How to Play DopeWars Online

Sign in with Google, join an active round, and pick a handle. That's your in-game identity — your real name is never shown to other players.

Every player starts with $1,000,000 cash, 100 tokens, 1 textbook, and a basic coat with 1,000 pockets. Rounds last about one month. At the end, the top players and cartels are ranked on the leaderboard by net worth.

Tokens are the core resource that drives the game. Almost every action costs tokens — expanding your lab, recruiting junkies, buying machines, traveling between stations, attending university, jumping players, and sending thugs on missions.

The key mechanic: every time you spend a token, your entire operation ticks. Your drug lab produces output, your junkies earn cash (and demand payment), your factory machines produce weapons, and your stamina regenerates. This means a single action like expanding your lab by 5 sq ft actually spends 5 tokens, each one running your whole production chain.

Tokens accumulate passively over time. Spending them efficiently is the key to winning — the more infrastructure you have, the more value you extract from every token.

The simplest way to make money. Visit the Local Dealer at your current subway station, buy drugs at a low price, travel to another station, and sell where prices are higher.

There are 8 subway stations: Bloor, Union, Sheppard, Eglinton, Kipling, Dundas, Spadina, and Queen. Drug prices at each station are randomized between $25 and $50 per unit. The sell price is always $2 less than the buy price at that station, so profits come from finding a low buy price at one station and a high sell price at another.

You get 5 trades per station visit. Each buy or sell transaction counts as one trade. When you're out of trades, travel to a new station ($3 cash + 1 token) to get 5 fresh trades and new randomized prices.

There are 6 drugs to trade: Crack, Shrooms, Meth, Ecstasy, Acid, and Special K. All share the same price range — the strategy is about finding good spreads across stations and carrying as much volume as your coat allows.

Your coat determines how many drug units you can carry. Every drug unit takes up one pocket. Bigger coats = more carrying capacity = more profit per trip and more room for lab output.

There are 12 coat tiers:

Upgrading costs cash only — no tokens. Your drugs transfer automatically. You can only upgrade, never downgrade. Keep your coat ahead of your lab output — if your coat is full, excess lab production is wasted.

Every player has a drug lab that starts at 0 sq ft. When your lab is at least 1 sq ft, it produces drugs every time you spend a token.

Expanding costs $20,000 + 1 token per square foot. Each square foot produces 8 units per token (base rate, before university and cartel bonuses). Production starts immediately — if you expand by 3 sq ft, each of those 3 tokens ticks production at the new size.

Choose which drug your lab produces at the Drug Lab page under Operations — change it anytime for free. Lab output goes straight into your coat.

Junkies are one of the most powerful long-term investments. Each trained junkie earns you $350 cash per token spent (base rate, boosted by Pimpology and cartel bonuses).

Recruit at the Street Corner (under Operations) for $1,000 + 1 token per junkie. New recruits need 30 tokens of training before they earn anything — but they still demand payment during training.

Every junkie (trained or training) requires 1 unit of any drug per token spent as salary. If you can't pay them all, unpaid junkies leave and must be retrained from scratch (30 more tokens). Trained junkies get paid first, then training cohorts closest to graduating.

Choose which drug to pay them with at the Street Corner page — change it anytime for free. The most common strategy is to set your lab drug and junkie drug to the same type so your lab feeds your junkies directly.

Factories produce combat equipment. There are two types of machines:

• Sewing Machines — produce vests (boost defense)
• 3D Printers — produce guns (boost attack)

Each machine costs $15,000 + 1 token. Once purchased, each machine produces 1 weapon per token spent (base rate, boosted by Home Economics / Engineering courses and cartel bonuses). Machines start producing immediately on the same token they're purchased.

The Shop tab has two sections: the Arms Dealer and the Protein Shake bar.

At the Arms Dealer, you can buy guns, vests, and thugs directly for cash — $1,000 each (base price, reduced by the Negotiations university course, down to $250 at max discount). No tokens required. This is faster than factory production but costs more per unit long-term.

Protein Shakes increase your stamina by 1 point each. Cost scales with your net worth: $100 minimum, increasing to $1 per 1,000 net worth as you grow.

The University lets you boost different parts of your operation by studying courses. The flow: buy textbooks, then attend class for a specific course to earn credits in it.

Textbooks cost $16,000 + 1 token each. You start with 1 textbook. More textbooks = more credits per class. Each time you attend class, you earn textbooks × 3 credits in the chosen course per token spent.

The five courses:

• Botany — boosts lab production (up to +200%)
• Pimpology — boosts junkie earnings (up to +200%)
• Home Economics — boosts sewing machine output (up to +200%)
• Engineering — boosts 3D printer output (up to +200%)
• Negotiations — discounts equipment prices at the Arms Dealer (up to -75%)

Course effectiveness scales with your net worth — the richer you are, the more credits you need per percentage point of bonus. This keeps education relevant at every stage of the game.

The Black Market is a player-driven exchange for university credits. Sellers list credits for a specific course at a price of their choosing.

Buyers see an aggregated order book — total credits available at each price level per course, with no seller names shown (like a stock exchange). When you buy, orders fill from the cheapest listings first (FIFO across multiple sellers).

This lets you spend cash instead of tokens to boost your university courses. Selling credits earns you cash but reduces your course bonuses — use with caution.

You can jump other players to steal their resources. Jumping costs 4 tokens and reduces your stamina by 10 points.

Your attack power = guns × (stamina / 100) × cartel multiplier. The defender's defense power = vests × (stamina / 100) × cartel multiplier. If your attack power exceeds their defense, you win. Ties go to the defender.

If you win: steal 20% of target's cash, 10% of their trained junkies, and 10% of their lab space. Both sides lose some weapons — the loser loses proportionally more.

If you lose: you still lose the 4 tokens, some stamina, and some guns. The defender loses some vests.

Net worth range: you can only target players whose net worth is between 1/3 and 3× your own.

Hospital: if a player gets jumped 5 times, they're hospitalized for 24 hours — immune to attacks but also unable to attack others. Their jump count resets when hospitalized.

Stamina is a number that directly multiplies your combat power. At 100 stamina, your guns/vests work at full effectiveness. At 50 stamina, they're at half power. You start with 100 stamina and a max of 200.

Stamina regenerates by 5 points per token spent, up to your current maximum. Buy protein shakes at the Shop to push stamina higher — each shake adds 1 point.

Each jump you initiate costs 10 stamina. Stamina can't drop below 50.

Your maximum stamina decreases as your net worth grows: it starts at 200 and drops by 1 for every 5,000 net worth, bottoming out at 50. This means higher-ranked players need to invest more in shakes to stay combat-ready.

Buy thugs at the Arms Dealer ($1,000 each), then send them on missions against rival players. Each mission costs 2 tokens.

Your chance of success = thugs you send / (your thugs + their thugs). Sending more thugs improves your odds but costs more in losses.

Available missions:

• Spy on Junkies — reveals trained junkies, junkies in training, and what drug they're paid in
• Stamina Inspection — reveals current and max stamina
• Check Credentials — reveals 3D printers, sewing machines, and textbooks
• Sabotage Factory — destroys some of the target's printers and sewing machines
• Inspect Lab — reveals lab size and what drug it produces

Both sides always lose thugs, win or lose. The attacker loses fewer thugs when sending a larger force relative to the defender, and vice versa.

Cartels are player alliances. Being in a cartel provides a +3% production bonus per active member to labs, junkies, factory output, and combat power. A full 20-member cartel gives +60% to everything.

Create a cartel for $100,000 or join an existing one. Cartels can be public (anyone joins), private (password-protected), or closed (invite-only). Up to 20 members per cartel.

Only active members (those who've played recently) count toward the bonus. The cartel leaderboard ranks alliances by combined member net worth.

You can send private messages to any player in your room. Use messages to coordinate with cartel members, negotiate deals, or talk trash to rivals. Find other players on the Scores tab.

Net worth determines your rank. It's calculated from everything you own: cash, coat tier, drugs in your inventory, lab size, trained and training junkies, factory machines, guns, vests, thugs, and textbooks.

Cash is deliberately underweighted — hoarding money alone won't win. Building infrastructure (labs, junkies, machines) and military equipment (guns, vests) contributes heavily. The richest player at the end of the round wins.