Well there used to be an option - the fastest possible way - which was to purchase XP, for 1000 crystals, you could buy 1000 XP points. Since a little bit over a year ago, that option has been removed. You'll have to stick with the patient and hard working route. Powerleveling will get you banned in a heartbeat, so don't try that. The best ways to get fast XP are to play ALOT. The more you play, the more XP you will accumulate. It takes a long time to reach the high ranks, but if you're devoted and patient enough, you could reach the last rank in 6 months. It would require you to play upwards of 5-10 hours every single day though. If you want to gain quick points, kill-stealing should be mastered. On top of knowing which enemies are on low HP (so you know exactly who to attack to gain points - rather than someone else taking them) is the weapon you use for doing this. A weapon which can 'secure' kills by taking a large chunk of HP at once does this best. Railgun will be one of the best options for this. If you don't like the slow reload speed of railgun, then Thunder works great too. Aside from kill-steals, there is flag capping, which awards you a very nice sum of points especially in a large game with many enemies. I'd advise you to figure out what role you like to play the most in Tanki, and games like this in general, and once you decide which hull and weapon fits you best, learn to master it and make the most of it. Isida provides a nice bonus, where you can heal teammates to get points as well, so you don't have to score kills. It works very well in the low to medium ranks in large games, simply follow your teammates around, and keep them on full hp. You get the same amount of points for healing a wasp with 95 hp, as you do a Mammoth for 200 hp, so if you heal lighter hulls, your points will rack up more quickly. Try not to show favoritism to only one or two teammates though just because they can provide you more points. As an Isida you are expected to heal anyone and everyone who needs your support, after all, thats your job. Drugging (the use of supplies) is one of the best ways to get fast XP, and even better when you've purchased a Score Multiplyer Pass, which gives 30% more XP for every point. 1000 points = 1300, etc. This will help you tremendously. If you purchase crystals and can buy a supply kit, using a kit will provide you the fastest way to rank up. If you choose to play entirely for free, without the purchasing of crystals, then you will need to make more strategic purchases and play a more skilled game to compensate for the lack of funds and equipment. When drugging, if you want fast points, you can use a weapon like Railgun, on double power. Sit back in a hidden area where you can escape if needed on double power, and take shots by 'peeking' out at your enemy with a shot, and then quickly hide back in cover. This is called the 'peek-a-boo tactic' and it can give you great kill/death ratios and let you gain points very fast. Only take a shot when you know you will hit, to avoid wasting a shot and having to wait for the reload. If you're in danger by an enemy, retreat, and always keep an eye on your surroundings. I also suggest people to play in very 'dense' maps, where there are alot of players in a very small space. This means you are basically spawning right next to your enemies, and there is little distance to travel between your base and theirs. This means more XP, because you're constantly shooting enemies and taking flags, rather than driving across the map, wasting precious seconds on transportation, when you arent actually gaining points for that time spent. Play in maps where there is less cover, and enemies are everywhere around you. Use a weapon and hull that fits the map accordingly. Some good maps which are dense are Silence, Island, Combe, Farm, etc. These allow for plenty of players in a small confined area with little cover. Deathmatch (DM) mode may also give you some quick XP, for every kill you are awarded 10 XP, and with a map like Polygon - which mind you, is very dense - can certainly make efficient use of your time if you want to rank up. Just focus on stealing kills in a DM mode. Choose targets which are low on HP by watching them at all times. Avoid the 'druggers' in these DM matches (unless you are one yourself) and focus on getting easy kills. Good weapons for DM mode are Thunder, Smoky, and other high damage per second (DPS) weapons. Firebird/Freeze can do this fairly well, but are not always the best options. Firebird M1 wont last you very long, as its unlocked early and its underpowered compared to other later unlocked M1s. Good hulls to use in a DM would be either Wasp/Hornet where you can quickly take cover and peek out to deal your damage (especially when using railgun) and then hide again, OR a very heavy hull such as Titan/Mammoth, where you can tank alot of HP without dying. This allows you to deal alot of damage as well, letting you get more kills, and in turn, more points. You should also take note of the games you join, and the players in them. If you join a match and the enemy is full of high ranked kit-buyers with drugs... its probably not a good choice to invest your time there. You should fight the lowest rank possible enemies if you want easy and quick XP. These will be weaker and likely less skilled than players of high ranks who have a higher probability of knowing what they're doing. Again, as stated in the beginning, the more you play, the faster you'll rank up. The more you fire your weapon, the more XP you'll get. Its suggested to fire at actual opponents. And the more flags you capture, your ranking will be on its way up. Just be active and stay determined to reach your goals here and it will pay off in the end. I suggest you make 'daily' goals of how much XP you want to gain in a single day. This will help you to keep a consistent growth of XP and let you monitor how well you are doing. If you don't reach your goal one day, try to make up for it the next day by playing a little longer. If you're curious as to how much XP is needed for each rank, here is a chart below in this spoiler. Hope this helps a bit, if you have any more questions feel free to PM me here and I'll do my best to assist you.

M1 Smoky is great, and its certainly better than M0 thunder. However, in comparison to M1 thunder, I would have to say that thunder would be slightly better. Not only is it unlocked later (which generally means that its better than an earlier unlocked piece of equipment) but it costs far more. If you could save up your crystals and be patient enough to rank up more, a later unlocked weapon might do better for you. M1 smoky is great though, I used it alot and it lasted me for many ranks. And as stated above... no need to create so many topics ask these questions in What to buy- What to use section in the future, thanks. There you will get better advice.

Absolutely without a doubt, Pro-Battle-Passes are 110% worth it. Its the main enjoyable game type for me and most of my friends now, along with other 'specialized' matches where we use a specific weapon/hull type in certain maps. 5k for 1 month isnt bad at all if you play 1-2 hours a day. Just do it :p The 114% fund from turning off crystal box drops makes up for it in the fund winnings that you make from each game. I just re-purchased my PBP today actually.

No refunds are planned... the rebalance was a one time thing, because all economics were changed entirely, everything was multiplied by 10. If something huge occurs, like this in the future, there is a small chance that a refund would happen, but very unlikely. I think we all have a few regrets on purchases, but we just have to live with it unfortunately. Mind you this would have to be something incredibly dramatic.

Hunter and Viking... maybe hornet. Using Rico, you need a bit of speed to be able to take cover when you run out of ammo. You also need a fair amount of HP so you can deal as much damage as possible while you're alive. On top of that, you'll need enough stability so that you don't miss your shots, every shot counts if you want to be a good Rico player. The best thing for Rico though, is to choose the right maps where it is the most effective. Choose maps where you can easily bounce shots off of walls without having to 'go out of your way' to hit your enemy with them. You can bounce a shot off anything, but if its unrealistic, that you have to handicap yourself just to get a wall shot... then its not worth it. Maps with a layout like Silence, Garder, Noise etc, will do the best with Ricochet. If its a bigger map, I'd take Hornet or Hunter. If its medium, any of the three will work, and if its a small map, Viking or Hunter will be better options.

I havent been here for that long actually, only since Update 123/rebalance. I don't know when a sale is coming nor do other mods, we'll have to wait and see what comes. I'm just guessing that one will come because its been a little while and Tanki has sales frequently. You can earn 29k in 20 hours of gameplay. If you play hard nonstop for two days straight focusing on kill-stealing, and flag capturing, then you can easily rank waaay before that SMP runs out. I once made 140k xp in under 2 weeks. Thats 10k xp a day for 14 days in a row on average.. some more, some less. You'll get 11k for simply ranking up. Your plan sounds fine if thats what you want. If possible though, you should probably aim to purchase the Light M3 kit at brigadier, rather than buying Savanna/Smoky. There are lots of Needles running around since the new light kit M3 was implemented, and there were already plenty of Savannas before. Facing 1-2 smoky protection paints in a Sandbox 4v4 seriously reduces Smoky's effectiveness. If you get smoky + savanna, you'll still be in need of a M3 hull... and it sounds like you'll be out of crystals. The light M3 would get your paint + hull + weapon and at 299k its a steal. Then you can play lots of XP battles, become alot more skilled, and save up crystals from all the pro-battles in XP that you'll be doing. You can earn quite alot of crystals like this if you win your XP's because crystal drops are disabled, which means 114% more fund. Don't vs them to start with. :) Play in matches with those just one below Lieutenant General, or don't play drug-war battles at all. Only play XP battles, or weapon/hull-specific type matches. Diferent types of gameplay <- Go here, tell all your friends so they can play these matches listed here with you, they are far more fun than random battles, trust me. If you have a unique idea of your own to suggest in that topic, do it too so we can all enjoy it. No need to worry about kits, just play in games without them.

Dont buy a supplies kit. Don't buy thunder yet. As you said, with your Light M3 kit, you'll already have tons of fresh gameplay and enjoyment to have, no need to overwhelm yourself with two new M3 weapons at the same time. Its much better to wait for a sale, which I can see coming somewhat soon - you'll still be enjoying your light M3 kit for a long time to come. The reason I say not to buy a supplies kit, is because with M3 light kit, you'll (hopefully) be playing ALOT more XP battles and by doing this, you save drugs up like crazy. On top of that... you don't even need a paint for XP battles. They're fun, especially with friends, and you become a far more skilled player than a drugger does dominating dummies mercilessly. You can still rank without supplies, just play with low ranks, and play in maps where its very 'dense.' Places that have alot of players in a small area with little cover, like Hill, Island, Combe, etc where you can quickly get kills without any down-time inbetween. Desert is fine too as you've been doing, but when you drug, try to focus more on just using double power with rail, and use cover more to your advantage. And on top of that, obviously shoot only enemies when you're 100% sure you'll score a kill. Don't spend an excessive amount of crystals on buying drugs just because you want to rank on Thursday... better to wait 1-2 more days and save 30k+ from not buying drugs. Don't buy the paint kit M2, you have Helper... and hopefully you'll get helper more in the future as well, plus you can only use 1 paint at a time. Needle will be in your inventory, and any kit that you buy in the future, or upcoming sale, will provide you a good paint so you don't need to worry about that. So yes, option 2.

This would be perfection if the left side rail was M2... for a complete purple circle.. but its not... and now I'm sad... :(

Thanks for trying to give advice for beginners, but many guides on how to quickly gain crystals are already in existance and this is the wrong section for doing so. If you want to post an image, try uploading it to a free image host such as www.imgur.com, www.tinypic.com, or www.postimage.org . Click 'Browse' and search from your computer's files to find the picture. After you upload a picture to one of those websites then you simply can post the link here - if in tinypic or postimage, there are direct links for forums which provide a thumbnail of your image which others can click to enlarge. Otherwise, you can simply right click on the picture, press 'Copy' and then come back here to your forum post and press 'Paste' in the section where you want your picture to appear.

Savanna should do great for you in both Sandbox and Iran. Emerald will work too, just choose whichever protection that bothers you the most. Since you're a close range user, I think you could handle thunder users easier, because you'll be able to make them deal self-damage from the splash damage when they shoot you while you're in their face with freeze. Smoky's will be more difficult, so I'd take Savanna. Emerald looks nicer though, and thunders do indeed hurt, so its a toss up. As a freeze user, do not buy Irbis. You don't need Isida protection, you can simply out-range them with your freeze M3 and they shouldnt be able to touch you, just standing there helplessly frozen.

Glide is a paint created specially for those who are professionally engaged in Tanki Online's parkour. It is the property of those members of the TankiOnlineTutorials team. Click here for a complete list of special paints which cannot be purchased with crystals.

Viking is a bit more versatile if you want to get a bit more action, and will work better in large maps. Viking will work well with either short or long range paints. Titan will work considerably better for drugging or for small maps. Titan will most likely do better with at least some close range protection. You'll catch a few more golds with Titan and play defensive roles better. I'd only ever use Mammoth for DM as the only thing its got going for it is its high HP. This doesnt even really apply until M3. At M2, Titan is superior to Mammoth without question. If you already have a medium hull such as Dictator or Hunter, it would be useless to purchase Viking. Savanna will work great on either hull, but it may work slightly better on Vking, because on Viking, you can somewhat distance yourself from close range enemies, so Freeze/Firebird/Isida are slightly less of an issue when using Viking. Its virtually impossible to run away from a freeze/firebird/isida using a heavy hull so close range protection will benefit a Titan more. Titan for CTF and for M2 in general. Mammoth M3 for DM or pure heavy defense CTF (little to no attacking - the kind where you sit at your base and lay 20 mines with an Isida keeping you on full HP as you stand on top of your flag so no one can touch it - except titans and vikings, and possibly even dictators will push you off... (slowly though)

I dont think you should stereotype white people as the culprit for violence and greed. Not only will this upset many people, but you're going to start a flame war of some sort. There are many other examples (obviously) throughout history of people from all national backgrounds and cultures who have done far worse things.

Just noticed this lol... " your stolen account will certainly be used for testing new cheats?"

You must need glasses. That is clearly a dog, with little to no gravity. Nice spelling btw too. xD

I do not suggest you do this in team games. This is considered multing if you aren't helping your team, but focusing purely on picking up crystals. This is sabotage. If you want to collect crystals, you need to do this in DM games only, where other players are left unaffected. This is the wrong section for this post, and many topics regarding how to gain crystals quickly already exist. Here are a few: How to get crystals verry fast How to get crystals fast Crystals: What are they? How to earn them? Its not suggested however to simply pickup crystals rather than focusing on the match you're in... as stated earlier, this would be encouraging sabotage. You can actually earn alot more crystals by simply coming in 1st place in your matches, and choosing battles wisely - ones which you can win. Since you get 0 experience points for picking up crystals... you're missing out on the 'crystals for ranking up' bonus that you get every time you rank. These help alot more than you'd expect, especially if you focus your efforts on accumulating as many points as possible... it also means that as you rank higher, every day your bonus will be considerably better... and this adds up over time. You also become a more skilled player by focusing on the game.. and Tanki is much more enjoyable. Even if you earn plenty of crystals by picking them up in DMs, it is of little use to own a nice garage when all you know how to do in tanki is memorize every single crystal drop spot lol.

Without a doubt, you should forget about Winter paint. Savanna > digital~rustle. Savanna would be the best, the rail protection it has is very nice, and as a smoky user, you would have the advantage of other smokies, which is always a nice thing. Also, its not good to accumulate multiple low rank paints, and you already have Tundra at the moment. If I were you, I'd use Tundra until you can get Savanna. Digital is not a considerable amount better than Tundra for it to be worth the price tag, unless theres an extremely good sale, something like 50-70% off digital. Rustle is very nice, I have Zeus and I actually found the need to use Rustle today. Rustle is better for small-medium maps for CTF, you can always find a freeze and thunder user in nearly every single match. I prefer using Rustle on a heavier hull though. My advice would be to use Tundra for now, rank as much as possible, and when the next paint sale comes, 25-50% sale, depending on your rank at that time (hopefully you'll have unlocked Savanna by that time if you play a whole lot and have the score multiplier. Rustle + Hornet means you get 1 shot killed by M3 railgunners, and this is bad because they are everywhere now with the new cheap light m3 kit. Not only do these light m3 kit users have M3 railgun to 1 shot kill you if you're wearing rustle, but they will have 48% smoky protection against your Smoky M2... so they will be a horrific nightmare for you to come across. I think Tundra -> Savanna/Emerald is your best option. You're very welcome. :) I fully agree that its sad how many here don't take the time to give strong support for their opinions... it doesn't help very much, just fills up the thread with meaningless posts. I feel like there should be a requirement for giving advice here, that you actually give your answer serious thought as if the advice you give is for yourself / own purchases.

Correct. Good job. :)

-Removed-

Could done this in a PM or by using the Full Editor and pressing 'preview post.' Anyways, you type "[5spoiler]" before the message, and then after the message you would type "[5/spoiler] to end it. Take out the number 5. Without the number 5 it should look like this

Yes, its a great weapon at M2. I still use it myself, and if you want to become a skilled player, XP battles (Hornet + Rail) is a very good mode type to play. It's also quite fun. If its your favorite weapon, then its a good choice for you. I must say though, it is unlocked earlier than most M2's, and therefore in comparison to the other M2s which are unlocked later - around Major-Colonel, it is slightly less powerful, and there are a large number of rail-protective paints running around at the moment, due to kits which contain prodigi. There are also many Digital/Tundra users, but a skilled railgun user can easily overcome these obstacles and succeed just as well as any other player with a different turret. The only M2 weapon which I would advise you to stay away from would be M2 Ricochet. Its significantly underpowered at this stage, but it makes up for it at M3. Railgun M2 isnt hugely different from M1 though, its a small amount of damage more, with slightly better reload/turning speed. The most significant change is the color of the beam, which is a nice royal purple. You won't regret the purchase though. It would be best to use railgun on a light hull, without a doubt. The manueverability makes railgun what it is essentially: a peek-a-boo weapon. It works great when using cover to your advantage. Find a wall to hide behind with enemies in sight, and charge up your shot, barely stick out your turret so that your railgun just passes the object/wall you are using for cover, and quickly retreat back into cover while you reload. If you get good at this, you can get very nice kill/death ratios. There is no best turret. There is only a best turret for a paritcular player. If you love railgun, then that is the best turret for you. If you haven't given any other turrets a chance, I suggest you visit the test server which is sometimes available to the public, especially when updates are on the horizon. You can use the codes "/addcry 999999" and "/addscore 9999999" and test out any weapon or hull you wish. You should also buy all of the M0 weapons and give them a test run to see if its something that fits your play style. Without giving everything a try, you can't exactly determine what weapon fits you the best.

Well the best hull for smoky greatly depends on the map size, and the role you wish to play in that match. If you're someone who plays DM's frequently, without a doubt you'll want to go with Mammoth. If you play CTF more often though, I'd suggest Wasp or Hornet especially for medium-large maps. As side before, the role, whether defense or offense should affect your decision as well. Personally, I use my Smoky + Titan for drug wars almost exclusively. Smoky's crits vs other druggers really give you the upperhand, particularly for maps like Island, Farm, Silence, etc. These are all very compact maps, which hold lots of players in a small space. These are the best times to have a heavy hull because you can't get away from the enemies, all you can do is tank the damage. The other times that I use my Titan (or in your case - Mammoth) is when defending for my team. Smoky works great in medium maps when paired with a heavy hull, because it allows you to defend while shooting enemies from a distance, rather than standing there doing nothing until enemies get super close (as you would have to do with a close range weapon + heavy hull while defending.) Basically, if you want to play drug wars and be unstoppable - or want to play the role of defense, choose a heavy hull to pair with your smoky. If you want to focus on becoming a more skilled player, getting in all the action, and capping flags - especially in non-supplies battles, then a lighter hull is for you. I use both Titan + Smoky, and Wasp + Smoky for different occasions and I'm extremely happy with my purchases. Wasp is my favorite hull in general, because I'm a speed lover. I use it for BP (Wasp/Rail) games too, and it was my dream hull since the very first day I started playing Tanki Online. If you already have Hornet M2 (like most do - I dont - I'm M0) then it would be silly to buy Wasp M2 and have two light hulls. Pick one and stick with it, at least until you're a very high rank with plenty of money and can afford anything you want. Finally a last thing to consider is your current paints - or future paints. Generally with a heavy hull, you'll want to use a close-range paint. If you already have a paint like Rustle, Inferno, etc, then your heavy hull will be more effective. On the other hand, it is not recommended to use a long-range paint such as Digital, Prodigi, Winter, etc, on a heavy hull. These are far more effective on light hulls. If you have one of the long range paints listed above, then they will fit wasp or hornet perfectly.

O_O 2nd pic is my rankup party hahaha. Awesome xD -Longest distance rankup ever- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9mn-jDslvk Some pictures

As answered before... keep up with the Developers news section. We have to wait until it is publicly announced.

No one knows the exact date of upcoming sales, we just have to wait and keep an eye out on the developers news section, or on the tanki twitter page. Thats where you will find all new information regarding sales. As for what Semyon 'uses', by his rank you can tell that his options are limited, and as you know he's a very busy person, being our CM, I doubt he gets to spend too much time actually playing Tanki. If you are asking this for advice on what you should personally use, ask here in the What to buy - what to use section.