About Faultline
Faultline is a free 3D artillery game that you play in the browser, on desktop, tablet or phone. Two tanks face each other across a cut-away slab of land, so you see the ground in cross-section: rock, a soil cap, sand dunes, lakes in rock basins and seams of oil buried under the soil. You take turns. Each turn you can drive a little, pick a weapon, set the barrel's angle and the power, read the wind and fire.
It belongs to the family of turn-based artillery games that runs from the early mainframe tank duels through Scorched Earth and the Worms series, and it keeps that family's rules: angle, power, wind and a destructible landscape. If you want the classic flat version first, our 2D Barrage is the same duel on a drawn landscape. What Faultline adds is ground that is alive, a weapon draft before every battle, and a campaign that carries across sittings.
The Living Ground
The arena is a grid of half-metre cells, and every cell is one of thirteen materials besides air: bedrock, rock, soil, loose soil, sand, snow, ice, water, oil, burning oil, mud, magma and glass. Each has its own behaviour.
- Sand and loose soil pour and pile at a slope. Undercut a dune and it comes down on whatever stands below it. A tank buried under a pile can dig out with F, at 4 fuel a cell.
- Soil holds only while something supports it. Shoot out the ground beneath an overhang and it crumbles into loose soil. Soil that sits next to water for a while turns to mud.
- Water and oil flow and level out, and oil floats on water. A tank standing in water or oil loses 3 HP at the start of each of its turns.
- Heat spreads from cell to cell. Ice and snow melt, oil catches fire, mud dries back into soil, sand beside enough heat turns to glass. Burning oil burns for four seconds, spreads to oil it touches, and leans one extra cell downwind.
- Frost freezes water into ice that holds a tank's weight, so a lake becomes a bridge, and it puts fire out. Magma is rock that moves, and water turns it to stone in a burst of steam.
That makes the ground a weapon. A Heavy Shell that opens the oil seam beside the enemy, followed by a Flare or a Spark, sets the oil burning against its hull, and when the oil burns out the soil above it falls in. Every cell a shot changes remembers which shot changed it, so the reactions are credited to that shot and the CHAIN readout shows them as they happen: MELT, FREEZE, FLOOD, IGNITE, BURN-OUT, COLLAPSE, BURY, STEAM, PETRIFY, GLASS, SHATTER and MUD.
Game Modes
- Campaign: six regions of five battles, thirty in all: Redrock Mesa, The Dunesea, Glasswater Fjord, Black Marsh, Cinder Rift and The Faultline. Each region has its own material, its own crew, and a boss duel as its fifth battle. A battle lasts up to 12 rounds or until a tank is destroyed, and earns up to three stars: win, win with at least half your armor left, and win with a chain of three or more links. Winning battles unlocks weapons, and salvage pays for workshop parts in the camp that you can see on your tank. The battle saves at the start of every turn, and Continue on the title screen picks it up.
- Quick battle: a single duel in any region you have reached against a crew you choose, with the weapons you have unlocked and your upgrades. It does not count toward the campaign.
- Daily arena: one arena a day, built from the UTC date, with the region rotating through the six. Every player drafts from the full weapon pool and fights a Veteran crew with an un-upgraded tank, so the board is fair. Your best score of the day goes to the Daily arena leaderboard, and you can retry.
- Hot seat: two players on one device, with a snake draft and a pass screen between turns so neither sees the other aim. You choose the arena, a seed, 8, 12 or 16 rounds, 6, 10 or 14 weapons each, the weapon pool, 100 or 150 HP and wind on or off. Hot seat never submits a score.
How to Play Faultline
Before each battle you draft ten one-shot weapons from a Supply Drop of up to 16 cards drawn from the weapons you have unlocked (20 with the Quartermaster part), and early on, when you own few weapons, you simply take them all. The Shell is always with you and never runs out.
Keyboard
- Aim: the left arrow turns the barrel anticlockwise and the right arrow clockwise, from 0 degrees (pointing right) to 180 (pointing left). Up and down set the power from 0 to 100. Hold a key to sweep; hold Shift for fine steps.
- Drive: A and D move the tank one column at a time. Driving costs fuel, more on sand, snow, loose soil and mud and when climbing, less on ice, and a tank drives at most 16 columns a turn and climbs at most 2 cells a step.
- Weapons: Q and E (or Tab) cycle through what you have left, and the number keys 1 to 9 and 0 pick a slot. Every weapon except the Shell fires once a battle.
- Fire with Space or Enter. F digs out sand, snow, soil or mud piled on your tank. S asks Ida for a hint about the ground. C zooms the camera, the mouse wheel zooms too, M mutes, and P or Escape pauses.
Touch screens
- Drag across the battlefield to aim: sideways turns the barrel and up or down changes the power, starting from where you put your finger down. The small buttons on the right nudge the angle and the power by one step.
- Tap a weapon in the tray, then FIRE. The arrow buttons drive while you hold them, DIG digs out and SURVEY asks Ida for a hint. Pinch to zoom.
The Weapons
There are 30 weapons in all: the Shell, 10 blast weapons, 16 material weapons and 3 utilities. You start the campaign with the Shell, Heavy Shell and Triple, and win the rest in particular battles.
Blast weapons
- Heavy Shell: 35 damage and a big crater that opens buried seams.
- Triple: three shells 4 degrees apart, 14 damage each.
- Cluster: splits at the top of its arc into 6 bomblets.
- Roller: lands and rolls downhill, far on ice, and blows on a tank or after 3 seconds.
- Bouncer: bounces three times and blows each time it lands.
- Driller: tunnels 20 cells through soil, sand, snow, ice or mud, then blows.
- Plumb Bomb: drops straight down from the top of its arc.
- Bunker Buster: passes through up to 6 cells of rock and blows on the second impact.
- Shockwave: no crater, but it shoves sand, snow and water outward and knocks a tank 3 cells away.
- Seeker: steers gently toward the enemy hull after the top of its arc.
Material weapons
- Sandfall: 120 cells of falling sand, to bury a tank or dam a stream.
- Earthmaker: builds a 70-cell soil mound for cover.
- Deluge: 150 cells of water, to flood a crater, douse fire or turn soil to mud.
- Oil Slick: 100 cells of oil that floats on water and waits for a spark.
- Blizzard: 120 cells of snow in a 30-cell-wide fall.
- Magma Bomb: a 40-cell blob of magma that lights oil, melts ice, glasses sand and turns to stone in water.
- Frost: freezes everything within 8 cells: water to ice, fire out, a lake into a bridge.
- Flare: heats everything within 6 cells: melts ice and snow, lights oil and dries mud.
- Thermite: a small, extreme heat that burns down through soil, ice and snow, and turns sand to glass.
- Stone Seed: turns sand, soil, snow and mud within 7 cells into rock.
- Quicksand: turns soil and sand within 7 cells into mud.
- Spark: no crater, just a long-range igniter for oil.
- Arc: lightning from the sky that deals 25 damage to every tank touching the struck water.
- Fault Charge: cracks a fault 30 cells down so the soil, sand and snow around it lose their support.
- Shaker: wakes every grain within 20 cells and lowers its angle of repose for 2 seconds.
- Napalm: spreads 40 cells of burning oil over 12 columns.
Utilities
- Shield: absorbs the next 40 damage until your next turn.
- Jump Jets: an aimed hop of up to 20 cells, with no fuel cost.
- Repair Kit: restores 25 HP.
The plain Shell does 18 damage with a small crater and is unlimited.
Tips
- Watch the guide line from the barrel and the faint line of your last shot. After a miss, change one thing at a time.
- Wind matters most on high, slow shots. A low, powerful shot spends less time in the air and drifts less.
- Look for oil before you look for the tank. A burning seam keeps hurting a tank that sits on it, and the BURN-OUT that follows can drop the ground under it.
- Water is a shield and a trap. A tank standing in water loses 3 HP a turn, and Frost turns that water into ice that holds a tank's weight.
- Mud swallows fuel and can sink a tank that stands still on it. Drive once, drive well.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do angle, power and wind work in Faultline?
The barrel turns from 0 degrees (pointing right) to 180 degrees (pointing left), and power runs from 0 to 100. A shell leaves the muzzle at 0.42 metres a second per point of power, so full power is 42 metres a second, and gravity pulls at 16.8 metres a second squared. Wind pushes every shell sideways by 0.35 metres a second squared per point of wind. The wind changes by up to 4 points each turn and never goes beyond 10 either way; the HUD shows its direction as an arrow and its strength as a number.
What does the living ground do?
The arena is a grid of half-metre cells, and every cell is a material with its own rules. Sand and loose soil fall and pile up, soil holds while something supports it and crumbles when undercut, water and oil flow and level out, and oil floats on water. Heat spreads from cell to cell: a Flare melts ice and snow and lights oil, burning oil spreads to oil it touches and burns out after four seconds, water next to soil turns it to mud, and Frost turns water to ice.
What is a chain and how does the CHAIN readout work?
Every cell a shot changes remembers that shot, so the reactions it sets off are credited to it. Each new kind of reaction is a link: MELT, FREEZE, FLOOD, IGNITE, BURN-OUT, COLLAPSE, BURY, STEAM, PETRIFY, GLASS, SHATTER and MUD. The readout shows the shot's chain as it grows, for example CHAIN x2: IGNITE then BURN-OUT. Links add to your battle score, and a win with a chain of three or more links earns three stars.
How does the Faultline campaign work?
The campaign has six regions of five battles each, 30 in all, and every fifth battle is a boss duel against that region's crew. Before each battle you draft ten one-shot weapons from a Supply Drop, using the weapons you have unlocked. Winning a battle can unlock a weapon, earns salvage, and the first win in a battle pays the most. Salvage buys workshop parts in the camp: Armor, Fuel Tank, Treads, Rangefinder, Heat Tiles and the Quartermaster, and each part shows on your tank's hull. A battle also awards up to three stars, for winning, for winning with at least half your armor left, and for winning with a chain of three or more links.
What is the daily arena?
The daily arena is one fixed arena per UTC day, and the region rotates through the six. Everyone drafts ten weapons from a Supply Drop of 16 cards drawn from the full weapon pool, and fights a Veteran crew with a tank that has none of your workshop upgrades, so the board is fair. You can retry as often as you like. Your best score of the day goes to the Daily arena leaderboard, and a new arena opens at 00:00 UTC.
Can two people play Faultline on one device?
Yes. Hot seat puts two players on one device, taking turns. You set both names, the arena, a seed, the number of rounds, how many weapons each player drafts, the weapon pool, 100 or 150 HP and wind on or off. The two players then draft in a snake order, and between turns a card asks the next player to take the controls, so neither sees the other aim. Hot seat never submits a score to a leaderboard.
Does Faultline save a battle in progress?
Yes. The battle is saved in your browser at the start of every turn: the whole ground, both tanks, the weapons left, the wind and the round. Continue on the title screen resumes at the start of the turn you were playing, with the ground exactly as it was. Clearing your browser's site data erases the save.
How do I stop sand or mud from trapping my tank?
Press F, or the DIG button on a touch screen, to dig out sand, snow, soil or mud piled on your tank; it costs 4 fuel a cell. Jump Jets also lift a tank out with no fuel cost. Mud costs triple fuel to drive on and a tank that stands still on it can sink a cell, up to four times a battle, so park on firmer ground. The Treads part in the camp makes sand, snow and mud cheaper to cross.
