Tank

The tank is a heavily armed, heavily armored combat vehicle that serves as the player’s main late-game ground assault platform. It combines a large health pool with the cannon’s very high damage, making it especially effective for breaking enemy defenses and for fighting worms, whose strong projectiles are less threatening against a vehicle with so much durability.

Unlike the car, the tank can drive through and destroy trees without taking damage, and it damages anything it rams even when it is not moving. This makes it useful as a battering ram against enemies and structures, though nests and some other targets can inflict heavy damage on it during such attacks, so repair after a skirmish is often necessary. The tank is slower and less responsive than the car, and it is harder to maneuver than a player on foot, which makes it less suited to dodging melee enemies or avoiding cliffs. Its speed is also less helped by terrain bonuses such as concrete, although it can still reach very high speeds with the right setup.

The tank has an equipment grid, so its mobility can be improved with exoskeletons, and its combat performance can be augmented with equipment such as personal laser defense. Its performance and handling also improve when it burns better fuel: solid fuel, rocket fuel, and nuclear fuel all grant stronger speed and acceleration bonuses than wood or coal. In practice, three exoskeletons are enough to let the tank outrun a car on natural terrain, and five allow it to exceed the car’s maximum speed, though this does not improve acceleration or braking. Because of the tank’s destructiveness, loading it with many exoskeletons can make it dangerous to friendly buildings as well.

If the player is driving the tank, the player cannot use any weapons equipped on the character, but inventory items remain available. This allows the use of capsules and combat robots from inside the vehicle, and the player’s construction robots can still be deployed through a personal roboport to repair the tank with repair packs. If both the player and the tank have personal laser defenses equipped, both can fire at the same time. After researching logistic system, the tank can also make logistic requests like a player.

• The tank’s cannon is a line-damaging weapon, and its shells can pierce targets; if a shell kills what it hits, it can continue onward.
• Standard cannon shells are best for concentrated single-target damage, while explosive cannon shells are better against grouped enemies.
• Uranium variants of both shell types deal even more damage.
• The tank’s flamethrower is a powerful short-range weapon, but unlike the hand-held flamethrower and flamethrower turret, it does not set entities on fire.
• In reverse, the tank reaches about 70.6% of its forward top speed.