind of like a meta-grind, where instead of grinding on resources, you are grinding resets.

I think this is the phase that comes before the relics/time crystal frenzy that I feel is on the horizon. You have to just do a bunch of little runs to get a little faster at these mid-game resources before jumping into the time stuff.

Solution 2:

The first time I got to Eludium, I saved up for Microwarp Reactors, and concentrated on building Lunar Outposts, which require Planet Crackers. Things got better after Microwarp Reactors and the Planet Busters upgrade. I had been playing with Ziggurats, Unicorns, and Tears on the side, and had about 30 Ziggurats. By about this time I got my first few time crystals. Once I built a Chronosphere or maybe two, I reset without really understanding what I was getting into.

With the Chronosphere bonus, it took just a few days to get back to the Eludium wall. So at this point I'm doing runs that last a week. I'm concentrating on getting enough Paragon to buy the right Metaphysics upgrades, while optimizing my Time Crystal production.