Read This First
Koen in your backpack is not Koen earned. In Tactical Ops, dying loses your loadout and everything looted except what sits in your secure case. Every figure in this guide is therefore a per-extraction figure — the routes and modes below are ordered by how reliably they convert raid time into banked Koen, not by headline loot value.
The two currencies. Koen is the earned currency: quest rewards, market sales, loose loot and cash registers pay it (Epiccarry’s Koens guide), and contacts and the market take it for gear, ammo, armor, meds and repairs. Bonds are the premium currency — and the only balance that survives the seasonal wipe intact, which makes them a strategic reserve rather than a spend-as-you-go currency (see the last section). Everything else in this guide is about turning raid minutes into Koen without feeding your gear to the lobby.
Covert Ops & Secure Ops: The Risk-Free Income
Covert Ops is the foundation. You deploy as a Militant with a free, random loadout into a raid already in progress; the AI militants leave you alone unless you shoot first, and everything you extract with is yours to keep — you risk nothing but time. Epiccarry’s route table puts Covert Ops runs at roughly 200–400k Koen at Port (Control Room) and 200–300k at Small Factory, looting weapon crates, safes, drawers and bots’ guns — guide estimates, not guarantees, but the right order of magnitude for a mode with zero gear risk. BitTopup’s season guides add that Covert Ops unlocks at level 5 and that its mission track pays around 100k Koen per mission with weekly resets. Alternate Covert Ops with normal raids: it funds your kits and teaches maps at no cost.
On PC, Secure Ops (Infinite) is the other training-wheels economy: your gear survives death, but extracted loot pays out at only 40% of its value, in Koen (Overgear’s money guide). That haircut makes it a PvP practice mode that still pays, not a primary farm — use it to learn fights, use Covert Ops to rebuild a broken stash, and use Zero to Hero runs (knife-only entries into loot-rich areas like Villa’s safes, which Epiccarry’s table prices at roughly 300–500k for a successful run) when you want Tactical Ops upside with nothing to lose.
Loot Runs: Routes & Value-Per-Slot
For geared farming, the Farm map loop is the most documented route in the game’s guide literature. BitTopup News’ T4 farming guide runs Grain Trade Center → Stables → Motel at 200–400k Koen gross per 12–15 minute raid on a budget loadout kept under 120k (BM59 or MPX, Tier 4 armor) — netting 80–280k after loadout costs, and, at the 60–70% survival rate it assumes, roughly 100–150k average profit per raid, 400–600k per hour with efficient routing. Those are one guide’s Season 4 figures, quoted so you can judge your own runs against them — not a promise. Epiccarry’s community Farm routes agree on the geography: Stables, Motel and Villa for safes, advanced weapon cases and keys, with your spawn deciding the order, and early extraction the moment the bag is full.
What you carry matters more than where you walk. Value-per-slot is the whole skill: search the unglamorous containers — jackets, gym bags and loose floor spawns hold keys and gold items worth up to 250k (Epiccarry) — disassemble bulky magazines into their bullets to free grid space, and drop heavy low-tier armor that eats slots worth more than the item. Loot priority: electronic safes, briefcases and weapon crates first; compact technical loot (graphics cards, CPUs, modules) over anything bulky; meds and surgical supplies as reliable filler, since they sell to every trader every day. Extract timing from the same T4 guide: the 10–20 minute window is the sweet spot — paid extracts like Southern Blockade (2,000 Koen) guarantee availability, and leaving after 25 minutes invites exfil campers.
The Market: Deak Vincent & Crafting
The highest Koen-per-hour in this game involves no shooting at all. Contact Deak Vincent refreshes his discounted trade-in offers every 2 hours; buy what’s priced under market and relist it. Epiccarry’s worked examples: an M110 rifle at a 34k trade-in against a 112k market value (~78k profit), a Thermal Sight at 50k against 150k, 120 rounds of M855 at 21k against 57k — margins vary by restock, but the method is mechanical: compare trade-in cost to market price, buy the gap, sell, repeat on the next refresh. The same guide prices trader flipping generally at 150k–500k profit per trade for the best restocks.
Crafting is the quieter second engine: a Spartan T5 Vest costs around 90k to craft and sells near 180k, and sniper parts, headsets and attachments carry similar markups (Epiccarry). Quests pay Koen directly as well as reputation, and coupons convert into Koen — none of it glamorous, all of it compounding between raids.
Lockdown, Forbidden Zone & Bosses
The ceiling on loot quality sits behind gear-value gates: Lockdown Zone and Forbidden Zone versions of the maps demand a minimum loadout value to enter, and repay it with denser high-tier loot, tougher AI, and lobbies full of players who could afford the ticket (Overgear). Boss hunts — Beach Villa on Valley is the classic — sit in the same risk class: the best single-raid payouts in the game, priced in lost kits when they go wrong. The discipline every farming guide agrees on: these modes are where a healthy stash goes to grow, never where a broken one goes to recover. Rebuild in Covert Ops, farm Farm, then take profits into Lockdown — in that order.
Bonds: The Currency The Wipe Can’t Take
Seasons end in a wipe: Koen, gear and trader reputation reset, while Bonds keep their full value — BitTopup’s pre-wipe analysis calls them the only persistent premium currency, and quotes a community Bond-to-Koen value of roughly 1 Bond ≈ 1,000–1,500 Koen of season-start purchasing power. That asymmetry drives two habits. During the season, spend Bonds on things that multiply your Koen income rather than cosmetics: BitTopup’s Season 11 spending guide prices the mobile Composite Case at 1,000 Bonds (a 3×2 secure case, 30 days) and the Elite Subscription at 500 Bonds (+150 storage grids, 30 days) as the two foundational buys, in that order for high-hour players. Pre-wipe, the flow reverses — play the expensive kits you’ve been hoarding, since unspent Koen evaporates, and let your Bonds carry your next season’s start.
Buying Bonds & Koen
Bonds are sold officially in game; the third-party market around them — and around Koen itself, which can only change hands through in-raid item drops — carries the usual extraction-shooter risks, from chargebacks to accounts flagged for real-money trading. Before buying anything, read How to Buy Arena Breakout Bonds Safely; sellers for both the mobile game and Infinite are compared on the Arena Breakout page — check which version a listing means, because the accounts and seasons are separate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best way to farm Koen with no gear?
Covert Ops. You spawn as a Militant with a free random loadout, AI militants ignore you unless provoked, and everything you extract is kept — guide estimates put a good Port or Small Factory run at roughly 200–400k Koen. Zero to Hero runs (knife-only, loot Villa’s safes and extract) are the Tactical Ops version of the same idea.
How much Koen does a Farm loot run make?
BitTopup News’ T4 guide documents 200–400k Koen gross per 12–15 minute Grain Trade Center–Stables–Motel run on a sub-120k budget loadout — 80–280k net, averaging roughly 100–150k profit per raid at a 60–70% survival rate. Your mileage depends on survival: a dead run pays nothing outside your secure case.
Who is Deak Vincent and why does he matter?
He is the contact whose discounted trade-in offers refresh every 2 hours. Buying his underpriced items and relisting them on the market is the most reliable no-combat income in the game — Epiccarry’s examples include an M110 at 34k resold at 112k (~78k profit) and a Thermal Sight at 50k against a 150k market price.
Do Bonds survive the season wipe?
Yes. Koen, gear and trader reputation reset each season; Bonds keep full value, which is why pre-wipe strategy is to spend Koen freely and hold Bonds. Community guides value a Bond at roughly 1,000–1,500 Koen of season-start purchasing power.
Sources
Checked October 18, 2026. Game systems change with patches, so confirm numbers in game.
