Welcome the the second article in a series explaining the basics of War Commander! (If you missed Part 1, click here) In this installment, we'll focus on resources: where to find them, what they're for, and ways to collect even more of them.
The introductory missions in the game have shown you how to build things. Resources are the raw materials for building those things, so resource collection is a vital part of every successful War Commander strategy.
The most basic resources in the game are Oil and Metal; there is also a third resource in the game called Thorium, which is much harder to obtain. Metal and Oil are required to build and upgrade buildings and units, and to repair buildings and units damaged in battle. Thorium is required for advanced (higher level) upgrades and a few other in-game functions that we don't need to worry about in a basic tutorial.
You can see your stockpiles of these resources in the HUD.
There are a number of ways to add to your stockpile of resources:
Method 1: In-Base Production. The most effective way to earn lots of resources over time is to produce them yourself! To produce resources in your base, you will need to construct Resource Producers: specifically, you will need to build Oil Pumps and Metal Factories. Before upgrades, they look like this:
Resource Producers generate resources faster at higher levels, so make sure you upgrade them as you are able. You are limited in how many Resource Producers you can build, depending on the current level of your base's Command Center (for more on the topic of building level upgrades, see Part 3 in this series). Exactly how many can you build? We've got a handy table for that...
| Command Center Level | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8+ |
| Total Number of Oil Pumps Allowed | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Total Number of Metal Factories Allowed | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Total Number of Thorium Mines Allowed | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
You might have noticed there's a third Resource Producer on that table: the Thorium Mine. This is where you'll produce Thorium in your base. Remember how we said Thorium is harder to obtain than Metal and Oil? You can only have one Thorium Mine, and you can't build it until after you have built a Thorium Vault and upgraded your Command Center to at least level 2.
Each Resource Producer can hold a small quantity of the resource it farms. The Command Center also stores some resources. To properly stockpile resources, though, you need to build Oil Storage and Metal Storage buildings. (Unlike the Thorium Mine, you do not have to build these before you can build Oil Pumps and Metal Factories.) These buildings store a lot more resources than your Resource Producers and your Command Center, so don't neglect to build these storage buildings. Without them, your stockpiles will quickly hit their maximum, at which point you won't be able to add more!
Resource Producers will only keep producing resources until they're full, at which point the resources need to be "collected" and placed into storage. When a Resource Producer is full, a red exclamation point will appear over it to let you know it requires your attention, as you can see here (the Command Center in this screenshot also needs attention, but we'll talk about the reason for that in Part 4):
To see how close to full a Resource Producer is, just click on it. A pop-up will show you how much of the building's capacity has been used (it shows this in a percentage, and also tells you how much time it should take to fill the Resource Producer to capacity). The "Collect" button shows you the actual quantity stored rather than the percentage. You can click "Collect" to empty that Resource Producer into the relevant storage buildings; you can click "Collect All" to empty all your Resource Producers into their relevant storage buildings. We've used a Metal Factory in this visual example:
To see your total stockpiles of resources, check your HUD. To see how close to full a resource storage building is, just click on it. We've used an Oil Storage building in this example (it's actually under that pop-up), but the same kind of information appears when you click on any Resource Producer:
Remember, if a Resource Producer fills up, it stops farming resources; empty them into storage to keep them active. If your total stockpile of any resource hits full capacity, you will not be able to put more of that resource type into storage until you've used some (this will not affect the other resource types, though).
Method 2: Spoils of War. The only downside to emptying your Resource Producers into storage is that, once there, those resources can be captured by rival players who attack your base! Of course, that means you can take resources from other players, too.
When you attack another player's base, you have a chance to take their resources. As you destroy their Resource Storage buildings, the battle display includes a running total of the resources you've seized from those buildings. For example:
When the battle ends, the resources you capture are added to your stockpiles...unless you are already at peak capacity on a resource, in which case you will not be able to add any more of that resource to your stockpile (you'll still have taken it away from your enemy, though, so it might be worth doing anyway).
Method 3: Resource Deposits. Resource Deposits are located on the World Map. These targets are like minor bases; they are small and not usually as heavily defended as a player base (though some of them are tougher than others). Here's what they look like on the map:
...and here's what one Oil Deposit looks like when you're inside it.
Notice that the deposit doesn't have a Command Center. To capture a deposit, you must destroy all the buildings in it (you don't have to destroy the production apparatus in the middle of the deposit; it can't be attacked or destroyed). While you control the deposit, it will payout oil or metal (depending on what kind of deposit it is, obviously) over time: 350,000 every 10 minutes, to be specific.
Deposits also pay lump sums when you capture them (including taking them away from other players) and when they expire. When you capture an deposit, a pop-up like this one will appear that lets you know when the deposit pays out, and how much. (The rest of the information in that pop-up is a topic for another article.)
You are not able to build new buildings or upgrade the existing buildings in a resource deposit, but you can rearrange the buildings using the Base Editor if you wish.
You can keep track of the deposits you control in the HUD. If you currently control any resource deposits, you can click this button...
...and it will open a drop-down list of all the deposits you currently control and how much time in days, hours, and minutes remains before they're used up (once a deposit is used up, it pays out a large lump sum of the resource it produces). You can click on any deposit on this list and the in-game camera will move to locate that deposit.
Method 4: Resource Bases. Not to be confused with Resource Deposits, Resource Bases are bases controlled by the game that have large stockpiles of resources in them, but which are actively defended. Resource Bases are easily identified on the map; as you can see from this screenshot, Resource Bases are named according to what resources they have stockpiled.
The Roman numeral in the Resource Base's name indicates its relative difficulty. For example, a Thorium III base will be tougher than a Thorium I--but the rewards for hitting it will also be greater!
Method 5: Buy Them with Gold. Sometimes you need those resources right now, and the best way to get them right now is to simply buy them using gold. Click on your Command Center, then click on the "Base Upgrades" button.
This opens a pop-up that includes tabs for buying Metal and Oil. Click on the resource you wish to buy and you'll see a few buying options: you can increase your current stockpile by either 10% or 50% of your current holdings, or you can go all-in and just fill your resources to capacity. The cost of resources purchased will vary depending on the exact quantities involved (the base we used for this example had quite a few resources stockpiled already).
Method 6: Gear Store. You can also purchase Thorium in what's called the Gear Store. The Gear Store is located in the bottom right corner of your HUD when you're in your base. To access the Gear Store, just click on the button that says "Gear:"
...and you'll see the Gear Store. In addition to other things, you can click on the Thorium tab to purchase Thorium. (Oil and Metal are not for sale in the Gear Store; just Thorium.) There are two ways to buy Thorium. You can use medals (a form of currency in the game, and a topic for another time), as indicated here:
...or you can choose the "Exchange" tab of the Gear Store and use Blood Thorium (a very rare form of currency in the game) to buy a large quantity of Thorium.
As you can see from these past couple screen shots, you must have room in your stockpile for the quantity of Thorium you wish to purchase, or the game will not allow you to purchase Thorium.
Method 7: Scrap Metal. Look closely at your base and you may see a ruined civilian vehicle somewhere outside your base's boundary...maybe even a few of them! You can farm that wreckage for metal. Just click on that junk to claim its resources. Most pay only a little, but some pay out a surprising amount.
Method 8: Gifts. Yep...other players can send you resources. You can do the same for them! To send a gift of resources, just click the "Gifts" button at the top of your screen, and it will open up a new window. From here you can send your gift! (You cannot send gold, unfortunately; this feature was disabled quite some time ago and will not be reactivated.)
But wait, there's more! You might think you're an expert on resources now, but we have a couple more things to tell you (then you'll be an expert).
Compression: Though it's a long way into your future, you will eventually find that you need more resource storage, but you're not able to build any more of those buildings. You can increase your storage capacity by purchasing compression upgrades. Just click on your Command Center and look for the Base Upgrades option:
This will bring up this menu, where you'll be able to purchase resource compression (we'll talk about borders in Part 3).
Resource compression will increase your total storage capacity by a percentage of your Resource Storage buildings' total storage capacity, not including any capacity increase granted by any prior compression upgrades. In other words, that percentage is based on what your actual capacity would be without any other compression upgrades. There are multiple compression upgrades, each of which increases your storage capacity by 10% of your uncompressed storage limit. (If you're curious, the maximum you can hold of either Metal or Oil after all building upgrades and with all compression upgrades is 2,125,125,000 of each.)
Advanced Structures: If your Metal Factory has been upgraded to at least level 5 and your Command Center has been upgraded to at least level 3, you are eligible to upgrade a Metal Factory to an advanced structure: a Gen II resource producer called a Metal Forge. You can only convert two of your Metal Factories in this way, and you won't be able to switch them back (Advanced Structures cannot be reverted to standard buildings), but Metal Forges produce Metal at a much faster rate (9,000,000/hour at level 1). We won't bother going into detail on this topic right now, but just know that it's an option.
And now, on to Part 3!
(Or, if you think you're ready, Part 4!)