Tanks
How to play Tanks
Tanks is a top-down action game in which you drive a tank round an arena and fire shells that bounce off walls, until one team has the last tank standing.
Pick a map and a tank, then battle computer tanks in teams or a free-for-all.
The goal of Tanks
Tanks is a top-down battle against computer-controlled tanks. A round goes to the last team with a tank still standing, and destroyed tanks only come back in the next round. The match goes to the first team to win the number of rounds you chose.
How to set up Tanks
Pick a map and the class of tank you drive. The other options set two teams, four teams or a free-for-all of four tanks, one to three tanks per team, the bots' difficulty, and one, three or five rounds to win. You always drive a red tank, and every other tank is a bot.
The four classes trade speed for strength. Light is the fastest, and its quick shells do not bounce. Standard reloads fastest. Heavy takes three hits, and its shells break soft cover in one. Huge takes five hits and fires two shells at a time but reloads slowly. Light and Standard are destroyed by a single hit.
Tanks rules
Drive with WASD or the arrow keys: W goes forward, S reverses at half speed, and A and D turn the hull. Aim the turret with the mouse, fire with the left button or the space bar, and lay a mine with the right button or M. On a touch screen, the left stick drives, the right stick aims, and the Fire and Mine buttons do the rest.
Shells bounce off metal crates and the arena walls; all but the Light tank's bounce once. Your own shells can hit you after a bounce, and every shell hits teammates too. Wooden crates and sandbags break after two hits, pits stop tanks but not shells, trees hide you from the bots, oil makes you slide, and barrels explode when hit.
Each tank has two mines a round. A mine arms two seconds after it is laid and then blows up any tank that comes within a tile, yours included. A round lasts at most two minutes, and a round that runs out of time goes to nobody.
How to win at Tanks
The match ends as soon as a team has won the number of rounds you chose. If every round has been played and two teams are level, nobody takes the match. If you are signed in, a skirmish your team wins is recorded as a win; a loss is never recorded.
Tanks strategy tips
Bounce shells off walls and crates to reach tanks hiding behind cover, but watch for the ricochet coming back at you.
Lay mines in narrow gaps the enemy has to drive through, and remember where you left them.
Two shells that meet destroy each other, so a well-aimed shot can stop one that is coming at you.
Park under a tree to drop out of the bots' sight: while you are under it, they do not pick you as a target.
Any shell that touches a mine sets it off, armed or not, so you can clear a mine from a gap by shooting it from a few tiles away.
Tanks questions and answers
Can you play Tanks online with friends?
Yes. Signed-in players can open a Tanks table for two to eight people, split into two teams, four teams or a free-for-all. Everyone drives a Standard tank on a map drawn at random from the six, and the first team to win three rounds takes the match.
Which tank class is best in Tanks?
None is best everywhere; each trades speed for strength. Light is the fastest but can only have two shells in flight, and they do not bounce. Standard reloads fastest and can have five shells out. Heavy needs three hits to destroy and breaks soft cover in one shot, and Huge needs five and fires two shells at once, but it is the slowest to move and to reload.
Can your own shells hit you in Tanks?
Yes. A shell cannot hit the tank that fired it for the brief moment it takes to clear the barrel, but after that it can, so a shot that bounces back off a wall or crate will hit you. Shells hit teammates too, and so does the blast of a mine or barrel.
How do mines work in Tanks?
Each tank can lay two mines per round, at least a second apart. A mine arms two seconds after it is laid, then explodes when any tank comes within a tile, including the one that laid it. The blast destroys any tank it reaches, whatever its class, breaks soft cover and sets off nearby barrels and mines. A shell can set a mine off too.
How do you play Tanks on a phone?
With two thumbs. Touch anywhere on the left half of the game area to drive with a stick, and anywhere on the right half to aim the turret. Hold the Fire button to keep shooting at your tank's reload rate, and press the mine button beside it to lay a mine.
How hard are the bots in Tanks?
As hard as you choose: Easy, Normal or Hard. Difficulty sets how often a bot rethinks what it is doing and how far off its aim may land; a Hard bot rethinks five times as often as an Easy one and aims more closely. The bots' classes and behaviours are dealt in a fixed order, so the same setup always fields the same bots.