The team that decides where the Hot Zone sits usually decides the match, and in WARDOGS you have two ways to do that: capture drill towers and enter their code, or build your own drill rig at a FOB and fuel it.
Season 2 made the second option far more expensive, and older drill guides still quote fuel targets from before that change. This one uses the current fuel figures, works out what they mean per minute, and covers what to do when another team is drilling on you.
Quick answer: A WARDOGS drill pulls the Hot Zone to your position, where every player counts double for zone control and earns double Cash. A player-built drill rig needs a FOB, a Large Hammer, build supplies (2,750 if the patch notes' Hot Zone Magnet is the rig, as WardogsBuild lists it) and at least 2,000 fuel to start. A full 10,000 fuel tank runs for 300 seconds, the same uptime as a capturable tower. You can also pull the zone with no supplies at all by capturing drill towers and entering their code at a keypad. Hostile tower captures pay $1,500 and 300 XP.
Updated 2 November 2026. Applies to WARDOGS Season 2, Update 0.2.0 (patch notes posted on Steam 14 October 2026, season live 15 October 2026). WARDOGS is BULKHEAD's 100-player, three-team Control Zone shooter on Steam, not the 2016 film or a Warhammer 40,000 unit. Season 3 is scheduled for 12 November and its patch notes aren't out yet, so expect this page to change.
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What does a drill do in WARDOGS?
A drill moves the Hot Zone. Left alone, the Hot Zone drifts around inside the Control Zone. A drill drags it to you and keeps it there for as long as the pull lasts.
That matters because of how the Hot Zone works. BULKHEAD's February Top Questions post calls it "a shifting sub-zone within the larger 'Control Zone'" and says "Players count as double towards their player count", adding that it "also yields DOUBLE CASH!" If you want the scoring detail, our Hot Zone guide and Control Zone guide cover it.
The word "drill" covers three separate things in WARDOGS, and mixing them up causes a lot of confusion:
| Name | What it is | Where you find it |
|---|---|---|
| Drill tower | A capturable objective already on the map | Inside the Control Zone, shown with a drill-style icon |
| Drill rig | A buildable you place at a FOB and run on fuel | Your own FOB. WardogsBuild identifies it as the Hot Zone Magnet in the patch notes' cost list |
| Heavy Drill | A separate Support unlock, $50,000 in Season 2 | Your loadout. The notes don't describe it, and a 2 November player post mentions tank crews using it |
How do drill towers and tower codes work?
Towers pull the zone without any supplies or building, though you still have to win them. A match can have as few as two and as many as five, according to Shacknews, and the map shows who holds each one.
To capture a tower:
- Open the map and check the tower isn't on cooldown. MetaForge notes you can see the timer by hovering over its icon.
- Clear the building and go up to the computer room, one floor above the entrance.
- Hold interact at the main console until the bar fills and the tower flips to your team.
- Read the digit on the screen and share it with your team in chat.
- Enter the full code at the keypad beside a console on a tower your team holds.
Each tower gives one digit, so code length follows tower count. There's one catch. Shacknews reports that with three or fewer towers the console shows only symbols until your team owns them all, which stops anyone brute-forcing a short code. With more than three, each digit shows as you capture.
You also get three attempts at the keypad before it locks and goes on cooldown, so a guess costs you something. TposeGaming's playtest-era guide says codes are generated fresh each match and reset after a successful entry. There's no permanent list of WARDOGS drill codes, and any site offering one is wasting your time.
Season 2 doubled the Cash for this job. Capturing a hostile drill tower went from $750 and 250 XP to $1,500 and 300 XP, per the patch notes.
How do you build a drill rig in WARDOGS?
A rig costs far more than a tower pull, but it puts the Hot Zone on ground you've already fortified. Here's what you need first:
| Requirement | Season 2 number | Note |
|---|---|---|
| FOB | $7,500 at the vendor | Season 1 price, not changed in the Season 2 notes |
| Large Hammer | Support level 8, $75,000 unlock | Season 1 gate, not changed in the Season 2 notes |
| Hot Zone Magnet (drill rig) | 2,750 build supplies | Up from 2,250 |
| Fuel to start | 2,000 | Up from 1,500 |
| Fuel Supply Pallet | WARDOG level 16, $50,000 unlock | Was unlocked by default before Season 2 |
That last row is easy to miss. The Fuel Supply Pallet now sits behind a WARDOG track gate, so a fresh squad may reach the rig before it can feed it with pallets. If nobody on your team is bringing fuel by any route, the rig is a lot of supplies spent on scenery. Support players should check our Support unlocks guide too, since that track holds the hammers.
This build order comes from TposeGaming's playtest-era guide, adjusted for Season 2. Treat it as advice, not a game rule:
- Place the FOB in the Control Zone, on a side your team can resupply.
- Wall it and add your anti-air and mortars before the rig. An exposed rig only tells every team where to shoot.
- Line up your supply runners before you commit. One player's 2 November r/WarDogs post on building says few people are running logistics this late in the season, which makes supplies hard to come by.
- Build the rig with a Large Hammer, then fuel it to at least 2,000 before you start it.
- Start it when your team is actually ready to move into the zone.
How much fuel does a drill need in Season 2?
Fuel is where the Season 2 nerf lands. BULKHEAD changed duration per unit of fuel from 0.05 to 0.03 seconds, which means a rig now burns about 33 fuel per second instead of 20, a 67% increase. Here's what that does at each tank level:
| Fuel in rig | Season 1 uptime | Season 2 uptime |
|---|---|---|
| 1,500 | 75s (old minimum) | Won't start |
| 2,000 | 100s | 60s (new minimum) |
| 5,000 | 250s | 150s |
| 6,000 | 300s | 180s |
| 7,500 | 375s (old maximum) | 225s |
| 10,000 | Over the old cap | 300s (new maximum) |
Holding the zone for 10 minutes of drill uptime now takes 20,000 fuel, up from 12,000. In Season 2 that's two full tanks, before any cooldown gaps.
Some older guides still tell you to fill a rig to 6,000. In Season 2 that buys three minutes. BULKHEAD raised the tank to 10,000 "to encourage logistics role play", so a proper pull now depends on someone running fuel for the whole match. How much fuel one pallet delivers isn't in the notes, so read the rig's own counter in game.
The logistics run still pays. A supply pallet deploy is worth $1,250 and 400 XP, or 500 XP from a ground vehicle, with streak bonuses on top. Our Cash guide has the full reward table. The notes give those as Control Zone values. One warning from Update 0.1.2: pallet deposits into a FOB outside the zone pay reduced rewards.
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Drill rig or tower code: which should you use?
Use towers first, and build a rig when your team has the logistics to keep it running. Both give you the same maximum pull, because the patch notes say the rig's 300 seconds "matches capturable towers".
| Tower code | Drill rig | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost to pull | No supplies, only the fight for the towers | About 2,750 build supplies, then up to 10,000 fuel per pull |
| Requirements | Hold towers and enter the digits | FOB, Large Hammer, a fuel supply line |
| Where the zone goes | The tower you enter the code at | Your FOB |
| Max uptime | 300s | 300s |
| Pays you | $1,500 and 300 XP per hostile capture | Building and logistics rewards |
| Main risk | Lockout after 3 wrong entries | Destroyed rig, with a substantially longer cooldown to replace it |
The strongest setup is a FOB on or beside a tower. You get the high ground, a second way to pull the zone, and a position you were going to defend anyway. WardogsBuild's Hot Zone guide makes the same case: fortify the tower first, then enter the code so the zone lands on ground you already hold.
Is the multi-drill meta still alive in Season 2?
It still shows up, but it costs far more to run. BULKHEAD's stated goal in the Season 2 notes was "to reduce the prevalence of multi drill rig builds becoming a dominant strategy, without removing the possibility of it ever occurring."
The numbers show how much more you now pay. At 2,750 each, four rigs cost 11,000 build supplies before a drop of fuel, and 20 minutes of combined uptime takes 40,000 fuel, ignoring cooldowns. Players are still trying it: a 2 November r/WarDogs screenshot shows a walled FOB packed with rigs, posted under the title "As long as your logi is good... drill city wins games!" Replies in that thread were quick to name counters, so treat it as a strategy that needs a working supply line and a defense, not a guaranteed win.
How do you counter a drill base?
Go after the rig, the fuel supply and the people repairing it. Breaking a rig costs the enemy more than its build supplies, because the notes say the post-spawn cooldown was "substantially increased, so a destroyed rig cannot immediately be replaced". BULKHEAD hasn't published that cooldown in seconds.
It pays well, too:
| Target | Season 2 reward |
|---|---|
| Destroy a Hot Zone Magnet | $2,750, down from $4,500 |
| Destroy a Vanguard CIWS | $1,200 |
| Destroy an L81 Mortar or Stingray | $650 |
| Hack a FOB | $2,500 and 250 XP, plus $1,000 and 250 XP for each teammate in radius |
| Destroy a FOB | Bonus of up to $7,500 and 250 XP, based on supplies held |
Those are listed values, and Update 0.1.2 scaled rewards for placed schematics with build progress, so a half-built target pays less. XP for a destroyed buildable is roughly 25% of the Cash reward, which puts a finished Magnet at about 690 XP, and it now goes to Assault rather than Support.
Players in the 2 November drill thread pointed at several answers. One called out the layout: "No compartmentalization... one semi-decent mortar wipes all of that." Another pointed to a helicopter strike with "Lakota + Pallet + C4", and a third named artillery. So spread out targets when you're defending, and don't pack every rig into one mortar's reach.
Direct fire alone won't always do it. A commenter in the same thread described a tank rolling up and firing rockets at their drills, and added: "we just kept repairing them." Bring enough damage to finish the rig, or kill the repair crew first.
Vehicles are the expensive option here. Our vehicle break-even guide shows what armed vehicles cost to deploy against what they earn back.
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FAQ
What does a drill do in WARDOGS? It pulls the Hot Zone to your FOB or to a tower your team holds. Players in the Hot Zone count double for zone control and earn double Cash, so the team that controls where it sits has a big scoring edge.
How much fuel does a WARDOGS drill need? At least 2,000 to start, which gives 60 seconds in Season 2. The maximum is 10,000, which gives 300 seconds.
What is the WARDOGS drill code? There's no fixed code. Each tower your team captures shows one digit, and you enter the full number at a tower keypad. TposeGaming's playtest-era guide says the code changes every match, so don't trust a published list.
Why does my WARDOGS drill say unavailable? BULKHEAD hasn't documented that message. The likely causes are a rig below the 2,000 fuel minimum, a rig or tower still on cooldown, or a keypad locked after three wrong attempts. Check the fuel count and hover the tower icon on the map.
How long is the WARDOGS drill cooldown? BULKHEAD doesn't publish a number. The Season 2 notes only say the post-spawn cooldown was substantially increased, so a destroyed rig can't be replaced straight away.
Do drill unlocks carry over to WARDOGS Season 3? Plan on no. Cash and XP progression reset at the end of a season, so the money you spent on the Large Hammer or Fuel Supply Pallet unlock won't come back. Season 3 is scheduled for 12 November and its notes aren't out, so read our Season 3 page before you plan around these numbers. For the wider FOB economy, see our FOB guide.
