Your First 30 Minutes in the Wasteland

When you first log in, you'll see the Settlement View — a grid of building slots, a resource bar at the top, and sidebars with queues and troop information. Here's what matters right now:

The Resource Bar runs across the top. You have four resources: Scrap (building material), Concrete (fortification), Fuel (advanced tech), and Food (troop upkeep). Each shows your current amount, storage cap, and production rate per hour. You start with 500 of each — a full stockpile at your base storage cap.

The Building Grid shows your settlement's buildings. You start with a single Level 1 Bunker — this is your headquarters. The Bunker controls how many building slots you have and caps the level of every other building. Right now you have 8 slots with 1 used.

Your Level 1 Bunker. It doesn't look like much yet — a scrappy shelter cobbled together from scrap metal and tarps. But every settlement in the wasteland started here. By the time it hits Level 30, it'll be an imposing fortress.

The Left Sidebar shows your build queue, training queue, and troops at home. It's empty right now — that's about to change.

Your first priority is resource production. Without resources, you can't build anything else. Here's the optimal opening build order:

1

Build a Scrapyard (empty slot)

Scrap income

2

Build a Quarry (empty slot)

Concrete income

3

Build a Farm (empty slot)

Food for troops

4

Upgrade Bunker to Level 2

Unlock higher levels

5

Build a Warehouse (empty slot)

Increase storage cap

6

Upgrade Bunker to Level 3

Unlock military buildings

7

Build a Training Camp (requires Bunker 3)

Train troops!

Once your Training Camp finishes, you can train your first soldiers. You have three unit types available at the start:

The Training Camp is where your army begins. At Level 1 it's a rough training ground — but it's enough to start producing fighters. Higher levels reduce training time by 5% per level.

Scouts (0 attack, 30 speed) — can't fight, but they're the fastest unit and essential for gathering intelligence on enemy settlements later. Skip them for now.

Scavengers (10 attack, 50 carry) — cheap, fast, and carry a lot of loot. Your primary raiding unit in the early game. Their attack is low but they're expendable and their carry capacity makes raids profitable.

Militia (25 attack, 30 defense, 15 carry) — the backbone of your army. Better fighters than Scavengers but slower and carry less. You'll want a mix of both.

Your first training order: Train 20 Scavengers and 10 Militia. Use the MAX button to see how many you can afford, then adjust. This gives you enough firepower to raid a Level 1 raider camp while the Scavengers haul the loot home.

Click the World Map tab to see the wasteland. Your settlement is the green marker in the center of the view. The map is 500 × 500 tiles — you're seeing a small chunk of it.

Drag to pan around the map. Scroll to zoom in and out. When zoomed in, you'll see terrain sprites — cracked wasteland, ruined buildings, dead forests, glowing radiation zones, and dark mountains. When zoomed out, it simplifies to colored tiles for performance.

The things you care about right now are the raider camp markers scattered around your settlement. They come in five tiers based on difficulty:

Click a camp to see its details — level, estimated garrison, and the Attack button. Find a Tier I camp near your settlement. The closer it is, the shorter your march travel time.

You have troops. You've found a camp. Time to fight.

Click the camp on the map and hit Attack. The march panel opens. You'll see your source settlement, the target, the distance, and a troop selector. Select your troops — for a Level 1 camp, send all your Scavengers and Militia. Use the ALL button to select everyone.

The panel shows three important numbers: Total carry capacity (how much loot your troops can haul home), Travel time (how long until they arrive — based on your slowest unit's speed), and March slot usage (you start with 1 march slot; upgrade the Radio Tower for more).

Hit Send March. Your troops are now traveling to the target. You can see the march on the map as an animated line with a moving dot showing troop position. The right sidebar shows the countdown timer.

When troops arrive, combat resolves instantly. You don't need to be online. The cron tick processes the battle and creates a report. Your surviving troops automatically begin marching home with whatever loot they captured.

After your troops arrive and the battle resolves, a new report appears in the Reports tab (the nav badge shows your unread count). Click into a report to see the full breakdown:

Result — Victory or Defeat, plus the luck factor (a random modifier between -15% and +15% that can swing close fights).

Attacker Units — shows how many of each unit type you sent and how many survived. The difference is your losses.

Defender Units — shows the camp's garrison and their losses. On a victory, the defender loses everything. On a defeat, you lose everything.

Loot — the resources captured, split across all four types. This was capped by your surviving troops' total carry capacity.

Points — experience points earned. These increase your player ranking and contribute to your settlement's score. Points never decrease.

After your first successful raid, you should have more resources than you started with. Now it's time to build the engine that will power everything else. Your priorities over the next hour:

1

Upgrade Scrapyard and Quarry to Level 3-4

Higher production

2

Build a second Farm (multiple allowed)

Support more troops

3

Upgrade Warehouse to Level 3-4

Don't waste overflow

4

Build a Granary

Food storage cap

5

Build a Refinery (requires Bunker 3)

Fuel for later

The resource loop: Build resource buildings → produce more resources → upgrade buildings → produce even more. Between builds, keep sending raids to supplement your income. A Tier I camp gives 200-700 of each resource per raid. That adds up fast when you're raiding every 15-20 minutes.

You've built your foundation, trained an army, and raided your first camp. Here's what to focus on as you grow:

Push Bunker to Level 5 — unlocks the Watchtower (incoming attack warnings) and Radio Tower (alliance features + more march slots)

Build a Watchtower — without one, you get zero warning when someone attacks you. Higher levels reveal more detail about incoming threats.

Build a Radio Tower — unlocks alliance membership and gives you additional march slots so you can farm multiple camps simultaneously.

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Join an Alliance — solo players get conquered. Alliance members get defended. Find an active alliance and join as soon as your Radio Tower is up.

Build a Barricade Wall — adds a percentage defense bonus to all your defending troops. Every level matters when someone comes knocking.

Build a Workshop — unlocks the Research tree. Three branches (Offense, Defense, Economy) let you specialize your playstyle.

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Start farming Tier II camps — as your army grows, graduate to yellow (Level 3-4) camps for significantly better loot. Bring extra troops.

Unlock Snipers — at Workshop 5 + Training Camp 5, you can build a Sniper Nest. Snipers are glass cannons with 50 attack — devastating on offense.