Boom Beach: guide for noobs :hinthint:

[Spectre]

Boom Beach: Arcade Otaku #88988922 (Android/iOS)

You can join the task force once your HQ is at level 6. Hit the task force button on the left (looks like 3 little heads in a ring), find tab, type in Arcade Otaku (we are the only task force with this name or similar). If your player name is different to your forum handle, put your forum handle in your join request or spam a lot of :awe: etc so we know you're one of us

Small beginnings
The in-game tutorial will teach you the basics, so watch carefully. There is no need to spend any diamonds at this early stage, but you can earn some back fairly easily if you really can't wait the small amount of time it takes the early upgrades to build.
You cannot be attacked by other players, or attack other players, until you upgrade your radar to level 2
With this in mind, it is sensible to max absolutely everything as far as you can before you upgrade your radar to level 2.

Defence
Early in the game, place your HQ tight against the docks (where your landing craft live). This ensures other players can only attack your base from one side, making it easier to defend. Trees and other obstacles do not act as barrier to attackers! Attackers can use flares to guide their troops through the forest, so your HQ must be defended from all sides.

Space your defensive towers out so that as many as possible cover the HQ whilst also covering each other. Overlapping fields of fire provide the best defence.

Avoid placing defensive towers so that they touch each other, including at the corners. A single well-placed artillery hit can otherwise damage or destroy multiple structures, giving a competent player a significant advantage against your base.

Try to place non-defensive structures near your towers, so that they don't give attackers easy pickings. All structures give the attacker extra gunboat energy when destroyed. Placing all your residences on the beach may make them look like pretty beach huts, but it'll give your attackers free gunboat energy which they can then use to destroy your base.

Here is a good example of a "docks" base;


Do not ignore your vault! The higher level your vault, the less of your resources that can be captured by attackers. This in itself will help to put attackers off and result in it being less worthwhile for players to attack.

Watch your defensive replays and analyse weaknesses in your defence. Use mines to your advantage and place them amongst your structures in the path enemy troops will likely take to get to your HQ. Always space mines at least 1 space apart to avoid them easily being picked off in groups by artillery. Large groups of mines or minefields used to create an artificial barrier are easily destroyed or simply flared around.

As you progress, be sure to consider what type of defences are effective against what type of troops. Try to ensure your base is effective against all types of attackers, rather than just concentrating on anti-troop (machineguns, rocket launchers) or anti-tank (cannons, boom cannons). Try to keep your HQ covered by at least a few anti-troop weapons to avoid being easy prey to smokey warriors.

With this said, prioritise Rocket Launcher and Boom Cannon upgrades once those weapons are unlocked. These are your most important defences and the ones attackers will target first with their gunboat.

As you progress and are able to clear away the forest and boulders, move to a corner defence (intermediate);


or beach defence (advanced);


These are sound defensive principles which force attackers to confront the majority of your defences before they reach your HQ. They allow you to better dictate the way attackers behave and protect your base accordingly.

[Spectre]

Offence
While a good defence will help you to hold on to resources, the real key to Boom Beach is being able to take what you need from others and then immediately spend it so your base is not an attractive target. Playing an aggressive offensive game is by far the quickest way to progress in Boom Beach, as it will net you significantly more resources than a balanced offense/defense approach and is practically incomparable to a pure farming setup.

There are several ways to steamroller your way to glory; attacking normal npc bases, attacking player bases and attacking special npc bases like Doctor Terror, Colonel Gearheart and those that come up in task force operations.

To do all of these you need a good amount of effective troops. With this in mind, the serious offensive player should prioritise landing craft, armory and troop upgrades above defensive upgrades.

Start by considering the Unit Size characteristic of the different troops available to you in the armory. There are some obvious thresholds in landing craft Troop Capacity, Troop Capacity 8 will give you 1 tank / 2 heavies / 4 zookas. Troop Capacity 12 will allow you to fit 3 heavies / 6 zookas / 4 warriors / 2 grenadiers. Troop Capacity 16 takes you to 2 tanks / 4 heavies / 8 zookas / 3 medics. Troop Capacity 18 boosts you up to fit 6 warriors / 3 grenadiers. Lastly you'll need Troop Capacity 21 to be able to load the scorcher! The levels between these thresholds (8/12/16/18) are far less useful, so look to upgrade each craft several levels back to back as needed to maximise your landing capacity.

Next consider the troop types you use the most and ensure you upgrade them in the armory as high as possible. It is not necessary or advisable to upgrade everything available in the armory before upgrading the armory itself. While this isn't such a bad thing a lower levels to ensure a certain amount of balance, at intermediate levels onwards that extra 5 seconds of flare duration or extra 10% dps in a troop type you rarely use is better off being ignored in favour of upgrading the armory and unlocking the next heavy and zooka upgrade level.

Last but by no means least, upgrade your gunboat and make sure you make use of at least 2 gunboat energy statues as soon as you are able. Each extra level of gunboat energy will make a significant difference to every attack you make and just 1 or 2 energy can often be the difference between success and failure. Always upgrade your artillery and barrage levels first in the armory, as the strength of your first strike prior to landing troops will often be the biggest single factor in whether your attack is a success or failure. There is nothing more soul destroying than seeing an otherwise well-executed attack fall flat on it's face because that second rocket launcher left clinging to life by your gunboat subsequently managed to obliterate your entire pack of zookas.

Hooka
The "best" attack strategy is the Heavy and Zooka combination, aka hooka. Load half of your landing crafts with heavies, the other half with zookas (if you have an odd number of landing craft, take more heavies). The key to this combo is their differing attack ranges, health and damage amount. Heavies have a short attack range, high health and low damage. They are the meat shield of the setup and their job is to screen the zookas and soak up damage. Zookas have a long attack range, low health but high damage. They are the damage dealing part of the combination and will tear through the opposition defences in very short order, so long as you keep them protected.

Your priority should be to eliminate any Boom Cannons that you cannot avoid, as these will quickly reduce your meat shield of heavies and leave your zookas unprotected. Use your gunboat to destroy any Boom Cannons before you land your troops, or ensure you have enough gunboat energy for Shock Bombs to keep the Booms quiet while your troops take them out manually.

After Boom Cannons, your secondary concern should be Rocket Launchers. While typically these will not deal enough damage to scare your heavies too badly, their long range will steadily chip away at your heavies health until your advance grinds to a zooka-massacring halt. You should also be very wary of flanking any Rocket Launchers on your way to the HQ, or you can quickly find them targeting your zookas in the second wave and leaving you woefully short on dps to get the damage done. Again, either take them out with your gunboat, or make sure you can deal with them en-route to the HQ, using Shock Bombs where necessary.

Hooka is a very effective strategy which remains relevant right through to the very highest levels, in fact it is an entirely viable strategy to play hooka almost exclusively (tossing in some medics or cryoneers for additional utility at higher levels). Moving on to some of the other strategies below before you are fully competent with hooka will make you a weaker player in the long run, as it is easily the most versatile combination and one you will not easily be able to live without.

TMed
TMed is a very simple combination which is highly effective against the right target. By taking 1 or 2 boat of medics with a large loadout of tanks, you can ensure the tank's high health is constantly replenished to the point that all anti-troop weapons (machineguns, flamers, mortars, rocket launchers) and can effectively be ignored, and even medium anti-armor weapons like sniper towers and canons present a much lower threat profile unless they are very high level.

As with Hooka, your priority is to eliminate the one remaining true threat to your attack, Boom Cannons. The achilles heel of the TMed strategy is the relatively large amount of gunboat energy needed to land your tanks in the first place, 2 energy per tank. As a result, you may find yourself short on gunboat energy needed to take out all Boom Cannons with artillery and then land your tanks. There are several solutions to this; boost your best gunboat statue, only land some of your tanks and then use them to capture more gunboat energy to land the rest, find a route to the HQ that lets you flare around one or more Boom Cannons or lastly reduce the amount of gunboat energy you spend destroying one or more Boom Cannons by using Shock Bombs and your tanks themselves to take them out, rather than artillery.

One last thing to consider with the TMed strategy is the presence of any Shock Launchers. Due to the slow movement speed and relatively low dps of tanks (considering the small number you can fit on your landing craft), you will sometimes find yourself battling the clock more than the defences. One or more Shock Launchers can seriously compound this issue, so be sure to carefully consider which ones if any need taking out using the same general strategies as those you use to deal with Boom Cannons.

Smokey Warriors
coming soon

Grenadiers
coming soon

[Spectre]

Statues, FAQs and Advanced Tips

Statues
In order to create statues you must build the Sculptor hut, which is available at HQ5. Statues give you various boosts depending on the type created and make a huge difference to your overall progress within the game. You can collect random power stones by destroying bases, from submarine dives and from reward chests (daily/operation). These stones can then be spent to sculpt statues. A quick overview;

Green life statues boost resource production
Red magma statues boost troop stats
Blue ice statues boost building stats (both on your base and resource bases)
Purple dark statues boost your gunboat and reward amounts

7 power stone fragments (smallest) are needed to build 1 idol statue (weakest)
7 power stone shards are needed to build 1 guardian statue
7 power stone crystals (biggest) are needed to build 1 masterpiece statue (strongest)

The number of statues you can deploy at once is dictated by the level of your sculptor hut, starting with 3 statues at level 1. Additionally you can convert statues into power stones by destroying them. An idol gives you 1 shard. A guardian gives you 1 crystal. A masterpiece gives you 7 power powder, each of which can then be used to double the bonus given by a statue for a set time period.

You can have multiple idols and guardians of the same type, but only 1 masterpiece statue of each boost type. By far the most useful statue type is the gunboat statue (purple) and to begin with you should concentrate on exclusively sculpting these as they will make the biggest difference to your ability to destroy bases and therefore gather resource. Once you have a healthy 50%+ boost to your gunboat energy from statues, I would recommend then using other slots in the following order of priority;

Power stone chance (purple) - this will dramatically increase the rate at which you can improve your statues
Resource reward (purple) - gain more resource from every base you destroy
Troop damage/health (red) - which of these two is better is entirely situational, so go with whatever gives the bigger boost until you can have both
Building damage/health (blue) - same as red statues, it's a toss up which is better, so go with whatever you manage to sculpt at the highest percentage until you reach sculptor hut level 6, can fit 8 statues and can have both
Production increase (green) - while they may look tempting and you will be awash with power stones to make them, green statues actually help you the least in the long run. I would not recommend keeping a green statue for any length of time until sculptor level 7 when you can fit 9 statues (and even then I would recommend an extra gunboat or resource reward guardian instead). If you do build a green statue, the one you want to be aiming for is an All Resources masterpiece. This type boosts all 4 resource types at once and therefore gives you the biggest total boost compared to the other types. You will also avoid severe resource imbalance this way, meaning all of the boost is useful.

The "perfect" statue setup at sculptor level 8 (10 statues) and therefore the build priority you want to aim for is as follows;
Gunboat Energy masterpiece - 42%
Gunboat Energy guardian - 17%
Gunboat Energy guardian - 17%
Power Stone masterpiece - 75%
Resource Reward masterpiece - 50%
Resource Reward guardian - 20%
Troop Health masterpiece - 35%
Troop Damage masterpiece - 32%
Building Health masterpiece - 32%
Building Damage masterpiece - 37%

These are the maximum percentage boosts you can gain from each statue type.

It's worth mentioning that if you are a less active player, you may wish to swap the resource reward guardian for a green All Resources Production masterpiece instead, 25% is the maximum boost.


FAQs
Q: What should I use power powder on?
A: Power powder is best spent on your offensive masterpieces and your resource reward masterpiece. Doubling your gunboat and resource reward masterpieces when Doctor Terror is up and you have enemy/npc bases waiting to be swiped is a good way to amass a large amount of resources in a short period of time. See advanced tips below.

Q: When should I upgrade my HQ?
A: As soon as possible! There is no penalty for upgrading your HQ. Each upgrade gives your HQ more health, unlocks new structures and increases the level you can upgrade your buildings and troops to. As soon as you hit the level requirement for the next HQ upgrade, you should look to upgrade your resource storages to be able to hold the required amount and then swipe enough resource to start the HQ upgrade. Boosting your resource reward statue will help with this!

Q: Do I need to protect my vault?
A: No. The higher level your vault is, the more of your resources are protected from attackers. Destroying the vault itself does not negate this effect or give the resources stored in the vault to the attacker. The vault is just another structure.

Q: What order should I upgrade my defences in?
A: I would recommend prioritising your Rocket Launchers, Shock Launchers and Boom Cannons, however beyond that you should upgrade your defences evenly. A good rule of thumb is to check the build time on all your other defences and then upgrade those with the shortest times first to keep everything else at the same relative strength.

Q: What should I spend diamonds on?
A: Diamonds are best spent in one of three ways. 1- to buy you that last little bit of extra resource for an important upgrade, when the alternative would be to sit on 90% or more of what you need and risk losing it to raiders. 2- to quickly finish loading that last landing craft or two and maximise your attacks while your offensive statues are on boost. 3- to finish off an existing upgrade when you have resources ready for the next upgrade sat vulnerable.

Q: All the player bases on my map are too strong for me to beat, help!
A: Upgrade your landing craft to be able to deploy more troops and boost your troop levels in the armory. Share attack replays with the task force and ask for tips. Wait 48 hours until any bases you cannot beat have the yellow exclamation mark and then use the "find new opponent" button. There is a +/- 100vp window on player bases, so by changing through your opponents you should get at least some which are lower down the food chain than yourself.

Q: How do I use smoke bombs?
A: Smoke bombs hide your troops from enemy defences. To use them, fire them ontop of your troops or to a place on the map your troops are about to advance into. They only block line of sight to and from things inside the smoke. No enemy defences can fire on your troops while they are under the smoke, but neither can your troops fire out. They are best used to allow you to bypass areas of defences without having to destroy them, or to allow you to land your troops safely on a beach that is inside the threat range of defences that would otherwise decimate them.


Advanced Tips
By far the most important tactic in general play is boom and bust. By only collecting the amount of resource you need for the next build/upgrade and immediately spending it, you do not present a valuable target to other players and your base will be largely ignored. When it is raided, you will give away very little. You do not waste time and troops destroying bases only to have the resources you gain be taken away from you again. You also do not maintain a VP count well past what is typical for your player level, ensuring you are rarely outmatched and your resource bases prey to higher level players.

To do this we must be able to gather large amounts of resource in a very short period of time. The easiest way to do this is to organise your play pattern around the appearance of Doctor Terror. Each time Doctor Terror appears, we boost our Gunboat Energy masterpiece and Resource Reward masterpiece. We now have a 3 hour window before our boost runs out, during which we raid solidly, starting with Doctor Terror (as far as you can go), then at least 5 npc bases (to unlock the VP reward chest), then any other npc and player bases to suit. You may wish to spend a small amount of diamonds during this period to load your landing craft quicker, particularly when a single boat has a much longer replenish time than the rest due to unbalanced troop losses.

Doctor Terror appears 4 times in the event cycle, with Gearheart and Hammerman between 2 Dr Terror events back to back. With this in mind, you can link together two lots of boom play (boosting and intense raiding) before you go bust (spend all resource) if needed. This is a risky tactic however, as it means sitting on a pile of resource from your first boom session until Doctor Terror appears the second time. At higher levels you may wish to boost your blue ice statues during this time period.

Blue statues are also particularly useful in hanging onto resource bases. As you will typically be matched with other players at a similar level, your blue statues can make the difference between that pesky player being able to swipe your resource base for a 3 consecutive time or finally falling flat on his face. Resource base contests can often become a war of attrition, so demonstrating your determination to hang onto that resource base by burning power powder on boosts can give you a significant edge. As can logging onto the game regularly and immediately taking back any resource bases which are captured. These two behaviours will help to give the impression that you will at worst be a constant thorn in your opponents side as he looks to hang onto the base, making him all the more likely to move on to easier pickings.

Once unlocked, Critters are a valuable tool in your arsenal and have a high level of utility. On the surface they can be thought of as an alternative shock bomb, distracting defences while your troops advance, but their ability to damage and destroy structures should not be overlooked. The deadzone around rocket launchers, shock launchers and mortars is an achilles heel which critters can exploit. Always keep an eye out for these defences not being covered by other towers, as a single pack of critters can then take them down in safety. Even if they are covered by other towers, a pack of critters can be used as an artillery substitute against these defences, chipping off that last 5% of health at a lower gunboat energy cost than the next artillery shell. Also consider non-defensive structures left out in the wild. A pack of critters can rip through these, pulling down the HQ health and giving you back gunboat energy in the process. This tactic is particularly useful with player bases, as many players will shove their non-defensive structures to the back of the map without considering the threat critters pose. Pull down the launchers, fire some critters to the back of the map and then march your troops to glory, rapidly gaining gunboat energy from the critter assault as you advance and then distracting the HQ defences just as you arrive from the other direction!

[Spectre]

Just after the mega crab event is a great time to raid player bases, lots of easy loot around