First, make sure Agility and range are maxed, and invest in the artisan perk which will reduce equipment costs. I forget what it's called, but you should have gotten access to the challenge which grants two additional pieces of equipment, which will help. Also don't discount the power and toughness perks either as they both provide direct boosts to trimps' stats. If you can post your perk levels here I might be able to offer some further assistance.

I have been stuck on the frugal challenge for about the last three weekks, though I admit a good part of that was because Mrs. Dark has been quite ill so I've basically just been leaving trimps running in the background.
I am thus not as far on, my best zone so far is 104, though as I smashed the frugal challenge just now and am progressing hopefully that will go up (I did at least get all the map complete achievements).

I do however have a few questions if Drums6199 doesn't mind me chiming in, indeed he can probably answer some.

Firstly, as to life. Has anyone contacted green satellite about fixing the life maps so you know which sells are living and which are not?

Secondly, is there a way of knowing once you've had a group of trimps go bye bye, how long it'll take your army to get back up and running? apparently anticipation provides  boost if it takes longer than 30 seconds and its optimal in terms of strategy to balance geneticists to nursearies to get this bonus, but I was wondering where to find a timer, since while clicking the  breed speed will give a tool  which tells you base speed and the calculation, there is no basic "it will take this long to breed your army back" type of message, or at least not one I've found so far, though as I haven't unlocked geneticists quite yet, I might be worrying needlessly.

I'm doing life now, and I'm almost done. I just am powering through it like I do everything else, but it is still slowing down past zone 90. I know it will come in time, but I'd be happy for any shortcuts.

I'm afraid this number isn't showing up for me, my trimps column looks like this (after I just had a group wammed, and yes it takes them more than a second to breed).

Trimps
72.8M / 80.5M
39.8M breeding
+1.98M/sec
33.0M/40.2M employed

See, it says the number of trimps I'm gaining per second, but not the total time it takes, this is why I'm having trouble getting anticipation to work for me.

As I said, I've tried toggling the setting which says "less breed timer" or "more bbreed timer" but I don't see any difference, which is why I was wondering if it showed up for other people.

I've also looked under the tooltip info for breeding trimps, and not seen a total time given there either.

Edit: Okay this is weird. I didn't realise that "next to the group of trimps" meant next to the current fighting trimps down near the trimp stats, that makes sense, however, sometimes the timer shows up and most of the time it doesn't (is it only showing up in maps or something?), even when I have "more breed timer" in settings, though since the number under the total number of fighting trimps seems to be the anticipation bonus it does seem possible to judge whether the timer shows up or not.

Its still a little weird that it doesn't, perhaps it could be added to the game summary?

Yep, I did find the thing, but it seems sometimes to appear and sometimes not. It'd be nice if it could be added to the summary information, since right now while I'm getting really awesome bonuses from anticipation when it works, getting it to work optimally is being a bit fiddly.
On the other hand  should be breaking z110 this time around hurrah!

Since attack seems important, I am thinking of trying the discipline 2 challenge before trying electricity, as those challenge 2 versions give attack bonuses.
I've been pumping as much into attack as possible through airlooms and such and it does seem to be paying off, one reason why I wanted anticipation to work correctly and why the version 2 challenges might be handy before I try some of the harder stuff in the game.

Just doing 110 now, its rather tough, though since its taken me less than 24 hours from finally finishing frugal I don't think I'm doing too badly..

I do admit I have a tendency to want to push on so ended up doing longer runs than I planned though after getting stuck on Frugal for so long I don't think I'll repeat that mistake again, although as I need to go to sleep in a bit and thus will do some overnight grinding I'll hopefully end up a little past 110, though I doubt at this stage I'll make 120 or even 115.

As to what next, I think I will try electricity, I have been trying to intersperse helium runs with actual challenges that unlock things, though I liked the idea of doing a challenge 2 since trimp attack is a good thing. Then again I looked at all the dailies and their modifyers looked rather scary, so maybe I'll leave those for at least some time while I gather helium and raise my attack.

Btw, has anyone got the achievement for getting 100 housing buildings of each type? I'm wondering firstly if it counts wormholes, and secondly what to do about warp stations and prestigeing, do you just need to get 100 warp stations without an upgrade? That would take quite a lot of resources I think, though it wouldn't be impossible, albeit buying all those wormholes would be a miner pain.

Health I don't think is the issue. It's mostly damage not scaling as fast as everything else along with being so far behind on coordinations. I'm running life to get helium, but even then, my perks are so expensive I can only get one level per run in either carpentry or coordination, then I spend the rest on other things. I put a lot into artisanistry this last time, so we will see.

Yeah, I have a crit increase heirloom of 122%. The other one is lumber farmer miner increase.

Dark, I do the same thing, although, I am tending to run mountain maps at higher levels and just let my workers supplement my wood and food. I try to have 500 dragimp somewhere between 50 and 60, and I buy them often.
My thing is if I have enough helium for a carpentry upgrade, I use it, coordinated now, but I figure the more trimps I have, the more resources I will have on my next run which will make it that much easier. Still isn't addressing my damage problem, but formations on this run are helping. I always forget about them.

Gardens are useful, and if I'm doing a long idle, I will use them, but if it's just a quick, let's get the upgrades and move on, then I use mountains. Also gems if I need them.

Well things are going well indeed.
I just got to zone 120, and as things were getting tough I decided for the tough to get going .

I admit if I hadn't been mostly away from my computer today I might have called it a day at 116, but since 120 is a milestone I thought I should get there first, then again I wasn't able to get the achievement as it was obvious to me that finishing 120 might have to wait.

So, big lot of helium in hand I decided to try the scientist IV challenge. This one I admit wasn't easy, finishing  the block with one trimp, and since I decided to go the route of miners but no bloodlust upgrade, so no auto fighting, lots of hitting of the f key, and of course with no coordinations and doing the hole thing with one trimp fighting and level 1 equipment.

Oddly enough it wasn't as bad as frugal (which I really should've stopped and restarted), but it was still a bit of a slog around zone 10, and though I did manage to get all my gear up to level 60 or so with 70 in the shield, I was only just over the minimum damage needed having 125 k, .

On the other hand its done now and I get the auto prestiege upgrade to play with, which is a nice thing for a lazy person like me, as well as the ability to earn double prestiges in maps, which should make progression generally faster.

We'll see how high I can go this time around.

#Yeah artisanastry is useful, I got a couple of levels in it last time myself.
I'm currently on zone 88, though i admit part of that was just not playing as actively today.
I'd like to get beyond 125 this time if I can, maybe even over 130 though that could be a bit ambitious.

For what challenge next, I'm not sure. I'm tempted to repeat electricity, or go for one of the challenge 2's to up my attack percentage and helium gain, as diciplin really isn't too difficult and I should be able to get over 100 at least, though I'm also tempted to do another run of electricity or even life, though I'm not really sure about life, especially if there is not currently a way to tell where the living and dead cells are on the map or what your going to fight next.

I suspect the level 120 challenges like coordinated will have to wait, indeed the guide on the trimps wiki gives suggested helium totals for some of the challenges which seem like good advice, indeed had I done electricity before trying frugal I likely would've got on far better.