If you have just started playing Bandit Simulator TD, you might feel a little confused about what to focus on first. The tutorial explains the basic mechanics, but there are many important things you need to understand to progress faster, build a strong team, and avoid wasting your resources.
In this Bandit Simulator TD beginner guide, I will explain everything you need to know about character creation, combat, workers, crafting, spirits, research, and equipment. We will also cover some useful tips that can make your early-game progression much easier.
You do not need to understand every endgame mechanic right away. Instead, I recommend focusing on a few important things first, such as building a balanced team, improving your workers, crafting the same equipment to increase mastery, and unlocking stronger classes. Follow these tips, and you will have a much better start in Bandit Simulator TD.
Bandit Simulator TD Beginner Guide – Character Creation
When you first start the game, you can roll characters with different traits and aptitudes. Although it might be tempting to spend a lot of time searching for perfect characters, I recommend keeping things simple during the early game.
If you want to optimize your starting team, try creating at least two temporary combat characters. For your main character, I recommend focusing on Tech or INT, although your final choice is not particularly important at the beginning.
For combat characters, look for the following traits:
- Critical chance bonuses.
- Strength and physical damage bonuses.
- Strength aptitude.
These traits work well for early-game combat builds. However, most common characters will eventually be replaced by stronger characters with better rarities, so do not waste too much time rerolling for perfect stats.
Claim Your Free Character and DLC
Make sure you redeem the 6666 code to claim the free character as soon as possible. If you own the Panda DLC, claim that character early as well.
You can claim the DLC through the Assembly building, which becomes available shortly after you begin the tutorial.
These extra characters can help you fill important roles without spending too many resources on recruiting new ones.
Plan Around Your Party Limit
You will quickly reach 12 party slots, and this will remain your limit for quite some time. Because of this, you should think carefully about which characters you want to keep and what jobs they should perform.
During the early game, a good starting setup is approximately four combat characters and eight workers.
You can improve this setup later, but having a clear plan from the beginning will make your progression much smoother.
Bandit Simulator TD Combat Guide
Combat in Bandit Simulator TD has two main parts: passive combat and active wave progression.
The upper section of the screen is where passive combat happens. You place your characters in this area, where they automatically fight enemies that spawn from locations such as the town, market, and barracks.
Enemies move around the area in circles, so positioning your characters properly is important.
Best Character Placement for Passive Farming
I recommend placing your combat characters evenly around the corners of enemy spawn points.
The reason is that the number of enemies that can spawn at once depends on your investment in the city. By positioning your characters around the spawn locations, you can distribute your damage more effectively and make passive farming easier.
Another important tip is to change your permanent combat characters from Auto to Combat.
To do this, select the character and look for the option in the upper-left area of the Skills/CMDs tab. This prevents your combat characters from wasting time gathering resources when you need them to fight.
Remember that each character should generally be dedicated to one job at a time.
How Many Combat Characters Should You Use?
I recommend starting with four combat characters:
- Two characters created during character rolling.
- One unique character you receive as a reward.
- One Panda character if you own the DLC.
If you do not have the Panda DLC, use another character to fill the fourth slot. The character obtained through the 6666 code can also serve as a temporary combat unit.
For these characters, focus on Strength and physical damage. Strength is the most convenient starting option because the early game gives you access to suitable weapons, equipment, and powerful Strength-based classes.
Trying to build several different damage types at once will make progression slower, especially because crafting higher-rarity equipment requires repeated crafting of the same item.
Understanding Combat Damage Multipliers
Understanding damage multipliers will help you choose better equipment and character bonuses.
Combat bonuses can be divided into three main groups:
- Critical damage: Increases the damage dealt by critical hits.
- Final damage: Provides a separate damage multiplier.
- Other damage bonuses: Includes basic attack damage, skill damage, physical damage, piercing damage, and spell damage.
The third group contains bonuses that add together, while critical damage and final damage operate as separate multipliers.
The general distribution discussed in the beginner guide is a ratio of 4:2:1, covering critical damage, other damage bonuses, and final damage, respectively. This is a useful starting guideline when evaluating equipment bonuses, particularly for builds with reliable critical hits.
However, your ideal setup depends on the character and their abilities. For example, skill damage is not useful if your character mainly provides buffs rather than dealing skill damage.
For a physical damage dealer, physical damage is usually a dependable choice because it supports the character’s overall damage output.
How to Progress Through Combat Waves
Your active combat progression involves launching waves of enemies from the city toward your gate.
During these waves, you may need to move your builder to repair the gate. In the early game, you can even assign nearly everyone to repairing the gate when necessary.
Heavy cavalry waves can become a major roadblock, especially if your team lacks area-of-effect damage.
One useful strategy is to build up your MP before launching into a difficult wave. Once you unlock an AoE skill, you can use that stored MP to deal substantial damage to groups of enemies and get through heavy cavalry stages more easily.
Best Map for Passive Farming
For a long time, the first map is one of the best places to farm passively.
The reason is simple: investing in the first map is relatively inexpensive. Your investment increases the enemy limit and spawn speed, allowing you to generate resources and combat progress efficiently without spending as much.
I recommend staying on the first map until moving to another location provides a meaningful improvement.
Bandit Simulator TD Worker Guide
Workers are just as important as combat characters. They gather resources, craft equipment, build structures, and unlock research that improves your overall progression.
During the early game, you will have approximately eight workers and four combat characters. This is a useful setup to plan around until you unlock more characters and improve your available party slots.
The Three Types of Work
Work is divided into three main groups, and each group is governed by a particular stat.
| Work group | Activities | Main stat |
|---|---|---|
| Gather | Chop, Mine, Farm | Strength (STR) |
| Make | Forge, Craft, Brew | Agility (AGI) |
| Dev | Build, Drill, Tech | Intelligence (INT) |
The easiest way to remember this system is to associate each group with its corresponding stat.
When selecting workers, pay attention to their work stats and bonuses. A worker with the right aptitude and equipment can make a noticeable difference in production speed.
Understanding Worker Multipliers
Worker bonuses work differently from combat bonuses in some important ways.
The work stat, individual work stat, and group work stat are additive. For example, if you have a 3% Chop bonus and a 2% Gather bonus, they combine into a 5% bonus for chopping.
This makes general Gather bonuses particularly useful because they improve multiple gathering activities.
Individual bonuses are still valuable, especially when you dedicate a character to a single job. However, group bonuses offer more flexibility when you need to move workers between tasks.
Work critical chance and work critical damage are separate multipliers, making them especially useful for improving production.
I recommend prioritizing work critical bonuses on a large portion of your equipment, with roughly one-third of your bonuses allocated to regular work multipliers. You can adjust this depending on your current equipment and production needs.
Important Work Stats and Translation Issues
Some work stats have confusing names, so it is worth understanding what they actually do.
- Craft EXP: Increases work experience gain, helping improve the progression of a particular job. The bonus may feel insignificant when its value is low.
- Craft distance: Increases work distance, making the yellow working radius larger. This becomes especially useful when you unlock more gathering fields.
- Craft speed: Increases work speed, allowing a worker to complete work ticks more quickly.
Work speed is particularly valuable because it effectively provides another way to increase production.
Best Eight-Worker Setup for Beginners
If you have eight workers available, I recommend assigning them to the following roles.
1. Forger and Item Crafter
Use the character obtained through the 6666 code as your forger and item crafter.
This character can handle both jobs early on, helping you conserve party slots. The character is also a strong long-term option for forging, so investing in suitable equipment can continue to benefit you later.
Equipment is extremely important for this role because faster forging helps you craft more equipment and improve your combat team’s progression.
2. Woodcutter
Your woodcutter should focus on chopping wood.
Chopping is one of the most important gathering activities because you will consume a large amount of wood throughout your progression.
Try to recruit a temporary worker with decent Strength aptitude or useful chopping bonuses. You do not need a perfect character at the beginning, but having a reasonably good woodcutter will make a difference.
3. Miner
Your miner handles ore gathering.
You will unlock two miners through unique characters relatively early, so you do not need to spend too much time searching for the perfect mining worker.
Focus on getting your gathering setup running before worrying about small stat improvements.
4. Farmer
Your farmer collects the resources required for crafting and other production activities.
Try to recruit a worker with decent rolls for farming. Like your woodcutter, this character does not need perfect stats early on.
Position Your Gathering Buildings Properly
I recommend placing your chopping, mining, and farming buildings in a triangular formation.
Keep their four fields close to one another and leave some space in the center for spirit shelves.
This arrangement allows you to boost multiple gathering activities using the same spirits. You can improve production without spreading your spirit bonuses across distant buildings.
Research for gathering activities is also important, so unlock the relevant upgrades when they become available.
5. Brewer
Your brewer produces pills, which are used to increase a character’s aptitude toward its actual limit.
You do not need to worry too much about conserving pills because you will be brewing large quantities while working toward higher equipment rarities and improving your characters.
You will also obtain a good brewer through a unique character early in the game. Once you have that character, there is little reason to spend too much time min-maxing the brewing role.
6. Builder
Your builder handles construction and repairs.
Most of the time, this character will not be doing much during passive farming. I recommend placing the character in the Villager class and keeping them in the combat zone, where they can provide a 50% bonus to another attacker.
You will actively use this character when constructing buildings and during town wave combat.
Important: Set the builder to Build Only instead of Auto. Otherwise, the character may attack enemies instead of repairing your gate when you need them to do so.
7. Driller
Your driller works on drilling tasks and helps you progress toward important class unlocks.
You do not need an exceptionally fast driller at the beginning, especially if your coin income is limiting your overall progress.
However, drilling is still an important job because reaching higher job levels unlocks stronger classes.
8. Researcher
Your researcher handles technology and research upgrades.
Research is extremely important because it unlocks advanced resources and provides bonuses that improve your production. You will eventually obtain a strong researcher around Wave 110 in the first city.
Until then, use a suitable temporary character and keep research progressing whenever possible.
Research bonuses are particularly powerful because their percentage increases act as separate multipliers rather than simply adding to your ordinary work bonuses.
Also, remember that you do not necessarily need a Tier 2 building to gather Tier 2 resources. You need to reach level 60 in the related technology and then select the resource in the field.
Best Classes to Unlock Early
Two important class unlocks should be among your main early-game goals: Bandit and Worker.
To unlock them, work toward reaching level 10 in Villager or Thug, as described in the beginner tips.
Bandit Class
The Bandit class is a major improvement for combat.
It provides area-of-effect basic attacks and a powerful AoE skill, making it much easier to defeat groups of enemies. Once you unlock this class, you should notice a substantial improvement in your ability to clear waves.
This is particularly helpful against heavy cavalry, where area damage can make a big difference.
Worker Class
The Worker class is designed for non-combat jobs.
It is a versatile class with a skill that improves work speed across jobs, along with an additional passive bonus for gathering activities.
Because gathering resources is essential for crafting and progression, unlocking Worker early can make your entire production setup more efficient.
I recommend working toward both classes as soon as it is practical.
Bandit Simulator TD Crafting Guide
Crafting is one of the most important progression systems in Bandit Simulator TD.
You can purchase equipment recipes from the barracks in each city. Each city generally focuses on one main stat, such as Strength, Agility, or Intelligence.
Because of this, each city provides only a selection of the available weapons and equipment. The first city focuses on Strength-based equipment, making it particularly useful for your early-game combat team.
Where to Craft Equipment
There are two main crafting stations:
- Blacksmith Anvil: Used for forging equipment.
- Item Craft Bench: Used for crafting other equipment items.
These stations require Forging and Crafting, respectively.
The type of equipment you need determines which station you should use.
Best Weapons for Early Combat
During the early game, your combat weapon does not need to be overly complicated. As long as you are using a Strength-based weapon that suits your class, you can make good progress.
The main weapon options include:
- Axe
- Spear
- Hammer
Choose a weapon with useful combat bonuses. The spear is a particularly good option because it is part of the Bandit equipment set.
Since your first city focuses on Strength, I recommend building your combat characters around this stat rather than spreading your resources across several different weapon types.
Best Equipment for Workers
Worker equipment is also important, but the exact stat on the equipment piece is often less important than its overall bonuses and rarity.
Useful worker bonuses include:
- Work speed
- Work critical chance
- Work critical damage
The stat itself plays a relatively small role in worker equipment compared with the value of obtaining a higher-rarity item with good bonuses.
For example, a higher-rarity equipment piece with useful work bonuses can be better than a lower-rarity item with the correct stat but poor bonuses.
This is why I recommend focusing on equipment quality rather than chasing perfect stats too early.
How Equipment Mastery Works
One of the most important crafting mechanics is equipment mastery.
Every time you craft the same item, its mastery increases. Higher mastery allows you to craft better rarities of that specific item, eventually reaching Mythic.
This means that crafting many different items early on is generally inefficient.
Instead, I recommend crafting the same equipment repeatedly until you can produce higher rarities.
Your combat team should focus on Strength-based equipment, while your workers should also use a consistent equipment set wherever practical.
The first city gives you access to Strength equipment early, and the game also provides a unique hero who can help with forging. This makes Strength a convenient choice for your first major crafting investment.
Why You Should Focus on One Equipment Set
Suppose you spread your resources across several different weapons and equipment pieces. You will need to build mastery for each item separately, making it harder to obtain high-rarity gear quickly.
If you focus on one main weapon and one worker equipment set, you can concentrate your resources and reach higher rarities sooner.
For combat, I recommend focusing on the spear because it works well with the Bandit set and is also useful for your forger.
For workers, Strength-based equipment is a practical starting choice because it is available early and supports gathering activities.
You can expand into Agility and Intelligence equipment later when your resources and progression allow it.
How Equipment Merging Works
Equipment merging allows you to combine a spirit core with a specific equipment piece to obtain a merged item.
The resulting rarity depends on the rarity of the equipment, and you retain the equipment’s existing bonuses.
This makes merging a useful way to improve your gear without having to replace everything.
Once you unlock the Bandit set, you can periodically merge it when making major equipment upgrades. I recommend considering this especially when you have Epic or higher-rarity equipment.
Bandit Simulator TD Spirit Guide
Spirits provide several important bonuses and are another system you should not ignore.
You obtain spirits from boss maps. The first boss map features the Fox boss.
These maps generally work by requiring you to defeat a certain number of enemies before a boss appears in the middle of the area. If you want to farm them passively, position your units near the corners surrounding the center so they can attack enemies efficiently.
Spirits have three main uses.
1. Place Spirits on Shelves
The first use is placing spirits on shelves to increase the speed of nearby annex benches.
Each spirit shelf provides a bonus to production within a small radius. This means the way you arrange your shelves and buildings can have a major impact on your production speed.
During the early game, I recommend placing your annex buildings close together so the same spirit shelves can boost multiple important activities.
One possible setup is to arrange eight shelves in a rough square around a central area, with annex buildings surrounding them. Another option is to use two nearby groups of six shelves, placing important annex buildings between the groups.
The best arrangement depends on your available space, but the main goal is to cover as many important production buildings as possible.
Do not neglect this system. Even early spirits can provide a meaningful production increase when you arrange your shelves efficiently.
2. Use Spirits to Create Cores
You can also use spirits in the Brewery’s Merge feature to create spirit cores.
The rarity of the spirit you use determines the rarity of the core you obtain. These cores occupy the fifth equipment slot.
For combat characters, I recommend prioritizing physical cores because they complement your Strength-based damage builds.
You can unlock this system relatively early, so it is worth learning how to use it before your characters start reaching their breakthrough requirements.
3. Use Spirits for Equipment Merging
Spirits are also part of the recipe for merging equipment set items.
This gives you another reason to continue farming boss maps instead of ignoring them once you have obtained a few spirits.
Try to maintain a steady supply so you can use spirits for production boosts, cores, and equipment upgrades as needed.
Character Breakthrough Guide
Characters need breakthroughs every 30 main levels to continue progressing.
To complete a breakthrough, you must equip a core. The core is then absorbed and becomes a permanent bonus for that character.
Because cores are consumed in this process, it is important to understand which characters deserve your better equipment.
Should You Use Your Best Cores Early?
During the early game, most of your characters will eventually be replaced by stronger characters with higher rarities.
For this reason, I do not recommend spending too much time trying to perfect every early character’s breakthrough bonuses.
Give your characters reasonably good cores when needed, but avoid wasting valuable resources trying to optimize temporary units.
As you progress and recruit stronger characters, you can invest more carefully in their equipment and breakthroughs.
Prepare Your Spirit Shelves Before a Breakthrough
Before completing a breakthrough, move your spirit shelves into the range of the Ritual Circle.
If possible, use your higher-rarity spirits for the process.
Planning this ahead of time can help you get more value from your available spirits rather than wasting an opportunity to improve your character.
Soul Tower and Soul Currency Guide
The Soul Tower is another important progression system. You farm its stages to earn currency and obtain equipment for the sixth equipment slot.
The currency can be spent on leveling fifth- and sixth-slot equipment, as well as rerolling equipment bonuses.
However, I recommend avoiding unnecessary rerolls early on because your resources are more valuable when used to improve your combat team.
Soul Tower Game Modes
There are three main modes to understand:
- Normal: Complete one floor at a time.
- Rush Auto Draw: Automatically advance through floors.
- AFK Auto Draw: Automatically repeat the same stage.
Each mode serves a different purpose, but the main goal early on is to obtain useful equipment and enough currency to strengthen your characters.
Best Soul Tower Farming Strategy
I recommend farming the earliest stage that you can defeat in one hit near the entrance.
This allows you to clear the stage quickly and collect rewards without wasting time on difficult enemies.
If you have fewer than six characters, make sure you select only the characters you actually have available rather than selecting an unnecessarily large team.
Early on, you should focus on collecting a few useful sixth-slot equipment pieces and some currency. Once you have the basic equipment you need, return to other progression activities.
Best Soul Tower Equipment for Combat Characters
For your combat characters, focus on the following equipment:
| Priority | Equipment | Rarity |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gale Token / Crit Jade | R |
| 2 | Wound Claw / Sharp Charm | R |
Gale Token and Crit Jade are good early options for combat builds.
Wound Claw and Sharp Charm can also be useful, although their bonuses are additive with your core bonuses, making them slightly less attractive in some setups.
You do not need to collect every available piece. Focus on equipment that improves the stats your combat characters actually use.
Best Soul Tower Equipment for Workers
Worker equipment is less important than combat equipment during the early game, but it can still provide useful production bonuses.
I recommend prioritizing:
- Work critical chance.
- Gather, Make, or Dev percentage bonuses.
- MP regeneration when it is useful for your setup.
These worker pieces are available at N rarity in the recommended early setup.
You can safely sell other N-rarity equipment that does not provide useful bonuses, allowing you to keep your inventory focused on items that actually help your progression.
How to Spend Soul Currency
Your early Soul Tower currency should mainly go toward two things:
- R-rarity equipment for combat characters.
- Cores needed for combat character breakthroughs.
Avoid spending too much currency rerolling equipment bonuses at this stage. Your resources will provide more value when you use them to improve your primary damage dealers and help them progress through their level requirements.
