Since many playing never played the original, I wanted to give a quick overview to get people started. This is designed to be brief, so people might actually read it!
You start with a base made of 'pods' (walls) in the shape of an 'H', and two active tanks nestled into the 'H'. If some of those pods are damaged, you lose. Your objective is to destroy the enemies' bases by damaging their pods. Your base has some extra tanks should your active tanks be destroyed, and also has some powerful range weapons and protective shields. But remember: protect your base, kill their base.
Tanks - Your tanks have a cannon to shoot things like enemy tanks, pods, trees, etc. A tank must be shot 3 times to kill it. After 1 hit the tank goes from GOOD to FAIR. After a second hit the tank goes to POOR and moves very sluggish. Tanks have ammo and fuel. They also have a reserve of pods and mines they can drop. Tanks are healed and resupplied by moving onto a resupply square (which looks like a blue flag).
Base - Your base is made of 7 pods. A base dies when the number of damaged pods is equal to or greater than the number of living players minus 1. Example: In a 2 player game (2 - 1) =1, so even one damaged pod ends the game. In an 8 player game (8 - 1)=7, so every pod must be damaged to kill the first player. The next player would only need to have 6 pods damaged. Your base has a finite number of shields and seekers (perimeter defense field) to protect itself, and lasers and artillery nukes to assault the enemy at range.
Here's a more detailed view of the game screen. You have split views to watch your base and both your tanks independently. The terrain you might see on the map is shown also.
| Key | Action | Comments |
| cursors, home, pgup, pgdn, end | Move your active tank up, down, left, right or diagonals (or shoot that direction if shift is held) | I think num-lock OFF and using the num-pad is the best approach. Diagonals are really handy for traversing nuke fields. Eventually I will add customization for these. |
| L | Fire your base's laser weapon at the base weapons' target | Lasers fire a straight line energy blast that hits anything in its way. Only mountains and radiation stop it (but they destroy one square of those on impact, so you can 'tunnel' through mountains with several blasts) |
| N | Fires artillery at the base weapons' target | Nukes whistle as they fall and on impact destroy a range around their impact point with random explosions. Nothing can get in their way, but base shields can protect a base during an impact. |
| S | Base defensive Seeker | A seeker is an energy barrier that fans out from your core base's perimeter and moves outwards to kill incoming tanks. |
| D | Defensive shields | Turns on base shields for a short time. While on, your base cannot be damaged. Don't be afraid to use these.. they do you no good when you're dead. |
| T | Switch tanks | Remember you have two! But usually best to leave one to protect home base. |
| M | Drop a mine | Your tank will drop a mine at its current location. You can see your mines, but not your enemies'. |
| P | Drop a pod | Your tank will build a wall at its current position. This can be used to repair a damaged base as well. |
| SHIFT | Fire mode ON | When shift is held, your tank will fire in the direction you move it. |
| Z | Macro Dialog | Launch the macro dialog to create and assign macros |
| 0-9 | Invoke Macro | Invoke the macro assigned to a number key |
| ENTER | Bring up chat text dialog | You can still chat in-game, but must press ENTER for the dialog, then type and press ENTER again to send. |
Movement - Tanks move very slowly into and through rubble and when damaged.
Tank Cannons - Destroy trees, turn pods to rubble, and will detonate any mine at their blast point. They cannot damage or pass through rubble, mountains, or radiation.
Rubble - Rubble can be destroyed by placing something on top of it (a pod or mine). In this way, base pods can be repaired. Also rubble can be cleared by mining it and then destroying the mine.
Radiation - Causes 1 damage when a tank runs into it.
Mines - Mines destroy trees when placed, so watch for lines in trees.. might be a row of mines.
Remember the game moves fast! Use a macro to build quick defenses (macro 1 in the defaults builds a simple, sturdy base) and then quickly explore the area around your base to make sure there are no enemies close by. If you are in a nice defensible position (near water or mountains), you might construct some initial walls and mines before fully exploring. Otherwise its better to explore first... walls and a bigger base are easier to find. Mines are ok, but can also tip a player off that he's near you.
A good wall has pods and mines. Mines alone can be defeated by a tank shooting ahead of its movements. Pods clearly are no deterrent by themself.
Note the design.
The enemy tank must shoot the pod to pass, but on the other side is mines he
can't shoot directly. He must shoot the pod into rubble, then carefully
move onto the rubble (one move too many and he steps into a mine). A
careless or unknowing enemy will eat mines. A smart one will still be
slowed down considerably and is primed for seekers.
You defeat it as described above. (Note: You won't actually see the enemy mines, but they are here for reference)
Shoot the
front pod out.
Move carefully
onto the rubble and lay a mine.
Shoot out the
enemy mine and your own.
Proceed to the
next barrier and repeat.