NewPlayers:FoolieGuide
From TinyWarzWiki
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This guide will try to give players a walk-through of your first hour or so in-game. For those that want to jump straight into combat, you can try to use this guide instead. Onward!
Contents |
Basics
Currently you start Tinywarz with one resource, Command Points. You will use Command Points for almost every action in the game - recruiting, building, fighting, mining all require Command Points. If you do not have any Paid Days (which can be obtained with Tinybucks or purchased through Paypal) you will receive 50 Command Points at midnight (PST). Users with Paid Days receive 100 Command Points.
There are a few other resources you'll want to know about - Credits you can accumulate and spend later to buy items on the Black Market. Ore is mined from planets. Tinybucks are obtained by Paypal purchases (found on Account Settings) or Other methods (refer to Whis's Guide to Getting Paid Days).
The first thing you will want to do is acquire some construx. Construx are blueprints that will allow you to spend command and ore to build units. Click on 'Headquarters' and then 'Tinybucks'. Tinybucks are used in many of the things listed on this screen: reviving dead crews, training crews, buying sets and buying paid days. Paid users can also use Tinybucks to start a faction or trade in Tinybucks for credits.
Chat
Here is a whisper:
How the /r prompt works(sorry for the bad images):
It will automatically replace /r with /w <last player to whisper you>
You are able to switch the chat room you are in with the small icon next the the chat button, you can switch between All Chat, Trade Chat, Faction Chat and Planet Chat (when deployed) You are able to whisper to other users (only that user can see the message, and they will recieve it in any chat room) by using the command: /w username message (username is case sensitive). You my also reply to the last whisper you recieved through another whisper with the command: /r message
Construx
Next, Click on 'Construx', this will allow you to see what Construx you have access to. The default factionss have a number of Construx in shared slots that you can use. These will be lost when you leave the default factions to go to another faction. Some other factions have strux that are shared, and this is a consideration when choosing to join a faction. You can click on each individual construx, to see the specific stats and effects of the item that it creates. 3-D pictures represent vehicle modifications, bitmapped black units in green circles represent vehicles, and bitmapped black units in green squares represent buildings. The construx page will also list all construx that you have in your possession. Holding multiple copies of the same construx will allow you to produce that item more efficiently.
Construction
Now that you have some construx, you'll want to see what it will take to build them. Click on 'Manage Forces' then 'Construction.' You will see a list of vehicles, buildings and modifications similar to the one from the 'Construx' screen. Each vehicle, building and mod requires ore and command. Some also require additional mods that go into the construction of the unit. While you have lots of command, you're going to need some ore before you can build anything (you'll find out how to get ore shortly). Right now, feel free to look over the Construction page to see what it takes to build different items.
Stats
A vehicle has Shields, Armor, a Controlled Speed value, a Maximum Speed value, a Combat Efficiency, Weapons, and a Description (Flavor text):
- Shields are your vehicles first line of defense. They will take damage until they are depleted. Shields regenerate at a certain rate per turn. A vehicle that has 20 [+2/T] next to the word Shields, has 20 shields and regenerates two of those points per turn
- Armor represents the structure of your vehicle. Armor begins taking damage when the shields of the vehicle are depleted. A vehicle is destroyed when its Armor reaches 0. Additionally, hits against the armor of a vehicle have a chance of causing a critical hit, which will lower the unit's stats until it undeploys from the planet -- in essence, reduced stats are repaired to maximum as soon as you leave a planet.
- Controlled Speed is the furthest your unit can move without taking a significant penalty to its weapon accuracy. Your unit's effective controlled speed is the greater of its Controlled Speed rating and its Maximum Speed rating.
- Maximum Speed is the furthest your unit can move at all during your turn.
- Combat Efficiency represents the difficulty of fielding this unit. It takes 1 command to deploy 100 CE of units on a planet. This command cost is rounded down, so 999 CE costs 9 command to deploy instead of 10.
Oversight
Oversight represents special attention that you, as the commander of an army, pay to a vehicles construction. Vehicles constructed with a large amount of oversight have a higher chance to have slots for modifications. Oversight is a scale from 0 to 100%. The more oversight you put into a vehicle, the more command it will cost to produce. To build the vehicle, click 'build vehicle'. A bar will count down, and when it finishes click 'construction complete'
Weapon Types
(frame with black background added so that the icons look the same as they do in the game)
Vehicle Weapons come in three flavors:
The other icons you see in the Vehicle Weapons field represent range For example. A unit might have: This should be read: |
Energy Weapons
They can fire at any target up to their listed range away with a hit bonus, they can fire at any target up to twice their listed range with a hit penalty. They can only be fired if they are fully charged, so in the example given, the unit's energy weapon can only fire every three turns. Damage is fairly self explanatory.
In general, given to-hit bonus when close, the high damage potential in a single turn, and the fact that they don't run out of ammunition, Simple and Intermediate vehicles with energy weapons are best for training low-Gunnery crews against bandits. Experienced players also use energy weapons for hit-and-run tactics in PvP.
Energy weapons now receive a damage bonus if they are firing inside their optimum range. This bonus increases energy weapon damage from 5% to 50% depending on the range to the target. Energy weapons only receive this bonus if they are firing inside their optimum range (ie. if a weapon with a range of 3 hits a target 4 squares away there is no damage bonus). The damage bonus is as follows (ranges 9 to 6 are for Turrets):
+ 9 squares from target, 5% bonus damage
+ 8 squares from target, 10% bonus damage
+ 7 squares from target, 15% bonus damage
+ 6 squares from target, 20% bonus damage
+ 5 squares from target, 25% bonus damage
+ 4 squares from target, 30% bonus damage
+ 3 squares from target, 35% bonus damage
+ 2 squares from target, 40% bonus damage
+ 1 square from target, 45% bonus damage
+ Point blank (0 squares from target), 50% bonus damage
Ballistic Weapons
They can fire at any target up to their listed range with no hit penalty or bonus, but cannot fire beyond that. Ballistic weapons can fire every turn, but will be unable to fire if they run out of ammo.
Units with ballistic weapons can fill a wide variety of purposes, depending on the vehicle and mods for that unit. But, other than a couple of exceptions, they don't see much use in PvP due to the increased difficulty in enhancing the weapons' range.
Missile Weapons
They can fire at any target up to their listed range with a hit penalty. They can fire at any target from their listed range up to twice their listed range with a hit bonus. Missile weapons can fire every turn, but will be unable to fire if they run out of ammo.
Missile weapons are usually the most difficult weapons for players to master. Even with the bonus to hit, you and your opponent are likely to be moving to try and keep each other in range, which makes hitting unreliable with anything less than an Elite Gunnery crew. There are tactics to circumvent this problem, especially against bandits.
Crewing your Units
Now that you've gone over Construction, let's put your army together so you can go get some Ore. Click on 'Modify Units' at the top of your screen. You'll notice a list of vehicles on the top and a list of crews in the middle:
You'll also see there's a bottom row, that's where any mods, or vehicle modifications are (mods can range from extra weapons, more shielding, better speed, pretty much anything). You'll need to assign crews to your units on this page. The small empty square below the name and picture of the unit is a spot for a crew to man the vehicle. The large empty squares below the crew slot are spaces for mods, or mod slots. Click on a crew icon, and then click on the small empty square to place a crew inside the vehicle. If the crew you placed in the unit has a high enough piloting skill, the game will allow you to do this. (Simple vehicles can be piloted by Rookie = green pilots or better, intermediate vehicles can be piloted by Skilled = yellow pilots or better, Advanced vehicles can be piloted by Veteran=orange pilots or better, Mekas (vehicles with Meka in the name) require an additional level of skill to pilot (e.g. it takes a rookie pilot to crew a simple vehicle, but a skilled pilot to crew a simple meka). Adding mods is pretty much the same - click on the mod you want to add to a vehicle, then click on a mod slot under the vehicle you want to add the mod to. Then click confirm to send this change to the server.
Make sure you assign a crew to your Hedgehog Utility vehicle, this is your mining vehicle, you'll need it if you want to mine ore from the planets. If you need additional crews for your vehicles, you can purchase more for some Command Points from the Headquarters -> Storage page.
Note that as your crews level up, they start increasing the CE of whatever vehicle you place them in. The exception is your commander, who never increases his or her vehicle's CE.
Creating your Army
Once you have assigned crews to all your units, you will need to organize them into an army in order to do anything. You can add vehicles to your army in two places; either from the Modify Units panel or from the View Army panel. Click on Manage Forces -> View Army, and you will see all of your populated units in reserve and your commander (if they are in a vehicle). Click on "In Reserve" or "In Army" next to a vehicle to toggle it in-to or out-of your army. I highly suggest that you include at least one utility vehicle (a vehicle that can mine and salvage) in your army. As long as your commander is piloting a vehicle your Command Unit (the blue one) will always be in your army. The Command Unit represents you on the battlefield, he must deploy with your army, and if he is killed your army will be removed from the battlefield. For your first deployment, simply click "Make All Army" at the top of the screen and press Confirm. Clicking Confirm is a very important step, as your changes won't be saved without it.
Later on, whenever you don't want to field all your units, click on a unit you want to change the status of, then click the single-left arrow button to move it into Reserve or the single-right arrow button to move into into Army.
Though you shouldn't worry about it now, as you gain resources you should focus on optimizing your army for experience-gathering. The lower your command cost for deployment, the more experience your units get for each kill, until you get maximum experience for having a deployment cost is 9 command or less. Not only that, but a lower command cost means you can drop that army more often for the same amount of command.
Bases
You won't want to deploy a base right now, but it's good to know how to use one later on. When you deploy your army on a planet, you can place structures along with it. These structures can be arranged through the Manage Forces -> Base Designer page. Buildings, like vehicles require CE to deploy. In addition, buildings require power to function. If your base goes unpowered because of miscalculation or enemy attack, your buildings will lose their shields, and may even cease functioning. The common building types are as follows:
- Powerplants and fusion buildings, which supply power for other buildings
- Fusion buildings are tougher and produce more power, but they do damage to shields (not armor) around them if they're destroyed
- Refineries, which mine a small amount of ore every turn
- Repair bays, which will heal the armour of any unit on top of it
- Supply dumps & depots, which replenish ammo of any unit on top of it
- Thumpers, which reduce enemies' accuracy when they're moving within sight range of the base
- Observation posts and tracking stations, which enhance allies' accuracy when they're within sight range of the base
- Turrets, which can be used to shoot at enemies within their range
Buildings have a large amount of shields that regenerate quickly, but only a small amount of armor. This means that if you want to assault a base, it is often beneficial to destroy the powerplants first and then pick off the unshielded structures.
At this point you are ready to deploy on a planet, fight, salvage, mine and train your crews. But there are few more things you may want to look over. Your Command Unit brings a lot to the fight, he can be given special Commands and Abilities that improve the fighting effectiveness of his units.
Your Commander
Your command crew, which represents you in the game, must be placed on a unit for you to be able to deploy. As your fight, your command crew will gain experience and levels that you can spend to improve its piloting/gunnery, to give it new passive abilities, or new active abilities (called commands). To access the menu that deals with this, click on the 'Headquarters' button, then go to the 'Commander' tab. You should start with some level points to spend.
Piloting
Represents your command crew's ability to handle vehicles. A high piloting allows you to place your command crew in more advanced units. It costs 3 level points to upgrade from Rookie (green) to Skilled (yellow), 6 level points to upgrade from Skilled (yellow) to Veteran (orange), and 9 level points to upgrade from Veteran (orange) to Elite (red). Unless you obtain Paid Days, don't upgrade your commander's Piloting beyond Skilled, as you won't be able to access the vehicles and meka that require higher Piloting.
Gunnery
Represents your command crew's ability to handle weapons. A high gunnery increases your command crew's accuracy when firing. It costs 3 level points to upgrade from Rookie (green) to Skilled (yellow), 6 level points to upgrade from Skilled (yellow) to Veteran (orange), and 9 level points to upgrade from Veteran (orange) to Elite (red).
Abilities
These are passive traits of your command crew that will give bonuses to your army. Click on each ability to see a cost and description. Some abilties have pre-requisites.
Commands
These are activatable effects that you command crew can call down. Click on each command to see a cost and description. Some commands have pre-requisites. Using a command (the ability) costs command (the resource). I know this is linguistically bad. Commands have somewhat subtle and short term effects, but they can easily turn the tide of a battle.
Other Menu Items
There are several tabs that I am ignoring here, namely: Market, Communication, and Faction. I am hoping that these are fairly self explanatory, and you can get along for your first hour ingame without them. Still to mention each one of them briefly
- Market: Lets you trade construx, units, command, ore, credits, and even tinybucks for... construx units command ore credits and tinybucks.
- Communication: Lets you send messages to individual players and links you to the message board
- Faction: This is your 'guild'. When you begin the game your are placed in a starter guild. This guild gives you players that you can be associated with and who are friendly when you drop on the same planet. As time goes on, you can create your own faction for 50 TinyBucks, or join one that someone else has created.
Deploying to a Planet
Now, you have your army and have seen most of the menu screen for the game. It's time for the action part. As as starting player, you'll want to deploy to a Training Planet. These are planets that do not allow PvP (Player vs. Player) combat and have easier Bandits (computer controlled bad-guys). If a planet is a Training Planet it will say so in the text description when you click on it.
Click on 'Deployment', and then click 'Deploy'. You should see a number of planets orbiting a star. Planets are only accessible for a certain period of time. Hovering your mouse pointer over a planet will display it's name and the words "X turns to horizon". When horizon occurs, everyone's units are taken off the planet ceases to be accessible. It will re-emerge at some point and players can deploy on it again. If you click on a planet you can see the number of turns remaining and the cost to deploy on it. Planets have a one-minute turn length; any actions you set in one turn will start to take effect by the next turn.
What to do on a Planet
Once you choose a planet that you like, click 'deploy on this planet' you will be taken to a new screen, organized into large squares of 10X10 little squares. Lets call the 10x10 squares 'sectors'. You should recognize your base layout (if any), and your units will be scattered across the sector that contains your base (if any). There will be eight more sectors around the one your are in -- these 9 sectors together form a quadrant. If you move a unit into one of these sectors it will reveal the sectors adjacent to it. Your units and buildings will appear green (as will any friendly units and buildings). The blue unit you see on your screen is your command unit. (S)He is distinguishable only to you, and is very important. If your command unit is destroyed, all of your units will instantly recall and you will receive a command penalty proportional to your deployment cost.
While you are deployed there will be a counter that shows 'time remaining in the turn'. Turns while deployed happen at specific intervals, whether or not you are finished telling your units what to do. (Because of this, deploying a large force is highly discouraged as it is unlikely that you will be able to control all of your units in the time given).
Orders
Clicking on a unit brings up a menu that shows orders to give the unit 'Attack Target, Attack, Target, Set Waypoint, Give Command, and Status' orders. Orders will persist on a unit until they are accomplished. A unit you instruct to attack will continue to do so until you change those orders, or the unit being attacked is destroyed. Similarly, If you give a unit a waypoint, it will continue moving towards it until you tell it to move elsewhere, or it arrives. Commands (issued via the give Command tab) must be issued each time you want to use them.
All Attack
On the Training Planets only, you can click an enemy unit and select the All Attack option. This means all of your units within range will fire at that one enemy unit. After selecting this option, you can still click on your own units and change their orders.
Attack Target
This combines Attack and Target in one simple step. After clicking this option, click on the enemy unit you want your unit to fire at, and that one unit will set that enemy as the target and attempt to 'alpha-strike' with all its weapons
Attack
Brings up a list of targeted units and allows you to assign weapons to fire to each. 'Alpha striking' a target will fire all of your weapons at it
Target
Adds a unit to the targeting list in the attack window, and then takes you to that attack window
Set Waypoint
Give the unit a destination to move to. Your unit will move at it's maximum speed towards this target if it is out of range. (There is an option in the status tab that will let you force units to move only at their controlled speed)
Give Command
Gives the unit special commands, chosen from the commander section (see above). The two commands you will use the most will likely be mine and salvage (see below). Using Commands (the order) costs command (the resource). Some commands are issued on enemy units.
Status
Shows information about the unit. This can be used on enemy units.
End Turn
If you finish giving orders to your units before the turn ends click the 'End Turn!' button. Doing so will prevent you from issuing further orders, but will give you extra command, depending on how much time was remaining in the turn. You will still be able to view unit statuses and the map after you have ended your turn. If you deploy at the beginning of a planet's cycle and click End Turn with at least 30 seconds left every turn, you can earn back almost one-third the command you spent deploying your units.
Other Units/Bandits
If other players have deployed on this planet, you may find them as you explore. Even if there are not other players, there are bandits and ore deposits on the planet. Bandits are computer controlled units that will attack you on sight. Their AI isn't particuarly good, so you shouldn't have too much trouble dispatching them, but be careful, because it's still easy to lose a unit to them. Bandits appear as orange units. (Hostile players will appear as red units and Allies will appear as yellow-green).
Mining & Salvage
Ore Deposits will appear as yellow triangles on the map. Moving a unit with mining to the deposit and using a 'mine' command will give you a significant chunk of ore. Destroyed units will also appear yellow on your screen. Moving a unit with salvage capabilities to a yellow destroyed unit and using a 'salvage' command will attempt salvage on the destroyed unit. An attempted salvage might return ore (the salvage crew couldn't retrieve any working parts), or the actual unit that was destroyed (the salvage crew managed to jury-rig the vehicle enough that it could be repaired after you undeploy) and/or mods that were on the unit.
Undeploying
When the planet reaches horizon, you will automatically be undeployed from the planet for free and placed back at the main screen, hopefully with some spoils of war and mining. You can also undeploy earlier by clicking your commander, selecting Give Command, and selecting Request Dropship or Emergency Evac. Request Dropship takes FIVE turns to take effect and costs 1 command to issue. Emergency Evac takes 3 turns, but it costs the same amount of command you spent when you deployed your army. You should avoid using Emergency Evac if command, you'd rather lose the extra command than the units.
You can use the ore you mine from planets to build new units, or to sell on the market, or to your faction (Starter Factions will buy ore from players at a set price if there is no market otherwise).
Image Pack
-The Image Pack is used for anti-lag measures. That "penalty" you see by ending your turn early is NOT really a penalty, more like what you AREN'T receiving because you AREN'T using the Image Pack. To use the image pack and gain back that Command you need to go to your Account Settings, click "Download Image Pack." Then follow this guide:
