whats the purpose of the hammer, cutter, etc?

[Feebs]

Why would you smash things off and damage them rather then simply dismantle them properly?

[Goose]

because smashing them gives you scrap that you can use to make better parts, or at least more restored parts, if you own a blueprint, that is.
and the cutter, to my knowledge, is basically just a grinder, it just grinds off rust BUT can also be used to cut off parts that cant be restored, also gets scrap for you.

[Feebs]

but I can remove and sell/recycle those parts?

[Spaghetti Salmon]

Before you unlocked the pistol wrench, you might have been troubled by seized bolts (or nuts)? I believe the intention was that you’d cut them off with the angle grinder. I will admit that in the game as it stands today, I seldom use anything but tools 3, 4 and 5.

Note that bashing a component with the sledgehammer saves you from having to fiddle with all the little bolts it may have. Sure, it damages the component, but all you need to do is clean it to bare metal before you bash it and it’ll only regress a little bit. (Exception: parts that you never paint... bizarrely, you can end up with engine parts that need “painting” or you’ll never get them to 100%.)

[Blackmane]

I found using the angle grinder for rust removal is best method as it covers a far larger area and does it faster than the pin hammer. Pressing X makes it cut things off too. The sledge hammer seems to break whole assemblies off in a single blow - so again a speed method for disassembly, as well as scrap? Find a scrap tank out the back of the workshop in the junkyard and break it down for scrap for a few hundred bucks maximum in a short amount of time. Gives you a whole heap of scrap for next to nothing. At least that's how I use those two tools.

[Feebs]

Originally posted by Bodger:

Before you unlocked the pistol wrench, you might have been troubled by seized bolts (or nuts)? I believe the intention was that you’d cut them off with the angle grinder. I will admit that in the game as it stands today, I seldom use anything but tools 3, 4 and 5.

Note that bashing a component with the sledgehammer saves you from having to fiddle with all the little bolts it may have. Sure, it damages the component, but all you need to do is clean it to bare metal before you bash it and it’ll only regress a little bit. (Exception: parts that you never paint... bizarrely, you can end up with engine parts that need “painting” or you’ll never get them to 100%.)

That's just the thing? I never did encounter a rusted bolt or have any trouble with a part being removed through the disassembly process. I did 3-4 "jobs" and already unlocked the toolbelt.

[McLeoud]

Originally posted by Feebs:

Why would you smash things off and damage them rather then simply dismantle them properly?

I think, they are only for fun. I have never used this and always get my tanks to 100%!

[Spaghetti Salmon]

I have found a somewhat marginal use for the hammer... but a use!

When you want to disassemble a component and it has a very large number of bolts in place (some of the newer tanks are a bit over-the-top on bolts, IMO) simply bash the part once or twice with the hammer. The number of bolts in place will decline significantly. When it’s down to just one or two, switch (using the toolbelt hotkeys) to 'disassemble' (2) and remove the last couple of bolts. That way, you get the component off without it suffering any reduction in its condition.

[Metal Izanagi]

I've only ever really used the sledge to break apart tanks that I'm intending to scrap, and the angle grinder is really just an upgraded rust removal tool that happens to also be able to do the hammer's job, albeit a bit slower.

[devil_505]

As long as you don´t have upgraded your techtree you can´t for example remove rusty bolts. So only way to get rid of parts with rusty bolts is to use the hammer.

You can´t also repair parts in the beginning and have to outsource the repairs.

And the parts don´t get destroyed, they simply deteriorate by one step and land in your inventory. And worse then rusty is not possible in this game. So before hammering that parts were rusty and are still rusty in your inventory.

But as generous as the game is giving skillpoints that are only problems for the first few hours of gaming.

And I still us the hammer on the Tiger to this day, because of the ridiculous amount of bolts used on the wheels. Shermans lower Glacis is another candidate for a quick hammer session.

[Trindalas]

I only used the hammer for the achievement. I use the grinder now to just cut off non repairable parts while I remove rust and then just outsource those parts. Saves time. 🤷🏻‍♂️