Talk:Heavy Weapons Platforms
What is the morale hit your soldiers take from the loss of a tank? Would it be equal to the death of a newbie? If so, I think that would count as an advantage.--Trotsky 05:19, 26 June 2006 (PDT)
Yes, same as a rookie, according to the Morale page. Tanks are quite well-suited to the Scout role. Feel free to note this property on the HWP article page.
--Ethereal Cereal 14:54, 26 June 2006 (PDT)
My personal opinion is that hover tanks are fit for puropse but the conventional tanks are not. Tanks do not provide additional firepower compared to four squaddies, so their purpose must surely be as robust front line vehicles. Hovertanks can do this very well with their speed, flight, and durability against plasma fire. Conventional tanks are less mobile than squaddies, even without stamina problems, and still vulnerable to single plasma shots.
Using tanks on ufo recovery missions is problematic since they block the front of the skyranger, stop you getting smoke dropped, and usually draw plasma fire when they wheel down the ramp. This isn't solved on the lightning or avenger. Their best use seems to be on base defence, base attack, and cydonia missions where the 80 item limit prevents the arming of too many soldiers. - Egor
Technically, the laser and cannon tanks are considerable upgrades of their handheld counterparts (heavy laser and AC-Heavy Cannon). All the other turrets just give you a downgraded variant. Also, the 80 item limit is no excuse to lose 4 soldiers, who can just come in and pick weapons up off the ground. ;)
You can also throw smoke grenades over your forward tank. You just need to throw it a few tiles further. It's not too hard unless your landing zone is flush against the north edge of the map.
Conventional tanks are meant to be phased out once you get good weapons and armour, and later replaced by the hovertanks. The laser tank comes too late, but it continues to be a cheap throw-away HWP that you can churn out and send off to scout and draw enemy fire away from your troops, or to mangle sectopods with ease.
The conventional tank's base 20 reactions doesn't help its survivability much - but it does force aliens to react to it more often - drawing fire away fromy your troops.
- NKF
Tank Morale
Yes indeed, HWP's can panic or go berserk. See this topic. A tank's morale is unaffected by kills made by your own men. However, if a tank is responsible for the killing of a friendly it will lose morale and eventually panic or go berserk. So we can make the assumption that 110 Bravery does not make a unit completely immune to morale loss when that unit is responsible for the killing. --Zombie 08:34, 2 March 2007 (PST)
- Same goes for cyberdiscs, they'll lose morale if they hit one of their friends. If they goes berserk the game will crash, fortunately it does not happen a lot in real games... Seb76 13:26, 31 October 2008 (CDT)
Flying Ethereals
> The hovertank [snip] comes with the ability to hover in the air much like a Cyberdisc or Ethereal.
It's been a while, but I don't remember Ethereals having the ability to hover in the air. I believe Floaters did that. Ethereals look like they are "hovering" few feet above the ground, but I don't think they can actually fly like Cyberdisks/Hovertanks do.--Crimson 02:32, 31 October 2008 (CDT)
- If the Ethereal is stationary in the air, a case could be made that it is actually "hovering". In any event, Ethereals have the flying attribute set in the executable and that value is identical to Floaters, Cyberdiscs and the hovertanks. Also, in the battlescape, Ethereals can get to any level of the map via the air (which is what I consider to be the litmus test for true flyers). It's just that this alien gets there by a different means of locomotion: telekinetic power. Celatids (the pink kidney bean-shaped alien) actually looks like it can fly on the battlescape as it hovers a couple feet off the ground, but it cannot get to any level via movement like the other flyers can do. Maybe you were thinking of the Celatids? --Zombie 07:32, 31 October 2008 (CDT)
- The means of propulsion are different, but they are in effect hovering or flying in the air. I'm reminded of Binky (the horse ridden by Death) in the Discworld series. It doesn't so much as fly but create its own planes to walk along. Ethereals, being the bundle of brains and psionic powers that they are, could possibly do that. In that sense, then perhaps they're not flying, but standing firmly on imaginary ground of their own devising. To everyone else, the net effect is the ethereal ends up hovering in the air. -NKF 08:25, 31 October 2008 (CDT)
- I guess I need to refresh myself on the actual battlescape :) I was talking about Ethereals (the guys in goldish cloaks). I guess the reason I don't remeber them flying is because I mostly remember encountering them inside bases, and there isn't much space to fly around. Funny thing, memory... Well, anyways, I stand corrected.--Crimson 18:39, 31 October 2008 (CDT)