Hello all! This document was very outdated and hadn't been changed since before 1.11 (released almost 1 year ago), when a LOT of important things changed. I'm not sure how popular it is still, but it's now completely up-to-date. There's still a few small things I want to change, namely in the builds section but all information is now current and accurate as of the most recent updates.

– 28 April 2023

Black boxes can drop in ALL gamemodes. The chance is 0.5% which is the same in every gamemode. High Roller does not affect this chance.
The best way to get black boxes is Nightmare, since that drops the most total boxes and therefore the most black boxes.

Black keys only drop in Nightmare mode. ALL Nantonium boxes in NM have a 5% chance to drop a key. They will also sometimes be given in event rewards by ranking in 25% or higher (percentages listed in the events information box). Lastly, they can be bought in the faction armory (15000 + 1000 for 1 key, or 40000 + 2500 for 3 keys).
The best way to get keys is Nightmare mode, or from the armory if you're desperate.

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First, something you need to understand: Cores are an endgame item. They only drop in Nightmare, and only from nantonium boxes dropped by 2 bosses: Savage Devastator Elite (5% chance) and Savage Necrosis Elite (15% chance). If you're not level 96-100, you'll be lucky to get any cores and you should expect to get 0. You can get cores as low as 35 because of Elite Savage Devastators, but finding lobbies of the right level is very hard, games are very slow, and the chance of getting a core is very low. Please don't waste your time "grinding" cores from devastators.
If you want lots of cores, you need a game of lobby level 396-400, which means you must be level 96-100. Level 396+ lobbies will usually give you an Elite Savage Necrosis final boss, which has the highest chance of dropping a core. On average, you'll get 1 core every 10 games from level 396+ lobbies.

• Zombie Hotspot contracts (AKA "xp contracts" or just "contracts") give the most xp in the game for the time invested. They also require the least gear and skill to do. The best maps for contracts are Uranium Mine and Sea Lab. The next best thing is running Apocalypse or Last Man Standing with a carry (long game), but those are not even close in XP per minute.

• Singleplayer Survivors is the most popular and simplest method of obtaining cash – just play Survivors and rescue all the people. You can also quit after saving everyone for more efficiency – quitting doesn't lose money from drops, and fighting the boss takes a long time because of a bug.
• Nightmare private matches are good too – if done right, you could earn up to 800k cash in under 2 minutes. You'll need a high-level teammate to carry you and quickly clear the level for this strat.
Pay Grade and cash contracts are both TERRIBLE money grinding methods; don't waste your time with them.

• Extermination (AKA "eggs") is by far the best credit grinding method. Boss Hunt and Reactor Leak are close in efficiency but solidly behind. Kills and Power Up are both TERRIBLE for credit grinding so never play those.

One of the biggest mistakes players make is focusing resources into tanking at low levels. Do NOT do this. Defense is completely useless until you get it REALLY high (90%+), which is only possible when you have lots of cores. You could try wearing Hardplate or sacrificing important augs, but that will paradoxically get you killed more than if you ignored defense completely, since you'll sacrifice speed which is far more important.
The best thing to invest in (at all levels, but especially at lower levels) is speed. Speed is very powerful because zombies don't damage you instantly – there's roughly half a second between when they first attack and when you take damage. During that time, you can run away from them and thus not take damage at all. You'll need some practice to avoid tricky situations such as getting completely surrounded, but it's absolutely worth the effort.

Helmets – Titan and Medusa are the best options because of their DPS boosts (Titan gives damage, Medusa gives reload). This depends on what guns you use for leveling, but generally Titan is the best option.
Smart Target / Target Assist for Medic/Heavy
Smart Target / Body Fueling for Assault

Vest – Power assist is the best by far because of its ridiculous +18% speed. Mako vest and its +13% speed is good too if you see it in the armory and don't have a power assist yet.
Body Fueling / Tissue Repair

Gloves – Titan gloves are the best because of their huge reload reduction. Dragonfly and Mako gloves are good temporary pieces.
Nimble / (nothing)

Pants – Doesn't matter. Use the highest grade pants you can find. Dragonfly pants are the best but 3% speed isn't a ton, so you can use basically anything and be fine.
Machine Assisted / Body Fueling

Boots – Titan boots are by far the best because of their +12% movement. Dragonfly boots are good too.
Machine Assisted / Revitalising for Medic/Heavy
Machine Assisted / (nothing) for Assault

If you don't have any of the best pieces, use anything that's high-grade. Any armor piece can be useful if you add the right augs. (Except hardplate. Sell hardplate.)

Another important note: do NOT wear black armor unless it's higher-grade than its red counterpart. For example, if you have 10/2 red Titan boots, and get 6/2 black Titan boots, keep wearing 10/2 red. Obviously keep the 6/2 black, but save it for higher levels when you can add cores. Again, defense doesn't matter until you have cores and can get it SUPER high, so by wearing the 6/2 black pair, all you're really doing is losing 4 augs of Machine Assisted.

Raptor [RED]
Nano drop range: 17-20
Raptor is the Shockfield of low levels. It's annoying to get, but if you do get one then you're set until the 50s when you can get better items. High dps for bossing, good fire rate for mobbing (it has 4x fire rate because of its burst mechanic, not 3x like it says thanks to a bug), good at everything. Reloading can be an issue, but generally not a problem as long as you have Nimble on your gloves.

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CM 800 Jupiter [RED]
Nano drop range: 40-100
Jupiter is basically the perfect mobbing gun for leveling: very high damage, plenty of pierce, absolutely tears through mobs. Plus, it helps grind sniper mastery for builds which use a Hornet at higher levels. The only issue is its ammo is a bit expensive, but that's not a huge problem if you can consistently win Nightmare.

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1887 Shockfield [RED]
Nano drop range: 50-100
Shockfield should require no introduction: it's good all-around with its high DPS for bossing and wide spread of bullets for mobbing. Unfortunately it's not quite that simple – red Shockfield is only good if you have [RED] shotgun collection and good reload speed. (ideally red Titan gloves, T3 glove mastery, and red glove collection). Even with these, it still loses a lot of DPS from frequent reloading and its mobbing is limited by its pierce, so Hotspot and Jupiter are generally better.

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Hotspot [RED]
Nano drop range: 40-100
Arguably the best bossing gun for leveling up. Shockfield has more DPS on paper, but Hotspot beats it out by ~10% when reloads are included. It also has infinite range (most guns do less damage if attacking from farther away, but not Hotspot!), so you can shoot bosses from far away if you're less experienced with dodging. It's also good for mobbing because of its high fire rate, especially with KS/HTL activated. The main problem is its movement penalty, which hurts at lower levels when you don't have Fast Movement maxed.

1887 Shockfield [BLACK]
Shockfield is already good at base, but with cores and augs tripling its clip size it becomes a MONSTER. Excellent mobbing because of its fire rate and wide spread of bullets, and top-tier bossing because of its high DPS. Good on virtually every build.
You can also replace Adaptive with Biosynthesis if you're interested in long events, but only if you have another bossing gun (Zerfallen, Hornet, Hotspot).

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Hornet [BLACK]
With bug fixes to Critical Shot and how bosses take damage in update 1.11, Hornet is now one of, if not the, best non-premium bossing guns. This depends on your build, however – if your build doesn't have a lot of points in Critical Shot, then don't use Hornet.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Hornet is only good if you have tier 5 sniper mastery (Supercrit). Hornet without supercrit is basically on par with Shockfield, so you shouldn't use it. If you don't have supercrit unlocked, grind for it with Jupiter.

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Hotspot [BLACK]
Nothing to say here that wasn't said in the red section. Excellent mobbing because of its fire rate, excellent bossing because of its high dps and infinite range. The only important note is the 4th aug, since most people want to get more dps with something like Capacity or Pinpoint. Both of these augs give a mere 5% DPS or so, which is completely negligible. On the other hand, Piercing makes mobbing easier (both in general and especially during boss fights), helps with starting Killing Spree, and helps massively with bossing in long events.

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Festungsbrecher [FW]
This isn't a black gun, but it's very OP at endgame so worth mentioning here. Another multi-purpose gun, Fest is good for mobbing with its fast fire rate and for bossing. Its single-target DPS is similar to [RED] Hotspot, but it has a unique mechanic we call "pierce-blast effect" which can multiply its DPS if you're fighting multiple bosses at once. Local event tryhard xxx made an excellent video describing it if you're curious, which I've linked below:


Note: There's some really weird issues with Fest where the explosions can sometimes miss, as silly as that sounds. Because of this, you won't always get perfectly multiplied damage, but you will still get a decent DPS boost.

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Shredder [BLACK] and CM Gigavolt [BLACK]
I'm grouping these two together since they serve basically the same purpose and are very similar gameplay-wise. Both are mobbing monsters – just shoot forwards while running and everything in front of you will die. The augs here are tailored towards Virus Samples, which is why they have Skeletonized – you want to squeeze out as much movement speed as possible for faster sample collecting. They both do enough damage that Adaptive isn't necessary, so these augs work perfectly in all other gamemodes as well. If you really hate Skeletonized, then replace it with Capacity.
Shredder is better in some maps since its blades can bounce around corners, but Gigavolt is more "accurate" with its faster fire rate and arcing off walls. Which one is better? I'd say Gigavolt, but to each their own.

Contagion – $10 USD
The go-to premium for fast leveling. No other item in the game can level you faster than this in XP contracts, especially for its super cheap price. It has good damage for its level, and also has pierce-blast (like Fest) so it holds up in contracts even at higher levels. It's also usable for general use at lower levels, at least until you get an actual gun. It's not very good in events or nightmare, especially at higher levels.

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CM Proton Arc – $35 USD
Good on Assault and Heavy for nightmare mode, both at base and max cored... and that's about it. It's very bad in events where you fight multiple bosses and lots of mobs. It's bad on Medic since Hornet has more DPS. Even on Heavy/Assault, it's also a pretty negligible DPS boost compared to the usual Hornet/Shockfield, and you're paying a fat $35 for it.
In conclusion: Highest-dps gun in the game? Yes. "Best bossing gun"? Absolutely not. Very important difference. Should you buy it? I'd say no, but it's not a terrible purchase if you play lots of nightmare.

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Zerfallen – $40 USD
(Skele / OC / Racemodded for contracts, Dead / OC / Adapt / Skele for high-lvl bossing)

If it wasn't so expensive, Zerfallen would be the best gun in the whole game. Papabear made a video explaining it, but in a nutshell: Perfect for Uranium Mine XP contracts and FW egg hunt. Absolutely deletes bosses with the right setup (see "ZerBALLIN S1 variant" in the builds section). Excellent in high-wave events and basically all bossing.


The only issue is you need to know how to use it: dodging while reloading, hitting bosses with main attack and wall explosion, aiming at corners for 3x damage, etc. It's got a big learning curve, but Zerfallen becomes terrifyingly powerful when used correctly.

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As for other premiums, we wouldn't recommend buying any (especially not for end game use as they're all straight up garbage at high levels). Purchase at your own risk.

The abbreviations come from bot commands in our discord server, e.g. typing .as1 gives you Assault Skill build #1.
"S1" builds refer to the generic/classic builds that are good at basically everything, and "S2", "S3", etc are more optimized for specific gamemodes and are worse in others.

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Assault:

AS1 – Classic Assault
Skill Build:
1 Stim Shot
1 Critical Shot
4 Reload
25 Killing Spree
25 Adrenaline
25 Movement
19 Body Armor Expert
Leveling guide: Start with 1 point in stim shot + movement + crit, then reload to 4, then killing spree to 25, then adrenaline to 25, movement to 25, and body armor expert to 19. You can mix it up in-between (e.g. 25 adren first, then 25 movement, etc), but this is the best path for leveling up fast. Always get body armor expert last.

End game armor setup: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/760402578718064735/941503903491563540/speed_assault_armor.png

End game weapon setup:
Hotspot (deadly / oc / adaptive / piercing) for mobbing + long-range bossing
Shockfield (deadly / oc / adaptive / capacity) for mobbing + close bossing
Shredder or Gigavolt (deadly / oc / biosynthesis / skeletonized) for mobbing + healing in events


AS2 – Crit Assault
NOTE: This build has much lower resistances than AS1 for a fairly minor dps boost (~18-20% depending on exact build). This build should only be used if you want to go for high waves in Apocalypse/LMS.
Skill Build:
7 Reload
25 Killing Spree
25 Adrenaline
25 Movement
18 Critical Shot
Leveling: Start with 1 point in movement + crit, then reload to 4, then killing spree to 25, then adrenaline to 25, reload to 7, movement to 25, and critical shot to 18. You can mix it up in-between (e.g. 25 adren first, then 25 movement, etc), but this is the best path for leveling up fast.
You can also get 25 crit and 18 movement and/or wear Titan helmet instead of DF (same augs), but speed is more important for survivability and you only gain a small dps boost. (NTS: add exact percents)

Final armor setup: (coming soon)

Suggested weapons:
Hornet (deadly / overclocked / adaptive / pinpoint) for bossing
Shockfield (deadly / overclocked / biosynthesis / capacity) for mobbing + healing
Gigavolt (deadly / overclocked / biosynthesis / skeletonized) for mobbing + healing

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Heavy:

HS1 – Classic Heavy
Skill Build:
1 Die Another Day
1 Tough Body
4 Reload
25 Hold the Line
25 Critical Shot
25 Movement
19 Body Armor Expert
Leveling guide: Start with 1 point in DAD + movement + TB, then reload to 4, then HTL to 25, then crit to 25, movement to 25, and body armor expert to 19. You can mix it up in-between (e.g. 25 movement first, then 25 crit, etc), but this is the best path for leveling up fast. Always get body armor expert last.

End game armor setup: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/760402578718064735/941505464552816671/speed_heavy_armor.png

End game weapon setup:
Hornet (deadly / overclocked / adaptive / pinpoint) for bossing
Shockfield (deadly / overclocked / adaptive / capacity) for mobbing


HS2 – Zerbullying Mastodon Heavy
Uses 4 Mastodon pieces to get Zerfallen to 5 clip. 54% speed, trash defenses, but deletes bosses if used correctly.
(WIP, coming soon)


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Medic:

MS1 – Classic Medic
NOTE: Medic is extremely bad after 1.11 since healing is a lot less important compared to more damage. For best results, switch to Heavy or Assault.
Skill Build:
4 Reload
2 Energy Regen
25 Critical Shot
25 Movement
25 Medkit
19 Body Armor Expert
Leveling guide: Start with 1 point in movement + crit, then reload to 4, then crit to 25, medkit to 25, movement to 25, and body armor expert to 19. You can mix it up in-between (e.g. 15 medkit first, then 25 movement, etc), but this is the best path for leveling up fast. Always get body armor expert last.

End game armor setup: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/886801440360792097/936797130104909844/speed_medic_armor.png

End game weapon setup:
Hornet (deadly / overclocked / adaptive / pinpoint) for bossing
Shockfield (deadly / overclocked / adaptive / capacity) for mobbing


MS2 – "Blue Assault" Medic
Uses Overwatch helmet/gloves to maximize dps. Technically the "best" build for Medic in 1.11 since DPS is more important than Medkit's healing.

Alt build: use Mako gloves, reduce reload to 17? and get Medkit to 11. Loses ~4% dps but gains more healing.

Still-Broken Mechanics
1. Throwing a medkit at the wall and picking it up when it bounces back gives 2x healing (if it heals 4000 it'll heal 8000, also counts other medkit multipliers such as tank perk).
2. Reload bonuses stack differently in-game than it displays in your weapon reload time stat. With the S1 builds listed earlier, a Shockfield will say its reload is "0.5 seconds", but its reload speed in-game is the cap of 0.40 seconds.
Explanation for anyone curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qzaWD8ZYUQ

Fixed Mechanics (mostly fixed in 1.11)
1. Critical hit damage bonus does not stack with other external bonuses (HD ammo, HTL, and KS). Because of this, 25 crit + pinpoint + target assist, which should give a 78% damage bonus, only gives about a 20% damage bonus when you use HDA and have KS/HTL up.
(Fixed in 1.10.2 – Crit now stacks with HDA, but not KS/HTL. Still very powerful and used in most builds now)
2. Smart Target, armor damage bonuses (such as from Titan or Dragonfly helm), and Deadly Force all apply their bonus to BASE damage of the weapon only, and not deadly or any other damage sources.
Fixed in 1.10.2 – All damage sources stack correctly now. Yes, ALL of them.
3. Zombies stunned by Concussion do not take damage from DoT. Because Strippers are very good when leveling up, we strongly suggest you do NOT invest any points in Concussion.
Fixed in 1.11 – Concussion does not cancel DoT. Concussion is still useless, however, so still don't invest any points in it.
4. Damage over time (DoT) deals twice as much damage as it says in stats to bosses - https://youtu.be/oyAuera7E6M
Fixed in 1.11 – bosses now take correct damage amounts from all sources.
5. Guns that fire multiple pellets (shotguns, mustang, mixmaster etc), when augged with Biosynthesis, heal per pellet on kill rather than on kill with biosynthesis, making them heal MUCH more than normal.
Fixed in 1.11 – bio isn't broken OP anymore but still situationally good.

Thanks for reading, and we hope this has answered any questions you've had! We're open to debates here, although most things discussed in this document have been tested for several years so don't expect to revolutionize anything. Still, please post comments if you have further questions, comments, or concerns.

SAS World Discord server: discord.gg/sas4
We strongly suggest joining this server (or at least a server) to play private matches and get useful info. That alone will significantly improve your gameplay experience.

SAS Calculator: https://youixentoo.github.io
This site has calculators for armor defense, item prices, and (eventually) DPS. It's basically the same as Topper64's website if you're familiar with that, but coded for mobile/steam instead of for flash since there are numerous differences between them.

The 1-100 Playbook: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXEIhTY26DWpyQAKsYebopfSZmv2WXISR
This is a project I'll be working on over the next however long. I want to make guides explaining basically everything: leveling, events, nightmare, gun reviews, etc. I can't promise uploads will be frequent but I'll include it here just in case.