Zero-Day: take the exploit down before it escapes

What is a Zero-Day?

In the real world, a zero-day is a vulnerability the vendor does not know about yet. In ROOTWAR it is a world event: a digital boss appears in a random district (never The Mainframe) and stays active for 15 minutes. A new event triggers roughly every two hours.

You cannot miss it: a red banner appears at the top of the game with the district name, a health bar, the countdown and how many agents have joined. The chat announces the spawn, and the network map puts the district on alert, with a health ring shrinking with every strike.

Hit points scaled to the server

A Zero-Day’s toughness depends on how many players are online when it appears: 50,000 hit points per band of 50 online players (50,000 below 50 players, 100,000 from 50 to 99, and so on). A busy server faces a much tougher exploit, which keeps the event contested at any hour.

If its hit points reach zero before the countdown ends, the exploit is taken down. Otherwise it escapes into the network and nobody is rewarded: coordination matters.

How to strike

Click Strike in the banner, on the Zero-Day line of the district’s scan results, or type hack zd in the terminal. Each strike is an 8-second operation that always succeeds and deals damage equal to your attack power (10 per cracker level, 4 per CPU level, plus 10).

• You can strike from any district: no need to move your node.
• One strike at a time per player, but it only uses one slot: your other slots stay free for regular hacks.
• There is no cooldown: launch a new strike as soon as the previous one ends.

How rewards are shared

When the exploit is taken down, a pool of 2,000 credits per participant is split among everyone who struck, in proportion to the damage dealt, with a minimum of 100 credits each. The more participants, the bigger the pool.

• The top 20 also earn reputation: 50 points for first place, then 2 fewer per rank, with a minimum of 5.
• First place receives the exclusive “Zero-Day Hunter” title, shown under their name in the chat and on their profile.
• Your damage feeds the Zero-Day leaderboard, which shows the best agents of the latest event.

Reputation earned counts towards the season leaderboard: Zero-Days are one of the safest ways to climb without risking your credits.

Follow the event without missing a beat

During a Zero-Day, the banner permanently shows the remaining hit points, the time left before the exploit escapes and the name of the top agent. Your strike button shows a progress bar for the 8 seconds of the operation, then re-enables itself. In the terminal, every strike is printed with its damage, and the ops command lists your running operations.

When it ends, a notification sums up your result: total damage, rank, credits and reputation earned. If the exploit is taken down, a celebration plays for every participant; if it escapes, the chat announces it to the whole server. Your gains also show up in your logs, which you can check at any time.

Strategy: finish in the top ranks

1. Strike non-stop: 15 minutes allow more than a hundred strikes. Consistency makes the difference.
2. Invest in the cracker: each level adds 10 damage to every strike, against 4 for the CPU.
3. Show up early: on equal damage, whoever struck first ranks higher.
4. Coordinate: on a quiet server, rally your crew in the chat to make sure the exploit falls before time runs out.
5. Keep an eye on territory: the event draws a crowd into one district, which is also when relays change hands (see crews and territory).

To raise your attack power quickly, follow the upgrade advice in the beginner guide.

Frequently asked questions