Tanks: Do you use them? Regular or Explosive Cannon Shell?

[BustedHipGaming]

I struggle to make the tank work well for me. The vehicle is too slow to really kite enemies, and the turret rotation speed is really slow, too. The only serious use I have found for it is to use the flamethrower to carve long, straight lines through dense forests with ease.

Am I missing something? Is there some secret to using the tank that makes it more combat effective? Is it important to use one of the cannon ammo types in preference to the other?

[Maelstrom]

Tank speed, like all vehicles, is affected by fuel. So use decent fuel - solid fuel at a minimum, rocket or nuclear fuel if you have it.

To be honest I've never gotten good results out of the tank cannon either and I never even bother building shells for it anymore. The machine gun was massively buffed a few patches ago it can mow down biters like there's no tomorrow with uranium rounds, but AP works good too.

That's all secondary though. The tank's main attack is and has always been just running things over. Kill a few nests, kill a few worms, kite everything you aggro'd back to your turrets. Repair and repeat. It's actually really fast once you get good at it. Take your robotports out of your armor first though.

[Jeffreyac]

I used to use them to clear tough nest emplacements in areas I wanted to expand. Now, to be honest, I find my powered armor suit with plenty of shielding and leg upgrades plus my trusty SMG with uranium ammo does the trick better than anything else.

Of course, I tend to drive my car into trees and rocks accidentally, so maybe I'm not the best example of how to effectively use tanks!

[Hydra]

i love tanks, you can just drive through nests with ease or shoot shells at them from good distance. they are really tanky too so you can just drive in circles and take out most of a massive nest before having to repair

[AlexMBrennan]

Is it important to use one of the cannon ammo types in preference to the other?

IMHO yes - non-explosive ammo can pierce targets so you take out heavily defended spawners without having to bother with killing the bugs. Generally speaking shooting at enemies is a waste - take out structures, and leave the rest to your turrets when you eventually get back to base.

[Jupiter3927]

Put some personal laser defense turrets on your power armor and hop in the tank and you get a tank with laser point defense.
Tank is pretty nice until the green biters appear.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=923435963

[Knochentroke]

I used it as a mobile artillery. Place some turrets and shoot with ap rounds at biter nests, the biters will be killed by the turrets and you outrange most of their turrets. But now with real artillery, I used it not much.

[Morphic]

I think the Tank is great... until Green Biters start spawning en masse.

Until then I mostly use the non-explosive Shells to take out Nests and Worms while still being defended, then when all the Biters are aggro'd I just waste em with the Machine Gun.

IMO, it's one of those "great early-mid game but sucks later" kind of things. It mostly comes down to a playstyle thing. I generally have Biter Expansion on and I tend not to rush down high end tech, so I actually get to make use of the Tank since it's going to be awhile until I get Power Armor. However other people that like rushing for Power Armor, Bots or just don't play with aggressive Biter settings ... are probably not ever going to use a Tank. Though the Artillery Update really curbed the utility of the Tank, IMO. Why roll out and bust up stuff when you can just have a Howtizer Train or Big Bertha bombing the crap outta stuff while you sit in base or do something else?

[RokRoland]

I have to say, upon getting the tank initially, it was a wow moment for me, spawners going down way quick. Finally after a LONG time I researched uranium shells as well, another power adder, I have really taken my time so the enemy is everywhere but the tank holds up, artillery is just pretty cumbersome for most purposes until you set it up, and you may have the bugs coming to unexpected places because you're not managing the aggression of the little ones.

Nevertheless the best use for a tank: Load cannon, drive close enough to nests, fire at will to one-shot the nests (and most worms), hightail it back to some friendly turrets with a repair station with either flamer or machine gun singing its song. If you want, add in some land mines.

It's far superior to the car, or hand grenades. Once the repair bots are there, it just gets easier as the tank is auto-repaired.

Disclaimer: I am somewhat of a Factorio noob and like to take my time.

[Ruges]

Tank by itself is not all that great. But when you put a good fuel in it, Run the machine gun with AP/nuclear ammo. Have module armor with a drone port that repairs your tank.and laser defense to shoot at stuff when it gets close. Have as many defender drones out as you can get. And then the tank turns into a killing machine able to take out solid nest banks.

The trick is to focus the machine gun on killing the nests and let the defenders kill the bugs that get close to you. spamming a few new defender drones into the center of heavy infested nests.

[astrosha]

I tend to use the Tank running (driving?) circles around the biter base, aiming at the spanwers and the worms. Once they are dead I'll focus on the spitters and the biters.

Hop out after to effect repairs, and onward to the next enemy base!

I use the machine gun though, with lots and lots of AP ammo. I've not really bothered much with Uranium ammo, preferring to use Uranium for fuel.

I tried the cannon shells once. I did not care for them, so I don't bother anymore.

[Grumpy Old Gamer]

I use the tank, but I use DU machinegun and lazor turrets

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

If you have uranium ammo, the shells are questionable. Before you have uranium ammo, they are great.

HE are flatly better than AP. No question, hands down, absolutely, better. Why? The AOE of a HE shell will kill nests and worms with a single indirect hit just fine. The AOE is bigger on the HE shells.

Anyone talking about the penetration of AP is dealing with placebo effect. You should be moving your tank around in circles around the enemy base and strafing them. This means that you don't have to penetrate a crap ton of biters to reach the spawners/worms simply because they're all trailing behind you.

[Lunacy]

I love my tank, I take it everywhere and clear all the nests.
At least I used to until I started running shields exosuits and lasers and 100(x5) Destroyers which lets me literally run through enormous nests leaving anhiliation in my path.
Also always use explosive shells with the tank, It's nice taking out a huge clump of nests or worms in 1 shot.
Too bad the flamethrower isn't as effective in the tank as it is on foot.