The design decision WARDOGS makes about teamwork
Most shooters pay you for what you do to the enemy. WARDOGS pays you for what you do for your team, and it does so on a documented list: revives, heals, transporting teammates to an objective, controlling an objective, reconnaissance marks, building and delivering supplies 【A】. Players also tip each other for taxi and helicopter rides 【B】.
That changes what a squad is for. In a kill-driven game, a squad is a force multiplier for damage. Here, a squad is a structure that keeps verified income lines running — and several of those lines cannot run at all without a second person.
| Income line | Verified amount | Needs a second person? | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revive | ~$900 | Yes — someone must be down | 【B】 |
| Bandage heal | $200 | Yes | 【B】 |
| Transport a teammate to the Hot Zone | $500–$1,000 per rider | Yes | 【B】 |
| Transport bonus: rider survives | +$500 | Yes | 【B】 |
| Transport bonus: rider gets a kill after | +$750 each | Yes | 【B】 |
| Build completion | $1,200–$1,500 | No, but faster with one | 【B】 |
| Pallet delivered | $2,500 against a $400 cost | No, but safer with an escort | 【B】 |
| Pallet used by a teammate for a FOB | +$1,800 | Yes — a teammate must build with it | 【B】 |
| Recon mark | $100 | No | 【B】 |
| Hammer hit | ~$15 | No | 【B】 |
| Kill assist in the Control Zone | $800 | No | 【B】 |
| Kill assist in the Hot Zone | $1,600 | No | 【B】 |
Six of the twelve lines in that table are gated on another player existing. That is the mechanical reason a squad out-earns a solo player by more than the sum of its parts.
The four jobs, and what each one is paid for
Recon — find, mark, move
The Recon job is paid $100 per mark 【B】, which sounds trivial until it is compared with what the mark enables. A marked enemy is a target for three or four teammates at once, and inside the Hot Zone a kill assist pays $1,600 【B】 — sixteen times the mark that set it up. The Recon track’s unlocks run to scouting gear 【A】, and the job is the only one that pays from complete safety.
Scouting also has a permanent-value version: whatever the squad marks in the first minutes of a match is intelligence that survives the first firefight.
Medic — revive and heal
The Medic job carries the two clearest payout figures in the verified list: around $900 per revive and $200 per heal 【B】. The medic economy page covers the details, but the squad-level point is simpler — a revive pays about $900 【B】 and also returns a teammate to the fight, which is the closest thing in the game to a paid resurrection of your team’s numbers advantage.
Support — build and supply
A completed build pays $1,200–$1,500 【B】 and a single hammer hit pays about $15 【B】, so the Support job is unusual in paying twice for the same activity: once per strike, once on completion. The Support track gates the Large Hammer at $2,400 【B】, which in turn gates both building and mortars — and mortars also need FOB supply at $7,500 【B】. Support is the most capital-hungry of the four jobs and the only one that unlocks a capability the squad cannot otherwise have.
Transport — deliver, and get paid when others succeed
Transport is the most interesting line on the board because of the stacked bonuses: $500–$1,000 per rider delivered to the Hot Zone, plus $500 if that rider survives, plus $750 per kill the rider gets afterwards 【B】. A pilot’s income improves when somebody else plays well.
That makes the transport role the natural home for a player who wants an income line that does not depend on their own aim, and it is why the transport and logistics page exists as a page of its own.
The coordination cost nobody prices in
Every squad pays a tax, and the tax is not in cash. It is in the minutes spent deciding.
Three verified rules make that tax concrete:
- The Control Zone settles about every 30 seconds 【B】. A squad still arguing about which zone to contest for two minutes has already conceded four settlement ticks.
- The Hot Zone pays continuously while held 【B】. Unlike the Control Zone’s ticks, position inside the circle earns from the first second — so a squad that arrives late has not just lost a fight, it has forgone income that was available for free.
- The Hot Zone Magnet is a team action with a shared precondition: four towers captured, one code digit each 【A】. A squad that cannot coordinate a single tower run cannot use the mechanic at all.
The practical mitigation is pre-agreement: decide the roles, the fallback zone and the tower order before the match starts, so the in-match conversation is about targets rather than about process. A four-player squad with pre-assigned jobs spends its first two minutes earning; a four-player squad negotiating spends them deciding.
Squad sizes and what each can do
| Squad size | Can run | Cannot run | Grade basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (solo) | Marks $100 【B】, builds $1,200–$1,500 【B】, hammer work ~$15 【B】 | Revives, heals, transports, holding the Hot Zone | 【C】 |
| 2 | Adds revives ~$900, heals $200 【B】 | Holding the Hot Zone against a team | 【C】 |
| 3 | Adds transport with a rider 【B】 | Reliably contesting all three teams | 【C】 |
| 4+ | Transport with two riders, tower runs, Hot Zone holds 【A】 | — | 【C】 |
The right-hand grade is 【C】 because the size thresholds are this site’s inference from the verified income structure, not something the game documents. What is documented is which lines need a second person, and that is the part the table is built on.
The Hot Zone is what squads are for
Everything above converges on one conclusion. The single largest verified income line is Hot Zone passive income, described as hundreds of dollars per minute 【B】, and it is the only line that requires holding ground against all three teams at once 【A】. Solo players contest it briefly and lose a life’s gear for it.
A squad also converts the zone’s other property into cash: inside it, each player counts as two for scoring 【A】, so four players inside are worth eight bodies to the Control Zone fight. That is why the two zones should not be treated as alternatives. A squad that holds the Hot Zone inside or adjacent to the Control Zone is doubling its own weight in the fight that decides the match while collecting the highest passive income on the map.
Two multipliers stack on top: cash and XP are doubled inside the circle 【A】, and both surviving to the end of a match and winning add settlement bonuses — about 90 percent of carried gear value refunded, and 30 percent extra to the winning side 【B】.
A four-job game plan
- Recon marks the approach and calls the route before the squad moves. Every mark is $100 【B】 and reduces the chance of a wipe.
- Support builds early, while the front is unsettled: a completion pays $1,200–$1,500 【B】 and a completed FOB at $7,500 【B】 is a shared investment, not one player’s bill.
- Medic stays behind the front line. At ~$900 a revive 【B】, a medic who dies protecting a body has cost the squad more than the revive paid.
- Transport runs the pallet loop while the fight is far away — $400 cost against $2,500 delivered 【B】, plus $1,800 if a teammate builds with it 【B】.
- Everyone rotates to the Hot Zone once towers are held, because a magnetised circle 【A】 is a defended one, and the passive income 【B】 is where the hour’s money actually is.
For the arithmetic behind each line, see the money per hour page. For the tower run that lets the squad pick where the circle goes, see tower codes. And for what each job should buy with the money it makes, see the starter loadout and the budget planner.