Infantry Fighting Vehicle



Cyborgs from time to time deploy Infantry Fighting Vehicles to carry Grotesques into battle, these war machines are equipped with a powerful cannon and extremely tough armor. The armor is tough enough to shake off everything but dedicated anti-tank weapons, and even then, it may be possible for them to survive a direct hit from certain angles.

Direct explosion damage is checked before anti-personnel damage, if it applies then you don't take the anti-personnel damage. Thus, a Helldiver who is close enough to the center of the exploding cannon shell will take less damage than one just outside of the 0.5 radius direct damage AOE.

Tactics

 * Further information: Infantry Fighting Vehicle/Tactics

Predominately found on medium to high level planets, Infantry Fighting Vehicles patrol the battlefield individually, following semi-random patterns while searching for Helldivers. Their patrols are more densely clustered around mission objectives and they are also attracted to Stratagem beacons.

Immediately after spotting Helldiver troops, IFVs will launch an alarm flare to call for help from other Cyborg units before engaging the player in combat. Their cannon is extremely powerful, has a moderate area-of-effect and just one hit is enough to down a Helldiver. Fortunately, it also has a fairly slow rate of fire and a visible laser sight - meaning it can be dodged, or, with careful positioning, players can even bait the IFV into firing on other Cyborg units. Furthermore, the IFV can not fire at targets in close proximity, making it entirely possible to stand very close to it without the IFV being able to fire. Also, IFVs will often attempt to run over nearby Helldivers or drive directly into mission objectives (such as Geological Surveys), resulting in almost instant death and destruction.

Infantry Fighting Vehicles are immune to 'slow' effects (such as Static Field Conductors) or 'stun' effects (such as Airdropped Stun Mines) and can only be damaged using dedicated anti-tank weapons or stratagems (such as the RL-112 Recoilless Rifle, EAT-17, Railcannon Strike, Airdropped Anti-Tank Mines, etc.), meaning it can often be very difficult to destroy them before an alarm has been raised. However, they have poor maneuverability and clearly telegraph their attacks which should allow experienced players to avoid danger for long enough to initiate an appropriate counter-attack.

Their dual role as both Tank and Scout results in IFVs spawning in large numbers on higher difficulties and makes anti-tank weaponry a priority when fighting against the Cyborgs.

If the Helldivers wish to avoid/bypass some IFVs instead of engaging all of them (to proceed at greater speed and conserve anti-tank ammo and stratagems), note that the IFV has quite a long sight range and will trigger the alarm from a significant distance if the Helldivers are standing. However, it has great difficulty spotting prone Helldivers, which means it can quite easily be crawled past even at close range. Going prone reduces a Helldiver's visibility by all scout enemy types, but the contrast between detection range of standing and prone Helldivers appears to be even greater than usual for the IFV.