Forums → Games → Gemcraft 2: 4096 ultra-hardcore upgrading

For when you want to squeeze the most out of your gems!

In the kiwi chat, I half-jokingly suggested to 12345ieee to generate a 4096 upgrade as a sort of masochistic test of patience. A few moments later, the scheme was uploaded to pastebin. After witnessing the wall of text and being utterly intimidated by that monstrosity, I then issued psorek a (non) challenge to tree that titanic scheme. After a short while, he produced this. The text file is so large it cannot fit on pastebin or github!

After experiencing a huge burst of motivation in the middle of the night to learn this upgrade scheme, I immediately went to work using Photoshop and Irfanview to help make sense of this Yggdrasil. It took me a few days to condense it into a format I could work with, and an extra day to fix all the errors in the parentheses scheme, but, after all this hard work, I have a workable format.

Here is the keypad I'm using:

For this example the base gem is a G31/37e, and "U" simply means a G+1 in the following plan. Now, here it is:

KEY COST CHECKS

166 = G+7 + G+5 + G+2 + G+1
172 = G+7 + G+5 + G+3 + G+2
594 = G+9 + G+6 + G+4 + G+1
2900 = G+11 + G+9 + G+8 + G+6 + G+4 + G+2
1196 = G+10 + G+7 + G+4 + G+3 + G+2

GEM CODE

3 = (G+1 + G+0)
4 = (G+1 + 2x G+0)
5 = (G+1 + 3x G+0)
6 = (G+1 + 4x G+0)
7 = (G+1 + 5x G+0)
8 = (G+1 + 6x G+0)
8 combine (8c) = ((((2+1)+1)+1)+1)+2 [never used alone, not shown]
10 combine (10c) = 8c + G+1

A = 10 = (G+2 + (G+1 + 4)) = G+3
B = 20 = (G+1 + 4) + ((3+8) + 3) = G+3
C = 30 = 10 + 20 = G+4
D = 34 = G+4 + (G+3 + A) = G+5
E = 48 = 30 + (G+3 + (G+2 + (G+1 + 4))) = G+5
F = 58 = (((3+8) + ((((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6) + 7)) + (3+8)) = G+3
G = 78 = B + F = G+4
G1 = 82 = D + E = G+6
H = 108 = C + G = G+5
I = 156 = H + E = G+6
J = 166 = ((((((((3+8) + (((((((4+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)))) + 10c) + 10c+3) + ((10c+3) + 4)) + (((10c+3) + 4) + 5)) + ((((10c+ 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) + (((((10c+3) + 4) + 5) + 6) + 7)) = G+3
K = 172 = (((((((3+8) + 3) + ((((((((G+1 + 6) + G+1) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6) + 6) + 7)) + 10c+3) + (((3+8) + 3) + 4)) + ((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + ((((10c+3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) + (((((10c+3) + 4) + 5) + 6) + 7)) = G+3
L = 594 = ((((((51 + 143) + 49) + 61) + 76) + 95) + 119) = G+4

L subgem:

1. (((3+8) + (((((4+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) + 10c) = 51 = G+3
2. (((((((10c + (((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) + (G+1 + 7)) + (3+8)) + ((3+8) + 3)) + (((3+8) + 3) + 4)) + ((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5)) + (((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) = 143 = G+3
3. ((10c + (((((3+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)) + 10c) = 49 = G+3
4. 3 + (4+8) = 61 = G+3
5. 4 + ((4+8) + 3) = 76 = G+3
6. 5 + (((4+8) + 3) + 4) = 95 = G+3
7. 6 + ((((4+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) = 119 = G+3
8. ((((((1+2) + 49) + 61) + 76) + 95) + 119) = 594 = L

2900-gem

1. L + (J + F) = G+5
2. 1 + ((J + F) + G) = G+6
3. 2 + (((J + F) + G) + H) = G+7
4. 3 + ((((J + F) + G) + H) + I) = G+8
5(1). 4 + (((((J + F) + G) + H) + I) + (I + G1)) = G+9

1196-gem

1. (G1) + (G+5 + D) = 148 = G+7
2. (H + E) + (G1) = 238 = G+7
3. 1 + 2 = 386 = G+8

4.((K + F) + G) + H) + I) + (I + (G1)) = 810 = G+8
5(2). 3 + 4 = G+9

4096-gem

1. 5(1) + 5(2) = G+10

Note that there is a 30-gem in there that is different from gem C which is used in gems J and L. It is [(((((4+8) + 3) + 4) + 5) + 6)] instead of [(A+B)]. It is not shown in the key, thus its expanded representation. I will update this guide soon to shorten that 30-gem and include a new image having that gem listed. For now, this is the first version of the guide, which others will hopefully peruse and figure out how to make this upgrade plan simpler and easier to accomplish.

Now, for a comparison at equivalent grades:

G37e:

~15% better than two 64c operations. Pretty good! Let's go to a higher grade.

G61e:

~26.2% more mana per hit. Getting better! Now, for the final comparison.

G97e:

The 1024c+64c gem is 29.4% better than the 64c gem, and the 4096c gem is an additional 12.1% better than that. The 4096 gem sees a ~45.1% improvement over a standard 64c gem at that grade! This plan is horrendously expensive in the early stages of a mana farm, but indispensable for runs lasting 15+ days where every bit of leech earned can cut upgrading time by several days.

As an added bonus, the 4096c gem in the last image beats out a standard U gem of the same cost, even if they fired at their actual speeds.

G97 U: 855,441,483,443,320,556,233.37 or 8.55e+20 mana per second.
G81/97e by 4096: 1,028,410,090,028,280,988,992.552 or 1.028e+21 mana per second.

Overall, the 4096 gem is 20.2% better than a standard U gem at that grade.

THANK YOU psorek for putting the 4096c into an infinitely more understandable tree format, and 12345ieee for creating gemforce and subsequently this upgrade scheme!