Missions

The Transformers DS games are comprised of four areas (three of them common to both versions of the game) that contain several missions you can perform. Some are story missions, which you must complete in order to proceed through the game. Tips for these can be found at gamefaqs.com. Others are challenge missions that serve only to gain experience points, but are the key part of the online Spark Wars game. More challenge missions appear in the four areas as you make progress through the game. Most challenge missions can be performed with either a land vehicle or an aircraft, some force you into one or other. When you have the option, an aircraft generally has the advantage over a land vehicle.

How a battle works

Each day one of the challenge missions from the game is chosen (apparently at random), though never one of the missions from the areas unique to a single faction's version of the game. Everybody plays that mission as many times as they want. Contribution points are awarded. Playing skillfully and playing more times increases your contribution score. At midnight GMT, the faction with the most contribution points from its players wins a section of the Allspark cube. The system does build in a handicap of some kind to give a boost to a faction that has been on a losing streak. Unfortunately it tends to overcompensate and ends up creating a winning streak for that side, and then reverses itself again, and so on. Players are awarded Wifi tokens for participation, and players belonging to the winning faction get a bonus of 50 tokens.

Participation tokens

A maximum of 50 participation tokens can be earned per battle (day). 10 of those are automatic if you have a contribution score above zero. The other 40 are assigned according to your contribution rank that day on a percentile basis. I.e. if you are halfway up the rankings you get 20 plus the 10 for a total of 30. If you are three quarters the way up the rankings you get 30 plus the 10 for a total of 40. A mathematical formula that gives a rough indication (accurate within a few tokens) is (1 - (contribution rank / number of players)) * 40 + 10

How a war works

Every day's battle determines the ownership of a section of the Allspark cube. The cube has seven sections, and starts out neutral. The war steps through each section in turn for a week. If a faction wins all those battles, they win the cube and it resets again. If the cube has mixed ownership, a section owned by the previous battle's loser is put up for grabs for the current battle. This continues until the cube is owned entirely by a single faction, at which point it resets. When a cube is won, participating players on the winning faction get up to 500 tokens, awarded depending on how many ofthe battlesin the war they participated in.

Wifi token rewards

The main reason for playing. Here's what you get:
0 Tokens: Funky Bus
250 Tokens: Longhorn / Love Cruiser
500 Tokens: Psycho Cars cheat
750 Tokens: Gunner / Stunt Car
1,000 Tokens (or 100% Completion of the one player game): Infinite Energy cheat
1,500 Tokens: Transport / Scout Car
2,000 Tokens: Super Jump cheat
2,500 Tokens: Skydive / G1 Starscream
3,000 Tokens: Top Down View cheat

(Several of the unlocked vehicles are unique to their version of the game. The jets awarded at 2,500 tokens were previously available in the USA at the DS download station at Target stores.)

Skill score

In addition to the contribution rank, which factors in the number of times you play the mission, the scored achieved while playing are tracked so players can compare their skil levels. Best score and average score are displayed for each player, and a table of best scores is available. Time based missions are scored by multiplying the time in seconds by 30 (the game actually measures time in thirtieths of a second). Most of the other missions just use the score as displayed on the DS after you complete it.

Clans

Clans are teams of players from the same faction. While you belong to a clan, all wifi tokens you earn also count towards the clan's token total. The clans with the most collected tokens get bragging rights.

Game completion

When you have finished all the story missions, achieved a gold medal level score in all challenge missions (while playing the single player game), and unlocked all the vehicles and cheat options, the game will indicate that you are at 101% completion.

1k club

Purely an invention of the Spark Wars site forum, a custom title is bestowed by the admins to anyone who plays enough in one battle (one day) to score 1000 contribution points. Multiples of 1000 are also recognized.