Heya all! Thanks to everyone's continuing help and feedback, I've done a new update for Light 'Em to (try and? ^^) improve the auto-prod system for the 6 star types.
My two main goals with this update were:
to fix the bug that occurred around LVL 175-176 of rate upgrade and caused the auto-prod of the star type to sink back to a lower value
and to make auto-prod more interesting overall (since up til now, active prod was usually way more useful, unless you had very specific skill tree upgrades + run bonuses)
To that end, I've decided to refactor the auto-prod system as follows.
Starting from v0.5.0, instead of having an "auto-prod rate" that is then transformed into a per-second auto-prod amount, I've decided to use an "auto-prod multiplier".
So, basically, now, the auto-prod value of a star type is computed from its active prod, just multiplied by a factor. Upgrading the "auto-prod" of a star type grows this multiplier, gradually making the auto-prod value closer and closer to the active prod value... until it even outgrows it and you start to super-boost your auto-production! :)
Full disclosure: I've tried to test this new system as much as possible but, as usual, balancing everything is kinda hard - so I'd love to get your opinion / feedback / advice on whether you think the current balance is OK, or where it could be improved!