Making the Most of Your Credits in Star Wars: Battlefront II

The loveable rogues and nefarious tyrants are back for another round in Star Wars Battlefront 2, and they’ve brought their own space-economy with them. From credits and crystals to crafting parts, the whole system of unlockable upgrades and purchasable heroes can seem like a complex labyrinth of choices with no end in sight. Fortunately, we’ve dived head first into the maze, leaving behind a breadcrumb trail of tips and advice so you can get your hands on the best upgrades around as soon as possible.

Complete the campaign

The very first thing on your checklist should be to finish the campaign, as doing so will not only grant you a large lump sum of credits, but will also unlock several upgrades for both heroes and trooper classes, saving you some hard earned resources if you get lucky and happen to unlock a particularly good Star Card.

After finishing off the last mission, head on over to your career page to claim the rewards from each mission milestone. In total you should receive several packets containing 500 credits, as well as five named crates. The first four crates will contain trooper and hero Star Cards, with the fifth and final crate containing two hero Star Cards, a hero taunt, and 5000 credits. When you add that all together, by finishing the campaign you will already be sitting on a surplus of 12,000 credits, four trooper Star Cards, and six hero cards. Not a bad start for completing the six hour story mode, and if you’re in a rush, you can always set the difficulty to the lowest setting as this doesn’t have an impact on the rewards you receive in the end.

Mind those milestones

Once you’ve got your hands on the wad of credits from the campaign mode, the next big source of income for resources is from completing milestones. Milestones stretch throughout every mode in the game, each one acting as a challenge that grants either credits, crystals, crafting parts, or specific rewards on completion. For the most part, simply playing the game will start the process of unlocking these, especially when it comes to the kill count challenges, but there are several specific milestones that you can focus on that will help you out later on when it comes to buying and upgrading Star Cards.

Under the heroes tab of the career page, each hero unit in the game has three specific challenges tied to them, with each one granting either credits, crafting parts, or crystals. The good thing about these milestones is that they reward a fairly decent amount of their respective resources without requiring too much grind or effort. Take note of what each one wants you to do, and then drop into a few Heroes Vs. Villains matches to get easy access to the respective characters.

Choose your crate wisely

After a while you’ll start to run out of easily obtainable milestones, and when this happens you’ll be at the mercy of the loot crates as you hunt for more of those precious resources you so desperately crave. However, the crate you choose should differ depending on what it is you’re after, and some crates are more useful than others.

Before looking at the crates, however, it’s important to note the individual uses of credits and crafting parts. Credits are mainly used to either unlock hero characters for use in Galactic Assault, or to purchase one of the three loot crates in the shop, whereas crafting parts are used exclusively to purchase Star Cards for both heroes and trooper classes, as well as to upgrade individual cards to improve their effects. To put it simply, while credits are important, your main goal should ultimately be to collect crafting parts, since they will have a much larger impact on you being able to choose the upgrades you have available, as well as improving the cards you already have. This is especially important when you take into account that the cost of upgrading a Star Card rises dramatically towards the final tier. To unlock a card costs a base 40 crafting parts, with the tier one upgrade costing 80 parts, tier two costing 120 parts, and the final upgrade tier costing 480 crafting parts.

So which crate is right for you? If your goal is to obtain crafting parts, then the 2400 credit Starfighter crate is the most economical. This crate is focused on giving you cards that upgrade spacefaring ships, which isn’t ideal, but you’re guaranteed to get a flat 50 parts out of each crate. Compare that to the 35 parts you get from the hero crate, or the 45 parts you get from the much more expensive 4000 credit Trooper crate, and it’s clear that the Starfighter crate is much more lucrative considering the cost of the crate itself. If you’re not trying to acquire a specific card, however, saving up to purchase a 4000 credit Trooper crate can also be a worthwhile investment given that it grants a chance to get an already upgraded Star Card, albeit drawn from a completely random pool that has a chance of giving you something for a class you never play as.

It’s also worth mentioning that logging in each day gives you access to a daily crate. Whilst this crate isn’t nearly as valuable as the purchasable ones, you’ve got a chance to get a mixture of Star Cards, 75 credits, and five crafting parts which soon adds up after a week or two.

Let’s go shopping

There are a lot of upgrade options available to buy and unlock in Battlefront II, and it can be easy to get lost in the sea of Star Cards if you don’t know what you’re looking for. If you’re staring at the screen wondering where to throw your cash, we’ve picked out several upgrades for each class that you should think about grabbing first. These Star Cards make up the bulk of the upgrade system for each class and are split between booster cards, which passively benefit your character, and ability cards, which give you an active skill that can be triggered at will.

For the Assault class there are two ability cards that stick out as particularly useful. The first is Toughen Up which gives you a powerful healing skill that regenerates health for a short amount of time, which can then be upgraded to decrease the cooldown. The second ability card is Acid Launcher, which gives you a launchable acid bomb that poisons enemies in a large area of effect wherever it lands, causing damage over time and allowing you to easily push through choke points or free up captured points.

If the Heavy class if your thing then you should look into grabbing the Supercharged Sentry ability card which alters your supercharge minigun skill to fire rounds that deal a small amount of explosive damage, which can do wonders when focusing fire on bunched-up groups of enemies. The Improved Combat Shield ability card should also be considered, boosting the already incredibly powerful shield skill to have much more health while lowering the cooldown for it too.

For the Officer class, the Squad Shield ability card is an incredibly useful and versatile support item that gives you portable cover that can be deployed in an instant. Equipping the shield does mean you won’t have a turret, however, but the utility and defensive uses of the Squad Shield easily outweigh that of the turret, and upgrading the shield allows it to take much more damage before breaking. The Officer’s Presence boost card is another fantastic support upgrade that passively reduces the health regeneration delay for any allies around you, which helps to keep your teammates alive during prolonged combat.

If creeping around sniping folk as the Specialist is more your speed, then the Stealth boost card is invaluable. By equipping this passive Star Card, you mask your gunfire from the enemy radar, allowing you comfortably nestle into vantage points as you pick off unsuspecting enemies. It is not worth upgrading the Stealth card, though, as the upgrades only increase your melee damage, and it’s unlikely you’ll be beating anyone with your rifle butt from the outskirts of the fray. The second upgrade worth grabbing is the Improved Thermal Binoculars ability card which alters the binoculars so that you can mark enemy targets for your team whilst scouting them through walls and solid objects.

Andy Moore is a gaming freelancer based in the UK. When he’s not writing, he can be found staring blankly out of the nearest window, or spending way too much time on Twitter.