Guide Version: 1.0 - First draft

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Rather than list all the GDI vehicles then all the Nod vehicles, I thought it would help to list them side by side in groups relative to their use. This helps compare the counterparts and understand the balance differences between the teams.

This guide uses HD versions of the Purchase Terminal pictures.



Keyboard Shortcut
The number in the top-left of the vehicle picture represents the keyboard shortcut to purchase it. When you are in the Purchase Terminal, pressing the 7 key quickly takes you to the Vehicles page. In this example, pressing the 3 key will then purchase the Mobile Artillery.

Cost
The number in the bottom-left is the default cost of the vehicle. If your base has a Power Plant that is subsequently destroyed, this figure will double.

These vehicles are predominantly useful for their transport capabilities rather than fighting power, however their mounted machine guns still pose a threat to infantry and can chip away at the lower-healthed vehicles too. Don't expect them to be any use against buildings or the big tanks though.


Nod's Buggy is cheaper and quicker, but GDI's Hum-vee has more health/armour. Both of these vehicles are usually only used to quickly return to the battlefield, to rush into an undefended base or to sprint out to the harvester with a fellow engineer and attack it and the early-game infantry.



GDI's APC is marginally quicker and slimmer. APCs are useful for carrying passengers, particularly engineers when charging towards a building in the enemy base. They're also a good anti-infantry weapon, being almost as quick as the Humm-vee/Buggy, the same machine gun but having much more armour.

GDI's Mobile Rocket Launcher System and Nod's Mobile Artillery are the cheap-but-good vehicles that often are the first to roll out into the middle ground, and hold it. A little slow but packing a punch, they're particularly useful for sieges, in which they pelt an enemy building from afar.


The MRLS is marginally quicker, whilst it's rockets can turn mid-air they must be fired from the direction the MRLS is facing. The rockets will curve in the air towards where you had your mouse pointed when fired, as such a crafty MRLS driver can aim their rockets behind a cliff/cover, hitting their target even though they don't have line of sight. The Arty may only fire one rocket per reload, but it packs more punch, favouring quality over quantity.

When it comes to the main brunt of each teams' vehicles, the different styles of each team are far more evident: GDI favouring strength and durability, Nod favouring bespoke features. As such it would not be a clear comparison to pair these vehicles, so I have listed them in two sections based on team.


The Medium Tank is the all-round main brunt of GDI's tanks, it's slower than Nod's tanks below but is still pretty agile and can really take on anyone or any thing. The Mammoth speaks for itself, and even slowly heals itself when it's got less than 50% health (at a rate of 2hp/s). However it is incredibly slow (infantry run slightly faster than a full-speed Mammy!) and you won't squeeze past a line of friendly comrades. If they can manage to get close enough, enemy infantry can take advantage of a Mammoth's dead-zone, since the turret can't hit them right next to the Mammoth itself. For best results, Mammoth tanks need the backup of fellow engineers to repair them, as Nod players will often concentrate their firepower on an approaching Mammy when they spot it.


The Flame Tank is great against buildings, and with sturdy armour it can take a beating from the AGT as it rolls into the GDI base. What it lacks however is range, with enemies seeing you from a distance being your main problem. Whilst not particularly slow, you'll need to get up to them to do them any damage, during which they can either pelt you whilst you make your way over, or in the case of Humm-vees and APCs simply drive away faster. Rush a group of flamers into the enemy base however, and you've got a powerful force on your hands.

Light tanks are essentially Nod's Medium tank, they do less damage per shot but they're cheaper, quicker and have a lower profile which is useful when taking cover behind mounds or hills. On public servers their versatility is often overlooked, perhaps due to the allure of saving a little more credits for the Stealth Tank or a character upgrade, but it can be statistically/financially argued that the Light Tank is the best tank in the game!



When you get in a Stealth Tank (commonly called a stank), they quickly go invisible to the enemy team. They can see a shimmer if you get too close, and the AGT isn't fooled by the cloak, but otherwise you're able to travel around undetected. The cloak temporarily goes away whilst you're firing and if the server has enemy radar turned on players who pay attention to a mysterious moving icon might give you trouble, but otherwise the stank is a formidable vehicle. Stank rushes are a common tactic to surprise GDI with a sudden onslaught of damage.

Faster than land vehicles and often difficult to hit, aircraft are not available to purchase on some maps. In maps that do support aircraft, the base buildings have stairs leading to the roof which can be useful for planting beacons in odd places or infiltrating the Hand of Nod through the windows.

Aircraft in Renegade are all helicopters that can ascend/descend, move and stay still in the air (rather than planes which need to move constantly). To go up you press the Jump key, to go down you press the Crouch key.

A little known trick is that by holding the Ctrl key whilst pressing A or D you can strafe in an aircraft. Whereas if you don't hold the key down you'll turn on your axis.


The GDI's orca and Nod's apache are the assault aircraft. Aside from cosmetics the only difference between them is that the Orca has the rockets as primary fire and chain gun as secondary fire, where as the Apache is the reverse.

Both are lethal to infantry, dealing 40 hp for a bodyshot and 200 if you headshot. Against tanks the best strategy to get directly above the target and fire down at them, since most tanks are unable to aim at you from this position. In air-to-air fights the key is to be above your opponent, since your weapon is mounted below the body of the vehicle and aims down the way. If you can't get above them or if you're both at the sky limit, press S to move backwards- which tilts the body of the vehicle backwards and raises your weapon's angle too.

Both the Orca and Apache are quite fragile though, it's important to outmanoeuvre your enemy to avoid taking damage to begin with. Your greatest weakness is enemy ramjet characters (Havoc and Sakura) whose weapons deal significant damage to you and are instant shots impossible to dodge.



With no weapons and half the health/armour of an APC, Transport Helicopters are a hard sell statistically. They're also 200 credits dearer (400 if the Power Plant has been destroyed). As a result their effectiveness is either situational or luck. For example:

• if the enemy team doesn't have much in the way of air defence, but does have a ground presence, the transport helicopter can swoop 4 engineers into their base the quickest
  
• if someone onboard has a beacon, they could plant it on top of an enemy building and the transport helicopter could sit on top of it, or squash incoming enemy engineers trying to disarm the beacon
  
• you could use to act as a decoy rush to distract the enemy whilst the real threat charges in