Firstly, if you don't know how progressive islands work, refer to this post.

So, I made the best strategies for spending gems if you want to reach a certain node. First, I'll explain how this works:

-For each monster, there are several possible strategies with various amounts of time necessary. I'm also putting some strategies that take longer to complete than the island lasts because, if an island boost happens, the items take 2 times less time to collect, meaning you get twice as many items during those 2 days, which means you effectively get 4 days worth of items in that time, which can also be translated to 2 extra days.

-To find the strategy that suits you, think about how many times will you collect an entire pool of items in the 10 days of the island, and multiply that number with 8 hours to get the amount of total time you want on your strategy. Note that if the number of hours is divisible by 8 on all collections, I put the number of collections as a reference and not the number of hours.

-I'm considering the amount of time required to get items once they are in the pool as 0.

-How the strategy works: For each quest, the strategy tells you the number of gems to spend on that quest. Note that quests which only require 1 breeding item can be completed almost instantly so they aren't included.
It also says after how much time is required to get you to this gem cost if there is no island boost(or if the number of hours is divisible with 8, then the number of collections), which is mainly helpful if you divide it by 8 hours to see how many times you should collect the entire pool of items after you get your first collection. Note that dividing by 8 also works if you're planning for an island boost; just make sure to collect every 4 hours instead of every 8 hours.
If you're going by every hour collection, you might see a remainder when dividing by 8(usually 4, when you get 3 gold and 2 food items without waste); that means that it's optimal to collect an incomplete pool and then gem.

-If you have any other questions, feel free to reply on this thread.

Anyway, here are the strategies(collection of what you can every hour):
Toshiro: /pastebin.com/b352Qbk2
Captain Copperbeard: /pastebin.com/0JngFMmC
M-2 Wyvern: /pastebin.com/gsJfpjPi
And here are for collection every 8 hours:
Toshiro: /pastebin.com/0SYG4tw1
Captain Copperbeard: /pastebin.com/ziFKXJnx
M-2 Wyvern: /pastebin.com/ck1k0WAR
Also, I don't think anyone would want the costs for Sir Francis Rock or Van K. Mark and Mechamancer is really easy to get, but you can request them by replying to this post if you really need them.

Anyone have issues with hatching eggs and not having them register in the space island? I've done these islands before but this has to be a glitch, right?

@Alora-Tsunam Nope, breeding firesaur+fire L always gave me both the breed and the hatch item in these islands without fail.

Yep. Not getting eggs or breeding items for island for the whole event so far.. had to gem the first two.. and still not getting either eggs or breeding hatching credits....

@Andy-Banan may I ask what you use for breeding and hatching?

Making four hour thunder eagles.. and pandakens...to try and trigger.. still not working..

@Andy-Banan
This is good for maze event but not progressive
try Dorijan combo above firesaur+fire L

@Marianne-van-Es I got only one credit for breeding out of 200+ breeds ( firesaur + treezard ). Hatching works fine. So atm I have 7/9 hatching and 1/9 breeding..The worst part is that the pool has 8 hour CD plus making it chance based it's almost impossible. I don't mind gemming 3 even 4 breeds but 8 ??? I think it's kinda overkill.

@esentis said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

@Marianne-van-Es I got only one credit for breeding out of 200+ breeds ( firesaur + treezard ). Hatching works fine. So atm I have 7/9 hatching and 1/9 breeding..The worst part is that the pool has 8 hour CD plus making it chance based it's almost impossible. I don't mind gemming 3 even 4 breeds but 8 ??? I think it's kinda overkill.

The pool is 2, so you have 8 hours to collect a breeding/hatching token. (At least for some of those monsters.)
Firesaur + Treezard doesn't work for some reason, but Treezard + Bonbon (gives 3 or 6 minute rare/uncommon) works like a charm. Supposedly also Firesaur + any fire legendary (I'm just giving that a try).

And yes, I think the event explaination is horrible. 99% of all players that read it will assume that they just have to breed any monster. And they really should fix the thing that tokens are collected on the next breed/hatch. Why can't we have them like event rewards (say growth spurt) where a few seconds after achieving the target we get a message that we just received a reward? It always forces you to keep one extra breeding/hatching spot empty just to get a second breed/hatch in.

@Frunobulax The pool is one for each. They don't share cooldowns...or do they ?

According to Haka Taka:

Gold pool capacity is 6 and spawn time is 1h20m ---(Get full in 8 hours)
Feeding pool capacity is 4 and spawn time is 2 h ---( Get full in 8 hours)
breeding pool capacity is 1 and spawn time is 8 h ---( Get full in 8 hours)
hatching Pool capacity is 1 and spawn time is 8 h ---( Get full in 8 hours)

@Dorijan-Lendvaj said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

@Alora-Tsunam Nope, breeding firesaur+fire L always gave me both the breed and the hatch item in these islands without fail.

Again this works for nearly all players
and as essentis said the pool is only 1 for breeding and 1 for hatching and they don't share cool-down

I can say the same . . . Breed any L fire monster with Firesaur and the game will give you the breeding item as well as the hatching one. Sometimes won't give it at once but will give you in the 2nd or 3rd time

@Haka-Taka Greenasaur + Greenasaur does the trick, now works like a charm.

This event seem to be real mess... I don't really understand how it work but for me it seem to be a flaw... When you need to read a full forum topic to manage to understand how it work that only demonstrates how bad it was design!

@dbrsseau most of the players understand it, have you read the in game explanation? Under ? It explains the basics we also have pinned post under events that explains the workings very well made by my Colleague @Haka-Taka:
https://forums.socialpointgames.com/topic/5695/monster-legends-events-guide

Most games I know also console games have a summier explanation how things work that why a game also rely on fans/players to inform each other for me thats also the attraction of a game, the community behind it

@Marianne-van-Es Yes I read it and the event counter is still isn't showing the number of egg haching and breeding... If it chance based like I read upper in this thread then it should say it in the game... This is a question of design not about the community... The community is great but I still think this event is awfully designed!!!

@dbrsseau I dont follow you but that is probably me. all I can say is I play this game for almost 4 years and most of my knowledge I learned from playing the game and discussing it with other players. Only ones in these 4 years i had troube with breeiding I believe it was, i switched tree for mountain and it worked again probably yust coincidence but what works works. I dont play other strat games on phone but I play some console games and what I always do is try first for yourself to figure out how it works and if you cant work it out then there is that wonderful place the internet and always someone can tell you. You can like or dislike progressives but its pretty straight foreward so again its probably me...

Any chance we will see an Island Boost?

@Wazdog said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

Any chance we will see an Island Boost?

Doesn't seem likely. There goes Captain Copperbeard

@dbrsseau you're right the event design is poor. You will find that just about every event in this game except 72 hr flip requires research if you want to get any understanding of how to actually compete in the event

@testcyp said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

@dbrsseau you're right the event design is poor. You will find that just about every event in this game except 72 hr flip requires research if you want to get any understanding of how to actually compete in the event

tell me again why do you play this game

@Marianne-van-Es said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

@testcyp said in Space Defenders Island - How to spend your gems:

@dbrsseau you're right the event design is poor. You will find that just about every event in this game except 72 hr flip requires research if you want to get any understanding of how to actually compete in the event

tell me again why do you play this game

Oh come on. I'm not a native english speaker, but I think I could rewrite the in-game help section in way that it is maybe 20% longer but clarifies all those points. Good games have rules that are easy to understand, but allow complex strategies nevertheless. Only bad games make it hard for the players to learn the rules.

@Frunobulax Indeed, the in-game help is useless in the current form. Especially for progressive island the explanation is not even corresponding for the new format (it has item collecting from various tasks). Add pool-timers on each quest. That would be quite the help. But in the back of my brain something tells me that the lack of explanation is intentional so that players spend gems via wrong decisions.

@esentis

Yeah, I agree.

Also, don’t do what I just did. Pay attention.

I needed to spend 12 gems to get M-2 Wyvern... for gold I’d missed some, I was 9 gold short, all others finished.

It said “1 Gem per item”. It totalled 9 gems... if it’s 1 gem per item. “That’s more economical” I thought. So I hit the buy down on the item instead of the monster without paying attention. Didn’t realise the gem cost increases. It cost me about 40 gems ‍️

So for other careless players, that’s something to keep in mind.