What and why?

What are wars and chains?

Wars and chains are the two main activities we do as a faction. They have some things in common - a war is also a chain - but wars require a bit of strategy, whereas chains need almost no strategy. A chain is a series of attacks where the time difference between each attack must be less than 5 minutes.

A war is a more confusing name. Usually, it is meant to be a ranked war. Aquarius is a warring faction, and almost every week, our leadership will enroll our faction, meaning we will get to fight another faction. Sometimes, that other faction is much weaker or stronger or does not want a real fight. In these cases, our leadership might reach an agreement with that faction and we will get a termed war. This means we agree the amount of hits each faction makes will be agreed upon. Both factions then fulfill their obligations, and the rewards of the ranked war are divided as agreed upon.

If there is no agreement, we talk about an untermed war. This name might be slightly confusing, as an untermed war can also have agreements. The factions can, for example, agree not to hit onliners. In any case, it will be a war where the winner is not agreed upon. Uncommon for us, but existing, is the territory war. On the Torn map, you can see that it is divided into small plots called territories. These territories give bonuses. Some of these territories give valuable resources. If the attacker wins a territory war, they will take that territory. If the attacker loses, the territory will remain in the hands of the defender.

Why do we do these?

Besides just the fun of doing these, chains and wars are done for respect. Respect is this nebulous resource that we use to upgrade the faction, unlocking more and better perks for training, crimes, etc. So, every bit of respect we earn means every member gets ahead stat-wise. When applying to factions, one wants that juicy 15 % bonus to stat gain, right? This is how we get those.

Ranked wars are also done as they bring caches. Caches are given after a ranked war is finished. The winner gets substantially more than the loser; therefore, we should all work hard to get that loot. As a ranked war is also a chain, it also brings in respect. So, this is a lucrative and, more important, fun activity for our faction.

Do you, as a faction member, get anything out of it? Well, yes. You will get to enjoy our faction perks. However, the rewards we get from the ranked wars are also used to give free Xanax during our training month. To buy high-quality weapons that can be loaned. And there is even a bit where you get money for the work you do in these chains and wars.

What is a chain?

A chain is a series of successful attacks (called hits), where each hit must be made within a five-minute time difference. Each attack will have an added multiplier bonus, and the longer the chain is, the higher that multiplier bonus will be. If we fail to make a successful attack within that five-minute timeframe, the chain breaks. When a chain breaks, it goes into cooldown, and during that cooldown, no chain hits can be made anymore. After the cooldown is finished, we could – in theory – start from zero again. The multiplier will also reset. This cooldown will be longer if the chain is longer, and it can last many hours.

What is a ranked war?

A ranked war is between two factions, where the goal is to get a specific gap in score between the two factions. The necessary gap will be smaller the longer a war takes. Scoring is done by making hits on the opposing faction members. The score is based on the respect a target gives. And as this is also a chain, the bonus multiplier applies.

Warlord weapons

What are these Warlord weapons?

Let's start with the basic stuff: Warlord is a specific Bonus on a ranked war (RW) weapon. These are the weapons you only get from caches. Every RW weapon has 1-2 bonuses, as can be seen in the item menu (see below). Some normal weapons also have such bonuses, but RW weapons will always have a yellow, orange, or red background, while normal weapons have a white background, making them easy to spot.

As you can see, these Warlord weapons give a substantial increase in respect when the final hit is made with one of those. Respect is the sole reason for chaining, so you should use a Warlord weapon in those.

How do you use Warlord weapons?

It's pretty simple really, loan one of your choice from the faction armory, equip it, make sure you have ammo for it, and use the Warlord gun to do the finishing hit on your target. No other hits are important; you can stab them to low health with your favored knife, but you need to do the killing blow with the Warlord to get the bonus. If you are successful it shows you in the combat log.

One remark that is hopefully unnecessary: While the Warlords are juicy please DO NOT retrieve them from other players while they are online. Those are your precious faction siblings, who will be very unhappy noticing mid-attack that their gun is missing. Just poke them in PM and ask nicely if you can have the juicy gun a moment to drop your hits instead.

When you are done hitting, put the weapon back in the armory so others can use that weapon.

What's in it for you?

First of all, the respect earned will bring more faction perks. The caches we earn in ranked wars will be used to pay the free faction-provided Xanax during training breaks. That money is also used to buy us faction-provided points for energy refills, faction-provided blood bags, RW weapons to loan, etc.

Besides all those goodies, the faction does pay for participation in wars and chains. The exact payments may differ, but there is usually a payment for flat respect earned in chains and for hits on opponents during wars. Depending on the rewards we get from our ranked wars, the payment will differ. In most cases, the payment will be more than sufficient to compensate for the Xanax used and will give you a nice profit. The payment might not cover the usage of expensive cans or Feathery Hotel Coupons (FHC).

The faction does not provide Xanax, cans, or FHCs for chains or wars. A single hit will in almost all cases get you enough payment to cover one Xanax.

A minimum participation will be required, before any payment will be given. This is often as low as making 0.5% of the hits, but our faction leaders can use a different value for some chains or wars. A minimum (average) FF can also be applied when leadership deems that necessary, leading to no, or reduced payment if you fail to get that minimum FF.

Too much effort, not enough reward

If you get to this part and agree with that statement, you're in the wrong faction. If you do want all the goodies the faction provides, but cannot be bothered to help secure those goodies, you are leeching from your faction buddies. Nobody likes a leech, so don't be that person.

What if I cannot participate in a specific chain or war?

You simply let our leadership know about that fact. We all know there is a life outside of Torn, and we all know that is more important than a game.

Your participation is tracked, so if you do not inform our leadership they will simply see low participation. If they do not know the reasons for that, that low participation may lead to you being removed from the faction. So, don't forget to inform our leaders if you will miss out on a chain or war.

What do we do in wars and chains?

Preparation for wars and chains

Both wars and chains are about making hits. Attacking someone costs energy. So, to prepare for a war or chain, we stack energy. Stacking energy means we try to get as much energy as possible, the maximum value being 1000. The easiest way to reach that is by training your energy to zero, and then to take a Xanax. A Xanax will raise your energy by 250. Once the drug cooldown is over, you take another one, bringing your energy to 500. You repeat that until you reach the maximum of 1000 energy. As drug cooldown is between six and eight hours, you will need to start in time with stacking.

Second, we find targets. We need targets that bring good respect. These are targets with battle stats close to your own. A perfect target gives a high Fair Fight (FF). This is maximum three, and you should try to remain above 2.25 FF. Mission targets tend to give good FF, so you might want to keep track of those. For chains, we do want to have targets that are inactive players. Repeatedly hitting active players might annoy them, and their faction, and result in counter attacks that might interfere with our chaining. FF is based on relative difference between you and the target, the range of targets with good FF will get larger when you have higher battle stats. If a target has 75%-100% of your battle stats you will get a FF of 3 upon defeating them. If they have 25% you should still be able to get 1.75 FF, which is in many cases the required minimum for RWs.

When we have a war, the faction may hire spies that will get us the exact values of our opponents. It still is worth having a few inactive players ready, as these could be useful in keeping our chain alive or forwarding the chain when there are no suitable opponents available to attack.

What do we do in chains?

Simple: we make hits.

The nasty part in a chain is the timer. A hit needs to be made within five minutes after the previous hit. For chains the faction tries to get chain watchers, people that will be there to make sure they hit someone, within those five minutes. If you're not one of them, you can help them out by spreading your attacks, thus helping them so they might need to make less attacks. If you are a chain watcher, you're responsible for keeping that chain alive.

If you're not a chain watcher at that time, that does not mean you can just let the chain die. Everyone must try to keep that chain alive. Make sure to communicate with others, so we are not wasting energy by making three simultaneous attacks. If you know upfront who will make a needed hit, others can preserve energy.

As chains are all about hits, they are all about energy. Try to be online to keep the chain alive when there are just a few, or no, others. Don't go to sleep if you have energy left. Use booster cooldowns wisely. Note: there is no obligation to use cans or other boosters for chains, nor is there a reward. It is, of course, appreciated if you do use these from your own stock, but the compensation that the faction may pay will not be enough to cover these.

A chain also has bonus hits (10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, 10000, 25000, 50000, 100000) that give extra respect. As earning a certain amount of respect for your faction with a single hit has three merits (carnage: 10 respect, massacre: 100 respect, and genocide, 1000 respect), we don't want to have just a random person making these hits. We agree on the person and then make sure to count down by calling hits in chat.

Calling hits means announcing you are going to do number x. So there will be no accidents, and the assigned person can hit as soon as the one before the bonus hit is done.

If you have lag, problems with chat, or anything like that: refrain from hitting until that bonus hit is claimed.

At the start of a chain the amount of hits goes pretty fast. Therefore hits 10, 20, 50, and (often) 100 are usually not called. In most cases you should leave a target. Hospitalizing makes them longer unavailable to be hit again. Avoid mugging, as that lowers the respect gained.

Don't forget: chains are about respect. Borrow that Warlord weapon from the faction armory! Note: chains are often paid by respect, so a Warlord weapon adds to your payment.

What do we do in ranked wars?

If this would be a termed war, where an agreement between the factions was made: follow the instructions for that specific war. If this is an untermed war: beat the opponent!

First of all: turn off revives. Make sure nobody can revive you. Don't put it to 'friends and faction', as your friends might be in that opposing faction, or thinking to do you a favor at the wrong moment.

Keep in mind that a ranked war is also a chain, so everything applying to a chain, also applies to a ranked ward. Thus also: the longer the chain, the higher the multiplication bonus. We need to ensure our chain does not break while trying to make the opponent's chain fail. The chain can be kept alive by hitting other people than our opponents (called outside targets), but hitting outside targets does not score for the ranked war. We, therefore never make the chain bonus hits on outside targets, they must be made on an opponent.

Like a chain, we need to hit the good opponents, bringing in a good FF. If we hit low targets, we will get low scores and make it harder than necessary. Let your lower statted faction mates hit those targets and don't waste your energy on them if there is no good reason.

The big difference between a war and a chain is, obviously, the opponent. During a chain you will normally not be attacked. During a war the opponent will attack you. They will do what they can to get us in hospital and to make sure we do not get a long chain.

And, while we try to get good respect from our targets, it may be necessary to hit someone with low FF, as that someone might be active and hitting other faction members. To keep our opponents down, we usually hospitalize online players, so their med cooldown goes up, or they are longer unable to hit. We tend to leave offline players, so they are sooner available to be hit again. We do not mug. Mugging lowers the respect gained.

During wars members may ask for pushes. This means we will all try to attack the opponent together. If you're in the hospital, you med out at the agreed moment and start fighting. The goal is to gain the upper hand and pinning the opponent down.

The opposite may also apply and you may be asked to turtle. Turtling means getting and keeping yourself in the hospital. After all, when you're in the hospital, the opponent cannot hit you.

Medical items can be found in the faction armory, but be aware that you cannot use those items when you reach maximum med cooldown. In wars, it is important to first make sure our chain is alive and break the opponents chain. When attacking opponents, first target the online players. Keep an eye on people medding out of the hospital and see to attack them as soon as possible. When there are no online players available, use offline players to push our chain forward. If none of those are available and you do not have the time to wait, you can hit an outside target.

Watch chat for faction members asking for assistance or distraction (see https://www.torn.com/forums.php#/p=threads&f=999&t=16366885). Make sure that chain bonus hits are made on the opposing faction.

Don't forget: war score is about respect. Borrowing and using a Warlord weapon will make the gap between us and the opponent larger and finishing this war quicker.