Tank

This article is about the armored combat vehicle. For the liquid storage container, see Storage tank.

Tank/infobox

The Tank is a heavy armored fighting vehicle added to the game in Alpha 0.11. It is a mid-game weapon with two guns; an integrated Submachine gun and a powerful cannon that uses cannon shells. It, along with the car, are the two vehicles in Factorio.

Since Engine units can only be built in Assembling machines, Tanks (like Cars) may not be built from by hand from their raw materials.

Achievements

Main article: Achievements

The tank is directly connected to the following achievement:

Steamrolled

Destroy 10 spawners by impact.

Combat

The tank is a strong fighting vehicle due to its large health pool and the very high damage of its main weapon, the cannon. Additionally, due to the ability to employ drones from within the vehicle, it can be used as a form of drone or capsule transport vehicle, with the player simply using capsules to fight their battles. The tank particularly shines in battle against Worms, as their unavoidable projectiles are much less of a problem for an entity with a high health pool.

The tank lags behind in speed, however, compared to the player and the car. As a result, it may not perform as well in combat against melee enemies or enemies with shorter range than the player, as it has more difficulty dodging enemies. This may result in the tank being destroyed quickly, leaving the player in a tight spot.

It is possible to use throwable items such as grenades, poisons, and follower robots while riding in the tank. This makes it possible to perform drive-by attacks on large bases with a reasonable area of effect. Since grenades and tank are available fairly early in the game this enables an effective means of early game expansion before the better known turret creep strategy becomes viable.

Movement

The tank is very robust, and unlike the car can move through and destroy trees with near impunity, even when not moving, simply driving into an entity is enough to damage it. This can also be employed as a weapon against Enemies, although certain enemies and structures (nests in particular) will deal high damage to the tank in the process; requiring repair after skirmishes.

The tank is slower than the car, but the freedom of being able to traverse tree-filled areas easily makes it a preferred vehicle among many players for exploring lands abroad. The tank can also rotate in place while standing still, which is useful for getting out of tight spots.

Capsules and Bots integration

Capsules can be used while inside the tank, including combat robots. Construction robots, including those from a personal roboport within range of the tank will repair damage if repair packs are available. Also, Logistic robots can still refill the player's inventory. This can be very useful for reloading as new ammo dropped off to a player driving the tank will first be loaded into the tank if space is available.

History

• 0.13.18:
  • Increased tank machine gun range to 20 tiles.

• 0.13.0:
  • New icon for tank.

• 0.12.26:
  • Running biters over in a tank in peaceful mode will now anger them.

• 0.12.21:
  • When attacking a player in a tank, the tank will be attacked instead of the player directly.

• 0.12.2:
  • Tanks can now turn in place.
  • Tank inventory can now be filtered.

• 0.12.0:
  • Updated sounds
  • Added muzzle flash for tanks
  • Tank ammo inventory is refilled from the trunk and player inventory when exhausted.

• 0.11.6:
  • Added a small scorch mark when heavy weaponry like the tank cannon fires.

• 0.11.0:
  • Introduced

Development data

Weekly blogs concerning the Tank:

• https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-56
• https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-51
• https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-48
• https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-44

See also

• Enemies
• Damage & resistances