Guide [Issue 29] Micro-Upgrades

[Pathfinder 1,690]

Micro-upgrades? Well, they aren't really 'micro' at all. They allow you to boost certain parameters of your items as you please, and allow you to unlock the very powerful 'M4' stage. Note that while upgrading M1 to M3 the increase in actual power gets less and less and less (M2 to M3 is often not that significant), the M4 stage often offers a SIGNIFICANT increase in strength and performance.

Take Thunder as an example. Doing the maths gives an M3 damage per minute (DPM) of 1580, but an M4 DPM of 2400. That's more than a 50% increase in damage output, and we haven't even touched the increased impact force, range...

However, these monster upgrades are not without cost, and are extremely expensive and time-consuming to upgrade. Most cannot afford to max out every single parameter of a single item let alone 16!

So how do you ensure maximum efficiency while micro-upgrading?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

When to Micro-Upgrade

Firstly, I would like to point out is that micro-upgrades (MUs), although relatively cheap in individual steps, together are very costly. At lower modifications, it may thus not be a good idea to spend crystals on them. Yes, it's true that you get a discount off the next modification upgrade, but this is not enough to balance out the costs, and you will lose those MUs and crystals when you get the next modification. But of course, at M3 there are no more modifications to unlock. Here, when you MU, the boosts are permanent, and you won't be wasting your crystals when you upgrade because there are no more modification upgrades to do!

Having said that, a few MUs at M1 or M2 can't hurt - the first couple of steps are generally quite cost-effective, at least the short run. Just don't go overboard - the best time to micro-upgrade is definitely at M3.

Secondly, even if you have an M3, focusing on one particular item cannot be a good idea. bear in mind, that M3 MUs can cost the equivalent of 3 or even 4 M3 turrets. Having one particular weapon will limit your options on the battlefield, and so it is not advisable to pump too much money into too many MUs before you acquire a good range of weapons and hulls at M3 first.

In the case of paints, many paints have quite overlapping protections, and so you must be careful on what you spend your money on. The most obvious example is Inferno/Zeus. Spending crystals MU'ing both of these paints cannot be a good idea - you only need one of them for the Firebird/Freeze protection.

Lastly, there are particular items that must have MUs before they can be effective at M3. You can check this out by looking at the MU tables on Tanki Wiki, but one example would be Thunder as mentioned above. Only when MU'ed does M3 Thunder become truly frightening.

How to Micro-Upgrade

So you have decided to MU, but how should you go about doing it?

As you probably know, MUs get progressively more expensive, the more you have. I have taken the example of Thunder's damage MU steps at M3, dividing the damage increase by the cost to get a 'cost-effectiveness' value measured in damage per crystal.

You might have expected an exponential decrease of cost-effectiveness for an increase in MU level, but it is probably more extreme than you imagined. The first few steps are SIGNIFICANTLY more cost effective than the rest.

What can we draw from this?

• As mentioned above, at any modification, going for the first 1 or 2 MU levels may be a good choice. Illustrating this perfectly is Shaft M1. A single MU level on its damage allows it to one hit any non-upgraded M2 Hornet. Definitely a good investment.
• At M3 you should ideally aim to MU the first few steps of every item you have before concentrating your resources on a particular item.
• If you are short on crystals, you may only want to MU part of the way. I would suggest, as a guideline, the first 25% of MUs. These are more cost effective than the rest.

Other than cost-effectiveness, another aspect you want to consider is the parameter you want to upgrade. Some are less useful than others. For example, for a weapon, in general reload time and damage are far more important than turning speed.

Ideally, you don't want to waste crystals on speedups, but sales don't come round often, and so if you can't wait, you may want to spend some crystals on some speedups. Logically, you would want to wait for a sale right before MU'ing many levels at once? But, if you look at the MU data, waiting for a sale may actually end up with you spending more than without.

This is because at lower MU levels, the cost of speeding-up is higher than the actual cost of the MU. Thus, upgrading the MU without a sale and simply waiting for it to install overnight and not speeding it up actually comes out cheaper than MU'ing and speeding up during a 50% sale. Of course, at higher MU levels, the opposite is true, and you would save by waiting for a 50% MU sale and upgrading then.

I believe there has also been an occasion with 25% off speedups and free MUs. This is cheaper than any of the options listed above, except for upgrading a parameter one level at a time every 50% sale... which would take forever (literally years).

As a final note, keep track of your crystals. I cannot reiterate enough that MUs are a very expensive investment, and may be something you have to regret later.

Thanks for reading, hope you gained something from this - comments are welcome below!

Edited July 30, 2017 by Hexed

[rothro3 50]

Good article.  I agree with some of what is said here, but not all of it.  I have gained a huge advantaged over opponents by MUing my M1 titan.

[EpicTroll99 572]

Good article.  I agree with some of what is said here, but not all of it.  I have gained a huge advantaged over opponents by MUing my M1 titan.

Yes, but M1 Titan is cheap to buy, and a weak M1 without MUs. I also spent about 6k on MUs for my Titan

[jazz20 1,181]

Blew off 60k MUing my m1 isida. Probably the worst decision I'll ever make in the entire game <_<

Edited December 2, 2014 by jazz20

[ajitvik 231]

i do not toally agree as I have fully mued my rico m2 and now I can kill lot of brigadiers easily and even more..

[Pathfinder 1,690]

i do not toally agree as I have fully mued my rico m2 and now I can kill lot of brigadiers easily and even more..

Of course, all MUs help, but I am writing more about the long term cost effectiveness. When you eventually upgrade to M3, you will find you have spent a lot more crystals than it was worth, MUing your rico all the way.

[deciderking 57]

I know the secret of getting MUs in less expenses but its time consuming but i will do it for my m4 and even more powerful. The important thing is sale on MUs. 

[AbsoluteZero 3,729]

Informative!

 

It won't surprise you to know that I have a massive spreadsheet that helps me buy micro upgrades. It imports all the data from the wiki pages and then you have all the information on the main spreadsheet page necessary to help you micro upgrade. That said, it's purely designed for days when we have 50% of mu's and their speed-ups.

 

Eg: You want to MU your M3 Dictator - How would I go about doing that?

 

My spreadsheet tells me to micro upgrade these parameters normally without using speed-ups.

Protection 5/25

Top_speed 2/11

Turning_speed 5/25

Weight 7/25

Power 5/25

 

The next step would be to wait for sales but you need patience for that because 50% off of both Mu's and their speed-ups are becoming rarer.

 

On this day, make use of the whole day by upgrading early as you can without buying speed-ups but only do this when the Speed-Up time is a lot less than a day.

 

If you have the crystals, it's then time to go click crazy! Micro Upgrade all you can including speed-ups but leave the most expensive speed-up 'til last. In the above case, it would be Top Speed at 12,225crys. I generally don't buy that last one and I let it time out.

 

Once timed-out, I unwrap my shiny m4 and enter a battle only to flip upside-down or something cos I'm a big noob :lol:

 

Doing it this way, I'd save just shy of 200,000 crystals than if I was to buy each upgrade in turn without their speed-ups.

 

Obviously, if you can take advantage of x2 double crystal cards and 50% of paypal or visa at the same time then potential savings can be enormous.

 

 

As Kirby2008 points out though, some of the mu's you can buy don't give you a huge advantage for the price but sometimes, a small advantage is all you need to be victorious! 

Edited December 2, 2014 by AbsoluteZero

[may123456 37]

Yeah and m4 + your 18% protection paint = overpowered :P (just wanted to say)

[r_AWE42000 0]

Thx for this article. Gives me a heads up and insight on what and when to upgrade. Being a lower rank and all.....  <_<

[r_PC-JACK0 91]

Good article and advice. Since I am always mu'ing several items all the time. But I surely look for any sales adavantage I can get from the sales. :):)

Edited December 3, 2014 by r_PC-JACK0

[ThouShallNot 963]

I MUed my shaft m3 14/25 damage and can kill hornets and wasps, m2 medium hulls in 1 shot, but can't kill m3 mediums in 1 shot.

[aBdUlLaHkInGg 39]

Great article kirby,very good advices are there and if we follow them then we can lead to a skilled tanker :).

[alexliang53 1]

I don't mu my tanks until I get to m3

[Pathfinder 1,690]

Yeah and m4 + your 18% protection paint = overpowered :P (just wanted to say)

:p

[blackflag444 256]

.....

[r_ChallengerII0 2]

 

Micro-upgrades? Well, they aren't really 'micro' at all. They allow you to boost certain parameters of your items as you please, and allow you to unlock the very powerful 'M4' stage. Note that while upgrading M1 to M3 the increase in actual power gets less and less and less (M2 to M3 is often not that significant), the M4 stage often offers a SIGNIFICANT increase in strength and performance.

 

Take Thunder as an example. Doing the maths gives an M3 damage per minute (DPM) of 1580, but an M4 DPM of 2400. That's more than a 50% increase in damage output, and we haven't even touched the increased impact force, range...

 

However, these monster upgrades are not without cost, and are extremely expensive and time-consuming to upgrade. Most cannot afford to max out every single parameter of a single item let alone 16!

 

So how do you ensure maximum efficiency while micro-upgrading?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

When to Micro-Upgrade

 

Firstly, I would like to point out is that micro-upgrades (MUs), although relatively cheap in individual steps, together are very costly. At lower modifications, it may thus not be a good idea to spend crystals on them. Yes, it's true that you get a discount off the next modification upgrade, but this is not enough to balance out the costs, and you will lose those MUs and crystals when you get the next modification. But of course, at M3 there are no more modifications to unlock. Here, when you MU, the boosts are permanent, and you won't be wasting your crystals when you upgrade because there are no more modification upgrades to do!

 

Having said that, a few MUs at M1 or M2 can't hurt - the first couple of steps are generally quite cost-effective, at least the short run. Just don't go overboard - the best time to micro-upgrade is definitely at M3.

 

Secondly, even if you have an M3, focusing on one particular item cannot be a good idea. bear in mind, that M3 MUs can cost the equivalent of 3 or even 4 M3 turrets. Having one particular weapon will limit your options on the battlefield, and so it is not advisable to pump too much money into too many MUs before you acquire a good range of weapons and hulls at M3 first.

 

In the case of paints, many paints have quite overlapping protections, and so you must be careful on what you spend your money on. The most obvious example is Inferno/Zeus. Spending crystals MU'ing both of these paints cannot be a good idea - you only need one of them for the Firebird/Freeze protection.

 

Lastly, there are particular items that must have MUs before they can be effective at M3. You can check this out by looking at the MU tables on Tanki Wiki, but one example would be Thunder as mentioned above. Only when MU'ed does M3 Thunder become truly frightening.

 

How to Micro-Upgrade

 

So you have decided to MU, but how should you go about doing it?

 

As you probably know, MUs get progressively more expensive, the more you have. I have taken the example of Thunder's damage MU steps at M3, dividing the damage increase by the cost to get a 'cost-effectiveness' value measured in damage per crystal.

 

 

 

 

You might have expected an exponential decrease of cost-effectiveness for an increase in MU level, but it is probably more extreme than you imagined. The first few steps are SIGNIFICANTLY more cost effective than the rest.

 

What can we draw from this?

• As mentioned above, at any modification, going for the first 1 or 2 MU levels may be a good choice. Illustrating this perfectly is Shaft M1. A single MU level on its damage allows it to one hit any non-upgraded M2 Hornet. Definitely a good investment.
• At M3 you should ideally aim to MU the first few steps of every item you have before concentrating your resources on a particular item.
• If you are short on crystals, you may only want to MU part of the way. I would suggest, as a guideline, the first 25% of MUs. These are more cost effective than the rest.

Other than cost-effectiveness, another aspect you want to consider is the parameter you want to upgrade. Some are less useful than others. For example, for a weapon, in general reload time and damage are far more important than turning speed.

 

Ideally, you don't want to waste crystals on speedups, but sales don't come round often, and so if you can't wait, you may want to spend some crystals on some speedups. Logically, you would want to wait for a sale right before MU'ing many levels at once? But, if you look at the MU data, waiting for a sale may actually end up with you spending more than without.

 

This is because at lower MU levels, the cost of speeding-up is higher than the actual cost of the MU. Thus, upgrading the MU without a sale and simply waiting for it to install overnight and not speeding it up actually comes out cheaper than MU'ing and speeding up during a 50% sale. Of course, at higher MU levels, the opposite is true, and you would save by waiting for a 50% MU sale and upgrading then.

 

I believe there has also been an occasion with 25% off speedups and free MUs. This is cheaper than any of the options listed above, except for upgrading a parameter one level at a time every 50% sale... which would take forever (literally years).

 

As a final note, keep track of your crystals. I cannot reiterate enough that MUs are a very expensive investment, and may be something you have to regret later.

 

Thanks for reading, hope you gained something from this - comments are welcome below!

I have an m1 shaft that kicks up to m0 vikings and kicks an m2 hornet's ass.

[naca7 143]

Nice Guide!

[fufususumumu1 240]

nice article, but probably should have involved a few more examples and slightly more detailed. i actually learnt something new from this article tho, first few mus must be equally divided among your weapons...

[fufususumumu1 240]

 

some very useful info

this post was actually more informative to me than the article itself (not saying article sux ok)

because it actually showed a rather useful example.... kirby, is it possible to edit your article and provide info like this and what to mu and what not to for each m3 modification of each turret?

[Pathfinder 1,690]

 

this post was actually more informative to me than the article itself (not saying article sux ok)

because it actually showed a rather useful example.... kirby, is it possible to edit your article and provide info like this and what to mu and what not to for each m3 modification of each turret?

:) My article tried to do exactly that, help you decide what to MU. I can't really make a statement for everyone saying exactly what to MU, since this depends on individual finances. Otherwise, I would recommend buying everything!

 

What AZ is saying, I believe, is how he is buying those MUs, with the aim of an M4 in mind. He has the crystals for M4, he is just deciding how best to go about MUing that.

 

I think you can do this simply by comparing the cost of the MU compared to its speed-up cost. If the MU is less expensive than the speed-up, then it's cheaper to upgrade them normally than on a 50% sale for example. Of course, this is highly unpredictable, the MU sales vary greatly.

 

If you want information on what to MU, as I have said that's very difficult for me to write about, since it changes from person to person. But I think, if you are limited in your budget, from the article, the first levels are always the most cost-effective. And pick the appropriate parameters too. For example, for a turret damage is probably more important than turning speed.

 

Hope this helps!

[fufususumumu1 240]

 

:) My article tried to do exactly that, help you decide what to MU. I can't really make a statement for everyone saying exactly what to MU, since this depends on individual finances. Otherwise, I would recommend buying everything!

 

What AZ is saying, I believe, is how he is buying those MUs, with the aim of an M4 in mind. He has the crystals for M4, he is just deciding how best to go about MUing that.

 

I think you can do this simply by comparing the cost of the MU compared to its speed-up cost. If the MU is less expensive than the speed-up, then it's cheaper to upgrade them normally than on a 50% sale for example. Of course, this is highly unpredictable, the MU sales vary greatly.

 

If you want information on what to MU, as I have said that's very difficult for me to write about, since it changes from person to person. But I think, if you are limited in your budget, from the article, the first levels are always the most cost-effective. And pick the appropriate parameters too. For example, for a turret damage is probably more important than turning speed.

 

Hope this helps!

 

defintitely did. but the point i tried to make was that eventually at the end of the game once they reach higher ranks they are going to need more powerful m3s so how to efficiently go about buying the upgrades without losing cash for each separate turret and hull would have proved useful. also i think these article have a slight dependance on your feedback on it so what you personally or colleagues feel about how to go about buying mus for a separate weapon would help. for people like me, who dont mind the wating time, you can also implement some tips for us about it. but anyways, great job with your article, if i had to do the same, i wouldnt have even provided half the info that you did. Thanks!

[F.A.8.D 24]

Nice soon Railgun» M4« o_O

[r_OsaZain0 4]

Well i wasted about 20k on my M1 firebird

Probably the biggest mistake ill ever make....

[fufususumumu1 240]

firebird? why? it was already op left as it was right?