Tanks are too hard

Feedback/Feature Requests
41

Let’s see… There’s a 5-star HP5 in a safe in Svante Von Ulmer’s house, but that’s not really a Tank killer. The mission The Old Guard gives you a 4-star Sjökvist Semi-Auto if I recall correctly, that’s pretty damn good. You do get a 5-star AI-76 in the mission The Enemy of my Enemy, which you should have by now. That thing’s a beast against all Machines.

If you can get your hands on some EMP rounds for the launcher, use them against Tanks. Shoot one to disable it, then fire away at it’s mounted weapons. The EMP’s have a wide area of effect, too.

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42

The .50 is useful for shooting the weapons off the tanks from a distance which really limits the damage they do to you, you can often confuse tanks (or get them stuck in scenery) so they simply stand around for a while.

I tend to find find the Military tanks harder as the rocket launcher (and the amount they sometimes use it) and I tend not to approach until I have shot off the Tick dispensers off

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43

Not seen a mission called Enemy of my Enemy yet nor a AI-76 so that to look forward to.

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44

I is almost at the end of the main storyline.

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45

You might be missing one of the radio-mast related missions, you have to complete all of them before you can get ‘Enemy of my Enemy’.

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46

Not on a mission, but easy to find as part of clearing one, you can get a 5-crown Klaucke (which actually is rather good for almost anything except tanks) in a police car near the radio mast outside of Hagaboda. I think that, the Granatgevär you get near the bridge up north, the HP5 in Von Ulmer’s house, and the AI-76 from the final story mission are the only fixed spawns of 5-crown weapons though.

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47

Damaging all the robots at the momeant since the last update is pritty much spot on for myself.Ripping through the armour and explosives working better.The best part is disarming the enemies guns works 100%.It would be cool if legs and arms would fall off or become loose making the robot at a disadvantage and very hostile.

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48

Aren’t tanks supposed to be hard?..

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49

The problem is that FNIX tanks aren’t even worth fighting most of the time for at least solo players, and I suspect for two person teams as well. The drop rates are way too low for the loot that can only drop from them, the rewards are pathetic in terms of how many resources you have to expend, and they are far from being XP efficient in terms of farming.

Put differently, I fought two FNIX tanks as a pair yesterday, solo (at the safehouse just south of Normyrra). In total, it took me roughly 40 minutes to kill them both, and I earned just short of 1600 XP. So, before even factoring in resource usage (which I’ll get to in a minute), I earned roughly 40 XP a minute. In comparison, I can down a pair of military tanks solo in about 20 minutes under equivalent conditions, and earn about 1000 XP, which translates to 10 more XP per minute, and that’s just looking at tanks for comparison (with FNIX runners, a pack of about 10 will net me almost 80 XP per minute).

Now, looking at resource usage, killing those two tanks took:

  • 14 flares (for distracting ticks until I could destroy the tick pods).
  • 8 fragmentation grenades (for killing the distracted ticks).
  • Roughly 1200 rounds of 7.62 (with a special AI-76).
  • 48 rounds of .50 BMG (with an exceptional Pvg. 50).
  • 13 HEDP rockets (with a special Grg.).
  • 36 standard medkits.
  • 20 simple medkits.
  • 5 adrenalin shots (technically 4 since I have the free revive specialization).

Even accounting for there being two FNIX tanks, that’s still more than twice what it takes for me on average to kill a military tank (adrenalin shots notwithstanding, since I pretty much never have to use those anymore against military tanks). It’s also enough that it took me almost an hour to restock (which drops the effective XP per minute to a paltry 16, almost as bad as clearing ticks out of houses in a settlement).

In compensation with the drops, I got:

  • 1 advanced medkit (which was insufficient at that time to bring me to full health).
  • 2 compressed air tanks (which are essentially useless in general).
  • Almost 600 assorted (FMJ and AP) rounds of 9mm handgun ammo (I didn’t even pull out my handgun during the fight and already had enough ammo for it).
  • Almost 150 assorted (SP and FMJ) rounds of .270 ammo (I didn’t use any at all in the fight, and was not in need of more than I already have).
  • 12 rounds of .50 BMG (so one quarter of what I actually used).
  • 8 smoke rounds for the Grg (which are useless solo, and mostly useless even in co-op).
  • 1 field radio (not even sure why these drop from tanks).

The ammo above I can easily find just scavenging in maybe 20 minutes, which would also include more medkits by total healing, and no useless smoke rounds or air tanks. So, I spent 40 minutes killing these things and an hour’s worth of resources, and got 20 minutes worth of loot, not including any of the stuff that can only drop from FNIX tanks.

Note that, in comparison, killing a FNIX tank with four people who know what they’re doing is usually a walk in the park, and it’s almost always resource efficient and XP efficient for everyone involved. The issue isn’t so much that tanks are a challenge, it’s that they’re heavily accentuating the difficulty discrepancy between co-op and solo.

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50

Tanks are one of those strange things where I only find them when I am not really equipped for dealing with them as I seldom carry the grenade launcher or explosives any more, however I had an hour to spare and decided to hunt some tanks ended up finding nothing but Harvesters everywhere I went.

However I got very confused about the number of Runners around Bockhyttan, that was only solved when I found 7 Harvesters (mostly military) withing 50 metres of the petrol station.

Also ended up killing another 5 harvesters and every item drop was next to useless and I was getting more useful drops from the Hunters as the harvesters were dropping stupid crap (apart from a FNIX that dropped some 7.62 rounds.)

I’m not stocking up again and try try another Tank hunt.

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51

Tanks are not too hard - rather you are too soft ! :wink: :sunglasses:
Joking aside, with my limited experience with tanks so far, I’d say that you always need to have some cover. The handful of tanks I’ve fought hasn’t been so much of a problem once you’ve set yourself up with reasonable cover, and cleared all other enemies first.
But yes they require lots of ammo, which they should since they’re the bosses so far…

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52

some tips for anyone having a hard time. with weak spots you can take down tanks with far less resources, and much quicker.

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53

Lol ive killed loads by standing behind a tree they bullet proof…!!

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54

I thought tanks was something to give a 5 mile wide berth but today my game for some reason was open to anybody to join in and a couple of guys helped me down a couple and a couple of harvesters. In multiplayer they are not so difficult but still wouldnt try one on my own.

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55

As mentioned above, the issue I have isn’t difficulty, it’s how much of a resource sink they are proportionate to the payouts. Even just fixing the stupid ‘this is the ammo you have the least of, so well give you tons of it even though you used none in this fight’ crap would go a significant way towards making it a non-issue for me. I don’t even mind how long it takes provided I’m not worrying about XP, it’s quite simply that the inability to manage aggro so that weak points are exposed reliably and the lack of other people providing damage makes the resource requirements way too high.

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56

Yeah they can be rough especially up northwestern areas where you find yourself pitted up against sometimes 4. I usually emp, and quickly destroy the guns on one. Than back off and toss sticky flares on him so the bots around shoot at him while i ready up for the next big guy. I do the same strategy against hunters.

With not being able to search tool boxes and some orange loot containers it’s hard to come by a lot of throwing items. I get tons of sticky’s, flares and fireworks. Basically the fun is a little limited for the time being.

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57

To be honest I don’t kill tanks with any expectation of a material return (though it’s nice to get)

I did find the lack of drops frustrating when I had to take them on for a mission and the first one took almost all your ammo (especially the windmill mission) and you couldn’t wander off and resupply.

The rest of the time I have either decided to kill a few tanks or I have gotten myself into a bad position at which point the drops are not really something that I even consider as it’s not really a hardship to go for a scavenge.

I do find it a bit dumb that harvesters are miserly with their drops considering they are supposed to be harvesting everything in the area.

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58

Right here is the reason I, like @AlanWade, don’t take on Tanks. I do have 15 flares. I do have around 15 frag grenades. I have, at any one time, a maximum of 300 rounds of mixed 7.62 ammunition. Never more - it offers me thousands of rounds of 9mm pistol ammunition, that I never use. I don’t have a .50. I have at most seven or eight HEDP rockets. I have on average 4 Standard medkits and ten or eleven simple. I do have a maximum of five or six adrenaline shots. This is with one “salvage” unlocked, though not the second, yet.

Tanks aren’t worth it!

Now, the first tank he takes on in the video below is the easiest tank in the game to kill - at the Fort on the South Coast. He won’t fire into the tunnel and he has a mortar, not a rocket launcher, so he fires over the hill between to the other end of the tunnel, but not into it, so he’s toast every time, provided the four-man Hunter patrol doesn’t turn up behind you.

Apart from the .32 pistol (carried by the police), and the 9mm pistol (carried by everyone else), the 7.62 ought to be the most commmon round in the game. All the bunkers should have thousands of rounds (every second box should have 200 rounds of it, since that’s what fits in a box - not 240). Any soldier should be carrying normal scale of 80 rounds 7.62, (minus what he has used before his death). And yet - I can’t find the stuff anywhere!

Perhaps it’s a bug in my game!

2 Likes
59

@Bootie funny you mention that. I was playing yesterday and just threw out: shouldn’t the bases have a large ammunition/gun room. Some kinda do but it’s very little. And At times 200 rnds isn’t enough but at least a base run would help that stack.

I’d even go for a crate stacked full of ammo box’s we can drop to choose what gun/ammo type to gain. Or accessible foot lockers. Each holding up to 100 rnds

By adding more ammo they should make bases spawn more ticks. Runners inside. Maybe create a seeker that has a mounted gun like a floating interior turret and at least one hunter to puppy guard the main door.

For added replay ability.

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60

Yes, I’d go with that. Every military base has an armoury, except the Swedes, it turns out! You might have to hunt about for the key, but it’d probably be in the guardroom (which are also missing!). Find the key, or blow your way in, and you’d have all the ammo you could carry, plus your choice of weapons!

I’m scratching about for 7.62 all the time. It is the one thing I do more than everything else put together. Four Hunters or a Tank, and it’s all gone.

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