r/idleon • u/micycle1 • 8h ago
LUMINOUS MENAGERIE Update Guide
TL;DR
- Push Menagerie missions and rank, then invest in Purple Upgrade #2 for Lumi/hr scaling.
- Do not spend Black Stars or permanent Jelly/Minehead doublers randomly.
- Safest Black Star targets: Prisma multiplier and Exalted Stamp bonus.
- Blue Jellyfish gives a permanent daily free ladle stack after you deposit ladles once.
- Red Jellyfish gives extra lore-scroll reads without using storage scrolls or daily reads.
- Stop Crucible at wave 250, then use Exit. Do not push thousands of waves.
- Spelunking shortcuts are for depth pushing, not Amber farming.
- For Coral Kid/Singularity Elapsed Time, AFK and claim at the Divinity altar. Lab claims give Divinity progress, but Elapsed Time behavior is still inconsistent/possibly bugged.
- Farm active kills with high multikill for the Singularity active-kill multiplier.
- New robe/attire is extremely strong: +200% Drop Rate = 3x base DR.
1. Patch overview
This update adds:
- Luminous Menagerie
- 5 Jellyfish resources
- Menagerie Research
- Black Stars / Gaming palette doubling
- New Minehead and Jelly permanent doublers
- Pet Arena Crucible
- Spelunking checkpoints/shortcuts
- New Sailing artifact tier
- New Cooking, Sneaking, Worship, Construction, Summoning, and Gaming progression
- New gear/attire
- New coins
- New supporter packs and pet/attire bonuses
The major long-term systems are Menagerie, Jellyfish, Black Stars, and the new permanent doublers.
2. Menagerie: the main progression system
Menagerie is the new Lumi-based system.
What Menagerie rank does
Menagerie has 25 missions and 25 unlockable bonuses.
Rank:
- Unlocks more purchases.
- Unlocks Orange and Purple column upgrades.
- Improves rank-scaling effects.
- Speeds up Lumi generation through key upgrades.
- Opens more progression in the Jellyfish/Menagerie system.
Main priority: missions + Purple Upgrade #2
The strongest early strategy is:
- Buy enough Lumi/hr to avoid being stuck.
- Buy missions when they are affordable.
- Rank up.
- Buy or level Purple Upgrade #2.
- Repeat.
Purple Upgrade #2 is one of the major Lumi/hr scaling upgrades because it benefits from Menagerie rank.
Basic decision rule
- If a mission purchase gives a rank-up, prioritize the mission.
- If the mission is far away and does not rank you up, buy Lumi/hr instead.
- Once you gain rank, return to Purple Upgrade #2.
More mission sources
Known mission sources include:
- First upgrade in Menagerie’s third column: repeatable mission unlock.
- Jade Emporium bonus.
- Menagerie Research tile around E4.
- Paid supporter bundle bonuses.
3. Lumi/hr sources
If your Lumi/hr seems low, check every available source before assuming Menagerie is the issue.
Known Lumi sources
- Menagerie Purple Upgrade #2
- Arcade scaling bonus
- Gaming Zuperbit upgrade
- Jade Emporium
- Menagerie Research upgrades
- New mob card
- Zenith Shop upgrade
- New vial
- Pet Arena wave 200 reward
- Clamworks/Worker rank 9
- Shrine upgrades
- Supporter pack multipliers
Important note
Players with much higher Lumi/hr often have:
- More Menagerie rank.
- More missions unlocked.
- Better Research.
- Higher Clamworks progression.
- Better account-wide bonuses.
- Paid Lumi multipliers.
Do not compare your first-day Lumi/hr directly to endgame or paid accounts.
4. Black Stars: what to use them on
Black Stars are permanent Gaming palette upgrades.
How they work
- First Black Star on a palette upgrade: 2x
- Second Black Star on the same palette upgrade: 4x total
You can use two Black Stars on one palette target.
Can they be reset?
No reset exists for Black Stars or the new permanent Minehead/Jelly doublers.
Treat every use as permanent.
Safe Black Star priorities
Best early choices
- Prisma multiplier
- Exalted Stamp bonus
These are broad account-wide upgrades that remain valuable long-term.
Possible future choices
- Artifact chance.
- Spelunking power.
- Strong account-wide Gaming bonuses.
- High-value palette bonuses identified by an optimizer.
Avoid Black Starring these blindly
Statue chance
Statue chance caps at 100% total from all sources.
If your combined statue chance reaches 100%, extra chance does nothing.
Sample size
Do not double sample size if you are already at its cap.
Random short-term upgrades
Avoid spending a permanent Black Star just because an upgrade gives immediate progress. Prioritize permanent account-wide multipliers.
5. Jellyfish guide
There are five Jellyfish-related systems. The most important early ones are Blue, Red, and Silver/White.
Blue Jellyfish: permanent daily ladles
Blue Jellyfish lets you deposit a ladle amount once.
Example:
- Deposit 1 billion ladles
- Every daily reset, Blue Jellyfish applies 1 billion ladles to your selected Cooking meals
It does not consume additional ladles from storage after the original deposit.
It also contributes to Cooking Mastery as ladles used.
How to use Blue Jellyfish
Use it on meals that:
- Are expensive to level.
- Provide important account progression.
- Will remain selected in your kitchens for a long time.
If you have multiple kitchens on one meal, that meal receives progress from each kitchen as normal.
Important
Blue Jellyfish targets your currently selected cooking meals. You may still need to revisit Cooking and change meals when your priorities change.
Red Jellyfish: extra lore-scroll reads
Red Jellyfish stores lore-scroll read information and allows bonus reads.
Its Read function:
- Does not consume scrolls from storage.
- Does not use your normal daily read allowance.
- Keeps the tracked scroll amounts after you use it.
The exact scaling is still being tested, but the practical strategy is simple:
- Save scrolls.
- Use large normal reads.
- Use Red Jellyfish for free additional reads.
- Track the results over a few days before optimizing around it.
Silver/White Jellyfish: Obols and fragments
Silver/White Jellyfish:
- Improves Obol miscellaneous bonuses through Obol fragments.
- Converts Obols into fragments.
- Helps reduce the need to manage huge Obol inventories.
If normal Obols are still entering your inventory, check whether you need the relevant conversion/auto-recycle unlock or whether inventory conditions must be met first.
Purple and Yellow Jellyfish
Purple and Yellow Jellyfish unlock later through Menagerie progression.
Their exact optimal uses are still developing, so read the in-game tooltip before committing major resources.
6. Jelly and Minehead doublers
The update adds permanent doubling items for Minehead and Jelly systems.
Refunds
There is no reset.
Do not spend them just because you have them.
Good Jelly doubler candidates
Likely strong long-term targets include:
- Viral Injection / Virus
- Cell damage
- Cell level
- Damage per cell level
- Cell multipliers
Daily Transfusion can be useful, but scaling damage upgrades are generally stronger long-term because they improve every future run.
Good Minehead doubler candidates
The best Minehead target depends heavily on your current account.
Reasonable long-term categories:
- Damage multipliers.
- Currency generation.
- Resource scaling.
- Permanent production bonuses.
Avoid doubling a narrow upgrade just for a temporary immediate payoff.
7. Divinity Singularity / Coral Kid
The new Divinity system includes:
- Elapsed Time.
- Active Kills.
- Singularity conversion/multipliers.
Elapsed Time
The current safe method is:
- Put a character at the Divinity altar.
- AFK there.
- Claim at the altar.
Most testing showed that LabDiv/LabVinity claims give normal Divinity points/XP but do not reliably add Coral Kid/Singularity Elapsed Time.
There is conflicting testing on whether Lab claims sometimes count, so this may be a bug or an interaction with a specific unlock.
Safe advice
- If your priority is Singularity Elapsed Time, use the altar.
- If your priority is LabVinity benefits, stay in LabVinity until the system receives clarification or a hotfix.
- Do not move several days of stored AFK claims unless you know which progression you value more.
Active Kills
Active Kills:
- Require active farming.
- Count multikill.
- Give a multiplier based on kills earned before conversion.
Best active-kill farms
Farm the map where you get the highest kills per second.
Common options:
- Beans or other low-level maps with huge multikill.
- Royal Guardian orb farming.
- Clams if you can clear efficiently.
- Crystal farming, if that produces better active kills.
GMush is not automatically the best location. Raw active kill output matters more.
8. Pet Arena Crucible
Reward breakpoints
- Wave 200: Lumi reward
- Wave 250: 1.2x Class XP reward
- Beyond wave 250: no known important reward
Push to 250, then exit.
How to exit safely
Use the Exit button or the top Arena tabs.
Your current cleared round is saved.
Do not:
- Close the game.
- Refresh the page/window.
- Force-restart the client.
Crucible bug warning
High Performance mode can cause broken enemy behavior, lag, frozen projectiles, or extremely fast progression when toggled.
Lava stated that Arena/Crucible progress would be reset because of bug abuse. Do not spend time pushing hundreds or thousands of extra waves.
9. Spelunking shortcuts
Spelunking now has checkpoints.
How they work
Every 50 depths reached creates a checkpoint.
Example:
- Reach depth 401.
- Future runs can start at depth 400.
What shortcuts do not preserve
Using a shortcut does not give you:
- Amber from skipped floors.
- Potions from skipped floors.
- Run buffs from skipped floors.
- Resources you would normally earn while travelling through those floors.
Best use
Use shortcuts for:
- Depth pushing.
- Cave unlocks.
- Achievements.
- Depth-based progression.
- Avoiding repeated long runs.
Do not use shortcuts for:
- Amber farming.
- Resource farming.
- Runs where early potions/Amber are important.
Shortcuts are for reaching deeper, not for making profitable runs.
10. Clamworks and Coral
Clamworks
Clamworks/Worker rank 9 gives Lumi gains.
For active Clam farming:
- Royal Guardian is the main recommendation.
- VMan can be useful in specific situations, but RG is generally the active farming choice.
Coral sources
Large Coral gains come from:
- Coral-related statues.
- Sneaking bonuses.
- Coral Reef pillar/fish upgrades.
- New Coral level caps and upgrades.
If you earn only a few hundred Coral/day while others earn thousands, check:
- Your Coral statue.
- Sneaking progression.
- The Coral Reef pillar/fish.
- Your new Coral upgrade purchases.
11. New attire and Drop Rate
The new robe/attire is one of the strongest additions.
Effect
It gives:
- +200% Drop Rate
- Equivalent to 3x base Drop Rate
Example:
- 20k base DR can become 60k+ from the attire alone.
- Research can multiply the attire miscellaneous bonus further.
Research interaction
Menagerie Research includes an Attire Misc Bonus multiplier.
This makes the new attire far stronger than it initially looks.
Drop Rate remains valuable for:
- New map drops.
- Crystal farming.
- Statue farming.
- Rare drops.
- Resource generation.
- General World 7 progression.
12. Menagerie Research
Menagerie Research includes:
- New Lumi bonuses.
- Mission unlock bonuses.
- Attire scaling.
- Shape placement mechanics.
- Later shape rotation.
Shape rotation
Shape rotation unlocks later in Research, around Research level 90.
Until then, plan placements carefully and use an optimizer when available.
13. Other patch-note reminders
New artifact tier
The patch adds:
- A new Sailing artifact tier.
- New artifact island mechanics.
- More talent-cap potential through new artifacts.
Artifact progress will be slow, so do not expect immediate results.
New Cooking content
The patch adds:
- Two meals.
- One recipe.
- New food upgrade opportunities.
Blue Jellyfish makes Cooking progression much easier once you have a good ladle stack.
New Sneaking content
The patch adds:
- Two new Sneaking upgrades.
- Sneaking-related Coral progression.
- More long-term account bonuses.
New Gaming content
The patch adds:
- A new Zuperbit upgrade.
- Black Stars.
- One new plant species.
- More palette decisions.
14. Gems, packs, and the upcoming event
A Halloween/event rotation is expected soon.
Gem advice
If you are low on gems:
- Avoid panic-buying Limited Shop items.
- Save some gems for the event.
- Expect Limited Shop inventory to rotate.
- Expect event mechanics to offer new gem sinks.
Nametag vs W7 rings
General community opinion: - The Timeless Nametag has useful account value. - The W7 rings are much lower priority. - Saving gems is safest if you are uncertain.
