Coins, gems and TimeStars

Time Heroes runs on three currencies and they are not interchangeable. Coins come from mining and buy eggs and worlds. Gems come from being present and feed research, colonies and permits. TimeStars are the premium currency and mostly buy time rather than power.

The design rule behind all three is worth stating plainly: paid options compress time on rails free players already grind. Hatch luck is not for sale.

Coins

Your coin rate is your damage per second, so every pet you hatch is a direct raise. Coins are the currency of the core loop and they buy the two things that move you forward: eggs and world unlocks.

A World 1 egg costs 150 coins. A World 10 egg costs 3.75 trillion. That looks alarming until you notice pet damage also multiplies five times per world, which keeps an egg worth roughly the same number of seconds of mining at every depth.

• Earned by: mining, tapping nodes, offline and idle income
• Spent on: eggs, world unlocks, some crafting fees
• An open idle tab pays full rate, a closed game pays half

Gems

Gems are green and they are earned mostly by being around. The away-from-keyboard faucet pays 1 gem per minute for the first eight hours, then tapers to 0.25 and then to 0.1, and it stops at 648 gems for the day. That ceiling is deliberate and it is the same for everyone on the free track.

Gems buy access rather than power. They go into colony donations, research chambers at 2,000 and 10,000 gems with a cap of three, and overrides such as skipping a hunt permit wait for 25 gems.

• Earned by: presence, the away-from-keyboard faucet, drops and rewards
• Spent on: colony donations, chambers, permit overrides
• Free daily ceiling: 648 gems

TimeStars

TimeStars are the premium currency and the one you buy. They are the currency of skipping a wait rather than buying an advantage. Research speed-ups cost 1 TimeStar per remaining minute and specifically cannot be paid for in gems. A Fortune Wheel spin with no ticket in hand costs 49 TimeStars, though tickets themselves arrive free every three hours and stack up to eight.

TimeStars also buy cosmetics, item bundles and timed gamepasses. Gamepasses are sold by the day, week, month or year rather than permanently.

• Earned by: purchase, plus event and reward grants
• Spent on: speed-ups, cosmetics, bundles, timed gamepasses
• Not spendable on: hatch luck

What is not tradeable

There is no player to player economy in Time Heroes at launch. The marketplace, direct trading and gifting are all closed, so no currency or item moves from one player's account to another's. Colony donations go to the colony's own reserves, not to a member.

That closure is a launch decision rather than a permanent design, but nothing in the game currently lets you sell, trade or gift to another player, and you should not plan around it opening on any particular date.