Haha :) True that. I moved to a Titan M2 from a Mammoth M2 after the new physics and I hate it when people bump into you when you're aiming and you shoot off target...mammoth didn't move as much when anyone bumped you.

I agree, it's very difficult to move the scope, in sniper mode, to keep up with faster tanks but what I try and do is to pick a spot on a map where the enemy has the smallest possible path to enter into your territory. That gives you a smaller range to move the turret through. Also, after a few minutes of playing a game, the playing style of each member of the enemy team becomes apparent and you can almost predict which path or route they are going to take. In my opinion, it's a very strategic game when you play with a shaft. Playing team games is the only type of games I play. I know I'll fail terribly at anything other than a team game with a shaft. I agree that small maps are difficult except for maybe Highlands. If you're on the red team, CTP is great for Highlands. If you're on the blue team, go for TDM. On silence, the best spot for the blue team is at the edge of the top level because you have a view of both ramps. I've got crazy D/L's by playing there. There's also a spot on the lower level of the blue team behind one of the walls. If you're on the red team in Silence and you have decent support from your team mates, you can virtually live on the lower ramp with just the turret showing. Other weapons find it hard to hit you when you have just that tiny turret showing but you, as a shaft, will have perfect aim. I just got a D/L of 22 earlier today doing this, in a TDM. Go with a heavy hull. You don't need to pick up crystal boxes. If you play the shaft right, you'll usually be either the 1st, 2nd or 3rd in your team and you'll get a whole lot of crystals without collecting a single box. I also like to go into a game where the team I join is slightly trailing :) It feels good to turn the game over. But seriously, don't give up on it yet. It may just be that you don't have as much time to play right now but once you get used to the new shaft, you may like it better. I certainly do. The one thing I would change is that when you are fully loaded in sniping mode and you want to get out of the scope in order to move or look around, you have to wait to reload again before you can get into the scope...that sucks a little. PS: another thing I do is, I position myself in a spot where if I came out of sniping mode, I'd immediately be able to see as much of the area around me as possible.

Mainly Silence, Polygon, Highland and one other that I started playing which I don't remember the name of. I'll occasionally play Sephurov but it's a boring map for a slower hull. All of those maps have some really great spots for a slow hull to shoot from. Short/mid range weapons are not a huge problem and here's why: I mainly play team games (TDM or CTF). You can use paint to protect against short range weapons up to a point. Your team will have their own short/mid range tanks who will usually take on their opposing counterparts. Being a long range weapon, you can pick a spot far away from any entry points and destroy opposing tanks that enter your area. If they come up really close to you, you're in trouble though. I try and be patient when more than one tank enters my area so that I shoot when more than one tank is in line with another...since they are light tanks, the Shaft shot goes right through tanks so I try and get a 2-in-1 (or more) shot wherever possible. Always pick out the tank that poses the most threat first. ALWAYS go for the isida first because even if you shoot a freeze, the isida will just heal him and you'll die before you kill the freeze. As for the slow turret rotation, if I'm out of sniper mode, I turn the hull along with the turret, at the same time. If you're in sniper mode and a short/range weapon is close by, you're screwed but every single weapon on Tanki has it's own pros and cons and these are just the shafts. As for slow reload time, take cover when you're reloading. This is a sniping weapon, after all :) A lot of people accuse shafts of being campers...that's ridiculous, they can't expect a shaft on a heavy hull to hop around shooting everyone lol this is a slow weapon. People who say that are just not aware of different strategies, in my opinion. As for missing fire...you'd rarely miss a shot...I mean, you have the sniper scope :) The only times I miss is when one of my own team mates bump into me when I'm about to take a shot, other than that I rarely miss on sniper mode. That thing is so incredibly accurate.

I have a Shaft at M1 and had a Mammoth at M1. I didn't like the update initially but now, the Shaft works better than ever. The way it works now is how a true sniper weapon should work. I'm exposed for a very short time now while I reload so I don't get destroyed very often. My D/L's have doubled now. Went from being an average of 7-8 D/L to about 15-20. The Mammoth really sucks now though. I had to buy a Titan and upgrade it to M1. Cost me a bunch of crystals...but I can recover them easily with the new power of the Shaft. You just need to adapt with the changes. That's what a battle is all about anyway.

PPAPI is the better one to use, as opposed to NPAPI which is less secure and portable. Any plans to make the player compatible with PPAPI, in the future?

No doubt, shaft is a formidable weapon, depending on y our playing style: it's not for everyone. The difficult part is fighting off short range weapons but something you can do to help that situation is face them dead on when they come towards you, lay a mine and back off. They will follow you to attack you and hopefully get a good bit of damage to their hull. As for the rail gun vs shaft comment somewhere above, you can't really say one is better than the other, it all depends on your playing style. One thing I love doing to rails are to wait till they're about to shoot and hit them right at the top of the turret so they miss you because of the power of the shaft shot.

Perfect. That answers my questions. Thanks :)

Sorry, I'm new to this. What is friendly fire? Is that a setting that I can turn off? If you mean that they did it by accident, that definitely wasn't the case as they sometimes would deliberately point at me and fire till I was destroyed. I can understand Freeze hating opposing Shafts but if we are on the same team, are we not supposed to help each other? Call me crazy, but that makes sense to me :P Thanks for the responses so far.

Please move this thread if it's in the wrong section. Apologies in advance. I never really liked playing games so much but Tanki is pretty awesome! I've only been playing for just over a month and I use a Shaft M1 very often and take part in either TDM or CTF. Sometimes, a fellow team mate Freeze will destroy me (sabotage). At other times, a fellow team mate Freeze will try to destroy me but my health doesn't drop. And I've only noticed this with the Freeze so far. Is this a bug or a cheat? The reason I ask is it's only in certain cases when a Freeze on my own team can destroy me, as mentioned above. I love this game but situations like the above are really frustrating. Any help?

Try it in CTF in Highlands. If you're on the side that has the metal bridge, there are some really good hiding spots and you can get a ton of kills assuming you play your cards right and know when to hit who.

Shaft M1 + Mammoth M1 + lead paint without drugging at Highlands works perfect. I actually think it works great in small maps like Highlands because there is limited space and so you're going to have a lot of tank activity and so a lot of kills. I'm almost always the leader in a TDM or CTF in this map with the Shaft without drugging. A lot of people complain about not being able to get crystals if you use the Shaft but I just try and make it to the top in a TDM or CTF and grab a large chunk of the battle funds. I usually have higher points than even the faster tanks that capture flags as long as I kill higher ranking enemies. The only problem for me is that in sniper mode, I can't see any other tanks approaching me so I always use the Page Up/Page Down keys to focus my camera accordingly so that when I briefly come out of sniper mode (while the turret recharges) I can see any other tanks approaching me. I get a lot of Freeze, Isida and Firebirds this way. I wish people would quit hating on campers because this is a sniper weapon so the smartest strategy is to camp. Have you ever seen a real life sniper run about after every shot? My biggest threats are other Shafts and Railguns. For Railguns, I always wait till I see a glow at the tip of their turret I hit them at the corner of the hull so that when they do fire, they miss me. I alternate which corner of the hull I hit because some of them are smart enough to adjust their aim accordingly. However, I usually get them on the second hit. If I want to turn really fast, I turn the hull using the arrow keys and use the z, x, c keys to turn the turret, at the same time. I've been playing Tanki for less than a month (you can check my profile, if there's a way to do that) and I'm a Warrant Officer 1 just because the Shaft, when used properly, make it easy rise up in ranks. I definitely think you need skill to play the Shaft, as with any turret. You've got to anticipate the enemies moves and strategize who to hit first so that you don't get killed first (when going up against more than one enemy). Also, you can protect the tank who captures the enemies flag so that he doesn't get too much damage. It's a turret that requires a lot of strategy to play, that's the skill you need for this turret - strategy.