[Issue 62] [Other] Pacifist's Route: Rehatched (Days 1 - 10)

[TheZigzagoonThatCan 678]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kill, Die, Repeat. Sound familiar?

 

Tanki Online's game engineering is based around destroying other tanks and being destroyed by other tanks. Fairly straightforward, since after subtracting the word 'tanks' from the above, it reflects the primary tropes of a wide array of video games. This is especially true for the most modernized MMOs, where the sole purpose of the game is to gather others and let them squabble.

 

However, what if one player decided to avoid directly confronting other tanks? How far could they go? It's about time we found out exactly what's within the pacifist's reach.

 

 

 

Yep Shreds! Continue the series! I really wanna watch you buying Vampire kit or something!    :angry:     :P

Lets see what you can do!    ;)

 

Consider this challenge accepted, my friend.

 

 

 

 

AbsolutePacifist

 

If you remember the reasoning behind my last two articles (here and here, in chronological order), then you'll know who this particular tanker is right off the bat. AbsolutePacifist, or @r_AbsolutePacifist0, was a Tanki Online pioneer that led the quest to discover just how far a pacifist can go without succumbing to the pressures of self-defense. He made it quite far, to boot; with the Ratings system fully installed, it's become apparent that he was well on his way to Major before apparent disaster struck, four kills marking his otherwise perfect record. One can only assume the first kill was purely accidental, a stray tanker crossing the path of an active beam, while the remaining three were caused by the unbridled rage that was likely to follow. (That's my best guess, at any rate. I'd be quite furious to climb the mountain so far skyward only to have the progress ripped from my hands in such an appalling fashion.)

 

Since the highest rank in his time period was Marshal, one can determine that AbsolutePacifist had managed to make it a third of the way to the top before he finally broke. Thinking back to my previous take on this series, himself only made it to the earliest stages of Master Sergeant, only just able to start talking, not even 2% of the way to the pacifist pioneer's original projections. My hopes, admittedly, aren't exactly high for a second account, but I feel that if I adhere myself to strict disciplines, then I'll find a suitable rhythm to keep the mission running to.

 

 

 

TheSmeargleThatCan

 

I decided that instead of starting off with the old song and dance involving a permanently mint-class Smoky, I'd let y'all use the time wondering how I made it to post-Isida with this nifty lil' guide, if you missed it above. If y'all remember correctly, this is a reboot of a series I did earlier this summer, Smeargle: Pacifist's Route, of which I royally butchered AbsolutePacific's name by calling him TotalPacifist. Way to do your research, Zig.

 

Anyways, taking inspiration from the namesake of my own account, @TheZigzagoonThatCan, I decided that a bit of symbolic sentimentalism would help keep me from going insane and wondering why the flab I'm subjecting myself to this again produce some semblance of useful motivation to see this one through to the end, as I was thwarted last time by my lack of caution. I'm a sucker for clever and original usernames, so this time around, I was taking no chances with any mishaps regarding enemy tankers slipping into my stream.

 

 

 

Day 0 (Pre-Isida)

 

I felt an odd nostalgia logging into the game this time, remembering how excited I was with the last portion of this series to get behind the wheel of an Isida and be besties with everyone on my team. With modifications to turrets, hulls, and just about everything else drastically changed, I figured that this attempt in particular was gonna be much different than last time.

 

Remembering the sorta-recent balance changes, I spent a bit of time considering my options before buying Wasp M0 right off the bat. (I wound up doing this after two minutes instead of seconds. Big difference, alright.) Remembering that Hunter essentially switched places with Viking (and was also a lot more already-in-the-garage), I decided to use that as my secondary hull over Dictator, since it no longer had the extra HP that it did before the global update.

 

Remembering that there weren't gonna be any kits with M0 Isida any time soon that were worth the effort (Buffalo, you're a disappointment to the whole family), I decided to strap on my treads and look for a good match.

 

If you remember correctly, the matches I would typically be looking for were CTF and CP, the only ones where being a mult pacifist earned you points. However, a savior was still lurking in the map registry that combined my two favorite things -- assault mode. I loved capping flags, but I knew I'd be absolutely useless on the blue team. I timed my entry into a Happy New Year! AS as carefully as I could, just barely nabbing the spot before some other twerp could rob me of my chances.

 

I know I promised I wouldn't go on a huge rant about the stages it took me to reach M0 Isida, but golly, if CPs were a proverbial gold mine, then with the New Year's map, I seem to have dug into a vein of pure platinum. Within an hour and a half, I was already making decent headway through Master Corporal, whizzing between unscrutinizing Hunters and Wasps galore, few of them even looking my way as I carted flag after flag into the blue fortress. 

 

 

The greatest benefit of this map by far for my humble little Wasp was the wealth of supplies that was constantly raining from the heavens -- there was rarely a time where I wasn't able to feed a swelling addiction to yellow and orange crates, constantly doing laps around the icy wonderland at rates that put Anakin's podracer to shame. At this stage, the tin can could really take a beating, surrendering only about an eighth of my total health to an errant Smoky M0 (0/50) round.

 

However, it was clear that I wasn't the only one with an inkling of skill in the newbie ranks. One particular kind_georgian (who, despite the harmless and almost cute demeanor supplemented by the candy canes and festive trees of his paint, was not very kind at all) was very fond of defending the homestead of the blue alliance, laughing at my pitiful torque as I desperately tried to push him out of the way. Seriously, it was an eerily similar experience to old-fashioned middle school days, where that one gorilla of a kid and his chums would always block a hallway to wherever I needed to be.

 

No hard feelings to all involved, alright. Y'all were just in my way enough times to make it seem more that coincidental, but then again, it was the same battle for about 15 minutes.

 

By the time I had hit Corporal and first unlocked my missions, I managed to snatch a valuable special AS mission worth 370 crystals. In juxtapose for a requirement of 1.5k experience, the deal sounded pretty lousy, but I had already staked my drilling claim, so ultimately this bonus was exactly what it looked like --  a bonus, for doing what I was already planning on doing. Absolutely fantastic for me, since ultimately, it didn't take all that much time at all to reach Sergeant: only approximately ninety minutes in comparison to the 5.6 hours I spent trying to get to this point last time. Maybe there's a hidden statement that the New Year's map is displaying in this instance. Avoiding murder and just completing the objective during seasons of kindness works to make a great point. (Eh... so long as you're on the red team. If you're on the blue side without an Isida or even remotely quick hull, good luck to ya, Gandhi.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

A last note on the New Year's Map: having both a large surface area, a multitude of props, and easy-to-locate Speed Boost stations (that for whatever reason, went relatively ignored) means that a careful Wasp can slip through defenses like sand through a strainer. Never taking the same path twice is a great start, unless no one saw you take it the first time around. Weaving between buildings, taking the paths along the edges of the map, even cutting from corner to corner of the arena to lose someone's attention; these are all necessary in order to collect a steady stream of experience. Not only that, but after checking with my previous death counter, it appears that I died a lot less during the run to get this Isida than I did with . 

 

 

The way this article is going to be splayed out will be similar to the previous articles in the series. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", aye?

 

          I.) I'll log on once every other day with .

          II.) After maybe an hour maximum of play, I'll record any new thoughts.

          III.) I will record the alteration of my crystal, experience, and rank status.

          IV.) I will take a screenshot of a scenario that best suits what I learned today.

 

Data may wind up overlapping from some days to others, but this will likely be less of a problem than it was during the original series, due to immediately having a more diverse hull selection and more purchase options to choose from. Not only this, but I also plan to get ahold of the Holiday package with the Spangle paint to quicken the pace, courtesy of the Project TSTC sponsor group (i.e. an abandoned $20 gift card I found in my backpack the other day).

 

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Day 1: Modes, Maps, Mistakes

 

Crystal Count: 104 514

Experience Count: 14572 / 20000

Current Rank: Staff Sergeant

Deaths: 201

 

Having checked my admittedly handsome, glitter-covered self out in the Garage and adding exactly five micro-upgrades to my Isida M0, I made my way out to the first AS mode I saw, disregarding what side I was on. Now that I could heal people, being on the blue side wasn't all that hard... except for the fact that everyone always ran away from me when I tried to heal them. You'd think that for the defensive posture of the blue team, it'd be a lot more convenient to reach allies, but no... in fact, it was easier healing my teammates on the red team, where they all clumped themselves around the flag pedestals.

 

After ranking up to Staff Sergeant, I decided to take a stroll through the Forest (CP, that is) with Hunter. Thanks to the global update, Hunter's health was buffed in exchange for some of its speed (similar to Wasp), which made it an excellent free medium hull to plant myself behind folks on CPs with and watch the green numbers fly.

 

I'm particularly a fan of what they've done to Wasp's armor, making it physically capable of surviving Railgun projectiles consistently within my five micro-upgrade limit. I may not feel the need to purchase a module to defend myself from the electromagnetic launcher any time soon, but Shafts will still be a problem. I've also noticed that Thunder and Striker's effectiveness increase in an expected manner when encountering large groups of my allies, meaning I can't stay near them to be a permanent repair kit for long. I'll have to find a way to remedy that. Perhaps Orka D-E can be of use...

 

Soon after the Forest dried itself of capable players, I decided to give the CTF life a try, but in the most unorthodox manner: Polygon, one of the few maps to favor FTC setup over standard settings. Initially, it was child's play to heal passerby tanks, but there were a number of opportunities where I simply couldn't reach those with the flag in time due to Hunter's decreased speed. Even so, I was going down quick when I didn't find/use a Double Armor, so I immediately discredited the idea of switching hulls.

 

At one point, the warning siren (or in this instance, an amplified, jolly Claus' laughter) went off, the drop zone splashing to life directly beneath my tank. That was the good news. The bad news was that I happened to be idling at that particular moment in the center of the map, i.e. the most deadly location for a gold box to spawn. I hightailed it out of that section for a moment and backed my way into a Speed Boost, somehow dodging a careless Twins' neon blue discharges all the while. Watching them gather on the spot was similar to observing ants discovering a dropped sweet -- first one stopped at the odd plaque, then two, until an entire swarm of players was piling over one another in the center before my eyes, a scene akin to something out of World War Z. As the gold descended, I managed to catch a ride on a troubled Mammoth, blowing up from beneath me and letting me simply hop towards a free 1,000 crystals. (Who knows? I might need them later.)

 

After a couple of matches of raw struggle to accomplish anything, though, I finally managed to scramble a considerable defense for our flag's post and remained defensive, keeping a Viking/Freeze by the name of nick-30 nurtured well as he effectively demolished any momentum that crept across his line of sight. Eventually, we started taking the offensive line, applying pressure to their side with repeated assaults left and right, made all the more difficult to resist by their absurdly increased durability.

 

And that's when it happened. My first kill.

 

A lag spike struck the Polygon CTF without warning and threw another weakened Wasp directly in front of me. I was unable to recognize the enemy in front of me before the poor fella burst into flames. Right at the end of the match, too... and having only died 201 times.

 

However, this time around, I refuse to let an accidental kill slow me down. Instead, I'm gonna call it game over if I strike exactly 100 kills, earning me the Watch Them Fall award. I've invested actual money into this, so there's no turning back now. I won't back down due to circumstances that are out of my control, still adhering to my pacifist code as I always have. If this particular experience taught me anything: let go of space if things look like they're about to begin lagging.

 

After all, if someone takes my hand while I'm working on a patient with a medical scalpel and drives it into their chest, am I considered the murderer?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 2: Siege on Sandbox

 

Crystal Count: 113 138

Experience Count: 21476 / 29000

Current Rank: Master Sergeant

Deaths: 329

 

I've found it fairly difficult to manage to steer myself properly behind my wider and more capable allies, having been accustomed to M3 and M4 variants of Wasp with far better handling. One of my sore points with the global update is that it removed a lot of Wasp's nimbleness, with its acceleration suffering an appalling decrease and making the craft feel like it was dipped in caramel and left to dry. This difficulty in control is only one more obstacle impeding my goal, but on the bright side, the crowd-control effect of Firebird and Freeze's attacks had been entirely nullified, completely solving one of my biggest survival issues. To boot, Firebird has suffered quite the power nerf, making it only just slightly less effective than Freeze and rendering my hatred for it a teeny bit less potent.

 

After a couple of miscellaneous CPs, I managed to find my way to one of the largest CTFs I've ever seen: the score was 602 to 412, and there was a slot open on the winning red team. I didn't hesitate for a second to dive right in, noting that there were only about two hours left until the server update.

 

Immediately, I was backed up by some of the most effective allies I've met on , and with my symbiotic nature, the team's rate of capture per minute increased dramatically. Admittedly, with Wasp's decreased speed at M0, it took every iota of effort I had to keep up with my allies and reach them in time before they succumbed to a persistent Mammoth/Striker that simply wouldn't go away. Seriously, it was really tough trying to keep up with allied Hunters. I think 'the Smeargle that can' can use some more EV training.

 

Even with my specifically aid-orientated tactics, there were a number of deadlocks that were unbreakable by either of our forces. So, I finally broke out the most gravitating supply I could muster -- a gold box. Two of them on separate occasions, actually. The guy with the flag couldn't resist diving into the fray and leaving the banner in the dust, letting me capture consecutive flags with minimal effort.

 

It took far too long for the server update to finally roll around, but when it did, even with my last-place ranking, I managed to scrape up just over 10k crystals with the help of a Beginner's Pass in addition to a Premium Pass. Essentially, I got three times what I should have won, with double the experience I should have gathered. Moral of the story: when you have both passes available to you, make the most of 'em while you can.

 

(A quick shout-out to a fantastic teammate, Miggs_De_Brujn, for being courteous towards a dedicated Isida, a rare characteristic in a generation of greedy tankers.)

 

 

 

Day 3: Why I Suddenly Love Thunder

 

Crystal Count: 116 626

Experience Count: 24626 / 29000

Current Rank: Master Sergeant

Deaths: 409

 

Admittedly, it's been a while since I last logged onto this account (administration of the Newspaper and college have kept me sliiiightly busy), but I managed to take a quick trip back to my favorite Smeargle and explore a little. Thankfully, PayGarden's auto-decline system didn't have a panic attack and block my account simply for purchasing crystals. The first thing I did after logging online was check my Kits section to try and find Vampire, but the infamous urban legend was clearly on vacation this week. Since I didn't want Mary blotching up my paints category anyways, I didn't really complain much as I set out for the nearest Farm CP.

 

Hunter/Isida is an excellent choice for Farm in general -- allies and enemies alike are within reach almost constantly, making short-ranged weapons most desirable, and Hunter has the universality to not only chase down targets with its average speed, but survive for a while with its average health. However, a jack of all trades is a master of none, and that was proven time and time again by the second-too-late deaths of my buddies near the pedestal. Since I couldn't kill anything, I couldn't take back the point on my own, and had to run and hide like a scared little girl behind numerous whales sporting Thunder and Vulcan. (One clearly inebriated Mammoth wandered in with Shaft for some reason. I decided to stay away from him for most of the match, since he seemed pretty busy already with roleplaying as a defenseless blob of meat. Didn't wanna bug him, y'know. Or be bugged by the cloud of tankers surrounding him at any given time.)

 

After a few matches, Thunders became more prevalent on both sides. I was actually pleased to see their numbers increase thanks to my Orka D-E taking lots of hits slightly better, but also because my allies were clumsy with the weapon and were injuring themselves under close combat conditions. A lot. This was one of those matches where I was consistently low on charge, which meant I was always healing. Granted, it was work to keep the Mammoths alive, and they delivered less points than lightweight hulls for more energy expenditure, but it was far less frustrating than circumferencing the world over to try and revive a Wasp that'd die a second before I got there anyways. In the end, we managed to scare off everyone with our insurmountable power (or at least, my teammates's insurmountable power. Remember, I was playing hide and seek behind about three Titans for most of the match.)

 

Having combed the Farm and ran it dry because like I said, I was solely responsible for everyone fleeing in terror on the enemy team, I decided to focus my efforts on another Esplanade CTF, and was well pleased by a squadron of Strikers providing consistent fire from both the outsides and the summits of the arena. I even managed to snag a flag through all the flak they delivered, which with more experienced players deciding that beating up the gold guy was a fun passtime, has become quite an abnormal event. I even made nice with a player by the name of , whom then proceeded to be an invaluable ally on an Osa CTF later that day. It's significantly easier to be a useful pacifist when you play with someone who actually knows what they're doing. Take heed, every M0 Firebird at First Sergeant.

 

 

 

 

Day 4: The Buddy System

 

Crystal Count: 119 829

Experience Count: 29078 / 41000

Current Rank: First Sergeant

Deaths: 509

 

This was another eventful day for our protagonist pup: I laid my claim for the ninth rank, I picked up the Captured! achievement, learned about the benefits of Twins' new changes, let lag force me to accidentally commit another murder, and managed to perish exactly one hundred times between gathering about 4,000 experience points and nearly as many crystals.

 

But most importantly, I developed a rudimentary team mechanism for working with teammates that I like to call the Buddy System. Before you ask, no, I'm not taking about the kind that you used to go swimming when you were a tyke. 

 

The Buddy System is quite effective in CTFs as far as I've gathered, and it has been known to work as written below:

 

Stage 1: Find someone that's not looking to go entirely offensive or entirely defensive, but is interested in providing support to offenders. Any midfielding tanker is a great partner choice, and with the large amount of confusion on the field between low ranks (to put it kindly), there's always at least one of them. Upon crossing them, stick to them like glue. If they're skilled at being a midfielder, then this probably won't be too demanding a task, since they'll only be straying about to eliminate passing tankers.

 

Stage 2: Let them assault anyone directly in front of them, keeping a small profile behind their hull and delivering a healthy dose of nanobots whenever necessary. It's wise to keep hulls pointed forwards at all times in the event that the buddy needs to back up into cover or wishes to shift priorities elsewhere. If the hull of the healer is turned sideways, there's a high chance of them unintentionally blocking off the buddy's only route of escape, which can result in an angry and very dead ally if multiple enemies decide to bear down on them at once.

 

Stage 3: If the healer runs out of charge and their buddy is still taking damage, they move in front of the buddy and intercept fire headed that way. Having stood behind their buddy for so long, it's likely that they still have plenty of their own health left. It's critically important, as a pacifist, to keep the buddy alive as long as possible, even if it costs the healer their own lives. If the buddy dies and the healer is still around, the healer is pretty much useless, since it can't attack on its own and had relied on the buddy to perform all of the combat. In that case, the only thing you can do is flee in the opposite direction and hope to Whatever You Believe In they don't follow you.

 

This tactic has proven ridiculously effective before in my previous attempts with , and has shown no signs of reduced potency with on maps such as Highland and Kungur. Favorable allies at these ranks are those with splash damage and/or quick response time, such as Twins, Thunder, Striker, Vulcan, Smoky (only the M1 variant, though; M0 does barely enough damage to constitute as a valuable ally, let's be honest), and the less-common Ricochet. Medium and heavy hulls make for great blast shields, and they're easy to maneuver around for Stage 3. The only drawback for splash-damage based weapons is the potential for them to injure themselves upon the execution of Stage 3, dealing less damage to their intended targets than they do themselves. I'm ashamed to admit that I've inadvertently caused an allied Hunter/Striker to unleash a full salvo into me when they were on the brink of death... more than once.

 

While this tactic does work on CTFs well, where there are clearly defined offensive and defensive positions, it can absolutely demolish an unprepared opposition in CP mode, especially with more than one Isida taking part in the Buddy System. A skilled Titan/Vulcan with a couple of Isidas stuck to him was by all means invincible on a point. If he sheltered us properly, then there were periods of up to five minutes under continuous assault in a full Highland match that remained alive and on top of a point. I'm sure that we managed to secure a permanent hatred in the red team for both weapons for the rest of their careers.

 

In a nutshell: pacifists love these guys if they do their job right, and will be your number-one fan for it. Pompoms, foam finger and all. Promise.

 

Also, I feel it'd be pertinent to notify all readers that today I increased my average by double: 1/509 to 2/509. (0.00 to 0.00, according to the Ratings page. Riveting numbers, ain't they?) I've come to the grave realization once more that I need more control over whom I let my nanobot stream roll over. While I was in the middle of Stage 2 with a Hornet/Thunder, his splash damage suddenly caused him to erupt into tiny little pieces front of me, causing another quick burst of lag that let my beam settle on a different target for a brief half-second: a Dictator/Firebird that had somewhere beneath 142 HP remaining. I scorned myself heavily upon seeing the bright red number suddenly flash to life above the machine, making a mental note to find a way to remedy this issue. 

 

In the future, once M2 Isida is within my grasp, I'll need to acquire the Support Nanobots alteration as soon as I can. With a four second energy boost to grant nearly 13 seconds of continuous fire, it'll be difficult to run out of charge on an ally taking damage from one opponent, even with a 15% decrease in healing. What's more, the 30% decrease in damage minimizes my chances of accidentally finishing off a passing tanker, making me a more effective pacifist than ever before. (Forget the Bandwidth alteration, though. With my luck, I'l wind up zapping some unlucky soul at a 90 degree angle to me within the first two minutes. No thank you.)

 

 

 

 

Day 5: The Dangers of Dying Friends

 

Crystal Count: 120 651

Experience Count: 30967 / 41000

Current Rank: First Sergeant

Deaths: 563

 

*goes to Missions section to examine what I need to accomplish today*

*notices a DM experience mission*

*clicks the change button*

*a destroy enemies mission appears in its place*

*flips table*

 

Today has been a trying day, with yet another soul ended by my hand, bringing my average to a sickening 0.01. I realize, however, that there's been a pattern between my accidental murders. Spare a large lag spike due to my laptop being low on battery (whenever my computer is plugged in, it runs with half the FPS and thrice as much PING, so I'm pretty much forced to let it live on its own charge for a consistent 60 FPS on medium maps), the ally in front of me is typically always low on health, then suddenly takes a heavy strike and dies. I can't let go of the spacebar in time, so I wind up hitting the next target directly behind their corpse: the tank they were combating. To boot, they're usually low on health as well, so it only takes a split second to take away what little health they have remaining.

 

Perhaps it's time I check my tactical positioning better. If I keep my wounded ally directly between myself and the opponent, there's the possibility my stream might feed off of him for a fourth of a second and take away the little remaining health he has available. If I drift to the side at all, however, I'm that much more susceptible to being turned to charcoal by whatever's attacking my buddy. The only safe way I can perform my magical healing powers is if there's an object I can cower behind while my buddy takes the brunt of the attack, but they toss the wrench into their own works by always trying to duck behind it and render me exposed again. It's impossible for me to assure my allies that I can actually keep them alive at times. Considering it's all I've trained myself to do, this becomes annoying to brand new levels.

 

Not only are they putting themselves in danger by being mobile close to me, but they're risking themselves further when they're out of my reach. The amount of chasing I do, even in Wasp, is borderline ridiculous with consideration towards the fact that they're dying and should stop being twerps and find me. Despite how many very carefully worded messages I've sent through the chat, it seems like my allies think they're allergic to Spangles -- it's irritating how much time I've spent flagging down Hornet/Firebirds with three red pixels in their meter just to have them die seconds later. It doesn't bother me that they perish that much; I say if they're gonna be idjits, let 'em learn the hard way. But it's infuriating how many deaths could be prevented if they would have just taken advantage of their friendly neighborhood Smeargle. 

 

 

 

 

Day 6: Mary was the Little Lamb

 

Crystal Count: 86 901

Experience Count: 34391 / 41000

Current Rank: First Sergeant

Deaths: 640

 

Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not, Smeargle is evolving! (Into M1s.)

 

I checked the Garage this afternoon, and lo and behold, Vampire was patiently waiting for me in the first slot of the Kits section, batting its eyelashes and everything. I thought about the remark I made the other day about not wanting Mary, then looked at the M1 scrawled next to all of the important things. Click. The package that quickly followed shattered any regret that I might have felt towards the kit.

 

Mary had a little lamb, and by golly, its modifications shone blue as cobalt the second I found a suitable Industrial Zone TDM. A fourth-second supplement from 56 to 64 may not have seemed like the most game-changing buff to ever grace the arena, but it certainly did its job in alleviating some of my struggle when working with lighter hulls. However, with these particular assets came another burden -- increased damage. After a couple of rounds, I started getting ahead of myself and diving into a number of frays to heal my buddies, one of these squabbles resulting in yet another kill by my hand. A rogue Wasp/Thunder dove in front of me to intercept my beam from behind a ball of flame and smoke from the nearby Striker, and I didn't catch the ray change colors in time. This is the third day in a row I've accidentally let one slip into the stream, and it has become unacceptable. I also found myself tagging two separate other tankers that jerked in front of me, the beam gathering a mind of its own and selecting its own targets. I managed to pull away after one 71 ticked across the surface, but it's become clear at this point that my lil' painter'mon needs to be taught a few lessons about pacifism.

 

It's evident that focusing on healing too much not only makes a pacifist liable to lick an enemy hull by mistake, but it also pampers tankers into thinking that camping permanently in one spot and not contributing to anything but lazily flicking a shot at a passing Wasp is acceptable. This cannot be the case, otherwise I'll wind up becoming a liability to my team's overall success. A boss sits atop the chariot, while a leader actually helps pull the chariot; bearing that in mind, I start to focus more on the flags after leaving industry behind me and walking into Chernobyl.

 

Here, I tested a new theory: Dashing System.

 

Stage 1: Take a long look at where the most action seems to be going on, then do everything you can to stay as far away from that area as remotely possible. For offensive players under CTF conditions, this is a no-brainer, but application becomes even more critical when your best weapon winds up being your hull's shoving capabilities.

 

Stage 2: Take that route and try to find either a Double Armor or a Speed Boost crate. Preferably, the former for entering an enemy base, and the latter for escaping one with their team banner. By the consensus of many players, there's always too many Speed Boosts in the supply stock anyways, so it helps to try and take from those whenever possible. Honestly, on my main, I have about 400 Repair Kits in conjunction with 2,000 Speed Boosts. They're an underused and admittedly underrated supply.

 

Stage 3: After grabbing the flag, make a beeline for the nearest ally and make sure they're at full health, using a Repair Kit if necessary. Typically, the place with the most reliable allies is the place with the most angry opponents, so it's your job to walk through the fire and use your pals as meat shields. (If you time it juuust right, you can use that Repair Kit to keep you invincible for the entire time that you're exposed to enemy fire.) Now the Isida comes in handy to pull together the battered team and let them push through opposition, but if you suddenly become dangerously low on HP, then either give the flag to someone else to deliver or get the heck outta Dodge and cap yourself.

 

This is how I managed to maintain my best-ever ratio (0/0, not counting my accidental murders) with 497 points in that selfsame Chernobyl. It's surprisingly easy to sneak close with all that concrete in the way of any Shafts or Railguns that want my head on a pike. What's more, a lot of the supply drops near the back of their bases are ignored for whatever reason, despite the numerous Hornets crowded around their hive in a silly attempt to blockade their said base from any trespassers. More for me, I guess.

 

 

 

 

Day 7: How To Train Your Dra-- Heavy Teammates

 

Crystal Count: 91 048

Experience Count: 40776 / 41000

Current Rank: First Sergeant

Deaths: 793

 

It's official. Titans and Mammoths are my favorite allies.

 

Your friendly neighborhood Smeargle, now armed with Patch Update #441's healing duration benefits, has become more effective than ever before at keeping its allies alive. With an extra second of charge and the added benefit of concise targeting, picking out allies in crowds has become a much less harrowing venture, though it's probably for the bet if I just stopped doing that entirely. This is the first day that's passed without incident since the three day failure streak, and I'd like to keep the number of misadventures to a minimum.

 

TheSmeargleThatCan started its day off with the addition of some M1 micro-upgrades, of which I somehow neglected to add the moment I got 'em. I noted Grizzly T-A's effectiveness against versus Freeze as a useful ally against CTF-dwellers, and decided to test the theory by checking into one of the the oh-so-common Chernobyls lying around. At first, I was swiping more flags than most of the team, but after a while they figured out that I wasn't intending to use my increased DPS to shred anyone. One wise guy chose to be a Viking and sit on the pedestal to the blue flag, ceasing attack out of spite and laughing at my punitive horsepower while I desperately tried shoving him off of the spot.

 

It looks like my enemies are getting smarter around the Warrant Officer stages. This was anticipated, but I assumed that there was always a way to wiggle around them. However, when three or four people are painting bullseyes between the prongs of my Isida the second I step onto their main floor, it's a little difficult to pull hit-'n-run tactics. I added CTFs to the list of ways I wasn't going to make quick points any time soon and ditched the nuclear city for something else.

 

And that's when I found it. The acclaimed arena of champions. Polygon CP.

 

Remembering the brutal lessons I learned on my last run there with , I wouldn't have dared entered that arena without something that could resist Firebird and Hammer. The fact that my Wasp almost had more health than my Hunter at this point also would have discouraged a previous me. However, at this point, I was so frustrated with being flicked away in CTFs that I decided to give this 200 point PRO Pass Match a shot.

 

It started off slowly, with few people recognizing my role on alliance and opposing teams alike. Heal a Viking/Freeze here, pick up a Double Armor there, run away from a stationary Twins with the IQ of an opened tin of beans... I wasn't making slow progress, but it wasn't necessarily fast, either. I suddenly realized I wasn't taking advantage of my greatest asset: communication. I was able to use the chat more often by this point, but more than that, I could use my actions to pick permanent Buddy System candidates.

 

[TheSmeargleThatCan: I can only heal, not kill. If you shield me from attack, I'll supply you with extra life.]

 

It started with the selfsame Freeze from before: @iiBob. Since he seemed like he knew what he was doing, I sent him messages through both the main chat system in the corner of the screen and by substituting as a mobile Repair Kit. I'm assuming the later eventually got his attention, since he decided to seek me out for a while before diving into the fray. Shortly thereafter, two goliath Firebirds by the names of [member=aM-YoUr-HeRo] and joined our side, and I did the same with them. The trick is to be annoying enough to get their attention, the prove that their attention is worth their while. Just like how infomercials work, aye?

 

Within an hour, the three of us had devised a plan to storm the point and stay barricaded within the tunnel. At first, it worked fairly well -- I was expending all of my energy keeping the Titans above me at as close to maximum health as they could get, and was raking in a large amount of points in the process. Suddenly, a wave of furious Guardian kits charged in and reclaimed red territory, making their own encampments where we once stood. About five minutes of desperately trying to wriggle my way behind them to be a sufficient distraction resulted in 52 deaths for one match with no kills. (Still maintained second place, though.) They reclaimed it once more for another ten before they were pulled out by a gold box. I used the opportunity to reclaim the point and sit pretty at the bottom of the well, calling my two allies to rejoin me as quickly as possible. With now using a Tita/Isida M1 combo, there were now two of us providing health support for players above.

 

I kid you not: I didn't die for at least a half-hour after we had restored our spot beneath the map.

 

It was easily the most intense match that I've ever endured as a pacifist, even bearing in mind the siege of Day 2. Another Titan/Firebird that was always chewing through Double Powers and other tanks joined our ranks near the point, our encampment makig it very difficult to kill him. They swarmed en masse onto the point to get a foothold, effectively starting a stalemate at the point despite the invincible block of metal constantly shooting fireballs. At one point, a Striker joined and begun sending barrages into the pit, sending me perilously close to death a few times. Even @iiBob came to the rescue with his own Isida, assuming the task of healing the primary Isidas.

 

This was a match that I'm sure I'll never forget.

 

 

 

Day 8: Breaking the Habit

 

Crystal Count: 95 279

Experience Count: 44782 / 57000

Current Rank: Sergeant-major

Deaths: 884

 

The spacebar is a critical component of Tanki Online to any player, pacifist or otherwise. If one doesn't learn how to manipulate it to their will at an early stage of their development, they will be doomed to fail as a useful player.

 

I can say that after a solid two years and two months of playing Tanki Online, I have a strong understanding of how my controls work. My fingers are comfortable hovering over the arrow keys and the QEZX-Space section of the board. I have next to no difficulty tracking targets by rotating my hull and turret, and can consistently function on uneven altitudes and slanted surfaces. One can say that I've become quite advanced at the trade of tank-maneuvering.

 

However, the one thing that screws over my poor protagonist pup every other time is my inability to understand that I have to let go of the bloody spacebar before I die when healing people.

 

One of the reasons that my points aren't climbing at a notable rate is because whenever I'm spewing blue to some poor doomed sap nearby with bad guys pretty much everywhere, my glorious Spangles paint transforms me into A GIANT MAGNET FOR BULLETS. Since most people don't have the patience to stay near cover to attack, I'm left in the open and sport the same camouflage abilities as an iridescent glint beetle. (Look it up.) Even if I didn't look like I just walked out of a KFC Superbowl commercial, there's always a steel-blue beam of pure light ejecting from my turret, so in a nutshell, covert-ops will never be Smeargle's specialty. I s'pose in this instance, this is TheSmeargleThatCant. Must be a shiny... but why on Earth do so many people try to kill it?! This means that I am going to be targeted, and am going to die quickly. Plain and simple.

 

What my preventable problem is regards timing my healing so that I actually get something out of it. Hence, breaking the habit.

 

To do this, I must firstly train myself to stop holding spacebar for as long as it takes to heal my buddy to full. I can't count how many times I missed out on getting points from being killed near the end of a satisfying bout of green numbers from a tanker that was an inch from having an out-of-body experience. Instead, what I've been trying to do is heal at intervals -- only expending energy to heal for a maximum of two seconds at a time, releasing and pressing the spacebar at that interval to affirm that I can gather points. This way, I'm still a mobile repair kit at the rate of which I provide health, but it's not just out of the goodness of my heart anymore.

 

If I can make that a habit, that might also keep my hands nimble enough to avoid any further catastrophes involving my beam turning orange. With the DPS for M1 Isida boosted to just over a hundred health per fourth-second, I'll need to learn to be as conservative as I can.

 

 

 

 

Day 9: IRL Cooperation

 

Crystal Count: 95 210

Experience Count: 47305 / 57000

Current Rank: Sergeant-major

Deaths: 948

 

During a Noise CTF, where the painter we all know and love was busy pumping fuel into an M1 Viking/Smoky, something occurred to me about how I was communicating with my teammates. I'm to chat with them using the little interface in the corner of the screen, which was dandy on its own accord, but this means I have to stop literally everything I'm doing in order to send a response to people. Typically, on @TheZigzagoonThatCan, I just wait to die to send a message, and the same goes for TSTC. However, I find myself having to send messages constantly to teammates to organize them in a way that's possible for me to keep them alive and keep them productive, which means I'm standing in the middle of the road in either plain sight or directly in a buddy's way. The fact that I simply refuse to talk in anything but complete sentences isn't supplemental to my progress, either.

 

I decided to head to the library after a few brawls at home, since I needed to deliver a few electronic units to an engineer pal of mine. After we discussed a few details on the next week's plans, I had a few hours to kill before I needed to get back to super-secret-admin-business as a Zigzagoon, so I decided to head to a library computer to meet up with a few long-time friends of mine, @cool-kidd and @nicktherecruit2003. (They've been around since I started playing on around the beginning of 2014.) After a bit of conversation, we decided that it'd be worthwhile to cooperate in a face to face environment to press through matches.

And by golly, was it effective.

 

Being able to communicate beforehand and during the match saved a lot of time and struggle; we were swift and effective before our adversaries, with them providing effective firepower and cover to keep our positions thriving. I stay alive to pump them full of nanobots, they stayed alive long enough to either both or snipe any tank that was unlucky to stray into their paths. We were an unstoppable offensive threat on both Barda and Brest if they provided enough cover, and we weren't able to be caught often during flag runs in Desert. We were simply striking too quickly for them to retaliate, and with constant passes to paint my teammates' health bars a bit brighter, they were too durable to knock over with glancing blows. It was only when we jammed up around one another that we were rendered incapable of attack, but with practice, that can be eliminated altogether.

Expect to see more on these two in the future. This level of connection and cooperation on the battlefield will not be taken for granted, and our favorite Smeargle will be appreciative of their assistance in any match they may face.

 

 

 

 

Day 10: Osaka?

 

Crystal Count: 96 246

Experience Count: 49888 / 57000

Current Rank: Sergeant-major

Deaths: 1 038

 

I was checking the Wiki for potential kits to aid me on my journey, and I uncovered an interesting detail that I had forgotten about: Osaka. Unlocked at Warrant Officer 3, only about 48,000 experience points away (double my current career lifespan), this kit contains two items that I desperately need to acquire: M1 Hunter, to balance out my garage and keep me from living off of M1 Wasp until Colonel rolls around, and M2 Isida, the next stage to my pacifistic journey.

 

M1 Hunter is notably important due to the fantastic health and stability it brings to the table. At stock, it sports 1765 health, and about five extra micro-upgrades adds 30 more. Granted, those doesn't appear to grant much increase, but that number might help keep me in one piece long enough to paint one more quarter-second of cobalt blue light on an ally. However, the 750+ armor that this boost allows me is enough to handle M0 and M1 Railgun shots with ease, which is pretty important for someone that makes a living from using people as meat shields. Piercing damage gets real obnoxious when you're jammed behind a fat Striker user.

 

The module included, by the name and brand of Grizzly T-C, grants me some extra buffers versus Isida, Hammer and Vulcan. I'm not sure whether Osaka express-delivers M2 or M1 modules, but either way, not being OHKO'ed by an M1 Hammer on a Double Power rampage could spare me plenty of grief. Being able to stomach another Isida's attack, now that their cumulative damage rates have punched a nice big hole in the ceiling, would be greatly appreciated as well.

 

The crux of the kit, however, would be the newest and shiniest item of my garage (of course, spare my glamorous Spangles): M2 Isida. Boosting my healing capabilities by 60 HP a second and transforming the green numbers TheSmeargleThatCan generates to roughly 81, the device will definitely give me an advantage in patching up my buddies quicker. I've found that more often than not, an M1 Firebird with a few micro-upgrades or another M1 Isida can shred through my previously injured partners faster than I can refuel them. This extra boost in power might be enough to remedy this issue for a while, but this is only a band-aid solution, since other weapons will receive their increases in power even quicker (I'm looking at you, Freeze and Vulcan M2). I can't have a Double Power activated constantly, either, since I'm already down to the last of my Double Armors from multiple hardcore CTFs.

 

I think I'll take the micro-upgrading route with M2 Isida.

I've come to this conclusion for the following reasons:

 

• The massive divide between ranks. There's literally more than 900,000 experience points between Osaka's unlocking rank and M3 Isida's, which means that most people will have advanced M2s and M3s by the time I reach that segment. Since I'm already struggling to keep up with the crowd with M1s among M0s, I'll need to take any advantages I can before things begin to become completely unsuitable for survival, and more importantly, assistance.
• The massive boost in effectiveness on the field. Playing with the numbers again, the healing jump from M2 to M3 adds 107.41 more health per second. That's enormous. At pseudo-M3, that would mean that I generate a green number of 106. That's a small bit behind double of what I'm working with now, and if I can figure out a way to get close to that by Third Lieutenant, this little Smeargle will be a happy camper for a long time.
• I have little else to focus on equipment-wise. My garage contains four items right now, and discounting the M0 Smoky that I'll never use again (I can count the number of shots it's fired on both hands, none of them actually striking anyone), it can be easily credited as three: Isida, Hunter and Wasp. I already have M1 Wasp, and if I decide to splurge in the future before Colonel and buy five more micro-upgrades for it, I still would have only consumed about 5,900 crystals if I didn't speed up anything. M2 Hunter won't be necessary for a while, but I'm certain I can generate the crystals necessary for that, too. Same with M2 Wasp.

Granted, I understand that the price is a bit steep for the full early-modification process --  a whopping 471,000 crystals required for just the flat upgrade rate. Add on the 5,900 for the Wasp, the Support Nanobots alteration, and the M2 hulls, and I'll be spending over 750,000 crystals before Marshal. This doesn't include the random desire for a module, micro-upgrades on M2 hulls, various supplies, or even a miscellaneous gift. Of course, this is all disregarding sales, and Tanki's Birthday alongside Iron Days sales might alleviate this to a great extent.

 

 

 

 

---

I hope you enjoy the series as it continues to unfold; I know I sure will. The experience has been oddly intriguing thus far, despite having already tasted the proverbial fruits of this particular playstyle tree before. If you're particularly interested in the concept of a completely non-inflictive Tanki Online career, feel free to try this out for yourself, if you haven't already. Whatever you do, tread carefully. 

 

 

 

.

[TTK_229 1,080]

I kinda like the genocide route, too. Sans' I3anter at the bows fight is almost HD Skype chat-worthy.

Oh, wait, not undertake. *backs away slowly*

[bc200214_777 582]

Persistent :v

[DeathByBoss 104]

Sans: You feel like you're going to have a bad time.

 

Me:  :mellow: