Upgrading the tank

[Kotor613]

Hi,

I have just finished the game for the first time and I liked it a lot, but I didn't have very good feeling about the military part.

First of all, I would welcome a possibility to upgrade the armor of the tank.

When the largest biters and spitters start to appear, they can destroy the tank pretty quickly, making assaults on enemy bases very dificult. I asked my friend, what to do agianst them and he suggested I should invent MKII power armor and fill it with energy sields. But thematicaly, that feels so weird!. First, you invent some basic armor to protect yourself against enemies. When it becomes too weak against them, you build the tank. And when the tank becomes too weak, i just trash it and build even stronger armor? NO! I would build bigger and stronger tank instead! It also doesn't make much of a sense that I can insert energy shields to my personal armor, but not into the tank! Why?

The problem is, that in the moment when I have invented the tank, it allowed me to clear the enemy bases with it with zero effort. So I have ignored all the military techs for a long time and then I had the problem after I realized, that the tank is insufficient anymore and I have a lot to catch up. So maybe initially, the tank sould be weaker, since you can invent it quite early in the game, but with possibility to upgrade it later.

Maybe you just wanted to encourage the players to "leave the tank" in later game, so that makes them need to use advanced weapons like flamethrower or explosive rockets. I admit, I have not use those much... However if that is the thing, I don't like this approach very much. Instead I would add a technology allowing you to install flamethrower or rocket launcher into the tank!

TL;DR: Tank is weak against late game enemies, so I would prefer to upgrade it's armor and equip it with advanced weapons over upgrading my personal armor and weapons.

Thank you for your time!

[BlakeMW]

The Tank is actually pretty resistant to bites and spits and biters and spitters both have a really hard time attacking the Tank when it is moving (even slowly) because of attack animation time.

The main thing which will get the Tank destroyed is attempting to crush Big/Behemoth Biters - even though they don't appear so visually, you should think of these things as being as big as an Elephant (Big) or Tyrannosaurus Rex (Behemoth), they're not things you want to attempt to crush, it can wreck the tank in moments. While early game you deliberately run into biters, in the late game you learn to avoid running into them.

The other thing is staying still and letting the biters and spitters wail on the Tank. The Tank is about mobility, it doesn't slow down when firing and you can deploy capsules when driving around. Personal Roboport does a good job of keeping the Tank alive, but you need to avoid driving too fast or the bots will get left behind.

My opinion is the Tank really doesn't need an armor upgrade. It's fantastic as it is, very well balanced in terms of toughness and mobility. I use it throughout the game even on maximum biters because its toughness is unsurpassed (Power Armor 2 with 4x Fusion Reactors and 10x Shield MK II is comparable in toughness, but the Tank costs 1% as much and is disposable - if it dies you pop out with full hp and shields and can run away and plop down a new Tank).

The firepower on the other hand, yes, it really could use upgrade options. You can do very well by deploying poison, defender and destroyer capsules from the tank, but grenades and capsules put the Tank's weapons completely to shame and it doesn't really feel right for the Tank to be armed with wet noodle launchers.

[ssilk]

Moved from Suggestions to Balancing.

[silverkitty23]

Of note: explosive shells are terrible. Stay with piercing and you'll be much happier. They can two-shot big worms and bases - and if you can get them chasing you, two-shot behemoths (while also damaging the critters in front of and behind the behemoths).

[bo6]

Maybe increase the range of the tank cannon? I like BlakeMW's note about the tank's mobility, and kiting aliens could be more effective (and fun!) if the shells have the range to hit the main body of a biter train. Plus it might make explosive shells relevant since the cannon is slightly inaccurate.

If tanks are supposed to be an end-game option then their damage needs to be able to be upgraded as well... It takes me almost a full minute of emptying standard shells into a behemoth biter before it dies. An upgraded submachine gun can kill faster than that.

[BlakeMW]

On a note: As of 0.13 the Tank is ridiculously bad compared with Power Armor. Now that armor resistances also apply to energy shields the power armor setups are much more durable than the Tank (it used to be about even), and also the flamethrower has a DPS output which makes the combat shotgun look like a nerf gun and also you can just lay down quick spurts of fire with the flamethrower and otherwise run at full speed.

So in 0.13 the only reason to use the Tank is that it's a lot cheaper than even a Power Armor setup.