Short and Long Runs Guide

Switching between Short and Long Loop Reset runs is essential in CIFI - Cell: Idle Factory Incremental to progress. This guide will cover when it will be better to go for a short run and when to the long one.

This is one of the CIFI Guides, that you can visit for more guides on the game.

Short MP runs

Duration: From one tick loop up to 1-2 hours Goals:

• Buy as many affordable loop mods

Tips:

• Get the right Hephaestus install as high as possible before unlocking Zagreus
• Attempt to increase your MP gains every reset
• Start buying shard mods towards the end of your MP farming session

When to switch to short runs?

Ideally:

• At least 12 hours have passed in the long run.
• When you've increased your MP gain enough to level up the shard mods sufficiently, in order to compensate for the reset of the shard bonus from completed operations.
• If you're more than 1 LP away from doubling the bonus and nowhere near reaching a milestone (ship evolution, level up, completing the LP achievement, reaching level 25/50/75/100 on a shard milestone). It's worth staying multiple hours more for a ship evolution or if you'd double your LP bonus.
• Strongly advisable to have at least a few hours of free time for MP farming before switching back to a long run.

Non-ideal: After at least 12 hours have passed in your long run, to benefit at least a little bit from the bonus shards from completed operations.

Long shard/cell runs

Duration: 12+ hours Goals:

• Farm shards and prioritize MP/shard milestones
• Push to high amount of cells for ship evolutions, levels and LP achievement

Tips:

• Get the left installs on Hephaestus and Zagreus, dump the rest in the center
• If capable of doubling your LP bonuses after one more point, don't reset until you level up or complete the "Gain Cells" achievement

When to switch to long runs?

Ideally:

• When it's taking too long to make any significant progress from loop mods.
• Very far from completing the "Own Loop Mods" achievement.
• After having increased your shard gains.

Non-ideal: When you want to leave the game for long periods of time, regardless of how much you've improved your shard gains compared to your previous long run.

Sources used: Kongren#0001's write up from Official CIFI Discord