Trade Hubs are the season’s alliance shops: at 11:00 Apocalypse Time on Monday, Wednesday and Friday a one-hour contest opens for the hubs on the map, the survivor with the most capture progress owns each one for the week, their alliance shops it at a discount with early access, and every diamond anyone spends there pays tax back to the owner’s alliance.
- Scope: alliance, with one survivor as each hub’s Owner
- When: Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:00 Apocalypse Time, one hour each; the first week stays inside your state, later rounds are cross-state
- The map: ten hubs per state in three levels, one level 3, three level 2, six level 1
- The shop: diamonds only, stocked by the Owner, 20% off and early access for the Owner’s alliance
- The tax: 10% of every sale, paid to the alliance as red packets
What Trade Hubs are and when they run
Trade Hubs arrive with the season map, and they’re where the season’s badges, exclusive fragments and plugin chests are sold for diamonds. Each state has ten: six at level 1, three at level 2 and one at level 3, and the level sets what the shop stocks. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 11:00 Apocalypse Time a contest opens on every hub for an hour.
Ownership is personal, not the alliance’s. Members of one alliance don’t fight each other inside a hub, but each member’s capture progress counts on its own, so an alliance that wants a hub picks one Owner and backs them. Capture takes at least 15 minutes with your Headquarters outside the hub area, or 10 minutes if you’ve moved it inside, where it can be attacked. On an unowned hub the highest progress when the hour ends takes it. On an owned hub a challenger has to reach 100% before the hour ends, or the Owner keeps it. Everyone who contributed gets a participation reward.
The first week is your own state only. After that the contests go cross-state within the season group, and during those you can’t attack another state’s Headquarters unless it’s inside the hub area. The hub list shows every hub in the group with its level, coordinates, Owner and alliance.
How the shop and the tax work in Trade Hubs
The Owner taps Stock to fill the shop for the week. The Owner’s alliance gets early access and 20% off the regular items; a few items are Owner Exclusive; and the Owner can later open the shop to the whole season group, who pay full price in diamonds.
| Hub level | Owner Exclusive | What else is on the shelf |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 Universal Orange Hero Fragments (5 for the alliance) | Steel, 1,000 badges, EXP chests, 1-hour construction, research and universal speedups |
| 2 | 10 Universal Exclusive Equipment Fragments (6 for the alliance) | 150 Power Cores, 1,500 badges, EXP chests, speedups |
| 3 | 3 Random Purple Tactical Plugin Chests | 12 Random Blue Tactical Plugin Chests, 14 Golden Wrenches, 2,400 badges, EXP chests, speedups |
Prices are in diamonds, with the 20% off applied for the alliance: a level-1 stack of 15 steel crates is 2,250, or 1,800 for the Owner’s alliance; six EXP chests 1,440 or 1,152; five 1-hour construction speedups 500 or 400.
Two limits: one of each item type per day, and ten purchases a day across every Hub Shop, both resetting at 11:00 Apocalypse Time.
Then the tax. The Shop Tax Rate is 10%. Every 10,000 diamonds in the shop’s tally becomes one Tax Bonus Red Packet, with any remainder counting as one more, and the packets are granted when the shop sells out or the Owner steps down, for the Owner to hand out through alliance chat. A hub kept locked to the alliance all week sells to a few dozen people; a hub opened to the group after the alliance has shopped sells to the whole season, and the tax follows.
What to do in each phase of Trade Hubs
- Before the season: bank diamonds. The shop takes nothing else, and the badges and exclusive fragments in it are the season’s best use of them. Spend nothing in week one until the hubs open.
- Pick the hub and the Owner. One survivor per hub, chosen for who can hold their Headquarters inside the area if it comes to that. Everyone else backs that one; split progress hands the hub to another alliance.
- 10:45: stage the troops. The contest is an hour and the capture clock is 15 minutes from outside. Rally leaders on the hub, reinforcers ready, and a hub manager who’ll run the access settings afterwards.
- 11:00 to 12:00: capture and hold. Rotate reinforcements; on an owned hub the challenger needs 100% before the hour ends, so holding is as good as winning.
- Stock, then shop. The Owner stocks; the alliance buys its badges and exclusive fragments first at 20% off, inside the daily limits.
- Then open the shop. After the first 30 to 60 minutes, open access to the season group and say so in state chat. Outsiders’ diamonds are your tax.
- Distribute the packets. When the shop sells out or the week ends, the Owner hands the red packets out in alliance chat.
Trade Hubs rewards and what to spend them on
Badges first. A level-1 hub sells 1,000 a week, a level-3 2,400, and the Owner’s alliance pays 20% less; they go into Alliance Recognition, which doubles every Alliance Duel rate. The Universal Orange Hero Fragments on a level-1 hub and the Universal Exclusive Equipment Fragments on a level-2 are the items the season was built around, and the Owner Exclusive stacks are bigger. The level-3 hub’s 14 Golden Wrenches are a Monday’s Mod Vehicle Boost, and its Power Cores are a Thursday’s Hero Progression.
The tax packets are the alliance’s dividend: diamonds back, in proportion to how open the shop was and how much the season bought there.
Diamonds are the only currency, and the diamond guide is where the reserve is decided; the rule here is that a Trade Hub purchase should never eat the shield reserve.
Mistakes that cost you in Trade Hubs
- Spending diamonds before the hubs open. Week one is for banking; the shop is where they’re worth most.
- Splitting the top progress. Three members at 40% each and the hub goes to the alliance with one member at 60%. One Owner, everyone else fills.
- Moving the Headquarters inside a hub the alliance can’t protect. It cuts the capture to 10 minutes and makes you attackable.
- Keeping the hub locked all week. The tax comes from sales. An alliance-only shop sells to the alliance and nobody else.
- Buying a cheap item to make tax. The packet is 10% of what you spent. You lose 90% to get it.
- Using the ten daily purchases on speedups. The badges and fragments are the limit’s job; speedups can wait for a day with slots spare.
Are Trade Hubs worth it for a free player?
Yes for the shop, with the discipline of the diamond guide. A free account’s diamonds go furthest here on two things, badges and the exclusive fragments, at 20% off with early access if the alliance holds the hub, and the daily limits mean a modest reserve spends well over a season. The participation reward pays everyone who helped capture, whether or not they shop.
The honest limit is the contest. Holding a hub against a cross-state challenge is a fight, and a free account’s job in it is to reinforce the Owner, not to be the Owner. The tax packets then come back to the whole alliance, including the members who spent nothing.
Trade Hubs sit in the events schedule as the season’s Monday, Wednesday and Friday shop contest, and the beginner’s progression guide covers what to build before any of this matters.
