Ascension

Ascension is a mechanic that resets most of your progress to the beginning, but provides powerful unlocks and perks to allow one to reclaim their lost power and push farther much more quickly. A shorthand for which ascension level you have reached is A0 for pre-ascension, then A1, A2, etc from there. It was released with patch 0.25.

A1 requires reaching 2500 Reincarnation Level (RL) and area 3-8-50. It is recommended that one ascends pretty much as soon as they can, as most gains past that point will be lost anyway. Required RL will increase with each subsequent ascension.

Before you ascend, do the following: 1) maximize your whack score, as your highest score goes with you and becomes your new base score, and 2) spend any remaining residue on Page 1 (except inventory), then any remaining on Page 2 reincarnation to speed it up a little more.

### Resets:

* Reincarnation level.
* Reincarnation points (while A0 to A1 resets all RP, this is the only time that happens. RP will carry over between future ascensions.)
* Reincarnation shop (except the tiers kept by your A level, only first tier for A1)
* Cow factory
* Equipment (until a later A Level)
* Challenges (except those locked by your A Level)
* Skull page 3
* Pet levels for the main game bonuses.
* Expedition waves
* Card temporary power
* Card exp (until a later A Level)

### Kept:

* If you surpassed 2500 Reincarnation Levels, you will receive 1 RP per 50 levels above 2500. (This is not recommended.)
* The first layer of the Reincarnation Shop.
* For A1 and each future ascension, Attack and HP are increased by 50% and multiplied by 10%.
* Each ascension increases reincarnation points by 100%.
* Reincarnation exp earned from time bonus increased by 50% for each ascension.
* Reincarnation Bonuses provided based on Reincarnation Level formula is improved for each ascension.
* Enhancement material conversion ratio is improved by 0.5. (Caps at 1.5:1 with all other possible upgrades, but later further reduced by farming.)
* For each ascension starting from this one, increase Pet Capture Chance by 10% & Pet Level Exp by 25%
* Keep 1 challenge (in order, from 1-10) per ascension level.
* All Page 1 Upgrades from the Residue Shop.
* All Soul Purchases.
* All Whack-A-Potato status, including high score and shop. Auto-whack will use existing high score. Manual whack will use the best score you got on your previous ascension.
* Any upgrades made to the "Infinity Corner" in the reincarnation shop.
* Unlocked pets.
* Worm Silk (thank goodness!)
* Pet ranks and Expedition area unlock
* Anything and everything to do with Farming
* Card permanent power

### Unlocked:

* Ascension exclusive upgrades. (1 point per ascension, able to be reset upon subsequent ascensions.)
* Page 3 of the Reincarnation Shop (Infinity Corner) - this is infinite and never resets (even on future ascensions)
* More challenges.
* More potato upgrades (4-1-50+)
* More skull upgrades.
* More confection options.
* More Whack shop options.
* Cow factory boosts.
* More residue shop options.
* More soul shop options.
* Expedition unlocks at Ascension 3.
* Cards unlock at Ascension 6.

## Ascension Milestones and Requirements

Each Ascension also provides unique additional milestone rewards, these are gained upon reaching that ascension. The RL numbers below are the Reincarnation Levels needed to reach that particular ascension.

* **A1** - reach 2500 RL and 3-8-50 during A0 - see above
* **A2** - reach 3975 RL during A1 - +1 "Spawn more potatoes"; For this and each future ascension, potato, healthy potato, and class xp increased by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A3** - 5152 RL - +5 "Fewer potatoes per Wave"; Keep second reincarnation shop layer; Path challenge auto-completion (9 areas behind highest reached) (For example, passing wave 3-4-25 will credit all path challenges up to 2-4)
* **A4** - 6613 RL - +5 "Potatoes Spawn Speed"; For this and each future ascension, skull and confection xp increased by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A5** - 8469 RL - -20% Potato Attack and HP; Keep third reincarnation shop layer; Drop and Bonus talent nodes also increase Item Rating (IR) by 5%
* **A6** - 10870 RL - Keep fourth reincarnation shop layer; For this and each future ascension, poop, grasshopper damage, and whack score increased by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A7** - 13286 RL - For this and each future ascension, +1 additional cow per purchase per ascension; Unlock "Hard Mode"; Larva Quantity talent node also increases efficiency by 10%
* **A8** - 16076 RL - Keep fifth reincarnation shop layer; For this and each future ascension, milk, brewing exp, and calcium increased by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A9** - 19292 RL - Keep sixth reincarnation shop layer. For each ascension starting from this one, increase expedition damage, pet rank, and protein by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A10** - 22989 RL - For this and each future ascension, item rating, fermentation exp, and residue is increased by 25%. Automatically buys Residue Upgrades up to your previous ascension max level upgrade without taking away your residue
* **A11** - 27234 RL - +5 "Spawn more potatoes"; +5 "Fewer potatoes per Wave"; Inventory (Equipment and Material) aren't reset when ascending
* **A12** - 32097 RL - +5 "Potatoes Spawn Speed"; For this and each future ascension, card power and card exp increased by 25% and multiplied by 5%
* **A13** - 37661 RL
* **A14** - 46200 RL
* **A15** - 53000 RL - Card Level doesn't reset anymore when ascending. Tick needed to earn Residue reduced by 2 per Ascension (max 10)
* **A16** - 67500 RL
* **A17** - 95000 RL
* **A18** - 112500 RL - For this and each future ascension, increase fries earned by 25% and multiply them by 5%
* **A19** - 130000 RL
* **A20**- 146250 RL
* **A21** - 164531 RL
* **A22** - 185,097 RL
* **A23** - 208,234 RL
* **A24** - 234,264 RL
* **A25** - 263,547 RL
* **A26** - 296,490 RL
* **A27** - 333,551 RL
* **A28** - 375,245 RL

## Math regarding some of the perks

### Potato Take Away

Looking at how many extra levels of a potato upgrade one can get with the perk as opposed to without, looking specifically at the reincarnation xp upgrade. Drau calculated the number of potatoes required to reach an upgrade level `total(a) = cost(1) + cost(2) + ... + const(a)`, then found the upgrade level such that `cost(b - 1) < total(a) <= cost(b)`. Then, I took the difference `b - a` and produced this chart:

This makes it seem that, at best, Potato Take Away allows 5 extra levels of the reincarnation upgrade, assuming you've disabled auto-tot for everything except for reincarnation, as many tend to do towards the end of a run.

### Faster Worm Breeding

This one uses a different equation depending on if your RL is <1k, <5k, or <1m. This is so that it doesn't do most of the work of getting to the cap well before reaching 1m RL and leave the last few hundred thousand RL with only shaving off fractions of a second.

Note: The scales on the two graphs are different to highlight the changes better. X is RL, Y is time.

### Faster Milking

Just to make it easier to visualize its effects, here is a graph of what you can expect from the perk during A2: