Your welcome! :)
Ofcourse this is just óne advice and on a strictly personal note.
You could also for example take a Titan instead of a Hornet, and combine the Titan with the Smoky.
That combo would focus completely on aiming/shooting and almost none at steering.
Or take a Wasp and a Firebird, which combo would focus completely on steering and
almost none at aiming.
Only thing about the Wasp, is that I personally don 't consider it to be a beginners hull.
It 's the most difficult hull to handle and it lacks HP/protection.
Still it can be a good and inspiring option for a very quick learner.
Many possible beginners combo 's, but the beauty of Hornet/Smoky IMO is that if you don 't
like it after a while, you can easy go to any other combo.
With not much damage done in crystals and experience.
Hornet/Smoky IMO is a combo that requires good steering combined with well developed
aiming skills to get the most out of it.
It 's also a perfect combo to learn rocking/tipping, which means you drive forward, and than
simultaneously brake and shoot.
By doing those your hull will tip over and your shot will be released with a larger downwards
angle. In this way you can hit for example hulls which are beneath you, which you otherwise
could only hit with dangerous balancing acts on the edge.
You can also shoot with a larger upwards angle if you drive backwards and than brake+shoot.
The Hornet is easy going overall and not too difficult to handle.
It gives you the full opportunity to see if you like speed (most skilled players do) and if not:
you can always go slower and heavier with another hull.
The Hornet also ranks without great gaps in Ranks.
One of the reasons of it 's great popularity.
Talking about weapons in my view the Smoky is simply the perfect trainer.
Tanki Online has six weapons that require true aiming skills:
Smoky, Thunder, Railgun, Hammer and Ricochet and Shaft.
From these six weapons the two latter are very different from the other four.
That 's why I focus on those two first.
First Ricochet which weapon certainly requires aiming, but the fairly slow travelling plasma balls
and richochet effect are very different from the straight shots from the other weapons.
Second the Shaft which turret is completely in a league of it 's own.
The arcade shot is a straight shot like the other four weapons have.
But Shaft is all about the Scope shot. Which has almost no relation at all with the way
you shoot with the other four.
Both weapons can be very dangerous in the right hands, but I wouldn 't advice them
to a beginner. You better start with straight and immediately impacting weapons,
so you just have to focus on a good aim.
You do see a lot of beginners with Shafts and certainly with Ricochets.
I understand why it happens, because certainly at lower ranks both weapons are very strong.
Low rankers mostly don 't have enough skills yet to avoid camping Shafts and the
Rico when used as a short-range weapon like most low rankers do is very deadly.
Personally I feel both weapons do more harm than good to a beginner who uses them.
Both weapons are very specialistic and IMO should better be used after learning the basics of
steering and aiming.
(by doing that both weapons will also reveal their true strenghts)
So we are left with four weapons. Smoky, Thunder, Railgun and since recently Hammer.
Why pick the Smoky as the perfect trainer?
First it is the turret with the fastest reload of these four.
In other words you can keep on shooting, and if you can shoot a lot: you learn a lot.
(that is, if you hit something once in a while... ;) )
The Smoky also has continuous fire and no special effects that you really have to take
in account. Yup, Smoky has the critical, but this is still always a straight shot.
Thunder is very similar to Smoky, but it has a slower reload so you shoot a lot less,
and it has a special effect that you defintely have to take in account: Splash damage!
I won 't write down all the ins and outs of this Splash damage but it certainly has a learning
curve and that 's IMO why it 's better to start playing Thunder at M1, after building
shooting/aiming experience with the Smoky M1.
Hammer is a weapon that requires aiming skills, but TO didn 't make it easy.
Which is fair by the way.
It 's pretty hard to see were your pellets hit, certainly from a distance and because the pellets
spread out (the spreading effect is not too extreme though at closer distances) it 's not a
real sharp shooters tool.
An empty clip forces you to take cover, which is good btw. and a necessary skill to learn:
but all combined it 's certainly not a beginners turret.
Again start IMO with it at M1 if you like the turret.
Finally Railgun. The slow reload doesn 't make it a good basic trainer.
Many beginners pick it because of the awesome power, understandable but not the best choice IMO.
Another "trap" the Railgun has is that a Tanker who only camps with Rail
can easily start to think he 's an awesome player.
In reality he/she isn 't. Huge D/L 's are nice, but often don 't say much about your skills.
In this case the camping Railgun player is just exploiting the huge power and he learned the
peek-a-boo trick, where you start with reloading and just before the shot releases you go out of cover, aim
and if succesfull hit your opponent.
You can be very succesfull operating this way though: personally I find it boring and such a player doesn 't
even have a clue how good this long-range weapon can be if you start to move with it!
Ofcourse even a moblie Railgun player will camp for a while if he wants to or the battle situation asks for it,
but soon enough he wil be off again.
So why I still recommend the Railgun as a complementory training"tool"?
First the slow reload. It teaches you patience and to pick out your victims with care.
(the latter is not always the right thing do in team battles. Kill stealing is ok, but also
don 't forget to prepare enemy hulls ready for dinner for your teammates...)
Also besides the Shaft it 's the only true long-ranger.
At a far distance an enemy hull, even a Mammoth, becomes a tiny target so you have to aim
very carefully than.
(the Thunder does a great job at long-ranging too, but certainly
lacks the "feel" of precision the Railgun has)
Another very important lesson the slow reload teaches you that every single shot counts!
The best example I can think of is that an enemy short-ranger with a fast light hull is closing in at you.
You know that you can fire only one shot at him with your Railgun and if you hit him you are
most likely safe.
That 's when you realize the most that every shot counts!
Ok, Tanki has respawns so missing that opponent isn 't a complete disaster, but not respawning
is almost in every situation the better solution.
Let 's take the enemy close-ranger again, but now he has a Hunter and you have a Hornet/Rail combo.
Again he 's closing in at you, but now you have a second defense besides your Rail shot.
If you miss, you know you can outrun him.
So as soon as you see him closing in, you start a retreat
while at the same time you aim at him and take a shot.
Even if you hit your enemy and it wasn 't enough to kill him, you will have created distance and time to
go for the next almost certainly finishing shot.
These examples above are much easier with a Smoky as defending weapon.
You can fire more shots at your opponent and using the impact force when hitting the corners
of the enemy hull slows his advance and can even make him miss a shot if he uses an "aiming" weapon.
Though also with the Smoky every shot should count!
At the same time the Smoky won 't give that same being hunted feeling as a just emptied Rail can give you.
If you experience that feeling, but can cope with it because you have trust in the skills you developed
along the way and you do keep calm and take action: you can at least call yourself an advanced player. ;)
Well, that 's should be about it: I almost wrote some sort of guide here..... :wacko: ...... :D
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