Recently a number of my worlds have hit Arctic Future with the goal of nothing more than to get through it (and OF) as quickly as possible. Obviously the primary obstacle is Promethium and Orichalcum.
Way back when Arctic Future was new, I had settled on "just use +Promethium" as my arctic strategy and copied it forward to Oceanic Future when that released. Worlds I've done since have largely copied it but weren't in a rush. And I still wholeheartedly recommend just +Ore for a lazy world that may not collect on time. Even if -time was better in theory, failure to collect it on time would pull +Ore back ahead.
But what if you were willing to set timers and get on at crazy times. Can -time be better? One of the properties of -time is it gets increasing returns the more you stack (to the cap of 7 hour trips). Going from 24 hours to 20 hours is 20% better. Going from 20 hours to 16 hours is 25% better. It's also for the same reason better with a fully upgraded harbor and base trip time of 17-18 hours instead of 24 hours. By contrast +ore is %-wise less incrementally effective the more you get. going from 65 to 80 ore is ~23% better. Going from 80 to 95 ore is ~19% better.
But bear that in mind, just how good can each strategy get. Let's start with Arctic Future:
With maximum upgrade crew:
| Time Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Steersperson Tsani | -180m | | |
| Navigator Avril | -144m | +4 | |
| Navigator Zhon | -121m | +5 | |
| Steward Bryce | -90m | | 28% Time Boost |
| Trip Yield | 7.0h | 74 | 10.6 / h |
| Promethium Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Storesperson Maddox |
| +24 | |
| Miner Pikatthi | -39m | +17 |
| Sailor Elise | -33m | +15 | |
| Quartermaster Mediha |
| +11 | 47% Ore Boost |
| Trip Yield | 16.6h | 158 | 9.5 / h |
So time *is* capable of out-producing +promethium when fully upgraded and with extra attention, but the catch here is that you're not likely to hit max crew before you no longer care about promethium. It takes 154 trips to get a member to level 10 in Arctic. And you're probably not there much more than two months tops.
In general early on time crew will level about 50% faster than promethium crew due to more trips. We'll compare Level 4 Promethium (24 trips) vs Level 5 Time (38 trips) as somewhat indicative of where you might expect to be at the 1 month mark.
| L5 Time Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Steersperson Tsani | -123m | | |
| Navigator Avril | -80m | +1 | |
| Navigator Zhon | -89m |
| |
| Steward Bryce | -50m | | 18% Time Boost |
| Trip Yield | 11.4h | 66 | 5.8 / h |
| L4 Promethium Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Storesperson Maddox |
| +14 | |
| Miner Pikatthi | +4m | +9 |
| Miner Bobby | +8m | +9 | |
| Quartermaster Mediha |
| +5 | 29% Ore Boost |
| Trip Yield | 18.2h | 111 | 6.1 / h
|
While Time Crew isn't *that* far behind in production at the 1 month milestone, it is much worse at the start, with an un-upgraded harbor:
| L1 Time Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Steersperson Tsani | -91m | | |
| Navigator Avril | -50m | -4 | |
| Navigator Zhon | -70m | -5 | |
| Trip Yield | 20.5h | 41 | 2.0 / h |
| L1 Promethium Crew | Time | Promethium |
|
| Storesperson Maddox |
| +10 | |
| Miner Pikatthi | +50 | +6 |
| Miner Bobby | +75 | +7 | |
| Trip Yield | 26.1h | 73 | 2.8 / h
|
As such my recommendation for Arctic Future in a practical sense, is to focus on +promethium, and only take -time if it's enough to move the collection time to a more convenient spot or if the crew members you want are not available. The storesperson and miners are your main crew, but other crew members that have +promethium are good subs. All those words to circle back to "just take +promethium" :)
Oceanic Future is a different story. They made the time crew members in general much stronger in OF. In fact they're so strong there's multiple configurations that hit the "minimum trip time" cap and allow you to include a member for other considerations.
| Balanced Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Electrician Stan | -495m | |
|
| Officer Deklan | -70m | +15 | |
| Officer Zia | -30m | +18 | |
| Reactor Walter |
| +28 |
|
| Trip Yield | 7.1h | 129 | 18.2 / h |
| Just Ori Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Reactor Controller Alize |
| +22 | |
| Reactor Walter |
| +28 |
| Officer Zia | -30m | +18 | |
| Auxiliary Eun |
|
| 50% Ore Boost |
| Trip Yield | 16.5h | 170 | 10.3 / h |
Excellent value from Electrician Stan who cuts *over 8 hours* off by himself and causes the time-optimized crew to make close to 80% more per hour! Without him you probably want at least two time-primaries instead of one of the ore payload characters. You already get good gains from time with a level 4-5 crew (albeit with more time characters).
| L5 Balanced Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Electrician Stan | -260m | |
|
| Sonar Tech Kali | -285m | -6 | |
| Electrician Yara | -165m |
| |
| Reactor Walter |
| +17 |
|
| Trip Yield | 7h | 79 | 11.3 / h |
| L4 Just Ori Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Reactor Controller Alize |
| +11 | |
| Reactor Walter |
| +15 |
| Officer Zia | -20m | +9 | |
| Auxiliary Eun |
|
| 27% Ore Boost |
| Trip Yield | 16.7h | 112 | 6.7 / h |
A time-focused crew has already pulled way ahead with somewhat levelled crew. It's already surpassed the level 10 Just Ori crew. A teeny tiny bit of bad news though is that they don't fare so well at level 1 with an un-upgraded Oceanic Terminal.
| L1 Time Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Sonar Tech Kali | -265m | -8 | |
| Sonar Tech Iggy | -90m |
| |
| Electrician Yara | -110m |
| |
| Trip Yield | 16.3h | 42 | 2.6 / h |
| L1 Just Ori Crew | Time | Orichalcum |
|
|---|
| Reactor Controller Alize |
| +8 | |
| Officer Zia | -15m | +6 |
| Yeoman Skye | +40m | +7 | |
| Trip Yield | 24.4h | 71 | 2.9 / h
|
It is however not dramatically behind, and as we've seen it'll surpass it pretty quickly with harbor and crew upgrades. In terms of which time crew members to focus on:
Electrician Stan is the strongest of the time crew at high levels but starts out rather average. You should try to include him to get him experience whenever possible.
Sonar Tech Kali starts as the largest time savings at a cost of a decent chunk of your orichalcum per trip, but makes your other time investments better at that time. She doesn't improve very fast with levels however. She will nevertheless offer the 2nd highest time savings at level 10 and the orichalcum penalty will not be so significant by then either.
Sonar Tech Iggy, Electrician Yara, and Digit Rosa are all medium-strong time members with average levelling progress. You'll use them a lot earlier when your other time members need more help, but later a couple of them (or one of them and Kali) will be the backup plan if Stan doesn't show up for you to pick.
Officers Deklan and Zia aren't the strongest time members but are great orichalcum payoffs in combination with stronger time members while still being able to help cutoff some of the last hour or so. Deklan cuts off a bit more time while Zia adds a bit more orichalcum.
Navigation Hailey is not worth considering. Any crew where she'd theoretically surpass other options is already at minimum trip time.
Note that once you have your time assistance somewhat levelled it may occasionally be worth including good orichalcum increases over some of them if the collection time with a full-time-boost is inconvenient and you won't take advantage of the savings anyways.
