Your first $10,000
The stake is paid once and never refilled. How to spend it so one bad life does not end your week.
The stake is paid once
Every account starts with $10,000, the only free money you will see. You buy a full kit every life, and when you die the kit is gone. What you did not spend stays in the account, and what you earned carries into the next match. There is no per-match reset. The HUD's top-right shows this match's profit or loss on the left and your total cash on the right.
A $9,000 kit that dies on the drive to the zone leaves a pistol budget for the next life. The Handbook has the right phrasing: dying poor is recoverable, dying broke is not.
Three spending tiers
Our loadout builder sorts a kit into one of three bands.
- Budget, up to $4,000
- What you can field after a bad life. A free rifle, light armour, the free pouch, a bandage.
- Standard, up to $7,500
- The everyday spend once a match or two of income sits behind you.
- Full, up to $10,000
- Everything a fresh account can afford in one go. Also everything it can lose in one go.
Stay in the budget band for your first few lives. A cheap kit counts as one full body in the Control Zone and two in the Hot Zone, and the zone pays the same for a $600 rifle as for a $6,500 one.
Day one: buy this
- A starter rifle. Several assault rifles cost nothing at the vendor and the T-21 is $600. They hold their own in the first matches.
- Level 1 helmet and armour. Both unlock at WARDOG level 3 with no unlock fee and weigh 4 kg together. In our catalog the vendor prices are $200 and $400.
- The Pouch. Free, six slots. Bring one or two magazines and fill the rest with loose rounds: they take less space than full magazines, and you load them into a mag from the bag.
- A bandage or two, and a spotting tool. Binoculars are $75; the rangefinder is $400 and is the only one that reads distance. Spotting an enemy a teammate then kills pays you without firing.
- After a death, use the rebuy button at the bottom-left of the vendor. It buys back the exact kit you had instead of one assembled in a hurry.
Day one: skip this
- The Scout Backpack ($350, 2 kg, 8 slots). The Field Backpack costs $300 more, weighs less than half as much and holds 12. The Pouch covers you until level 12 unlocks it.
- The Scout Rifle TD. Cheap for a sniper; the recon guide says leave it until you can afford a real rifle.
- Any vehicle. Riding in a teammate's costs nothing; owning one does, and none of them come with ammunition. See vehicles and helicopters.
- Heavy armour, for the reason below.
Why weight matters
Armour is the heaviest thing you can wear, and its weight climbs faster than its protection. Level 1 armour is 3 kg, level 2 is 4.5 kg, level 3 jumps to 10.5 kg and level 4 to 18 kg. A level 4 helmet adds 4.5 kg, so the top of the ladder puts 22.5 kg on you before you pick up a weapon. Equipment weight shapes a fight, and the Handbook's verdict is that unless you play a static defensive role, the middle of the ladder is where the value sits.
Vests do not stop bullets. They add quick slots and faster reloads, worth the $100 Small Tac Vest and not much more on day one. The builder totals carried weight for every kit; watch it before you add a second rifle.