Okay, tanking was fun. I took a railgun and zoomed around the match with my Sica, and actually had some fun.

So, I'm gonna make a tanking alt. However, if I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do it right. I don't want to waste SP, and would love to hear some advice from Vet tankers on how to build it.

I like to take on targets from a distance, and engaging Infantry will be a secondary objective for me. I want to suppress targets, and cover my squad. Also, I must be able to take out Anti-Infantry tanks.

So, it seems like a Missle Tank is the right road for me.

Build tips, advice on how to spend SP, insults over how much of a noob I am; all are valid things to say here.

So go ahead. Let me have it.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... railgun has a 600m hard-capped range. Missile is maybe a third of that.

For fighting enemy tanks, and ONLY enemy tanks, the Railgun has huge burst damage, and can often crack an enemy tank open before they have time to pop their actives if you catch them off-guard.

If you want better infantry options, and a bias towards anti-armour (which are the most popular anti-infantry tanks), then it's probably worth bringing Missiles.

If you plan to disregard infantry, Shield tanks have the best resistance against most hand-held AV weapons currently in use. If you notice your shields starting to drop, and it's not because of an enemy vehicle, popping a hardener makes you near-invulnerable. If it's a Forge Gun or a vehicle, it's worth considering a second hardener (if you brought one). Armour tanks are better for actively fighting on the front lines, because they have the larger raw HP pool to work with, but the damage they take from well-placed AV infantry can help to balance that out if your tank doesn't have good infantry support.

If you really want to find your niche, and you're leaning towards Missiles already, train up JUST enough to run the Standard Large Missile Turret, then experiment with Militia versions of EVERYTHING - you can build a Sica and/or Soma with any weapon set you want EXCEPT a Large Missile Turret without needing to invest any SP into anything vehicle-related. Skilled tankers will dominate you if they see you coming (and actually skilled tankers as opposed to "skilled because SP" tankers WILL see you coming), but you should be able to get a feel for what your tank does and how it performs with the various options available.

As a long-term consideration, it's worth skilling into at least a couple of different tank setups so you can handle varied opponents, rather than sticking to one possible role and only reall ybeing useful when your ideal target is on the field.

I recommend a shield tank for your needs, mainly because of the increased maneuverability (very useful when using a rail). Also because armor tanks have a hard time fitting missiles because of the high cpu cost

tanks have changed, their entire fitting scheme has changed. people who have just started this build could also give you sound fitting and skilling advice.

save 1.6 the SP sink for missile turrets has always been larger than missile turrets are actually worth. the logic is that they are a happy medium for blasters and rails having good range fire rate and infantry suppression capabilities however it never translates as well as it sounds.

if you are running rails don't get close to blaster tanks, they will pull traversal and kill you

I've beat blasters in CQC with a rail. But, as has been mentioned, that requires experience.

I've beat blasters in CQC with a rail. But, as has been mentioned, that requires experience.

nothing is impossible and if you catch the blaster off guard you've got a pretty good shot, however if the blaster tank hardens it's pretty easy to simply run circles around the rail tank and pop it.

nothing is impossible and if you catch the blaster off guard you've got a pretty good shot, however if the blaster tank hardens it's pretty easy to simply run circles around the rail tank and pop it.

Update:

Played Caldari FW to get a missile turret. Was fun until I got double teamed by two rail tanks. Missiles can't take on a shield tank AT ALL. You can't run either

I might just end up using Rail tanks until I can get a decent fit going for my Gunnlogi.

Also: WHY ON EARTH DOES THE LARGE MISSILE HAVE THE WORLDS SMALLEST BLAST RADIUS?!?!?!?

Yeah, Missile turrets will break your heart when it comes to fighting Infantry. You'd think there'd be raw chunks of meat spilling in the air, or something. The irony is that small missile turrets are devastating against infantry, but large turrets are a blind exercise in dumb luck.

Rails on the other hand, get the job done nicely. It's an automatic one-hit kill too. Lining up the shots can be a chore, but the accuracy is such that if your gun-sight turns red, you're guaranteed a kill. I'm only good at picking off stationary targets. I've heard Charchar odell, and Void echo can rail moving infantry, though. Sounds pretty bad ass.

Nothing is more satisfying than popping infantry who are dumb enough to stand still, or sniping moving targets.

Rail tanking WELL is an art form, a melody of precision.

Maybe they will give us what we want with a new class of tanks. I heard that a form of Artillery HAV was coming along sometime.

Maybe that is when we will get the Super Suppression Missile Turret.

Imagine having a 48 round clip of Missiles, with 8.0m Splash and only 100 Splash damage. Say goodbye to clusters of enemies, and you could actually suppress a group of targets if you want your team to move up.

Think, mobile area denial. ON STERIODS.