Just generic P2W drama. They were the first big paid advantage in the game since it was impossible to save-up enough free ones to use them non-stop. The only free source of them was the daily login bonus, so the only way to have enough of them was to maintain 30 accounts and collect daylies on all of them, while playing only on one account per day. Meanwhile buyers would use them non-stop, and that's when the term "drugger" originated*. The P2W role of supplies was later taken by micro-upgrades, then by drones and batteries, and finally by augments. * If I recall correctly, the very first consumable (and purchaseable) supply was the repair kit, which used to be a health kit, and the symbol for it was a syringe, so people who used them excessively were "drug addicts". But that was like 2009-2010 and I didn't play yet, so I'm just repeating what others said.

No idea man, I've been playing Crisis since 2021 so I have no clue what supplies are like these days

You mean impact force? That's already a thing for most turrets, including all those you listed. Doesn't make sense for a game as fast as Tanki Online. Unlike a game like WoT, where tank battles are closer to reality, Tanki gameplay doesn't give you enough time to carefully position your tank and maneuver around the enemy to hit specific spots. That's a very good question and a great time to ask it. Lead game developer Opex Rah has been asking the same thing and is in the process of changing and improving the supplies system. You're right that it's pointless to have consumables when everyone has plenty of them and simply auto-activates them on every spawn. Yes, mines and grenades are considered to be the more interesting supplies with good game mechanics. Augments are a revenue-generating feature. You don't just remove a source of revenue and make the thing drop from the sky for free. Exciting, but no. Gold boxes caused enough drama back in the day when they were valuable. It's good that they're worthless now, and we don't need another one-in-a-million drop box ruining the flow of battles.

Aren't they really hard to aim? I feel like they only work if you're mortaring a stationary target and have the time to aim properly.

The art and programming teams reading this like:

Profiles haven't been updated since like 2018, no?

Yes. #re-old-hopper

2020-ahh comment

Damn, some people have it really rough. Makes you appreciate the privilege of a nice life...

Damn, that's a thing? Some people act really pathetic when it comes to video game numbers.

Wait, are you talking about all supplies in general, and not just speed boosts? @Opex-Rah has been going on about this for years. Yes, they're an outdated mechanic whose main purpose is (or rather, was) generating revenue. They don't add much to the gameplay no matter how many "smart cooldowns" the devs configure. It's too late to outright remove them, but that's why the devs are playing with the idea to only allow one supply to work at a time. If that feature gets released, supply usage might become more interesting. You can see that they learned from their mistakes, because grenades are also supplies, but they are actually an interesting mechanic rather than "press this button after every spawn and become useless once it runs out"

I'm pretty sure this was one of the first ideas ever suggested. Probably back in 2010, when self-destruct timer was 10 seconds.

How many skins do you have left to get from it? Maybe you find them lame because you're a high rank, whereas most less-stacked players like them because they don't have many skins and it gives them a cool new look to try. I do agree though that a lot of the skins in them are garbage and clearly only exist to act as filler to dilute the prize pool.

Yeah that requires a whole new functionality to be added to skins, disconnecting those lights from the skin itself and making them change colour based on the shot effect. All to achieve a tiny visual change that's pretty much only visible in the garage and most people won't even notice it. It makes much more sense to add custom light colours as a separate new cosmetic item.