Fortress

The Fortress.

**Fortress** is an area-effect tank, considered by many to be one of, if not *the* strongest non-fantasy tank in the game, Tankster.io.

## Design

Like most non-fantasy tanks, the Fortress has the typical circular base. For weapons, three Swarm Drone Turrets are used, inherited from the Cruiser, along with a trio of Trap placers, a trait passed down from the Trap Guard. This all together makes the Fortress have *6* turrets, and gives it a 'Fortress-y' look.

## Technical

The Fortress has very high total firepower, in addition to having above-average movement speed, which allows it to have incredible offensive abilities. Another thing to note is the traps. Traps are known for great defensive play, in addition to countering the main weakness of swarm drones, the Triangle Branch. When this all happens at once, you get a tank that can chase down anything forever, and can defend with great nettlesomeness, waiting for the opponent to make a fatal mistake.

### Modes

In addition to it's normal avatar, the Fortress also has 4 other "modes", so to speak. The Assault Fortress, Buffed Fortress, FortressX, and Heavy Fortress.

#### **Assault Fortress**

The Assault Fortress looks very similar to the regular Fortress, but with a single auto-cannon added. This new-found turret shoots bullets with high speed and penetration, and adequate reload. In addition to this, we get a FOV buff, which makes high scores more probable than ever. To counter-balance the scales a bit here, movement speed is heavily nerfed when you transform into the Assault Fortress, which leaves it up to personal opinion about when to use this mode of the famed tank - Fortress.

#### **Buffed Fortress**

This is what it says on the tin. A buffed version of the regular Fortress, as if it needed it. An auto-turret, reminiscent of that found on the Non-Fantasy Guardian tank, is added in the center of the Fortress' body, which has below average fire-power, but that is not the main reason why so many people favour the Buffed Fortress, no . . .

The main change, though also the one most commonly overlooked, is the greatened Swarm-Drone reload, which helps immensely when fighting teams of players. Highly regarded as the "best" fortress variant.

#### **FortressX**

The FortressX is essentially the Assault Fortress, except with no FOV buff, a much worse auto-cannon, normal movement speed, and for *some reason*, a reload nerf. This tank is worse in practically every way to the regular Fortress, so, simply put, it should almost never be used.

#### **Heavy Fortress**

Ah yes, the Heavy Fortress. The only mode of the tank that has no drones. Instead, we get huge Trap-Placers, Six side-auto-cannons, spaced-out in groups of two around the perimeter of the tank's body, and an Assault Fortress central auto-cannon. We also gain most of the FOV of the Assault variant, in exchange for said variant's lacklustre movement. In general, because of the absence of drones, this tank need-not be used when other options are available.

## History

The Fortress tank was "discovered" by a very highly-skilled player, that went by the name of Kek, prior to his leave from the game. By "discovered", I mean "discovered to be great for score", and oh boy is it ever. The first substantial score he achieved was a 13mil with 120 kills in TDM Non-Fantasy, on June 2nd, 2020, though it was fed around 20 kills by spank. This ruined the otherwise-legit score, as it would have been completely fine without the extra kills kek thought he needed (That might sound very unprofessional, but Kek specifically stated that because of those 20 kills, he considers that score to be illegit). In the following days, he completed several other impressive scores, which are unanimously assumed to be legitimate. Three days later, a 9mil, 48 hours after that, an 8mil denial (98k under). Then lastly, on the 11th of the same moon, Kek submitted a 12mil Fortress Score, which is currently the highest score cataloged with the tank, given a 100% agreed-upon legitimacy.

Two months later, we had a new Fortress master - Overkill, or who sometimes goes by the nickname of "Neo". On August 7th, he achieved an 8mil Fortress Score, which was ratio'ed down to only 7mil. And then, a fortnight after that, on the 21st, he submitted his 21mil Fortress 4TDM World Record, though there is some controversy as to whether it was fed or not.

We never saw a Fortress score higher than that, though the tank was still played by many-a-player. Just before New Year's, the 4TDM N-F server restart time was raised to 4 hours, and on December 29th, 2020, the elusive Danger made one of their many attempts to achieve a 40mil score. Unfortunately, they died early on, at 7mil. Though all was not entirely lost, considering the score was, from start to finish, only 48 and a half minutes, making it the second fastest 7mil score ever, out-done only by imPERator/'s Gammaccelerator Score.

Our next historic score to be discussed here is by JTS.Dawnstar[], and is the second 10mil he achieved on his way to ten 10mils. There is April Fools' Day, and then there is April *Cools'* day. On the 30th of April, 2021, JTS achieved a 10mil Fortress, though he only died because he chose to leave, instead of continuing to gain score. Who knows how high of a score he would've gotten, assuming he decided to stay within the game.

When we got the Fortress variants, there was more opportunity for score. Danger, on June 20th, 2021, got a 3mil Fortress with **112 kills**. During the score-gaining process, the Buffed Fortress variant was the main mode used. When they submitted their score, Danger simply left the comment "i mean i had a server".

## Strategy

Note: These apply to the Regular Fortress, Assault Fortress, and Buffed Fortress - the three best Fortress variants.

### As the Fortress

The Fortress can dominate most tanks even when playing completely mindlessly, so the only thing to address here is how to deal with its counters.

There is one non-fantasy hard counter to Fortress, and that is the Jump Smasher. One of the easiest ways to deal with these is to keep your drones close to your body, and use your traps offensively, though that does not mean you can rush your opponent. Once the Jump Smasher is at about half health, or if it starts regenerating, you want to hit it with the clump of drones you've accumulated, which should get it to dangerously low health.

Aside from Jump Smasher, you will occasionally see a Fortress getting killed by a Smasher or Landmine - the two soft counters to Fortress. The way to deal with these is to simply use the same strategy as with Jump Smasher, except it is usually better to hit them with a clump of drones *before* you start using your traps. This is because a Smasher will have a more difficult time dodging ranged attacks.

### Against the Fortress

As stated previously, using either Jump Smasher, Smasher, or Landmine, you can give Fortress players a run for their money, and the best way to do this is to simply 'annoy them'. Wait until they start fighting someone else, then go in and try for the kill.

## Builds

### The 73 Fortress Build

3337777300 is a very versatile build, capable of handling 2v1s and hunters with ease.