CPU usage on AlienWorlds (WAX network)

There's a lot of questions about CPU usage when starting out. Something that's poorly explained when starting is how CPU works, what it's for, and why you need to stake WAX to get more. The basics of CPU usage is explain here:

What is "CPU" and why do I need it?
Every transaction on the WAX network requires CPU to be performed, since Alienworlds operates on the WAX network, this includes mining, selling NFTs, buying NFTs, moving NFTs around, etc. The most common error is "out of CPU" while mining. This is a very common error, and it directs you to https://wallet.wax.io to get more by staking WAX. At a basic level, if you don't have any available CPU time, the transaction to move the TLM from m.federation (the WAX entity which is alienworlds), to your WAX account, isn't permitted. When you sign up, the WAX network gifts you 1WAX for CPU, and 1WAX for network; staked for you, by them. This can be seen on https://wax.bloks.io by searching for your WAX account (usually ending in .wam), under Account, Chain Data, Staked, Staked to your .wam ID. You'll see staking by the entity "wam", that is your starter amount.

So I have to pay to play?
Yes and no, but mostly no. You can use earned TLM to convert to WAX and stake for CPU to play. Basically turning the TLM you mined for free into WAX for staking, so no real-world money needs to be invested. Which can make the game free. You have the option of paying real-world money to get more WAX to play, if you wish, but it is absolutely not a requirement.

I ran out of CPU, and don't have any WAX yet, what now?
Wait. be patient. Each transaction on the WAX network for CPU, "expires" in about 24 hours. So any transactions you do, and CPU you consume today, will become free tomorrow. When you're starting out, this can be a frustrating game of cat and mouse, as you gain the WAX required to stake, to have enough daily CPU to play as much as you'd like. If you're patient and careful, you will be able to play as much as you'd like, eventually. If you're starting out and don't want to invest real-world dollars into WAX, just wait it out, you'll get there. Most players it takes about a week or more to get up to speed with enough WAX staked to reasonably play.

I've staked WAX, but I still ran out of CPU! How much should I be expected to stake?
This is a bit of an unknown. There are other influences on how much CPU is given for how much WAX you have staked. Experienced players recommend to get upwards of 40-80 WAX staked to CPU to play somewhat comfortably. If you have less than that, you may be waiting another day to get more, if you have more than that, you may still not be able to mine sometimes. This is because your CPU is affected by the WAX network's available CPU, which is explained more, next.

I have barely played, and I have WAX staked, why is my CPU over 100%? What's happening?
This is not a problem with you, or your account, or Alienworlds. This is a problem on the WAX network, which only they can solve. When staking WAX for CPU, you're not buying CPU outright. If you look at bloks.io under your account, it will show you not only your % of CPU, but also the hard numbers on CPU. For example, 14ms / 100ms of CPU, or 50ms / 10ms of CPU. When staking WAX, you are not explicitly "buying" ms worth of CPU, you're buying a percentage of total CPU on the WAX network. So, for an example, you have 10 WAX staked to CPU, and the total amount staked to CPU (across the network) is 1000 WAX, that means you get 1% of the total CPU available for the WAX network. The total CPU on the WAX network isn't a set amount, and can change. When it goes up, so does your share. When it goes down, so does your share. So, building on this example, say you have 50ms of CPU time at the beginning of the day, and you do 25ms worth of CPU transactions. Something happens that halves the available CPU on the WAX network, suddenly, without you doing anything, your % CPU used goes from 50% to 100%. This is a result of changes on the WAX network, and nothing you've done. if the amount of CPU on the WAX network drops lower, your % will increase above 100%. This is neither your fault, nor anything you can do something about. The only answer is to wait for the WAX network to recover to a nominal amount of total available CPU, in order to play again. Since this amount can fluctuate at any time, for any reason, without warning, you will likely hit this issue often. If you have the WAX, you can boost yourself up even more, and have more available CPU time, but generally the best option is to wait it out for the WAX network to recover, and try again. Waiting 20-30 minutes is a good rule-of-thumb to hold off until things are back to normal.

To understand further, WAX network transactions are a specific number of seconds to transact, usually in the micro-seconds (µs) range. 1000µs is 1ms, and most transactions are 100-500µs. This amount accumulates until you reach the maximum CPU based on total CPU available and your stake. When you reach your maximum CPU based on your stake of the total pool, you have to wait for CPU transactions to "expire" to do more.

Why is my CPU so high after doing nothing for over a day?
This is because the amount of used CPU doesn't update automatically when a transaction no longer applies against your CPU.

Best that we've been able to determine: When a transaction is processed, your used CPU is recalculated, to ensure the most accurate representation of your CPU use. Occasionally (clearly, more than once every day), this value is recalculated for you automatically. We're not sure how often, but it happens. If you check someone's .wam on bloks.io, who hasn't played for a week+, they'll likely have 0ms CPU used, and this is the function that eventually updates that value.

For anyone remotely active, it will update during every transaction. If you attempt a transaction and it's been more than 24 hours since your last transaction, then it should drop significantly.

TLDR: You have two options. You can wait a bit longer for the WAX network to automatically update your CPU or you can try submitting a very small transaction on the blockchain to recalculate your CPU.

If you have more questions on CPU, please comment, and they will be added to this article.