Nova Crystals trickle in slowly in Star Wars: Droid Tycoon, and the Nova Shop behind the cantina is happy to swallow every one of them. Some upgrades pay for themselves within a session. Others cost hundreds of crystals for a cosmetic recolor or a small quality-of-life bump. Knowing which is which decides how quickly you climb through Super Rebirths.
Quick answer: Buy Scrap Value first (25 crystals for level 1, +0.5 seconds of passive income per level), then Daily Crystals (30) with Double Daily Quests (75) to lock in up to six crystals a day, then Companion Slot (250) once your income supports it.
Where the Nova Shop is and what it sells
The Nova Shop sits in the Super Rebirth area behind the cantina, directly opposite the Super Rebirth shop, and RIC-1200 runs the counter. Everything inside is bought with Nova Crystals, which do not reset when you rebirth.
Stock is split across six tabs. Core Upgrades cover your character and general economy. Workshop handles crafting, scrapping and blueprints. Cosmetics is a single base paint. Lobby Boosts are consumable tokens. Featured holds the crit tree plus a few one-off unlocks, and Iconic Droids lets you repurchase event droids you missed.
Scrap Value: The single strongest purchase
Scrap Value lives in the Workshop tab and requires Blueprint Scrap to be unlocked first. Each level adds +0.5 seconds of your passive income to what the scrap station pays out. That matters because the payout scales with your hourly credit rate rather than being a flat number, so it keeps growing as your base grows.
The first level costs 25 crystals and every level after adds 30 to the price, so level 2 is 55, level 3 is 85, and so on. Blueprint Scrap itself is cheap at 1 crystal for the first level, which makes the whole path affordable early.
You confirm it worked by walking to the scrap station and dumping a batch. The credits paid out per scrap should jump noticeably compared to before the purchase, and the gap widens every time your hourly income increases.
Daily Crystals and Double Daily Quests: More crystals every day
Without any upgrades, only the bottom entry on the Daily Quests board pays a Nova Crystal. Daily Crystals, found in the Featured tab for 30 crystals, converts all three daily quest rewards into Nova Crystals. Double Daily Quests in Core Upgrades costs 75 and doubles the board itself.
Run both together and your daily income tops out at six crystals per day from quests alone. That is the compounding purchase, since every other perk on your list gets cheaper in real time once the faucet is wider.
Note: quests reset when you Super Rebirth, so check the board before and after a rebirth rather than assuming your progress carried over.
Companion Slot: Doubling up on droids
Companion Slot is a one-time 250-crystal unlock in the Featured tab that adds a second companion. The reason it ranks so high is duplicates. Running two of the same droid stacks their effect, which speeds up crafting and resource generation well beyond what a single companion manages.
It is expensive, so treat it as the purchase you save toward after Scrap Value and the daily quest perks are running. Buying it first leaves you crystal-starved with nothing generating extra income.
Nova Shop prices for the upgrades worth tracking
Costs escalate at very different rates across tabs, and a few upgrades are flat one-time unlocks. These are the ones that affect your economy directly.
| Upgrade | Effect per level | Cost pattern |
|---|---|---|
| Scrap Value (Workshop) | +0.5/sec of income at scrap station | 25, then +30 each level |
| Blueprint Scrap (Workshop) | Unlocks Scrap Value and chip scrap | 1, 12, 24, 36 |
| Daily Crystals (Featured) | All daily quests pay Nova Crystals | 30, one-time |
| Double Daily Quest (Core) | Doubles the daily quest board | 75, one-time |
| Companion Slot (Featured) | +1 companion slot | 250, one-time |
| Credits (Core) | +20% credit multiplier | 2, then +4 each level |
| Crafting Speed (Workshop) | +0.1/sec | 3, then +15 each level |
| Upgrade Chip Scrap (Workshop) | +5 chips | 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 |
| Super Crates (Core) | Turns crates into rainbow crates | 10, 25, 50 |
| Jawa Bartering (Core) | +5% double reward chance | 5, 10, 15, 30, 45, 60 |
| Collect All (Workshop) | +1 collect-all droid type | 3, 25, 100 |
| Lounge Slot (Workshop) | +1 lounge slot | 1, 30, 60, 90 |
| Critical Chance (Featured) | +5% crit chance | 60, then +30 each stage |
| Critical Amount (Featured) | Increases crit damage | 30, then +60 each stage |
Jawa Bartering caps at +25% at 5/5. Collect All spawns a floating coin that gathers every station of one droid type at once — Fighting, Astromech or Worker — and you can stand in it to keep collecting credits and XP passively.
Every way to earn Nova Crystals
There is no single fast source. Income comes from stacking several small ones, which is exactly why the daily quest perks are worth buying early.
| Source | Reward |
|---|---|
| Daily Quests (bottom quest only) | 1 crystal |
| Daily Quests with Daily Crystals + Double Daily Quests | Up to 6 crystals per day |
| CB-23 Astromech mission on Elphrona (18 minutes) | 10% chance of 1 crystal |
| Thursday Crate Event Mega Crate (spawns every 15 minutes) | 2 crystals |
| Rainbow crates via Super Crates perk | Chance to drop crystals |
| D-O event | Crystals on completion |
| Super Rebirth | 11 at RB12, scaling to 379 at RB35 |
The CB-23 mission is the one people miss. It is a hidden Astromech mission on Elphrona, it runs 18 minutes, and the crystal roll is only 10%, so treat it as background income you queue up rather than something to farm actively.
Super Crates deserves a mention here rather than in the priority list. At 10, 25 and 50 crystals it is cheap, and it converts normal crates into rainbow crates that can drop Nova Crystals themselves. It is a modest but self-sustaining source.
Rebirth crystal payouts from RB12 to RB35
Super Rebirth payouts scale sharply. The jump from RB12 to RB20 alone takes you from 11 crystals to 79, which is why pushing rebirth levels is the real long-term crystal engine.
| Rebirth | Crystals | Rebirth | Crystals |
|---|---|---|---|
| RB12 | 11 | RB24 | 137 |
| RB13 | 16 | RB25 | 154 |
| RB14 | 22 | RB26 | 172 |
| RB15 | 29 | RB27 | 191 |
| RB16 | 37 | RB28 | 211 |
| RB17 | 46 | RB29 | 232 |
| RB18 | 56 | RB30 | 254 |
| RB19 | 67 | RB31 | 277 |
| RB20 | 79 | RB32 | 301 |
| RB21 | 92 | RB33 | 326 |
| RB22 | 106 | RB34 | 352 |
| RB23 | 121 | RB35 | 379 |
Nova Shop upgrades to skip or delay
A few entries look tempting and underdeliver relative to their price. Pickaxe Mastery is the clearest example. The first level gives +5 pickaxe levels but every level after adds only +2, so an 11/11 investment costing 330 crystals hard-caps you at pickaxe level 25. It sets your starting pickaxe level after a rebirth rather than multiplying anything, which keeps it in quality-of-life territory.
The Credits multiplier is fine but slow. Each level is +20% and the cost climbs by 4 crystals every time, so mid-level purchases in the low teens of crystals often feel flat next to a single Scrap Value level. Flawless Charm at 500 crystals and Nova Crystal Base Paint at 400 for level 3 are both far down the list — the paint is purely cosmetic.
Critical Chance and Critical Amount are strong later, since crits speed up workbench crafting, but they start at 60 and 30 crystals respectively and escalate by 30 and 60 per stage. Push them only once your income can absorb hundreds of crystals per level.
Lobby Boosts and Iconic Droids
Lobby Boost tokens are consumables and disappear once used, so they are a poor early purchase. Rainbow Surge is the cheapest at 20 crystals, Luck Boost, Crafting Boost and Beskar Surge are 30 each, and Galactic Surge is 60.
The Iconic Droids tab is the recovery route for event droids. BB-8, Mister Bones, IG-11 Marshall and DJ R-3X are 30 crystals each, R2-D2 and C-3PO are 60, and CB-23 is 75. CB-23 is the one with practical value, since it unlocks the Elphrona Astromech mission that can return crystals.
The shop keeps expanding with updates, and prices for individual tiers have shifted before, so re-check a cost in-game before committing a large crystal balance to it. The order above holds regardless: income-scaling perks first, daily crystal generation second, expensive one-time unlocks once you can afford them without stalling everything else.
