Grind map

Grind maps are locations for grinding experience, items, ammunition and caps. This is where you'll spend most of your time in the game.

For a list of grind maps see Category:Grind maps.

## Layout

Grind maps are essentially randomly generated variants of the same location. Though it may sound boring, there are many mechanisms that make the experience interesting:

* Maps have random dimentions (to some extent), usually 4 rooms in row and 3-6 in height
* Building blocks of grind maps are few dozen rooms, unique to a particular grind map
* Room layouts can be flipped horizontally (mirrored)
* Rooms (even the same kind of room layouts) contain random kinds of:
	+ Loot
	+ Enemies
	+ Traps
* Level of loot/enemies/traps depend on player level, and how many grind maps have been completed
* Trials spawn on grind maps
* Each room contains randomly placed horseshoes
* Some rooms can be submerged (only in Sewers or Canterlot ruins)

Because of the above, it's practically impossible to find two grind maps that were generated exactly the same, making every map unique.

Usually the first grind map (e.g. Factory-1 or Abandoned stable-1) has noticeably smaller dimensions than maps generated in a given location. For example: Factory-1 map might be 4 rooms wide and 3 tall, while Factory-2, Factory-3, etc will be 4 rooms wide and 6tall (or something close to that).

## Completing grind maps

You start playing in one of corner rooms (which one depends on grind map). On the lowest level of the map, there are a few EXIT doors - going through them means you have completed the map and unlocked the next level of the location.

Grind maps have "levels" - when entering a grind map you'll see the map name and current level at the top of the screen ("<map name>-<level>", for example "Sewers-2"). You can also see current level in PipBuck>Information>World. Counting starts from 1 (e.g. first Factory map is Factory-1).

There are many locations in the game, each one slightly harder than previous one. To advance to next location from any grind map, you have to complete several levels of it. Then, in the EXIT room, you'll have two options:

* Go to next location. The amount of levels you have to complete differs, for example you have to complete 3 levels of Factory before entering Department of Special Research, but 2 levels of Manehattan ruins before entering M.A.S. tower
* Go to next level of the same grind map. Next time you enter the EXIT room you'll have the option to advance to next map again

### Grind map progress

**Important**: grind map progress is not saved when saving the game. After loading the game, a new grind map will be generated from scratch, meaning all map progress will be lost. If you enter the same grind map, a new one of the same level will be generated (e.g. if you were in Sewers-3 before reloading the game, you'll start a new Sewers-3 map after reloading). If this happens, you retain any items, experience, etc. you gained on the map - the only thing lost is the map itself.

So, why bother with completing the map and unlocking the next level before saving and closing the game?

* The game keeps counter of how many maps you completed (you can see it in the world map in your PipBuck). Sometimes you need to complete a few levels of particular grind map to progress the game
* Merchants don't update their inventory until you unlock a new level. When you activate a checkpoint in the EXIT room you'll see a log message "Merchants have new products for sale"

You can teleport to base camp from grind map at any time. For instructions how to do that, see Base camps.

## Gallery

Example fully explored Abandoned stable mapExample fully explored Sewers mapExample fully explored Canterlot ruins mapExample fully explored Military base map