Space Tanks

Space Tanks

A tactical retro artillery game on small planets – challenging, skill-based, and deliberately different.
When YawThrust Software Labs developed Space Tanks, the goal was not to follow any trends. We wanted to make a game we ourselves would enjoy playing: unusual, direct, physics-based, and with far more depth than you might expect at first glance.

Gameplay

Space Tanks is not a game of chance.
Every shot is based on skill, judgment, gravity and timing – similar to golf.
If you miss, you aimed badly – you were not simply unlucky.
Weapon trajectories differ depending on whether you use a projectile, rocket or homing missile. Planets, moons and black holes influence them through gravity, while antigravity can even repel them.
With the freely movable mouse cursor, you control, among other things:

• Weapon selection

• Aim direction

• Launch angle, power, or – for rockets – fuel.

• Shop and inventory

• Special actions

Move the mouse over planets or other elements and the small monitor at the bottom shows what you are dealing with – for example a planet, antigravity or a black hole – including its mass and whether a planet is unstable.
The weapons are divided into three classes:

• Blue = Projectiles

• Orange = Homing missiles

• Yellow = Rockets

Each weapon class has different flight behavior and requires its own tactical approach.
Some weapons also have remote detonation.
However, this only works as long as your tank’s antenna is still intact.
If the antenna is damaged or destroyed, remote detonation is gone – and you have to live with whatever you already fired.
The aiming guide helps beginners, but costs Score and slows down your Ranking. With the right cheat code as Playername, it becomes extremely long – ideal when your opponent is not looking or has gone to get a beer. ;-)
Space Tanks remembers what you do. If you mess up – for example by shooting the janitor or using aiming guides too often – it is recorded in the savegame and taken into account in the scoring. Good actions count too: a “Hole in One”, for example, has a clearly positive effect. After all, Space Tanks is no pony farm.
If your opponent has hit you once, you should change position – otherwise they can leave the angle and Shotpower unchanged and hit you again, if necessary with a stronger weapon – as long as no moons or moving obstacles such as asteroids, aliens or other objects change the conditions.
So using your brain a little does not hurt.
If you simply start blasting away wildly, you will quickly discover that gravity, timing and strategy can shoot back too.

Deterministic Trajectories

The trajectories are deterministic.
If angle, Shotpower, weapon type and all other conditions remain unchanged, a projectile will follow the same trajectory again.
Of course, the trajectory changes when the conditions change – for example if your tank’s chassis is shot up and the tank sinks lower as a result, if you switch weapon class, or if moons change position and slightly shift the gravity.
That means:
Shots can be learned and reproduced.
Once you understand the system, you can repeat successful trajectories and become more precise with every round.
And do not forget to zoom out briefly before firing and check what may still be moving in orbit farther out – especially in later rounds, for example Space Pumpkins.
Just because you cannot see something does not mean there is nothing out there in Space Tanks.

Not a Normal Turn-Based Game

Space Tanks is turn-based, but the world does not wait for you.
Independent objects and events continue – even when it is not your turn.
Everything has a life of its own: Space Pumpkins, asteroids, debris or tank parts continue moving independently of the turns, collide and interact even outside the visible area. Space Pumpkins can lie on planets or orbit in the hundreds and, after being hit, crash somewhere much later.
If you select the coconut as a weapon, you can use it to plant palm trees on planets with an atmosphere. They slowly spread there, can catch fire and damage opponents nearby.
Mines can trigger chain reactions when exploding mines hit others.
You can recognize unstable planets by the bubbling lava in their craters. Bombard them hard enough and you can make the entire planet explode.
Aliens and Space Wasps fly through the battlefield and attack if you accidentally hit them.
Just like in real life: try, observe, learn. So do not be afraid – experiment.
As a result, things can suddenly become quite stressful and you may have to react quickly – if you are lucky enough to be the player whose turn it is.
The simulation also continues outside the visible screen area.
This means that a piece shot off the opponent’s tank – for example the antenna – may come back minutes later and fall directly “on your head”.
Even a match that already looks safely won can completely turn around in the final seconds – and may even end in a draw.
Everything can affect everything.

Settings for Hardcore Freaks…