The best loadout at every budget

Three kits, priced to the dollar

We built these three in the loadout planner and took them out. Every one opens in the planner from the link under its table, so you can swap a part and watch the price move.

Two things worth saying up front. These totals include the magazines, the rounds inside them and the bandages, because that is what the vendor actually charges you. A loaded 30 round AK magazine on armor piercing is $155, and a stack of five bandages is $1,000.

And every bag here is packed out. No kit leaves a cell empty, because an empty cell is a reload you decided not to carry. Magazines first, loose rounds where a magazine will not fit.

$3,275: the one you rebuy

Nine hundred rounds a minute with flesh rounds loaded kills a bare chest in three and a bare head in two. Against the unarmored players who fill the first ten minutes of any match, this $1,915 kit trades with kits costing five times as much.

The 20 round magazine is the trick here. It occupies one cell where the 30 takes two, so the same Pouch carries six magazines instead of three. That is 120 rounds of flesh ammunition on a kit costing $3,275.

The Binoculars go in the specialist slot, not the pack. That is where they belong, it costs you nothing to carry them, and it leaves the whole Pouch for ammunition.

One bandage stack, not two, and that is deliberate. At $1,000 a stack it is already the second most expensive line on the kit, and the sixth cell is worth more to you as another magazine.

$7,105: the one that beats armor

This is the kit we run most of the time. Armor piercing is the whole point of it: six chest shots to kill through Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4 alike. Your damage stops caring what the enemy bought.

Level 2 on your side takes an enemy AK74 from four chest shots to seven and from two headshots to three, for 6.1 kilos across both pieces.

The Field Backpack at $650 opens three 2x2 pockets, twelve cells. Five magazines take ten of them and two bandage stacks take the rest. A hundred and eighty rounds of armor piercing is enough to fight through a position rather than one contact.

The Basic Parachute at $100 goes in the traversal slot. It is the cheapest insurance in the game and the first thing we add once a kit is worth keeping, because a helicopter you had to leave is otherwise a death.

Binoculars again in the specialist slot. They cost $75 and they pay for themselves the first time you spot for someone else's gun.

$15,320: the one worth thinking about

The FAL is the reason this kit exists. Sixty damage a shot means two to the chest and one to the head against anything unarmored, and an 800 metre effective range that lets you take fights the SMG kits cannot.

The Operator Backpack opens a single 3x5 grid, fifteen cells. Three spare magazines take nine, two stacks of loose armor piercing take four, and the bandages take the last two. Nothing is left over.

That is the rule we follow on any pack this size. Magazines first, because a loaded mag is a reload and loose rounds are not. Loose ammunition in whatever is left, because it refills the magazines you have already emptied. Two hundred rounds of .308 in total.

We stayed on a Level 2 helmet rather than Level 3. The $1,000 saved buys the spare magazine, and we would rather have the second reload.

The parachute is the same $100 it costs on the cheaper kit and it matters more here. You are carrying $15,000 of equipment; walking out of a helicopter should not be how you lose it.

What the extra $8,500 actually buys

Here is the uncomfortable table. All three kits, against the same targets.

The cheap kit matches the expensive one against bare targets, three shots each. Then armor appears and it needs nine where the FAL needs three. The middle kit is the flattest of the three and never embarrasses itself.

What the expensive kit really buys is range and consistency. The FAL takes fights at 400 metres that the AMP-9 cannot see, and its answer is three shots whether the target is bare or wearing $4,000 of Level 4.

Which one to take

• Under $15,000 total cash: the Rebuy Kit at $3,275. The opening balance buys three of them, which is the honest budget nobody tells you about.
• $15,000 to $40,000: the Line Kit at $7,105. It is the best value in the game and we run it far oftener than the other two.
• Over $40,000: the Overwatch Kit at $15,320, when the map suits it. Open ground and long sightlines, not building clearing.
• Any budget, close quarters: the MP43 at $400 one-shots a bare chest. It embarrasses all three of these indoors.
• Every kit here deploys with a full bag. If you are looking at an empty cell at the vendor, you are looking at a reload you chose not to bring.

Whatever you take, swap your ammunition to match the lobby. It is the cheapest line on every one of these receipts and it moves the numbers further than the gun does.