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| Super Tank | |
| Health |
1,500 |
| Attack Damage |
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| Found in | |
| [Source] | |
The Super Tank, also referred to as the Tank Guardian or Tank Boss, is one of the most powerful Strogg in Quake II. It is a large tread-mounted behemoth sporting a heavy chain gun on one flank and a rocket launcher on the other. Only two are encountered in the single-player campaign. The first Super Tank is encountered in Grid Control of Unit 3, and represents the game's first "boss fight"; another is encountered in the Power Plant at the start of Unit 6.
They do not appear in The Reckoning or Ground Zero (although The Reckoning includes an upgraded version - the Beta Class Super Tank). One Super Tank appears in each of the two console ports - in the Nintendo 64 version of Quake II, in the Storage Facility; in the Playstation version of Quake II, in Grid Control (the Super Tank in Power Plant is replaced with an Arachnid).
The 2023 remaster makes its chain gun less accurate but makes its rockets more accurate, and gives it a new grenade launcher attack. The remaster includes a new single-player campaign Call of the Machine, in which six Super Tanks are encountered - some have different health values, but their behaviour is essentially the same.
Behaviour and attacks
Chain Gun: The Super Tank's heavy chain gun fires a long stream of bullets dealing 6 damage per hit. In the original game, the Super Tank's chain gun cannot reliably be avoided by strafing - it has excellent accuracy at any range, even against a strafing target. However, this accuracy is reduced in the 2023 remaster - a strafing player may avoid most of the damage, but some bullets may still hit.
Rocket Launcher: The Super Tank's other flank boasts a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher which fires a volley of three rockets in succession. Each rocket deals 50 damage, therefore a volley is capable of 150 damage. There is a pre-fire delay as the rocket launcher is raised into position, giving the player more time to react. In the original game, the three rockets will be launched directly towards the player's current position, so can be easily dodged by strafing, but in the 2023 remaster the Super Tank gained the ability to "lead" its rockets towards the position a player is moving to.
Grenade Launchers (2023 remaster): The Super Tank fires two grenades from the launchers mounted above its tracks. These are capable of firing at a high elevation, although the Super Tank will only fire if can see its target.
Super Tanks have a reasonable turn of speed, but are a huge target - much bigger than any other Strogg except for the other bosses. A player using cover can quite reasonably aim at a corner of its body while being hidden from the Super Tank's view in return, thereby avoiding return fire.
Super Tanks are not susceptible to infighting. A Super Tank's gunfire might accidentally hit the Berserkers that accompany it, but this will not cause them to deliberately start fighting each other.
Strategies
- The Super Tank's first appearance is in the Grid Control level in Unit 3. Two Tanks are stationed on opposite sides of a large square block. After they are killed, the block will blast open and the Super Tank will appear, accompanied by four Berserkers. If you have a Quad Damage artifact, then it's a simple matter to activate Quad Damage, kill both Tanks with the Chain Gun or Hyperblaster and still have enough time left on the Quad Damage to kill the Super Tank as well. With Quad Damage active, it'll only take around 50 bullets from the Chain Gun or around 20 hyperblaster shots to kill the Super Tank. If you have an Invulnerability as well, so much the better - activate it at the same time as the Quad Damage and the fight will be a breeze. But if you only have an Invulnerability and no Quad Damage, it'd be best to wait until the Super Tank appears before activating Invulnerability.
- If you don't have the above power-ups (or if you simply don't wish to use them here) then it's very wise to use cover to your advantage against this foe. Its Rocket Launcher is easily dodged, but its Chain Gun is deadly accurate in the original game no matter how much you strafe - cover is the only reliable defence against it (however, it is less accurate against a strafing target in the 2023 remaster). There are two basic strategies to choose between, here - the first is to equip the Super Shotgun or Grenade Launcher and gradually retreat around the pillars, taking your shot around one of the pillars and then retreating around it to avoid the Super Tank's return fire - the Super Tank is such a huge target that it's easy to get a full-damage Super Shotgun hit, and it'll take thirteen such hits to put down the monster - or a comparable number of direct hits from the Grenade Launcher. However, take care not to get jumped by the Berserkers in the process - for this reason, the Super Shotgun is the safer choice, since you won't accidentally blast a Berserker at close range and hurt yourself with splash damage. The second option is to equip the Hyperblaster or Chain Gun and follow the same basic pattern. The Super Tank is such a huge target that you can aim for a corner of its body while the center of its body is not visible to you, meaning it can't see you to return fire. Ideally, you want to be retreating towards the left of the pillar while the Super Tank follows you to your right - you can then aim at the bottom right corner (from your perspective) of the tank's body, keeping its more dangerous chain gun out of view.
- In the 2023 remaster, the Grid Control encounter is arguably more dangerous because even though the Super Tank's chain gun took a nerf to its accuracy, the Berserkers in the arena became much stronger, capable of hurling the player around helplessly with their leap shockwave and leaving the player more vulnerable to the Super Tank in the process. Therefore this fight could be said to merit the use of an Invulnerability or Quad Damage more so than it did in the original game. An alternative strategy could be the lure the Berserkers down the lifts to the lower level one by one, allowing a player to deal with them one at a time without taking fire from the Super Tank in the process.
- The second Super Tank is encountered in the Power Plant in Unit 6, guarding the red key - you'll hear it beneath you as the level begins. It's a fairly straightforward matter to lob grenades down at it from your starting position, and it won't be able to hit you at all if you're relatively careful. If you're low on grenades then the Super Shotgun or Railgun do a good job as well, peeking into sight to take a shot then ducking back to avoid its return fire. The only thing to be wary of in this encounter is the presence of several Berserkers in the passageway ahead - be careful not to venture too far and alert them, lest they catch you unawares and potentially knock you off the walkway.
- The 2023 remaster allows the Super Tank in the Power Plant to make use of its new grenade launchers. These can fire at a high elevation and are capable of lobbing a pair of grenades up to the ledge. Therefore, if you use the "peek into sight to take your shot" strategy mentioned above, then be ready to take a few steps back if the Super Tank returns fire with grenades. However, the Super Tank still needs line of sight to its target fire its grenades in the first place, so if you use the Grenade Launcher instead to fire at it indirectly, then you need not fear any return fire.
Appearance statistics
| Campaign | Any difficulty |
|---|---|
| Quake II | 2 |
| The Reckoning | - |
| Ground Zero | - |
| Quake II 64 | 1 |
| Quake II PSX | 1 |
| Call of the Machine* | 6 |
*Some of the Super Tanks in Call of the Machine have increased health (and in one case, rather different size) and some are named individually.
Death Messages
- Player almost dodged a Supertank's rocket (Rocket Launcher)
- Player ate a Supertank's rocket (Rocket Launcher)
- Player was chaingunned by a Supertank (Chaingun)
Sounds
| Sounds | |
|---|---|
| The Super Tank talking | |
| The Super Tank moving | |
| The Super Tank being injured |
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| The Super Tank being killed | |
Gallery
Trivia
- Super Tanks appear to have weapon barrels above their treads. The fact that they are angled upwards suggests that they might have been used as Grenade Launchers at some point, but were scrapped for the final version. These have been restored in the 2023 remaster.
- The accuracy of the chain gun wielded by the Super Tank (and the Beta Class Super Tank found in The Reckoning) sets it apart from almost all the other chain guns and machine guns used by the Strogg. The chain guns used by Enforcers, Hornets and Jorg, and the machine guns used by Gunner and the Machine Gun Guard all aim at where the player's position was a very brief moment ago, so they'll miss a player who is consistently strafing (although the Machine Gun Guard may occasionally get a lucky hit, ironically due to it being slightly inaccurate). Tanks and Tank Commanders are different since they fire their machinegun in a wide sweep rather than attempting to aim all of their shots at their target.