Blacker



Blacker is the name of a series of vehicles in Earth Defense Force 5, equivalent to the E551 Gigantus in previous games.

Description
Blackers are main battle tanks, though since they only have a single primary gun with no coaxial machine gun they are more like self-propelled guns in practical terms.They boast a good combination of speed, armor and hitting power. They are re-tuned compared to the Gigantus: the low-ranked models are not nearly as slow as their equivalents, and have faster turret rotation speed as well. However, a Blacker carries less ammunition than an equivalent-level Gigantus.

Any class can drive a Blacker that is summoned in or pre-spawned in a level as a drivable vehicle. Driving a Blacker increases the driver's pickup range for items by 300%, indicated by a white circle on the ground around the vehicle.

Blackers that spawn in missions always have the performance of the E1 type in terms of turret rotation and handling, with only their HP and damage scaling by difficulty: their HP can be anything from 857 to 17,365 depending on the mission and difficulty. Pre-spawned Blackers are sometimes found in underground missions where they could not be summoned under normal circumstances: like Nixes spawned in such levels, this comes with the drawback that they have no headlights.

Variants
All Blacker variants have a crew of 1. Their reload credit requirement generally varies depending on their level, maxing out at 3969 Credits for any variant that can have its reload credit requirement reduced. Most Blacker variants are unique to the Air Raider, but the Blacker E1 can also be called in by the Ranger as well, while the Blacker 4.1 is exclusive to him.

Three main variants of the Blacker exist; the Blacker E-Series is the most basic, armed with conventional explosive ordnance and is useful for general combat against hostile forces.

The Blacker A-Series is instead equipped with armor-piercing ammunition that fires on a flatter trajectory and has improved muzzle velocity: they are effectively a replacement for the Epsilon Armored Railgun in the Air Raider's vehicle list, trading some of their damage and their secondary weaponry for improved speed and maneuverability. A-series tanks boast superior armor to other Blacker variants, carry slightly more ammunition and have faster turret rotation. They trade splash damage for the ability to penetrate multiple enemies if they are lined up.

The SP-series are E-series tanks which have an A-like gun, but with increased recoil and still firing explosive rounds, though with slightly decreased damage compared to near-level E models. The E4 and E10 models mount an SP-type gun, but lack the recoil effect.

Additionally, there are the promotional Blacker 4.1 and Blacker 5, for the Ranger and Air Raider, respectively. These have the same stats as the basic Blacker E1, but wildly different primary weapons and a nifty promotional EDF paintjob.

The Blacker E10 is a special variant exclusive to DLC 2: like all weapons with a level greater than 100 introduced in the DLC, it can only be acquired from weapon crates while playing the DLC missions on Inferno difficulty.

Trivia

 * It appears to be based on the German Leopard 2A6 tank.