Comprehensive Guide to Bean Battles

Overview

Tips for new and more experienced beans to help them become a Bean Battles Champion!

About

While I’m obviously not all knowing, these are tips coming from someone who was topping most of the leaderboards in game! This guide is made to give insight to newer and fellow beans, looking to expand their knowledge on the games mechanics and playstyles! Basic beginner tips, such as that the Grid killing you with one hit or you can get more ammo by re-collecting the same weapon – won’t be covered, but there are definitely pointers to beginner beans!

Updated with each in-game update, so don’t forget to check back in from time to time!

Gunplay/Weaponry

Easy to learn, hard to master. In Bean Battles, there are two main things you need to know about weaponry: every weapon has a “bloom” mechanic, but most of the time it’s quite easy to control by moving your mouse downwards as you fire. Second, close to- if not every weapon holds it’s place in the game, you just need to find the ones that suit your playstyle. For simplicity sake, we’ll focus on weapons found in the “Competitive” weapon preset, hence it’s by far the most balanced/popular + preset used in tournaments.

Close range is specialized by SMG’s (Uzi, TM-100) and Shotguns (Pump, Ranger-12).
The Uzi has the fastest firerate in the game but compensates for that by also having the lowest damage output. Compared to the TM-100 however, which features a 100 bullet magazine size, it’s much easier to control and reloads a lot quicker, making it a good choice for players who have good tracking-aim and want to take on individual opponents, while TM-100 is better for larger parties.
Both shotguns are pellet based, with the Pump spreading out to 9x pellets and Ranger-12 to 4x. Spreads tighten up significantly when aiming, so it’s best to ADS unless your opponents are close to kicking the bucket. When landing all pellets, the Pump Shotgun is by far one the most powerful weapons at close in the game, capable of crippling your enemies with a single well-placed shot! As the name implies, it’s pump-action, unlike it’s companion Ranger-12 which is automatic. Even though it’s spread is more forgiving, it falls behind the Pump with it’s average stats, but can still be deadly thanks to it’s speed. However, even then it’s a much more riskier pick due to the payoff being much more miniscule.

For medium and long range you have the AR’s (AS VAL, M16, AK47, KAT) alongside the Revolver pistol and R70 rifle. While not specialized for it, every semi-/automatic rifle can still be viable in close range via hipfire.
The M16 is the only burst-rifle in the game and thanks to that it’s also the most forgiving AR of the bunch. It’s obvious downside is the delay between shots, making it unviable during close range situations, but a well-shot burst can outdo a sniper at any range. AS VAL is the 2nd in line for being easy to control, it has the smallest damage-per-shot out of the bunch, but is a perfect alternative to the KAT for those who don’t have a fast trigger finger. The AK47 on the other hand is the perfect all-rounder, featuring the highest damage-per-shot and being a good choice for all ranges, but it also has the highest recoil.
The Revolver has the highest DPS available, while also being fully accurate at all times. It’s accuracy drops heavily while hipfireing, but it has the ability to outplay every other weapon in the game. The R70 is your standard sniper rifle, having the highest single-shot-damage out of all weapons, but still taking 3 shots to kill a untouched bean.

You should be wary of utilities, due to their damage output can exceed any weapon in the game. The Katana can slice and dash onto your fellow beans, chopping away 25/50 health depending on your action, but is outmatched by the Shank, which will 2-shot anyone you come across at point-plank range. Grenades have a incredibly large explosion area (that can be avoided by hiding behind- or inside a object) and Gas Grenades slowly increase in size til reaching their maximum radius, ticking off 5 damage per second from the beans inside – making it a effective item for controlling the map.
Scopes also aren’t all about preference, higher-tier scopes reduce accuracy alongside zoom. But while the sniper scope, as an example, has the largest amount of zoom and accuracy out of the bunch, thanks to the game lacking an ADS slider, it can be quite difficult to use. The difference between iron-sights and scopes isn’t humongous, however.

You can find a more detailed spreadsheet including all weapon-stats here: [link]
– Credit: Poida

Movement

Arguably more important than knowing how to use guns in Bean Battles, is to know how to move! Due to the way jumping and hitboxes work, a lot of possibilities get opened up: strafing mid air to dodge bullets; climbing otherwise flat surfaces, such as buildings and containers (to do this, face towards a wall and and switch between pressing “space” and “W”, whilst holding “shift”); squishing through solids, like walls and windows (this is frowned upon and not allowed in a tournament setting) or parkouring between different locations.. but none are as prevalent as moving silently, namely silent jumping and silent running! – The former can be pulled off by jumping again as soon as you hit the ground, doing so you will make no sound and you’ll go faster than sprinting speed. The obvious downside with this would be your visibility, so alternatively you could “spam shift” to also move without making a sound or when passing through surfaces you can’t jump on top, but this is a slower method.

You can also use items for movement, with the most useful of the bunch being the Katana! When having it fully charged (hold “Q”) it makes you dash forward, making it perfect for switching locations or jumping to a highround, such as getting on top of a building or a tree from ground level. It’s downside it the loud “hee-yaah” sound effect your character makes while dashing, alerting others of your presence.

Tactics

General gamesense and map knowledge are things near impossible to teach, and are things that just develop overtime, but I can give you some pointers to follow.

First, when starting out, if you happen to spawn in a open location with no actual buildings close ,(things are pretty straight-forward when spawning in/near a building) make your way to the nearest weapon you see and depending on your skill-level, either engage a player or start making your way to smaller POI’s (points of interest) to loot up. The best situation you want for yourself to have is to have a medium-long range weapon (assault rifles, snipers, explosives) and a close range weapon (smgs, shotguns) with either a medkit, grenade or a katana. Never have 2 close range or 2 “special” (snipers/explosives) weapons! – You want to be ready for whatever situation you get yourself into.

You should always remember your spot. By that I mean don’t think of yourself more than what you know you’re capable of. It’s stupid push push the player at the top if you can barely take care of everyone else around you, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. The way you should push better players than you, is by outsmarting them. Instead of running into their gunfire, you should try to confuse them, as an example: by changing your position without them noticing it. Make yourself think from their POV (point of view)! If they can’t see you, they can’t shoot you. This is why, in Campout, you don’t have to be directly behind a tree for an opponent on the mountain top to be unable to shoot you, you can be far back. As long as the leaves block them from seeing you, you’re fine!

Hence BB’s 3 available maps are built to be on the smaller side (which is good for more “active” games) and the Grid moves quite slowly, you shouldn’t sweat getting into the safezone. It’s much better to focus on your surroundings to get more kills/loot and make your way towards it progressively as time goes on.

Update (1.15/1.16)

The 3 main additions to the 1.15 Update gameplay wise were: the KAT Semi-Automatic Assault Rifle, a Buff to the M16 and a Nerf to the AK-47.

The KAT, to put it simply, is a new Assault-Rifle that in theory, awards a fast trigger-finger and precision, but sadly is non-viable AR currently and that’s for a multiple reasons. First and foremost it has the lowest damage output out of all the AR’s which goes completely against what a semi-auto is by nature, add the fact that it has a pretty high recoil compared to other weapons in it’s class such as the AS VAL and most AR’s in the game already don’t have a fire-rate cap, so you’re basically sacrificing the ability to spray for no reason. The whole feel of the weapon is similar to the Glock in most ways. Not good..

On the other end of the spectrum, the M16 – an already great rifle, got a damage increase from 12 -> 13 per shot, meaning it went from 36 -> 39 damage per burst. That makes the M16 one of the best weapons and the best AR in the game easily. Burst-rifles are typically low damage and compensate for it with the ability to hit multiple shots in high speeds, so I don’t really understand this change. But as of now, It’s more than viable and highly recommended to pick up instead of any other AR available.

The AK-47 also got a slight damage decrease from 16 -> 15 – giving more power towards the M16! As it currently stands, it’s still a viable weapon and more recommended for single tapping than the KAT.

Additionally, Competitive weapon preset (ex-BBCL) got changed up. Stuff like the silencers got added, while the availability of the TM-100 as an example got reduced, but the most controversial addition is the Rocket Boots. Personally, I don’t see that as a good addition counting that it’s a casual item and put into a preset most likely used in the future Tournaments – which also got added with the update!

On September 6th 2019, a small patch got released that removed Rocket Boots from Competitive and increased the damage of the KAT from 12 -> 13. This was done in preparation for the first Solo Saturdays tournament taking place on Sept. 7.

This does make the KAT a somewhat viable weapon now, but not by much. It’s low damage doesn’t excuse the removal of another fire-mode, but at least now it’s something I’d consider picking up. Removal of the Rocket Boots from Competitive is great; ready for the tournament!

Update (1.17)

The main point of this update was to introduce some holiday spirit into the game with new festive cosmetics, (Including “Pug in a Tub’s Pug”, the prize for the Solo Saturday’s Tournament winner) alongside with bug fixes and tweaks with the Rocket Launcher!

The Rocket Launcher got slightly nerfed, namely it’s speed was reduced from 30 -> 25. This should give players more time to move away from rockets, in case that was a problem before! I don’t see this as a huge setback to the Rocket Launcher however, especially in close quarters combat. The Christmas Tree cosmetic has actually created a new problem – namely clipping through thin walls, like containers in Shipment. I’m assuming this is caused due to it’s larger size or, in other words, hitbox. It’s similar to how you can squish yourself into the haystack in Campout to enter the barn, except now you are carrying the haystack with yourself.

Hopefully with the start of 2020, this will be patched out in a coming update and we’ll get the long-awaited Bow introduced alongside it!

Additionally

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