Space Ape has released the next update for Boom Beach: Frontlines! There’s quite a few changes in this release, including some new troops, defenses, powerups, vehicles, and a bunch of balancing changes. We’re going to take a quick look at some of the changes!
What’s New
A brief look at some of the new things included in this patch is some groundwork for the next season, which appears to be starting right after the current season ends. This includes some new loot boxes replacing the existing ones. Of particular interest, there’s now a Quickdraw Box. This box not only contains an exceptional amount of cards and coins compared to previous boxes, but it also has a new “Quick Draw” special with it, which allows you to choose between 2 cards on each pull. This can come in handy when trying to get specific cards.
You can now get your HQ to level 9 and with it, you will unlock 4 new cards. A troop: Booster; a vehicle: Gatling Truck; a powerup: Battle Boost; and a defense: Grunt Post. In addition to these new cards being added, Space Ape also took the initiative to add a new card to the existing level 7 HQ pool: the Repair Laser, a defense.
Booster is going to add an entirely new mechanic to the gameplay by playing her horn to boost the movement speed, reload speed, damage, and fire rate of nearby troops, defenses, and vehicles. Gatling Truck is a new armored vehicle with a super high firing rate which will allow for the easy mowing down of enemy troops. Battle Boost will provide the same effects that Booster provides, but in a powerup form similar to how Heal replicates Medic. And finally Grunt Post is an interesting new defense that acts as a generic turret, but upon destruction, spawns grunts to defend the area.
There also a two more cards that were added that will be present on the next Boom Pass. A vehicle: Tank Hunter and a powerup: Baby Boom. The Tank Hunter is a fast moving vehicle with one purpose: to hunt tanks! This vehicle is incredibly efficient at destroying armor, primarily found on enemy vehicles and defenses. Beware, though, as it appears to have a very small amount of health. The Baby Boom, on the other hand, is a portable version of Boom Cannon, the super-powered defense.
Don’t worry, Space Ape has disclosed that these Boom Pass unique cards will be available at a later date if you do not get them during the next season.
There’s also three brand new maps: Blue Lagoon, Three Isle Island, and Tetra Island. These are added into the existing pool of maps, so we should see a bit more variety when we sit down to play.
To see all of what’s new in this patch, see Space Ape’s Official 0.3.0 Release Notes page.
What’s Changed
In addition to all the new things that were added, Boom Beach: Frontlines is going to be having some changes, both to some mechanics in the game and the balancing of cards. All the changes won’t be highlighted here, but we’ll go over some of the bigger ones.
The first and probably biggest change is that the Star Pool now caps at 50 stars instead of 20 and your stars will now refill some every 2.5 hours instead of 4 hours. With this change, you’re also going to be awarded more stars from matches. Depending on how you play the game, this should give you a lot more room to not feel like you have to be playing all the time while also allowing longer play sessions when you do.
Note: Space Ape has announced that this change will not go into effect until Season 2 starts, even though it’s in the current patch notes. This is likely to not affect the current amount of star grinding that’s required for the current Season 1 pass.
A few other notable changes are an improvement to the friend/squad system, the maximum level of cards being raised from 10 to 11, and during matches, you’re now invulnerable while in your starting zone which should stop the occasional match where players were being spawn camped and couldn’t do anything.
Mortar, Baby Mortar, Mortar Bike, Fire Lobster, Fire Bomber, and Cluster have all received “lobbed targeting improvements”, which is the system that tries to help you aim. Specifically, this is the system where Rocket Launchers predict your movement and aim ahead of where you are to make it harder to dodge. These should be welcome changes to make these cards more desirable to use.
The following cards received a slight buff:
- Armored Car has received an increased magazine size and moves faster while firing.
- Mortar Bike is now costs less munitions.
- Heavy now reloads faster, has increased accuracy, and moves faster while shooting.
- Cluster now has more health, reloads faster, and can shoot farther.
- Flamer now has more health, movement speed while firing, and damage per shot.
The following cards received a slight nerf:
- Zooka has a decreased range.
- Heal costs more munitions.
- Flamer has a lower ammo capacity.
Full the full balancing notes, including exact values of stats, see Space Ape’s Official 0.3.0 Balancing page.
What Else?
Space Ape also shared some information regarding the release of Boom Beach: Frontlines globally.
We know many of you are asking about when Boom Beach: Frontlines will be available in new regions, so the team wanted to share a quick update on that with you:
In our path towards a Global Launch, we will be releasing new updates that focus on gameplay improvements and creating more features for players to enjoy, along with continued monthly Season Passes. While it’s definitely in our plans to open the game in more countries during soft-launch, we want to ensure that our game is in the best state possible for these new users and you can expect further details on new countries to be released in Q2 2022.
Nonetheless, if you’re really looking forward to trying Boom Beach: Frontlines, you’ll still have the chance to get early access to the game by registering on this Early Access Form and we’ll pick a small group of players on a regular basis to join the game, so stay tuned for that!
And that’s all! Hope to see you all on the battlefield to play with all these changes to the game!