Interceptor is the fighting version of Vector: a front gun, a gun on each side and two rear thrusters. It gives up some thrust to cover its flanks.
| Tier | 4 |
| Unlock level | 45 |
| Upgrades from | Vector |
| Barrels | 5: front (0°), sides (90° and 270°), rear thrusters (150° and 210°), all fire together |
| Reload (0 points) | 0.6 s per volley (1.67 volleys/s) |
| Bullet speed | 368 px/s |
| Bullet range | about 331 px |
| Bullet damage | 7.6 per bullet (×0.95) |
| Penetration | 2 |
| Recoil | 2× a Recruit's kick per barrel; side guns cancel, rear pair out-pushes the front gun |
| Health / movement | ×1 / ×1.4 |
| Body damage | 20 (×1) |
Every number here is at 0 stat points, before the per-level health bonus and the per-level speed penalty that every tank gets. The automatic balancer can nudge a class's damage and health over time, so treat these as the roster's base values.
Interceptor fires all five barrels at once every 0.6 seconds: one forward, one to each side and two angled backwards. The side guns point in opposite directions, so their recoil cancels out. The rear pair pushes you forward harder than the front gun pushes you back, so holding fire gives you a gentle forward drive, much gentler than Afterburner's.
What you get in exchange is coverage. Your side guns hit anything alongside you, which is exactly where things end up when you fly past them at 1.4× speed. Interceptor wants to move through fights, strafing past targets so the front and side guns both get turns on them, and the rear pair catches whatever turns to chase.
Each bullet does 7.6 at 0 points. Only the front gun faces your target head-on, about 13 damage per second, so like Afterburner you're not winning with raw output. You're winning by never being where the enemy is aiming.
Interceptor is good against targets that can't keep up with a strafing tank: slow snipers once you're close, Cataclysm and the missile classes, and bots. It handles being surrounded better than Afterburner because three of its five guns point at the sides and back. Drone swarms that wrap around you run into the side guns, and bullets do double damage to drones.
It still loses a head-on damage race to focused guns like Trebler and Twinbore. Trap fields hurt a fast tank that runs into them. It's slower than Afterburner, so an Afterburner that wants to leave a fight with you can.
A 33-point build: Bullet Damage 7, Reload 7, Bullet Penetration 5, Movement Speed 5, Max Health 5, Health Regen 4.
From Vector, you choose between Interceptor and Afterburner.
Afterburner is faster in every way: a 1.6× hull against your 1.4×, and roughly three times your net forward thrust from firing. Its extra barrels are all thrusters. Interceptor's extra barrels are side guns, so it trades speed for coverage.
Take Interceptor if you like to fight in the middle of things and keep getting hit from the side. Take Afterburner if you like hit-and-run and never want to be caught.