01. Overview & Why K9s Matter
The K9 system lives behind a city building, the K9 Tactical Center, which becomes available on Server Day 54. You tame up to three dogs, then develop each through four parallel systems: Leveling, Breakthrough (rank-up), Drilling (RNG secondary stats), and an active Skill. On top of that, dogs can be deployed on Special Operations for materials and alliance loot. The crucial thing to understand up front is how that value reaches you.
✓ The Three Things That Change How You Play
- ▸Every dog is always active — there is no equip slot. Each owned K9's Level buffs, Breakthrough buffs, and all six Drill attributes are summed into your account-wide stats, simultaneously. You never pick a "main" pet. Acquiring and developing all three is strictly additive — more dogs is always more stats.
- ▸K9s never fight in hero battles. They contribute zero to the RPG (Patrol/Arena) battle layer. All of their value is city/world: passive troop stats, utility skills (construction speed, Energy refund, instant confiscation), and Special-Op loot. Don't think of them as combat units — think of them as a permanent buff package.
- ▸The dog walking around your city is a one-time unlock, not idle loot. Clicking its bubble starts taming the next un-owned dog, then it despawns. There is no repeatable "tap the dog for rewards" mechanic.
How K9 Buffs Reach Your Troops
Two buff categories flow from every dog into your standing account attributes — applied to all combat, with no pet needing to be "out":
| Source | What It Buffs |
|---|---|
| Level + Breakthrough | Squad Attack + Squad Defense (flat, climbs with level and rank) |
| Drills (6 secondary attributes) | Health + Penetration for each troop class — Marksman, Biker, Guard (percentage buffs) |
💡 The Power Formula
A dog's K9 Power = Level Power + Breakthrough Power + Drill Power. Drill Power equals the sum of your committed Drill values × 120. The active Skill adds zero power — it's pure utility. Every dog's power then rolls up into your account power. This matters for Special Operations, which gate the best missions behind a K9-power requirement (see Section 07).
02. Unlocking & Taming the Dogs
Each dog passes three gates before it's yours: a server-age gate, a prior-dog level gate, and a taming minigame. You can't rush all three on day one — the chain is deliberately staggered.
The Unlock Chain
| Dog | Server-Day Gate | Prior-Dog Gate | Then |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foreman | Day 54 | None (first dog) | Tame |
| Beacon | Day 54 | Foreman at Lvl 1+ | Tame |
| Buggy | Day 54 | Beacon at Lvl 15+ | Tame |
So the real chore isn't Foreman or Beacon — it's that Buggy is gated behind raising Beacon to Lvl 15. The Foreman → Lvl 1 requirement is trivial; getting Beacon to 15 is the gate that paces your third dog.
Taming: Frisbee Training
Each dog is tamed through Frisbee Training — a timing/QTE minigame. Throw at the right moment for the dog to catch it and raise your Bond; miss and Bond doesn't increase. Each throw is judged Mistake / Outstanding / Perfect. You must fill the dog's training progress to 100% to complete the tame.
The cap that matters: each dog can only do Frisbee Training twice per day. Taming is therefore a multi-day process — start it as soon as a dog is eligible so the daily plays aren't wasted.
⭐ Start the Chain Immediately
Because both the taming plays (2/day) and Beacon's Lvl-15 gate are time-paced, the fastest route to all three dogs is: tame Foreman → level it to 1 → tame Beacon → push Beacon to Lvl 15 → tame Buggy. Every day you skip a Frisbee session or sit below the next gate is a day your third dog arrives later — and since dogs are additive, later means less standing power.
03. 🦴 The 3 Dogs
Foreman is a Quality-1 dog; Beacon and Buggy are Quality-2. Quality drives the level/rank ceiling, the size of the per-level Squad buffs, and — importantly — the Drill value caps. The two Quality-2 dogs are roughly twice the long-term stat engine Foreman is.
Foreman
Quality 1
Max: Lvl 50 · Rank 5
Squad Atk/Def: +5/+5 → +250/+250
Skill: Building Buddy (construction speed)
Beacon
Quality 2
Max: Lvl 60 · Rank 6
Squad Atk/Def: +8/+8 → +503/+503
Skill: Cuddly Contribution (restore Energy)
Buggy
Quality 2
Max: Lvl 60 · Rank 6
Squad Atk/Def: +8/+8 → +503/+503
Skill: Loyal Escort (instant confiscation)
Power Ceilings (Level + Breakthrough, no Drills)
| Dog | Max Level Power | Max Breakthrough Power | Base Max (no Drills) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foreman | 180,000 | 181,440 | 361,440 |
| Beacon | 362,160 | 362,160 | 724,320 |
| Buggy | 362,160 | 362,160 | 724,320 |
Drill Power stacks on top of these and is capped by Drill value limits — Quality-1 caps run roughly half of Quality-2.
Total Materials to Fully Max
| Dog | K9 Kibble | K9 Supplement | Training Document | Gene Chip |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foreman | 28,875 | 240 | 60 | 10 |
| Beacon | 83,770 | 515 | 110 | 30 |
| Buggy | 83,770 | 515 | 110 | 30 |
K9 Kibble feeds Leveling; Supplement, Training Document, and Gene Chip feed Breakthrough. Whistles (Drilling) are separate and effectively unbounded — you spend them until you're happy with the rolls.
04. Leveling & Breakthrough
These are two separate progression axes that alternate. Leveling spends K9 Kibble and adds Squad Attack/Defense. Breakthrough (rank-up) spends the rarer materials, adds a flat Squad buff chunk plus power, upgrades the Skill — and raises your level cap. You level to the cap, breakthrough to lift it, then keep leveling.
Level Cap by Rank (Foreman example)
| Rank | Level Cap |
|---|---|
| Rank 0 (fresh) | Lvl 9 |
| Rank 1 | Lvl 19 |
| Rank 2 | Lvl 29 |
| Rank 3 | Lvl 39 |
| Rank 4 | Lvl 49 |
| Rank 5 (max) | Lvl 50 |
Beacon and Buggy follow the same pattern one tier higher — up to Rank 6 and Lvl 60. When the UI shows "Breakthrough" instead of "Level Up," you've hit the current cap and need to rank up to continue.
💡 Skill Unlocks at Lvl 10 + First Breakthrough
A dog's active Skill doesn't exist until it reaches Lvl 10 and completes its first Breakthrough (Rank 1). After that, every Breakthrough levels the Skill up alongside the rank. So the first real milestone for any dog is Rank 1 — it opens both the higher level cap and the Skill in one step.
05. 🎲 Drilling — The RNG Stat System
Drilling is the pet system's gacha. Each dog has six secondary attributes — Health and Penetration for Marksman, Biker, and Guard troops (all percentage buffs). Every Drill rerolls all six at once and costs one Whistle. You then keep or discard the result. The roll itself is computed server-side.
The Keep-or-Replace Loop
| Choice | Result |
|---|---|
| Replace | Commits the new values over the old. If the net change is negative, the game warns you before overwriting. |
| Retry | Discards the pending roll and keeps your previous committed values. Costs another Whistle to roll again. |
There is no per-stat lock — you can't freeze one good attribute and reroll the other five. The only thing that persists is the Quality ratchet.
⭐ The Quality Ratchet (One-Way Gate)
Every attribute starts at Common. When Drilling pushes an attribute's value to the cap for its current tier, that attribute promotes a Quality tier — Common → Uncommon → Rare → Epic → Legendary — and can never drop back below it. The new tier's floor becomes its permanent floor.
That's the whole game: you grind rolls to ratchet each attribute up tier by tier, locking in every promotion. Premium Whistles bias the roll positive, so they ratchet faster than Normal Whistles.
Level Gates the Reachable Tier
You can't drill an attribute past the tier your dog's level allows. This is the single most important efficiency rule in the system — level to the breakpoint before you spend Whistles chasing the next tier.
| Drill Tier | Required Level |
|---|---|
| Common (drilling begins) | Lvl 10 |
| Uncommon | Lvl 20 |
| Rare | Lvl 30 |
| Epic | Lvl 40 |
| Legendary | Lvl 50 |
Quality-2 dogs (Beacon, Buggy) use the same level breakpoints but roll into roughly double the value caps per tier — their Legendary attributes are about twice Foreman's.
Auto-Drill (Upgrade-Only)
After 20 manual Drills, Auto-Drill unlocks. You set a Whistle budget and it runs automatically, and it's completely safe: it auto-retries every non-positive roll and auto-saves the first net-positive one, then stops. It also stops when the Whistle count runs out, or when all six attributes are already maxed for the dog's current level.
Because it only ever keeps improvements, Auto-Drill is the correct way to grind — no babysitting, no risk of a bad Replace. Save manual Drilling for when you want to watch a specific attribute tick toward a tier cap.
06. ⚡ K9 Skills
Each dog has one active Skill, unlocked at Lvl 10 + first Breakthrough and upgraded with each subsequent rank. Skills are manual — you tap to fire, then they go on cooldown. They add no power; they're pure city/world utility. None of them touch hero battle.
Building Buddy — Foreman
Increases Construction Speed for 5 minutes. A roughly once-daily building accelerator — fire it before a big construction starts.
Value by rank (1→5): 5% → 7% → 9% → 12% → 15%
Cuddly Contribution — Beacon
Instantly restores the Chief's Energy. Roughly once-daily free Energy — and Energy is exactly what Special Operations spend (see Section 07), so this skill partially self-funds your deploys.
Energy by rank (1→6): 35 → 40 → 45 → 50 → 55 → 60
Loyal Escort — Buggy
Arms an effect so your next State confiscation at a Resource Point completes instantly. Once cast it stays armed until you trigger it — the cooldown only starts after you use it. Cast it, then go confiscate.
Cooldown by rank (1→6): 35h → 31h → 27h → 23h → 19h → 15h (this is the one skill that improves by shrinking its cooldown rather than raising a value)
07. 📦 Special Operations & Contraband Crates
Deploy a dog on a timed errand for 10 Energy. On completion it always pays a guaranteed personal reward, and has a chance to also drop an alliance-shareable Contraband Crate. You have three concurrent mission slots; a deployed dog is locked until you claim.
The Four Missions
| Mission | Duration | Spawn Chance | Crate Chance | K9 Power Needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Beginner | 3h | 55% | 5% | Any |
 Intermediate | 4h | 35% | 10% | Any |
 Advanced I | 5h | 8% | 40% | 10,000 |
| Advanced II | 5h | 2% | 40% | 300,000 |
"Spawn Chance" is not a success rate. Every Special Operation succeeds and pays out. That percentage is how likely each mission type is to appear in a slot — the rarer the mission, the better the loot. The two Advanced missions are the prize, and they're power-gated at 10,000 and 300,000 K9 power: only a well-developed dog can run them.
Mission Rewards (personal, guaranteed)
| Mission | Reward |
|---|---|
| Beginner | K9 Supplement ×4, Normal Whistle ×1, K9 Kibble ×700, 5-Min Speedup ×5, Lvl 1 Chest ×10 |
| Intermediate | Training Document ×1, K9 Supplement ×7, Normal Whistle ×1, K9 Kibble ×1,200, 5-Min Speedup ×8, Lvl 1 Chest ×20 |
| Advanced I | Training Document ×2, K9 Supplement ×10, Normal Whistle ×2, K9 Kibble ×1,600, 1-Hr Speedup ×1, Lvl 2 Chest ×5 |
| Advanced II | Premium Whistle ×1, Training Document ×3, K9 Supplement ×15, Normal Whistle ×4, K9 Kibble ×2,000, 1-Hr Speedup ×2, Lvl 2 Chest ×10 |
Slots, Caps & Refresh
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Concurrent slots | 3 missions available at once; one dog per mission, deployed dog locked |
| Daily deploy cap | A per-day budget shared across all dogs — when it's gone, deploys are blocked until reset |
| Slot refresh | A new mission only appears in a slot after you complete and claim the current one — no manual refresh |
| Deploy cost | 10 Energy per deploy (Beacon's skill helps refund this) |
Contraband Crates (Alliance Sharing)
When a mission triggers a crate, you can share it with your alliance. Each crate can be claimed by up to 20 allies, and each Chief can claim a maximum of 5 ally crates per day. Crate contents:
| Item | Drop (count @ chance) |
|---|---|
| K9 Kibble | 300 @ 10% · 100 @ 30% |
| Normal Whistle | 2 @ 5% · 1 @ 25% |
| Premium Whistle | 1 @ 2% |
| Diamonds | 500 @ 2% · 200 @ 6% · 100 @ 20% |
Always share your crates — sharing costs you nothing and your allies do the same. Claiming all 5 ally crates daily is free materials and the occasional Premium Whistle or Diamond hit.
08. Strategy & Priorities
Because every dog is additive and none compete for an equip slot, there's no "best dog" decision to agonize over — the goal is simply to unlock all three and develop all three. The strategy is about sequencing and not wasting materials.
Build Order
1. Race the unlock chain. Tame Foreman, level it to 1 to open Beacon, then push Beacon to Lvl 15 to open Buggy. Run Frisbee Training every day it's available (2/day cap) so taming isn't your bottleneck. Every dog online sooner is permanent stats sooner.
2. Get each dog to Rank 1 early. Lvl 10 + first Breakthrough unlocks the Skill and the next level cap in one move. A Rank-1 dog is a functioning dog; a Rank-0 dog is missing its skill and capped at Lvl 9.
3. Favor the Quality-2 dogs for deep investment. Beacon and Buggy have roughly double Foreman's base power ceiling and double the Drill caps. Foreman is the gateway and gives you the construction skill, but your biggest long-term stat returns come from the two Quality-2 dogs.
⭐ Drill at the Breakpoints, Then Auto-Drill
The reachable Drill tier is level-gated (Lvl 10/20/30/40/50 → Common/Uncommon/Rare/Epic/Legendary). Don't pour Whistles into a dog sitting below a tier breakpoint — you'll cap out at the lower tier and waste rolls. Level to the breakpoint first, then grind. Once you've done 20 manual Drills, hand the grind to Auto-Drill: it's upgrade-only, so it can never make a dog worse, and it ratchets quality up while you do something else.
Special-Ops & Resource Loop
- ▸Keep all 3 slots working. Deploy whenever Energy and your daily cap allow — missions always pay, so idle slots are pure lost materials.
- ▸Build at least one dog toward the Advanced power gates. The 10,000 and 300,000 K9-power missions carry the best loot (Premium Whistles, the most mats). A maxed Quality-2 dog clears the 300,000 gate.
- ▸Use Beacon's Energy skill to feed deploys. Each deploy costs 10 Energy; Beacon refunds 35–60 daily. Fire it, then deploy.
- ▸Share every crate and claim your 5 daily. It's free materials for the whole alliance, you included.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
- ▸ Looking for an "equip pet" button. There isn't one. All owned dogs are always active — develop all three, never swap.
- ▸ Expecting dogs to fight. They contribute nothing to hero battle. Their value is passive stats, city skills, and Special-Op loot.
- ▸ Tapping the city dog expecting repeat loot. Clicking it starts that dog's one-time unlock and it despawns — there's no idle-reward mechanic.
- ▸ Drilling below the tier-unlock level. You'll cap at the lower tier and burn Whistles for nothing. Hit Lvl 20/30/40/50 first.
- ▸ Manually Replacing a worse roll. The game warns you when a Replace lowers your total — Retry instead, or just let Auto-Drill handle it.
- ▸ Leaving daily caps on the table. 2 Frisbee plays/dog, your daily deploy budget, and 5 ally-crate claims all reset daily. Skipped = gone.
TL;DR — The Quick Hits
- 1. The K9 Tactical Center and all three dogs unlock on Server Day 54.
- 2. Every dog is always active — no equip slot. All their buffs stack into your account stats at once. More dogs = strictly more power.
- 3. K9s never fight in battle. Their value is passive stats, city/world skills, and Special-Op loot.
- 4. The walking city dog is a one-time unlock — clicking it starts taming and it despawns. No idle loot.
- 5. Unlock chain: Foreman (first) → Beacon (needs Foreman Lvl 1) → Buggy (needs Beacon Lvl 15). Taming is Frisbee Training, 2 plays/day.
- 6. Three dogs: Foreman (Q1, Lvl 50/Rank 5), Beacon & Buggy (Q2, Lvl 60/Rank 6). Q2 dogs are ~2× the stat engine.
- 7. Leveling and Breakthrough alternate — level to the cap, rank up to raise it. Skills unlock at Lvl 10 + first Breakthrough.
- 8. Power = Level + Breakthrough + Drill Power. The Skill adds no power.
- 9. Drilling rerolls all 6 attributes at once; Replace commits, Retry discards. No per-stat lock.
- 10. The only persistence is the Quality ratchet: attributes climb Common → Legendary and never drop a tier once promoted. Premium Whistles bias positive.
- 11. Reachable tier is level-gated: Lvl 10/20/30/40/50 → Common/Uncommon/Rare/Epic/Legendary. Level to the breakpoint before you drill.
- 12. Auto-Drill (after 20 manual drills) is upgrade-only — it can't make a dog worse. Use it to grind.
- 13. Skills: Foreman = construction speed; Beacon = restore Energy (feeds Special-Op deploys); Buggy = next confiscation instant. All ~daily.
- 14. Special Ops always succeed (the % is spawn rarity, not success). The Advanced missions hold the best loot and are power-gated at 10,000 / 300,000 K9 power.
- 15. Crates: each shareable to 20 allies; claim up to 5 ally crates daily. Share everything — it's free mats both ways.