Puzzles and Survival Tools & Guides

Picking your “main” troop type is one of the most important choices you have at the start of playing pns. It dictates what gear, chips, modules, cubes, bioenhancers, and heroes you will focus on developing as you play long term. You will want to focus on one predominantly as you start, as it will allow you to be really strong in one area quicker. If you spread out across all types, you will be weaker in everything. By picking a type to specialize in, it ultimately helps you be more competitive in Zombie Lairs, attacks on HQ’s and events such as Reservoir Wars and Valiant Conquest.

There are 4 types of troops you can craft:

1. Fighters
2. Riders
3. Shooters
4. Vehicles

Each of these are crafted in their own “Camp”, and it is important to always have these camps producing as you play. 

You will want to craft more of your “main” type, but it is important to always be crafting the others as you go as well. You will be able to craft more troops at a time, faster, with the more boot camps you have. It is recommended to have 10 bootcamps at max level. You should also have 10 infirmaries at max level, as you will save more troops from dying permanently when you get attacked.

The first step is picking which one of these troops you want to prioritize, and make your main. How do you choose? It ultimately comes down to your personal choice, but there are a few things to consider.

Fighters:

1. They are strong against Shooters, but weak against Riders
2. They have an advantage in Ruins levels
3. Everyone starts with Fighter formation, for attacks
4. The game generally makes it easier to get Fighter heroes early on
   

Riders:

1. They are strong against Fighter, but weak against Shooters
2. They have an advantage in lairs
3. They have an increased movement speed
4. There is a majority of players who chose this option as their main troop type

Shooters:

1. They are strong against Rider, but weak against Fighters
2. With most people choosing Riders as their main troop type, they can have a benefit in attack based events
3. They have the highest base damage stat, so they will always do more on destroyer than fighters or riders with smaller, equal or slightly higher stats

Vehicles:

1. This is not a “main” troop type option, as they are not meant to be a battle troop but they are important to craft as well
2. These will be your go to for gathering resources on tiles.
3. If you want to participate in events like Valiant Conquest, T1 taxi’s are the cheapest thing you can craft for additional defence at home. You should target to have 2 to 3 times the amount of T1 taxi’s, as you do your main troop type at all times. The reason for this is, they will take the bulk of a hit on your sanctuary, if someone attacks you. This is beneficial, because it leaves your actual troops less damaged (so you can attack back), and they are MUCH cheaper to heal in the infirmary, saving you lots of resources in the long run.
4. You don’t need to waste resources to train higher tier vehicles. They have minimal added benefit (a slightly higher load for gathering), and cost more resources to craft and more resources to heal.

The below photo shows the priority of what is strong and weak against eachother.

If you have been playing for a bit, and haven’t selected your troop type yet because you can’t decide, the best way to narrow it down is to go into your commander information (click the profile picture), click on “Boosts”, and look at your Troop Boosts. Whichever one has the highest percentages, is a great starting point as your main troop type. 

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you choose Fighters, Riders, or Shooters – as long as you choose one and stick to it, it will help you have a focus for development, which will make you stronger!

Once you have picked a troop type, start training a bunch of your main troop on the highest tier you can. As you progress building levels, and unlock higher tiered troops, make sure to promote the lower tier troops to the highest tier. 

You will want to target AT LEAST 5 marches worth of your main troop, to start with. You can check what your troop size is in Commander Info > Boosts >March Boosts > Troop Size. 

It is great to align using training speed ups on your main troop type to craft a lot, with on-going events such as Ace Commander (Pro general tip – always double dip. PNS is a patience game, and waiting until an event is on going will help you get extra rewards, which will help you grow faster). At the same time, always be crafting the other troops as well daily, but don’t waste speed ups on them. The reason you want some of the other troops as well, is you can send them to help others on your team, in super rallies during events like Wasteland King, or Alliance Clash.You can see what boosts are active here:

With your training camps constantly making troops, the other main thing to do now that you picked a main troop type is to start upgrading your Gear, Chips, Modules, and Bioenhancers to complement your main troop type. You will also want to align your Talent Tree, Nova Skills to prioritize your main troop.

The last piece of choosing a main troop, is you now know what heroes to focus on. You will want to prioritize your troop types heroes, to improve your battle statistics. You will want to target getting them all to +5, as that gives you a 500% tactical skill to deal damage to the enemy. 

When battling, only 4 of your 5 heroes will give the tactical for a certain troop type. For example, if you are a fighter, and play with 5 fighter heroes, only 4 will unlock the tactical. This means, it can be advantageous to have a non-fighter hero as your 5th hero, if they have fighter stats. As a starting point, here are some heroes to begin with for each type:

Fighter:

1. Zephyr
2. Ulrik
3. Seo-yun
4. Sanguine
5. Noct or Barbie

Rider:

1. Fox
2. Obsidian
3. Reyn
4. Dom
5. Percival or Maverick

Shooter:

1. Phoenix
2. Ephraim
3. Hartwell
4. Griffen
5. Malcolm or Bard

As the game goes on, you will unlock more heroes. Look at their Troop skill, to see if they have skills that apply to your main troop type, even if they aren’t your designated hero type (for example, Dara is a shooter hero, but boosts fighter attack). A general rule of thumb is you will want to swap out to higher star level troops with time, but not until they reach +5.

With time, you will want to focus on a secondary troop type to focus on as well. You will want to pick this based on what attack your main is weak against. If you are a fighter main, pick shooters as your secondary. If you are a shooter, pick riders as your secondary. If you are a rider, pick fighters as your secondary.

To summarize:

1. In your sanctuary, you should have 10 bootcamps and 10 infirmaries at max level. This will help you train more troops, faster and keep those troops you’ve worked so hard at building from dying off.
2. Prioritize Gear, Chip, Module, Cube and Bioenhancer enhancements and promotions, as well as Research, Nova, and Talent Tree for your main troop type stats.
3. Prioritize upgrading heroes that are your main troop type, and provide stats for your main troop type for battles.
4. Take advantage of training boosts, and prioritize using speed ups only during events like Ace Commander
5. ONLY use training speedups on your main troop tier. You can also use training speed ups to craft your taxi wall, if you are looking to complete training speed up events, but are low on resources!

Advanced learnings:

Formations 101:

Above, you may have read the word “fighter formation”, and you are probably asking what that means. By default, everyone starts with Fighter formation. To unlock one of the other formations, Rider or Shooter, you have to do a LOT of training (like a year of speed ups) in Formations in Research Center (unlocks at HQ 28). 

We will discuss them as well, but first we will start with the default – Fighter formation.

Fighter formation means priority of troops is Fighters > Riders > Shooters. This means, when you attack, fighters take the bulk of the hit, then riders, then shooters. 

If a Fighter starts or joins a rally, only riders and shooters should be sent (unless you are an equal strength (this does not mean tier) fighter – you should be able to solo roughly the same level). 

If a rider starts or joins a rally, only shooters and equal strength riders should join. 

If a shooter starts a rally, only equal strength shooters should join. 

Cars are ALWAYS welcome in ALL rallies. You get the same rewards no matter what you send, but you can cause a lot of damage if you send the wrong thing. It is polite to send full cars, unless otherwise asked. Generally, if people only want you to send 1 taxi, they will say “testing”.

If a higher priority troop joins your rally, it then follows the rules as if they started. For example, if a rider starts a rally, but a strong fighter joins, it is then okay for more riders to join, even if they aren’t the same strength as the initiator.

Troop tier is also important. A rule of thumb is to not send anything lower than 1 tier group lower than the top tier in the rally. If you are uncertain, send taxi’s.

What are the other formations?

You can also have Shooter formation and Rider formation, once you research them in Research center. 

Rider formation is Riders > Shooters > Fighters. Shooter formation is Shooters > Fighters > Riders. 

This follows similar principles as fighter formation. 

For rider formation, if a rider starts, shooters and fighters are safe to join, and only similar strength riders. For shooter formation, riders and fighters are safe to join, and only similar strength shooters. Cars are still always welcomed.

The BIGGEST benefit of following formations is it saves people costs in healing, for lairs 41+.