Factory

Not to be confused with the Necromancer which resembles the appearance of the .

The  is a Tier 4 tank and one of the six current upgrade choices of Overseer. It may not upgrade any further. Upon upgrading all Overseer barrels are replaced with a Spawner. The Factory may also spawn new players in team modes as a result of the November 19th update.

Design
The Factory features a square body with one Factory Spawner mounted at the front. In addition to that, all the spawned Drones present Barrels of their own. It is the second playable tank to have such a shape, the first being the Necromancer.

Technical
The Factory can control up to six Factory AI Drones, when not controlled by the player, the drones will go after nearby entities, continually shooting very small bullets (slightly larger than Gunner’s) at them.

Factory Drones
The Factory Drones present barrels of their own from which they can shoot bullets. Individual drone bullets do not deal much damage, relatively speaking they’re about 53% as strong as an Auto Turret’s bullets. But the Factory makes up for it in numbers, when combined, the firepower of the 6 Drone-barrels is around 96% of Basic Tanks’. Given equal builds, each Factory Drone shoots as many Bullets as a maxed out Reload Basic Tank; albeit with lower range and Bullet Speed.

As drones, the Factory’s weapons present increased durability when compared to other projectiles, their bodies being much stronger than normal triangle drones (twice as durable as Overlord’s) yet slower. The drones spawn from the Factory’s Spawner at a fairly regular rate, equal to that of the Manager’s drone spawn rate. When Keeping the drone’s hp into account, the firepower of the Drone-Spawner alone is equal to that of the Overlord’s 4 spawners combined.

Controls
The Factory drones present more complex behavior than other drone types (depending of the their location in relation to the cursor). For Simplicity, the different effects the cursor has over the drones will be described as “Control-Effects”.

Attract
Through the use of Left-Click, drones will be forced to perform various actions while shooting in the cursor’s direction:
 * If the drones are far away from the pointer they will be “Far-Attracted” to the cursor’s position.
 * Once a distance of about 16 Background Squares from the cursor is met; the Drones will start moving around it in a “Counter-Clockwise Orbit”, shooting in its direction at the same time.
 * If the distance is lower, the drones will be repeled until the orbit’s range is met. (For simplicity, this control effect receives the name of “Close-Attract”).
 * Due to the points above, the drones won’t ram targets on their own. However, they can still be tricked into doing it by hovering one’s mouse past the target’s position. This will force the Factory Drones to keep going in the cursor’s direction. For they won’t reach the orbit’s boundaries until they are past the enemy’s location.

Repel
Through the use of Right-Click, drones will be forced to perform various actions while shooting outwards:
 * Any drones between 15-18 Background Squares from the cursor will move in a “Clockwise-Orbit”, gradually moving away from the pointer.
 * Past the 18 Background Square limit the drones stop orbiting, being “Far-Repelled” like any normal drones.
 * Below 5 Background Squares the orbit collapses and drones are forced together in a star formation. This is the only exception where drones actually “attract” while using right click. (For simplicity, this control effect receives the name of “Close-Repel”).

AI
When not controlled, the Factory’s Drones go after nearby Polygons and Tanks, but once the player is damaged, they will target whatever damaged their Factory.

Stat effects
It is good to note that Stat upgrades are instantly given to any spawned drones upon upgrading, unlike other Drone Classes, where the Drones must respawn to get the new Stats. Only the Drone’s Body Damage and Health require respawn to take an effect.
 * bullet Speed: Increases Factory Drones’ bullet Speed and Movement Speed.
 * bullet Penetration: Increases Factory Drones’ bullet Penetration and Health.
 * bullet Damage: Increases Factory Drones’ bullet and Body Damage (or simply Health).
 * Reload: Increases Factory’s spawning rate of Factory Drones and as well Factory Drones’ rate of fire.
 * Health Regen, Max Health, Body Damage and Movement Speed only make an effect on the Factory, just as how they buff other tanks.

Strategy

 * Strong Against: If skilled, the Factory can beat almost any class in a one-on-one battle, mostly because of the high amount of damage its drones can inflict if used well.
 * Weak Against: However, its limited Movement and Bullet Speed, and the short distance its drones’ bullets can travel, makes the class quite vulnerable to teamers and groups of enemies. Any tanks faster than 7 Movement Speed can ignore the Factory altogether.

As the Factory
Players should keep Drones to themselves at all times

When they’re not attacking anyone; moving with the drones in Star-Formation will protect the players from incoming projectiles while also hiding their bullets (and thus their location) from enemies.

The drones have a rather low speed for drones, but they still make for a pretty strong force, both offensively and defensively (especifically in close-range); their capacity to execute both actions decreases the further away the drones’ position is from the player’s body.

When they are in battle, the players should also move with their drones, as their increased firepower can protect from heavy damage, while their similar speed permits for offensive maneuvers at the same time.

Due to its low range, high DPS and complex controls (orbits), the factory benefits from close range fights the most, as it can use its similar drone-body speed to simultaneously protect itself and attack at the same time, avoiding being weak due to its slow drones altogether.


 * Note:
 * Ambushes are always welcome, no matter the class. The un-erase-ability of the Factory’s drones. And the class’ enhanced FoV let’s it squash any non careful tanks.
 * For a more in-depth version of this section see | Factory vs X

Against the Factory

 * If the player is a tank on the Sniper branch with a larger FoV (most notably the Assassin branch), fire at the Factory when it’s distracted or on auto mode or if its Drones are far away enough. Keeping a Factory at the edge of the screen while changing position every time the Stalker or Ranger fires is crucial to successfully kill the Factory. The Predator can use the same strategy as a Ranger, right clicking to see the Factory and firing when its Drones are absent.
 * Players using the Overseer branch should try to guide the Drones to this tank. (Multi-directional claws are particularly useful against less skilled users).
 * If the Drones are far away from the tank, then ramming it could be a good idea. Factories usually have a somewhat glass cannon build. Players should be alert if the Drones appear to be unusually slow and weak in damage, though--this can be a sign that the Factory is running a Body Damage build.
 * As a ramming tank, players should not try to speed through the Factory Drones as collision damage will be very high and the player’s health will be worn down. Try to ram the Factory in a place where the Factory Drones are in the least concentrated (i.e. closely packed) amount instead.
 * As a Skimmer, players should try and shoot bullets behind the Factory as it will probably have it’s drones in front of it and it’s back will be exposed, enabling the small bullets to hit it, thus doing damage.
 * As the Battleship, a glass build is best for fighting a Factory. making use of the arc of drones can go around the Factory Drones and attack the Factory, doing quick damage to the Factory and killing it. Another strategy would be to place the controlled drones in front of the Battleship to bock any bullets from the Factory, letting the AI drones attack the Factory instead. This allows for less damage to be taken, but the Factory may escape.
 * A great disadvantage of the Factory is its painfully slow Drones. This can be used by fast melée tanks to kill it. If they manage to lure the factory into departing from the drones.

History

 * This tank was released on the 8th of November, 2016.
 * The tank was originaly called Master but was renamed to Factory short after its release.
 * On the day it was introduced, an update came out that changed the appearance of the Factory. It used to have a circular body with three spawners and looked very similar to the Overtrapper. There was also a function added, if the player pressed E or clicked, the Factory Drones would be forced to shoot towards the cursor.
 * As of November 19, 2016 the Factory has a chance of spawning new players.

Trivia

 * This tank, alongside the Necromancer and the Summoner, are the only entities whose bodies are square-shaped.
 * It is the first tank to use other tanks as Weapons.
 * It is the first tank to have a purple background on the icon.
 * With the introduction of the Factory, the Overseer gained the greatest number of available upgrades (six in total).
 * As of November 19th, there is a very small chance for new players to spawn out of it. It is the only tank with such a feature.
 * The Factory has a very slight recoil as it spawns its Drones (Less than 2 Background Squares every 6 drones, when stationary).
 * Individual drone bullets are still more durable than Battleship partisans.
 * Factory Drones have the highest bullet base HP value out of all bullets. Ironically the Drone Bullets have the lowest of them all (should not be confused with durability).
 * In contrast to all other drones in the game, which are killed by base walls, the Factory’s drones are repelled by the wall, it acting like a physical barrier to them. If sent toward it, they will bounce off the wall.
 * A level 45 Factory drone is still smaller than a level 1 controlled tank.
 * The drone’s trigger range is smaller than the one of an Auto-Turret yet larger than the one of most other drone-controllers.
 * The Factory is the only tank that can effectively buff itself by gaining more aimable cannons, cannons it can use in addition to its drones to increase its frontal fire.