Beginners Guide

**Builds** -

Builds are the skeletal structure of the tank. The build is also the most important part of a tank. It determines how a tank will be able to react to other tanks, different situations, and environments. When building, you must always consider how every stat effects the tank. Some stats benefit different tanks differently. Some tanks don't even need certain stats and function well without them.

Some stats work better when combined and some stats only work better combined when used on certain tanks. For example, bullet penetration and bullet damage being combined works in the favor of basically every tank. Without the penetration, your bullet will not have enough health to be able to make it through other bullets. Without the damage, your bullets won't be able to pack enough punch to do any real harm to your enemy. Both are very important when building a tank that utilizes bullets, drones, or traps.

Some stats being combined effect different tanks more than others. For example, the fighter utilizes 2 back cannons to propel itself forwards. Combining reload and movement speed greatly increases its speed. However, on a tank such as overlord, combining reload and movement speed does not effect the overall speed of the overlord as much because reload doesn't affect overlord's speed. This is because some tanks are designed to utilize the combination of certain stats while others aren't.

Continuously playing around with different tanks is the best way to get an idea of how to form builds. It's a system of trial and error. If something doesn't work, you take it off and start over. If something does work, you keep it and continue to build on it. When you realize what certain tanks need and don't need, it will be easier to build them.

The knowledge of builds has greatly increased over time. In fact, many things that are normal in builds today were consider out of the ordinary back then. For example, it was once thought that health protected tanks much better than body damage. This proved false through certain amounts of testing. If two tanks, one with maxed body damage and one with maxed health, get hit head on and take in all the force of a bullet, the tank with maxed body damage will sustain less damage. This is because body damage negates damage by destroying whatever object it comes in contact with quicker. After this discovery, many players decided to use more body damage than health in their builds. However, soon after, another discovery was made. As it turns out, health can be better in certain situations. In instances where bullets don't hit you head-on but instead just slightly scrape you, health is better. The health basically makes the bullet bounce of you. This is because health works like bullet penetration except for the tank itself and not the bullets. If you put a tank that is utilizing more body damage in this scenario, he will take more damage. This is because of body damage's indirect resistance to knock-back properties. In other words, the bullet will be allowing to be in contact with the body damage tank longer because it doesn't bounce out of the way automatically. However, thanks to those properties, this allows tanks that utilize more body damage to get in closer to their opponents because they aren't knocked around as easily as tanks that are utilizing more health than body damage. In the end, it basically comes down to what tank you are playing and how you are using that tank.

**Stats** -

There are 8 total stats that you can choose to upgrade for a tank. Those are Health Regen, Max Health, Body Damage, Bullet Speed, Bullet Penetration, Bullet Damage, Reload, and Movement Speed.

**Health Regen** increases the rate at which your health is regenerated. This allows you to recover health that you have lost from getting damaged. Regen works best when combined with max health and body damage as they keep you from having to recover as much health each time you get damaged. This is because regen is percentage based. In other words, the rate of how fast you regen will depend on how much health you have. This stats effects some tanks greater than others, particular tanks that like to keep up constant pressure and tanks that want to attack more frequently.

**Max Health** is the total amount of health you have. This can be more effective for some tanks more than others. It can also be more effective than body damage in instances where you are only scraped by the bullet. This is because max health decreases the amount of time a bullet has to do damage to you because the high damaging bullet actually knocks it out of the way faster, where as body damage actually increases it by allowing the bullet to make contact longer because of its "knockback resistance" properties, which keep it from bouncing out of the way.

**Body Damage** negates the damage dealt to you by damaging whatever it comes in contact with. Like max health, it is more effective on some tanks more than others, particularly tanks that like to get in close to do damage. The body damage reduces the amount of damage by damaging whatever is damaging it. When objects have less health, they do less damage. The amount of damage also determines the knockback of a bullet. Because body damage deals damage to bullets, the knockback power that they would have is decreased because the bullets health is lowered. Basically, body damage indirectly increases knockback resistance as well.

**Bullet Speed** increases the speed at which your bullet travels. Increasing the bullet speed also increases the distance at which your bullet travels. This is because bullets have a set lifespan. When that lifespan ends, the bullet fades and dies. This means that faster bullets will be able to make it farther because their speed allows them to travel a greater distance during the amount of time it takes for them to die. Because of this, tanks that attack from far away like snipers benefit from increased bullet speed because it not only allows the bullet to travel farther, but allows your bullets to reach their target quicker as well, giving the opponent less time to react to your bullets. However, this also means that it may be harder to lead your bullets because of how fast they travel. Nearly all tanks that utilize bullets can benefit from bullet speed. 

**Bullet Penetration** increases the health of your bullets. Because the health is increased, your bullets are allowed to take more damage when exposed to outside forces such as shapes or other bullets. This means that your bullets also have more time to deal damage to an object, before they themselves are destroyed by the object they are coming in contact with. However, without bullet damage, your bullets will not be able to effectively use the extra health to their advantage because they don't have enough power to do so. Because of this, bullet penetration works best when paired with bullet damage.

**Bullet Damage** increases the damage of your bullets. It can be compared to body damage for your bullets. A bullet with bullet damage keeps itself alive by destroying the other object quicker. However, without any bullet penetration, the bullet may die before it is able to give out all of its potential power. This is because bullet penetration allows your bullet to take more damage, meaning the bullet is allowed more time to deal more damage in the process.

**Reload** affects the rate in which your bullets/drones come out of your cannon. This allows you to attack with your bullets/drones more frequently. This stat alone probably affects the game more than any other stat. In fact, none of the other stats even come close. For many tanks, reload provides protection, power, maneuverability, speed, and also greatly amplifies the power of many of the stats. Reload also effects some tanks more than others. For instance, the tri-angle tree gains most of its power from reload, while most tanks in the sniper tree rely more on bullet speed and movement speed.

**Movement Speed** affects the speed at which your tank travels. This stat is beneficial for nearly all tanks. It allows you to keep up with your targets, and also allows you to flee from others who are targeting you. This stat becomes helpful when dodging bullets and maneuvering in battle. It is also beneficial to tanks that either have very low recoil or don't have the option of recoil at all. This means that this stat is the only way they can get a significant boost in speed, making it very valuable.

All of these stats work together to make tanks work. Some stats can't even function properly without the help of other stats. Learning what each stat does and how they all affect each other is very important for your future in diep. Knowing these things will also make you a better builder in the process. It is also greatly encouraged to venture off from what is considered normal with builds. Try new builds that you may have thought of as horrible. Some may even surprise you and actually work well.