I now have 3 tribes going in various stages but have noticed that I am having trouble getting tech points for the collective items. At first I thought that maybe time ran out before the kid got it back to the shack so I started watching for that in fact most of the time I collect the item as soon as it appears and still no points especially when I use the younger child not a single credit(will on the mushroom collection) so I started making sure I chose an older child(8-13)and I stand a 50/50 chance of getting credits....any advice.

Did you already have that collectable? If not, then you don't get tech. points for it. If you have gotten that particular collectable before, I have no idea why you aren't getting tech. points.

As Rand stated, you do not get credit for the first of any item in the collectables (butterflies, shells, beetles, pebbles). You do get tech points for any there after.

For example, you found the blue shell, a child takes it to the hut but you get no tech points. Now when you find a blue shell and a child takes it to the hut you will get 100 tech points. Now you find the orange butterfly, when the child takes the first one to the hut you will get no tech points but will get 100 tech points for any found thereafter.

This occurs all thru the game..in 2 of my games I have collected all butterflies/shells,most of the pebbles and starting on the beetles..it is taking forever to gather any tech points because I only get credit for about 1/3 of what I collect which is a real bummer

I also wanted to ask about the fire..in the previous 3 games I had no problem w/getting 30 hrs of time but in this last game 9 hrs is the max which leaves me with the only choice of putting the game into pause mode because I'm never sure when I can get back...any ideas?

Apparently, this time the game speed is set to 2x.

Yes,Yes,Yes and Thank you...that was the problem..now I can re-set speed and let them"idle" along while I'm offline..