It would take two or maybe three range increases to max out the achievement. He was certain he would need at least two. The second would increase the range to ten thousand kilometers radius, which would encompass a large part of the Earth. That might be enough to capture one billion people in the snapshot, but if not, the next range extension, at one hundred thousand kilometers radius, definitely would. He checked his GP balance.
Genesis Points (GP): 1149
The next range extension would cost 100 GP, but the one after that would probably cost 1000 GP. And, while he had enough GP to purchase both, he didn't have enough EP capacity.
At Atomic level detail, a snapshot cost 1 EP per 10 meters of radius. The next range extension would put the limit at 100 kilometers for Atomic level detail, and that would cost 10,000 EP per snapshot. He had enough EP capacity for that. However, the next range extension after that would put the cost per snapshot at one million EP. The cost to raise his EP capacity to one million EP would cost 990 GP, and that meant he didn't have enough GP to both raise his range twice and his EP capacity to one million.
He would need to increase his range once, then take a new snapshot, hopefully earning more GP, then he could increase the range again and also increase his EP capacity. So he increased his snapshot range once.
[Snapshot Range Extended]
He checked, confirming his new snapshot ranges.
-Approximate: 10^6 kilometers
-Nominal: 10^4 kilometers
-Atomic: 100 kilometer
-Subatomic: 10 kilometers
He also confirmed that the snapshot costs were still the same. For Atomic level detail, that was 1 EP per 10 meters of radius. Given that the volume of a sphere increased exponentially with the radius, he didn't know why the cost was linear with radius instead, and he didn't care. He was just glad he could get more range for his EP.
Eager to earn more GP, he tried to create a new Atomic detail snapshot at max range snapshot but discovered he didn't have enough EP.
Energy Points (EP): 9,910/10,000 :-: (10/sec)
Genesis Points (GP): 1049
Soul Space Cost: 0/sec
He checked his status and realized he needed to wait a few more seconds before his EP was full. Nine seconds later, he tried again.
[Achievement: Total Energy Points consumed exceeded 10,000]
[Reward: 10,000 Genesis Points]
[Achievement: Captured 1,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Achievement: Captured 10,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Achievement: Captured 100,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Reward: 1,000,000 GP]
[Achievement: Captured 1,000,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Reward: 10,000,000 GP]
With a radius of 100 kilometers, that snapshot covered the entire Stetle metro area, which had approximately to 4 million people.
He checked his GP balance again.
Genesis Points (GP): 11,121,049
He was a GP millionaire! And now he had enough to increase his range again and increase his EP capacity. First, he purchased the next range extension and checked the results.
[Snapshot Range Extended]
-Approximate: 10^6 kilometers
-Nominal: 10^4 kilometers
-Atomic: 100 kilometer
-Subatomic: 10 kilometers
Then he checked his status.
Energy Points (EP): 0/10,000 :-: (0/sec [10/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 11,120,049
Soul Space Cost: 10/sec
He would need to raise his EP capacity to at least one million, but he would need to raise it to at least 100 million if he wanted to take a snapshot at the next range up. He didn't like having his EP storage completely emptied, so he decided to raise his EP capacity to one billion. Not wanting to have to make the purchase 999,990 times in a row, he examined the store item more closely and found there was an option to choose an amount of increase he wanted and it would tell him the cost.
[Energy Point Capacity Increased: 10,000 -> 1,000,000,000]
After increasing his EP capacity, he checked his status again.
Energy Points (EP): 0/1,000,000,000 :-: (10/sec)
Genesis Points (GP): 10,120,059
Soul Space Cost: 0/sec
Unless he wanted to wait a day for one million EP to accumulate, he would also need to increase his EP rate. He did some quick math and figured he had enough GP to raise his EP to 4500. He didn't like the idea of spending most of his recently earned GP so he raised his EP rate to 3000, a nice round number.
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 10/sec -> 3,000/sec]
At 3000/sec, it would take him about five minutes to accumulate the needed EP for a new max range snapshot. Eager to gain more GP, he "stared" at his status, watching the EP numbers increase. It was almost Zen like, watching the number grow.
Energy Points (EP): 159,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (3,000/sec)
Energy Points (EP): 468,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (3,000/sec)
Energy Points (EP): 879,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (3,000/sec)
Energy Points (EP): 963,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (3,000/sec)
Energy Points (EP): 1,002,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (3,000/sec)
As soon as his EP ticked over 1 million, he created a new Atomic detail snapshot at max range.
[Achievement: Total Energy Points consumed exceeded 100,000]
[Reward: 100,000 Genesis Points]
[Achievement: Total Energy Points consumed exceeded 1,000,000]
[Reward: 1,000,000 Genesis Points]
[Achievement: Captured 10,000,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Reward: 100,000,000 GP]
[Achievement: Captured 100,000,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Reward: 1,000,000,000 GP]
[Achievement: Captured 1,000,000,000 Sapiens in a Snapshot]
[Reward: 10,000,000,000 GP]
The earth had a radius of 6,371 kilometers. And with a snapshot radius of 10,000 kilometers centered on Stetle in Puget State, the sphere of the snapshot should encompass just over half the Earth. So he was a little surprised that he had already covered more than 1 billion people. Curious how that was possible, he checked the virtual Earth app on his phone and found that the opposite side of the Earth from Stetle was mostly ocean. So, his snapshot had already covered most of the world's population.
Since the Earth's population was less than 10 billion, even if he extended his snapshot range again, he would not earn any more GP. So he chose not to extend his snapshot range again, for now.
He checked his GP balance.
Genesis Points (GP): 11,106,728,614
Eleven billion points! He looked at his store catalog and saw that two more items had been added.
Unlock Linked Templates
Description: Link a template, or an instantiation to the physical object from which it was created. When a template is linked to its original, it can be updated to match the original at a fraction of the cost of the initial template creation. The update cost varies depending on the degree of change. When a template instantiation is linked to the original, changes made to the instantiation can be exported to the original. The export cost varies depending on the degree of change. A template can be updated to match an instantiation at no cost.
The Linked Templates feature was similar to the Linked Self feature but for objects, and it would make a laptop in his soul space more useful. Assuming the cost wasn't crazy.