An Analysis on Kit Progression

Main article: Product kits, Tips and Guides
See also: Turrets, Hulls, Paints, Garage, Ranks

Introduction

Upgrading or purchasing new equipment in ProTanki is essential for improving your performance in battles. As you rank up, you face tougher opponents with better gear. While it might be tempting to purchase your desired equipment separately, there are several disadvantages compared to buying a complete equipment set from a product kit:

You can only start purchasing equipment separately 2-3 ranks later than when you could start obtaining it from a product kit. Certain paints that unlock far from your current rank may also be obtained early through purchasing a kit containing them.
Discounts for separately purchasing equipment only come during rare festivities and sales, while product kits are always discounted. Besides, the discount rate offered during sales are usually lower than the preset discount rate for the kit itself.
If you want to separately purchase a later version of the equipment but do not own the preceding version, then you have to buy it separately as well. However, this does not apply to kits. For example, you can obtain Firebird M3 from purchasing Prometheus without even having Firebird M0 in the first place.

However, product kits come with constraints, requiring you to purchase multiple pieces of equipment together, sometimes including undesirable ones. In this article, we will analyze the composition of equipment within these kits and try to find the best combination of kits that can be most effective in battle.

Criterion for Optimal Kit Progression

It is impossible to define the "best" kit progression, as everyone may have a different playing style and prefer specific turrets over others. However, for this purpose, we will use the following criterion:

An upgrade is considered "optimal" if it objectively receives a significant boost in statistics compared to its previous version.

Rank Order of Upgrades

To identify which upgrades are "optimal," we must first understand the order in which they become available.

Take a look at an excerpt of Isida's table of characteristics:

Modification	M0	M1	M2	M3
Available from	Corporal	Warrant Officer 1	Third Lieutenant	General
Rank Difference	-	7	7	8

What about Mammoth?

Modification	M0	M1	M2	M3
Available from	Sergeant	Warrant Officer 3	Major	Field Marshal
Rank Difference	-	7	7	8

It can be seen that the rank differences between each upgrade are either 7 or 8. Note that there are 30 ranks distributed across 4 equipment levels, so M0/M1 equipment spans 7 ranks and M2/M3 spans 8. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Isida and Mammoth but is prevalent amongst every turret and hull. Note that the rank difference at which equipment unlocks its next upgrade is always linear, so the order of equipment unlocking is always the same, in the following order:

Tier	Period	Turrets	Hulls
Tier 1	Early	Smoky, Firebird	Hunter
Tier 2	Early	Twins	Wasp
Tier 3	Middle	Railgun, Hammer	Titan
Tier 4	Middle	Isida, Vulcan	Dictator
Tier 5	Late	Freeze, Thunder	Hornet
Tier 6		Ricochet	Mammoth
Tier 7		Shaft	Viking
Tier 8 (Only M2/M3)	-	-	-

Optimal Upgrades

It makes much sense that equipment/upgrades unlocked earlier have weaker stats, prompting players to progress in ranks to obtain stronger equipment. This is also the case in the game. Take Hunter and Viking as an example. They are unlocked at Tier 1 and Tier 7 within a rank bracket, bridging a massive gap of 6 ranks in between. This is also the reason why Hunter M(n) usually has stats similar to Viking M(n-1) because merely 1-2 Ranks after unlocking Viking M(n-1), you unlock Hunter M(n). In simple terms, equipment unlocked early in the tier is always weaker than equipment unlocked later in the tier.

However, such a statement cannot be applied at the M3 level, which is the final level that equipment can be upgraded to. It is not possible to have a Hunter M4 that provides greater stats than Viking M3. To even out the playing field and make all equipment at M3 equally desirable, all equipment receives relative adjustments in their statistics, with those at a lower tier receiving greater buffs and those already at a high tier receiving less.

This effect tells us that an early M3 upgrade in a lower tier gives a larger buff compared to a late M3 upgrade in a higher tier, making it an "optimal" upgrade. Conversely, a late M2 upgrade in a higher tier gives a buff that makes it comparable to that of its M3 counterpart, making it an "optimal" upgrade as well. For equipment with a lower upgrade level, it generally does not matter if you purchase a low or high tier upgrade, but for reasons we will show later, high-tier equipment is the normality for the "optimal" kit progression.

To back up the claims above, we can visualize the statistics of different tiers hull upgrades through a table.

Hull	Parameters	M0	M1	M2	M3
Hunter (Tier 1)	Armor	144	187	230	285
	Increase	-	43	43	55
	Speed	8.0	8.6	9.2	10.0
	Increase	-	0.6	0.6	0.8
	Optimal Upgrade?	-	No	No	Yes
Dictator (Tier 4)	Armor	188	243	298	345
	Increase	-	55	55	47
	Speed	7.0	7.3	7.7	8.0
	Increase	-	0.3	0.4	0.3
	Optimal Upgrade?	-	Depends	Slightly Yes	Slightly No
Viking (Tier 7)	Armor	194	244	294	315
	Increase	-	50	50	26
	Speed	7.8	8.3	8.8	9.0
	Increase	-	0.5	0.5	0.2
	Optimal Upgrade?	-	Yes	Yes	No

Kit Progression for M0

When a new account is created, everyone gains access to Smoky and Hunter M0. Theoretically, it is possible to use this combination up to the start of M1; however, Smoky and Hunter are at the bottom of the Tier list, and their M0 versions are especially weak compared to others. Therefore, it is recommended to purchase a single kit with a good deal of damage, armor, and mobility that can last up to middle or even late M1.

A preview of the Commando kit.

In early ranks, only a limited number of maps are available for play. These maps are usually smaller in size and have many obstacles, making it difficult for longer-ranged turrets to hit their targets. Considering this, we find out that the Commando kit stands out amongst all M0 kits, containing both Ricochet M0, Viking M0, and Dragon, all of which are high-tier for the M0 range. Analyzing the characteristics of each piece of equipment, we find:

Ricochet: It has decent range with burst damage comparable to that of melee turrets, making it a good choice for small and medium maps commonly found in low ranks. It can also shoot behind obstacles which are present in such maps.
Viking: This hull has higher armor than Hunter M1 and Dictator M0 while boasting great mobility. It is the best hull for M0 and early M1.
Dragon: This paint contains 22% protection against Ricochet, making it a good paint to equip as it can protect against strong enemy Ricochets.

Kit Progression for M1

Update: There is an alternative kit progression that diverges from the standard one starting from M1. For more information, you can skip to the following section here.

Knight and Piranha

A preview of the Knight kit.

A preview of the Piranha kit.

Starting from M1, a larger variety of popular maps is unlocked, including ones with larger dimensions. Having only 1 turret can no longer suffice, and it is recommended to purchase 2 turrets, preferably one with long range and another with short range. Similarly, having both a light and medium hull will allow you to adapt to different maps and situations.

The trend in M0 also continues into M1 and M2; higher-tier equipment performs better than lower-tier ones. However, higher-tier equipment reaches its zenith at M2, and the difference between M2 and M3 is not as significant. Therefore, it is recommended to save up crystals for purchasing later M2 kits, which fulfills the needs of early M2 kits, and to purchase late M1 kits that can fill the vacuum up to mid-late M2.

By considering equipment from the late M1 tier, we find Knight and Piranha to be the best kit combination. Knight contains Ricochet M1, Viking M1, and Chainmail, while Piranha contains Shaft M1, Hornet M1, and Corrosion, all of which are high-tier for the M1 range. Firewall, a popular early M2 kit, will not be selected. Let's analyze the rationale behind the kit choice:

Reasons to not use Firewall

A preview of the Firewall kit.

With the summer 2023 update, Vulcan was introduced to the game, and some kits had their paints reassigned. Ram kit, a popular early-mid M2 kit, had Hohloma (with 30% Ricochet protection) replaced with Rhino (without Ricochet protection). This makes Ricochet M1 more powerful in early-mid M2 ranges.
Some players may fail to obtain Hohloma from Ram but realize the importance of Ricochet, prompting them to go for the Boar kit with Ricochet M2 and Spark containing 30% Firebird protection making Firebird less effective.
Shaft M1 is a powerful turret for long-ranged battles. Its sniping damage can destroy Hunter M2 with 1 shot. However, it cannot destroy Viking M1 in 1 shot. This makes Viking M1 more effective than Hunter M2 in defending against Shaft M1.
While Firewall may excel on certain small maps like Island, its hull proves ineffective on larger maps where Shaft performs optimally. In medium-sized maps, users equipped with Ricochet outperform those equipped with Firebird.
The Hohloma paint that comes with Firewall contains significant protections, yet they interfere with the paint synergy of Spark + Rustle in M2. Both of these paints contain an overlapping protection that is superior to that in Hohloma, making Firewall a less desirable kit in M2 due to its hull and paint choices.
Hornet provides a great synergy with Shaft, due to its high mobility and ability to snipe down enemies from afar. This makes Piranha a good kit to purchase in M1.

Paint Analysis

A preview of the Chainmail paint.

A product kit not only consists of a turret and a hull but also a paint, and to evaluate the value of that kit we must equally consider the paint’s value as well. Luckily for us, Chainmail and Corrosion contains much needed value; in fact, it can be said that Corrosion is one of the best M1 paints! But to begin, let’s consider Chainmail.

With Mjolnir and Anvil kits being popular implies the introduction of Hammer spam, where literally half of all players use Hammer in a small map. Nominally it is bad for us: Hammer has very high burst damage. But Chainmail and Viking completely nullify the presence of Hammer. Consider this:

Hammer M1 has a maximum damage of 75.6 per shot
Viking M1 has 244 armor
Meaning that it takes 244/75.6 = 3.22 ~ 4 shots to destroy Viking M1!
By applying Chainmail, we get an additional 22% protection against Hammer. So the equation becomes 244/(75.6*0.78) = 4.13 ~ 5 full shots needed!

A preview of the Corrosion paint.

With Hammer out of the way, why not see how Corrosion performs? It has the following protections:

Railgun: 10%
Thunder: 15%
Shaft: 15%

So Corrosion fares well in long-ranged battles and large maps. Take a look at the turret interactions:

Turret	Paint VS Turret Level	Shots to Kill Hornet M1	Shots to Kill Viking M1
Thunder	None VS M1, Corrosion VS M2	3	4
	None VS M2	2	3
	Corrosion VS M1	3	5
Railgun	None VS M1, Chainmail VS M1, Corrosion VS M1	2	3
Railgun	None VS M2, Chainmail VS M2, Corrosion VS M2	2	2
Shaft	None VS M1, Corrosion VS M1, Corrosion VS M2	1	1+1
Shaft	None VS M2	1	1

With Corrosion, Viking M1 doesn't get one-shot by Shaft M2, while Viking can take one extra shot from both Thunder M1 and M2. (For Hornet, it can take one extra shot from Thunder M2) Truly the beast of all M1 paints.

Crystal Deficit

Beware of the large sum of crystals required to purchase both Knight and Piranha. If you are unable to afford both when you reach Warrant Officer 1 (which is highly likely), it is recommended to purchase Knight first then Piranha at a later stage, as having a medium-ranged turret and medium hull is more versatile than having a long-ranged turret and light hull. However, from a cost perspective, purchasing both Knight and Piranha is still cheaper than purchasing Firewall, and the extra versatility from covering multiple turret and hull categories still gives benefit.

If you wish to obtain more crystals before you rank up, you may follow the guide on crystal farming.

Kit Progression for M2

Considering that late-M2 equipment performs just as well as its M3 counterparts with earlier unlock ranks and lower costs, our priority should be to purchase as many of them as possible. Similar to our M0 and M1 kit choices, we aim to obtain the highest-tier turrets in the M2 subclass, but with a different rationale behind. This means acquiring three of the following turrets, arranged by tier:

Turrets: Freeze, Thunder, Ricochet, Shaft
Hulls: Dictator, Hornet, Mammoth, Viking

And thus the recommended progression for M2 is:

Avalanche, Boar, Fortress

Equipment Overview

Range	Turrets
Melee	Firebird M0 Freeze M2 Isida M0
Short	Hammer M0 Twins M0 Ricochet M2
Medium	Smoky M0 Thunder M2 Vulcan M0
Long	Railgun M0 Shaft M1/M2

Weight	Hulls
Light	Wasp M0 Hornet M2
Medium	Hunter M0 Viking M1 Dictator M2
Heavy	Titan M0 Mammoth M2

Turret	Protection
	Spark: 30
	Rustle: 30
	Chainmail: 11
	Chainmail: 22
	Spark: 18
	Spark: 42
	(Digital: 24)
	Rustle: 40
	-
	Winter: 12, (Digital: 35)
	Winter: 45, (Digital: 14)

Reasons to not use Shaft and Viking

While you could theoretically obtain Shaft M2 from kit purchases by selecting the Cyclops kit available at the Captain rank, it's not the most efficient choice. Alternatively, you could go for the Chiropractor kit, but that's not recommended either. The issue with Cyclops lies in its poor synergy with other kits, making it an unlikely choice for us. Here's why:

A preview of the Cyclops kit.

Choosing Mammoth from Cyclops means missing out on Rustle from Fortress, which leaves you at a disadvantage against most Thunder M2 players. There's no other way to obtain Rustle except from Fortress, as the Firebolt kit offers lower-tier equipment.
If we forced Cyclops into our progression, we would fulfill the requirement for a long-ranged paint, eliminating the need to acquire either Digital or Winter from Hornet kits. Consequently, you'd be left with Tornado and Fireworks kits from Hornet, which are low-tier turrets with conflicting characteristics. Moreover, unlocking Spark from the two Hornet kits would hinder us from purchasing "Boar", which unlocks Ricochet, as we would already own Mammoth and couldn't choose "Goalkeeper". But it is still possible to obtain Shaft M2 from separate purchases, and this will be explained below.

We deliver sad news to all Viking enjoyers: Viking M2 also doesn't align with our kit progression, and we will not purchase it separately. Here's why:

A preview of Viking M2.

There are four kits in the Captain rank offering Viking M2: DJ, Annihilator, Ice, and Vesuvius. Since Vulcan and Hammer M2 are lower-tier options, we're left with only two choices: DJ (Freeze + Electra) and Annihilator (Thunder + Atom).
Acquiring Freeze from DJ means losing access to the Hornet kits, which contain anti-sniping paints. While Sandstone could be a viable option, Viking M2 outperforms Dictator M2 in nearly every aspect (except catching golds), making Simoom and every Dictator kit less desirable. Cyclops's Blacksmith paint becomes your only option. Additionally, with no high-tier Hornet M2 kits remaining, you can't access Thunder, Ricochet, Hornet, or Spark.
Acquiring Thunder from Annihilator means forfeiting the Fortress kit and its high Thunder protection. Consequently, you'd have to purchase the Avalanche kit, which contains Freeze, Hornet, and Winter. You could choose the Goalkeeper kit to unlock Ricochet and Mammoth, but this eliminates any chance of obtaining Spark, as the alternative choice, Boar's Dictator M2, is weaker than Viking and not commonly used in battle. Plus, there wouldn't be a valid way to obtain Mammoth M2 if Boar were purchased.

While you can purchase Viking M2 separately at the Lieutenant Colonel rank, Hunter M3 starts unlocking in kits at that rank. Hunter M3 outclasses Viking M2 as an optimal early-M3 upgrade, giving large speed improvements while providing similar interactions against other turrets, as Hunter has armor roughly that of Viking M2. Moreover, by going full-garage in M3, Viking M3 is unlocked through a kit; this makes separately purchasing Viking M2 not worth it due to the extra cost.

By choosing Viking M2, you miss out on Dictator M2, which is associated with one of the best kits, Boar. Additionally, the paints obtained from the Hornet kits alone contain multiple overlaps and cannot create a perfect synergy, unlike our recommended combination.

Avalanche VS Stinger

The debate between Avalanche and Stinger is intense, with strong arguments supporting each kit (My two personas made up the debate btw). However, by considering the continuation of both turrets and paints into M3, Avalanche comes up top. Despite this, some players still prefer Stinger, and it is perfectly fine to replace Avalanche with it. Some arguments for both kits are listed below:

A preview of the Avalanche kit.

Arguments in Favor of Avalanche

Freeze is at a higher tier than Isida. Since Isida M3 will be purchased from a kit, you can choose from a wider range of turrets at or near M3 strength simultaneously.
Winter provides very high Shaft protection and good Thunder protection, which are commonly seen in conjunction during large battles. It can also be used directly as an M3 paint.
Smoky M2 is a weak turret. Obtaining Smoky protection in M2 is unnecessary.
Shaft is more powerful and challenging to defend against than Railgun. Since Shaft M2 isn't available for purchase before Lieutenant Colonel, you need to manually equip Shaft protection.
Due to Winter's high Shaft protection, you won't need to purchase a kit with Picasso but only one with Prodigi, which can be satisfied through the Touche kit.

A preview of the Stinger kit.

Arguments in Favor of Stinger

Stinger is more cost-effective than Avalanche.
Stinger provides a perfect paint synergy with no overlaps. By including Chainmail from the Knight kit or separately purchasing Sakura paint, you can cover nearly all turrets with adequate protections (except Vulcan for Chainmail).
Stinger can help defend against Smoky M3, which is overwhelmingly powerful against M2 equipment.
Digital's relatively low Shaft protection can be compensated by purchasing a kit with Picasso.

Understanding the Boar + Fortress combination

A preview of the Boar kit.

A preview of the Fortress kit.

Purchasing the Boar kit grants access to Ricochet M2, another high-tier turret commonly considered overpowered. Due to the summer update mentioned in the M1 section, the availability of Hohloma (with Ricochet protection) has significantly decreased, further improving Ricochet's performance in battle. Despite Dictator M2 being slower and more challenging to handle than Viking M2, it still serves its purpose well in battles.

The Fortress kit provides Thunder M2, Mammoth M2, and Rustle paint, all highly sought after for various reasons:

Thunder is a higher-tier turret that deals more damage than Smoky M2 and includes large splash damage. It also synergizes well with all three unlocked hulls, each supporting a different yet efficient playstyle.
Mammoth is a higher-tier hull with more armor than Titan M2, albeit at a slightly slower speed, which is insignificantly affected. Additionally, you can mount it on Ricochet, another high-tier turret with decent range.
Rustle is an excellent solution against enemy Thunders, given Thunder's popularity in large battles. It also reduces the effectiveness of the enemy Freeze and Isida combination, commonly seen in small battles.

Shaft M2

A preview of Shaft M2.

Shaft M2 is arguably the best M2 turret due to its tier but also its proximity to the M3 counterpart, making it possible to use effectively in battles up until Lieutenant General, where Railgun M3 starts dominating. You can always separately purchase Shaft M2 once you reach the Lieutenant Colonel as Shaft M1 should have already been unlocked from the Piranha kit. It is also highly recommended to do so in order for you to diversify your turret choices against protection paints, with the only exception coming from purchasing the Touche kit early in Brigadier rank.

However, unlike Shaft M1, Shaft M2 cannot destroy Hunter M3 in one shot, making Shaft M2's relative value less than that of the M1 version. Still, having a long-ranged turret along with Freeze, Ricochet and Thunder M2 favors the player massively.

Kit Progression for M3

Full Garage

With the rebalancing of all M3 upgrades, equipment earlier in the tiers such as Smoky and Hunter M3 receive very large buffs in stats, making them an optimal upgrade. Contrary to our previous practice of purchasing only high-tier equipment, we start by purchasing all the low-tier equipment at the start of M3 ranks, giving us a large variety of turrets and hulls to work with.

Notice that there are 11 turrets, 3 of which are low-tier, 4 of which are mid-tier and 4 of which are high-tier. Owning 3 out of 4 of the high-tier M2 turrets (Freeze, Thunder and Ricochet, 4 if you separately purchase Shaft M2) allows us to separately purchase their M3 upgrades from the garage, although the benefits from upgrading them is certainly not worth the high cost. Therefore, for the purpose of having a large M3 garage, we can purchase all 7 turrets from product kits, and that includes obtaining all 7 M3 hulls as well, which makes considering the optimality of each hull upgrade useless. This reason also contributes to the decision of only purchasing 3 M2 hulls, as having more is unnecessary and only wastes crystals at the end of the day.

Equipment Overview

Range	Turrets
Melee	Firebird M3 Freeze M2 Isida M3
Short	Hammer M3 Twins M3 Ricochet M2
Medium	Smoky M3 Thunder M2 Vulcan M3
Long	Railgun M3 Shaft M2

Turret	Protection
	Inferno: 36, Spark: 30
	Inferno: 50, Rustle: 30, Irbis: 27
	Irbis: 50, Taiga: 35
	Nano: 35, Africa: 20
	Africa/Graffiti: 25, (Emerald: 35)
	Spark: 42, Nano: 32, Needle: 28
	Needle: 50
	Rustle: 40, Africa: 25
	Africa: 30, (Graffiti: 50)
	Prodigi: 50
	Winter: 45, (Graffiti: 25)

Hail

A preview of the Hail kit.

Smoky M3, receiving a nominally 53% increase in damage, becomes extremely dominant in medium and large battles in early-M3. With such a large increase in damage, it is not difficult to imagine everyone using it in battle, and that exactly describes the phenomenon. To take advantage of Smoky’s overwhelming firepower while protecting ourselves against enemy Smokies, we choose the Hail kit containing Smoky M3, Hunter M3 and Needle.

Apart from being extremely cost-efficient, the Needle paint boasts 2 main advantages:

50% primary protection against enemy Smokies shuts down their firepower on you.
28% Shaft secondary protection makes it impossible for Shaft M2 players to destroy Hunter M3 in 1 snipe and 1 arcade shot.

Pyromancer

A preview of the Pyromancer kit.

With Winter and its high Shaft protection, purchasing Picasso or Jade is not required, and thus Cardinal is not an option. Already owning Smoky M3 from Hail and Ricochet M3 not being an option, we thus pick Pyromancer.

Firebird M3 is an unpopular and underrated turret. It gains large buffs from its M2 counterpart, and is therefore an ideal upgrade.
Inferno is the best paint for close-range CP battles in Arena and Garder, as it simultaneously defends from 3 short-range turrets (Firebird, Freeze and Twins) with the highest instantaneous damage in game.

Ant + Legend VS Touche + Healer

Either of these pairs work!
Order	Ant + Legend	Touche + Healer
1
2

Following the kit progression, there is a need to purchase Isida, Railgun, Wasp, Hornet, Irbis and Prodigi. Notice that Ant is identical to Healer and Touche is identical to Legend, both with the hull choice swapped. They have identical discount rates, with the sole difference of Ant unlocking in Major General while Touche unlocks in Brigadier. We find the following distinctions:

If you lack enough crystals when Touche unlocks, go for Ant then Legend. As kits disappear within 3 ranks of when they are first available, you risk the chance of not being able to purchase the earlier kits if you rank up too fast while having a crystal deficit. You may also purchase Ant if you want to play with Isida, or if you had purchased Shaft M2 separately, as it being a high-tier M2 allows for Shaft to be used effectively up until the Legend is unlocked.
If otherwise, go for Touche then Healer, as you get to play a second/third M3 and diversify your turret choices. You also lack significant Railgun protection which Prodigi can provide.

Academician

A preview of the Academician kit.

Academician contains Hammer M3, Dictator M3 and Nano. The combination itself is a great choice, as Dictator works well with turrets that have large recoil. But for the purposes of having a full garage, every hull is obtained and so the specifics are not considered. Consider the statistics of Hammer and Nano instead:

Hammer in M3 is extremely powerful: It has a clip recharge rate only slightly longer than the reloading speed between shots; this makes Hammer almost a continuous shooting turret. With great impact force, Hammer can effectively knock over the aim of other turrets with ease, and its M3 version can destroy Viking M3 in 3 shots and Hornet M3 in 2 shots.
Nano M3 is a highly versatile and popular paint, containing great protection against Hammer, Ricochet and mitigates damage done by Smokies decently. It reverses the buff that Hammer received in its M3 upgrade, altering many interactions that makes enemy Hammers much less effective.

Eyjafjallajokull VS Giant

A preview of the Eyjafjallajokull kit.

A preview of the Giantkit.

Getting into the Mammoth M3 territory we find 2 kits that fit well with our progression: the one named after an Icelandic volcano that must not be named or you get a stroke (I’ll simply refer to it as Ey from now on), and Giant.

Realizing that Giant gives you Ricochet M3 which is a nonoptimal upgrade subconsciously makes us want to side with Ey immediately. And with Ey you get Vulcan, a Mid-Tier turret, as well as Africa, which is another versatile and popular paint similar to Nano. But Africa overlaps with Nano in Hammer protection, while only boosting 30% Vulcan protection. It also has 25% Twins and Thunder protection, which can be improved massively if we purchase Emerald (See section below).

For this reason, some might argue that obtaining Giant and opting for Emerald is a more sensible choice. Giant contains Graffiti paint, offering 50% primary Vulcan protection, and 25% protection against Twins and Shaft, which can be used for secondary defenses. However, it's important to note that there is an overlap in protection functionality between the 35% in Emerald and the 25% in Graffiti (similar to the overlap between Nano and Africa for Hammer, but to a greater extent). Additionally, purchasing Giant doesn’t really help us obtain a full garage, as Vulcan still remains at M0 level, necessitating manual upgrades for all of its levels.

Master of the Taiga

A preview of the "Master of the Taiga" kit.

This kit sorts as a filler for unlocking Twins M3 and Viking M3 directly, skipping the expensive Viking M2. There’s not a whole lot of reasons why this kit is preferred, but rather simply it gives the rest of our equipment a good combination to work with.

The paint itself doesn’t fare bad and remains useful in small to medium sized battles but is not as popular when compared to other unlocked paints such as Irbis or Inferno. However, it still is a good addition for our paint collection.

Some might prefer purchasing Jackhammer for the Tiger paint with 47% primary protection against Hammer and switch out Academician and Ey for Thunderer and Destroyer. While it might give a better protection against Hammer, it ultimately fails to find a proper paint synergy (Zeus, Inferno, Irbis and Lumberjack have protections that conflict with each other) and is not adopted in this guide.

Supplementary Equipment

You should exclusively focus on saving crystals for the early M3 kits - always purchase them in the order they are unlocked, as they will be unavailable after 2 ranks. You can always separately purchase high-tier turrets after you reach ranks above Marshal. Before that you’ll be predominantly occupied in purchasing kits and will level up fast enough to reach the ranks for separately purchasing turrets.

When it comes to paints, the situation takes a different turn. Notably, there's a lack of substantial Twins protection, which can pose a significant issue in battles where supplies are in play. To address this, it's advisable to acquire Rock paint as early as possible, as it becomes available at a relatively lower rank and proves highly effective against Twins. Additionally, Rock paint complements Africa paint, with both offering a 25% difference in protection, allowing them to serve different purposes (choose Rock when facing many Twins, and opt for Africa when dealing with just one). However, if you find using Rustle solely for protection against Thunder uncomfortable (as it bundles Thunder protection with Freeze and Isida), or if you feel you possess an excessive number of paints with Isida protection, rendering Rock paint's 28 Isida protection unnecessary, you might consider acquiring Emerald paint instead.

Summary

In ProTanki, upgrading equipment is crucial for battling tougher opponents as you rank up. Buying complete equipment sets from product kits offers advantages over separately purchasing them, such as early access, consistent discounts, and no need to buy preceding versions. However, kits can include undesired items, and we must select the best combination of kits that can give us the most advantages.

To determine the optimal kit progression, we consider significant stat boosts as an objective criterion, which are dominated by high-tier equipment for M0-M2 but reverts to low-tier ones for M3. Thus, the optimal strategy is to purchase only high-tier equipment for M0-M2 through kits, then to expand the garage by purchasing all 7 kits with low and medium tier turrets, and finally to replenish protections from all turrets by purchasing suitable paints not covered by the kits.

M0: Purchase Commando
M1: Purchase Knight and Piranha
M2: Purchase Avalanche/Stinger, Boar and Fortress. Also consider purchasing Shaft M2 separately
M3: Too complicated to summarize here, read the section here

Alternate Kit Progression for M1

One problem with the original kit progression is that Hornet M1 becomes rarely utilized as its low health faring worse when fighting higher ranks, making the user increasingly reliant on Viking as the only usable hull. Shaft also has its own problems - it can only be used effectively in large maps such as Madness, and thus for medium-sized maps Ricochet becomes the only viable choice.

A preview of the Die Hard kit.

A preview of the Matrix kit.

Instead of picking Knight and Piranha, we can try obtaining Die Hard and Matrix, which gives access to Mammoth M1 and Viking M1. These hulls have large amounts of health and can stand against their M2 counterparts Titan and Hunter. Ricochet and Thunder gives us a more diverse turret choice when playing in medium-sized maps like Polygon, but at least one turret can still cover for both small and larger maps.

The protections that Cedar and Pixel offer also give upgrades than those you would normally obtain from Chainmail and Corrosion, with the exception of Railgun Shaft - both of which are less relevant given Viking's ability to withstand 2 Railgun M1 shots and a full Shaft M1 scope shot even without protection. Corrosion is essentially a worse-off Premium paint only suited for large battles, while Cedar and Pixel actually give decent protections that can be taken advantage of in certain situations.

Protection Comparison Table
Turret	Chainmail + Corrosion	Cedar + Pixel
	0
	0
	Chainmail: 11	Cedar: 8
	Chainmail: 22	Pixel: 30
	0
	0
	0	Pixel: 16
	Corrosion: 15	Cedar: 30
	0
	Corrosion: 10	0
	Corrosion: 15	0

Alternate Kit Progression for M2

A preview of the Firebolt kit.

Many players complain about the large range of ranks them having to endure between purchasing their last M1 and first M2 kits. Playing with the same M1 equipment over and over again is immensely boring and also suffers disadvantages when facing early M2 kits. Therefore, by taking the Firebolt kit, both of these problems can be relieved.

On the surface, Firebolt is a bad choice as it contains both Firebird M2 and Wasp M2 which are both undesirable. However, Firebird and Wasp can serve as early alternatives to Freeze and Hornet in Avalanche, which we will now skip over. In the original kit progression, Freeze M2 could not be used effectively at high-M2 ranks due to Dictator Freeze being a notoriously bad combination. Pairing Firebird with Viking M1, and later, Dictator M2, allows a melee turret to be used more often in early M2.

Firebolt's Paint, Rustle, also allows us to fulfill our latter requirement of Spark+Rustle, allowing us to not purchase Fortress and take the Cyclops kit instead which contains Shaft M2. Thunder M2 can be separately purchased at Captain Rank alongside Cyclops.

A preview of the Blacksmith paint.

By taking Cyclops, we obtain Blacksmith, which has a way better protection synergy against all long ranged weapons compared to Graffiti (which lacks Railgun protection). It is still highly popular in M3 ranks and can still be used up the ranks. Besides, having Blacksmith eliminates the need for Winter, which causes overlaps in protections in Thunder.

Ranged Turrets Protection Comparison Table
Turret	Blacksmith	Graffiti
	40	50
	18	0
	26	25

Alternate Kit Progression for M3

A preview of the Cardinal kit.

With Firebird M2 unlocked we can directly purchase its M3 version from the garage instead of purchasing Pyromancer (as both Firebird M3 and Pyromancer unlocks at Brigadier), which allows us to invest in Cardinal containing Twins M3 and the Picasso paint (which complements well with Blacksmith as one protects against Thunder and the other against Vulcan).

A preview of the Boreas kit.

A preview of the Fridge kit.

With us not having Freeze at all we need to purchase it from a kit. Luckily for us, by obtaining Twins M3 we are not forced to take the Twins and Viking M3 kit, which gives us a wider variety of options. Unfortunately Freeze M3 only comes in Boreas and Fridge, in which both paints are relatively bad, as Taiga is too similar to Spark, while Hive's protection combination does not synergize well in most maps other than medium-sized ones like Polygon.

A preview of the Stonecutter kit.

One option is to swap out Touche for Stonecutter and then supplement in Boreas, obtaining Jade instead of Prodigi. This gives a boost to Shaft protection but removes any decent Railgun protection capping the max at 27%. However, Prodigi can be purchased separately at General, while Jade can only be unlocked at Generalissimo. The other option is to directly take Fridge kit with Hive which swaps out Taiga from the Twins Viking kit.

One problem with substituting Pyromancer out is that we no longer obtain Inferno early on, which gives protections against both Firebird and Freeze. To mitigate this, we can still separately purchase Zeus at Major General as supplementary equipment, even though it gives way less protection against Freeze. Still, this alternate kit progression might just be a little bit less desirable in terms of paint synergy.