Tank Squads

Train chaingun carriers, siege tanks and flame tanks at a barracks and command them RTS-style: drag-select, number-key divisions, attack, patrol, scout and escort teammates. Built around being able to be used in multiplayer, supporting it to the highest extent. Fast performance, deploy large number of units with negligible server impact.

Features

• Five kinds of tanks. Fast chaingun carriers in three ammunition tiers, a long-range siege tank with an oversized cannon, a heavily armored flame tank, and two rare tanks a carrier may become on promotion: the electric tank and the nuclear tank.
• Shredders. Unmanned rammers that need no orders. They split between your divisions and wait far behind them. When a division is losing, its shredders charge the strongest enemies at 60 tiles a second and burst into shrapnel that only hurts enemies. They also follow players who walk into danger.
• Mobile headquarters. A huge, slow, unarmed command vehicle. It heals nearby soldiers, and wherever it parks it sets up camp with a far-reaching roboport and solar decks that power a nearby grid. It keeps the map live around itself like any tank.
• Barracks. A 3x3 military bunker that trains soldiers like an assembler trains items. It needs no power, heals nearby soldiers, and plays a door animation when a new tank rolls out.
• RTS controls. Drag-select with the command tool, alt-drag to move or attack, and use Ctrl + 1–9 / Alt + 1–9 to assign and recall up to nine divisions. Ctrl + Shift + 1–9 adds the selection to a division without touching its other soldiers.
• Patrol routes. Draw a waypoint loop for a division. Each tank takes its own stretch of the route, and a large division also fills the inside on inner rings, so the whole area stays covered. When one tank comes under attack, the nearest tanks within 128 tiles come to help, more of them for a bigger attack, while the rest hold their posts. The helpers then return to their posts.
• Scout mode. A division splits into up to four teams that each explore their own direction. Flame tanks lead, carriers follow and siege tanks cover them from 30 tiles back. Teams keep pushing outward until water or cliffs stop them.
• Escorts. Assign a division to any player on your team, as a defensive ring around them or an offensive roaming band that clears everything it finds.
• Nest assaults. Offensive divisions gather on an arc outside a biter nest before they attack. Siege tanks shell the worms from out of range, flame tanks push in, and carriers follow. A division of carriers alone gathers, then attacks together. Order a division onto a nest yourself and it surrounds the nest first: its tanks spread evenly round it, out of worm range, and then attack from every side the same way.
• Healing retreat. Badly damaged escort, scout and patrol soldiers drive back to the nearest barracks or mobile headquarters in guarded convoys, heal, and return to their post. A scout team that takes too much damage pulls back together.
• Automatic reinforcements. Link a barracks to a division and set how many of its soldiers it keeps there. It replaces its losses automatically and pauses when its quota is full. Each barracks has its own division and quota, so several barracks with different recipes can feed one division.
• Division insignias. Divisions 1–9 each carry their own insignia: Iron Vanguard, Ashguard, Stormbreakers, Pathfinders, Siege Hammers, Night Watch, Dust Wolves, Steel Serpents and Last Bastion. It flies over the division, shows on the map and heads its row in the division window. Your whole team sees it.
• Veterans. Every soldier and headquarters has its own name. Soldiers earn experience from their kills, weighted by how tough the enemy was, and rise from Recruit to Trained, Seasoned, Veteran, Elite and Legend. Each rank makes a soldier faster, hit harder and shrug off more damage. Point at a unit to see its name, rank, experience and kills.
• Map vision. Soldiers keep the map live around themselves, so you can watch fights from the map view without radars.
• Multiplayer ready. Selections, divisions, route overlays and labels are private to each player. Everything is per force.

Getting started

1. Research Tank Squads (military science).
2. Build a Barracks and a Rally Flag near it.
3. Choose a training recipe in the barracks and supply steel plate, iron gear wheels and ammunition. New soldiers drive out and guard the nearest rally flag.
4. Take the command tool from the shortcut bar and start giving orders.

Units

| Unit | HP | Range | Speed | Training cost | Time | |---|---:|---:|---:|---|---:| | Chaingun Carrier Mk1 | 400 | 20 | fast | 15 steel, 20 gears, 10 firearm magazines | 10 s | | Chaingun Carrier Mk2 | 500 | 20 | fast | 15 steel, 20 gears, 10 piercing magazines | 10 s | | Chaingun Carrier Mk3 | 600 | 20 | fast | 15 steel, 20 gears, 10 uranium magazines | 10 s | | Siege Tank | 900 | 52 | slow | 40 steel, 30 gears, 10 cannon shells | 30 s | | Flame Tank | 2,400 | 10 | slowest | 60 steel, 40 gears, 10 flamethrower ammo | 30 s | | Electric Tank | 1,400 | 24 | medium | promotion only | — | | Nuclear Tank | 1,600 | 52 | slow | promotion only | — | | Shredder | 600 | ram | fastest | 25 steel, 5 engine units, 10 grenades | 20 s |

• The ammunition is used up during training. Soldiers never run out of ammo in the field.
• Your normal weapon research applies: bullet damage for carriers, cannon research for siege tanks, and flamethrower research for flame tanks.
• The siege tank outranges every worm, including behemoths.
• The flame tank has 90% fire resistance, and its flames leave no fires on the ground.