Formations

Formations are a feature added in version 2 enabling the player to choose a combat formation. The first one drops as an upgrade when you break the planet. New buttons will then appear at the top of the World section, enabling the player to switch formations, or toggle it off to select none.

Formation Upgrades
Formation	Requirement	Cost	In-game Description
None	Complete cell 100 of zone 59 (Part of Broken Planet)	None	"Clear your formations, return to normal stats, and derp around the battlefield." (Hotkeys: X or 1)
Heap	Complete cell 100 of zone 59 (Part of Broken Planet)	10B science 100B food	"The air may be filled with pollution, but your Trimps seem to be getting smarter and a battle technique from what could only be a past life has crept into your memory. This would probably be a good opportunity to teach it to your Trimps. Once researched, you will be able to enter the 'Heap Formation'. This can be toggled to increase your Trimps' health by 4x, but reduce block and attack by half."  (Hotkeys: H or 2)
Dominance	Complete cell 44 of zone 70	20B science 200B food	"Another formation has crept back in to your memory. Where are these coming from? Who are you? Who cares, this one will allow your Trimps to deal 4x damage at the cost of half health and block." (Hotkeys: D or 3)
Barrier	Complete cell 44 of zone 80	40B science 400B food	"Woah, you just remembered that all Trimps lifting their shields in the same direction at the same time can produce a nice protecting wall. Seems like common sense now that you thought of it. This formation increases block by 4x and cuts the amount of block that enemies can pierce by 50%, at the cost of half attack and health." (Hotkeys: B or 4)
Scryer	If highest zone reached is 181 or higher, automatically unlocks after breaking the planet (60).	None	"Trimps lose half of their attack, health and block but gain 2x resources from loot (not including Helium) and have a chance to find Dark Essence above Z180. This formation must be active for the entire fight to receive any bonus from enemies, and must be active for the entire map to earn a bonus from a Cache." (Hotkeys: S or 5)
Wind	Purchase Enlightenment of Wind (after reaching Level 50 in Empowerment of Wind)	None	"You have been Enlightened by Wind! While in this Formation in a Wind Zone, enemies will never fall below 1HP before they have 300 stacks of Wind. This Formation also allows collection of Dark Essence, and grants all bonuses of the Scryer Formation." (Hotkeys: W or 6)

Strategy

In general, use Dominance formation.

Scryer formation is needed to get Dark Essence for Masteries. With the Scryhard Masteries, the player can also gain bonus Helium from Void Maps.

To farm for Dark Essence later in the game, Scryer formation should be used in Poison zones.

If the player is attempting the Spire, it may be useful to do a "stance dance". This means starting out in Dominance formation, then switching to No formation, then finally Heap formation. This ensures Trimps survive for longer and thus avoid losing 10 battles too easily.

The Wind formation is useful for gaining a large amount of Helium in a single run (especially after unlocking Fluffy's Evolution 7 Level 10 ability buffing Empowerments of Nature). This will take a rather long time though, since 300 Wind stacks have to be accumulated on each enemy. Having a high Liquification level and Plaguebringer on your Shield Heirloom will help.