Which vehicle to buy, and what each one is really for

What you are actually buying

Vehicles are the largest single purchase available and the easiest way to lose a bankroll. A Bobcat is $500. A Havoc is $18,000. Both of them die to the same rocket.

The number that decides most of this is small arms resistance, which is how much rifle fire the hull ignores. It ranges from 80 percent on a helicopter to a flat 100 on a tank.

Skip the cheap end

The Bobcat is $500 and it looks like a bargain. Two seats, 75 km/h, 92 percent off small arms damage. We bought it a lot early on and we have stopped.

Two seats is the problem. You and one other person, in a vehicle with a 200 HP hull and 8 km of fuel range on a map that runs 9.9 km across. You cannot move a squad in it, you cannot cross the map and come back, and the moment anything with a real gun sees you the 92 percent stops mattering.

The Dune Buggy at $1,500 has the same shape of problem with three seats. Neither of them does a job the Kodiak does not do better for a little more money.

Moving a squad

This is where the money starts working. Once you can put four or more people in a vehicle, the trip pays per passenger and the vehicle pays for itself in one run.

• Kodiak Pickup, $3,000, six seats. The one we buy. Six seats moves a full squad, 154 km/h is the fastest thing on wheels, and it takes crates. The base Kodiak at $2,500 seats four if you are short.
• Humvee, $3,000, four seats. Slower at 113 km/h and tougher, with 95 percent small arms resistance, an intermediate trunk and a 20 km fuel range. Take it when the route is contested.
• URAL, $5,000, three seats. Seventy-nine km/h and a 700 HP hull. This is a logistics truck, so buy it to move supplies rather than people.
• UH-1Y, $7,400, nine seats. Four hundred and forty-five km/h, a large trunk, flares, and 95 percent small arms resistance. It moves an entire squad across the map in under a minute.

Helicopters, and the 80 percent problem

The little birds are the other half of our answer. The MH-6 is $6,250 for six seats at 350 km/h and it carries crates, which makes it the fastest way to put a squad on a Control Zone four kilometres away.

Then there is the AH-6M at $7,000, and this is the one that changes matches. Two M134D miniguns on an airframe that does 350 km/h, flown by somebody who knows how to keep it moving. A good minigun pilot wrecks a position, comes back for the next one, and the enemy team spends the rest of the round looking up instead of at the zone.

Watch the resistance number before you commit. The MH-6 and both AH-6 variants sit at 80 percent small arms reduction where the UH-1Y is at 95. That is four times as much rifle damage getting through, which is why little birds come home smoking and why hovering is how you lose one.

The UH-1Y with miniguns at $8,000 is the safer buy. Nine seats, a large trunk, guns, flares and the best small arms resistance in the air, for $10,000 under a Havoc. Take it when you are moving people. Take the AH-6M when you are going hunting.

Armor: three tracked options, three jobs

All three tracked vehicles take zero damage from small arms and all three move at 65 km/h. What separates them is the gun.

• SPH-2, $8,000. The artillery piece. A 155 mm cannon with a 10 km reach and a 27 second reload, plus an M249 for anything that gets close. It is a support weapon that happens to be armored, and it belongs behind your own lines. Pair it with the artillery calculator.
• Flakpanzer Gepard, $10,000. Twin 35 mm autocannons built for helicopters. If the enemy has bought air, this is the answer and nothing else on the list is. If they have not, you have spent $10,000 on a slow tank with a bad gun for ground work.
• L2A6, $14,000. The main battle tank, and in the hands of somebody who can actually drive it, the strongest purchase in the game. A 120 mm cannon, a coaxial gun, an M249, smoke, an 800 HP hull with a 350 HP strong area over the front. Rifles do nothing to it at all.

The catch on all three is the same, and it is one question: is the enemy running launchers. Tracks have 125 HP each and the fuel tank has 100 to 150, so a rocket in the right place ends a $14,000 vehicle.

Against a team that did not buy anti-tank, a good tank driver is close to unanswerable. He holds an approach on his own, kills anything that crosses it, and the enemy has no tool that touches him. Against a team that did, he needs infantry walking beside him and a way out.

So the L2A6 is a read on the lobby rather than a flat recommendation. Watch what the other teams bought last life, then decide.

Fuel is a real constraint

Everything here burns fuel, and the ranges are shorter than the map.

Kavkazi is 9.9 km across. A Bobcat with 8 km of range cannot cross it and come back, and an SPH-2 at 13 km has about one repositioning move in the tank. Plan the route before you buy the vehicle.

What we buy, and when

• Under $5,000: the Kodiak Pickup at $3,000. Nothing cheaper is worth the slot, so save until you can afford it.
• $5,000 to $15,000: the AH-6M at $7,000 if you can fly, the MH-6 at $6,250 if you are ferrying, the UH-1Y with miniguns at $8,000 if you want to do both.
• $15,000 to $30,000: the L2A6 at $14,000, once you have checked that the enemy is not running launchers.
• Over $30,000: whatever the match needs. The SPH-2 if you would rather shoot from home, the Havoc if the sky is yours.

Before you commit to anything with a trunk, run the load through the cargo planner. It will tell you what actually fits and what the run is worth.