Crab Levels

• Your crabs have levels. It costs gold to buy them.
• Your crabs unlock the ability to Evolve at various points.
• If you do not have the AppXplore Crab (a purchased option), you can stop upgrading crab levels at 2730.
• If you do have the AppXplore crab (highly recommended) or the Baby AppXplore Crab, you should stop at crab level 4000. Why?
• Going beyond these levels is a waste of time and gold because the damage increase from Crab Levels is not significant at all. Crabs get their power from queen contribution to DPS, abilities, mutations, gems and genes.
• In addition to evolutions, you unlock Abilities between crab level 75 and 550.
• At Crab Level 650 you may perform Ecdysis

Crab Evolutions

• Your crabs can evolve beginning with crab level 10.
• Each crab colour has an evolution tree visible from the Evolutions window from the game's menu.
• You gain a damage bonus as you unlock more and more of their evolutions.
• This bonus is listed at the bottom of the Evolution tree and impacts all crabs of that colour (queens included).
• It is in your interest to take a few ecdysis sessions to carefully watch your tree and make sure you unlock everything.
• Alternately, when choosing evolutions, the game graphic will have a green dot if you have already unlocked that evolution. No dot = you haven't unlocked it yet.
• You can choose 10 evolutions before the crab has reached its MAX EVOLUTION. This happens around crab level 2730.
• You receive 1 DNA for the 5th - 10th evolutions, or a possible 6 DNA per colour if you max them out.
• If you have the gene Evolution Strand you receive bonus DNA based on the number of mutations that you have.
• Crab Evolutions have an impact on tapped crabs, and Shadow Swarm crabs.
• Crab Evolutions have no impact on Queens.

Evolution Statistics

• Each evolution path gives you a different combination of statistics.
• It is wise to study the tree once you have unlocked everything and decide which path will give you the best bonuses for your play style.
• Some of the evolution effects are summed up and displayed in the crab's information window, either on the crab tab or if you click their picture.
• + DMG This is simply a damage bonus for the coloured crab.
• + Crit Rate This is the rate at which the coloured crab will critical (purple damage). This number is also affected if the ability Smokescreen is running. Having a crit rate > 100% is not useful, and really choosing any Crab Evoutions based solely on this statistic is a waste if you have a long-running Smokescreen. There are also mutations that add +Crit Rate, making the last point even stronger. Don't make this a priority unless you are early into the game and don't have the benefit of long Smokescreen or the mutations to raise it.
• + Crit Dmg This is the multiplier used when the coloured crab lands a critical. This number is affected by mutations that give +Crit Dmg, as well as some queen skills. There is no cap, and the more the better.
• + Speed This is how fast the crab runs up the screen. This number is also affected by mutation and some genes and skills. Really unless you have a low boss timer, speed doesn't really matter all that much.
• + Dodge This is the chance that the crab will dodge an exploding reptile and not die. This number is also affected by some skills. There are genes that have special effects for a dodging crab, so this isn't entirely as useless as it sounds.
• + Gold Drop This is a bonus applied to any gold dropped by reptiles, including any leeched out with Golden Leech. This number is displayed on the Statistics window from the game's menu and includes any bonuses given by queen skills.
• + Dmg to Boss Until the 1.3.0 release this did nothing, but as of 1.3.0 this is a bonus damage multiplier that only affects damage versus bosses. It is a multiplier, which includes critical hits, so this is pretty substantial. The sum of this statistic is NOT displayed anywhere.
• Evolution Gilding In the Gene Lab you can buy Evolution Gild that can add 0.1% Queen DPS to Crab Dmg to individual evolutions. Read that article for more information.

Choosing Evolutions

• There is a Worksheet that can help you pick your evolutions.

Why Average is Pretty Good

• There are three Averages that are of importance.
• The averages are, well, averaging the three coloured crab stats.
• AVERAGE CRAB DAMAGE is used by several colourless damage sources: both AppXplore Crabs, gene Laser Crab, gene Gunner Crab, Colossal Crab and Queen Frenzy abiilities, Smokescreen's "Poison Cloud" talent, and the gene Toxic Vines
• Anything that raises your individual colour crab damage will raise your average crab damage (Genetic Split being the biggest single boost while it is active).
• AVERAGE CRIT RATE and AVERAGE CRIT DMG are used by AppX Crab, Laser Crab, and Gunner Crab.
• Anything that raises your individual colour crab crit rate or damage will raise your average crab crit rate or damage (Smokescreen for crit rate, several mutations as well as crab evolutions can raise crit damage).
• Tip: There are four mutations that have an impact on Crit Rate and Crit Damage: one for each of the three colours, and one for All. It may be cheaper to raise one of your more useless colours' crit damage to have a bigger impact on the averages. The Spending DNA worksheet has a section on raising your Crit damage.