First off, in ''how to improve your success in battle'' starts in your garage.
Needless to say; You'll need a well designed, effective vehicle to gain any sort of edge over your less thought-trough opponents!

>Lets start with the weapon placement:
Weapons are the single most important items on any build. Without weapons you can't deal damage, no damage = no score. Regardless of what type of weapon you fancy, there are some key elements in placement! Here's my top recommendation:

1-Place guns on the cabin if possible. The cabin will be there until you die. This is a fact. Placing weapons on other parts, may result in losing your weapons, making the remainder of your truck useless.

2-If they can't fit on your cabin, I suggest placing them on a frame. This is the second strongest and usually one of the last things to get destroyed!

3-Buggy floor, trunk, gun mount etc. are all pipes that can be shot trough. They don't add anything to the hit points but they last longer when shot at.

4-Attaching a weapon on anything else than the cabin, you would be wise to connect it to more than 1 part. For example, when you got 2, or even 4 plates connecting each other, place the weapon so it overlaps as many different parts. This way, when 1 part gets shot off, the weapon is still attached to 2 or 3 other parts.

5-Positioning. Limited a little to the type of weapon, the best place to stick a gun is at the bottom. This ensures a longer life to your weapons, but limits your fire angle. You may also need bigger wheels to pull this off. If you don't want to fit them under your truck, you can always place some armour around them, or even on top of them, to reduce the chance they will get hit from any direction. Make sure you work this out right, because if you put a bunch of armour around your weapons, they can be very limited, or even useless! I suggest you try to cover about half a weapons exposure. This way you can protect your weapons by turning around and choose when to shield/ fire your weapons.



6-Melee. In addition to the weapons that cost power, you can also add bumpers, ploughs, spikes etc. to increase your collision damage. Even when you are disarmed, you can still do some damage or assist your team by ramming/ flipping enemies. My advice; always put something on! Especially against lighter enemies, and also in raids you can instant-kill enemies if you collide hard enough!

Secret tip:

Did you know you can use fuel barrels on a stick as spears!? I have had builds with op to 4 fuel barrels on pipes that exploded on impact, given you ram hard enough!
Upside: you can use this to deal some extra damage to your enemies without the cost of power, or in addition to a spear-build.
Downside: the damage from the fuel barrel explosion is not considered as ''damage done by the player''. So you will hurt enemies but not get extra score. However increasing your chance to win means increasing the chance for more rewards.

>moving on to fuel tank / generator placement:
Generators are pretty important; without them you'll probably have modules/weapons not working!
Also, they do explosive damage to your truck when destroyed. Generators should be ''one of the last things to get hit''. Here's what I recommend:

1-Place your generator at the dead centre of your build, surrounding it with the most armour value, even shield the generator with your cabin if your build allows it!

2-Place your generator underneath your truck. Leave a piece of framework open, so your generator fits into it. Most players aim for the truck center, or top, not at the bottom!

3-Fuel tanks are less important, they only yield fuel should you win AND survive with the tanks intact. ONLY TAKE FUEL TANKS IF YOU REALLY NEED/WANT FUEL! If you're only looking to optimize you build, leave them out. They deal explosive damage to your truck when destroyed, and raise your power score by a lot! This means when someone else has no fuel tanks they are less vulnerable and have lower power score, they'll have an advantage. You'll get scaled in with stronger enemies and be more vulnerable!

4-If you really want to farm fuel, I suggest you;
*keep them away from your generator. Otherwise 1 explosion will kill you entirely.
*place them at the hart or underneath your truck (were ever you DID NOT place your generator.)
*take a sniper / long range build. Try not to be at the frontline, let other people take damage and you deal it. Avoid getting hit instead of preparing to take hits.

>Use items that compliment each other and your play style; engines with extra reload speed combined with rockets and cannons, engines with module cool down in combination with shields, stealth, drones and turrets. (combined with monster truck wheels for even more effect!) miniguns with radiators, mg's with coolers.

You can increase your survivability by 2 diffrent ways;

-1: Being able to take alot of punishment. Commonly known by gamers as ''The tank''
Playing like this, you focus on having as much hitpoints as possible;
>legs or tracks for high durability movement parts.
>take a cabin with high carry capacity/tonnage and high hitpoints.
>increase the ammount of weight you can carry with engines and some co-dirvers.
>use as many parts as you possibly can. More parts = more hitpoints.
>use the plows if your tonnage allows it for some of the most durable shield parts.
>I've even see ppl use tracks as a shield these days! Props for the guy in this pic, he was doing a nice pose :)

[/screenshot


>you can increase your total amount of hitpoints by taking the right co-driver! Hans and Master Jack have skills that increase your durability!



-2: Being able to avoid taking damage.
-avoiding damage can be done by taking defensive items.
Devensive items are:
>Aegis shield. (blocks projectiles for a few seconds!) You can install multiple shields!
>Barrier. (blocks projectiles for a few seconds!)
>Cameleon modules. (evade homing rockets, can help attacking or escaping without getting spotted) You can only install 1 stealth module!
>Kaplan snare mines. (You can avoid getting damage if you snare melee enemies.)
>Radar, detectors, radio's. These help you detect enemies sooner, giving you time to prepare for an attack or defence rather than getting backstabbed. Occulus can even detect stealth enemies coming!

>Smoke flares. Yes, smoke flares. The deco item. By placing and using these in the right way, you can make it very difficult for enemies to pinpoint your guns, and sensitive modules. They might be able to see were you are and shoot you, but they can't really see what they are hitting! This gives you a bit more time to disarm or destroy enemies before they disarm you.


See the guns on top of my truck?


>Paint. You can alson make your truck less visible or at least stand out less, by using paint coatings to '' camouflage'' yourself more. An enemy can still see a bigass name floating above your head... from a distance they will still see a truck but not be able to indentify specific parts/modules. You can also use shurbs and other things in the enviorment to either shield or mask your truck.
Paint doesn't have to be very expencive. There's paint like ''chalkboard'' and ''calendar'' that are super cheap and have decent camo value.

-You can make your defensive items more effective by:
>upgrading them in the workbench. (you might not allways get the upgrade you wanted, so be sure you want to use the item alot if you are gonna invest alot of cash in upgrade!)
>Taking the right co-driver; Jade can increase barrier and aegis effect. Other co-drivers can increase durability of your modules or weapons!

Remember;
Having 1 stealth module can help you never to get hit by homing rockets.
Having an aegis shield can increase the total damage you can take by over 2000 hitpoints.
Use enginges and co-drivers to greatly reduce their cooldown for even better effect.
Be a baws, rack up serious patches ;)

Some basic rules to stay alive longer in battle:

>Obviously, its a team battle. you'll have more chance to survive if you stick together with teammates. some are completely useless bastards, but they'll still be useful as cannon fodder. Badasses can deal the damage while the donkeys draw fire :P

>Use your build to your advantage. If you got a fast build, keep moving! Make yourself more difficult to hit, retreat from battle before enemies can engage you, sweep around and backstab/flank enemies that are already focussed on your teammates.

If you got a slow build, use the environment (rocks, buildings, wrecks etc.) as cover. if most of your truck is tucked in behind cover, you'll be a much smaller target. even if you got a huge truck, they'll only be able to see/hit what you are showing them (usually guns!).

>First thing you should target (if you can with your weapons) are the enemy's weapons. disarmed they are mostly useless and less of a thread. watch out for suiciders. you can easily block damage from a suicide explosion by activating your aegis shield at the right moment :D Or retreat if you are faster than them of course.

>Second you should focus on destroying anything that is explosive to deal critical damage to your enemy. Generators and fuel tanks that are exposed should be the main thing to target!

>Third, its best to target movement parts. Wheels, tracks, hovers and legs. If your opponent is crippled it will be more easy to hit and to flank. If your enemy has limited fire angle weapons, you can completely disable them by taking their mobility. If they cant turn or move, they cant aim.

>If you have some defensive modules as named before, try to only engage enemies when you have these off cool down and ready for use. Get back to cover or retreat until cool downs are ready again. This way you'll always have extra durability, sometimes even completely avoid taking damage!
>finally, if you want more score;
-try to get an assist on any enemy you see. If there are 2-3 enemies, tag them all before focussing on destroying one. If other teammates kill another one, you'll get a piece of every pie :)
-When there are multiple capture zones, always help capture the one on your side of the map first. free points.

-If you get disarmed, you can still ram, suicide, or go the enemy cap zones! don't rage quit just yet!

Be a baws and win more :P