Gold Math
Money Always Causes Headaches
There is a lot of math in the game, and hundreds if not thousand of crab-hours have been spent reverse engineering and analyzing data to figure out how things work. There are many detailed math posts on Reddit, which will be linked throughout this if you want even more of a headache. The point of this article was to try and explain things in a way that anyone can understand. This is a subset of the main Math Article to save some scrolling.
Gold
- As noted in the the Riverbed article, every reptile within the same 10m game "level" drops the same amount of gold. This is the "base" gold drop for that game level, also referred to as "normal reptile gold". There are two exceptions.
- Golden reptiles drop 10 times the gold that a normal reptile drops.
- Bosses drop gold equal to twice the normal reptile gold, multiplied for each step of difficulty.
- With that in mind, the bosses drop 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 times normal reptile gold.
- Crab Evolutions can increase the amount of gold dropped by reptiiles.
- Queen Skills can increase the amount of gold dropped by reptiles. This number, added with the Crab Evolution bonus, can be viewed on your Statistics screen in game.
- In the Gene tree are Gold Drop genes that increase the amount of gold you receive.
- In the Gene Lab are Gold Luster upgrades that increase the amount of gold you receive.
- There is a buff available at all times for watching an Ad or spending pearls called Claw of Midas. It boosts all reptile gold by another 50-150%.
- The monthly Jade Scarab event has gold bonus Runes that increase the amount of gold you receive.
- There are several mutations that can increase different aspects of the gold you receive. This part can be confusing so I will break it down below.
- All of the above are multiplied together to give you a big mass of gold.
Base Reptile Gold, also "Normal" Reptile Gold
- This amount is dropped by normal (non-gold, non-boss) reptiles.
- As noted, it is the same for all reptiles within the same 10 meter span of riverbed (game level)
- This amount is used as a basis for the ability Golden Leech, and the gene Gilded Leech.
- This amount is used as a basis for genes Emerald Strand and Midas Swarm
- This amount is used by yellow butterflies as well as the Golden Ray shop item.
- This amount is used to determine your starting gold if you perform Ecdysis after you have levelled up Jade Tipped Pincers.
- The mutations Cerulean Walkers and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount when used directly by one of the above conditions.
Golden Reptile Gold
- Golden reptiles drop 10x the base reptile gold. That base is NOT impacted by the "Cerulean Walkers" mutation.
- The mutations Violet Tipped Pincers and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount of gold dropped by this reptile.
- The mutation Ember Tipped Pincers increases the chance that you will see a Golden Reptile.
- The base chance to see a Golden Reptile is 2%. To achieve 100% chance, you need level 245 of Ember Tipped Pincers
Boss Gold
- A boss drops gold equal to 2x normal reptile gold multiplied by their difficulty.
- As noted previously, they have five difficulty levels, so the gold multiplier is between 2x and 10x the normal base gold for that level.
- As with Golden Reptiles, the normal base used to multiply boss gold is NOT impacted by "Cerulean Walkers" mutation.
- The mutations Red Devil Carapace and Stalagmite Walkers increase this amount of gold dropped by the boss reptile.
- The gene Golden Boss gives you a 30% chance to see a "Golden Boss" which drops 10 times the gold.
Golden Leech
- This is an activated ability as well as a random reward from a Yellow Butterfly.
- For every tap during the Leech, you gain gold equal to a percentage of the Normal Reptile gold.
- It does not matter if you are leeching from a Gold Reptile, a Boss, or a Gold Boss, the leech draws from the base Normal Reptile Gold.
- The mutation Cerulean Walkers DOES have an impact on the amount of gold the Leech gets.
- Additional mutations Stalagmite Carapace and Stalagmite Walkers further enhance the gold received.
- The gene Gilded Leech causes the reptile to poop out a nugget of gold with every tap that is equal to 2% of the gold leeched so far.
Other Gold-Related Items
- The mutation Solar Flare Pincers reduces upgrade costs by up to 50% which is almost like doubling your gold for most purchases of levels and skills.
- The gene Emerald Strand causes the reptile to spit out 1% Normal Reptile Gold (modified) every time an emerald crab or queen criticals.
- The gene Midas Swarm causes the reptile to spit out 2% Normal Reptile Gold (modified) every time a crab in the Shadow Swarm hits.