When will Astrotrain arrive?

Not that I’ve been able to figure out.

It really depends on the overall length of the level, but given that it’s almost impossible to know how long a level is until you’ve finished playing it, it’s really just guesswork.

It also doesn’t help that the difficulty rating and the length of the level don’t always correlate, otherwise it would be somewhat easier I think.

Although I don’t think it depends on how long the level has been running for, but rather on the specific location of the map that you’ve reached. So if you’ve run a particular map a few times and recognize the landmarks you should be able to get a feel for it eventually.

I try to maximize my buddy usage, which means calling him in early, and re-calling him often. Especially if I have a particular buddy for a specific reason, for example having a Grimlock or Starscream when I know I’m about to get pounded by missiles.

The only time I’ll hold off is when I encounter a stretch where there’s really nothing going on (uncommon, but it does happen).

Is there a particular reason why you wouldn’t want to use your buddy on an entire run?

I’d agree if you received a coins bonus for completing the level without a buddy (kind of like how you would receive a bonus for “using the Force” in the old Star Wars arcade game), but I haven’t seen that to be the case on those occasions when I didn’t call my buddy in.

@Optimus_Pig
There’s such a feel, when you know when you’re doing great, and you think calling someone to help is just shame cause you can’t finish a level without help. However, this doesn’t mean i want to humiliate a people i play with! That doesn’t mean i don’t want friends! Sometimes, you just need help and sometimes you just feel thinking “I know how to do it, so better just don’t beg my friends!”

AFAIK It impacts your FB friends only if you thank them, they get a Gem or 25 coins. What i don’t understand is why ppl are not thanking them they were using an Auto bird. I understand if they are going for the Gems attained by “not thanking” 50 times as a Hog but other than that if they are using a bird they ought to. It’s one way we can protest Rovio’s ridiculous prices and wait times for upgrades. If we’re all consistently giving Gems to each other, then theoretically we would need to buy less of them. and it would hit Rovio in the pocket book.. I spend a lot of my gems just trying to advance through the bugs. And I for one have never seen a game of any kind with so many (and such egregious) bugs. These shouldn’t be too hard to fix. I can have 6 missions ready and for whatever reason I have to use sky-warp three times (and 25 gems) to clear the board. Then I have to play two of the levels three times each, usually barely earning enough coins to repair the damage caused. (they never make you do a Gold Dome level over and over…) So out of 6 nodes, I end up with one good run and some pigs/coins. So frustrating… Maybe now that the IOS update is done they can start working on fixing the Android version and make it play like any other normal game would. /rant