Money-making strategies
How much can you make in a match if you spend the whole fight on one job? Below are estimates for the main strategies per hour of play. Matches run from half an hour to two hours, so an hour is easy to scale to your own match.
Summary: income per hour
Section titled “Summary: income per hour”| Strategy | Income per hour | Costs | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spotting as Recon | ≈ $77,000 — measured: $123,130 in a 1 h 36 min match | rangefinder $400, cheap loadout | medium |
| Pallets by Ural | ≈ $67,000 — measured: $46,873 in 42 min; up to $94,000 on paper | Ural $5,000 per spawn, pallets $400 each | low |
| Pallets by helicopter | ≈ $58,000–78,000 at 1 pallet per trip | Lakota $7,400 per sortie | medium: anti-air |
| Fighting in the Hot Zone | ≈ $52,000 from ticks alone + kills and revives | gear you can lose | high |
| Fighting in the Control Zone | ≈ $26,000 from ticks + kills and revives | same | medium |
| Building in the zone | ≈ $26,000 from ticks + hammer hits | hammer, building supplies | low–medium |
Bottom line: by our measurements spotting as Recon earns the most — ≈ $77,000 an hour, and $123,130 over a long match. It needs no FOB and no vehicle, and the loadout costs next to nothing. Pallet logistics brings ≈ $67,000 an hour at almost no risk — no deaths in our match — but only if your team has a FOB in the zone: since update 0.1.2, unloading outside the zone pays less. Fighting in the Hot Zone only catches up if you reliably get kills and revives on top of the ticks.
Presence ticks: your wage for being in the zone
Section titled “Presence ticks: your wage for being in the zone”Everyone in the zone gets paid per tick: $160 in the Control Zone and $320 in the Hot Zone (our screenshots). The community puts the tick at roughly every 22 seconds — about 164 ticks an hour:
| Where | Per tick | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Control Zone | $160 | ≈ $26,000 |
| Hot Zone | $320 | ≈ $52,000 |
That’s the base for anyone fighting or building in the zone; kills, revives and building come on top. Consecutive Hot Zone ticks add +$50 each, up to +$500 on top — that’s in the game’s reward tables. We haven’t seen it in a screenshot yet, so it’s left out of the maths: the Hot Zone may pay even more.
Don’t confuse this with the team score tick: score for presence comes every 10 seconds; money runs on its own timer.
Pallets by Ural
Section titled “Pallets by Ural”The safest option: haul pallets from base to a FOB in the zone and unload them yourself.
| What | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Pallets per trip | 2 | our match |
| Round trip including unloading | 5–7 minutes; ours took ~8 with time spent in the zone | community, our match |
| Net per pallet: delivery $2,500 + unload $1,800 − purchase $400 | $3,900 | our screenshots |
| Per trip | $7,800 | |
| Trips per hour | 8–12 | |
| Per hour, on paper | ≈ $67,000–94,000 |
The Ural costs $5,000 per spawn. Don’t count on getting it back: in our match the truck survived to the end intact, and “Cash refunded” was $0.
- Unload it yourself. Unloading (UNLOAD SUPPLIES) is a separate action worth another $1,800. Drop the pallet and drive off, and you leave almost half the payout behind.
- Only at a FOB in the zone. Since 0.1.2, unloading outside the zone pays less. No FOB in the zone? Help build one first.
- Each pallet pays back almost 10× ($3,900 on $400): even a trip lost on the road is quickly covered by the next one.
- We saw the delivery payout on a helicopter. The Ural match indirectly confirms a truck pays the same: at $2,500 per delivery the income adds up almost to the dollar.
Pallets by helicopter
Section titled “Pallets by helicopter”Faster, but pricier and easier to spot.
| What | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Pallets per trip | 1 (more not tested) | our run on the Z20 Lakota |
| Round trip | 3–4 minutes | our assumption |
| Net per pallet | $3,900 | our screenshots |
| Per hour | ≈ $58,000–78,000 |
The Lakota costs $7,400 per sortie. If it can carry two pallets, income doubles and beats the Ural — we’re still checking. The main risk is anti-air: FOB emplacements, MANPADS and the Gepard. More in the Pilot guide.
Tip for pilots: fly the first sortie with troops into the Hot Zone ($500–$1,000 per surviving passenger, $750 for each of their kills), then come back for pallets.
Spotting as Recon
Section titled “Spotting as Recon”The Recon stands on the edge of the zone, spots enemies with a rangefinder and gets paid when the team kills them. You barely need to shoot.
| What | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Control Zone ticks | ≈ $26,000 an hour | our screenshots, interval from the community |
| Spotting infantry / a vehicle | $100 / $125–1,500 | our match, game tables |
| Refreshing a mark | $25–250 | our match |
| Assist on a spotted kill | $400–1,600 | our match |
| Per hour, from our match | up to ≈ $77,000 |
- Look for vehicles: spotting a Ural pays 5× a soldier, the spawn APC 10×. Full table in the Recon guide.
- Refresh marks on live targets — every refresh pays separately.
- Don’t leave the zone: ticks are about a third of a Recon’s income.
Fighting in the zone
Section titled “Fighting in the zone”Assault, medics or support who stay in the zone collect ticks the whole time, plus pay for their own actions:
| Action | Control Zone | Hot Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Ticks per hour | ≈ $26,000 | ≈ $52,000 |
| Each kill | $1,500 | $3,000 |
| Each revive | $800 | $1,600 |
Hot Zone kill and revive payouts are community data; Control Zone figures are our screenshots.
Example: a medic in the Hot Zone revives 10 teammates in an hour — $52,000 + $16,000 = ≈ $68,000, level with logistics. But the Hot Zone is the easiest place to die, and you lose your gear when you do. Keep your loadout cheap: the less a death costs, the more the zone pays.
Building in the zone
Section titled “Building in the zone”Building itself pays little: $2–$15 per hammer hit and $32 per finished structure (our screenshots). But a builder stands in the zone and earns the same ticks as fighters: ≈ $26,000 an hour in the Control Zone and ≈ $52,000 in the Hot Zone.
We haven’t measured yet how much an hour of non-stop hammering adds. Building’s real value is elsewhere: without a FOB in the zone, logistics — the team’s safest earner — doesn’t work.
What to pick
Section titled “What to pick”- You want the most money — take Recon with a rangefinder and spot from the edge of the zone. The highest income we have measured, and aim barely matters.
- FOB in the zone and a Ural — haul pallets and unload them yourself. A bit less than spotting, but you almost never die.
- No FOB in the zone — help build one: it unlocks logistics for the whole team, and you collect ticks while you build.
- Want to fight — fight in the zone, ideally the Hot Zone, with a cheap loadout. Outside the zone a kill is worth just $300, and there are no ticks.
- Survive to the end of the match — surviving gear comes back as 90% of its price, according to the community. Vehicles, in our experience, don’t: an intact Ural at the end of the match returned $0.
What we’re still measuring
Section titled “What we’re still measuring”- The money tick interval and the Hot Zone streak bonus.
- How many pallets the Ural and Lakota carry and how long a trip takes on the real map.
- How much an hour of hammering pays.
- How much less unloading at a FOB outside the zone pays.