Beginner Manual

• Mining (Resources and Crystals)
  • Why do I need resources and crystals?
    • You'll need resources to pay for your army and to pay for your research and development. You don't need crystals, but you will find they are very useful. Some can be used, for special abilities, for example, to speed up time for your base, or to give you special military vehicles and weapons that cannot be purchased with resources.
  • How do I mine resources or crystals?
    • There are many ways to get resources, but here we will only cover the basics. The main way you get resources is by mining with K-drones, a type of mining robot. When you first start the game or at the start of a new round, you are given 100 K-drones. Click the menu link K-Drone Control to see your K-drones. At first, all 100 of them are formatted, which means they aren't doing anything. You can program them to mine any of the three resources (Bytanium, Iron, C-62) or any of the five crystals (Blue, Orange, Red, Green, Clear).
      
      After you've programmed a K-drone, each week (a week in the game is one hour in real time) the K-drone will automatically produce a small amount of resources for your base, whether you are online or not. Also, once a K-drone has been programmed it is no longer formatted - it turns into whatever you type you program it to be. So for example, if you have 100 formatted K-drones and you program 10 to mine Bytanium, you will have 10(B)K-drones and 90 formatted K-drones.
      
      More About K-drones
    • How many K-drones should I set to mine which resources or crystals?
      • Of the three resources (Bytanium, Iron, C-62), the most valuable is Bytanium. You can think of Bytanium sort of as money. You'll find that although military units and weapons cost some amount of all three resources, there are many tasks which only cost Bytanium. In fact, to program your K-drones will cost you some Bytanium! So until you know the game well, it is best for you to program more K-drones mining Bytanium than anything else. A good first programming set is: 50 (B)K-drones, 25 (I)K-drones, 25 (C)K-drones.
        
        Do not attempt to mine crystals in the beginning unless you REALLY know what you're doing. Crystal mining is covered in the advanced manual.
    • How can I tell how much resources I am getting from my K-drones?
      • There are two ways. First, every time you log on you start out in your Main Office page. You can see a brief Resource Report there. The second way is to click on Base Operations. The first report you see at the top is a complete breakdown of how much of each resource you are producing per week. For example, under Bytanium you might see:
             (B)K-drones (50): 750
        Which means that you have 50 (B)K-drones (that is, K-drones mining Bytanium) and they are producing for you 750 Bytanium per week.
    • Ok, I've programmed all my K-drones, but I'm not making very much! Can I make them mine more?
      • Yes, you can upgrade your mines to make them more high-tech and easier for K-drones to maneuver in. Upgrading your mines is the most basic form of construction. Click the Construction menu link and you will see your three mine constructions. At the beginning, your mines are all level 1. Click any of the mine Improve Mine Network constructions to begin the construction. (For more info on construction in general, go to the Improving Your Base Through Reseach and Constructionnode.)
        
        For every level you increase your mines, the K-drones in those mines will produce more resources per week. So for example, 50 K-drones in a level 1 mine will produce 750 resources per week. But 50 K-drones in a level 3 mine will produce 1550 resources per tick!
    • How can I get more K-drones?
      • There are 3 ways to get additional K-drones: Blackmarket, taking them by force from another base, or trading crystals for them. We will talk about the easiest way here, which is the Blackmarket.
        
        Click the Missions link. The first mission available is to search the Blackmarket for K-drones. You will find this to be an easy way to get K-drones whenever you have a low K-drone count, that is, less than 200. But the more K-drones you have, the harder (and the more expensive!) it will be to find additional K-drones by searching the Blackmarket.
        
        You can read about taking K-drones by force under the Building an Army to Defend Your Base and Attack Other Bases node.
• Improving Your Base Through Reseach and Construction
  • What's the difference between Research and Construction?
    • Research and Construction are very closely related. Your base gains new abilities through researching projects. Many of these projects, however, will require you to construct something in order to complete the project and use the ability. For example, there is a research project called Transwarp Drive that gives your base the ability to send your armies anywhere instantly instead of having to wait for the army to march to the target location. You will need to do a lot of research to gain this technology, but in order to use it, you will need to construct an actual transwarp drive. So you can look at research as the way you discover new things and create plans to do them, then construction is often the step required to make the plans into reality that can help your base.
  • Tell me more about Research
    • There are basically two types of research projects: general research and data center research. General research projects can be done at any time as long as you have enough resources to pay for it. Data center research projects are highly technical projects that bring a powerful new ability to your base. You can see all of the research projects your base can currently work on by clicking the Research menu link. The researches are divided into catagories by tabs and each data center project shows you how many datamodules you'll need to initiate the project.
    • General Research Projects
      • At the start of the game, the only research projects that you can see initiate are the general research projects. The main one is Espionage Research. (You can read more about Espionage under the Building an Army to Defend Your Base and Attack Other Bases node.) Go to the Espionage tab and click the "Research" button to begin this project. Occasionally as you are upgrading your mines, you may need to do some research to get to the next level. This, too, will fall under general research.
    • Data Center Research Projects
      • Data Center research projects (also called data module researches) are advanced projects that require you to first Construct a Data Center before you will be able to do any of these. A good basic opening strat is to upgrade all of your mines to level 2, then construct the Data Center.
        
        After you construct the Data Center, you will find you can construct Data Modules. Look at it like this: the Data Center is just a building, a shell that can be used as a place for research. But to do any research, you need to build labs for the research to take place in. These labs are the Data Modules.
      • How do I begin a research project?
        • All you need to do is go to your Research Office (click the Research link) and click "Research" on the project you wish to begin. You can see how much it will cost, how long it will take and a breif description of the project explaining how the project can help your base and what level you are currently at in the project. Nearly all research projects have levels, very few, if any, require a single reseach to achieve the full goal of the project. You may only work on one research project at a time.
      • How do Data Modules and research work?
        • The data module researches each require a certain number of data modules in order for them to become availble for you to begin. For example, the Tour of Duty research project, which allows your armies to attack multiple times in a single outing, requires 2 data modules. This means that you will not see the Tour of Duty project appear as an availble project under your Research Office until you have 2 free data modules.
          
          Now you must be wondering "what do you mean free? Each time you begin a new data module research, you use up data modules. You can think of the data modules like labs in the Data Center. If you had 4 labs not being used (free), and you use 2 of them to research Tour of Duty, then you will have 2 free labs left.
      • How do I manage my research projects?
        • Your Data Center can only hold 30 data modules. Generally, you'll find you build additional modules as you have need to get certain research projects that you want for your base. Eventually , you will fill them all 30 data modules with different research projects, giving your base several useful abilities. However, at some point you may decide you no longer need the benefit of a certain research project and would rather have another. If you go to Base Operations, you will see a list of all research projects that you currently have, along with how many modules it is taking up and a "Cancel" button next to each one. Click "Cancel" to end the research project and free the data modules for a different project. Keep in mind, however, in most cases you will lose the benefit of the cancelled project. There are limited exceptions, but these are covered in the Intermediate Manual.
      • How many different research projects are there?
        • There are close to 30 different research projects right now. These projects require anywhere from 1 to 8 data modules depending on complexity and the value of the benefit. They range from various base abilities to special units, defensive structures and weapons. Obviously you can never have all 30 of them. It is also possible you will not see some of them, even if you have the right amount of free data modules. Some projects are hidden and require certain combinations of other projects in order for them to appear. For example, the Sandworm (a special unit) research project requires 2 data modules, but will not appear in your Research Office unless you have first researched Speed of Attack and Additional Mineshafts researches.
          
          There is no list of all hidden researches, some things must be discovered by playing the game ;)!
  • Tell me more about Construction
    • Construction is very simple. Just go to your Construction Office (click the Construction link) and you can see all of your available constructions and construction upgrades. Each construction project gives you a description of the project, the cost, and the amount of time it will take to complete. You may only work on one construction project at a time.
• Building an Army to Defend Your Base and Attack Other Bases
  • An important aspect of the game is protecting your base and attacking other bases. You can build armies by clicking Unit Production. For now, do not worry about all of the different ways to view units. Simply click the "ALL" check box and press the "View/Order Units" button. Now, you will see all units available that you can currently order. You see a description of each unit, its cost, its stats (offense, defense, speed) and how long it will take to receive the unit after you order it. To place the order, simply enter a number next to the unit you want and click the "View/Order Units" button. You will see a note appear at the bottom of the screen showing all of your current orders and how long they will take. After the time for the order is complete, the units will appear in your Base Army, which you can view in your Command Center
    
    TIP: If you want to see all of the units available in the game, click All Unit Stats in the manual. (actually, it is not all, but it is a large majority of them!)
  • So which units should I order?
    • There are two broad catagrories of missions: attack and defend. You place your orders based on which of these two you plan to do. You'll find there are some units that are primarily used for defense, some primarily used for offense, and some that can be used either way.
      
      Before you place an order, you should get familiar with what the units you are ordering are designed to do. There are a few example army layouts and explainations available for you to review. After you have a general idea of the different unit types (Tank, Plane, ASU, LRMW, etc), looking over those example army layouts should get you off to a good start.
  • Tell me about the different unit types like AA, ASU, TANK and all that.
    • There are 8 basic land unit types and 4 basic space unit types. There is some variation from the norm, but you need not worry about that for now. The basic land types are:
      - Special: Several units fall under this catagory, but the most important are the Tarantula and the Maurader. These are the most important offensive units. They are capable of stealing K-drones from other bases.
      - Armored Suit Unit (ASU): ASU's are one of your most important defensive units. They target all units that are capable of stealing your K-drones (ex. Tarantula, Maurader). ASU's are generally small, have low defense and need to be well protected.
      - Helicopters: Helicopters are primarily offensive but can be used for defense as well. They are used for striking ground based targets, particularly ASUs, mechs, and tanks.
      - Planes: Planes are a versitile set of units used equally in offense and defense. For almost any target that you need eliminated, there is probably a plane that targets it (except for ASUs).
      - Anti-air (AA): AA units are primarily for taking down enemy planes and helicopters. The often need protection from tanks and LRMWs.
      - Tanks: Tanks are one of your main ground based units for attacking other ground based units and base defenses. They generally have the best defenses. Tanks do not target planes or ASUs.
      - Mechs: Mechs make up another strong aspect of your ground based attack force. Very versitile, for almost any target you can probably find a mech that targets it (excpet planes).
      - Long Range Mobile Weaponry (LRMW): LRMW are cannons that stay near the back of the battle lines bombarding various types of units.
      
  • How can I get new different types of units for my armies?
    • All units are produced by different manufacturers. All manufacturers produce a variety of units at different unit levels. Unit levels refer to how advanced a unit is. For example, a level 1 unit is not as advanced as a level 3 unit. At the start of the game, you can only order level 1 units.
      
      Each manufacturer specializes with a different resource or set of resources. For example, the manufacturer Roc specializes with Bytanium. To get higher level units produced by a manufacturer, you must provide higher grade resources. Resources have 4 grades, D through A. At the start of the game, you are producing grade D (basically, raw) resources. You increase the grade of your resources by constructing and upgrading Refineries.
      
      So, for example, at the start of the game you can get a level one vehicle made by Roc called the Krusher. To get the level 2 Roc unit called the Hammerhead, you must construct a Bytanium Refinery. (For more on construction, see the Improving Your Base Through Reseach and Construction node.)
  • How do I defend my base?
    • To defend your base all you need to do is order units and build base defenses. All units in your Base Army automatically attack incoming enemy units whenever an enemy attacks your base. Also, if any of your three Strike Armies are at your main base, any unit in them will automatically join the base army and help defend your base when you are attacked. Any base defenses you have built also automatically fight when you are attacked. At the beginning of the game you will not be able to build any base defenses and will need to rely on your armies until you have upgraded your refineries enough to be able to order base defenses.
  • How do I attack other bases?
    • To attack other bases, you need to have already ordered units. After the units arrive, go to your Command Center. From there, you can move units from your base army to one of your three strike armies. Moving units between armies is easy, as you will see. Just enter a number in the unit row, select where you want to move them from and where you want to move them to, then click "Move". Any of your 3 Strike Armies can be sent to another base to attack. After you have have moved your units into a strike army, near the bottom of the screen you see a box for entering coordinates of where you want your army to go. Enter the coords of your target base, select which army you want to go attack, then click "Launch". Your army will launch immediately, and depending on how close or far the target base is, take anywhere from 0-7 weeks to arrive. Once your army arrives, an "Attack" button will appear in the Command Center to show you your army is awaiting your command to strike. Click the button and the battle begins!
  • How do the battles work?
    • Battles work fairly straight-forward. Keep in mind that this is the Beginner manual so there is some amount of summarizing, but if you can understand this you understand all that you need to know.
      
      When you attack or are attacked, units on both sides fire at their targets. The units with the highest speed fire first. The number of units destroyed depends on the total number of units fired, their offensive strength, and the defensive strength of the units being fired upon.
      
      Not hard to understand, right? So you see, the main stats of any unit are as follows:
      - Targeting List: determines which units this unit will fire upon and in which order it will fire at them
      - Speed: determines how early or late in the battle this unit will get a chance to fire
      - Offensive Strength: determines how much firepower each firing unit has and factors heavily into how many of the target units will be destroyed
      - Defensive Strength: determines how much firepower each unit being fired upon can withstand and factors equally heavily into how many of the targeted units will be destroyed.
  • Attack army layouts
    • Here are some common army layouts you can use as a beginner. The basic principle behind almost any offensive strike is to protect Tarantulas so they can take K-drones. Anytime you attack and your army has Tarantulas in it, if any Tarantulas survive the battle, they have a chance of taking K-drones. Getting more K-drones gives you a higher resource income. With more resources you can afford more advanced research and construction, which will give you more advanced units and increase your army layout options. This is one way to grow, making your base more and more powerful.
    • "Rush" Army
      • This is the most basic offensive strike, aimed solely at taking K-drones:
        
        - 100 Protectors-RO
        - 200 Tarantulas
        
        To build it, you will need to upgrade your Bytanium refineries to produce Grade C Bytanium, which will give you access to level 2 Roc units, like the Protector. The Tarantulas you can build with Grade D resources, so you can build those from the start of the game.
        
        The Rush Army works like this: the Protectors are a type of "shield" unit and have high defense. Most things that attacks Tarantulas must destroy all Protectors first. So the Rush Army works on the principle that the defending army does not have a strong enough defenseive front to destroy all 100 Protectors in a single strike. Any Tarantulas that survive the strike have a chance of taking K-drones. You will likely have losses, but it won't matter much as long as some of your Tarantulas survive the strike to take enough K-drones to make the mission a success!
    • Clear-Rush(Air) Army
      • This is a slightly more advanced offensive strike, aimed at getting rid of defenses then taking K-drones:
        
        Army 1
        - 300 Duster-WO
        
        Army 2
        - 50 Protectors-RO
        - 200 Tarantulas
        
        To build it, you will need to upgrade your Bytanium refineries to produce Grade C Bytanium, which will give you access to level 2 Roc units, like the Protector. The Tarantulas and Dusters you can build with Grade D resources, so you can build those from the start of the game.
        
        The Clear-Rush Army works like this: you launch both armies at the target at same time. When they arrive, you attack as many times as you can with Army 1. The Duster is a helicopter, and if you check its target list, you'll see it targets ASU's exclusively. So the Duster will destroy all ASU's at the target base first. Next, you attack with Army 2. Having cleared out all (or at least some) of the defending ASU's, your Tarantulas are free to go in and take all the K-drones they can! It's a good idea to keep a few Protectors in Army 2 just in case the Dusters aren't able to finish off all of the ASU's.
        
        
    • Clear-Rush(Ground) Army
      • Similar to Clear-Rush(Air), except Army 1 is ground based. Aimed at getting rid of defenses then taking K-drones:
        
        Army 1
        - 300 Lynx-UG
        
        Army 2
        - 50 Protectors-RO
        - 200 Tarantulas
        
        To build it, you will need to upgrade your Bytanium refineries to produce Grade C Bytanium, which will give you access to level 2 Roc units, like the Protector. You can build the Tarantulas and Lynx with Grade D resources, so you can build those from the start of the game.
        
        You would use this type of army instead of the Clear-Rush(Air) if you knew the target base had Anti-Air (AA) units, which could destroy helicopters, but was weak against ground based units.
  • Defense army layouts
    • Quick-n-Easy
      • This is the most basic defensive layout, aimed solely at stopping a Rush:
        
        - 1000 Busters-FL
        
        You can build this army from the beginning of the game. The Buster is the cheapest, smallest and most quickly built unit in the game. It is an ASU, which means it targets Tarantulas (and other K-drone stealing units) exclusively. This army works quite simply: if a Rush Army attacks, your Busters wipe it all out.
    • Basic Defense
      • This is the a slightly more advanced defensive layout, aimed at stopping a Rush or a Clear-Rush army:
        
        - 800 Busters-FL
        - 400 Hammerhead-RO
        - 200 Krusher-RO
        - 150 Viper-FL
        
        Hammerheads are another type of ASU. Like Busters, they target Tarantulas. However, they are heavily armored and have a much better defensive rating than Busters. The Krusher-RO is a heavily armored AA unit. As you get to know the manufacturers (which you can read about here: Manufacturers) you'll find that most Roc units (Hammerhead-RO, Krusher-RO) require a lot of bytanium but have the best defense. To build the Hammerheads Krushers, you'll need to build the Advanced Bytanium Refinery.
        
        With this army you have good defense to prevent small air strikes and rush attacks.
  • How do I find out what layout is at other bases before I attack?
    • Knowledge is power. Until you really know what you are doing and are fairly good at coming up with army layouts, it is a good idea to find out what is at a target base before you send your armies to fight there! Knowing what is there will let you know exactly what you need to send in order to achieve your goal.
      
      This is where your Espionage comes into play. Click the Missions link to see the missions available to your Espionage team. At the start you only have 2 missions - Search the Blackmarket and Army Layout. Enter the coords of the base you want to target, but leave the "Bytanium to spend" equal to 0. You will get an estimate of the cost to complete the mission. The cost will be filled in automatically. If you have the available resources, you can do the mission and you will receive a report of the enemy army layout. Then you can plan your own army layout to attack.
  • Where can I find targets to attack?
    • The first place to look is generally the people around your reputation range. If you click on Command Center, near the bottom in the launch box there is a blue button labeled "Extended Targets." Click on this to view a list of people within your reputation range.
      
      You can only attack people that have a reputation equal to at least 1/2 of your own. This is to prevent monster-huge players from preying on up and coming players.
      
      Another place to look is on the leaderboards. Click on Top Leaders, and in about the middle of the screen you will see a lost of those who have the most K-drones. Be aware, they may also be very well guarded, so you probably shouldn't try to take them as you are first starting out, but once you get good enough this will become a good place to look.
      
      Another way, and possibly the best way, is to join a clan. Clans are normally involved in battles or wars and will help you get to know the game while providing you with good targets to hit from enemy clans. Click on Clan Department to see a list of clans and the clan leaders. You can see which clans are top clans in Top Leaders, and you can read clan descriptions to find a clan that is the best fit for you.