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Getting Started

What this game is

HackerWars drops you into a fictional internet: a sprawl of servers you reach by their IP address. Some belong to companies and other NPCs. Some belong to real players logged in around the world. Almost any of them can be broken into if your software is sharp enough. And so can yours, by anyone who out-guns your defenses.

You start with a single computer and do what a hacker does. Break into servers and upload and install viruses that earn money and Bitcoin while you're away. Run missions for bigger, one-off payouts. Build a botnet from the machines you've cracked and turn it on someone's server to knock it offline. Everything you earn goes back into better hardware and stronger software, because the strongest, richest players have the best shot at the round. The endgame is the NSA: out-grow everyone, break in, and doom the internet to win the round.

The interface (your sidebar)

Everything lives in the left menu of the game. The ones you'll use constantly:

  • Internet — visit any IP to hack it or log in.
  • Software — your files: viruses, crackers, hashers, firewalls, antivirus.
  • Task Manager — your running jobs: hacks, installs, research, log edits.
  • Hardware — the shop: CPU, HDD, RAM, and internet upgrades.
  • University — where you research software to higher versions.
  • Finances — your bank accounts.
  • Hacked Database — every server you've cracked, and where you collect money.
  • Log File — your own logs, the ones to keep clean.
Your first moves
  1. Open a bank account. You start with no account. Visit a bank's IP from the Finances or Internet pages and open one, so you have somewhere to put your money.
  2. Grab free software. The first Whois page lives at the permanent IP 1.2.3.4 and links to the Download Center. Log in there with download / download. It's the one server in the game with no logs, so it's safe to grab and share software anonymously.
  3. Make your first hack. Pick an IP, crack in, and drop a virus. (Full walkthrough: Hacking 101.)
  4. Collect. Once your viruses have earned for a while, go to Hacked Database → Collect Money, pick a bank account, and sweep it all at once.

After that, the early game is two things happening at once. Actively, you go hunting for new servers: missions and the riddle trail, a chain of puzzle-gated servers that each hand you the way into the next, are the two reliable ways to turn up fresh IPs, so keep working them. Passively, the viruses you left behind on every box you cracked are earning the whole time. Drop an earner on each server as you go, and that income builds in the background while you chase the next one. Don't fuss over picking the perfect virus type this early. Any virus beats no virus.

⚠️
Everything resets each round. When a round ends, all hardware, money, software, and IPs reset to baseline (you restart with a small Bitcoin stake), and your reputation and clan points zero out along with them. The rankings keep a record of past rounds and your badges carry over, but everything else is gone. Don't get too attached to a setup.
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Mushi's tipRun the initial tutorial missions first. They teach you the mechanics and hand you some starting funds. The Certifications in the University tab are worth working through too, but they cost money to take, so save them for once you can spare it.
>_ Mushi's Guide to Hackerwars.io