Awesome Tanks Upgrades: What Everything Costs and What to Buy First

Awesome Tanks gives you a tank with a minigun and a shop full of things you cannot afford yet. How you spend the first few thousand coins decides whether level 8 feels hard or impossible. Here is what every upgrade does, what it costs, and an order that works.

Where the money comes from

Every destroyed enemy tank drops four to six coins. Crates break open into coins, health, ammo or a freeze bonus. At the end of the level the total goes to the upgrade screen, and you can replay any level you have unlocked to earn more. Replaying an early level with better gear is the fastest way to fund an expensive upgrade.

The four performance upgrades

Armour (3,000 / 16,000 / 28,000) is your health. It is the most expensive line in the shop, and the one that matters most in the second half of the game, where rockets and lasers hit hard.

Movement speed (500 / 1,000 / 1,500) makes the tank faster. Faster tanks dodge more, and enemy rockets that home in on you burn out before they reach you.

Turret speed (500 / 1,000 / 1,500) makes the turret swing round faster. It sounds minor until an enemy appears behind you.

Sight (500 / 1,500 / 3,000) widens the circle you can see through the fog. Seeing a turret first means shooting first.

The six guns

The minigun is free, never runs out, and has cheap upgrades (350, 470, 1,100). The shotgun (2,750) fires a spread that is deadly up close. The ricochet (8,000) fires shots that bounce off walls, good for hitting things round corners. The cannon (16,000) fires heavy shells that break brick walls quickly. Rockets (16,000) do big damage from range. The laser (28,000) is the last gun in the shop and cuts through almost anything.

Every gun except the minigun uses ammo, and ammo is bought on the same screen: 50 for a pack of 21 shotgun shells, 100 for 10 ricochet shots, 200 for cannon shells or rockets, 300 for laser charge. A gun you cannot keep loaded is no use, so leave some money for ammo when you buy one.

An order that works

1. Minigun upgrades and the first level of speed and sight. They are cheap and help from the first level on.
2. The shotgun, with a couple of ammo packs. Drive up close to tanks and turrets and it ends fights quickly.
3. The first level of armour. From here on you will survive mistakes you used to die from.
4. Turret speed, then the ricochet for the levels with long corridors.
5. Save for the cannon or rockets, then the second level of armour. Replay easy levels to get there.
6. Laser and the last armour level last. By then the enemy tanks carry lasers too, and you will need both.

Three habits that save money

Switch back to the minigun for weak targets; do not spend rockets on a lone minigun tank. Shoot barrels when enemies drive past them instead of shooting the enemies. And destroy spawners early, because every tank a spawner builds before you get there is more damage you have to repair with health you might not find.