Q&A for beginners

Q&A for beginners
These are Q&A for new players, based on my 8 months of playing this game and reading discord/kong chat. There are a bunch of people on kong who are more experienced than me, so if you think something can be described better, please give your suggestion and I'll edit the corresponding answer. I'll try to make the answers as detailed as possible, giving the crucial info. I'll try to develop this section when I have spare time. Got a lot of Q&A's in mind to cover.

Q1 - What should I know about mechanics of battles (expeditions - ambushes, hero in battles, repeatables, sabotage, pvp, convoys)
A - There are 6 unit types in this game: infantry, stormtroopers, heavy infantry, specials, machines and heavy machines. There is also a great variety of support available in the game, like artillery bombardment, shield, heal, turrets, drop pods etc. Try to win battles with your regular troops, which you can recruit. They can get very strong when upgraded. In battle you have a pool of deployment points. It starts with 3, max is 6 and replenishes 1 per a few seconds. Each unit/support has its deployment cost. You win if you either kill all opponent's troops (including mortar/machine gun positions that you can find on some maps) or your troops get to opponent's deployment circle. However in some modes rules are a bit different.

- In all types of battles except expeditions (circles on the world map - sunken battleship, dominion staging post etc) if you lose the battle you lose all the troops/support. If you win, you keep unused things. Also no matter win or loss, you lose troops you deployed, even if they were not hurt at all. However it's completely different in expeditions. You can get ambushed during expedition and your troops have to fight. In these battles you can (and should) spam your troops like crazy and they aren't lost after the battle if no member of the squad was killed. So it's good to use the strongest troops you have for expeditions. If at least one member or the squad dies during ambush and you win the battle, you can bring them back on expedition window by using first aid kits, which you can acquire through various rewards in game. But with good enough troops you don't lose anything even in hardest expeditions.

- In storyline missions, you must bring a hero with you. At start he's not very strong. If he dies, battle is lost. You will probably find out about it quickly by yourself. Also in events in the game losing a hero ends the battle instantly. But in pvp battles and convoy battles, death of your hero doesn't end the battle. One more important thing about hero in battles - you can control your hero's movement in pvp battles and some events like 'superiority' and 'behind enemy lines', that come to the game from time to time. In other battles, your hero just goes forward, so make sure he has a proper support from your troops.

-there are battles in which you can't have a hero with you. These are: - A short note about pvp: don't expect to win in pvp during first few weeks of playing. Work on developing your base and upgrading troops/hero first. I started pvping after more than 1 month playing with troops around lvl 6-7. Still there were few opponents I was able to beat. There are 2 separate leagues for pvp for some time. Junior league for players below lvl 20 and regular pvp league with lvl 20+. I can't say much about junior league because it was introduced when I was already lvl 20+.
 * ambushes (mentioned earlier),
 * repeatable missions - symbols of resources that pop up on your territories, after you win, it has a cooldown with various resources to gain. The more territories you conquer, the more missions appear on the map and they become a bit harder but give better rewards. Repeatables are a great source of extra income and important materials like manuals, city plans, research materials. First easy repeatable has 0.5h cooldown, when you have more territories 1h repeatables start to appear, with lvl 2 troops. around lvl 4 troops are required to beat them. Then there are repeatables with 3h cooldown, with lvl 4 troops. You need to have lvl 5-6 troops to beat it. On some maps you can sneak in enemy circle with drop pod. You can have up to 10 3h repeatables when having around 300 teritorries under control (I'm not entirely sure about that number though).
 * sabotage missions - special repeatable missions. They appear outside your territory. You need to kill buildings before enemy kills you. Gives 1 dominion chest (good one) and 1 investigated data - needed to decode intelligence in journal -> notes. This mission has 2 hours cooldown and gets a little harder the more territories you have. Need to have your troops a bit upgraded to beat this one.

- Convoys are one of the most rewarding things in this game. You team up with 4 other players to beat the boss. In the end you get nice chests and in every convoy there is a chance to get a hero. There are 3 difficulties, easy one has recommended troops level 8. It's mainly infantry/storms level that matters, they are responsible for majority of your damage output. If you're still too weak to deal good damage to the boss, there are people who can carry you so you can get rewards. You just need to deal some damage.

Q2 - Which buildings should I focus on to have a decent start?
A - I'd recommend for at least first week of playing focus on resources income. So forge/oil rig/armory/ionite mine/quarters, command center, warehouse. Generally Command center should be your main focus at all times. It gives daily taxes that are a great boost to your income. Especially the level 10 - 25 gold per day. Also note that by collecting taxes you can go above your maximum warehouse capacity, which is impossible when collecting from resource-producing buildings. For a start just upgrade forge and oil rig, as almost all buildings need both of these. Once you wanna build up your command center you'll need a bit bigger income of ionite. Ammo and recruits become important once you wanna start mass producing and upgrading your troops, but first few days you get enough troops and ammo from rewards for missions. When you have an option to build additional resource-producing building, go for it asap. Cost is quite high but after you build (for example your second foundry/oil rig) first levels of upgrades are cheap. That will boost your income greatly in the long run.

Once your forge/oil rig/CC/warehouse are at least level 5, ionite/ammo/recruits a bit lower, you will see you can now afford to build other things. Upgrading your troops in the barracks will allow you to go further in the stryline and conquer more territories. Training grounds are nice to have early, you can put your walker hero into training there to get free exp for him. Building Hall of Heroes before estabilishing decent income makes no sense, upgrading your hero stats costs resources, same as upgrading troops in barracks. Bio lab, tank factory, hall of elite legion, don't bother with these for now. Infantry and stormtroopers are the core of your army and give your squad most of its firepower.

It's normal that on different stages of the game some resources overflow your warehouse while others are lacking. I think the best way to try to balance it, is to go for upgrading building that provides resource you need the most at the time. Once you reach resource-producing buildings lvl 6-7, development of your base and troops will go much more smoothly. It may be a good idea to rush to command center lvl 10 once you have 2 forges and 2 oil rigs lvl 6-7. That 25 gold per day is great to have. It's gonna take a while though, so if you're not patient enough, then perhaps it's not your kind of game. After 8 months of playing I'm still far away from max level of most buildings.

For more detailed info about buildings I recommend to check out https://www.kongregate.com/forums/1012882-iron-rage/topics/1847302-macdrum-beat-blog-index?page=1#posts-13188692

Q3 - I need friends for daily taxes in Command Center and for Friendly assistance
A - Just hover your mouse over people's nicknames in kongregate chat room Iron Rage, there you have an option 'add friend'. And that's it. Then you can fill the slots in command center -> taxes with these people. About friendly assistance you just click 'send' and you automatically send signals to people you friended via kongregate chat. Also just click 'accept' and you automatically accept signals. Every 300 signals give a player extra chest that opens instantly.

Q4 - What's that referrals and how does it work
A - this referral system allows people to add others as 'friend' in game. It has nothing to do with friends needed for daily taxes and friendly assistance or sending/receiving signals (see Q3). You have a text area there to paste someone else's link. It works only one time. Once you paste and accept some other player's link, you cannot do this anymore. If you pasted and accepted someone's link, it means he has now you added as referral friend and gets some small one-time bonuses for you reaching player level 10, 15, 20 and 25.

If you want to have someone as referral friend, go to referrals page, click invite -> copy. It's your referral link. Someone has to copy your link, paste it in his referrals page and accept. But as i said, everyone is allowed to accept someone's link only one time per account. It means that most of the players who play for longer have already accepted someone's link and cannot accept yours. It basically means that if you want to have someone in your referrals friends, you need to find someone that's relatively new to the game, or convince someone to start playing. I have only 2 referral friends, my other account lvl 20 I don't play anymore and one real friend. Don't bother with these rewards for referrals friends. Sure, more gold is always nice to have, but there are many other ways to get free gold in this game. Master Rinzler (150 friends reward) is not a good hero. There are many better ones than him, including your first free hero Captain Walker.

Q5 - Which faction should I choose
A - Your basic troops (trainable in barracks) when upgraded a few levels, quickly become stronger than faction troops. First faction troop type you'll want to use is heavy infantry, but to train them you need your basic crusader upgraded to lvl6. Also Training of faction troops costs a lot. So in the beginning choosing faction doesn't matter much. After 8 months playing I have reputation lvl 7 in red and only upgraded heavy infantry to lvl 4, the rest of faction troops are unupgraded.

Main differences between factions are:

-red (my faction): has most soldiers per squad (in paarticular heavy is 3 man squad) thus biggest overall firepower. But they are weaker individually. That makes red vulnerable to AoE damage. Their special is fast moving meele unit instead of sniper. Unique upgrades for basic troops in academy: +dmg for infantry and +hp for crusaders.

-yellow: has the least people in squad (1 man heavy squad) but have the strongest individual stats. They have 2 men sniper squads. Unique upgrades for basic troops in academy: +dmg for snipers and +hp for stormtroopers.

-blue: is in the middle between red and yellow in squad numbers and individual stats. 2-men heavy squad and 1-man sniper squad.Their heavy infantry max armor potential however is 5 less than the other two factions. It makes blue less preferred lately, but some of the strongest and long time players on kongregate are blue faction and they're doing great. Unique upgrades for basic troops in academy: +hp for infantry and +dmg for hammer walking machine

So, as you can see, choosing faction doesn't affect your game very much. Just pick what you like the most :)

Q6 - What should I use gold for?
A - It's worth to wait with your first purchase with gold, until you have enough for a good skin for your infantry or stormtroopers. If I remember correctly it's 1375 gold for 'steel moon' skin in barracks. It's really worth it. It can be further upgraded for gold to become currently one of the strongest skins in game. It's arguable which skn you should buy first, some people say infantry, some storms. Maybe infantry would be better because in most battles infantry is the most used unit. Also having skin on them can make it cheaper to run repeatable missions/sabotage. On the other hand stormtroopers are the shield for your infantry and give possiblility to win some battles quickly. I personally went for stormie skin first. Next thing to save up gold for is guess what.. the other basic unit skin :p.

After you have skins for your most important units (infantry and storms), save up the gold for upgrades of machine gun and mortar positions. But that's a bit later, once you have design bureau built. Another thing that's worth spending gold on is hero equipment. Your basic hero captain walker can get really strong with upgraded stats, upgrades in academy and equipment for gold. Occasionally there are events where you can buy some good skins for troops. Speed ups for buildings/research/chest opening is a waste of gold in the long run. Better to use that resource to buy something that will give you a good permanent boost to strength.

Q7 - What should I know about researching technology in this game (description of related buildings, task for faction 'send reserch points', early game research order)
A - There are 5 branches of research, 4 of them the same for everyone (mechanics, tesla, genetics, occultism) and one specific for the faction you've chosen (see Q5). Academy reseraches is one of the most important factors in the game, that determines player's strength and ability to win battles.

Let's talk about research materials first. Your main source of them are repeatable missions (see Q1). 0.5h repeatable gives 15min research material, 1h repeatable gives 1h material and 3h gives 3h. Also you can find them in some chests. Chests rewarded for beating convoys give nice amounts. Higher level (6h, 12h, 24h) materials can be also found as rewards in events and storyline. After lvl 30 there are 4 expeditions that give 3 24h reserach materials, that should satisfy your needs forever. Try to convert research materials into research points whenever you can, hoarding them gets you nowhere.

There are 4 buildings related to research: About the task for faction 'send 50 x reserch points', it's not worth doing until you have tower of alchemy up and running.
 * Academy - each level of academy gives access to higher level of research, so only upgrade this building when you want to start researching higher level. While upgrading academy you can't extract research points from research materials and can't do researches.
 * Tower of alchemy - very important building, a huge milestone in your development. Allows you to convert research materials into research points, so you can simultaneously extract reseach points in 2 buildings at once. It increases your progress in reseach greatly. You can build it for free after getting certain amount of stars in 'overthrow' campaign (yellow eagle symbol on the map - also conquering that sector is required). You need to have your troops well developed to start doing this campaign. I think at least lvl 7 infantry/storm and completed crucial upgrades for them in academy (about these later in this topic). 35 stars in overthrow are needed for Tower of alchemy lvl 1, which lets you convert only 3min items. Higher lvls of Tower allow you to convert higher tier materials. After you get to 20+ stars in overthrow and can't beat higher levels with your regular troops, it's good idea to use some of your best premiums to push forward, so you can unlock access to this crucial building.
 * Alchemical laboratory - although it may seem it's useful - believe me, it's not :P. Allows you to convert lower tier research materials into higher tier material, using some ionite. To build and upgrade this building you need alembic. It can be obtained only as reward from campaign (for example revival 175 stars) or from maps (your journal -> maps). Map fragments can be found in dominion chests (obtained in sabotage - see Q1). Why is Alchemy lab not useful you might ask? Well, after you conquer enough territories and are able to beat 3h repeatable missions, you will have plenty of 3h research materials. Some 6, 12, 24h you will get from other sources mentioned earlier so you can start them when you gonna be offline for longer. After a few months playing you may start to run out of 6 - 12h materials, especially genetics, then laboratory may come in handy, but you can always start extracting other materials which you will have plenty of. Summary: Alchemy lab - one of the lowest priorities on your 'things to build' list.
 * Artillery factory - there you can upgrade your support, like bombardment, mustard gas, healing. I wouldn't spend research points there until late game, when you have plenty of research points and nothing to do with them.

Finally most important part of this topic is which upgrades are more important at early stages of the game and what's the proper order to research them. Generally focus should be on upgrades for your infantry and stormtroopers, because strength of these units will decide most of your battles.

First priority I'd give to upgrades that boost your production, so: Then on lvl 1 occultism you have +hp for your hero Walker - if your walker dies too often that's a nice boost to his hp. I'd skip +evasion for Walker until other important upgrades are done. On lvl 2 occultism you have Meditations +5 range for Walker - that's a HUUGE boost, definitely worth getting asap.
 * 1) at lvl 2 genetics - organic chemistry +15% fuel production
 * 2) at lvl 2 mechanics - calculation of (blahblah) +15% steel production
 * 3) at lvl 2 tesla - discovery of (blahblah) +15% ionite production
 * 4) at lvl 2 genetics - collecting genetic material +15% genetics research points

Next crucial upgrades on ealy stage of the game are for academy lvl 3 - 4: After all the crucial researches mentioned above are done, focus entirely on all other upgrades for infantry and stormtroopers. I would prioritize it like this: Upgrades for inf/storm are up to lvl 5 in mechanics tree, up to lvl 4 in occultism tree, On tesla tree there is also important +15% tesla research points, then on tesla lvl 6 there is +hp for storms and +evasion for infantry. Genetics tree is the one where most of upgrades for infantry/storms are. Higher upgrades take a lot of time but are worth it, because as I mentioned, strength of your infantry and storms is what mainly defines your army strenght and ability to win battles. Also each faction has one upgrade to either infantry or stormtroopers, available on lvl 1 (see Q5).
 * 1) at lvl 3 mechanics - advanced armor +armor for stormtroopers
 * 2) at lvl 3 and 4 occultism - psionics and psionic shell, + armor for storms, these will tremendously increase survivability of your stormtroopers
 * 3) at lvl 3 and 4 mechanics - cardridge belt and improved cylinder system +reload time for stormtroopers and infantry. These are very crucial. I wouldn't even try pvp before researching these.
 * 1) +armor for stormtroopers
 * 2) +dmg and +accuracy for infantry/stormtroopers and +hp for stormtroopers
 * 3) +hp for infantry (as they are not meant to fight in frontline)
 * 4) +evasion for infantry