Tech jacket event for a n00b?

Hi all. I just picked up the game maybe a week or so ago. I came in with the thragg event with maybe 2 days left of the event. I spent a lot of my gems to refresh the store to get food and some pulls.

I'm not quite understanding the tech jacket event. I got some passes for the gda op but thats about it. Do you really just have to buy passes? It looks like I got 3 of the passes from missions. My best team has gotten to wave 16 and less than 200 chips.

Is this worth investing in? I see there is a package to buy with gems - 1k for 3 passes, 1.2k for 300 chips and 1 pass. Do these chips carry over to the next event?

Thanks in advance. Apologies if I missed anything.