Cat Invaders Upgrade Priority

This is the Cat Invaders shop plan as a checklist. If a guide on this wiki says “see upgrade priority,” it means this page. Pair it with Getting Started on day one and high waves when you are greedy.

Gold numbers are community breakpoints from wave tutorials, not a leaked spreadsheet. If Version 1.1 moved a price, buy the next rank of the same track, not a random new row.

The order

1. Redeem codes. 25MVISITS and 1MMEMBERS are 250 Gold each. Do this in the lobby with how to redeem before wave 1.
2. Melee until ~200 Gold. Starter chicken / sword / turkey. Fast cash, then retire it. Exception: Knight hold in builds may keep a short-range tool for eaters.
3. First ranged rank (snowball line). Pause. Buy splash. This is the win condition hiding under a joke name. Ranks: weapon tier list.
4. Bank to ~250, upgrade range again. Same track. Do not “just buy a wall.”
5. Merchant coin boost on sight. Better than vanity, better than a second melee, better than a turret you cannot afford to feed.
6. Bank to ~550, upgrade range again. Keep stacking splash until packs die in the spawn funnel.
7. Food track. Tuna and whatever heal the shop is selling. Eat between laser patterns. Infinite-feeling food upgrades beat a third wall tier.
8. Regen armor ~3,000 Gold heading into wave 50. This is the Floppa purchase. Buy it before the nametag, not after the wipe.
9. Walls and turrets. Now they are time, not a personality. Engineer mains (Version 1.1) may start the turret row earlier if they actually placed one.
10. Perks and leftover class Gold. After the kit works. Perks are seasoning. Classes are identity — pick from the class tier list instead of impulse-buying Ninja mid-laser.

Solo versus co-op edits

Solo: follow the list as written. Aim assist on (controls). Stand off the clump.

Co-op: one player owns ranged. One player may divert Gold into walls if they are the mason. Medic owns food first. Do not all execute step 3 independently and skip food. Builds assigns the jobs.

Public 18-player: assume nobody else read this. Play the solo list and glance at the fish.

Event edit

Golden Weekend x2 Gold does not change the order. It changes when you hit step 8. Armor at wave 35 is the dream. Joke melee during x2 is the nightmare.

Script edit

If auto upgrade is on, enable ranged and food. Disable melee after step 2. Disable wall until step 9. If the GUI cannot see Engineer or new perks, buy those by hand.

Failure tells

• Wave 40 with max walls and a starter snowball: you inverted the list.
• Wave 49 with 4,000 Gold and no armor: you hoarded.
• Dead on green with full plates: you used the list and then stood still. Movement is not an upgrade. Jump.
• No food, Medic in name only: you skipped step 7.

Reset is cheaper than salvaging an inverted shop. Checkpoints from Version 1.1 make that less painful. They are not permission to ignore step 8.

After Floppa

Return to splash ranks, then food, then walls, then named-cat homework (El Gato, Bongo, King Meowl, Maxwell) on the badges page. The list does not grow a secret step 11 called “laser cannon panic.” Laser is an A-tier luxury after splash is healthy.

Print this page in your head. The pause menu is faster when you already know the next buy. For the systems around the shop, how to play is the long version.