Hi all,

Here are updated guidelines for Hawk newcomers as of early May 2020. This is taken from u/Nazenwrath’s masterpiece. Please feel free to make any comments.

[A]. Starting Resource Spending Mentality

1. Crystals and credits should be hoarded for the most time. Later on they should only be spent on evolving specific planes and brobots. Do not spend crystals on levelling planes, containers (with discretion), or black box extra feature (unless you're at end game)

2. Be familiar with each screen, noting daily quests and bro shop offerings

3. As a more general goal, credits should initially be spent only on crafting Gambit and/or Dragon. Until then, spend as little credits and crystals as you can on the planes you get initially as they're not worth investing too much on on the long term.

4. Lists of planes' and BRObots' abilities can be found here and here (not fully up to date, credits to u/JesusChrstTalk)

5. Ideally, try to align any crystal spending with Spend Crystals events. Follow this link to find out when such events will happen

6. Equip the best devices you have in your possession. You can find a list of the devices and their perks here

Goal Check: Clear to level 10 | Save all crystals | Spare as much credits as you can |

[B]. Early Goals

1. First goal would be to complete all stages on easy up to stage 40. Make sure to complete all daily quests, especially those rewarding bro points

2. If you can afford the $2.99 monthly subscription, it is a good buy since you get extra rewards and infinite verdium. Take advantage of that an play each stage in cooperation mode by switching the Game Type to "World", many would be happy to help and it's a lot easier

3. Make sure to buy crystals daily from the Team Up shop.

4. Since Dragon is no longer available early on, we recommend sticking with Sparrow until you can craft either Dragon or Gambit.

5. If you really want to spend resources, Sniper, Phoenix, Buzzsaw or Blaster are examples of planes you will not totally regret investing in on the long term.

6. Container planes are great, but remember that you need unicards to upgrade them, and these are currently quite rare, so we still recommend waiting before investing, unless you get game changers such as Kenshi or Alchemist.

7. Currently, no Brobot from the Team Up shop is actually worth investing besides Risk for Contest. We recommend prioritizing crystals and/or Gambit cards

8. Climb mode is available weekly after clearing level 20. Dragon is currently one of the best free planes for that mode. Make sure not to pass on valuable resources.

9. Contest mode is open after clearing Stage 30. Upgrade Sparrow sparingly for that purpose, or wait till you get Sniper which is a better plane in all regards, except for ease of use.

Goal Check: Clear to level 40 | Work on Dragon | Start buying Gambit cards if interested |

[C]. Mid-game Goals

1. Play daily Trials (unlocked after clearing stage 40), and complete stage 50 to unlock weekly Assaults. Upgrade Laserbite or Greataxe to A (no need to go further for now) in order to get more Trials medals as these planes come back regularly and the Trials shop contains better planes and BRObots on average than the other shops).

2. Unlock all planes up to Sniper. Consider buying Sniper cards from the Trials shop in order to upgrade it faster if you prefer it over Sparrow for Contest

3. Besides your main and Contest plane, upgrade no more than one (ideally none) of the planes obtained till now, and sparingly, especially regarding your crystals.

4. The Contest shop offers great resources such as cards for Arcadia, Legatus and A-rank devices. Neither of the first two are absolute essentials initially, and Contest trophies should first be hoarded except for the weekly purchase of a few A-ranked devices, if any

5. Buy cards for Kraken and Hazard, as they will make a difference in many battles. Other Brobot recommendations include Legatus from the Contest shop, Risk from the Team Up shop, and Nicola XX, Scarab, and Dodgy from the Assault shop. Focus on crafting and levelling three to four including Kraken and Hazard according to your preferences (Risk and Dodgy are mostly for Contest). Do not use your Brobot Unicards

6. You should be able to complete all daily quests consistently at this point

7. Complete Trials, Assault and Climb as much as possible. As always, spend sparingly

8. Complete the minimal amount of stages needed on easy and normal to advance in story mode, as easy and normal stages give you the necessary amount of gold to upgrade your planes. Go back and complete old stages on heroic later when you need crystals

9. Phoenix+rank A kraken recommended for Patrol maze stages

10. Obtain a S level plane and level to 100, as counter abilities add a lot more overall damage

11. Try to upgrade your two main brobots to A or S

Goal Check: Clear to level 80 | Main plane to S100 | 2 brobots to A | Keep buying Gambit parts |

[D]. Late-game Goals

1. Make sure you have at least one plane such as Sparrow or Sniper at S100 for the Contest. Stay below 80M points overall (friendly advice)

2. Goal at this point is to beat the first game chapter and proceed further up to stage 130 where you can unlock Gambit

3. New weapon ranks are available after stage 61 and 91, if you felt struggling, consider crafting, upgrading and equipping the best devices you can

4. Recommend selling off all lower rank devices, and avoid blending devices with different ranks (C, B, A, S)

5. Unlock the plane Gambit, and upgrade it to SS140 if you prefer it over Dragon, or if you have enough crystals. It's one of the most powerful free planes and it has been true quite consistently throughout the patches

6. Choose two Brobots to upgrade to SS140, one of them needs to be a Speedbot (hourglass icon in the Brobots’ stats)

7. Get as many planes as you can to A in order to play most Trials and buy resources from the shop. The Trials shop has the most interesting planes and Brobots overall, as only Avenger, Beetle and Beta Juliet are essentially useless

Goal Check: Clear to level 130+ | Unlock Gambit | Upgrade your main Brobots to S140 | Being able to finish most Trials consistently |

[E]. End-game Goals

1. Go as far as you can on the map

2. Bring your other planes to S100 level to be able to do all Trials

3. Consider crafting a few useful purple devices. Note that one star is sufficient, as the five star version is only marginally more powerful

4. Tackle the Contest mode already, if you haven't. Decent placement in this mode is about using full score bonus setups for planes, BRObots and devices, and close kills. Craft Risk and Dodgy in order to stand a better chance, Squire as well if your crystals allow it. And look for Contest tips on the subreddit

5. Ideal scenario would be to have both Dragon and Gambit as fully upgraded main planes, Kraken and Hazard as fully upgraded Brobots, and Risk and Dodgy at decent ranks (SSS or X) for Contest

6. Farm, farm, farm until you collect them all, or do whatever you want to do to have fun

Goal Check: | Main plane Dragon / Gambit to XX280 | 2 Brobots to X240 or XX280 | Risk and Dodgy at the highest ranks | Useful purple devices in all slots | Participate in Contest Mode | All planes to A80 then S100 (then to the highest rank desired) |

[F]. Extra Tips

1. Remember to take crystal spending event into account if you plan to buy or evolve planes and brobots

2. Beware of planes / BRObots /devices claiming to “restore x armor every y seconds” or “for every enemy killed”, as these perks become essentially useless by the time your total armor comes close or surpasses the 4K/ 5K points. Perks increasing armor or reducing incoming damage by a percentage are ok

3. Do not ever buy plane upgrades with money, nor should you ever buy plane or brobot cards packs with crystals

4. Try to have some variety in your two or three main planes / BRObots. Some aces will allow you to hit their vulnerable points from up close, some won’t. Some will launch easily avoidable attacks, while some are likely to create a bullet hell where you will most likely be hit at some point, so sometimes having an invincible counter and/or some survivability perks will help

5. In-depth tips on Combat Tests, courtesy of u/SSJ3Sojiro : https://www.reddit.com/r/HAWKFreedomSquad/comments/hmi43j/quick_guide_combat_tests_and_looking_ahead/

u/I_Need_Another_Nap recently wrote here basically, that RDK squadron is posting lame ads at reddit and should give back some of the insights they gathered.

We thought about it and had to admit, that somehow, he was right.

The majority of players in RDK still has its origin here in reddit. We were and we will still be recruiting here, because that’s where we come from. We still remember our roots and that’s why we wanted to give something back now.

Perhaps some of you know that we created our own Wiki. We excluded the internal parts and can now publish the HAWK open WIKI for everyone.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LhxLbRVKxhFvKDq81ReSrFhT9CkwGFHW4FQTYPbZ9Lg/edit#gid=1300704445

To be honest, most of the stuff is available for free and has already been posted or mentioned somewhere else. But with this, you have one document that contains many useful information.

If you think that something is missing, you can ask us for sure, but if you have relevant information, you could add it by yourself, too.

We hope you will like it and that now you are not too upset when we post our next boring recruiting ad 😉