Modular Tanks Expansion

[Xelian86]

As of right now Tanks are severely underwhelming compared to Power Amour MK2 with lots of Energy Shields and a Fusion Reactor or two. This is completely unacceptable as it makes the tank useless. Tanks should probably have a few tiers. Better tanks should have better Armour, access to more advanced weaponry and more mod slots for modding extras, like an energy shield onto the tank. This would make tanks interesting, and make them the powerhouses they should be.

Advanced Tanks - the first tank is fine for early to mid game, but quickly becomes obsolete when you start getting Large Aliens. Even swarms of small and medium biters can tear down a tank if you get cornered or surrounded. Mk 2 will have expanded weaponry options which will be listed below and more mod slots than a regular tank. The regular tank will be very basic with access to a couple of basic weapons and ammo types. Mk 3 will have even more weapon types to choose from and even more mod slots. Just like Modular Armour, Power Armour and Power Armour Mk 2. Unlike those armours, you will now be in a tank with heavy armour, powerful weapons that you couldn't possibly carry or operate yourself. It will actually feel fun to go out in the tank to take on large bases with large amounts of large size enemies. That's a lot of large!

Tanks come with two weapon slots, the primary weapon and the secondary weapon. There are 3 primary weapons; The Machine Gun, the Laser Machine Gun and the Flamethrower. all other weapons are secondary. Secondary weapons are more powerful and take expensive ammo or more energy to use.

Weapons

Machine Gun - The basic machine gun for the tank. Does more damage than a players regular smg, but fires at a slower rate. Comparable to an M60 or something. Comes on basic tank as standard.

Machine Gun Mk 2 - Instead of using research to upgrade gun damage, which I think is a slightly less involved system than it should be you will be required to research Advanced tank military as research options to open up more powerful weapons. Mk2 will be more powerful than Mk1 but have the same fire rate. These weapons will have to be crafted in an Assembling Machine. Can also use Armour Piercing Ammo. Comes on Tank Mk 2 as standard.

Machine Gun Mk 3 - More powerful still than Mk 2 but also gets a fire rate boost. Can use Incendiary Ammo (sets target in fire and has chance to spread to other nearby targets (a very small range, basically have to be right next to the ignited target)) and Armour Piercing Ammo. Comes on Tank Mk 3 as standard.

Cannon - Basic Cannon. Fires regular shells made the normal way. Comes on tank as standard

Cannon Mk2 - More Powerful Cannon. Can use Explosive Shells (small AoE in a radius around impact zone, around the same size as grenade radius, maybe slightly smaller).

Cannon Mk 3 - More Powerful still than Mk 2. Can Use High Explosive Shells, which do a lot of damage to a wide area. The downside to Shells is they are slow firing but do a lot of damage. They have a high velocity and are very accurate.

Flamethrowers - 3 variants. Each one more powerful. Fuel is the same in each variant, but the more powerful throwers use up fuel more quickly. Throwers can use a mod slot to increase ammo capacity (essential for Tier 3 flame thrower as it eats through ammo at a rapid pace). Area of Effect widens a bit for each Flame Thrower, fire rate increases also. Ignited enemies from any fire effect can be panicked for a time. Lower level enemies will have a higher chance of being panicked and will stop attacking you. Larger enemies will have much less chance through having tougher armour.

Missile Pods - 3 Variants. Can fire off missiles either one at a time or a salvo of up to 4, 6 or 8 missiles depending on the tier of weapon. After the salvo has fired there will be a reloading time before being able to fire another salvo. Higher tier pods have a larger range and will be more accurate. Mk 1 uses dumbfire missiles as standard. These are inaccurate, but cheap to make. They aren't very powerful but fired in a salvo will be stronger damage per second than Shells from the cannon. Mk 2 uses Firebomb rounds. These do a regular explosion on an area then ignite a decently sized patch of ground around the impact zone on fire, causing damage over time to any enemies in the area - good for worms and nests. Mk 3 has access to homing missiles. These missile auto target and home in on enemies. These missiles are more powerful than dumbfire, but require more explosives to make as well as advanced circuits.

Big Bomb Launcher - Fires a large bomb to the target location like an artillery vehicle. These bombs do huge damage in a very large radius and do fire damage over time to that radius for a long time. These bombs will be incredibly expensive to make. Their range exceeds anything else you can attach to a tank. You will only be able to carry a limited number of these as they are large and heavy.

Laser Machine Gun - A fast firing weapon that uses energy packs instead of ammo. Can be made to have infinite ammo with the use of a reactor or solar panels. Has 3 tiers which get progressively stronger. Higher tiers will use more energy per shot. Laser weapons are automatically piercing.

Laser Cannon - An energy based variant of the Cannon. These cannons require energy instead of ammunition but are more limited in what they can do. by default a Laser Cannon will fire an energy round which is less damaging than a shell, but has a higher fire rate as there is no need to load a new shell into it. Mk 2 will fire much more powerful rounds at the cost of more energy and a slower fire rate. Mk 3 will fire in a special way. You will have to charge the shot up and then release. It will release a ball of immense energy that will slowly move forward (not too slowly) damaging enemies in its wake until it detonates into a large energy explosion. The explosion will do great damage and also leave the area saturated in energy doing some damage over time for a short amount of time. These shots will be very damaging but will require a massive amount of energy. They will almost certainly require a powerful energy pack and fusion reactor to be fitted to your tank or they will eat through your basic energy packs.

Laser pods - Similarly to missile pods but firing lasers. Lasers fire faster, are less damaging, and have a smaller AoE but can fire continuously without needing to reload until the energy pack is depleted. Energy packs will give 100, 200 and 300 rounds depending on the tier of energy pack. Mk 1 uses dumbfire lasers which will arc out of the back of your tank and hit the point you are targeting with our mouse. Mk 2 will fire more powerful lasers which have a chance of setting a target they hit on fire for extra damage over time (useful for single worms or nests). Mk 3 will fire homing lasers that are very powerful damage per second which also have a larger AoE radius at the impact site.

Nova Bomb Launcher - This is the ultimate energy Weapon. There is only one tier. It is very expensive to make. It uses a massive amount of energy per shot. You will get 1 shot for a basic energy pack, 2 for an advanced energy pack and 3 for the ultimate energy pack. When using a Fusion Reactor it will use a huge chunk of energy and take time to recharge. The Fusion Reactor will make the shot more powerful at the cost of more energy. this makes it upgradeable in a more lateral way. This weapon takes time to charge (longer than a Mk 3 Laser Cannon). Has a very long range. It fires a nova bomb in an arc to the point your mouse cursor is aiming. when it reaches the ground at your target destination it will explode doing massive damage then will implode, pulling in all nearby enemies while doing great damage over time to a large area.

Net Launcher - Not a weapon but a form of crowd control. Fires an electrified net that subdues a wide area of enemies for a short time by stopping them and stunning them. Aliens are quite resistant to being stunned so it doesn't last long. Will give you enough breathing room to escape or long enough to charge up or aim a powerful secondary weapon. This can be used instead of a primary weapon, or can be installed in the mod area and fired by the press of a configurable key. Used as a primary weapon makes it easier to use, but will take up one of your means of dispatching enemies. Using a key makes it slightly more cumbersome but keeps your versatility high.

Cryo Bomb Launcher - Nothing is immune to the effects of rapid freezing. Launches a bomb which will rapidly freeze anything within its area of effect to minus 100 degrees Celsius! It's a much more effective form of crowd control. Will freeze even trees and any machines caught in its wake. Make sure to not fire this into your base. This can be used instead of a Primary or Secondary weapon or added into your mod area and used by pressing a configurable key. Frozen enemies can either be exploded, rammed to be killed instantly, killed faster with any weapon except the flamethrower or have a chance at dying instantly from the freezing effect. The freezing effect will outright kill Small Biters, Spitters and Worms.

Pitch Thrower - This is a special weapon which can be added to the rear of your tank (by placing it into your mod area). It will expel and ignite pitch onto the ground behind you creating a wall of fire in your wake. This will damage any enemy that chases you.

Tank Upgrades

Tank Reactors - A Fusion Reactor for a tank that allows Energy Shields and recharging of energy based weapons. Each Tier has larger capacity than the last and will recharge Shields and weapons faster.

Energy Shields - 3 tiers, each more powerful than the last. Make the tanks usable for long journeys to collect large amounts of alien artifacts. Much more powerful than a standard energy shield but you can only attach one at a time to a tank. this allows the energy shield to be bigger and heavier than anything you can carry on your person.

Electric Defence Shield - This is less of a shield and more of a close range weapon. It will activate automatically when something is in range. Requires a Fusion Reactor to power it. Takes quite a bit of power. Tier 1 reactor will not be able to keep this charged as it's being used, but tier 2 will. Damages all enemies within a radius around the tank. Very short range but helps you fight off swarms of fast and powerful biters. Has a chance of shocking enemies it electrifies leaving them stunned for a short duration.

Engine upgrade - A Faster Tank is a better tank. This will allow you to run away from swarms of biters or get out of range of spitters or worms easier. It will also increase your ramming damage (with a proportional increase to the amount of damage your tank takes from ramming enemies while moving at top speed).

Track upgrade - A manoeuvrability upgrade which will make controlling the tank easier. Will also increase the Tanks Armour. This upgrade will also allow you to run over small enemies (biters and spitters), instantly killing them.

Rammer - A highly armoured and specifically shaped upgrade which increases the armour of your tank and increases the ramming damage you do to enemies. Has a change to temporarily stun even Large Biters, and will outright kill small biters and spitters.

Tar Launcher - Throws a patch of sticky tar behind you to capture any enemies that are chasing you. Allows for an easy getaway as it slows down enemies to a crawl pace, and stops smaller biters and sputters dead. Be warned! Tar will stay behind where you squirt it for a long time. Driving over this stuff will slow you down to a snails pace and maybe even break your engine (tar gets everywhere in your tracks and wheels), requiring you to get out and repair it. You won't ever get stuck in the tar yourself but it will slow you down significantly if you are on foot. If you set it alight with a flamethrower or similar it will burns for a long time and will increase the pollution in the area by a significant amount until the tar has burned away. Use this at your own peril; The smell and pollution caused by this being set ablaze may increase alien attacks for a while!

Auto Loader - Auto Loaders increase your reloading speed with conventional weapons. Mk3 Auto Loader will decrease the time it takes to reload by half! Doubling your fire rate and potentially doubling your dps. Works best with the Cannon as it needs to reload after every shot and the reload time is quite substantial.

Advanced Stabilizer System - This upgrade can be modded into any Tank. Increases Fire Rate of conventional weapons by 10, 20 or 30 percent! Works with Machine Guns and Flamethrowers.

Prismatic Charging Module - This upgrade allows you to charge up your energy weapons faster. Mk 3 PCM will decrease your charging rate by half, allowing you to fire that much faster!

Armour Upgrade - Using a strong and lightweight super alloy you have made your tank incredibly strong. You can now survive swarms of biters without an energy shield, but armour doesn't repair automatically.

Combat Repair Drones - Single use drone that will float around you and repair your vehicle as you take damage. Can have up to 3 drones out at a time. These will repair a good amount of damage over time, but will not be able to negate a large swarm attack. Last for a decent time (maybe 5 minutes) and can repair your tank from almost broken to full in that time if you use the maximum drones. This is an alternative to energy shield. May not be as powerful or recharge as easily but will save mod capacity if you don't want to use an energy shield. They cannot be damaged by biters and will actively evade spitters and worms. Higher tiers drones will be better at avoiding ranged attacks, although not perfect at it. Especially when multiple spitters or worms are firing at them. Tier 3 drones have much improved armour and evasion capabilities. Tier 2 drones will be able to repair other drones in flight, but will lose a lot of evasion while repairing. Tier 3 drones will have the capability of repairing other drones while in flight without sacrificing evasion.

Tank Reactors - I don't like that reactors are infinite sources of energy, that you can make in the game fairly easily. Once you have them you're set. I want an energy source that lasts a decent amount of time, but must be recharged at a recharging station every so often. Recharging will not be fast, but not be too slow either. The vehicle will be able to be recharged if it is parked close enough to the recharging station, without having to take the reactor out to recharge it. Recharging a reactor will take a considerable amount of energy. It will put quite a large drain on your system, just like laser turrets do. Make sure to have a good enough overhead of power generation and accumulators so that this does not negatively impact your factories.

Copter Drones - These drones are deployed automatically whenever you get in your tank (if you have them installed). They fly high and can only be damaged by spitters and worms. They do decent damage, but not nearly as much as destroyer drones. 3 tiers of drones will be more powerful than the last and have a larger battery. They will last outside of your tank until the battery runs out and then return to your tank for recharging and repair. Recharging and repair takes a little bit of time, but not too much. These are supplemental to your damage, like personal laser turrets, but a tank version. they can easily kill small aliens and medium aliens can be taken out with a bit of focus fire from all drones. They by no means replace your tanks weapons. 3 drones can be active at a time. They work exactly the same at repair drones.

Stun Drones - Drones that shoot a short range electricity bolt which temporarily incapacitates an enemy. This will incapacitate even the largest enemies, but with a smaller chance. 3 drones can be out at a time. Each tier of drone will have more armour, increased evasion and a higher chance to stun. Mk 3 Stun Drones will have guaranteed chance to stun small aliens, and a decent chance to stun mediums. Large enemies are more resistant to stunning and will only be able to be stunned around 5,10,20% of the time depending on the tier of drone.

Decimator Drones - The ultimate drone. These bad boys are the most advanced drone in Factorio. They are very powerful and well armoured. They come with a built in energy shield and High Armour. They even have a built in reactor so they can recharge their shields as they go! not only are these drones amazingly strong, but they are also upgradable/moddable. they come with a very powerful flamethrower by default, but can be modded to use a submachinegun, a combat shotgun or a laser rifle! They are large and can carry a decent stock of ammo on board (for the guns requiring ammo). They cannot fly high like Copter Drones, and they are slow so have poor evasion against attacks. These babies are floating mini tanks in their own right!

Energy Shield Extender - This basically extends the range of your energy shield to cover an in range team mate and drones. This will make drones last a lot longer in big battles. Crones will only get a portion of your shield as it takes more energy to output a larger field. They won't be able to take the same amount of damage as you but it will help keep them alive a lot longer. Note than using this mod will make your reactor drain faster and all shields and energy weapons will recharge slower.

Advanced Reactor Output Module - This fancy doohickey will increase the output of your reactor at no extra cost! You will recharge energy ammo and energy shields faster than normal. Tier 3 will even negate the slower energy recharge when using the Energy Shield Extender!

Advanced Drone Manipulator - Manipulators allow you to have more than one type of drone out in the field at a time. By equipping multiple drone types to your Tank, you can have a veritable army at your side. Mk 1 allows two types, Mk 2, 3 types, Mk 3, 4 types.

Drone bay - This mod allows you to carry extra drones with you. You cannot use extra but will be deployed when a drone is destroyed. So they are in sync with other drones they will come back in to recharge at the same time as the old drones and will wait until the old drones are fully recharged. You will be able to carry 1, 2 or 3 extra drones of each type in this bay.

Advanced Drone Systems - This allows the use of more drones at once. When coupled with the Drone Bays, you can have an extra 1, 2 or 3 drones of each type (that's 6 drones of each type. When added with the Advanced Drone Manipulator Mk 3, thats 20 drones out all at once, killing, stunning and repairing. This army will be sufficient at taking down almost anything on their own. Will require a lot of your mod capacity to run all the drone mods though, which will leave your tank quite weak in comparison. You will still have powerful weapons but you will not be able to fit in any extra offensive and defensive upgrades for your tank. This leaves many options, and encourages building multiple tanks to try out and use different builds.

All in all this system will not only make tanks a force to be reckoned with, but will make using them fun.

Hope you enjoy my idea as much as I did thinking it up!

[Nova]

The tank is much earlier available and much cheaper. Yes, it should be expanded, but there are so much thing which have to be worked on...

[Xelian86]

The tank is much earlier available and much cheaper. Yes, it should be expanded, but there are so much thing which have to be worked on...

Yeah, the tank for its availability and cost makes it ok, but it's still silly to have a tank be so weak compared to power armour and energy shields. The Mk 1 tank I have suggested will basically be pretty much the same as the one already in game, but will have access to more weapons. Mk 2 is where the real fun starts with modding the tank.

I agree there are so many things to be worked on, but why are you being negative about it? It's ok to think this isn't as important as other things that need to be put in the game, but there's no reason to then say my idea is basically unnecessary because it's not the highest priority. Don't forget these ideas aren't just for the game developers, but also for potential mod makers to look at. If it doesn't get put in the game, a mod maker might see my idea and decide to mod it into the game. Let's be a bit more positive eh?

Thanks for your input!

[Nova]

I'm not negative about your ideas, in fact I didn't even say anything about them. Just wanted to mention that the tank is much earlier than the power armor and that there are other things which are important.

[ssilk]

This suggestion is not well usable, cause it tries to create a new game, instead of improving the current.
See the sticky articles at the top of suggestions board.

[Xelian86]

This suggestion is not well usable, cause it tries to create a new game, instead of improving the current.
See the sticky articles at the top of suggestions board.

I don't quite see how it tries to create a new game. It is literally taking something lacking in the old game and improving it. Factorio may be about factories first and foremost, but it still has alien combat and tanks. The game is also about killing aliens to get artifacts. Being able to kill them in more unique and fun ways is exactly what Ideas and Suggestions is for. Not to mention that it is obvious that the Dev Team will be working hard on fixing problems and upgrading parts of the factory side of the game. They will know they need to improve those sides of the game first and will be more inclined to upgrade that side of the game. That is why we should suggest more lateral ideas, as the other components of the game are lacking. The game is still a real time top down shooter as well, so it definitely is not "trying to create another game".

This game is not Factory Tycoon, or a Sim City-like alone. It is also Command & Conquer. The combat portion of the game deserves to be just as good and as involved as the factory side of the game. If they didn't want combat to be in the game, then they would not have put it in the game to begin with.

[ssilk]

I see my job as moderator to point you to some things in your suggestions, which are ... not so lucky.

So you can either take my telling as flame or as try to make your suggestions better. It's on you.

And to be more clear: The problem with the suggestion is, that it is a mixture of feature listings, new game elements, new base technologies and much more. The pure number of new entities you suggest is game changing and brings an uncalculateable new complexity into the game. A developer, which will look into your suggestion will then shake the head, because he cannot find out, which of the above suggestions will eventually bring the game forward in the sense of his current task.

Let's play it through more detailed: One of the devs has the task to implement one new enemy alien. He cannot implement all, just one. He has some targets: He should bring in more gameplay, and not more complexity. He needs to achive the most effort with the least afford.

What of the above suggestion will stay?

Make a suggestion out of that and continue generating more such questions in the same way and so you will end with many suggestions.

[Rahjital]

Modular tanks is a great idea, and you are certainly right that combat needs to be improved! It's very underwhelming as of now and the devs do plan to revisit it. Still, don't you think this suggestion is a bit too overcomplicated? I mean, you are suggesting over 75 new items (I counted it). I would say that's a couple dozen too many, it would completely overshadow other just as important parts of the game.

I support this idea, just in a little tamer form

[fear technition]

I have to agree that I like your idea thought of it myself you have this really cool power armor that lets you customize yourself but the vehicle are lacking. some things could probally be done without new items and without throwing off the balance. for example you could add a deployment turret that could also go into the tank upgrade slots that automatically deploys distracter, destorer etc capsules. for the flamethrower and missiles. I think just being able to swap out the second slot on the tank would be enough. as far as the weapon upgrades I think the existing ones are fine just maybe for faster one for firing speeds and maybe redo the exoskeleton module so it fits power armor and vehicles if it limited like this then you don't have to create as many tank models. so you would have you main cannon that is normal two empty slots to stick in different turrets flamer thrower, lazer canon capsule deployment turret then your main upgrade tor stats that changes size with mark1 and 2.

personally id like to see a few more vehicles added like a
mech,
a robo port cargo, fluid tank and generator truck and train car,
cargo ships,
recon attack storage planes
hovercraft

but to add some of these a new flying enemy would need to be added in and drilling for resources in the water would need to exist to

[Salasilakka]

Tank speed is the most important in my opinion. 40 km/h is good only for a little while, after you get to build your first tank and just before personal speed upgrade. That time frame is too narrow.

[webkilla]

Like the mod said: It would be a LOT of work to implement all of those new features (maybe get some moders to look at that?)


A simpler solution might might be:

1) allow the tank's weapon's to be switched out - I want the combat-shotgun for the tank's support weapon... that would be nice - and seems like a very minor alteration, plus it would mean that the tank can scale better with tech improvements

2) as with the above - allow high-end military tech to unlock tech to build a better tank's gun. Or alternate tank guns. A rocket launching tank? Perhaps built with 6 regular rocket launchers and some control circuits, to fire volleys of rockets.

3) like there is tech to improve turrets, why not have the same for tanks? Health, speed, firing rate for the regular main gun? Shouldn't be too complicated to implement.