Base Wars Vehicle Armor & Module Planner

Directional armour changed how hulls die

v22.2.14 rebuilt vehicular armour for Base Wars. Instead of one global resistance blob, key hulls now offer directional plates with light, medium, and heavy variants. Point the thick face at the threat; get spun and the rear still hurts. This planner tells you which vehicles got the system, when to pick light vs heavy, how Antiquated Armour rolls back the old feel, and which related systems (Sub VLS, rumble seats, flight ceilings) change the same matches.

Watch the embedded vehicle transport guide for crew movement context, then tune plates in customize before you queue. Pair with the Vehicles Tier List, Maps, Controls, Loadout Planner, and recent patches.

Vehicle transport guide — moving armor and crew safely

Vehicles on the directional system

Documented in the armour overhaul:

• Destroyer
• Artillery
• Speedboat
• Aircraft Carrier
• Spawntruck
• Helicarrier (variant rules differ—some notes exclude full light/medium/heavy picks)
• Submarine
• Battle Tank

Light aircraft and many AA/AP/Uber turrets follow different rules and were called out separately for zoom exceptions. Always open the vehicle customize panel for the hull you are about to spawn—UI labels beat wiki memory after hotfixes.

Light vs medium vs heavy (and the rear truth)

Weight	What you gain	What you pay
Light	Speed and handling	Take more damage
Medium	Balanced default	Neither extreme
Heavy	More protection on covered faces	Slower, sluggish handling

Critical rule: rear armour is not saved by heavy front plates the way players hope. Heavy armours remain vulnerable from behind. If a jet or rocket squad circles you, reverse into cover or die expensive.

Battle Tank specifics from the patch:

• Base rear resistance buffed (25% → 35% in the overhaul notes).
• Standard Armor acts as a jack-of-all-trades with slightly better all-angle protection—including rear—so it is not a strict downgrade versus specialized directional sets.
• Select weapons (30mm grenade launcher, AP rocket pods) gained mortar modes—useful when hull-down arcs matter more than flat trajectory spam.

Experiment: one match light for rotates, one match heavy for facility breaks, then lock a default per map.

Antiquated Armour — the legacy toggle

Hate directional plates? Antiquated Armour is available on Artillery, Destroyer, Aircraft Carrier, Speedboat, Submarine, and Helicarrier lines that previously used global resistances. Equip it when:

• You play muscle memory from years of old Base Wars.
• You dislike managing facing and just want predictable resists.
• You are teaching a friend and want fewer variables.

Antiquated is not “secret best”—it is comfort and legacy parity. Many competitive drivers still prefer directional once they learn to point the nose.

Submarine VLS

Submarines received a Vertical Launch Missile System:

• Fire with R (confirm on Controls if your bind set differs).
• Near-infinite range feel with very long travel time.
• Switches you toward primary weapon mode on use.
• Later patches added an explicit range limit—do not assume map-wide magica from across the void forever.

VLS is for pre-aimed area denial and forcing enemies off pads, not panic snap shots in a knife fight. Lead targets like mortar artillery.

Rumble seats and multi-crew habits

Rumble / passenger seating expanded across patches (notably reinforced in v22.2.22):

• Extra seats on Attack Heli and Speedboat
• Additional seats on Spawntruck and Helicopter Carrier

UI even recommends bringing teammates on Destroyer, Aircraft Carrier, Helicarrier, Spawntruck, and Battle Tank. Solo-hero MAC energy still loses to coordinated rockets. Put a gunner in the rumble seat when ferrying flag carriers or ATV squads—see CTF.

Spawntruck also gained an ATV spawn in the armour overhaul window—use it to redeploy light hunters after a hull dies.

Flight ceilings — soft 450 / hard 550

v22.2.15 capped the skybox cheese:

• Soft limit near ~450m — increasing downward force as you climb.
• Hard ceiling near ~550m — stall for many fixed-wing craft.
• Helicopters generally cannot push the same hard stall case.
• Bomber can go ~50m higher; Helicarrier ~50m lower offsets.

Practical flying:

1. Stop treating infinite climb as an escape.
2. Fight in bands where your gun still hits and AA still matters.
3. If you feel the soft push, descend before the hard stall ruins a bomb run.

Combine ceilings with flak splash changes from the same era—bailing at max altitude is no longer a free “ignore AA” button.

Suggested plate presets by role

Facility breakthrough (Battle Tank)

• Heavy or Standard on the approach face you will show to rockets.
• Infantry screen behind you; do not parade the rear past windows.
• Mortar modes when lobbing onto dug-in pads.

Coastal harassment (Destroyer / Speedboat)

• Medium default; Light if you need to relocate between shoreline peeks.
• Antiquated if your crew refuses to manage facing during chaotic naval fights.
• Rumble gunner for infantry popping onto decks.

Logistics (Spawntruck / Helicarrier)

• Prioritize surviving long enough to unload ATVs and infantry.
• Heavy front toward known rocket alleys on Maps.
• Never AFK unload with the rear kissing the enemy spawn.

Sub hunter-killer

• Medium plates plus disciplined VLS leads.
• Surface only with an exit plan—directional armour does not save a broadside of depth charges and luck.

Artillery camp

• Heavy toward the expected counter-battery angle.
• Reposition after every few shots so Light hunters cannot farm your rear.

Zoom, audio, and other overhaul companions

• Most vehicle weapons gained zoom (light aircraft and some turrets excepted).
• v22.2.16 vehicle audio packs make reload and engine cues readable—use them.
• Small-arms ricochet feedback against heavy armour vehicles helps infantry know when to swap to rockets.

Your ground kit still matters when you bail. Build eject loadouts in the loadout planner instead of running a sniper-only panic pistol.

Patch-day armour ritual

After reading Updates or this digest’s parent recent patches:

1. Open each hull you main → confirm light/medium/heavy/Antiquated selection.
2. Spend one life only testing facing (drive past a friendly and check which side eats rockets in a duel).
3. Retest Sub VLS travel and range.
4. Note flight ceiling feel on Vortex / Shadow / Tracker if you also fly.
5. Change one variable per session—plates or gun modules, not both.

Mistakes that waste expensive hulls

• Equipping heavy armour and reversing into the enemy team “because HP.”
• Forgetting Antiquated exists and rage-quitting the new system forever.
• Climbing past 450m every death and blaming AA.
• Solo Spawntruck hero drops without rumble gunners.
• Ignoring rear weakness on Battle Tank after the directional patch.

Point the plate, fill the seats, respect the skybox. Vehicle armour is a facing puzzle now—solve it on purpose.