How to get free experience faster

When you have played a battle, 5% of the experience (xp) you earn will be added to your free experience pool. (This is actually a form of bonus xp, since you earn it in addition to the xp you earn on your crew and on your tank.) 5% is not a lot, but there is one way to increase this amount, if you really need some extra free xp to unlock a tank or a module on a tank, and if you are willing to pay real money.

Some tanks are really almost unplayable when they are stock. In my experience, the Caernarvon (British tier VIII heavy tank) is one such tank.

Here is how to do it: If you are grinding a specific tank and are stuck with inferior modules, you should play a number of battles in the tanks that you have decided to keep, and where you have grinded every module on it and also unlocked the next tank in the line, or use a premium vehicle if you have one. Find the “Accelerate crew training”  box and uncheck it.

Let’s say you have 10 tanks of any of these two categories, and you have a weekend to spare, you can play 10 battles on Saturday and 10 battles on Sunday, collecting the daily double both days on all your selected tanks. Since a battle with a medium good victory might give you between 1.500 and 2.000 xp per battle, you will easily get about 30.000 xp combined.

After the last battle, go in the upper right hand corner and choose to convert any xp “locked” to a tank to free xp. This will cost you gold, or real money. The conversion rate is currently 1 gold to convert 25 xp. So if you convert 25.000 xp from a tank to free xp, this will cost you 1.000 gold. And yes, this is actually a “pay to win” example. Alternatively, you can play about 400 battles with an average xp earning of about 1.250 xp per battle…

Understanding free experience (“XP”)

As you already know, in World of tanks experience (“XP”) is very important. However, understanding how to use your XP efficiently, isn’t easy when you are new to the game.

There are basically three types of XP:

• XP related to your crew
• XP related to your tank
• Free XP

In this post we will look at free XP. The other two types will be explained in other posts. 5% of the XP you earn in a match will be added to your pool of free XP. You can not increase or reduce this amount. Free XP can be used on any tank and module. You can use free XP to open a new tank, or in opening a module. You can use free XP in combination with XP earned on a tank.

Let’s look at an example. You are playing a T-28, a Russian tier IV medium tank, and want to play the next tank, the KV-1:

T-28 leads to KV-1

To unlock the KV-1 you need to have earned 10.650 XP on the T-28. Let’s say you have only earned 9.000 XP on the T-28, but that you also have 2.000 free XP. Then you can use all of the T-28’s 9.000 XP and 1.650 of the free XP to unlock the KV-1. (9.000 XP + 1.650 free XP = 10.650 XP needed for the KV-1.) But be sure you have chosen the right moment to unlock the KV-1.

If you want to use the free XP for modules instead, you can do it like this:

• Play the T-28 until you have earned the necessary 10.650 XP
• Unlock the KV-1 using only XP from the T-28
• Use 2.350 of your free XP to unlock the 122 mm gun (for example) on the KV-1 BEFORE you start playing it

Converting XP to free XP

You can add extra free XP by playing a tank after you have unlocked every module on it and you also have unlocked every tank it leads to. To continue with the example with the T-28: The T-28 only leads to the KV-1. Once you have unlocked all modules on the T-28 and you also have unlocked the KV-1, you will continue to earn XP on the T-28 that will be added to this tank, but that you will not be able to use on anything. However, it need not be “wasted” XP. If you have bought gold and are willing to use it, you can convert XP from a tank to free XP.

The exchange rate is 1 gold for 25 XP, so if you have earned 1.000 “wasted” XP on your T-28, it will cost you 40 gold to convert it to free XP.

So if you can afford it, you really should pay for XP conversion. Some of my clan members never play any tank on higher tiers unless they have unlocked all modules on it by using free XP. On some tanks this is not necessary, but on most, especially the stock guns are simply to weak to be any good. (On a lot of tanks you need to unlock a turret to fit a better gun, and before you can mount a better turret, you often need to mount tracks that are better than the stock tracks.)

If you do not have the money to buy and use gold, you can change the strategy in the opposite direction to avoid earning any “wasted” XP on a tank. Take a look at your average XP earned on a tank, and once you realize that in the next battle you will earn more XP than you need to unlock the next tank, use free XP instead.

Last notes

• On one occasion there was a possibility to use free XP on crew skills, but I am not sure if this will be possible again any time soon.
• On the RU server in march 2015, players earned 10% free XP instead of 5% for a few days.
• I have only seen a discount on the exchange rate to convert free XP once (on the EU server), so don’t wait for it. I believe the discount rate was 1 gold for 50 XP.

Accelerate crew training

What is the “Accelerate crew training” option? When you have unlocked all modules on a tank, you get the possibility to tick the box called “Accelerate crew training”. The box is located right above your crew:

Accelerate crew training

This means that all the xp you earn on that specific tank is used to increase the skills on your crew. In addition, the crew member with the lowest skill will get trained twice as fast.

If you do not check this box, you increase the xp in the same way you do while unlocking modules and tanks, and the xp is locked to the tank in question. This means that xp you earn on a tank after you have unlocked everything is somewhat “wasted”. To use that xp you have to convert it to free xp, and to do that, you have to pay gold.

Personally I don’t like do that, so what I try to do, is to guess if my next match in a tank will be the last match necessary to unlock everything. If so, I use free xp to unlock everything, and check the “Accelerate crew training” box. By doing that,  I can save gold and use it on something else. (At the moment I have about 170.000 free xp, so I have enough to use on unlocking modules and tanks like I describe here.)