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No. Every new vehicle comes with the STARTER program, which already drives, scans and fires, so you can fight a battle straight away. Change a number in it, run another battle and watch what's different. That's how most players start.

When you're ready for more, Your first program builds a program a step at a time, and the tutorials after it cover aiming, staying alive, supplies and memory. EXAMPLES in the editor has complete programs to try.

BCAS, a small language made for the game that reads like Python. A program is a function, update(state, memory), that the game runs ten times a second. Each time, it reads what the vehicle knows and gives its orders: where to drive, where to scan, when to fire. The language page has all of it.

A battle won't start while the program has an error, or while it uses a library for equipment the vehicle hasn't got fitted (shield without a shield generator, say). The editor marks every faulty line as you type, and says what's wrong and where.

Start with the REPORT tab: the result, both vehicles' totals and a timeline of everything that happened, each event a tap away from that moment in the replay. Commands your program gave that couldn't be carried out are listed with the reason.

Subscribers also get "what went wrong", the battle's biggest problems in plain words, and the debugger: pause a practice battle, press DEBUG, and step through your program line by line, seeing every value it set. You can also write debug.log("...") in your program to record its own reasons.

Enter your email address and press SEND ME A CODE. We email you a 6-digit code; type it in, and you're signed in. There's no password to remember.

In the iPhone, iPad and Android apps, a new address makes a new account. The browser version only signs in to an account that already exists, so make yours in an app first.

It comes from "Battle Code Arena", usually within a minute. Look in your junk or spam folder, and check the address you typed. Then ask for another code. If the app says there have been too many tries, wait a minute first. If codes still don't arrive, email us from that address.

Yes. Your garage belongs to your account, so sign in with the same email on each device and your vehicles and programs follow you. Each device brings its garage up to date when it opens, a few seconds after you change something, and every half minute while it's on screen.

If you change the same vehicle on two devices before either has synced, both versions are kept: the second appears as "NAME [COPY]".

Building, programming and practice battles all work without a connection, for up to 30 days after the app last reached our servers. Then it needs a connection once to check your account. The league, events, challenges, private leagues and syncing your garage need a connection.

Open SYS, then ACCOUNT, then DELETE ACCOUNT, in any of the apps or the browser version. It deletes your email address, your garage, your subscription details and your side of your league battles. It can't be undone.

Deleting your account doesn't cancel a subscription. Cancel that in the App Store or Google Play first (see below). If you can't sign in, email us from your account's address and we'll delete it for you.

Competing: the league, events, sparring and the league's trial, challenging friends and creating private leagues. The tools: the debugger, "what went wrong" and version history. And a garage of 30 vehicles instead of 3, replays kept for a year, paint, screen themes and the browser version. Building, programming and practice battles are free.

It's £5.99 a month or £49.99 a year in the UK, with a 7-day free trial for eligible new subscribers. Prices elsewhere are set by the store in your currency.

iPhone and iPad: open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, and choose Battle Code Arena. Or press MANAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS on the game's subscribe screen.

Android: open the Google Play app, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions. Or press MANAGE IN GOOGLE PLAY on the subscribe screen.

Cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the period (or of the free trial) to avoid the next charge. The subscription stays active until the end of the period you've paid for.

The subscription belongs to your account, not the device, so it works wherever you sign in with the same email, whichever store you bought it from. If a device hasn't caught up, open the subscribe screen there and press RESTORE A SUBSCRIPTION, or in the browser version press CHECK AGAIN. It can take a minute to come through after buying.

No. The subscription is bought in the iPhone, iPad or Android app, through the App Store or Google Play. The browser version at play.battlecodearena.com is included with it: sign in there with the same account.

Apple and Google take the payments, so refunds are theirs to give. For the App Store, use reportaproblem.apple.com. For Google Play, see Google Play's refund help.

Nothing is deleted. Your garage stays as it is, though you can't add vehicles while you have more than three. Your league entries keep their records but sit out of rounds, and play again as soon as you subscribe again.

Every four hours, on the hour: 00:00, 04:00, 08:00, 12:00, 16:00 and 20:00 UTC. Each entry plays one match a round, ten battles against an entry near it in the table: three points for a win, one for a draw. The League tab counts down to the next round.

A vehicle published after a round has started plays in the next one. If your subscription has ended, your entries sit out until you subscribe again. And an entry you've withdrawn doesn't play.

No. Other players see your vehicle's name, its results, and the battles it fought against theirs. In a league battle's replay each side sees its own vehicle's workings, never the opponent's: those show as ??.

Vehicles of ours, with programs of ours, in every class, so that there's always someone to fight. They are the opponents for practice and the trial too. They never take a promotion or relegation place, and their programs are hidden, as everyone's are.

Seasons last four weeks. At the end, the top tenth of each class's entries go up a class, from Bronze to Silver or Silver to Gold, and the bottom tenth come down. An entry has to have played at least 30 matches that season to move.

Open LEAGUE, then SPAR. Under CHALLENGE A FRIEND, type their 6-character code and press ACCEPT. The vehicle you have open is the one that fights, and the ten battles are fought with the next round. Answering is free. Challenge emails come from challenge@mail.battlecodearena.com: if one hasn't arrived, look in the junk folder.

Open LEAGUE, then PRIVATE, and enter the league's code under JOIN WITH A CODE. Joining is free, and a league holds up to 20 members. Then put a vehicle in, and it plays everyone else in the league each round.

No. An event takes entries until it starts, and each entry is a fixed copy of the vehicle as it was. Look out for the next one in LEAGUE, then EVENTS.

iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later, and Android phones and tablets with Android 8.0 or later. Subscribers can also play in a current desktop browser at play.battlecodearena.com. A battle comes out exactly the same on all of them.

Press SOUND at the top of the screen. It stays off until you turn it on again.