Gems

Q: How do I get gems?
You get gems by completing achievements, completing daily missions, killing Cargo Ships, participating in Tournaments, and collecting Daily Rewards.

' Note: You can increase the amount of gems you get per daily mission in the Tech Tree, it's the single, bottom upgrade. It's also meant for players at least around mid-game, so don't feel discouraged if it looks extremely out of reach - you'll end up getting it sooner or later '

Q: What should I spend my gems on?
The first thing you should buy with gems is, unarguably, the permanent 2x Game Speed Upgrade (500 Gems).

Early game:

 * 1) 1 or 2 upgrades into 50 gem Damage Boost
 * 2) Research Tiers 2 and 3
 * 3) Save up 500 gems for the next part
 * 4) Extra: Tournament Tiers 2 and 3 (only if you can afford both at once, see why in Tournament)

When you reach wave 400:

 * 1) Refer to this guide on how to spend your gems to optimize tech scroll gain (it's going to be useful later on).
 * 2) By wave 750 you'll want to have 100 gems saved up in order to reroll your artifacts, which should make the jump to 800 really easy, and allow you to unlock Godly monsters.
 * 3) You can also unlock Research Tier 4 by now, which will also be helpful by wave 800. Extra: When you max tech scroll drop (5 per kill), you can start saving for 500 gem Resource Packs to sling shot your tech tree during a tournament run, hopefully netting you some extra waves.

When you reach wave 800:

 * 1) By now you should have Godly monsters. The Multi-card DPS upgrade (Research Tier 4) will help you get some extra DPS for these monsters.
 * 2) When you unlock Exotic Monsters, you can unlock their 3rd, 4th and Range skills using gems (levelled using essence though). The most important are the following (also by order): EXP Aura (Nimbus), Anti-Shield Aura (Squidler), Cooldown Aura (Heatrash), and Range Aura (Treefer). Range should follow up in the priority list, with a similar order as before: Nimbus -> Squidler -> Treefer -> Heatrash. The 4th skills depend on your whatever Godly monster you're using, so their priority level varies.
 * 3) You may also spend gems on Max Alchemy Cap only when your monsters are approaching the cap (base cap is 100). There are 20 levels for this upgrade, each costing 150 gems and increasing max alchemy cap by 25 levels. Spending a total of 3000 gems will allow your monsters to level alchemy up to 600.  Extra: There's also an option to upgrade Game Speed with gems, costing 250 gems and increasing Game Speed by 5% per level. While this is a decent investment, the previous upgrades mentioned should be more important. After you max this too, you can perhaps invest a bit more into Damage Boost, and Kill EXP (but not Gold Drop, because you get much more value if you invest into Resource Pack 4 and spend the scrolls on Gold Drop in the Tech Tree).