The amount of crystals (and hence supplies, since you get supplies equal in value to your crystal daily bonus), increases with rank :) I think there's a table on the wiki somewhere, but I think it goes up to 3300 for a generalissimo

:) My article tried to do exactly that, help you decide what to MU. I can't really make a statement for everyone saying exactly what to MU, since this depends on individual finances. Otherwise, I would recommend buying everything! What AZ is saying, I believe, is how he is buying those MUs, with the aim of an M4 in mind. He has the crystals for M4, he is just deciding how best to go about MUing that. I think you can do this simply by comparing the cost of the MU compared to its speed-up cost. If the MU is less expensive than the speed-up, then it's cheaper to upgrade them normally than on a 50% sale for example. Of course, this is highly unpredictable, the MU sales vary greatly. If you want information on what to MU, as I have said that's very difficult for me to write about, since it changes from person to person. But I think, if you are limited in your budget, from the article, the first levels are always the most cost-effective. And pick the appropriate parameters too. For example, for a turret damage is probably more important than turning speed. Hope this helps!

Imo, you don't really need it with your garage :) viking is a great buy though if you want something. Other than that, save your pot for m3s!

:p

Yes, I do like magnum :) first four are a bit cheesy in my opinion, and the last one isn't that exciting :p

We realise this and are doing something about it - thank you for your patience!

Sure, thank you for your comments :) I can assure you I chose the interviewees personally with no other moderator influence, and if you ask the interviewees, I believe nearly every one of them I had no private chat with beforehand. I cannot speak for the rest of the moderating team. But surely those people who are most enthusiastic, and most committed to the game will be the ones who win the most contests, manage to enter the most events, have the most connections, and quite often, they are the buyers. That might explain why you see the same people popping up :p but I know that myself and many of my colleagues would never discriminate, and would act professionally :) If you ever have any specific complaints, don't hesitate to contact the appropriate administrator.

I have never, and will (Hopefully) never need to buy :) of course, being staff does bring financial benefits ^_^

None of the players I picked are moderators, and most of them i didn't know and still don't know very well. I picked people who I saw commenting over the forum, and chose people who were actually backing what they were saying, and clearly made some good points. In no way are we taking the right for you to talk free - clearly, as you are talking right now!

Of course, all MUs help, but I am writing more about the long term cost effectiveness. When you eventually upgrade to M3, you will find you have spent a lot more crystals than it was worth, MUing your rico all the way.

denex maybe check out my garage analysis in the newspaper archive section? I have never bought so it might be helpful :)

When someone is chasing you, they may not have time to slow down. When someone is pushing you from the side, they will push themselves onto it :p When you're going round corners, so they can't see the mine being activated? Just off the top of my head, I'm sure you can think of more :)

Your task is simple, find the winning word! And watch out for spoilers... Each clue in the series will come with a 'keyword'. Piecing together these keywords will give you the winning word! Unlike last quest, this time only one guess is allowed per person, so think hard before submitting your answer here: http://goo.gl/forms/Y9Hd3Tf5ia Clue 1: page 553 Keyword 1: topic 30,000, 15,000 and 5,000 crystal prizes available for the 5 fastest! Good luck! Correct entries so far: 5

A mode that is quickly gaining popularity in Tanki, capture points can be found on many servers and are probably second only to CTF in terms of number of games. Let's get right into it! ____________________________________________________________________________________ Scoring As usual, we will begin by looking at how you can earn points, as this is essential for knowing how to get the most points possible. As with the other team modes, points for kills are distributed equally by the players that did damage to that tank in the last ten seconds. This means that kill-stealing has little value, and you should aim to shoot as fast as possible. As well as the normal (healing, killing), you can also get points for capturing the point in this mode, and the number of points available is proportional to the number of players on the enemy team. It also is affected by the amount of time you have actually been there to capture the point - two players will receive different amounts of points if they have been at the point capturing for different amounts of time. Note that points are only given for a complete capture/uncapture of a point. This means that if your team is likely to win already, it might actually be a good idea to let the enemies to completely uncapture or capture the point before you go in and recapture the point. This way, you will get more points! Of course, this is only if your team is going to win - you are likely to lose one or two points this way! The game can be won by either having the most capture points after the time ends, or by reaching the capture point goal first. The number of points given by one capture point is about one point every ten seconds, or six points per minute. This means that you can quite easily work out the maximum number of points you can earn in the remaining time: (number of capture points)*(time remaining in minutes)*6. This can be used to decide whether the game is worth fighting for or not. For example, if your team is 60 points behind on a Polygon CP where there is only one capture point, and there are just 10 minutes left, you will need to hold the point for the whole 10 minutes to even have a chance of catching them up. So, if the enemy are even half decent, it is unlikely you will win and so it may not be worth going drugs-mode-on and trying to be a hero. Roles Now, let's take a look at the main roles you can play in this mode. Capturing Points The primary one in many games is the force that captures the point. Without it, you can't hope to win! Now, the hull you want to use is largely map dependent. You have to make a judgment on whether the extra speed of health is going to be more useful. For example, on smaller maps like Island or Arena, the time difference of reaching the point for a Viking and Mammoth will not be significant, but with Mammoth, you will be able to survive while there for much longer. But on a larger map like stadium, the enormous difference in time that it will take you to reach the points with your Mammoth is a significant disadvantage. Another aspect that is more important for this mode than others is your Power and Weight, which will affect how easily you can push others off the point, and also how difficult it will be for others to push you off. Often you don't need to kill the enemy tank before capturing the point if you can push them off first! As for weapons, you are likely to be at short range with the enemies, who will also try to reach the point. This makes weapons like Railgun very poor - you won't be using the weapon to its potential. In smaller games, where there are maybe just four per team, you might favour a weapon that can deal short burst high damage, allowing you to take the enemies out quickly and recharge while they are respawning, such as Firebird, or Rico. On larger games, you might prefer a weapon like Twins that can deal more sustained damage, as you will likely be facing multiple enemies coming onto the point in endless waves. Your paint choice should also match the likely weapons you will be facing. Short range protections like Rock or Zeus can be good in many cases, but this is definitely not always the best option! Support The other main role I think there exists is support. That is providing covering fire and helping to attack enemies who are reaching the point and while they are at the point itself. In smaller maps, and smaller games, there is not much room for many in supporting roles. But in larger maps and games especially, this is a very important role to fill. If left unchecked, a good supporting player can completely turn the tide in the team's favour. Ideally, you want to be dealing damage from range, so that enemies won't be able to both make for the point and try to attack you simultaneously. Therefore, longer range weapons are a better choice, like Smoky and Thunder. I hesitate to suggest Railgun and Shaft in general, since they lack the sustained damage that Smoky and Thunder can reach, but having said that they can still be good on certain maps, such as Stadium. Out of Smoky and Thunder, Thunder has the ability to deal splash, which is an incredible advantage compared to Smoky, especially on large team CPs. This enables the user to deal many times more damage potentially, especially since the enemies will be congregated at the capture point. This extra support can turn the battle at the point far in your favour. As for hulls, the extra health is not always necessary, and in fact it might be more useful to have a bit more maneuverability and speed to avoid enemies who try and pursue you. Most hulls are usable in this supporting role. Paint-wise, identify your biggest threat, and bring a paint that protects you from that. Often, this is the enemy supporting players, so a good long range paint like Clay would be perfect. Thanks for reading, and hopefully you have picked something up from this guide!

This was the hardest to judge of them all. There were many deserving of a consolation prize, and out of the three that did win, all wrote very fitting ends to the story! Onto the results. My favourite was from , who wins 50,000 crystals! I enjoyed it a lot. Thoroughly deserving consolation prizes, were @FaaiqBilal1 and @Cke1st who will receive 10,000 crystals each. Thank you to all who contributed to any of the four chapters of this series, I hope you enjoyed it! 'The Grand Offensive' has been published!

As many of you experienced players are already familiar with the usual tactics, positions and team strategies that are used in Tanki, today I bring something that may be completely new to you, something you may not even have dreamed of before! Parkour rarely mixes with regular battles, but as we shall see, there are cases where both can marry together to deadly effect. We welcome @SwiftSmoky on Parkour Fighting! ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Thank you very much for your offer to be interviewed today! So, onto 'Parkour Fighting'. I think I have an idea to what sort of thing it might be. But, as far as I know it's not a mainstream term yet! Could you please briefly describe what it is? Parkour Fighting is the usage of parkour to get advantage in battles. For example, getting on a higher place for a good sniping spot, using shortcuts to capture flags faster, jump over stuff to ambush the enemy from an unexpected direction, catching gold boxes, and so on. There are so many different advantages you can get with parkour that I am sure I haven't discovered all of them yet during my 3 years of parkour fighting. Interesting! But does it not take valuable time though to get into those spots? And do you need a friend to help you get there? If something takes a lot of time from the team it isn't worth the effort - the team will lose the battle if it spends too much time on climbing. Moreover, if a player can't get up to a good position fast enough the enemies will just kill him before he gets up. Most good places take no longer than 3 seconds to climb. Some tricks are possible to do alone, or by forcing enemies to help you (flip them and push them to where you need, then use their explosion to jump). My favorite part of using the enemies for parkour is their mines - they leave mines to damage us but they actually help us! Other tricks require the help of one team mate, usually just to shoot the player or make a ramp. Tricks that require more than one team mate are used very rarely and only if they give a really huge advantage to the team because the more team mates that are busy helping someone to get up, the weaker the team gets. No one is going to climb a skyscraper in the middle of a battle. Awesome. So could you give us an example of a good parkouring spot and how you might get up there? This is the best position in the map Highland. You can hit players anywhere on the map (except for those who stand between the houses) and it is hard to hit you if you know how to defend yourself. Positions as good as this one don't exist in most maps. As you can see there is another player down on the lower level of this place (bottom left corner), the lower level is safer because you can just go back and hide easily. The higher level is less safe but allows you to aim down without the risk of falling off and without having to move around to shoot at different places. You can hide behind the rusty tank on the top, but it takes time to get out of there so it is just a waste of time. You have to notice when someone tries to kill you, and kill him before he gets to where he can shoot you, or shoot him to set his aim off if you notice him late. If your team wins and controls most of the map they will take care of anyone who tries to get far enough to shoot you, but you still have to beware of those who will try to aim up by leaning on the cliffs. The best weapon for this position is Thunder because it deals massive damage in long range and the enemies can't see where it comes from (unlike railgun and shaft that show a clear line that points towards the attacker). If you use Wasp and Thunder you can get on the first level by jumping up the ramp and shooting down after you hit the cliff: An easier way to get up with any equipment is a ramp: You can stay on the first level and shoot from there until a friend gets up and makes a ramp to the second level: Don't forget that the way up to this awesome position is right next to the enemy flag! The enemies will defend this place and you have to be strong enough to deal with all the enemies that will stand on your way. I mentioned that parkour fighting is useful for catching gold boxes, this is one of the ways it can help you: That's very interesting, thank you! You've touched on this briefly already, but could you give us some advice on the sorts of combinations that are best for tricks like these? If you are the one that helps others to get up - Hornet with Railgun or Hammer, with any paint you want. If you are a runner - Wasp or Hornet and nitro with Smoky, Thunder or Railgun and any paint. Runners don't climb objects to stay on them - they jump over stuff to surprise the enemy and to shorten their path if they grab the flag. The only case runners climb a place to stay there is when the enemies take the flag so the runner has to find a very safe spot to hide the flag until his team returns their flag. One trick runners use a lot is getting the flag on an easily accessible place that is very easy to climb but requires using their combination. Runners often cooperate with a team mate for easy and safe shortcuts, in this image you can see me using a friend's help to take the flag out of the enemy base quickly before they react and try to stop me: (tricks like this also require distraction and very good timing) If you climb places to stay there and be a camper, it depends on where you climb and who helps you to get up there. Sometimes even Mammoth can be used. If you climb by yourself the best equipment is Wasp with Thunder or Ricochet - Thunder is good for higher jumps while Ricochet is better for going on narrow places. It is important to always be aware of your health and how much of it you will need to climb something with Thunder, sometimes you will have to drug to not kill yourself. If someone else helps you climb easy places like small to medium houses it is the easiest with Wasp and Thunder/Hammer/Railgun/Ricochet but can also be done with Hornet and Smoky/Shaft. If someone makes a ramp for you, you can use any hull you want, if you use Mammoth or Titan you might need nitro. The best paints for campers are camo paints - if the enemies can't notice you you are safe, and the fact that no one expects to see a tank standing on a high place in a normal battle helps a lot to stay unnoticed. If you are on a not very high position where you can be seen easily but you have a place to hide (or a lot of drugs) it is better to use a defensive paint against long range weapons. Choose the paint based on what long range weapons your enemies use. As I mentioned before, the best weapon to use on high places is Thunder because no one can see where it comes from, Smoky is as good as Thunder in positions where you focus on tanks that are very close to you. But there is one thing that only Thunder can do - deal damage without actually hitting the enemy. The splash damage of Thunder can save you from players that wait for you to show up to shoot you. For example, in this image you can see me shooting the cliff on the right of an enemy tank to kill him while staying safe behind the red house: Our time is just about up! Do you have any final words you want to share? Yes, just a couple! I'd like to tell you about the history of parkour fighting and my plans regarding parkour fighting. The history of parkour fighting: At the beginning parkour itself wasn't so popular and there were not so many possibilities, so I was almost only climbing cliffs to shoot them from above and behind and be noticed by less players. When it was impossible to climb cliffs alone with Ricochet anymore players stopped parkour almost completely, and parkour fighting almost died - players were climbing stuff in battles only when agreed to make a ramp for them - which happened very rarely. As parkour became more popular and advanced I managed to make parkour fighting known by a few players, but I'm not sure there were more than 100 parkour fighters in the game until few months ago. Recently parkour became a lot more popular and a lot more advanced, and with it parkour fighting became more powerful and more players started using parkour in battles to get a little advantage. Till then parkour fighting was limited to climbing to good camping/sniping positions, and the use of parkour fighting didn't change even though it can be used for a lot more. My plans regarding parkour fighting: My goal is to make parkour fighting more popular, as I said in the forum before: "I will be very happy if one day I'll join a random battle and will get wrecked by an awesome team of parkour-fighters!". I already made a few videos random solo parkour fighting tricks, and now I plan to make well organized parkour fighting video guides about team parkour fighting in the most popular maps - I will post these in my parkour fighting topic. I also plan to organize team parkour fighting events, hopefully with crystal prizes to the winners. Obviously the level of parkour fighting depends on the level of parkour skills, so I also try to teach parkour in the most effective ways, for example I made the parkour dictionary to show all the most popular and most useful parkour tricks and explain clearly how they work and when to use them. I will try few other ways later, like explaining the physics of the game and why parkour works. I might also post an article about a new strategy I developed especially for controlling the tank in complicated parkour tricks, stunts and flip fights: I call it "vectors thinking". Alright, thanks for your time!

The article is always written by who made the topic :) but we all help to edit and improve each other's articles, and usually Hammy does the title pics :p

What better way to continue our journey through the game modes than Capture the Flag, or CTF. By far the most commonly played game mode, CTF arguably requires the widest set of skills of all the modes. Simply killing and suppressing the enemies is not enough - you can have a death-loss ratio of 100 and it still means nothing unless you capture flags! ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Scoring Flag Interactions Since flags are at the centre of this mode, it makes sense for flag capturing and returning to be worth the most points. It's much harder to wait for the perfect moment (timing is key) to infiltrate the enemy base, make it out alive and carry it back home with all the enemy's sights trained on you, than to simply take out an enemy tank. And thus, capturing a flag is worth points equivalent to ten times the number of active players on the enemy team. So, if the enemies number six active players, one solo capture will be worth sixty points. Of course, enemy flags can go on quite a detour before reaching your own base and being cashed in for the point and score. They can be passed from player to player directly, or if the carrier is destroyed, the flag can be quickly picked up by another team member. Capturing the flag generally gives you the most points, but the amount you get depends somewhat on the distance travelled too. Because of this, it makes a lot of sense to back up the flag-bearer. If they are killed, or are weak, you can be ready to take the baton immediately and keep it moving towards a capture as fast as possible. If the enemy flag is returned, all is reset. That is to say all the flag-holding that you've done has gone to waste and none of those players will get any points! Returning a flag also gains you points - and it depends on how far the flag is from your base. Returning a flag that's right next to your base will give you just a measly point. Destroying Tanks Destroying enemies gives you points of course, as it does in any game-mode. But, recently, the scoring mechanics for kills changed, significantly in fact. Whereas before it was the tank that finished the enemy off that took all the points, now 15 points are shared between all team members that did damage to that tank. This means you shouldn't wait for the kill steal - fire straight away! Destroying an enemy flag-bearer gives you extra points, so common sense would tell you to aim at that tank! This is usually the case anyway, unless there is a healing Isida that needs to be taken care of before. Healing The only other way of gaining points, other than the above, is healing with Isida. The amount of points you gain is proportional to the actual amount of damage healed - you won't benefit by healing the weakest hulls first, heal the tanks that need to health immediately. This also conveniently brings me to my argument that Isidas are a necessity of any good CTF team. They can heal and support raiders of the enemy base, giving them the ability to withstand heavier fire, back up the heavy armour that is pounding away at the enemy positions, repair defenders after an enemy onslaught, as well as restoring the health of holders of the enemy flag in a so called 'flag stand-off'. This is where both teams have each other's flags safe and secure behind their own lines, and the race is to see who can return their own flag first. Offence There are various roles you can take up within a CTF team, and one of the most important is offence. Without attacking aggressively and trying for the enemy flag, how can you expect to win? So, now you've decided you want to attack, but what combination is best? Sure, any combination can be used to capture a flag, but there are definitely some that are better than others in the particular situation at hand, the primary factor being the map. On very small maps, such as Island, it might be acceptable to use a heavy tank such as Mammoth or Titan, since the distance that needs to be run is not so great. But on larger maps like the commonly played Silence, a big fortress like Mammoth probably isn't what you want. Don't forget - the aim is not to kill the most and die the least, you can die as many times as you need and it won't matter. The aim is to capture flags. As a Mammoth user, it will take a long, long time to even reach the enemy base, meaning that over a period of time, you will have less attempts to try and steal a flag. And even when you make it in, the amount of time it takes to get you out leaves you open to a lot of enemy fire. In this sense, speed can make up for lack of health - it means you are being shot at for a shorter length of time! So, on medium maps like these, a medium hull would be, in my opinion at least, the ideal choice - they are the perfect balance of speed and health. In larger maps like Kungur, or Dusseldorf, speed is even more important than before. Here, perhaps a lighter hull such as Hornet or even Wasp could be best suited for the job. I believe the strongest part of a successful flag raid is down to the hull, but the turret is important too. Again, the ideal choice depends a lot on the map. But let's look at each of the weapon classes one by one. First, short range. That includes Firebird, Wasp and Isida. Short range weapons are ideal on small maps, where the other weapons won't be able to use their range advantage as successfully, and you can hunt them down much more easily. But, interestingly, short range weapons can also be great on large maps too. A Wasp-Freeze can quite easily invade enemy lines, lay some of the enemies out of action, and escape quickly and nimbly. I place this down to the fact that part of flag-capturing involves entering the enemy base - that is to say you are forced to move into close proximity with the enemy, no matter what map it is. Looking at it in this way, maybe Freeze or Firebird on Kungur doesn't look so bad after all. Secondly, the medium range turrets that are Twins and Ricochet. As mentioned above, their relatively limited range isn't too much of a compromise when going for flags, even on large maps. Though they are probably best suited to small-medium range maps. Lastly, the long range turrets. Thunder first of all, I would avoid using for offence unless the map is large. This is because, when snatching the flag, you cannot make full use of its impressive range, and you are vulnerable to self damage -an enemy presses against you and you can't shoot him without hurting yourself! In small-medium maps, I would nearly always prefer Smoky over Thunder in offence - it is a much cleaner turret. Railgun should also be reserved for the large maps. Sure, it packs a deadly punch, and you might be able to take out one, two or even three with one shot. But what about the rest? How will you fend them off? Shaft, I think should be avoided in all scenarios. You cannot unleash Shaft's mighty sniping mode while moving, so why would you choose Shaft when you can pick, say Smoky? Defence As well as a good attacking force, a good CTF team also needs an on-the-lookout defensive team to make sure the enemy attackers do not steal your own flag. In general, since defenders will spend a lot of their time in and around their own base, speed is not as important. Therefore, in general, heavier hulls are preferred over lighter hulls, since their large amount of health outweighs their lack of speed. Furthermore, the heavy tanks are...heavy! And this means it is harder for enemies to push you away - you can sit on the flag and they will have a hard time pushing you off it! Slightly lighter hulls such as Viking can still be very usable in defence, and allows the defender to play more of a hybrid role in the team. When attacking, the player can move forward to support and carry the team back to the base, and when defending, the player can quickly drop back to help shore up the defences there. As regards to weapons, in general there are two key components of a good defensive team - Freeze and Isida. Freeze is one of the best defensive weapons in the game. Not so much for its damage, but for its ability, which fractions the enemy speed and prevents them from getting away fast, also allowing your own team to place more damage on that player. It also has the ability to hit multiple targets, allowing you for example to slow down many attackers at the same time and take out the annoying Isida that is healing the spearhead of the attack. Isida's are great for their unique ability to heal your own team. They can boost the health of defenders during an assault, making it harder for attackers to take out your defence, and they can restore the health of your team between assaults, ensuring that your defence is ready for the next one. Bear note that these are general guidelines. For example, on Stadium a defending team sat around the flag would be easy pickings for the enemy. Midfield Halfway in between the attacking and defending forces, controlling the space that connects the two, are the tanks that control the heart of the map, that facilitate the attackers and picking off enemies that make it out of your base alive. Being at the centre of the game, you are likely to be exposed, and this means that lighter hulls probably aren't so good in these positions, except on particularly large maps. But, on the flipside, a tank too heavy doesn't give you the speed to play the varied nature of this role, and it makes it harder for you to move from supporting one area of the game to another. Thus, I believe the medium hulls like Hunter and Viking are perfect to fulfil this role. Being exposed, Shaft probably isn't the best choices here. Short range weapons can be great on the small maps, but in larger maps they are just prone to enemy fire. Longer range weapons such as Smoky or Thunder can be great on medium range maps, and for the very large ones, Railgun could work too. And that's about all! A quick and basic guide to the general workings of a CTF game, some description of the various roles there are to take, and what I think works best in each. Next, look out for the final instalment of the series - a Guide to Capture Points. Hope you enjoyed!

+++++++++++++++

Oh also, about the Firewall kit, I would only get it in conjunction with a sale. Otherwise it would've been cheaper just during a 50%

@@SD_Chargers55 Hunter/Viking :) @ Do you mean full MU rail? Since it does 133-199 and vanilla M3 hornet has 166 hp, you need 20% protection to guarantee that you're safe. @@Lord-of-the-Snipers No clue, I would like to know too actually :P @@DaVinceFTW Rustle is a good paint, offering a good and unique combination of protections. But after you get it, don't invest in any more paints till you get to M3 paints!

Make that 9 golds :) and 50k! http://imgur.com/a/V6XoP

http://imgur.com/a/V6XoP make that 9 ^_^

7 Golds this weekend ^_^ http://imgur.com/a/jc52H

My Triple Funds weekend so far :P http://imgur.com/a/jc52H