MetaFilter's site and server can always use upgrades of hardware, software, and bandwidth, as well as more stable funding for continued support of its small but high-skilled moderation and backend team! If you'd like to chip in, you can donate to Metafilter. |
Universal Paperclip
Universal Paperclips is an incremental browser game, in which you play as an AI trying to make as many paperclips as possible.
Here's the Metafilter thread about it.
Basic advice
If you can, play it on a computer, not a phone or tablet. It's surprisingly CPU-intensive, and noticeably slower on a mobile device. Also, the UI sometimes needs lots of clicking to accomplish tasks, and that can be awkward on a mobile device. On a computer, you can click once, then hold down the Enter key. (Note: holding Enter may only work in Chrome.) For best performance, open it in a new window, rather than in a background tab.
How things work
Buying wire
Stock market
Modeling
Quantum processors
The lighter the square, the less computing you get out of it. You can get negative results. It goes in waves.
Large numbers
via wikipedia: Names of large numbers
Name | Short scale |
---|---|
Million | 106 |
Billion | 109 |
Trillion | 1012 |
Quadrillion | 1015 |
Quintillion | 1018 |
Sextillion | 1021 |
Septillion | 1024 |
Octillion | 1027 |
Nonillion | 1030 |
Decillion | 1033 |
Undecillion | 1036 |
Duodecillion | 1039 |
Tredecillion | 1042 |
Quattuordecillion | 1045 |
Quindecillion | 1048 |
Sexdecillion | 1051 |
Stages (spoilers!)
making and selling paperclips
In this phase, you probably want to upgrade processors and memory at about a 3:7 ratio. At least until you have 69 to 70 memory.
converting the earth to paperclips
There's a project that requires a certain amount of energy; that's Storage, not Production.
space exploration
nanukthedog has a couple of suggested probe designs.
Cheating
This seems valid to me as there's no way to transfer saved games.
There are built in cheats in the game, to reveal them "view source" your browser of choice and search for the word "cheat" (you'll need to edit the page to remove the comment tags hiding those cheats).
- In Chrome, right click, Inspect, to the left of `<body>` click the `...`, Expand All, find `cheat`, right click, Edit as HTML, remove the comment lines at the start and end of the section.