The Stingray loitering munition is the closest thing WARDOGS has to a guaranteed payday. You buy a shot, fly it into something expensive, and the game hands you more cash than the shot cost. The catch is that every launch is a $5,000 gamble on a target that might move, and on you not getting shot in the back while you are staring at a drone feed.
Quick answer: Place the Stingray launcher inside a walled, roofed bunker, then spend the $5,000 per shot only on stationary high-value targets — enemy spawn vehicles, artillery that is actively firing, or a parked Gepard. A confirmed hit on a self-propelled artillery vehicle paid out $14,900.
Stingray cost, damage, and the one target it cannot kill
The Stingray (an Anduril Altius airframe) is a one-way drone. You launch it from a tube and terminal you build, steer it in first person, and detonate it on impact. There is no recovering it and no partial refund, so the entire economy of the weapon comes down to whether the thing you hit was worth more than $5,000.
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Cost per shot | $5,000 |
| Resource cost | 900 mechanical spare parts |
| Damage | One-tap kill on any vehicle that is not a main battle tank |
| Hard limit | MBTs such as the L2A6 ($14,000) survive a single hit |
| Confirmed payout example | +$14,900 on a self-propelled artillery vehicle |
That one-tap rule is the whole appeal. Anti-air, artillery, armed transports, spawn vehicles — none of them need a second strike. The main battle tank is the exception, and it is the one piece of armor you should leave to a launcher stack or IEDs rather than feeding it $5,000 drones.
Which vehicles are worth a $5,000 strike
Every vehicle in the game is bought with real match cash, so destroying one deletes someone’s bankroll and pays you for the privilege. Cheap transport is not worth the ammunition. Anything that sits still and costs more than a starting wallet is.
| Target | Recorded value | Why it is worth the shot |
|---|---|---|
| Enemy spawn vehicle | ~$15,000 destruction bounty | Whole enemy team spawns on it; killing it collapses their frontline |
| SPH-2 artillery | $8,000–$10,000 across builds | Parks up to fire, so it is stationary and easy to hit |
| Flakpanzer Gepard | $8,000 | Removes the anti-air that is grounding your team’s pilots |
| SAM emplacements | Built at FOBs | Same effect as the Gepard, and it cannot move at all |
| Armed transport | $3,750–$6,750 | Marginal — only when it is loaded or blocking a push |
| Main battle tank | $14,000 | Skip it. One strike will not finish it |
Note: the spawn vehicle only appears once any team reaches 20 points, so early matches will not have one to hunt. Its satellite dish is the weak point, and a direct strike takes the whole vehicle out of service rather than just disabling the spawn.
When to launch: the three windows that pay
Timing matters more than aim. A moving vehicle can outrun your terminal dive, and you have already paid whether you hit or not. Three situations are reliable enough to spend on.
- An enemy spawn vehicle that has been parked and is feeding troops into the zone.
- Enemy artillery that is actively firing, which you can identify from the kill feed before you ever see it.
- A Gepard sitting in a fixed anti-air position, usually near a FOB.
Finding the target in flight
You are not given a magic waypoint. Once the drone is airborne, target acquisition is on you, and the clock is the drone’s fuel and the enemy’s reaction time.
A successful strike is unambiguous. The vehicle explodes and the screen posts a cash figure alongside a Vehicle Destroyed line and a Kill Confirmed banner. If you do not see that payout, the drone missed or hit something that survived.
Build a bunker around the launcher before you spend a cent
The single most expensive mistake with this weapon is losing your body while the drone is in the air. Piloting locks you into the terminal, so mortar fire or a two-man raid can force you to bail out mid-flight. Bailing means the $5,000 is gone with nothing to show for it. Building cover first turns the launcher into a fixed asset you can use over and over.
With the launch tube and terminal enclosed, you can fly out, take your time picking a target, and come back to a launcher that is still standing.
Why a strike loses money
There are only a few ways to burn $5,000 with nothing in return, and all of them are avoidable.
- You bailed out of the terminal because you were under fire, so the drone is lost mid-flight.
- The target was moving and cleared the impact point during the dive.
- You hit a main battle tank, which survives a single strike.
- You spent the shot on cheap transport worth less than the drone.
Run properly, anti-vehicle work sits alongside piloting and logistics as one of the higher-ceiling ways to make cash in WARDOGS, with the added benefit that every payout you collect is money taken directly off an enemy player’s balance sheet. Fortify the pit, be patient about targets, and let the kill feed tell you when to launch.
