The single-barrel tank every run starts as. It's weak on purpose, and what you do with it for the first few minutes decides how fast you get to a class that isn't.
All numbers are at 0 stat points, straight from the game data. Bullet speed and range already include the global bullet-speed and range multipliers.
| Tier | 1 |
| Unlock level | Level 1 (you spawn as it) |
| Upgrades from | Nothing, it's the root of the tree |
| Upgrades into | Level 15: Duet, Vantage, Rattler, Rearguard Level 30: Bastion Level 45: Sentry |
| Barrels | 1 |
| Reload | 0.60 s between shots (1.67 shots per second) |
| Bullet speed | 368 px/s |
| Bullet range | 331 px (0.9 s of flight) |
| Bullet damage | 8 per bullet (+2.5 per Bullet Damage point) |
| Bullet penetration | 2 |
| Spread | ±2° |
| Drones / traps / turrets | None |
| Body | All body multipliers 1.0. Top speed 258 px/s at level 1, 50 max HP |
You get one gun that fires 1.67 bullets a second, and a bullet that dies 331 px from your barrel. That's the whole kit. Nothing about the Recruit is good, and it isn't meant to be. Its job is to get you to level 15 without dying, because that's where you get to pick a class.
The score for level 15 is 3,488. Small squares, triangles and pentagons are what get you there, and a Recruit farms them fine as long as you don't wander into other players doing the same thing. Stay on the edge of the busy areas, shoot what's in front of you, and keep moving. A Recruit that stands still in the open is the easiest kill in the game for anyone who has already upgraded.
Two things change while you level. Every level makes your tank slower: top speed is divided by 1.015 for each level past 1, so you go from 258 px/s at level 1 to about 209 px/s at level 15. Every level adds 2 max HP, so a level-15 Recruit has 78 instead of 50. Early on you're fast and fragile, and later you're slower and only a little tougher. Use the early speed to get out of trouble, because you won't have it for long.
Recoil exists at every tier. Each Recruit shot kicks you backwards a little. It's small, but if you fire while backing away from something it helps, and if you fire while chasing it slows you.
The Recruit beats other Recruits that play worse than you, and that's about it. Any tier-2 class out-trades it. A Vantage outranges it by almost double (595 px against your 331), a Duet puts out nearly three times the bullets, and a Rattler drowns it at close range. If a player who is clearly higher level than you starts shooting at you, don't fight it. Leave, and keep farming somewhere else.
The one fight you can take is against shapes. Squares have 10 HP, so two bullets break one, and they're the fastest early score there is.
You get a stat point for every level, so 14 points by level 15. Your build carries over when you upgrade, so spend for the class you plan to take, not for the Recruit.
If you already know you want Bastion, you can still spend on bullet stats. Bastion can only use Health Regen, Max Health, Body Damage and Movement Speed, and when you upgrade, any points in stats it can't use come back as unspent points for those four. So Reload and Bullet Damage help you farm the extra fifteen levels as a Recruit and then cost you nothing. The points that keep working straight through are Max Health, Health Regen and Movement Speed, because Bastion uses them too, and they help you survive being a Recruit at level 25.
At level 15 you pick one of four classes. At level 30 the Recruit gets one more option if you never upgraded, and at 45 another.