Train chaingun carriers, siege tanks and flame tanks at a barracks and command them RTS-style: drag-select, number-key divisions, attack, patrol, scout and escort teammates. Built around being able to be used in multiplayer, supporting it to the highest extent. Fast performance, deploy large number of units with negligible server impact.

Features

• Five kinds of tanks. Fast chaingun carriers in three ammunition tiers, a long-range siege tank with an oversized cannon, a heavily armored flame tank, and two rare tanks a carrier may become on promotion: the electric tank and the nuclear tank.
• Shredders. Unmanned rammers that need no orders. They split between your divisions and wait far behind them. When a division is losing, its shredders charge the strongest enemies at 60 tiles a second and burst into shrapnel that only hurts enemies. They also follow players who walk into danger.
• Mobile headquarters. A huge, slow, unarmed command vehicle. It heals nearby soldiers, and wherever it parks it sets up camp with a far-reaching roboport and solar decks that power a nearby grid. It keeps the map live around itself like any tank.
• Barracks. A 3x3 military bunker that trains soldiers like an assembler trains items. It needs no power, heals nearby soldiers, and plays a door animation when a new tank rolls out.
• RTS controls. Drag-select with the command tool, alt-drag to move or attack, and use Ctrl + 1–9 / Alt + 1–9 to assign and recall up to nine divisions. Ctrl + Shift + 1–9 adds the selection to a division without touching its other soldiers.
• Patrol routes. Draw a waypoint loop for a division. Each tank takes its own stretch of the route, and a large division also fills the inside on inner rings, so the whole area stays covered. When one tank comes under attack, the nearest tanks within 128 tiles come to help, more of them for a bigger attack, while the rest hold their posts. The helpers then return to their posts.
• Scout mode. A division splits into up to four teams that each explore their own direction. Flame tanks lead, carriers follow and siege tanks cover them from 30 tiles back. Teams keep pushing outward until water or cliffs stop them.
• Escorts. Assign a division to any player on your team, as a defensive ring around them or an offensive roaming band that clears everything it finds.
• Nest assaults. Offensive divisions gather on an arc outside a biter nest before they attack. Siege tanks shell the worms from out of range, flame tanks push in, and carriers follow. A division of carriers alone gathers, then attacks together. Order a division onto a nest yourself and it surrounds the nest first: its tanks spread evenly round it, out of worm range, and then attack from every side the same way.
• Healing retreat. Badly damaged escort, scout and patrol soldiers drive back to the nearest barracks or mobile headquarters in guarded convoys, heal, and return to their post. A scout team that takes too much damage pulls back together.
• Automatic reinforcements. Link a barracks to a division and set how many of its soldiers it keeps there. It replaces its losses automatically and pauses when its quota is full. Each barracks has its own division and quota, so several barracks with different recipes can feed one division.
• Division insignias. Divisions 1–9 each carry their own insignia: Iron Vanguard, Ashguard, Stormbreakers, Pathfinders, Siege Hammers, Night Watch, Dust Wolves, Steel Serpents and Last Bastion. It flies over the division, shows on the map and heads its row in the division window. Your whole team sees it.
• Veterans. Every soldier and headquarters has its own name. Soldiers earn experience from their kills, weighted by how tough the enemy was, and rise from Recruit to Trained, Seasoned, Veteran, Elite and Legend. Each rank makes a soldier faster, hit harder and shrug off more damage. Point at a unit to see its name, rank, experience and kills.
• Map vision. Soldiers keep the map live around themselves, so you can watch fights from the map view without radars.
• Multiplayer ready. Selections, divisions, route overlays and labels are private to each player. Everything is per force.

Getting started

1. Research Tank Squads (military science).
2. Build a Barracks and a Rally Flag near it.
3. Choose a training recipe in the barracks and supply steel plate, iron gear wheels and ammunition. New soldiers drive out and guard the nearest rally flag.
4. Take the command tool from the shortcut bar and start giving orders.

Units

• The ammunition is used up during training. Soldiers never run out of ammo in the field.
• Your normal weapon research applies: bullet damage for carriers, cannon research for siege tanks, and flamethrower research for flame tanks.
• The siege tank outranges every worm, including behemoths.
• The flame tank has 90% fire resistance, and its flames leave no fires on the ground.
• Electric and nuclear tanks cannot be trained. Each time a carrier is promoted it has a small chance, 1% at Trained rising to 8% at Legend, to be rebuilt as one of them, keeping its name, experience, rank, division and orders.
• The electric tank's plasma ball deals 120 electric damage to its target and 180 to every enemy within 6 tiles. Laser damage research applies.
• The nuclear tank's tactical nuke destroys almost everything within 14 tiles, without craters or fires. It never fires one while its own or allied units or buildings are within 17 tiles of the target, and fires a plain rocket instead. The blast only hurts enemies. It reloads in 20 seconds, down to 6 seconds at Legend. Rocket damage research does not change the nuke.

Shredders

Shredders are unmanned rammers. Train them at a barracks with the Build Shredder recipe. They never join a division and take no orders:

• They split evenly between all your team's divisions and drive calmly at a soldier's pace to park 120 tiles behind each one, on the side of the nearest barracks or headquarters.
• When a division loses half its soldiers within 30 seconds, or its last soldier, its shredders lock onto the strongest enemies nearby, charge at 60 tiles a second and ram them. Each crash deals 1,500 damage and bursts into shrapnel that hits every enemy within 8 tiles for 600 damage. Shrapnel never hurts friends.
• If a target dies before the crash, the shredder picks the next enemy nearby. With none left, it rejoins the divisions.
• A shredder stuck on its way, for example against another nest, rams the enemy blocking it.
• A shredder attacked while parked rams its attacker.
• A patrolling division that sees a swarm of 15 or more attacking enemies within 40 tiles sends one shredder at it, at most one every five seconds.
• When you walk near a large pack of enemies or a nest, up to three shredders follow 80 tiles behind you and strike as soon as you are hurt. They return to the divisions after ten quiet seconds.
• A barracks set to build shredders keeps building them even when its linked division is full.

Constructors

Constructors are unmanned wall-laying vehicles. Train them at a barracks with the Build Constructor recipe. They never join a division and take no orders:

• They build the stone wall and gate ghosts that your construction robots cannot reach, nearest first. They never run out of walls. Each crane cycle sets down up to nine walls and clears trees and rocks in the way.
• Constructors drive straight through forests and rock fields: trees and rocks fall under their tracks. Walls, buildings and water still stop them. Like soldiers, they reveal the map around them.
• Open the Engineers window with the constructor button on the division panel. It appears once you have a constructor. Tick the divisions that escort your constructors: their soldiers are shared out between the constructors, up to eight each. Any new order to a division takes it out of the escort. A constructor with fewer than eight escorts also takes soldiers in no division within 100 tiles; they leave the escort when they join a division or you order them.
• A constructor with fewer than two escorts waits at the nearest barracks or headquarters. Enemies within 80 tiles pause the work until five seconds after the fight. A damaged constructor repairs at a barracks.
• When a nest lies next to the walls, the constructor borrows soldiers from nearby idle divisions, the spare soldiers of patrols (a patrol keeps one soldier per 64 tiles of its route, and at least two) and soldiers in no division. They clear the nest, then return to their jobs. Their divisions' shredders join in if they take heavy losses.

Rings

Constructors can also build fortress rings round your base, ring after ring outward.

• Tick auto next to a constructor in the Engineers window. Constructors on auto build only rings and leave your own wall ghosts to the others. They share the work, each finishing its own stretch of the ring from one end to the other and then starting the nearest free stretch, and park at a barracks or headquarters when every ring is done.
• Before a ring is built on, the constructors on auto search the area inside the outermost ring for spawners and worms and send a task force at each nest, nearest first. A nest too strong for the soldiers in reach waits five minutes while the ring goes on. The inside is searched again every five minutes.
• The Rings area of the window sets the shape (square or circle), the spacing between rings (100 to 1,000 tiles; ring n has radius n times the spacing, and lies at least 80 tiles beyond the ring before it), how many rings to build (1 to 20) and the centre, which you pick on the map with the centre tool. Until you pick one, rings go round your force's spawn. New settings apply to rings not started yet.
• A ring has three rows of wall, a gap and two rows of checkerboard dragon teeth, with a bastion every 32 tiles and solid corners. Gatehouses with one row of 16 gates, flanked by bastions, stand every 128 tiles on small rings and closer together on large ones. Each ring is numbered on the map. Constructors stand clear of the wall while they build, so they never wall themselves in.
• A ring bulges out round your buildings, blueprints and cliffs, and ends at water. Trees and rocks are cleared. A straight rail through the ring gets a row of rail gates; a belt or pipe leaves an open crossing, marked on the map and walled up once you replace it with an underground belt or pipe.
• A ring wall the enemy destroys is rebuilt. A ring wall or ghost you remove yourself stays open.
• Delete a ring (click twice) and the constructors on auto take its walls down; robots may help. A deleted ring can be built again from the current settings.
• Garrison: choose a ring for a division in the window. A quarter of the ring's garrison soldiers spread evenly round it, the rest gather where spawners, worms and biters within 200 tiles are thickest, 9 tiles inside the wall. When the enemy hits a wall, the nearest garrison soldiers rush to it, the division's shredders come, and everyone returns to their posts afterwards. Any new order takes a division out of the garrison.
• Gates do not open for units by themselves, so the mod opens them: soldiers, shredders, constructors and the headquarters crossing a finished ring drive to a gatehouse, wait for it to open, and pass through.

Mobile headquarters

Research Mobile headquarters (automation to utility science), then choose Build Mobile Headquarters in a barracks. It costs 400 steel, 100 gears, 40 electric engines, 40 processing units, 40 solar panels, 40 accumulators and 4 roboports, and takes 60 seconds.

• Body: about 9 by 14 tiles, 400 HP, one-sixth of a carrier's speed. It has no weapon and never fights back, so escort it. It flattens trees, rocks and cliffs in its way, but never buildings.
• Healing: 20 HP per second to every soldier within 24 tiles, also while it drives. Injured escort, scout and patrol soldiers retreat to it when it is nearer than any barracks, and follow it if it drives on.
• Camp: when it parks, it sets up a roboport with 25 times the normal reach (625-tile logistics, 1,375-tile construction), 12 MW of solar decks and a 1 GJ battery. The camp stays where it was while the headquarters drives, and moves to it when it parks again.
• Power: a camp within 12 tiles of one of your electric poles wires itself to that pole, so the grid shares its solar power and battery. It never links two grids.
• Robots: open the headquarters to put construction and logistic robots and repair packs into its roboport. Robots build from your logistic network like any roboport's. If the headquarters is destroyed, its docked robots and repair packs drop on the ground.
• Orders: select it with the command tool and move it or give it a patrol route like any soldier. An attack order moves it to the area; an order onto a nest parks it on the division's side while the tanks attack. Scouting and escort formations leave it where it is.

Veteran ranks

A kill is worth a tenth of the enemy's maximum health in experience: a small biter gives 1.5, a behemoth 300. A siege tank's extra damage lands with its shell. A killing blow is never reduced, and a soldier's record ends with it. The mobile headquarters has a name but no rank. Point at a unit to see its card.

The highest-ranking soldier carries the division's insignia.

Veterans, Elites and Legends are protected by their division:

• Cover: two to five lower-ranked soldiers within 32 tiles walk at the veteran's sides, and stay out of the division's escort formation or patrol posts while they do. The division's soldiers are shared out between its veterans, highest rank first. A small or spread-out division gives no cover.
• Call for help: a veteran without cover that sees ten or more enemies within 40 tiles calls the nearest soldiers of its division and the division's shredders to attack them. The veteran falls back behind them, or to the shredders' backline when nobody can come, and returns to its job once the fight is over.
• Scouting and nest assaults use every soldier, so nobody covers then. A new order ends a call for help, and cover forms again under the new order.

Controls

All keys can be rebound in the controls menu. Each soldier belongs to one division at a time. Drag-selecting soldiers never takes them out of their division; an order to the selection does, but only from a patrolling, scouting, escorting or engineer escort division. Starting a patrol or scouting on a drag selection turns it into the lowest free division.

Escorts in detail

• Defensive: the division holds an evenly spaced ring 160 tiles from the player. When enemies come within 224 tiles of the player or of the ring's centre, the nearest half of the division intercepts them and the rest hold the ring.
• Offensive: the division roams 256–448 tiles from the player and attacks the nearest biters, nests, worms, turrets or enemy players.
• The escort only relocates once the player has stopped and moved more than 64 tiles, so it never chases a train.
• Soldiers below 35% health retreat to the nearest barracks or headquarters within 1,000 tiles and come back at 95%.
• The escorted player can dismiss the escort at any time.

Scouting in detail

• Teams: one team per three soldiers, at most four. A bigger division makes bigger teams. Each kind of tank is spread evenly, and every team gets at least one flame tank or carrier to screen its siege tanks.
• Directions: the teams split the compass from where scouting started, so each explores its own slice. Inside its slice a team always heads for the nearest uncharted chunk.
• Formation: flame tanks at the front, carriers in a V behind them, and siege tanks 30 tiles back, where their cannons still reach past the front. Teams move in 32-tile hops. Once the front or half the team has arrived, the rest get 10 seconds to catch up before the next hop. A tank more than 64 tiles from its team, such as one coming from a merged team, drives after it and takes its place in the formation when it arrives.
• Water: a team never sends its tanks into water. With water ahead it heads for the far bank, up to 160 tiles away, and the pathfinder leads it around the lake; with no bank in sight it follows the shore. A chunk still out of reach after 8 hops along the shore, or 20 hops in all, is skipped for 10 minutes. A chunk of open sea is skipped by every team for 30 minutes.
• Map: each team shows on the map with the division's number and a team letter, such as 3A and 3B, and its insignia. The labels follow merges and go back to the division label when scouting ends.
• Healing: a tank below 35% health drives to the nearest barracks or headquarters within 1,000 tiles and comes back at 95%, with guards in teams of more than 10. A team below half its total health, or down to half its tanks, drives back together and returns when every tank is healed.
• Help: a team that loses 15% of its health within 10 seconds, or loses a tank, falls back one hop and holds. The nearest healthy team within 192 tiles comes to help, while the other teams keep exploring. Once the fight has been quiet for 15 seconds, the team goes around that spot instead of back into it.
• Far out: when everything nearby is charted, a team marches straight outward until it finds fog again. A team blocked by water or cliffs, one that makes 48 hops without charting its target, or one left with only siege tanks joins the nearest team. Scouting stops only when every direction is blocked.

Mod settings

All of these are map settings and can be changed during a game (Settings → Mod settings → Map):

• Defensive ring radius and threat radius
• Offensive band inner and outer edge
• Escort follow distance
• Retreat health, rejoin health, and healing search range
• Soldiers reveal the map (turn this off to save the charting work on very large armies)

Performance

Tank Squads soldiers are native unit entities, the same type as biters. Movement, pathfinding, targeting and damage run in the engine's C++. The mod's scripts only react to events and run one light sweep per second, spread across ten slices. There is no on_tick handler.

In testing, 200 carriers in constant combat cost about 0.02 ms per tick of script time.

Veteran ranks add no per-tick work. Cover adds one read per soldier per second for a division without veterans. A covered veteran costs one position read per second, and its covers are sent again only when the veteran has moved 4 tiles. Kills are counted from enemy deaths only, a Recruit's shots cost no extra engine calls, and names and ranks are shown on a card while you point at a unit rather than drawn over every tank.

Rings are planned one segment at a time: the stretch round one gatehouse, 64 to 128 tiles, or a whole side of a small square ring. Wall ghosts go up in batches of 64, not a whole ring at once. Wall hits reach the script only while a ring has a garrison.

A mobile headquarters' camp moves only when it parks, because the engine takes a few milliseconds to move a roboport with such a large reach. Its once-a-second sweep is otherwise light.

An electric tank adds two script calls per shot, one as it fires and one on impact. A nuclear tank adds two script calls per shot, at most one shot a second. Elite and Legend regeneration runs in the existing once-a-second sweep.

Compatibility

• Works in single player and multiplayer, and can be added to existing saves.
• Soldiers from AAI Programmable Vehicles are separate entities and are not converted.
• Space Age is not required.

License

Copyright (C) 2026 johk. Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0: you may share and modify this mod, as long as your version stays under the same license.