Free to play tips: What to spend Raid Chips on

Raid chips are a contested resource, the longer it sits on your base, the more likely it’s going to diminish – unless of course you’re a shield junkie (if you are, stop, and check out this guide for Energon spending tips) or if you simply do not raid at all. If you’re new to the raid game, here are some tips that you can use to become a more cost-effective raid shopper:

1) Make Tier 1 Alpha Essences a priority.
Obtaining this should be the goal of any raider, even if you don’t need it yet – because you will (eventually) and when you do, this can be a pain to grind. It is not optimal to sink chips into T2 Basic Essences because those can be picked up easy in Daily Missions: Spark Trials (Medium difficulty). 

2) Every day, buy one of the following: Tier 1 Basic Spark, Tier 2 Basic Ore, and Tier 3 Basic Ore.
The sum should cost you a grand total of 4,000 raid chips – an easy haul in one sitting. The reason you only buy one of each daily is because, unlike Spark Essences, the prices of these scale upwards with every purchase. Thus, for maximum bang for buck, you purchase one each day and hopefully, mitigate the need to mass purchase them with diminishing value.

3) Spend as many chips as you possibly can if you’re going to take a break from raiding for an extended period of time. 
This tip might fly in the face of tip #2, but the idea is to minimise your losses while you’re away. Losses increase with the amount of raid chips you’re holding, so if you’re going to hit the sack with 10,000 in your pocket, either (1) raid up so you can purchase that Tier 1 Alpha Essence, or (2) burn as much as realistically possible on items from the Raid Store.

Finally, there isn’t a good reason to purchase a raid shield, unless you’re raiding up for the Superconductor 2000 (PS. An alternate strategy exists and that is NOT raiding). Prior to update 2.0, the losses suffered on raids were almost directly proportional and sometimes even greater, to what you can steal, making it a nightmare to save. But with the recent improvements (patch in June 2017), this is no longer the case, which makes 4-hour shields unnecessary. That said, the Superconductor 2000 is a luxury item, and not a necessity. An effective defence hinges on strong bots and the clever mod to bot pairings.

Did you find the tips useful? What are your Raid Chips spending tips? Let us know in the comments section below!

UPDATE: T1 Alpha Essences now go for 500 a pop in the Raid Store (previously 300), so really, there's no reason to avoid them now.