Anyone playing Alien Worlds at the moment has to navigate constraints on CPU time. The game runs on the WAX network, which doesn't charge gas fees, instead allocating each user a limited portion of CPU time according to the amount of WAX they stake on the network.

Alien Worlds and WAX have seen such growth over recent months that the CPU time you get for your starting 1 WAX stake is barely enough to register your account, let alone make any significant progress with mining. WAX are working to fix the issue, but in the meantime, Alien Worlds players are in a daily battle against the following message of doom:

One solution to this error is to buy lots of WAX and stake to CPU. At the moment you'd need a minimum of 200 WAX to never have to think about CPU. But if you can't or don't want to do that, there are strategies you can use to manage your CPU usage and avoid the problem.

1. Understand what uses CPU time

It helps to be clear about what causes you to use CPU in the first place. The technical answer is that you use CPU each time your account makes a transaction on the WAX blockchain. Anything in the game that generates a transaction uses CPU. It's fairly easy to check which actions those are by viewing your account on wax.bloks.io. 

The following gameplay actions DO NOT use CPU:

• Logging in
• Mining (so long as you don't claim) 
• Looking through your inventory
• Browsing planets and lands (so long as you don't change land)

The following gameplay actions DO use CPU:

• Registering for the first time
• Claiming a mine 
• Changing land
• Changing tools
• Collecting NFTs
• Staking TLM to a planet
• Buying or selling tools and other NFTs on Atomic Assets
• Converting TLM and WAX on Alcor Exchange

Each transaction uses approximately 500µs, so if you have 10ms of CPU available when you look at your account, that means you can do about 20 of the above actions before you run out.

It's also important to understand that your CPU allocation varies depending on how many others are using the network. If demand is low, your allocation increases; if demand is high, it decreases. That's why you can sometimes get stats like 300% CPU. 300% CPU means that the time you've already used is three times more than the time currently available to you. When demand drops and you go below 100%, you can make transactions again.

So, a key strategy for managing CPU is to minimise the number of transactions you make. You can do that, for example, by staying on one land, or by only collecting NFTs once a day.

2. Leave long breaks so your CPU replenishes

The next thing you need to know is that your CPU gradually replenishes when you make no transactions on the blockchain. The official advice is that your CPU usage resets after 24 hours. From testing, I think the exact way it works is that your CPU usage will decrease by the proportion of 24 hours it is since you last made a transaction. That sounds complicated, but it's easy to understand with examples:

• If you leave it 24 hours (100%) since your last transaction, 100% of your CPU usage will reset
• If you leave it 12 hours (50%) since your last transaction, 50% of your CPU usage will reset
• If you leave it 6 hours (25%) since your last transaction, 25% of your CPU usage will reset

Unless you leave it the full 24 hours, you won't be able to see how much has reset in your bloks.io account until you make another transaction.

So, the best strategy is to mine non-stop for a long stretch, then stop completely for a long stretch. The worst strategy would be to mine on and off at all hours of the day. If you did that, your CPU would hardly replenish at all. 

You also need to know that your CPU usage is for the whole WAX network, not just Alien Worlds. A classic beginner mistake is trying to play Alien Worlds alongside another WAX game like Koloboks. Both use your WAX CPU allocation and you will run out very quickly.

3. Join a community who will stake you

Unless you buy WAX to stake on CPU, you're going to make slow progress mining and staking by yourself with your Standard Shovel. Joining the various Alien Worlds communities can help you significantly here.

Some landowners will stake CPU for players who mine on their lands. I got started in the game that way by joining the Infidel Mining community, who stake 25 WAX for players who mine on Infidel lands. Other groups have offers like free shovels for new players.

Check out the #communities tab in the Alien Worlds Discord to see what's available.

4. Stake your earnings on CPU

It's tempting to save up to buy new tools with the TLM you mine, and in the long run you will want to do that; but while there's such pressure on CPU, you're better off converting your TLM to WAX and staking for more CPU time. You can stake either in WAX Wallet or on Bloks.io.

(You won't need to stake on NET, or buy extra RAM until you get further in the game and need to store lots of NFTs.)

5. Mine on lands with a long cooldown

My final tip is to be deliberate about which land you mine on. As a general rule, lands that have a high yield per mine also have the longest cooldown before you can mine again. That would be a disadvantage if CPU wasn't limited, but the long cooldown actually means fewer transactions per hour, which is more effective at keeping your CPU usage under control.

As you stake more WAX and gain more CPU time, you may want to switch to higher efficiency lands, but for beginners with limited CPU time, mining on long cooldown lands is the best plan.

That's it!

It will be interesting to see whether WAX or Alien Worlds come up with a solution that makes CPU less of a constraint, but until then, follow these strategies and you'll have the best chance of making progress.