Archives for posts with tag: Popsicle Stick Skyscraper

First, for people new to the game, house-farming isn’t a crop option on Cletus’ farm. It’s what some players do when, for one reason or another, they decide to forego the town creation part of the game and instead try to collect as much cash as they can. The result is something that looks like this (not my town!):

There are lots of reasons why people house-farm. Many people house-farm at the early stages of the game to generate enough cash to move through the game a little faster. And during the Christmas event, lots of houses meant lots of chances for your friends to collect Santa Coins, so house-farming was actually a very neighborly thing to do. (During the Whacking Day event, however, house-farms were often difficult places to hunt down snakes.)

House-farming is almost always controversial, but the current glitch (or change) in quest progression, together with how close we are to Squidport and the huge amounts of game dollars it will require, makes it a necessity for many players. But once they’re at the upper levels, have all the buildings and characters, and have built a town that generates an income of close to a million dollars a week, many erstwhile house-farmers put their oceans of houses away and focus on designing the most appealing town they can.

I must admit that I’m a bit of a purist. I truly believe that designing your own Springfield (and sometimes re-designing it) is as much fun as collecting all the stuff. While I would never delete a friend who chose the house-farming route, I far prefer seeing how creative people have been. But, if you’re thinking about going down the house-farming route simply to build up enough cash for what’s ahead, this post is certainly worth a look: How can I quickly earn money in Tapped Out?

There’s been a lot of discussion already about this in the comments below, but what does everyone else think? And please keep it nice – for some reason every house-farming discussion generates a lot of heat!

Tags Be Mine, Buildings, cards, Christmas, Escalator to Nowhere, housefarming, houses, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Santa coins, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Valentine's Day

Categories Be Mine cards, Christmas, Escalator to Nowhere, Gameplay, Housefarming, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Valentine's Day

What ratings do the aspirational buildings contribute to – and how much do they contribute?

By TSTO Tips

May 25, 2013 //

It’s still a rocky road on the transfer, but things seem to be settling down at my end. I’ve been in and out of connection with the admin side of the site all day. WordPress tells me that it could take up to 72 hours for everything to settle down across the internet world, so please be patient. In the interim, some of your comments have landed on the old WordPress.com site and haven’t appeared here yet at the new WordPress.org location, so if you’ve sent something through and can’t see it, please try again.

In the meantime, let’s talk about the aspirational buildings – those three big, expensive buildings that sit on your build menu. The important thing to know about these is that they don’t behave like buildings. They don’t earn you regular income and there are no tasks or quests involving them. They’re really your New Springfield’s white elephant decorations.

Here’s what they do:

Building	Price	XP	Rating	Points
Escalator to Nowhere	$1,000,000	10,000	Vanity	1000
Popsicle Stick Skyscraper	$2000000	20,000	Vanity	2000
50-foot Magnifying Glass	$3000000	30,000	Vanity	3000

And for those who haven’t built them, yet, here are a couple of images sent in by readers:

If you’d like to read the other posts on the decorations and their rating contribution, you can take a look here:

Part 1, which looks at all the game dollar decorations up to level 14 is here;
Part 2, which looks at all the game dollar decorations from level 15 to level 29 is here; and
Part 3, which looks at the premium decorations, is here.

Coming next – the limited-time decorations…

Tags 50-foot Magnifying Glass, aspirational buildings, Conform-o-meter, conformity bonus, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Vanity rating, XP

Categories 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Conform-o-meter, Escalator to Nowhere, Gameplay, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Vanity rating, XP

Can I sell and re-buy the aspirational buildings?

By TSTO Tips

May 16, 2013 //

Yes you can. And as with anything here, it’s a question worth answering just because people have been asking…

Each of the big, expensive aspirational buildings can be sold for 25% of their original price. They then reappear in your building menu, and you can purchase them again, rebuild them, and collect the XP.

But why would you do this? The simple answer is to accelerate yourself towards the next bonus level if you’re a level 29 player. While players at lower levels who are perpetually short of cash may find it astounding, longer-term players at level 29 often have more cash than they know what to do with. So just like the Wind Socks and Weather Stations in yesterday’s post (http://wp.me/p35pG7-23O), buying something that gives you an XP boost is essentially a way of turning game dollars into donuts.

The XP from each of the aspirational buildings is as follows:

Escalator to Nowhere – 10,000 XP
Popsicle Stick Skyscraper- 20,000 XP
50-foot Magnifying Glass – 30,000 XP

Of course, with the 3-day build time, selling and rebuying the aspirationals takes a bit of patience. But it can certainly be done.

Tags 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Bonus level, Cash, donuts, Escalator to Nowhere, game dollars, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, The Simpsons Tapped Out, XP

Categories 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Bonus level, Cash, Escalator to Nowhere, Gameplay, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, XP

How much money does your Springfield make in a day?

By TSTO Tips

March 28, 2013 //

For newer players of the game, those big, expensive buildings (what the game calls the “aspirational” buildings) seem out of reach. But the longer you play the game and the more characters and buildings you have, the easier it is to build up a decent amount of cash each day.

There are a number of ways to build up cash in the game (and there’s a post coming from RerockerFC on this). But, in the name of research, I decided that yesterday would be a day that I didn’t spend any money on renovating my town and that I would instead find out just how much money I made in an average day.

I started the day with $2170 (after a decoration binge the day before). I finished the day with $118,926. Now, I’m not a housefarmer, although I do have some multiple buildings, but I do have all the premium characters and costumes and many of the limited time buildings (although not all of them). But it does demonstrate that the further you go on in the game, the easier it is to make money – and perhaps that the Escalator to Nowhere, the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, and the 50-foot Magnifying Glass are not so out-of-reach after all.

Let me know how much your Springfield earns in an average day (and whether you house farm or prefer the individual building approach). And look out for RerockerFC’s tips tomorrow on earning more money from your Springfield.

Tags 50-foot Magnifying Glass, aspirational, Cash, Escalator to Nowhere, expensive, Money, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, The Simpsons Tapped Out

Categories 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Buildings, Cash, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper

What should level 26 players do with their money right now?

By TSTO Tips

March 18, 2013 //

A very good question came in from Michael today:

Today, I have 2 million dollars and now I’m not sure what’s the right way to go:
1.) Buy the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper and then have nearly 0 dollars
2.) Wait until I collect 3 million dollars and buy the 50-foot Magnifying Glass or
3.) Don’t spend my money on these big buildings and save money for upcoming events?

Whats your opinion?

My advice for the moment would be to hold on to your cash. If level 27 is on the way, there’ll be at least one new building and it’s likely to be more expensive than Burns Manor. Each of the recent updates has also had a second, quite expensive new building. (For level 27, the Springfield Buddhist Temple and the Adult Education Annex are predicted.) You may also need to buy new land to make room for these, depending on their size.

The bottom line for players currently on level 26 is that you may need up to half a million dollars spare for any level 27 buildings. So my advice for level 26 players who are saving for the really expensive items would be to make sure you have around $500,000 free – and wait and see what may be on the way over the next few days.

Tags 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Adult Education Annex, Cash, Land expansion, level 26, level 27, Money, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Springfield Buddhist Temple, The Simpsons Tapped Out, update

Categories 50-foot Magnifying Glass, Adult Education Annex, Cash, Land expansion, Level 26, Level 27, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Springfield Buddhist Temple, Update

How many XP do you get when you build the Escalator to Nowhere and the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper?

By TSTO Tips

February 26, 2013 //

Like me, you’re probably seeing more and more Escalators to Nowhere and the occasional Popsicle Stick Skyscraper as an increasing number of people hit the game dollars targets you need to be able to build these imposing structures. But how many XP do you get for building them?

The answer seems to be that the XP comes at a rate of 1% of the cost. That means that for building the Escalator to Nowhere, you get 10,000 XP (confirmed by several readers of this blog) and for the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper you get 20,000 XP (only one source for this, so please correct me if I’m wrong). Both of these take 3 days to build.

It’s important to know that this is all you get. They’re decorations rather than buildings – and all they really do is help your vanity rating and take up space. They don’t earn any rent, so the construction XP is a one-time collection, just like any of your other decorations. And none of your characters interact with either of these structures.

Just to give you an idea of how big the Escalator is, here’s a screenshot (it was found on reddit, so if this is yours and you’d rather I didn’t show it, please let me know). And if you have a screenshot you’d like to share of the Popsicle Stick Tower, please feel free to send a link.

Tags Decorations, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, The Simpsons Tapped Out, Vanity rating

Categories Construction, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Vanity rating, XP

Just how big are the Escalator to Nowhere and the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper?

By TSTO Tips

February 7, 2013 //

Both buildings were released as part of the Valentine’s Day Update and they’re pretty big. In fact, as well as being the most expensive buildings in the game, they’re also the biggest by far (and at 3 days, they also take the longest to build!).

Take a look at this video from NUCLEARVIDEOSHD on YouTube to see what I mean:

And how much rent do these massive constructions earn? Well, the word is that they earn exactly zero, making them decorations rather than buildings. I’m not sure how much XP you get for building them, either, but I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

I still want them, though – especially the Escalator.

Tags Buildings, Decorations, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, The Simpsons Tapped Out, update, Valentine's Day, XP

Categories Buildings, Construction, Decorations, Escalator to Nowhere, Popsicle Stick Skyscraper, Update, Valentine's Day, XP

$2,000,000 for a building? Really?

By TSTO Tips

February 5, 2013 //

With the Valentine’s Day update came 2 new buildings – the Escalator to Nowhere and the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper. But they came at a price that caused many people’s eyes to do a cartoon-style pop out of their heads – $1 million and $2 million dollars.

Now, if you’ve just started playing the game, those look like unattainable prices. But for those who are at level 25 and have all the characters and buildings and are waiting for level 26, they’re something to strive for.

Early on in the game, your money doesn’t build up that fast. But as you go on, it becomes very easy to gather more than $100,000 every day (and more, if you’re a house farmer).

One of the problems with the game for level 25 players is what to do with all the money if you’ve got all the buildings, land and decorations you need until the next level arrives. The new buildings, while expensive, are a good answer to a problem that arises every month.

So, the Escalator to Nowhere and the Popsicle Stick Skyscraper are what I’m currently saving for – and they also help me to keep checking in to my Springfield, visiting friends, and collecting cash every day. And that means that EA has probably made a very smart move in releasing them, despite their price tags.