I'd do the math in a spreadsheet to really figure it out. Is there a chart to calculate what the premium tanks sell for? In general it's a depreciation either way, at least in the beta since you sell a tank at a loss in credits, so my intuition is that it's just best to keep the gold in the bank. I think the best use of gold, short of buying a wanted premium tank is:
No idea of a spreadsheet, but prices are all listed in the game so it wouldnt be hard to tabulate.
Another thing to consider in running premium tanks is credit making. Premium 'gold' tanks seem to make credits at about 4x to 5x your equally tier tanks do, and as such my two premiums have turned into my 'credit farming' tanks so I can buy higher tier vehicles and components.
1. Up your crew members to 100% experience, if you plan on making that vehicle "elite" (so it can be a gold earner in the future). This makes a big difference in how the game plays, I found. It doesn't make a tier 1 tank fast, but it makes low tier vehicles more fun to play. Most important if the vehicle is to be a gold farmer for you.
There is a downside to this at early tier. First of all, every time you retrain your crew into a new vehicle there can be a significant loss of experience unless you spend even more gold to keep them at that level. At 200 gold per crew, that can easily run into well over 1000 gold every time you upgrade a tank. Right now I cant even afford the accelerated training for 20,000 credits per crew as chassis and components are using all that cash currently.
What you suggest will certainly be viable at a higher tier where you spend enough time in the tank to make up the difference in either crew experience or credits.
2. Buy a small load-out of the odd premium that complements the vehicle (HE, or AP) for use to help decide a close game. I hate this one game where I made 5 arty kills but was like last of 4 vehicles and out of ammo so I lost in the end. Same for the odd time when your tank is savaged, capturing the enemy base and the enemy is rushing to get a shot at you. That premium bullet might help you clinch the game.
In your example, you would still run out of ammo as premium ammo doesnt add extra ammo, and it takes up space along with regular ammo. Also, premium ammo generally doesnt add damage, but adds penetration, which is a moot point at low tiers when most tanks all have paperthin armor anyway. Again, your suggestion does carry more weight when applied to higher tier situations when you are trying to penetrate the heavy armor of those higher tanks.
3. Save it for buying premium for the odd weekend that you play several hours in a row. I found I'd play a lot some weekend night, and pick it up a few hours the next day after sleeping. The credits and XP you make in premium mode are more than worth it I think.
Not really an efficient way to spend gold on a Premium account. I bought a pre-release package just so I can opt into the savings of buying a 30 day premium account for the exp/credit bonus it gives and over time, that bonus is quite substantial. If you do it your way, you could end up paying far more in gold for a lot less premium time.
Myself, I'm thinking of just buying in $7 for now and doing arty since that's probably the easiest way to make money, even better than scouting I think.
Arty can be a pretty good money maker, but it also involves far more luck now that it used to, since they nerfed arty accuracy a few patches back. I consider myself pretty good at arty since I maxed out the Russian SPG line during beta, but having a lot more games where you spend your entire ammo load and never get a direct hit can be frustrating.
On the upgrading, I upgraded just for fun, since credits weren't really hard to get. I feel you need a minimum of 3 tanks to really grind time efficiently at the game, unless you like surfing while waiting for the end of a battle you got killed in. So you might as well have 3 good tanks. IDK, I guess it's the "how much is your time worth?" question again. I'd say my wallet says more than $15 a month is stupid though.
I think 2 to 3 tanks is optimal. I am doing 4 lines at once currently, and am running into credit problems on outfitting them all. Once I get them all to tier 4 (which should be tonight) I will probably just concentrate on 2 lines mostly, and used the other two for downtime/long games on my 2 primary lines, and also to keep things moving in those lines for the 'double exp' you get for your first win of the day.
As to cash spent on it....I guess it depends on how much fun you get out of it vs how much disposable cash you actually have.
