Tank

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

Tank

Edit

Recipe
5 + 10 + 32 + 15 + 50 → 1
Total raw
107.5 + 50 + 32 + 50 + 20 + 50
Map icon
Storage size	80
Health	2000 2600 3200 3800 5000
Resistances	Acid: 0/70% Explosion: 15/70% Fire: 15/60% Impact: 50/80% Physical: 15/60%
Equipment grid size	6×8 7×9 8×10 9×11 11×13
Stack size	1
Rocket capacity	1 (1 stack)
Range	Tank cannon: 30 Vehicle machine gun: 20 Vehicle flamethrower: 9
Shooting speed	Tank cannon: 0.67/s Vehicle machine gun: 15/s Vehicle flamethrower: 67.5/s
Ammunition
Energy consumption	600 kW (burner)
Mining time	0.5
Weight	20000
Prototype type	car
Internal name	tank
Required technologies
Produced by
Valid fuel

The tank is a heavy armored fighting vehicle added to the game in Alpha 0.11. It is a mid-game weapon with three weapons; an integrated submachine gun, a short range flamethrower, and a powerful cannon that uses cannon shells. It, along with the car, are the two non-rail vehicles in Factorio.

Since engine units can only be built in assembling machines, tanks (like cars) cannot be built from by hand from their raw materials.

Achievements

Steamrolled Destroy 10 spawners by impact.

Run Forrest, run Destroy 100 trees 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.

Players transitioning from earlier versions of the game are advised that, for version 0.15, the tank has been buffed significantly: Its hit points were doubled from 1,000 to 2,000, and its machine gun received a +100% damage bonus and a +5 tiles range increase, making it considerably more effective than the player character's handheld version. (It should also be noted that these changes are part of a general combat rebalancing wherein a number of other weapons were buffed as well, mostly in terms of damage.)

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.

The speed and, in particular, responsiveness of the tank can be improved somewhat by burning better fuel: As of game version 0.15, the tank, like all other vehicles, gains top speed and acceleration bonuses when running on solid fuel and rocket fuel, as opposed to wood or coal. The bonuses are +5% / +15% top speed and +20% / +80% acceleration for solid fuel and rocket fuel, respectively; wood (and wood products - see Fuel) and coal both yield the base level of top speed and acceleration.

Particularly with rocket fuel, the large acceleration bonus improves the maneuverability of the tank quite significantly, allowing one to employ bolder tactics against larger bases. The top speed bonus, while not particularly large, is still worthwhile as well, considering the tank's low base speed. Furthermore, rocket fuel's high energy density (one full stack of 10 canisters has fuel value approximately equal to 200 units / 2 stacks of solid fuel, or 300 units / 6 stacks of coal) makes refueling largely a non-issue.

The gains with solid fuel (which is feasible earlier in the game) are less pronounced, yet still noticeable.

Unfortunately, as of version 0.15, the tank's lackluster braking performance is unaffected by acceleration bonuses, and likewise does not benefit from the brake performance research available for trains. (The same is true of the car, but the car's overall significantly better responsiveness makes it considerably less of an issue.)

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

• 0.15.0:
  • Added tank flamethrower

• 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