A basic guide to dilation and dilation tree in Revolution Idle.
Revolution Idle: Dilation Guide (Dilation Tree)
In order to progress in Dilation, you need to first Enter Dilation (with extreme penalties). The higher your score is in dilation, the more Dilation Point (DP) Income you will receive when you Exit Dilation mode. Income will generate at a constant rate based on your Dilation Score. Buy Dilation Upgrades with the DP Income.
Note: You can continue to buy AP points. Right now they don’t do anything, but will later on. So you can buy them, or ignore them for now.
Tip: Before you “Go Dilation” reset the lab for all points into #6 Common Exponent. Generators won’t be much good there for a while yet.
For your first Dilation run, I recommend letting it go until your current max score is about 1e30. This will give you an Income of 2.00 and gives you something to slowly work with. Immediately go back into dilation to improve the score to around 1e60. Income will continue to generate while in Dilation. Buy the #1 dilation upgrades when available to slightly reduce the dilation penalty.
By this time your lab production has probably slowed so do a normal run for EP to keep the lab moving. You could probably change your lab ratio to 1:3, but again verify what works for you. Check this occasionally, as it will gradually become a 1:2 ratio and then 1:1 towards the end of Dilation but can also fluctuate back and forth.
The only tricky part about Dilation is striking a balance. As you noticed, while in Dilation it slows down quickly so I don’t recommend staying in dilation for more than 30-60 mins. Cycle between being in Dilation to raise income and being out of Dilation to keep the lab moving, and get Supernova. You want enough upgrades outside of dilation to make substantial push while inside of dilation so you don’t waste a lot of time. Until you have a high enough income to buy more of the dilation upgrades, the lab is really the only way to do this so you want to keep it moving.
Tip: When you first enter dilation you have 0 Infinity, so when you reach Infinity in Dilation, claim the IP. You get an achievement but more importantly this will kick start your generators. You will need to do this each dilation run until you can easily buy Infinity upgrade 18:1 to get the few generators you have moving.
I don’t really know of a good way to speed this up. Just keep the lab growing and try to get better score in Dilation. Since you get 0 EP in dilation, I spend more time increasing lab production.
I also prioritize EP spending on lab production in the order of “Power” > “Mult” > “Base” and usually try to get enough EP in one run to upgrade all of them at least once.
Challenge #10: When you have maybe about 150 – 170 levels of Dilation Upgrade #1, and other upgrades in the same price range, put all lab points into Common Exponent for the challenge. Upon completion this will give a much needed boost to DP Income (x10). If you want to do it earlier and spend more time to complete it, I would say it’s worth it, as it will end up saving a lot of time in buying upgrades. Wish I had done it sooner for myself.
For Reference: I did Challenge #10 with 180 levels of Dilation Upgrade #1 and it took about 35 minutes. I would consider it worthwhile even if it took several hours without time flux.
When you can reach Infinity Upgrade 20:2 while in Dilation, you can start using the same lab setup ratio for both in and out of dilation. I was using 1:3 ratio but verify what works for you.
Caution: Do not change this while in dilation as this will force a reset.
Challenge #10 difficulty 2: I started this with Dilation #1 at level 225 and lab level 1140 (all in Common). Took just under an hour to complete. So now you have a better idea when you want to start it.
After this Challenge, my lab ratio started to fluctuate between 1:1 and 1:2. This continued back and forth into the Dilation Tree so I won’t be noting these changes. Use whatever works for you.
That should keep things moving smoothly for a while.
Challenge #10 difficulty 3: I started with Dilation Upgrade #1 at level 325 and lab 1450 (all in common exp). Completed in 53 mins.
Challenge #10 difficulty 4: I was making good gains so didn’t start this one until Dilation Upgrade #1 was level 390 and Lab level 1805 (all in Common exp). Completed in 3 mins.
Challenge #10 difficulty 5: I started with Dilation Upgrade #1 at level 440 and Lab level 2050 (all in common exp). I turned on auto infinity to claim the amount I could get quickly in order to buy Infinity upgrades and bought up to 16:1-3 and about 3k extra to boost 11:1-2 although the extra probably didn’t do much. The upgrades significantly reduced the time.
Completed in about 15 mins.
All Challenges complete: Dilation Tree unlocked. First Dilation Tree Point (DTP) requires 1e27 DP.
If you have been ignoring buying AP, now is a good time to start buying them when you can.
Final run to get DTP 1, my income 5.27e22 and Supernova 44. Stop buying Dilation Upgrades when you are ready to wait. About 5 hrs to first DTP without using Time Flux.
Dilation Tree
Since the Unity update, some things have changed so that the later stages are a lot smoother. I will try to verify and update the info when I get here (again). Things to look for: Lab ratio may have changed with #5 being stronger than previously. Some tree upgrades may be better or worse which could affect build order. Just be aware the builds probably still work, but this whole section was made prior to the Unity update and probably needs overhauled.
My goal is to lay out point distribution builds that allow progress, but expect to grind for a day or more in one build as you get closer to the end. This may not be the most optimal, but it will get you to the current last achievement end game.
There are 5 permanent upgrades that will always provide some sort of bonus and never get reset which allows for progress. Adding points to Dilation Tree should ALWAYS be improving at least one of these permanent upgrades, they are: Eternities (boost Eternity milestone bonuses), Supernova, Dilation Tree Points (DTP), Dilation Upgrades (#4-9), and Animal Points (AP). *Note that when you are boosting one of these, most likely there is little or no progress in the others. You need to switch focus to improve each aspect by changing DTP from one setup to another. You can also save up to 3 free setups to make changing builds easier and I recommend using one each for Dilation, Supernova, and AP builds.
There is a penalty cost for changing Dilation Points of 5% of Dilation upgrades #1-3 and DP score and Income is reset. For this reason, you should always do a Dilation Point build between other builds to offset this penalty and not let it become a worse penalty (losing 5% + 5% is worse than just 5%).
Important: When you have 13 DTP get Achievement #140. Also, if you haven’t already, turn Off Eternity Automation (unless trying to get lower Eternity time), it has the potential to severely slow you down especially when trying to buy Animal Points.
While it’s not absolutely necessary at this stage, I do recommend your first goal is to increase Eternities (with 3 DTP) which will boost all other aspects through Milestones Eternity bonus. Doing this now, will make the next stages of progress much easier and faster.
BUILDS
DTP Levels 1-3: (C) 1 – (M) 1-1-0-0
Once you have all three DTP and passively generating Eternities, your only goal is to increase Eternities so you can turn ON Auto Eternity to 1 and 0 secs. You may also be able to reduce eternity time this way, which boosts M2. The fastest Eternity time that I got at this point was 14 ms. Almost all will be 17 ms, but you can get a “lucky” trigger. Some suggestions that may help to get it down to 10ms is resizing the screen or “switching the resolution down to 1280×720”. Don’t know for certain if either does anything but worth a try.
Do this anytime you do Eternity build and hope for 10 ms (it’s nice but not absolutely necessary).
Get around 2 million Eternities, turn OFF Auto Eternity, then respec to:
(C) 1, (T) 1-1-0-0
General build cycle order (not absolute): Dilation> Supernova> Dilation> Animal> repeat…(Add in Eternity Point Build when things slow down too much or you want to go afk for hours. The goal for Eternities is about 4e10+ by DTP 39 and it will take a long while. But I don’t recommend spending a lot of time with Eternity build until you have at least 13 DTP for maximum passive eternities.
When you get your 4th DTP point, continue below to the first Dilation Upgrade Build.
ETERNITY POINT BUILD: Apply points in the order given (example: Max M2, before single M3).
DTP Levels 3-40
(C) 1, (M) 1-5-1-5 (extra points can go basically anywhere as they won’t do much of anything).
As far as I know, the fastest possible Eternity is 10 ms for 3,046,350 per/s.
Becomes obsolete at DTP 41. Get Eternities with Animal Point Build.
DILATION UPGRADE BUILDS: Apply points in the order given (Achievement #140 at DTP 13).
Before 120 Supernova: DTP Levels 4-16+ :
(C) 1, (B) 1-1-3-0, (T) 1-1-0-0, (C) 5, (M) 2-0-0-0, (Finish B3 and T2 if needed for 120 Supernova)
Note: If it seems slow getting to Supernova 120, most likely you need AP and/or didn’t get Achievement #140 (I made both mistakes and is why I’m making this note).
With 120+ Supernova: DTP Levels 13-17 :
(I have not verified, but this could work before 120 Supernova’s)
(C) 1, (M) 1-1-5-5, (C) 5
DTP Levels 18-39: Keep the above then continue
(C) 5, (M) 5-1-5-5, (B) 1-1-5-0, (T) 1-1-1-5 (Then max T2)
DTP 39+ and with approximately 4e10+ Eternities (more eternities makes this better):
(C) 5, (M) 5-1-5-5, (T) 1-4-1-5, (B) 1-1-1-5 (Finish B3 then T2 and finally B2)
(If you have 1.1e11+ Eternities, finish T2 then B3)
SUPERNOVA BUILDS: Apply points in the order given.
Early DTP levels, claim AP before switching back to Dilation Build.
DTP Levels 4-16 : (C) 1, (T) 1-1-5-0, (B) 1-1-1-5
DTP Levels 17-41+: Keep the above then
(C) 1, (T) 1-1-5-5, (M) 1-1-5-5, (B) 5-5-1-5, (Then max M2 for more eternities)
*Becomes obsolete at DTP 45 as it merges into Animal Point Build.
*Supernova 155 at about mid to late DTP 41
*Supernova 156 at about mid to late DTP 44
ANIMAL POINT BUILD: Apply points in the order given.
DTP Levels 13-41+: (You shouldn’t need this build early. Get AP with early Supernova build)
(C) 1, (M) 1-1-5-5, (B) 5-5-0-0, (T) 1-1-1-5 (then max B4 and M2 then T3)
*Extra points don’t really do anything since primary things are maxed.
Late game these runs can take several hours or even a day or more before any new points can be bought. Since you need to manually buy the AP, make sure Eternity Automation is OFF so it doesn’t reset without buying any AP and wasting time. And since it can take so long just to get these points, make it worthwhile. Rough estimate of a minimum of 5000 AP each run (unless it slows down too much). Another method that seems to work is to farm AP the same amount of time that it takes to get where you left off. If it took 12 hrs just to get to the point where you can start buying them again, spend 12 hrs minimum actually buying them.
LAB POINTS: No special build needed. You will get lab points during Dilation and AP builds. Lab points might vary on how you apply them for optimization, The only place worth using points is #5 (Gen Power Exponent) and #6 (Common Exponent). At the beginning of Dilation Tree 1:1 ratio was better for me but shifted to a 1:2 ratio part way through. In the later stages it moved all the way to everything in #6 Common Exponent. There are too many variables to say when the ratio change happens but all in #6 probably no later than DTP 37 and Supernova 152. Once that happens, it never changes again.
Expect things to slow down drastically at about Supernova 153 and DTP 40. This really starts the end game grind where you will need much longer runs to make any gains, specifically for AP.