Saturday 21 April 2012

Battle Pirates Cheats Guide - Guide to Base Designing


Foreword/Acknowledgements(You can skip this part if you want)
I did this guide because until now noone did one yet. Until now most of the most important things of Base Building isn't written down anywhere public and so many peope do not know how to design a good base. I want to thank in advance RazorUK and Joel Stoner for designing the program I use to illustrate what I mean. I also want to thank It_Is_Da_XxStephenxX, The M and Curtis Smale for reading through this guide and giving me suggestions how to improve it.


Introduction
So here you are. You got 85 land pieces,14 turrets and you need to protect all or most of your important buildings with it. Sounds complicated,doesn't it? Actually it isn't that difficult. Once you know what you need to do you will think yourself "Oh man...why didn't I realise that before". So here is my guide. The base design I used for my examples was one I fast created. It isn't supposed to be the best base design but it does is work for this cause. The base design in this thread is not the one I use but got similarities to my next one. So read what you want to know and...enjoy.


Part 1: Center Island
Your Center Island should have your Wh(Warehouse),OP(Outpost) and if possible also labs(Research buildings).It is the part every attacker wants to reach. This island needs to be made as hard to be reached as possible. There are ways that an attacker could shoot over the backside of your base and do something that is called "sniping"(taking out wh without entering the channel). To do sniping you need SFB(Solid Fuel Booster) 3 Assault or Cutlass missiles though Assault missiles got better DPS (Damage per second) and range. To protect your wh from getting sniped you need to have either:
A 4 water tile wide channel
A 3 water tile and 3 wall pieces distace from your outer land ring


Example:








You may have realised that I only have 4 Wh. 4 Wh are enough to allow you any research or upgrade. Having 4 wh will give you more land tiles to work with but you can't store up as much res as with 5 wh. It's up to you what you preffer.


Part 2: The Channel
Your Channel is the part of your base that the attacker needs to pass to get to your important buildings(Wh and OP). This channel should be as long as possible and also have as many turns as possible. The turns slow the attacker down and if the attacker's fleet is too fast the ships will ram into the walls which will cost some precious time and bring extra damage to the attacker. To be able to create the biggest amount of turns your channel should be only 2 water spaces wide(what is the minimum) There are 2 common types of channels but there are also other types that are rarer or have some disadvantages. There are some things that you should have at your Channel:
Enough place to put all your 14 turrets in it
Not too close to the center island so that the attacker will be forced as much as possible to pass through the full length of your channel
Some space at the start of your channel where you put unused labs or RGs(Resource Gatherers) to make it as least preppable as possible
Space to put your defending ships


Example:






I numeroted the turns. This base has 6 turns what many say is enough turns, although some say that you should have 7 turns. This base also has 3 tiles between the channel and the center island, which means that to snipe the Wh or OP from inside the channel you would need to stop and beach the ships (move ships onto the land until they are the closest they can get to the border of the water and land tiles) if you are using PMs(Peacemaker Mortar). This would mean that Vics(Victory Mortars) would rain down on the attacker dealing extreme damage. The ships can get placed in and along the channel. These can then work as extra turrets boosting your firepower drastically





Part 3:Big Buildings
In your base you have 9 big buildings whom 2 are water-based. The most important of these buildings are your labs,your launch pad and your dock. You should do everything you can to protect these buildings. A good base should have the launch pad,at least 1 lab and the dock secure. If one fo these buildings gets destroyed you would else loose some precious time at research or you will spend a long time repairing them. Another consequence if an upgrading building is destroyed is that you could get 8 extra hours added to the upgrade time. There are 3 different states about how secure a building is:
Protected: A protected building can't get sniped or trolled from the outside. These buildings normally find themselve on your center island
Semi-Protected: A semi-protected building can't get destroyed without entering the channel and being under turret fire
Unprotected: An unprotected building is a building that can get destroyed without the enemy getting damaged. These buildings are normally at the entrance of your base to contribuete to a faster bubble




Example:




After doing my channel I saved up 4 land spaces which ones are marked now by the red circles. The launch pad and 2 labs are secure but the dock is only semi-protected. You can switch the labs when you have one that's more important research in one of them or if you are upgrading it.





Part 4: Turret Placement
I will split this Part up in 2 sections as it is important to mention advantages and disadvantages of each turret weapon but also where to place it.


Advantages and disadvantages of the different turret weapons
Now we are coming to the probably most important part of Base Designing. No matter how good your channel is, if you dont have a good turret placement it won't save you. You got 5 different weapons for your defense, 4 offensive and 2 defensive. The 3 offensive weapons are:
Sentinel Missiles
Howitzer Cannons
Victory Mortars
Cerberus Rockets
Each of them got advantages and disadvantages. Sents are the most standard weapon. They outrange any fleet weapon and also got 100% accuracy and a good damage. The only disadvantage at sents is that many people use RA on their bas efleet due to the insane damage they deal if you don't have RA(Reactive Armor). Howies are the strongest base defense. They have a low accuracy and range but their even crazily high damage destroys any ship in seconds. It got a short range what allows the attacker to take it out without getting in range and that's why you should always cover your howies with sents and vics behind. Vics have a long reload,spalsh and if they hit also a high damage You should put them in your back row so they don't get destroyed. CRs (Cerberus Rockets) are used to put an end to a blitz fleet. Their high DPS with splash makes them absolute deadly for any grouped ships. You should put them between your howies as they also are short range weapons and can even easier be taken out from distance than howies due to shorter range. For turret placement there is a very simple law: Put howies to make them stop and vics to make them move. You should always have a good mix of these three offensive turret so the attacker needs to be forced to take RA as sents have a good damage and range making them deadly without RA 3. The 2 types of defensive turrets:
Bombard Rockets
Flak Guns
Bombards aren't forced to be in a base design but they keep your towers alive longer against mortar shells. Flaks are quite must since the realease of SFB as SFB 3 siege missiles can outrange howies and making them nearly unstoppable without a flak. Defensive turrets do as their name states. They don't have any offensive abilities and so they do not damage the enemy ships.You shouldn't have more than 4 defensive turrets in your base or else you will lack in firepower.


Placement of different Turrets
You should place all your turrets along your channel in the inside of your base so that the attacker is forced to destroy or at least to be under fire as much as possible from each of them. You got much freedom where you place your turrets but there are some basics that need to be followed for a good base. First your first turret that the attacker can shoot on should be a sent. This will make it harder to prep and also will keep small ships out. You should also place sents at 180 turns if these ones can be shot on from the outside(what people normally can as you have a 2-wide channel to safe land pieces). Else the attacker can prep this turret without getting damaged from the outside. Your howies and CRs should be your first line of defense. Put them the closest to the channel possible to exploit their full range.As these ones got short rage you should put sents and vics behind them. Vics are preffered as these ones deal more damage and also have splash. As I mentioned before,you should place your vics in the last row. From there they can shoot on the enemy without that the enemy can fire back. You should also try to place them so that they fire simaltanously to break through the AM(Hailstorm Anti-Mortar) of the attacker. Your bombard(s) should be placed so that they cover your howies. This will make it harder for the attacker to destroy them and make him loose time. Your flak(s) should be placed so that it covers your howies.


Example:


Orange means that it is a flak,the hidden turrets are vics


As you can see, my first turret is a sent and at the 180 turn I can also have a sent. 3 of the vics fire simaltanously once you passed the first turn. The bombard can cover all turrets with EP(Enhanced Propulsion) but the first sent and the first and the last vic. The howie in the second row can be changed to another sent but I cover my hot-spot with 5 howies with this turret placement.


Part 5: Finishing off your base
Now you should have a quite descent base. There isn't anything very important you can still do. You should know just place your wh all along your channel with the highest level ones first. You can relook over your base and see if there are any way to save land or to protect more labs.


Example: 




But this guide is not finished yet...this was the main part but as you may have relised there a many places in the text where I said that I will adress it later...and this later is now.





Specials


Right now there are 8 different specials you can put on your turrets:
Reactive Panels
Ablative Panels
Layered Panels
Thermobaric Casing
Scram Jet Engines
Slide Loader
Enhanced Propulsion
Barrage Racks


Each of them either improves the turrets ability or reduces the damage it takes. Some people want to beat the enmy fast so they use offensive specials others want him to run out of time and use armor. I will write about if you always choose the offensive one when you can. For howies you should use Ablative or reactive panels. This depends on your location or how your turrets are placed. If in your sector,many people are using either missiles or mortars you should use the special to counter the weapon. If in your sector they use both you should choose dependent on your turret layout. If you have grouped turrets than you should go for ablative panels as the attacker will be likely to attack with a mortar fleet as he can take out faster grouped turrets this way. If your turrets are in a long line with some branches you should use reactive panels as the attacker can easily pick of the turrets one by one normally. For the other defense turrets(sents,vic,bombards and flaks) yo should use the special that is specialised to them as it gives it a quite big boost. At sents, you can choose between TC(Thermobaric Casing) or SJE(Scram Jet Engines). Generally,TC deals more damage but with SJE you can fire on the attacker much longer before he gets in range. SJE can be used to fire from the back row or also to fire above a channel to another one as with Level 3 SJE you can have a range up to 127. As example,you can use SJE to avoid people destroying your RG and labs without getting damaged. Slide Loader increases your firing speed at Vics and CRs but also decreases their damage. At vics, with the level 3 special you fire fast enough to overcome Hailstorms. Barrage Racks give you extra salvo for flaks. THis doesn't mean that you have a shorter reload or shooting time but just that more salvos get shot everytime. Enhanced Propulsion(EP) increases the maximum range of your bombards. WIth the level 3 special,you can reach instead of only 1, 2 land tiles far and so cover over the doube amount of turrets.


OP 4


Between designing OP 4 and OP 5 bases aren't many differences. The main difference is that you only have 12 turrets and these ones are Level 3. You should try to get OP 5 before you are lvl(Level) 25 as then you will get in range of SFB 3 missiles which one make every OP 4 layout nearly useless as you can't defend against them without having a seriously weakened channel. At an OP 4 base, you can do nearly everything like you can do it at an OP 5 base but you are more likely to use a base with 180 turns as these ones save up lots of land. If you are under level 25 you also won't need to consider putting a flak in your base because it is very unlikely that you get attacked with a missile fleet. The range of PM(Peacemaker Mortars) what will probably be the longest range weapon you will get attacked with is 86. This means that your island only needs 3 water tiles to be secure instead of 4.


OP 3


OP 3 base limit you already quite a lot through the lack of land tiles. It is nearly impossible to make it unpreppable and there is only one common type of entry for OP 3 bases




This entry isn't done to scale...it is just to show that an OP 3 entry will probably only have 1 or turns


You can place your turrets as well as inside as well as outside of your channel. You will need, just likeat OP 4, only a 3 water tiles around your center island.


OP 1 and 2


At this OP level you don't really need to have a good base design yet....but I will still post the example of a good OP 1 and 2 entrance as I already saw people that unbubbled that early.






This base doesn't have any turns but you rpobably wont get attacked by and big ships anyway. The 2x2 square is the place where your turrets go. For you have OP 1 you can take away 1 land tile. You will only need 2 water tiles to protect your island as noone in your level range will probably have PMs which one can shoot over a 2 wide channel.




Square,Island and Spiralbases
There are 3 basic type of bases.whom Spiral bases is best and Square bases are worst. 


Square bases:


Not to scale...a normal square base is bigger


Square bases are the weakest type if base. You can hardly protect any buildings as you will have a low fire coverage. You shouldn't have a square base anymore once you left your starter 7 day bubble


Island Bases:




Island Bases are very similar to Spiral bases. The only differenct is that they don't have a closed channel and so you can do turns around the center island. This is bad because like this,if you have as example onl a vic standing left this one will never damage the enemy ships as they can be in constant movement.





2 common type of channels
There are 2 common type of channels though they aren't the best ones,but neither the worst ones. They have multiple turns and also have place for all your turrets.
The arrows mean where the entry and the exit of the channel is 


Double 180°:






This type of channel has 2 180° turns. You can place your turrets at the side arm and the rest a long the main part. YOu can also put them in 2 rows at the side arm or main part. 


Stairs:






This type of channel is similar to the double 180° but the main difference is the turret placement. You can place your turrets in 2 lines along the second turn. You can also addd 2 more turns but then you can only do a single row of turrets.




Walls


Your walls may be annoying to move around but they are an important part of your defenses. WIthout them, ballistiv fleets would destroy your turrets in seconds. This is why you should always have 2 row of walls before your turret.


Example:






Preppability and fast bubble


Sometimes you will realise that your attacker enters your base,destroys some turrets and then exits again. This is called prepping. It is used to weaken to defenders base before coming back with a second fleet to have full time again and some turrets down. To avoid that your base is too preppable there are some basic things you can do:
Put RG at entrance so the attacker damages or destroys them as much as possible and increase the damage he did to your base
Don't have any RG at all
You will get a bubble if the attacker damages your base over 25%. One of your goals should be that you deal the prep fleet as much damage as possible and that you also loose the smallest amount of turrets at it.


Defending Ships
When choosing a fleet to defend your base you must think careful. A base defending fleet isn't like a normal FvF fleet because it needs to be able to defend you while offline. The preffered choice for this are heavily armored ship with SFB and missiles. They have a high range and as well as a high damage. As example, 5 Forsaken HH(Hammerheads) could serve you like 5 extra sents. This can change the outcome of a battle in your favour easily.


Abbrevations used in Guide
OP= Outpost
Wh= Warehouse
SFB= Solif Fuel Booster
DPS= Damage per second
RG= Resource Gatherers
PM= Peacemakes Mortar
Vics= Victory Mortar
Sents= Sentinel Missiles
Howies= Howitzer Cannons
EP= Enhanced Propulsion
TC= Thermobaric Casing
SJE= Scram Jet Engine
lvl= Level
CR= Cerberus Rockets




Well done. You finished reading my guide about base designing. I hope you like it and if you have anything to tell I forgot or I wrote wrong PM me. I will also update this guide everytime a new update for base defending comes out. Please do not comment about Base Design as this isn't a guide about how to copy a base design but how to create your own


Updates done to guide:
10.3.2012: Improved special section and added Slide Loader and Scram Jet engine to it, Added abrevattion section
15.4.2012: Added Cerberus Rockets and defending ships




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3 comments:

  1. Great guide. I'm a lvl 30 farm, basically. Just copied the OP5 base design. Tx for posting this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. what if i have already built out a op4 and the design is awful, basically a square. Is there any way to fix my base design?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. you can take the land mass away by building water where the land is. Get used to rebuilding your base design, it's a big part of the game

      Delete