Welder

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The Welder is an armed construction tank from the Tank Foundry.

Welder
(tankcon)
Armed Construction Tank, builds at 7.5 m/s
Welder builder
Stats
Cost 185
Hit Points 1700
Mass 201
Movement Speed (elmo/s) 63
Turn Rate (deg/s) 164
Vision Radius (elmo) 300
Transportable Light
Abilities
Construction
Build Power 7.5
Weapons
Mini Laser
Damage 8.6
Reload Time (s) 0.2
Damage per Second 43
Range (elmo) 234
Projectile Speed (elmo/s) 880

Description

Heaviest among the constructors and armed with a small defensive tower, the Welder can defend itself against light enemy attacks. It also boasts above-average building power, but is quite pricey.

Tactics and Strategy[edit]

While seemingly an easy unit to understand, the Welder breaks up some core unit interactions, and can be a pain to deal with.

Welders are sturdy, having health on the level of an Ogre, and while their weaponry does not seem all that harmful, their resilience and possible defense structures around make it hard to utilize raiders against them. In the early game, you generally want to avoid confrontation and divert your raiders to scouting or trying out enemy's economy. Of course, if you know what you're doing, you can always swarm the Welder when it's out of position, disable it, or use other classes and options, like outranging it with skirmishers.

The Welder becomes much more of a problem in case of a strategy involving their mono-spam. Having a big health pool and construction powers makes a lot of them into a tough obstacle. Any battle taken near a swarm of Welders will allow your opponent to immediately turn in all the reclaim and patch their Welders up. They can also utilize defense structures, having the metal income to spare. At a certain critical mass Welders become an extremely high threat, being able to build or heal in seconds. Tips for fighting off such a force:

  • Welder army requires a big energy investment, so it might be a good idea to target enemy's economy.
  • Tightly packed Welders are easy prey if you manage to disable them. Outlaws and Limpets with their slow effect are effective and easy to use.
  • Don't bet on air, as Welders will be fast to put up AA defenses in the hands of an experienced player.
  • Move fast. Each lost battle will give a large boost of reclaim to the enemy.