Outpost (Gamemode)

**Outposts** are bases created by players beyond their camp. You can raid any outpost for trade goods and to boost your influence.

Outposts were introduced in update 2.0 and have received many updates, mainly related to the matchmaking, which still is not fully understood.

## Defending your Outpost

To defend your Outpost, you need first to **Capture Walkers in your Walker Pit** and **place your Defenders.**

In your Walker Pit, you can capture 3 types of walkers: normal, armored, and tank. Normal walkers are automatically released into your outpost when it’s attacked. Armored and tank walkers you need to place yourself. The Walker Pit is a separate building in the camp, and the amount and level of walkers can be increased by spending Trade Goods. Note that the max level of walkers in the pit is 26, which is quite low compared to a normal lvl 29 attacker. This means that any amount of walkers in the pit will be no match for any but the most novice attacker, so it is not recommended to spend any TG on upgrading the walkers in the pit.

To place armored and tank walkers, go to your outpost and tap “Manage outpost”. Then choose one of the first two sections, as walkers cannot be placed in the third one. The left side of your screen will show your unplaced walkers and the number of spots left in that section.
Your outpost has a limit for how many special walkers (armored and tank) you can place in it. If you can’t place all your captured walkers in your outpost, there are two things you can do:

* Upgrade your outpost to place more walkers in your current location
* Choose an outpost location (“Change location” button) that fits more walkers

The third right-most section of the map is where your humans will be. When the door to this section is opened, the attacking team can shoot at any defenders visible without the defenders reacting (as long as they are out of Retaliate/Revenge range). This means it is a good idea to select a map where the attackers need to move forward as far as possible before actually seeing the defenders. There is a chokepoint type of map especially good for this.

Now, To change your defending survivors, open your outpost and tap the “Change defenders” button in the lower-right corner.
Here you can change your defending team in the same way as the teams you sent out on missions. When you’re happy with your team, tap “Confirm” to accept.
You should now place your defenders on the map, and you can also select their strategy:

1. Offensive. Defenders on offensive mode will move towards the attackers. This can be good for melee classes or defenders with short range weapons.
2. Defensive. Defenders on defensive mode will prioritize staying behind cover or move backwards.
3. Stationary. These defenders will not move in any circumstances. This can be a really good strategy, if you have selected a map where the defenders stay hidden until the attackers are forced to come right next to them, as they won't be lured out and also will not trigger any Primed attacks.

Note that badges do not work for defenders.

When an attacker raids your outpost, and kills your whole defending team, you lose influence. When losing influence, you receive an 8-hour shield. This shield will protect your outpost from all raids for the duration of the shield.

If your attacker only loots the trade goods in your outpost (but doesn't kill the defenders), you lose but don't receive a shield since no influence points are lost.

If you attack another outpost while having a shield active, you lose the shield and other players can attack you again.

## Matchmaking

The matchmaking system considers different factors: Your current **council level** and your hard-earned **influence points.**

Note that it is not possible to raid an outpost of a guild teammember.

Influence is how you rate yourself against other players in PVP (player versus player). You lose and gain influence points by raiding enemy outposts and defending your own, depending on your performance. You can see your amount of influence points in the outpost building.

Points are calculated for the duration of a cycle, after which you receive a reward based on your rank.

While you can gain influence by winning raids, you can win more by facing and defeating opponents with higher influence scores than you have. If you have a very high influence score, it can be challenging to find an opponent with an even higher score, and the rewards will be scaled accordingly.

You start an outpost raid by paying 10 Trade Goods to look for an opponent. You will then get to the team selection screen, where you can see the opponent's name, their survivors rarity and class (by icon color), as well as the reward in Trade Goods and Influence. Then, you have the choice to start the raid (costs 2 gas) or to cancel and look for another opponent by again paying 10 TG (which is basically free). You cannot see the levels or pink stars of the defenders, and neither can you see what kind of walkers the opponent has. However, the TG reward will give a good indication of the opponent. The below table gives an approximation of what to expect, based on the mission reward. There is clearly a random component involved, so the below is not always 100% accurate:

TG reward
 400-500
 Over 500

#### Suggested Attacking Team

The walkers in the first section will not be an issue unless you have weak survivors, so you should select a team that can best can counter the opposing humans. Take all or at least two survivors that have fully defensive badges. Stun Protection and Hazard suits are also advised.

#### Suggested Defensive Team

Badges will not work on defenders, nor will the AI ever use charge attacks, so select survivors that can quickly damage & cause status effects on the attackers, while staying alive mainly by dodging incoming attacks.

Good Heroes for defense are

* Ezekiel leading two ranged survivors thanks to his Regal Authority leader trait.
* Carl in the leader spot thanks to his Second Chance leader trait.
* Overall, defenders should have mostly ranged weapons, as the attacker most probably will be ranged as well.
* The overall ambition should be to get as many attacks as possible on the attackers, which would stun, root or cripple them, and preferably ignite them. Your team should therefore have weapons with Ensnare, Cripple and Incendiary and very preferably push mechanics, as that has a good chance of stunning the attackers (and is hard to protect against as pushes are not considered status effects). If you use Ezekiel in lead, Interrupt will also be a very useful trait, as that can block the attacker from shooting at all. Armor traits can be Primed, Hazard Suit, Bulletproof, Stun Resist and maybe Fortified.
* Preferred survivor traits are Retaliate, Revenge, Critical Aim, Bullet Dodge and Lucky.
* Good defending heroes in secondary positions are Shane, Dwight, Sniper Morgan, Hershel, and any assault with traits rerolled as above (assaults should equip the Bulldozer due to its push mechanic). Shooters apart from Carl are not recommended as they only can hit one target. If you don't have hunters/assaults with good traits, it might be better to use a suitable bruiser instead. Mercer will be a very good defender thanks to his LT, which both adds damage and gives him status resistance, but then you need at least Bullet Dodge on him, preferably also other defensive traits.

## Inside an Outpost Mission

An Outpost Mission is divided into 2 parts, divided by a gate:

**The first part** is the part you will face the Walkers that your opponent captured in his Walker Pit. In this part, you can claim the flag, which is one of the objectives of the Outpost. There is no threat counter, so there is no rush to kill the walkers (except the 12-minute timer). If you FLEE before taking the flag, or all your survivors are killed, the raid will be marked as a fail, with -10 in score for each failed target. If you end the mission after capturing the flag but before completing any of the other targets, the raid will be marked as a draw.

The second part starts by opening the gate (which can be opened after the flag is captured) where the Opponent's Defenders are placed, and the Loot Trade Goods are. **You can win the Outpost Mission by Either Loot Trade Goods or Beat the defenders (or both).** A 7 round counter will start when you open the gate. If you fail to end the mission within that time, the mission will be marked as a draw. Also, when the gate is opened, several regular walkers will spawn on the left side of the map.

The defending humans will be in status Unaware until the gate is opened and they are alerted by either proximity, sound or being hit. This is done so that the defenders will remain in their designated places until the gate is opened (otherwise they would run around randomly waiting for the gate to open). A side effect of this, however, is that they will not react to the gate opening, and they will not be in overwatch. This means that the Primed armor trait is essesntial for a good defence, as Primed can still trigger Overwatch, if the attacker moves.

If you capture the flag and the loot crate (and click the "Complete" button), you will have a "Raid won" and get some trade goods, but get a zero score. If you kill the defenders, you will get a score of 10+ and a "Raid won".

Unlike most other mission types, if you Flee or end the mission in advance, you don't have to select a survivor receiving a "Heavy Injury".

## Outpost Cycles & Tiers

As you raid enemy outposts and defend your own, you gain and lose influence points depending on your outpost performance. You collect points for the duration of a cycle, usually 2 weeks, after which you receive a reward based on your rank. The max amount of influence points you can have is 9999.

At the beginning of each cycle, your influence is reset to the base level of your last rank. Note that once you have reached the Gold 1 rank, you will stay there forever and get the 5000 TG reward after each cycle, even if you don't play a single outpost mission. It is possible to drop below it if your outpost gets raided, but since there is no reset it's a quick job to get back to the gold 1 level again.