Some tips for getting started in Wildgate
Wildgate is a multiplayer space game that asks you to pilot a ship around a galaxy with your buddies. Here are some tips on how to get started!
Wildgate is a fun and silly multiplayer game that mixes Sea of Thieves-like PvP ship combat with a battle royale game.
You’re initially dropped into a small pocket in space and tasked with finding an Artifact to then carry on your ship through the Wildgate. But the Wildgate doesn’t open until later in the match, the Artifact can be difficult to find, and, oh yeah, there are other teams of players with ships and guns looking for the same artifact that you are. Your job is to visit points of interest to gear up your ship and prepare your team for conflict.
In this Big Friendly Guide, we’ll walk you through how to get started in Wildgate.
Set your reward track before you queue up
One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Wildgate is not looking into the Rewards track before you queue up for your first match. Think of these tracks as mini-battlepasses (which don’t have an expiration date as far as we can tell), which house a variety of extremely high quality rewards on them.
However, there are many reward tracks in the game, and you’ll need to choose the one you want to progress. For example, if you want the character Sal, who is great at fixing the ship and sticking around to make improvements, you want to make sure you set the Knowledge track as your active track. Doing this will make sure all of the XP you earn in your matches will go toward this track, which starts with unlocking Sal, and then continues with other engineer-like upgrades, such as the repair bot.
New heroes are great, new ships are better
Outside of the tracks belonging to the three default heroes, every track begins with a character unlock. A good idea is to look at the various different characters that sound interesting to you and go for them first.
However, while your first instinct might be to push for unlocking all of the characters before doing anything else, you should really focus on getting a better ship once you’ve gotten a character you think fits your playstyle.
The Wonder, Hope, and Danger tracks all have new ship types to unlock at level three, and these things are game changers. The Privateer battle ship, for example, just has more gun points for you to attach weapons to and they’re in more strategic locations, meaning you can drastically improve your damage output to enemy ships. Get a new ship type as soon as you can.
Teleport is the most important thing
As the tutorial will teach you, you can always teleport back to your ship with a press of a button. This is taught to you pretty early, so it’s actually pretty easy to forget during your initial matches. Do not forget the teleport. It’s extremely useful for bringing loot you find in space ports or other events back to your ship. Or heading back if you get lost in space or if you jump out to get materials (more on that later). With the exception of the Artifact itself, you can teleport back to your ship the moment an object you want is in your hands.
Including ...
Boarders will ruin your day
Yeah, you can steal stuff from other people’s ships and teleport it back to yours. And other players can and will do the same to you.
Boarding ships is extremely powerful in Wildgate, especially when you’re up against new players who aren’t great at shutting doors (remember to do this in your own ship) or repairing windows. You can cause chaos the second you arrive by overloading the core or just grabbing a hardpoint or gun and teleporting it back home.
Having an enemy on your ship is extremely disruptive for the entire crew, but especially the helmsman, who you should try and protect with your life.
Keep an eye on the helm when you board and when you defend
Speaking of the helmsman, boarding and ship controls gets its own tip because it’s so incredibly important.
If you can get control of an enemy’s helm, you can absolutely devastate them in seconds. You can and should drop their shields instantly, waste their Smuggler’s Turn if they have one, and point them toward a nearby obstacle before you boost them into it. If your allies are hot on their tail, you can even drop the ships speed to zero or send them careening into your ship’s laser ram.
On the flip side, protecting your helm from these devastating attacks is paramount. There is no faster way to lose your ship (and therefore the game) in Wildgate than to allow the enemy to grab hold of your helm.
Collect ice and fuel as you travel
Only one person can drive the ship at a time, which leaves the rest of the crew with some time on their hands. We’ll get to one of the big things idle players can do to help in a second, but first let’s talk about gathering resources.
As you fly through the galaxy, you’ll come across ice and big glowing rocks just floating in space. Ideally your helmsman should get you close to these, but even if they don’t, you can simply yeet yourself out of the airlock as you drive by, mine the resource, and instantly teleport home. This is a great way to stock up on ice for (ship) heals and fuel for (ship) boosts before you’ll really need them in the late game of the match.
If you’re asking your helmsman to stop for these resources, you’re doing it wrong. Just fly through space and grab it. If you’re the pilot of the ship and you have a bit of a drive ahead of you, you can even leave the controls to grab resources like this as well. Remember, you can always get home instantly if anything bad happens.
Don’t discount probes
The information game is massive in Wildgate, and will make a huge difference when determining if you want to take a fight with an enemy or even just where you want to go. That’s where the probes come in.
As you’re flying around the galaxy, non-helm players should get on the probes and look around. You can mark points of interest while doing this, which really helps your driver know where to go next.
Wildgate is a cooperative game, and everyone should pitch in to not only help gather information, but help steer the session in a direction everyone is excited about.
Grabbing the Artifact first isn’t always a great idea, but stealing the Artifact is hard work
The thing about the Artifact in Wildgate is that you need it to win — unless you want to destroy every other ship in the game instead — but so does everyone else.
Picking it up alerts the entire lobby that someone is going after the Artifact, and also marks it (and you) on the map, which is bad. However, having the Artifact on your ship is good, because it gives you bonuses (like healing) in combat.
This makes the Artifact a massive gamble, and something you’ll need to decide how to handle on a game-by-game basis.
If you’re relatively alone near the Artifact, it might be a good idea to just grab it and book it through the galaxy. But you can’t do it too quickly or you won’t be able to escape through the Wildgate because it won’t be open yet, so you’ll just be drifting through space with a big bullseye on your back.
On the other hand, if your ship is decked out. You can wait for someone else to grab it and simply obliterate them with your superior firepower. Boarding the ship and stealing the Artifact is also an option, but just be aware that you can’t teleport with the Artifact in your hands.
This post originally appeared on BigFriendly.Guide
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