There Be Patterns In Warship

Many of you reading this have already done a warship event. However, if you haven’t, unfortunately, Atlas Reality didn’t give us an instructional video this time! However, /u/TeamJJ88 (aka Batman) captured the tutorial video that is accessible in the game.

This post is on tips and tricks to improve your odds at winning.

Preparation

I know these are obvious things, but it doesn’t hurt to remind you: make sure you eat, drink, and use the bathroom before warship starts. Minimize interruptions as much as possible. About 10-15 minutes before the event starts, close/force close any other apps you’re using and restart your phone.

If you plan on participating the entire time, save around 125-150 Atlas Bucks (AB) per hour. Warship day will vary from week to week and time to time.

Make sure you maximize your boost before the event begins. You won’t want to run booster ads when you could be playing warship! Some people don’t run 2 AB ads while they play warship.

Most importantly, make sure you have an excellent connection. Lag is one of the biggest factors that decide who wins during warship matches. There will be matches that you lose because of lag. It happens even to top-tier..warshippers? Warshippees? Warship people? I’m partial to warshippers. Anywoo, do as much as possible to reduce lag so that your button presses will register correctly.

Each match costs 2 AB. From the 4 AB deposited, Atlas Reality will add 2 to 3 AB to the total prize pool. It is unknown if 2 or 3 is added until after warship starts. The best way to tell is to look for the total prize pool. If it’s odd at some point, then it is 3. If it is never odd, then it is 2.

Starting The Event

Warship officially starts when you see the warship icon follow you. It looks like this:

If you tap this icon, this takes you into the warship event. Tap the button at the bottom to pay 2 AB. The system will randomly assign you a warshipper. It will do its best to match you with someone who has a similar number of wins as you do, though sometimes it matches you against a top warshipper, even if you only have a few wins.

How To Play

The goal is to do more damage to your opponent’s warship than your opponent did to yours.

If you examine the screenshot, below, your health is on the top left, and your opponent’s health is on the top right. In the center is the timer that starts at 30 seconds.

In the middle of the screen are three chambers, each with its associated red “Fire” button. There are what I call a “shell” and “missile”. In the screenshot, below, the shell is on the right chamber and the missile is on the left chamber. Your goal is to collect these icons when they appear on the circular target symbol at the bottom of the chamber.

You are free to push any one or multiple buttons at the same time. There is no penalty for pressing too early or too late, aside from not collecting the icons.

As time progresses, the icons will push down the chamber at increasing speed. While the later icons are difficult to collect, it is not impossible to collect them provided that your timing is accurate.

Finally, I’ve noticed that catching a missile during the final 5 seconds sometimes doesn’t register damage to my opponent. Most likely, because the animation finishes after the timer ends.

Playing The Lag

To those who haven’t played before, you’ll notice within your first few matches that there is a delay between tapping the “fire” button and when the game registers your input. This will take some getting used to.

Immediate Vs. Delayed Firing

While many players will fire icons by pressing the “fire” button, others prefer to hold the “fire” button and release it when their icon is over the intended mark. While not universally true, such players believe that holding and releasing gives them greater accuracy than tapping. Hold + release works on multiple buttons simultaneously; However, some players have reported lower accuracy by attempting this strategy.

Did You Say There Were Patterns?

I did!

First, to trigger a missile, you must collect five of the shells in a row. As expected, the missiles do more damage.

Second, no two icons will appear in the same chamber twice in a row. This includes the missile. For example, in the above picture, I had previously collected my fifth shell in the middle chamber. The next shell appeared on the right while the missile appeared on the left. As you would expect, I would move to collect these simultaneously.

Third, shells tend to fall in sets of six: three in one chamber and three in another. Occasionally, matches will start with two shells followed by six shells in formation. The missile will sometimes count in terms of counting off six shells/icons, which can throw you off your game when it does count. Thus, there are two counts to keep track of: six for the pattern and five for the missile. Preferential treatment should be given on tracking the five over the six; However, if you can manage to track both simultaneously without losing it, more power to you!

Fourth, there is the occasional eight pattern that appears, which includes six shells, one missile, and another shell to start the new pattern. Sometimes it’s a straight eight pattern as well.

Below is footage of me playing during the first few minutes of the first official warship event. You can see these patterns for yourself and hear me counting to five! Also, my taps are recorded so you can see when I am holding and when I am tapping.

It will also give you an idea of how I quickly end and start matches, which I describe in later sections.

Tiebreaking

I’m not 100% sure how this works. It’s a lot like racer: sometimes it shows that I’m only slightly ahead and gives the win to my opponent. A bit frustrating, but not often enough to throw the game out with the bathwater.

Exiting Warship

You can skip part of the “results” animation if you keep tapping the bottom of your screen where the “OK” button exists. This will save you a few seconds each match, allowing you to do a few extra matches.

Below is example of me quickly exiting and re-entering a match. Although the event is different, the concept is the same.

Mulligan

If you lose a match and want a chance to get some of your AB back, you can run an ad to get 1, 2, or 3 AB. There’s a bit of a delay between stopping the needle and when the needle actually stops. Just like in other events, lag is a major factor that determines your result. However, lag tends to clear up after the first hour.

Bear in mind that if two people play each other trying to purposefully lose, the app will just assign one of you as the winner.

Below is an example of me running the Mulligan. Although the event is different, the concept is the same.

Ranking

Your rank in warship depends on the number of matches you win. If there is a win tie between warshippers, the warshipper who got their first will rank higher.

If you want to win the top prize, you’ll need to play the entire time. However, sometimes you can’t do that. If you are a proficient warshipper, consider going for bottom 500 for a small payout. This will help you minimize AB cost and earn you a decent payout while you practice your skills to take one of the top 100 spots. People in ranks 101-400 usually lose AB. However, with the Mulligan feature, the 101-400 people can make a profit.

There is also ranking payouts available for your state/territory. This will vary considerably, depending on which state you are in. Atlas Earth will assign you to a state/territory based on your location when you first open warship during the event.

Finally, if you want to minimize the number of matches you do, aim for the bottom of your target tier. However, the number of wins you will need depends on the number of participants. The more people there are, the more times you will need to win. However, more participants also mean a larger prize pool. Obviously, if a warship event exceeds one or two hours, more wins will be required to keep your rank.

Other Tips

1. The biggest thing you can do is not panic, and just play your best game. If you concentrate on your fires and stop worrying about the other player, you will fare better. However, some people will choose to glance at the score and lose their concentration.
2. The biggest issue isn’t lag, it is lag spikes. If you had consistently bad lag, you can compensate for that. What you can’t compensate for is when it is all over the place. So if you have a lot of lag spikes, this might not be the game for you.
3. You can also break the cycle of facing the same player over and over again by waiting about 10 seconds before starting another match. This is useful if you keep losing to the same player over and over again. It’s a good time to check the leaderboard!
4. If you find that you are losing a lot, consider taking a break and target a lower rank with Mulligans. Or…perhaps this just isn’t the minigame for you.
5. If this is your first time, consider pushing for top 500 on your first go and Mulligan every time you lose a match. If you think you are decent at the game and have time, push hard for a typical 2 to 2.5 hour event. This will help you figure out your overall rank and will help you figure out which rank you should target and how often you should Mulligan your losses.
6. Ask yourself what your goal is. Look at how long the event is through Reddit, then ask what you aim for. If you want T100, most times you’re going to need to play for most of the window. T50 or above, unless you’re RainbowUltra, Arn, me, etc. You’re playing the full 2 1/2 hrs or about 4-5 hours on weekends. If you can’t manage to play that long, consider shooting for top T500 and relax. It’s a minigame, it’s supposed to be fun!
7. If there is 30 minutes to an hour left of the game and you’re on the edge of a higher bracket, consider sacrificing Mulligans to push for the higher bracket. You are risking a little bit of AB for a potentially bigger payoff.
8. If you think you have your ranking secure and have time to continue playing, consider Mulliganing your losses intentionally to squeeze a few more ads for a few more AB. This will also help raise the pot and could potentially raise your payout. However, bear in mind that other people might also be Mulliganing their losses, which could lead you to unintentionally winning a match and wasting 2 AB.

Closing Thoughts

I hope you found this guide helpful.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Reddit or Discord. If you don’t know where the Atlas Earth Reddit and Discord servers are, select Resources.

Also, if you want to see AJDowntown and Pharaoh’s take on warship, check out the video, below:

For those who haven’t yet downloaded Atlas Earth or want to learn more about it, check out my Beginner’s Guide.

Patched Glitches

• There was a major glitch within warship that causes your missiles to inflict zero damage on your opponent if you launch another one before the previous one lands on your opponent. This was patched as of the March 25th, 2024 event.

Updates:

03/24/2024 – Added section Patched Glitches and moved the Missile Glitch section within it.

03/15/2024 – Added captions to comply with Google Adsense’s policies.

03/08/2024 – Added videos for quickly exiting/rematching and running the Mulligan.

2/26/2024 – Updated intro to include the tutorial. Thanks to /u/TeamJJ88 (aka Batman) for providing the footage! Also, added a section to describe the Missile glitch with footage provided by RainbowUltra.

02/21/2024 – Added tips 5-8 in “Other Tips”, which was inspired by this post by u/princesky_.