Aiming Around Corners in Tank Trouble 2: How the Bounce Works and How to Use It

The bounce is a mirror

A shell in Tank Trouble 2 leaves the barrel in a straight line and, when it hits a wall, leaves that wall at the same angle it arrived. There is no spin and no loss of speed; it is a clean reflection every time, and the shell keeps going until its timer runs out a few seconds later. Everything about aiming follows from that one rule.

Corridors: shoot along them, never across

A shell fired down the length of a corridor stays in it, bouncing off the far end and coming straight back. That makes it a killing shot if the other tank is in the corridor and a suicide shot if only you are. Firing across a corridor into the wall opposite sends the shell straight back into your own tank. Turn on the spot until the barrel points along the passage before you press fire.

The shallow-angle carry

The most useful trick is the shot that goes round a corner. Aim at the wall of a corridor at a shallow angle — ten or fifteen degrees off parallel — and the shell zigzags along it, walls to the left and right, and turns the corner at the end because it is still zigzagging. A tank waiting round that corner has no line of sight to you and no warning. Long diagonals through the open middle of the maze do the same thing on a bigger scale.

Counting to one

Every shell you fire is a hazard for the rest of its life, and the game does not care who fired the one that kills you. In a small room, one shell is a threat to the other tank; three shells are a threat to both of you and the odds are even. Fire once, watch where it went, and move out of the line it will come back along. The player who fires less usually wins the round.

Reading the computer

The single-player tank drives towards you and fires when it has a rough line. It does not plan bounces, so the shallow-angle shot from behind a wall is the way to beat it: it will happily sit in a corridor while a shell comes around the corner at it.