To remove some of the confusion around this issue, I'll try and explain the differences between these accounts (also known as free/upgraded accounts) from Round 29 onwards.
Basic accounts are much improved on previous rounds. They have full access to Population, Government, Buddy Packs, History and Journal pages (they can also save news items, and so on). They have no research limits or construction limits.
When you use a credit to upgrade your account to a premium account, you get the following bonuses:
-No adverts
-A one-off bonus of some combination of resources, asteroids, construction units and research points
-Half price exiling between galaxies
-A wider selection of skins to choose from
-Being able to stay inactive for twice as long in a galaxy whilst being 'unwanted' by it.
-Being distributed with the other upgraded planets at shuffle time
The upgrade bonus needs some explaining, as it is different to current rounds, where a planet would receive a one-off resource boost.
-To upgrade, a player purchases a credit and upgrades their planet as normal
-Once upgraded, the player is asked to select their upgrade bonuses
-The player can choose between a resource boost and an asteroid boost
-The player can choose between a construction unit boost and a research boost
-The player can choose these bonuses at any time after upgrading. The bonuses all increase tick by tick until being selected
-Once the player has chosen between these options, the resource/asteroid bonus is IMMEDIATELY allocated to the account
-The research/construction bonus can be allocated to specific researches/constructions as the player requires, but the bonus amounts do not increase after selection
The precise bonuses are as follows:
Code:
Type Start Bonus Additional Bonus Per Tick
Each Resource Type 5000 4000
Each Asteroid Type 3 1 (per 10 ticks)
Research Points 2000 20
Construction Units 1000 15
As an example of allocating Construction Units, if you select your bonus at tick 300, you get 1000+300*15 = 5500 construction units.
You can use this to gain 5 free constructions, assuming your current research allows it. You can also allocate the remaining 500 construction units to your current construction, if you have one. The allocation of constructions can be done as required as many times as you wish, until the bonus is gone.
The allocation of research points works in a similar way. However, you can use the research points to partially complete researches rather than to complete one or two researches.
If you ever want to reset your planet, you can re-select the bonuses if you have already upgraded your account.