Survival

**Survival** is a Game Mode in Micro Tanks. It can be unlocked when the player beats Mission Royale. This game mode challenges the player to survive as long as possible.

## Gameplay

The game begins with a green banner displaying "SURVIVAL" and "HOW LONG WILL YOU LAST?" along with the normal fanfare. The player is in a large and totally open arena, much larger than an arena of a standard mission, with a moving camera that is centred around the player's position. In the centre of the arena is an immobile and indestructible Rainbow Tank, also known as the Survival Tank. In a similar fashion to the Rainbow Tank fought in Mission Spectra, the tank fires Tank Eggs. These are coloured "eggs" that follow a straight path in the direction they are fired, then after a few seconds morph into the enemy tank of the corresponding colour.

The turret of the Survival Tank continuously rotates anticlockwise, and a single Tank Egg is fired out on a regular basis. The player must survive with these tank eggs being fired out as long as possible. The player enters with their standard number of lives, magazine, mine size, and speed.

Every 15 seconds, a Chest spawns in the arena with a random location. This brings power-ups for the player to pick up.

Like in a boss stage, when the player dies, they will respawn at the location that they died a few seconds later. The game ends when the player runs out of lives. Unlike the Main Campaign and other campaigns, a scoreboard is shown at the end showing the player's top 10 scores.

The Mint Tank is exclusive to this game mode. Tank eggs throughout the gamemode have a chance of being replaced with a Mint Egg.

This mode can be played 2-player, although doing so is not recommended. This is because, unless player 1 is dead, the camera will always focus on player 1. Player 2 can very easily end up off-camera and die off-screen. That said, the player 2 cursor cannot end up off-screen.

## Progression

Survival is played out in the form of "grades" of difficulty. These grades determine the colour of the tank eggs that can be fired, the frequency at which they are fired, the odds of any egg being replaced with a Mint Egg, and what power-ups can be found in the chests.

### Grade 1 - 0 kills

Survival Mode begins at Grade 1. Only the Grey Tank, Celeste Tank, and Yellow Tank can appear in this grade. There is a 0% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 3.5 seconds.

Power-ups?

### Grade 2 - 7 kills

At 7 kills, the player progresses to Grade 2. Now, Teal Tanks and Purple Tanks can be fired, as well as the tanks from Grade 1. There is a 2.5% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 3.33 seconds.

### Grade 3 - 19 kills

At 19 kills, the player progresses to Grade 3. In addition to all the Grade 2 tanks, Red Tanks, Lime Tanks, and Azure Tanks join the mix. There is a 3.3% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 3.17 seconds. Since Lime Tanks can be fired out here, this is where the game starts to get significantly harder.

### Grade 4 - 41 kills

At 41 kills, the player progresses to Grade 4. In addition to all the Grade 3 tanks, Brown Tanks, Lilac Tanks, and Rose Tanks join the mix. There is a 4% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 3 seconds.

### Grade 5 - 72 kills

At 72 kills, the player progresses to Grade 5. In addition to all the Grade 4 tanks, Cyan Tanks and Maroon Tanks join the mix. There is a 4.8% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 2.83 seconds. Due to the difficulty of eliminating Maroon Tanks in Survival Mode, this is where the game's difficulty starts to really ramp up. This grade will present a wall for many newer players without upgrades.

### Grade 6 - 113 kills

At 113 kills, the player progresses to Grade 6. In addition to all the Grade 5 tanks, Green Tanks and Orange Tanks join the mix. There is a 5.9% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 2.75 seconds.

### Grade 7 - 152 kills

At 152 kills, the player progresses to Grade 7. In addition to all the Grade 6 tanks, Olive Tanks and Navy Tanks join the mix. There is a 7.1% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 2.66 seconds.

### Grade 8 - 197 kills

At 197 kills, the player progresses to Grade 8, the highest grade. In addition to all the Grade 7 tanks, Pink Tanks join the mix, thus completing all tanks that can appear in the Main Campaign. There is an 8.3% chance any of the eggs will be replaced with a Mint Egg. An egg is fired every 2.5 seconds.

Upon reaching grade 8, the player will earn double medals per kill.

### Beating Survival Mode

At 350 kills, the Survival Tank will stop firing eggs. After 15 seconds, the game will end, and the player will be taken to the Game Over screen, where the text at the top will display "THE RAINBOW TANK HAS RUN OUT OF EGGS! YOU WIN!" As a reward, the player will be given 1000 medals.

## Royal Tanks

At any stage of Survival, no matter what grade you are at, there is a 1 in 2500 chance that any egg will be replaced with a Royal Egg. This is a larger egg that will morph into a Royal Tank. This is obviously very dangerous. However, if killed in Survival Mode, a Royal Tank counts as 10 kills, and will drop a Mega Bullet power-up 100% of the time.

## Out-of-Bounds Grey Tank Easter Egg

Due to the moving camera, if the player goes to any of the walls of the arena, they can see out-of-bounds. After several layers of metal crates, the wooden floor pattern appears to continue, albeit a darker shade. The player can only see a small part of this, however.

If the player goes to the bottom-right corner, they will just about see a Grey Tank in the far reaches of what is visible out-of-bounds. There is no way in-game to reach it. The tank never fires, and its turret never moves. It is in fact, not a real tank, but simply the sprite of one, there as an easter egg.

## Trivia

* In the Main Campaign, getting a 25 Killstreak will only give you an extra life if you are at a Global Dynamic Difficulty of 1.5 or less. In Survival Mode, however, you will get an extra life at a 25 killstreak no matter what your GDD is.
* Before Navy Tank's teleporting AI was improved in v0.12.2, Navy Tanks used to almost never teleport due to bugs.
* In v0.9 (Test Build 9), the version Survival Mode was first added, the Survival Tank's turret locked onto the player instead of rotating anticlockwise. This meant the player could stay in one spot and spawnkill any tank as soon as it morphed. In the next major release, v0.10 (Test Build 10), the turret mechanics were changed to the current ones.
* According to Cinnabar, coding the moving camera was one of the hardest things to do in the development of Micro Tanks.