Heavy Weapons Platforms
There are five different HWP units available to you as an X-COM Commander.
General Information
Tanks are divided into two distinct chassis types, the standard miniature tracked tank and the hover tank. The tracked tank chassis is the weakest of the two, however it is relatively cheaper on materials and can be purchased off the market. Our engineers can also reproduce a replica of the tracked tank in the workshops for the purposes of mounting our proprietary heavy laser turrets. The hovertank, a hybrid of human and alien technologies, must be built in the engineering labs. It is the most expensive, especially on exotic resources, but it comes with superior internal and external subsystems, a generous amount of armour, and comes with the ability to hover in the air much like a Cyberdisc or Ethereal.
Tanks use turrets to fire. These turrets can turn independently of the tanks themselves. For example, if you tell a tank to fire behind itself, the turret will turn and not the tank. The turret will keep its new bearing relative to the tank until it is told to fire again. Moving the turret costs 1 TU per directional change. However, the turret itself does not contain any optical perception sensors, so it cannot see an enemy if the tank cannot see it.
With the exception of the Tank/Laser Cannon and the Hovertank/Plasma, you must have sufficient ammunition in your stores before loading the tank onto a transport craft. However, if one of your bases is attacked and you do not have ammunition available, any tanks will be granted with a full payload of ammunition. Any rounds remaining after a successful base defense will be added to your stores.
Advantages
- Tanks are very rarely affected by morale loss. In order for a tank to panic, your squad must take a severe amount of losses during a given turn. (Tanks have 110 bravery)
- Tanks are not affected by stun, nor can they receive fatal wounds.
- Tanks are not affected by psi attacks.
- They tend to have a greater amount of TUs then normal soldiers making them excellent for use as scouts. They also carry their internal weapons with no penalty, as opposed to weak soldiers who struggle with Rocket Launcher+ several reloads.
- Tanks start off with fairly decent stats, AND are counted as items, not staff. This lets them be stored in general storage instead of Living Quarters.
- When starting up a new base and fearing alien attacks, it's convenient to buy/send a couple of HWPs there on guard duty. You still need at least one soldier on duty there for a base defense though.
- They can take fairly heavy damage before being destroyed.
- A damaged tank is instantly repaired at the end of a mission.
- Other units can fire over the top of a tank without the tank getting hit in the crossfire.
- Hovertank/Launchers carry more ammo than a soldier carrying Blaster Launcher+ Bombs can. More importantly, the ammo loaded in one does not count towards the 80 item limit, unlike the B Bombs! Same thing for Tank/ Rocket Launchers. On top of that, the tank does NOT have to manually reload it's weapon. It doesn't even have to use any TUs. Basically, it uses a clip with many many shots, as opposed to soldiers with many 1 shot clips. Makes a difference.
- Tank/Heavy Lasers have the strongest Laser weapons in the game, and trust me when I say that having them makes all the difference on Ethereal Alien Base Attacks on Superhuman. My nemesis, Sectopod, goes down pretty easily here.
Disadvantages
- Tanks are much more expensive than soldiers - eg $420,000 vs $40,000. Their cost and usefulness are inverse with time. Ie, by the time you can afford them, they are a lot less useful.
- They do not gain experience during combat.
- Their extra size makes it difficult to get them to certain areas - through most doorways, for example. Also, it's possible for a tank to be "halfway" (one square) past a wall and be visible to enemies, yet unable to spot those same enemies. And, needless to say, unable to return fire.
- They take extra damage from explosives due to their size.
- Tanks do not have high reactions.
- Tanks do not have any Auto-Fire capability, a big liability in close combat.
- Hovertank/Launchers are a LOT weaker than Blaster Bombs. 200 power vs 140.
- Tanks cannot carry sidearms/ medkits/ breaklights/ live aliens/ etc etc.
- Tanks with limited ammo cannot reload.
Stats
Tank/Laser Cannon
- Manufacturing: $500,000 per unit, 1200 Engineer hours, No special materials needed
- Ammo: Capacity: 255. Cost: Free
- Damage: 110, Laser Beam
- Research requirements: Laser Cannon
Much the same as the Tank/Cannon, but with 255 shots and a LOT more damage. Quite a bit more powerful than the Heavy Laser.
Hovertank/Plasma
- Manufacturing: $850,000 per unit, 1200 Engineer hours, 30 Elerium-115 and 5 Alien Alloys
- Ammo: Capacity: 255. Cost: Free
- Damage: 110, Plasma Beam
- Research Requirements: Plasma Cannon
Due to it's speed, flying ability, hefty payload, and high damage capability, this HWP is a nice bonus in the field. Most places it couldn't normally go can be accessed simply by blowing the obstructions away, with barely a dent to its vast ammo supply. However, it can't destroy certain walls that the Heavy Plasma can, due to it's lower damage (110 vs. 115 PB for Heavy Plasma).
Hovertank/Launcher
- Manufacturing: $900,000 per unit, 1400 Engineer hours, 25 Elerium-115 and 8 Alien Alloys
- Ammo: HWP Fusion Bomb. Capacity: 8. Cost per bomb: $15,000, 400 Engineer hours, 5 Elerium-115 and 8 Alien Alloys (expensive!)
- Damage: 140, High Explosive
- Research requirements: Blaster Launcher
This HWP must have ammo manufactured for it. It fires a weaker version of the Blaster Bomb (200 HE) and is used in much the same way as the Blaster Launcher. Despite the slight lessening of damage, and the high costs involved to deploy it, the Hovertank/Launcher can clear any battlefield with ease.