Survival Guide - Dust Settles: Aid

Table of Contents:

Purpose:

Aid is a way to help out other camps who could use a quick boost, whether they are an ally struggling to recover from an attack or a new player that you feel like giving some assistance to. There are two methods of aiding other players and many resources and items that can be sent to other camps as aid. Depending on whether you are wanting to aid an allied or non-allied camp, you should choose the appropriate aid type. You can reach the tools for both by clicking "Aid a Camp" on the bottom bar in the messenger section.

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Standard Aid:

Standard aid is a service provided by the Neutral Exchange Camp where, for a small fee, they will safely deliver an aid package to another camp. In order to queue an aid package for delivery, select the camp you want to send the aid to from the drop-down box, find the text box beside the resource(s) you want to send, type in the appropriate amount, and click "Send Now." Camps are listed in alphabetical order in the drop-down list. You can only send food, disposables, building supplies, and CEPs as aid through the NEC.

When you click to send the aid, it cannot be undone, so make sure everything is set the way you want it before you commit it. After you click the send button, a message will replace the queue reminding you who you sent the aid to and that it will take 3 days (turns) for it to reach the recipient camp. Those are 3 of your turns, not the receiving camp's turns.

Once you have ended 3 turns, the aid you sent, minus the percent taken as tax by the NEC will reach the selected camp and you will receive a message in your end turn display to alert you to this. The recipient camp will receive no message. Now the message telling you who the aid was headed to will be replaced with a message telling you how much longer you have until you can send aid again.

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Limitations:

There are a few limitations to this type of aid. First the Neutral Exchange Camp will take a percentage of whatever aid you send as a tax. This percentage begins at 39% and can be decreased with Marketing research to as little as 0 with a mastery. Even with a mastery (shared or otherwise) the message above your aid queue will show you with a 1% tax. If you have the mastery, what you send will be what is received with no tax subtracted.

As well, there is a time limit on sending aid. When you first begin, you will only be able to send aid once every 200 real time minutes. As you increase your Marketing research, you will be able to decrease this to a low of 20 minutes.

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Alliance Aid:

Alliance aid is for sending aid from one camp in an alliance to another without having to go through the Neutral Exchange Camp and pay them a tax. Unfortunately, this also means that your alliance must provide for the protection of your aid caravans since random marauders and enemy alliances may attack them to steal or destroy what you are sending. Any alliance set as your enemy (whether by you or them) can attack your caravans.

You can send food, disposables, building supplies, weapons, CEPs, aircraft, vehicles, and even population through alliance aid. There are a few limitations as to how much can be sent from camp to camp and how often, but you can send at least some to help someone catch up or regrow. You will have 2 queues for assigning what you want to send. First, of course, you should select who you want to send the aid to. Next, start filling in the appropriate boxes with the resources or weapons that you want to send. The first queue set will be for sending basic resources, ores, CEPs, and population. Use the validation button below these boxes if you want to send population to make sure that camp can receive people. The second queue is for sending weapons, vehicles, and aircraft. You will not be able to send mechs from one camp to another. Once you have set up all of these options, you will need to make sure you send the number of buses needed to carry those items. If you do not have enough buses or gas to fill those buses, you will not be able to send the aid. If you have a Vehicle Transport mastery (shared or not), your buses will not take any gas.

Like standard aid, alliance aid will take 3 of your turns to reach the intended camp, and if directed to, another 3 days to return. While your caravan is out it can and will be attacked. This will mean a loss of resources due to destruction, death, or civilians fleeing. Your caravan will be defended by whatever escort your alliance has contributed to.

Any attack on an aid caravan will be a short skirmish style battle where the two sides will meet, engage in a few rounds of fire, and then part. The attack will begin at 200 meters instead of 400 like a standard battle, and will be initiated by either a random group of marauders or the escort army of an enemy alliance. Marauders numbers will be based on the size of the caravan, with larger caravans needing more protection. These groups will have comparable weaponry to your army (though no mechs), and will be harder to "beat" (kill enough to meet flee conditions) than an attack initiated by a foe alliance.

Along with having your aid caravans attacked by enemy alliances, your escorts can attack the caravans of any alliance that your alliance sets as an enemy. If you do not have any declared allies your military escort will only be able to be assigned for defensive duties. Also the only groups that will attack your caravans are the marauders. Setting multiple foes, though, will not protect you completely from attacks by random thieves, only lessen the chance of the attack being a marauder group.

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Alliance Aid Escorts:

Because sending aid from one allied camp to another can be very dangerous, your alliance should set up an escort group to protect any caravans that you send out. In order to set this up you will need to go to the "Escort Army" page linked in the Alliance section of your bottom bar to find the options. Here there will be a table listing all current army units assigned for escort and a queue that will allow you to add your own. Once you are ready to send in some of your own army units, you will enter the number of units you want to send to the queue and the weapons that you want to send with them. The weapons and vehicles will be assigned first. At the bottom of the queue the number of army units needed to man the assigned weapons and the gas required to fuel the vehicles will be listed (Vehicle Transport mastery will negate gas needed for the escort army). Assign a minimum of the listed number of troops in the final text box to send army with the weapons. You cannot send weapons or vehicles without enough army, though you can send army without enough weapons. Those army units will just fight as unarmed men. After you have set everything up do a quick check to make sure everything looks appropriate and click the button to commit those troops. Once you commit them, they cannot be called back so make sure you really want to send those troops. These troops will be called any time a member of your alliance sends aid to another member. They also have the chance to attack the aid caravans of an enemy alliance.

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Limitations:

There are only a couple of limitations to alliance aid. First, you must be in an alliance for at least 24 real-time hours before you can send anyone aid. You can receive aid before this, but not send any yourself. The next limitation lies in the fact that you must send all aid in fueled buses. Finally aiding population from one camp to another has a couple of limitations on it.

Buses: In order to get your aid from one camp to another you will have to send it inside or attached to buses. Each bus has a limit on how much it can carry for each type of resource, weapon, or vehicle. A breakdown of those requirements is listed below. Also, you must be able to fuel your buses at 40 gallons of gas per bus. Vehicle Transport mastery will negate this fuel cost.

Population: Because population is such a valuable resource, you are limited on how much you can send, how often, and when you can send population after receiving it. You can only send up to 10% of your AVAILABLE population to any given camp in your alliance. Beyond this limitation a camp can only RECEIVE population through aid up to 4 times in any 18-hour period. The person who receives the population aid can then only send population as aid 18 hours after receiving it. You should also keep in mind that some of these people may be killed or run away during a raid on your aid caravan.

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