@shastastwin, I'm in the Valour Rift and Chrome Bits are dropping there, so you should be able to get them from the Geyser. You may have already figured that out though. 🙂 
I've also found that even when a new area releases and I'm not done elsewhere, I do like jumping in on that new area because all my friends are there. And when the novelty has worn off, I go back and finish up the previous area. 🙂 

So, speaking of the new area, I have managed to get the new map piece. I had to laugh at both Ronza's arrival and the announcement of the new area right after I left for vacation and had limited to no internet. In the end I had all the stuff I needed for the map piece except for 6 gold leaf. No idea how I had collected all that stuff, but no complaints. 🙂 

I also Chromed my Celestial Dissonance trap several days late, but better late than never! And of course now I'm regretting doing that epic VRift run because my trap has been upgraded. LOL Ah well.

The only other thing I've purchased from Ronza has been a restock of Checkmate Charms because those are amazing for treasure maps. I'll take a closer look at her wares before she leaves next week. 

After that, what should I do? Should I go ahead and buy a couple more pages in my tome from VRift? Or should I wait to see what the new area has in store?  

@fantasia Yeah, I tend to end up skipping into new areas and then kind of, sort of working on old areas later on. I wound up staying put in the event this long, so I think I'll stay until the Chrome Bits stop dropping, then get the new map piece, then try the Geyser until the new area opens.

Truthfully, I'm not 100% set on getting the Geyser Draconic trap. I have the Chrome SWB and even if it's not the absolute best, it's still top 2 in the game, so it can't be at that much of a disadvantage, right? Anyway, I'm mostly just stocking up on Rift Tarnished charms and regular chrome charms this event. I'm not going to worry about the Denture upgrade for now because (costing the remainder of my gold aside) it's not LE and I won't use it.

Well, I got the repaired Oculus and such, so I'm focusing on the Geyser until the new area opens up. I'm hoping I can build back up to an Epic Eruption by then and maybe I'll get some DLU re: the rib. 'Cause I don't know how many years of gold farming it will take for me to save up for one on the marketplace. ? 

On the bright side, I'm really looking forward to a new area/mechanic. I find that when I play a lot at once, I burn out on long-term areas quickly and I don't want to spend my MH time going, "Eh, don't want to go there. Or there. Or there."

I'm also looking forward to event season, or at least the Halloween event.

I had not realized and had not paid close attention to the fact that I have more than enough cores to buy the rest of the pages in the VRift. So that area is now complete. I (probably unwisely) bought the two pages for the physical trap because one was cheap and the physical trap is probably the one that I use third most often. 4/8 pages are now purchased and I will be farming gold until Tuesday in the FRift until then. 🙂 

I also bought a box of Ultimate Charms from Ronza with my other Chrome ticket. I also have several Chrome bits left over I'm not sure what I want to spend on yet. Only have a couple more days to decide. 

How's everybody doing so far? Yesterday I jumped in and was literally flying by the seat of my pants for several hours because I was too busy to read the news post or Larry's description, so I had no clue what was going on. LOL I was very fortunate that when I jumped in with not nearly enough cheese that I had just enough to catch the Warden of Frost. It helped that I could switch to Empowered SB+ instead of Cloud Cheesecake. 

Anyways, made it far enough to get my Oculus to Level 2, but still figuring out the ins and outs of the area.  

I've just headed into the sky so I'm still not sure if I farmed enough cheese for this run. Boy howdy, does this look like a long area! I'm hoping it'll work well with being inactive since my days won't have as much free time for monitoring my trap.

I'm liking the look of the area so far. Hoping I can figure out a decent strategy soon.

Posted by: @shastastwin

I'm hoping it'll work well with being inactive since my days won't have as much free time for monitoring my trap.

It doesn't look like it's the best of the best in terms of leaving your trap and walking away, but it doesn't look too bad either. When you're on an island in the sky and you catch the boss mouse, you just stay on that island and continue to farm all of the materials with the bonuses you've already acquired. For example, my current island is x2 ore, x2 ore, +1 speed, x2 glass. So I will catch mice with x4 ore and x2 glass. (Nice if you need more of that stuff without restarting!)
The downside is that if I leave my trap with an uber setup for catching the boss, it will burn through all of that nice cheese/charms instead of pausing the hunt. (I like catching the boss mice with Empowered Super Brie.)

One thing I have learned so far, getting the bonus cheese curds on the islands is vastly superior to farming them on the ground. 

I'm in no hurry to get all of the mice like I normally am. Clearly this is going to be the area we'll be in for the next year, so having a good strategy is better than picking an island based off of the mice that are there. So far I've done physical, shadow (my favorite art!), arcane, and hydro for warden runs, and tactical for a paragon run. 

Thumbs up on the new area. It's fun!  

I think this is the first release I've done while been pretty integrated to Discord? It's nice...lots of useful help and tips.

I've been sorta figuring it out as I go/sorta taking advice. I'm currently almost done with my first HAI; pro-tip, Law is great! 

Spent a bit of gold getting Cloud Cheesecake the other day because honestly the price wasn't outrageous considering the SB cost of converting (it's still more but not crazy more) so I figured if it saved me some time it was worth it.

I'll have to buckle down and stop spending gold, though, cuz I'm pretty broke at the moment lol. Not sure where all my gold went but I'm at the lowest I've been in years; not even 10mil.

Glad that I was able to get all the VRift codex pages awhile back though, and Prestige Base up to 12 TE's. Wish I had been able to get 13 or 14 like I'd hoped in my last massive run, but that's ok. Didn't get as far into resource farming as I'd hoped and now I have to be mindful of my gold, so not sure if I'll still do another run at Halloween or just let it be for now. Will probably assess in a few weeks once I have an idea of where I'm at.

Posted by: @gymfan15

I'm currently almost done with my first HAI

You're going to have to spell that one out for me.  

Posted by: @gymfan15

Glad that I was able to get all the VRift codex pages awhile back though

Oooooh, nice! Yeah, I spent too much of my gold on Champion's Fire and have not been able to afford the last pages. The good news is that gold is the only thing holding me back.

Posted by: @gymfan15

pro-tip, Law is great! 

Speaking of which, working on my Paragon of Law right now! Woohoo!

HAI is High Altitude Island 😀 

I thought I was going fast but you're a whole Paragon ahead of me haha. But I guess I was a bit slow out of the gate; I farmed Cloud Cheesecake instead of just hopping in lol.

I've found it to work so far for my schedule. We'll see if that trend continues.

I'm working on my first Paragon. Trying to give myself just a bit of a Cloud Cheesecake buffer, but not much. I'm focusing more on catching Wardens and/or Paragons than on farming Sky Glass and Ore. Major plus to Paragon hunting: the bonuses on glass and ore are doubled, so you're already farming them twice as fast even before you hit a doubled area. 😀

I'm still working on upgrading stuff in the VRift and don't have any Codex pages yet, so I doubt I'll be as well off as y'all are. Eventually, I'll farm enough there to work on that. My Prestige Base isn't in the realm of 12 or more TEs either. But it's still my best base.

I’m guessing halloween, great winter hunt and Easter will really help with the progress.  I have not hinted much in the floating isles but it looks very long.  Upgrading the oculus will help no doubt

I've had a bit of time to sit down and actually look through everything in the Trapsmith to formulate my plan of attack. I'm without question going to buy the Sleeping Stone/Tactical trap first. Even the basic model is a HUGE upgrade from the Chrome Sphynx, and I don't think it will take me TOO long to get it either (relatively speaking), though it costs the most as far as the High Altitude Loot is concerned. Totally worth it!

I also sold a lot of junk out of my inventory that I won't use, never will use, so I just nickel and dimed my way to greater wealth and bought two more VRift pages....the cheap tactical, and the arcane. Just the shadow and expensive tactical to go.

Posted by: @gymfan15

I thought I was going fast but you're a whole Paragon ahead of me haha.

My current strategy is to get the +1 speed boost in the first or second square and I'm not above using Cyclone stones to help out with that. The glass and ore will come in time, the paragons/wardens are much more valuable to me, so I aim to get to them as quickly as possible.

ETA: Just caught my third Paragon.  Checking off Arcane. Five more to go, including dragons which I'm not much looking forward to.  

I decided that with my Prestige base not being better yet than what it is, I would buy the Adorned Empyrean Refractor Base at 20 Luck, 1500 Power and 20% power bonus before any of the new traps.

I didn't have enough gold for it, but was rather close, so I took some of my 35 Baitkeep charms and caught a few Eclipses (95-100% catch rate with my top trap), and bought the Base with a couple of million gold to spare. Since then I've been to Valour Rift, where I just about entered the 55th floor before I had to leave - and got a couple of million gold there as well.

Now I'll stay in Valour Rift for a while before I go back to Floating Islands. If I had reached floor 56, I would have gotten enough Cores to buy the new trap there, but now I don't have the gold for it - so gold farming and crown collecting will have to be interspersed with the new islands for a good while.

When is Halloween and the new Event season? In about a month or two?

A couple weeks in to the new area and I am officially one third of the way to my new Tactical Trap. Also wrapped up the adventure in the adventure book. I had to laugh though because they reduced the difficulty of several of the mice islands, and yesterday I did the Hydro island.... I was getting a 50% catch rate and there's no upgraded trap or anything to make it easier. Eesh! Maybe I just had some DHU yesterday. 

Anyways, I have 2 adorned empyrean jewels, one from the completed adventure and one from a high altitude chest. Only 223 more to go LOL.

I will unlock the pirates as soon as I finish up the island I'm on. Progress is being made!