Isotopes are rare materials gained from miners. While isotopes can be sold in the Sell Center for money, it's highly recommended not to do it. This page aims to explain why.
In a nutshell
- Isotopes are rare. You need a lot of time to accumulate them.
- Isotopes can only be gained through regular mining. No Isotope Piles, no Isotopes on chests, scientists, caves or trading Posts. And no trading at The Core.
- Isotopes are needed for a lot of things
- Isotopes don't really take a lot of capacity
- Isotopes are not really a good money generator anyway (too rare)
The best way to ensure you don't accidentally sell isotopes is to lock them all, as soon as you get the Manager, at a level that will be unattainable until the Reactor. Like, 20M each (and possibly more for Uranium 1).
Obtaining them[]
There is no trick to get them faster except
- Elemental Pike relic: +15%/+25% (regular/divine), up to +375%
- Elemental Pike buff: +50% from the chests, +100% from the Buff Lab
- And keeping capacity controlled so you don't timelapse / offline progress while at full capacity
However, Elemental Pikes use Relic slots best used for other relics, the buff is hard to consistently do until the Buff Lab, and capacity management you should be doing it regularly anyway. Your best bet is to do it right from the start and don't sell them. That way you don't need to accelerate them, you can let Time do its patient, slow work. No use having 1 day of production at +400% rates, when you can have 100-150 days accumulated by the time you reach the reactor. Once you reach the Reactor and the part of the game that is limited by the (very low) availability of Helium 3, however, Elemental Pikes shine again.
You need them for[]
- Many Blueprints, too many to list here.
- For Gem Forge, specially once you start using Catalysts in earnest.
- In huge quantities once you reach the reactor
What you can safely sell[]
If you absolutely need to sell a part of the stash, you can sell your Plutonium 1 over some reasonable amount, like 1 million, because you can use the Reactor to convert Uranium into Plutonium. However, if you keep a bigger stockpile you'll have more strategic options, starting sooner with more advanced Fuel Rods. You can sell your Polonium 1 over something like 5 million, same reason.
Absolutely do NOT sell:
- Uranium 1, 2 and 3: Needed at the Reactor
- Plutonium 2: Needed at the Reactor and the Forge
- Plutonium 3: Needed at the Reactor
- Polonium 2 and 3: Needed at the Reactor
The safest and simplest option is still to keep all isotopes at least until you've finished the Uranium stockpiles at the reactor.
Capacity and money[]
Though at the beginning of the game it seems like a good deal to sell them for money (isotopes are expensive, almost commensurate with their rarity), along the game the speed of the miners with the minerals will improve a lot. By the Core, you'll be generating money in minerals, every hour or so, than your entire historical stockpile of isotopes from the beginning of the game.
Also, "soon" on your digging voyage you reach the lv.12, 13 and 14 cargo blueprints: City Capacity (25M capacity), Country Capacity (100M) and Planet Capacity (200M). After this, capacity is basically no longer a constraint except for very long timelapses / offline time. In fact, the game recognizes this fact by not adding any more cargo blueprints until lv. 27 (Vacuum Packed Cargo), which merely increases it to 500M. Your full isotope pile won't take more than a fraction of these amounts.
- An illustration
(Scarbrow speaking): On reaching the Reactor (This was on v0.27, so at 1332km), at 29d played + 140d timelapsed, my entire stockpile of Isotopes, accumulated from the start of the game, was:
- Earth: 36M total capacity (18% of Planet Capacity cargo), 510B total value
- Uranium: 12M U-1, 13M total isotopes, total value 10B
- Plutonium: 11,5M Pu-1, 12,5M total isotopes, total value 100B
- Polonium: 10M Po-1, 11M total isotopes, total value 400B
- Moon: 1,5M total capacity (0.75% of cargo capacity), 465T total value.
- Nitrogen: 1M N-1, 1,5M total isotopes, total value 215T
- Helium: 180k He-1, 190k total isotopes, total value 250T
However, my earnings at this point were as high as 15T for a single Scientist expedition, up to 40T for a single Trading Post, and 1-2T for most common chests (no relic or buff boosting, base values), while my blueprint's costs were on the 30-70q range. So even if I sold everything, I'd get less money than I made on a few minutes of playing / an hour or two of game time, and would progress a trivial amount on my money requirements.