If you want to level fast, stack cash, and speed-run your way to T3, T4, and AP ammo, I’ve laid out exactly what to do — from the easiest, highest-priority steps down to the slowest, lowest-priority ones. The people telling you to “just shoot the legs” are disconnected from reality, so I’m ignoring that advice entirely and focusing on what actually moves the needle.
One upfront caveat before you commit: this requires either a controller or genuine comfort flying with mouse and keyboard. I wrote this because it took me 70 hours of pure trial and error to figure out the efficient path, and I’d rather you skip that learning curve. You start with pilot, and the sequence ends with assault, medic, or recon — but this guide assumes you’re not a sniper prodigy and don’t want to be one. The goal is unlocking solid, competitive gear so you’re not a washover.
Before You Start: Read This
This guide does not account for any Season 2 changes. As of this writing, nothing about Season 2 XP, money, or level changes has been officially released, so read on and adjust as needed. It was written as a new-player guide for Season 1, but since Season 2 is only a few weeks out, treat it as your speed-run blueprint for that toxic head start everyone loves — everyone except me, anyway.
You need to stay attentive here. Think of this as a 15–20 hour commitment, or 10–15 hours if you get great RNG and luck. That range doesn’t account for personal skill, which is exactly why the floor sits at 10–15 hours. If you want to have fun rather than get depressed being told to “SHOOT LEGS” — outright bad advice that’ll have you plinking neckbeards for 10 damage a shot — then this is the guide for you.
To follow this properly you need a controller and the ability to pilot. If you don’t have a controller, learning to fly on mouse and keyboard is not easy but not impossible. If you don’t want to pilot or simply can’t, skip the pilot step entirely and focus on support.
Here’s the order everything follows:
- Pilot / Support
- Driving / Support
- Medic / Recon
- Medic / Recon / Assault
- Enjoy the game that took me 70 hours of trial and error to figure out
Essential Knowledge You Can’t Skip
Ignore this at your own peril — it only adds hours to your grind. You do earn passive XP via pilot and driving that you can slack on, but that still costs you time in the end.
Support — the X drag. Be realistic here: you need to corner-drag the X. Hit the X and keep backing up as you do it — that’s the drag. Drag it to the corner, back up until you can no longer hit it, then move up to hit it from as far away as possible, move forward, and hit. If you did it correctly and the game cooperates, the X stays in place. You’ll want to unlock the large hammer and start building oil drills or CWIS as soon as possible. For support specifically, the large hammer is what lets you build the sandbag huts.
Finish the match. Always play to the end, because you get an extra percentage bonus on the XP you earned. Everyone has a different theory on the exact amount, but just get it done — stay until the end. That extra XP adds up, I promise. Finish 15 games across your 15 hours and that’s essentially 15 levels without doing anything but playing and finishing.
Team swap. This won’t be popular, but you don’t care and neither do I — this is speed-running. Swap teams. If you join and your assigned team has no job or is just outright bad, move to any team you can that isn’t the winning one. Early on, favor whatever team has FOBs for the money grind, but this carries over into actually playing. I’m not joking: if you want to play the zone, hit the HZ, and kill people, and you join a team with 20 drivers, pilots, and FOBs, you won’t be able to do what you want. So before you leave, change teams. You’ll have a 100% better time, and let the team-swapping go — you’re fine. If you came here for extra setup tricks, a little extra launch options prep never hurts.
Pilot and Support
Support is how you make your money through this entire guide, supplemented by luck or pure skill. You don’t need to level pilot — if you can’t do it, skip half of this and focus on support. Just know this stretch requires staying focused rather than having fun. The fun comes later.
Level up support, full stop. In this game, if you have no money to replace kits, you can’t play. But if you can’t kill people to fund those kits, you also can’t play. Without money and levels, you won’t survive the end of the season. Support is non-skippable, non-negotiable — I don’t negotiate with terrorists anyway. With that said, let’s get into it.
Support is straightforward: buy a hammer, get to a FOB, and build. Or buy a FOB, place it, and build once supplies arrive. Build anything and everything, help others, level up, and unlock the large hammer.
Once you have the large hammer, you’re in business — this is your money maker. Build any of the three sandbag huts, then build metal doors around it to protect against explosions. If you read the X-drag section, you can build a CWIS or oil drill. If something costs 1,800 supplies, that’s 1,800 XP and a lot of money. So you hide or sit in your hut and build via the X drag — you’ll print money and support XP. Do this in all four corners. Bad news: you probably won’t live to finish. Repeat anyway, swap FOBs, and get it done no matter what it takes.
Pilot is different — do not ferry troops, that’s not consistent XP. You need to deliver small crates. Put one cheap item in the crate: the free revive and a $10 building supply. Fly, drop it, get back to base — that’s 400 XP total. After a bit, unlock the Black Hawk and start dropping pallets. Drop pallets! You’ll get 500 XP and a good amount of money. Combine this with the support work above until you hit level 15 pilot. You do earn XP while flying, but it’s slow and low. Once you unlock the armored large crate, you’ll get 800 XP combined — not great XP, which is why I personally suggest stopping here. That unlock boosts driving by a very large amount, but if you want to keep pushing, you can — it’ll just add hours to your total speed-run.
If you’re short on money for pilot, or in general, do support until you have 300k.
Driving and Support
Support stays exactly the same — this is literally your money maker, your bread and butter. Easy XP, easy money using the hut method, so you can’t get sniped or hit by rockets or anything. Just build the same thing on all four corners.
Driving gives you a few choices, but this is a speed run — that means consistent XP, no side-tracking. APCs do give a decent amount of XP, but I’d avoid them: they’re slow, and if one gets blown up in the zone, you’ve wasted your time.
You need money for this. If you followed the flying and support advice, you should have it. You’ll alternate driving and support — this is speed running!
You unlock the Ursa or the Logi truck. If you have two eyes, you’ll know what I’m talking about the moment you look at the driving tree. You’ll level up crazy fast if you have the money and the attention span.
Buy the truck, then kill yourself by driving at max speed and jumping out. We’re exchanging money printed via support for XP burned via driving. Listen closely — it’s very easy: buy the truck, same exact idea as flying. Didn’t do flying? That’s on you, but I’ve got you anyway. Buy four large armored crates — just kidding, I don’t make you do pilot — and put the cheapest single item in each: a building supply costing 10. That’s 40 bucks to keep it cheap. Drive into the zone, drop 4 large crates — that’s 2k XP instantly. Jump out, die, repeat. Repeat.
If you have the money, this is insanely high XP. Do this until about level 20. Why 20? If you read this far, 2k XP per drop is a lot more than 800 XP via the helicopter — be a man, do the grind. Skip pallets entirely — ignore them. Helicopters deliver more supplies faster and can hand over specific supplies per requirement.
Recon, Medic, and Support
Support stays the same as before.
Recon — you’re not a sniper, that’s slow and boring. Mark targets using the recon special item. There are 3–4 of them, and it’s pretty simple: it’s just a special item you carry. Sit back, mark targets, FOBs, troops, and helicopters. Get it done — use your brain, it’s very straightforward.
Medic — alright, now for some fun. Not too much… but some. You’ll need to do everything above first, because this is speed-running.
I suggest continuing to play Recon to level it up while reviving and healing people. But — and this is a big but — if you did everything I said, you should have 9mm AP ammo unlocked. Buy an SMG and kill people while doing the heals and recon: recon, kill them, heal, revive, combination. You need a mixture of medic and recon totaling 30 levels or more, and you have to keep doing support for money and XP. All of this relies on support for money and thus XP, so your support should be around level 20 by now. “20?! In this time?!” Yeah — if you use the huts and doors, you can repair the hut or build multiple, and just build, build, build.
Assault, Medic, and Support
Support stays the same as above. Now you can actually play and use mortars and such, but that’s on you. I prefer the money and XP.
Medic — no SMG now, just heals and supplies. But I’m being serious here: if you see someone down, do not rush to get them up. Don’t. The majority of bad players in this game rush to revive and completely ignore the fact that someone shot them — and that person will shoot you. Use your brain. Clear, revive, clear, heal. Or clear, revive, clear, bounce. Very straightforward, but now you have the good stuff unlocked if you followed along, so basically: level up medic!
Assault — this one sucks without other things leveled up. But if you did everything I told you, you’ve speed-run unlocking T3 and T4 armor and all the AP ammo. If not, getting level 10 assault is not easy, so if you need five levels or whatever because of bad RNG, bad luck, or boredom, you can level it fairly easily — until you can’t. As in, the XP required to level up becomes crazily high. If a proper explosive cheat ever surfaced it might speed things along, but the grind is the honest path.
Conclusion
That’s the full path I’d hand any new player chasing a Season 1 or Season 2 head start. Lock in support early, stay patient with the grind, and don’t let the “shoot the legs” crowd throw you off — you’ve got better things to unlock.