I always lie :lol:

In my experience, M2 Hammer is pretty good. It's great for defense in CTF, since the enemies heading for your flag are, more often than not, light hulls, which can be destroyed in 2 shots. Also good for attacking, but it has problems dealing with heavy druggers and heavy hulls. If you decide to get it, remember that it's bad for crowd control and isn't particularly effective against anything stronger than a Hunter (if a few pellets miss, you won't be able to 3 shot them). Also worth noting that it's the second most expensive M2 turret. I wrote a guide about Hammer a while back. It's more in-depth than what I can explain here, so I think you might find it useful. :)

I think it depends on the specs of the chromebooks. The ones that my school has have about as much computing power as a potato (aren't even able to run TO with a decent FPS) and probably won't be able to play TankiX, but I think there are better ones out there. The system requirements are listed at tankix.com, check there.

As MAFIOS0 said, there are already lots of camouflage paints available. When I was a low ranking player, I used Forester in forest backgrounds and Lead on grass backgrounds. Now, I use Digital for both grass and forest backgrounds, while Tundra serves my needs on winter maps. These are all great camouflage paints for Shaft users when used correctly. A lot of Shafts don't bother with camouflage and still do really well anyway. Monte Carlo has nearly no opportunities for camouflage, but there are still lots of Shafts there. Same thing with Stadium. Camouflage is more of a niche tactic, only applicable on certain maps and being somewhat risky since the introduction of the laser sight. Most players just take cover when not in scope mode, which is even safer and often a lot more practical. If you want to use camouflage, there are already quite a few paints for you to use, so I don't see what the problem is here.

Your suggested Zanzibar paint is 400,000 crystals. I somehow doubt that many M0 Wasp users would be able to afford that. In addition, a M0 Wasp with your Zanzibar paint would have more health than a M0 Dictator. There is a reason why the developers carefully balanced the protections of the paints- notice how the paints with universal protection (Veteran, Gold, Silver, Premium, etc.) all have fairly low protections (Premium, the most common, only has 15%), while the high rank paints like Clay have heavy protection for only a few turrets. This is to ensure that players don't become too hard to destroy. A universal paint with high protection would effectively grant its user lots of extra health in any circumstance, which messes up the game balance. A Wasp with twice its normal health would be already very overpowered- it's ordinarily weak, which means that the user has to play carefully, avoiding direct confrontations, and focus on maneuvering to stay alive, but with twice its health the user could just run straight in, grab the flag, and drive straight out. Heck, it would beat Hunters in a straight fight. Does that sound fair? Not to me. The bottom line is that any significant universal protection messes up the work that the developers put into balancing the speed and health of each hull, which is very important to ensure that no player becomes extremely hard to kill with any weapon. Someone with Prodigi can still be destroyed with Twins and Smoky, for example, but nothing would be effective against someone with Zanzibar. There's also currently no method of restricting which paints are allowed on which hulls, and if you did implement that, a lot of heavy hull users would be angry.

The lower level paints that you've suggested here would be nigh useless (1% protection does practically nothing in combat), and the upper level ones would be devastatingly overpowered. The highest level paints currently in the game in the game give ~150% protection in total. Your suggested Zanzibar paint would give a whopping 550% protection in total. It would double your tank's health. A drugging Mammoth with this paint would be virtually immortal. In addition, a 1% difference in protection doesn't really mean anything. Most players would opt for your suggested UK paint instead of the Zanzibar one since it's a lot cheaper. While it would be nice to have paints for countries, adding an additional 50 or so paints would be a lot of protections to memorize, and having the stats that you've suggested would wreck the balance of the game. Also, some players may be upset about certain country paints being better than others- an Albanian player would have to forgo any significant protection to show his/her national pride, while someone from the UK or Zanzibar could wear their national flag with pride while having extremely good protection in battle, which doesn't seem fair.

My M2.5 Dictator is now a M3 Dictator. It's quite fast, maneuverable, and can take a huge amount of punishment. Doesn't feel fair at times. I usually pull it out with a nice paint and M2 Thunder whenever someone ticks me off. :lol:

I was in a Polygon CP yesterday and some guy with a M2 Smoky was dealing pretty heavy damage and impact force to me from across the map. Either that guy upgraded his Smoky a lot or the range update really has made Smoky a long range weapon...

I think this belongs in the "Ideas for Paints" thread.

How to Annoy Your Enemies The score is 9-10 with 30 seconds left on the clock. You've just grabbed the enemy flag. Disgruntled Hornets are on your tail, but you hit reverse and speed your way out. You drop a mine, and one of the Hornets is blown sky-high, the corpse settling down and impeding the progress of others. You get hit by someone with a M1 Railgun, but fortunately you decided to use Digital today. You enter your team's territory, passing by a busy Dictator as an enemy Ricochet whizzes shots past you in vain. Some guy on the enemy team exclaims "**** noob team we tie". You can see your own flag now, with 8 seconds left. "This is in the bag!", you think. You'll touch that flag and win the game as the highest scoring member of your team. Then you can buy that brand-new M3 Railgun you've always wanted on a 50% sale while it still lasts. Your team is doing an excellent job of keeping the enemy busy. Nothing will stop you from scoring. You drive full steam ahead, expecting to hear the glorious, angelic sound of capturing the flag. One little touch and that'll be the end of it. As you're 4 feet away from the flag, you notice a colored line. "Is that a graphics glitch?", you think. No. It's JOHN CENA an enemy Shaft. In a millisecond you hear the shot's report as your tank explodes. "WHAT?!", you yell at the screen. The timer counts down to 0 seconds as the score screen pops up. You get a measly 169 crystals. The enemy team takes most of the fund. And the highest scoring player on the enemy team? That stupid Shaft. The round restarts as you switch sides. "I'm going to kill that stupid Shaft, over and over again until he quits...he cost me so many crystals. Then I'll buy M3 Railgun, find him and kill him again...", you growl. You switch to M2 Mammoth and M2 Shaft, a perfect counter sniping combination. "I'll beat him at his own game, show him who's boss. Stupid noob, always hiding and drugging..." As you drive to the same sniping spot that the Shaft was in, you notice that nobody on your team is staying back to defend your flag. "Huh, maybe I should switch to Thund--NO. I'm going to make him pay, wipe that smug grin off of his face..." You pop a Double Power and settle in as, unbeknownst to you, a horde of enemies approaches your flag... Similar events have happened to me a few times. No, I'm not talking about the opportunity to buy M3 Railgun on a 50% sale (that won't happen to me for a while). No, I don't own M2 Mammoth, so there's no way I've had the opportunity to switch to it. Geez. I'm talking about an annoying opponent, in this case the Shaft. Many battles have that one annoying player at the top of the scoreboard, who you can't seem to win against without getting absolutely wrecked. Players like these take many forms. Well, regardless of the combination, "annoying" players help out their team a lot and can often reduce the effectiveness of the enemy team- if you get angry at someone and go after them, you might leave your flag unguarded or be led into dangerous situations. You can often become "that guy" by playing well, but certain tactics and combinations will incite the ire of the enemy team more than others. For those of you who revel in the suffering of the other team (hopefully not too many of you!), I think you'll find this useful. For everyone else, hey, you might learn something. ;) The Easiest Way: Use supplies. No, really. If you use the above four supplies liberally (perhaps taping down the 2 and/or 3 keys as many seem to do) and make your presence known on the battlefield, you'll get on everyone's hate list pretty quickly regardless of what combination you use. Use Repair Kits at the last second to give your opponents some false hope and then force them to fight you again, a battle that they'll usually lose. Double Armor will make damaging you a larger challenge, and Double Damage lets you drop people in a blink of an eye when used correctly. Mines, while less annoying than the other three, give you some hefty firepower if you lead your enemies onto them and can be used to completely deny your enemies access if laid onto the ground like a chicken that's had 10 too many cups of espresso. Constant drugging is only particularly annoying if you're in a battle without heavy supply use- if everybody's drugging, well, it's not going to be so surprising or effective. It's also less effective if you're using a light hull since you won't have as much benefit from Double Armor. I didn't include Speed Boost since it doesn't annoy enemies as much as the above 4 drugs and isn't commonly spammed upon spawning or taking fire. Countermeasures: Drug back or pick up supplies on the map. Do this smartly- it's often a good idea to use a Double Armor when your opponent is using Double Damage and vice versa, but in certain situations you may want to use the same supply. For example, if you're fighting someone with Double Armor and your turret is stronger over a longer period of time than your opponent's (Twins vs. Ricochet, for example), you may want to consider popping your own Double Armor and whittling them down. If you're fighting someone that's using Double Damage, a Double Armor is usually the way to go, but if you can destroy them in one hit with a Double Damage, that can be the better choice since it ends the fight quickly in your favor. Let's now talk about what I believe to be especially annoying turrets and their accompanying tactics. Note that how annoying a turret is often depends on your playstyle, so things listed here may not be annoying to you. Divine Intervention from Afar: Shaft "There are 3 types of cheating. Farming, hacking, and using a Mammoth-Shaft on Monte Carlo." -Mark Twain Shaft has a high potential for annoyance when used by a skilled player? Running off with the enemy flag? Shaft can snipe you. Trying to close the gap with a close or medium ranged weapon? Shaft can snipe you. Trying to peek out of your own base? Shaft can snipe you. You thought the coast was clear to advance? Nope, it apparently wasn't. I think you get my point now. Shaft is capable of getting instant kills on light hulls from across the map, which seems patently unfair to those on the receiving end. Even if you aren't using a light hull, Shaft can still take out large chunks of your health, which leaves you vulnerable to other enemies. Shafters also tend to use medium and heavy hulls, which aren't easy to destroy. To make the enemy team come running to the developers about how Shaft is OP: Drug. I'd recommend this for any turret to cause annoyance, but most turrets don't deal much damage at range so defensive drugs are even more annoying. Shafts generally won't have use for Double Armor since they're far away from the action, but Double Damage lets you snipe light hulls with half the normally required charge, medium hulls with about 2/3s of the charge bar, and heavy hulls with an almost full charge bar. With a brick on the 3 key, nothing is safe from your wrath. Also remember to pop health kits if you get railgunned or sniped. Aim for enemy flag carriers in CTF. This can dissuade the enemy team from going for your flag if you keep an eye on your home base, and sniping flag carriers from across the map gives your teammates time to recover it or steal the enemy flag. Snipe Isidas. By doing so, you can deprive the enemy team of precious healing and close range support. In addition, you can break Isida trains fairly easily since Shaft deals high instantaneous damage- you can't receive healing if you're dead, after all. Stay on your toes. Being aware of your surroundings reduces the chances of getting destroyed. A seemingly immortal Shaft is a lot more rage inducing than a mortal one. Use a heavy hull. It will increase your survivability and immortalness (I'm pretty sure that's not a word). Countermeasures: Drug back. Since Shafts often have tunnel vision, a good way to take out drugging Shafts is to wait until they're distracted. Since the most annoying Shafts use hulls that can't be destroyed in one shot, if you want to take them out quickly (before they can pop a health kit) with a Shaft of your own, wait until they're distracted, use a Double Damage, and you should be able to take out even Mammoths in one shot. If your opponent is using a Shaft paint...well, it's going to be harder than that. Consider combining fire with another friendly Shaft or Railgun- if you can fire together, there won't be time for your opponent to press the 1 key. Use a Shaft paint. Shaft becomes a lot less annoying if you can't be destroyed in one hit. Have someone on your team act as Shaft bait. Shaft has a long reload time in scope mode, so sacrificing one person will protect you and the rest of your team for a few seconds until you get to cover. Don't play on super campy maps like Monte Carlo or Lost Temple. Those two maps are Shaft fests, and you often won't be able to leave your base without getting sniped. Heck, you often get sniped when chilling around inside your base. Maps like Rio and Kungur are considerably easier to avoid Shafts on due to the multitude of paths you can take and abundant cover. Trying aiming at this: Smoky "First the Smokies came for the Shafts. I was not a Shaft, so I did not intervene. Then they came for the Thunders, but I was not a Thunder, so I did not intervene. When they came for the Railguns, there was nobody left to defend me." - some guy You may be wondering why I decided to put Smoky here. It doesn't deal as much damage as Ricochet, has no splash damage unlike Thunder, and doesn't have the rapid fire suppression capabilities of Vulcan and Twins. The answer lies mostly in its impact force and good range. Every tried to get a bead on an angry Smoky when using Railgun? Usually doesn't work out, since any Smoky worth his/her salt knows how to knock your aim off-target. This tactic, which I've previously dubbed "deflecting", also works on other turrets, and it can be very frustrating when used by a skilled player. Due the last balance update, Smoky now has pretty good range, so it can annoy and damage you from surprisingly far distances. For maximum annoyance: Deflect whenever practical and possible. Your enemies can't kill what they can't hit. Aim for the corners of charging Railguns and their aim will be shifted by a large degree, which means that their shots will likely go off course and they won't be able to hit you. This isn't limited to Railguns either- with some skill, you can deflect other relatively slow firing turrets, such as Thunder and Shaft. Railgun is the easiest because of its charging light indicating precisely when it will fire, but the other turrets are more difficult since you'll have to time your shots to fire right before your enemy can reload. Deflecting works best against light hulls and medium hulls. Heavy hulls have too much mass for you to shift significantly, so just aim for the center to avoid misses. Take advantage of Smoky's decent range. While you won't be able to kill as fast as a Thunder at long distances, the rapid fire and impact force can still annoy enemies. You can also use long range shots to "charge up" a critical hit- as I've mentioned in the Ultimate Guide to Smoky (now more than a year old!), the critical chance becomes negative after successfully scoring a critical hit, and you need to land more hits in order to make the chance positive. Enemies tend to be more unaware and less dangerous at range (except for Railguns and Shafts). Countermeasures: Don't use a light hull. If you're driving a Wasp, you'll get deflected easily because of its low weight. Hunter is significantly more stable, and Dictator is heavy enough that you usually won't have problems with getting deflected. Smoky is strong against Railguns and an even match for Thunders at close range, but it's not as good as dedicated close range weapons and definitely not a match for Shafts or Railguns at long distances. If you're having trouble with Smokies at close range, use one of the four close range turrets- they'll all win against a Smoky up close. If you don't have those, even Ricochet works. Vulcan's gyroscope makes deflection practically impossible since it will point in the same direction even if the hull is shifted from impact force. If you catch a Smoky in the open, he/she will not stand a chance. Chill out....: Freeze "There are two things I hate: people who hate specific turrets, and Freezes." -Albert Einstein Did Albert Einstein really say that? Probably not, but I'm sure that he would have hated Freezes too. Freeze is universally annoying when you get frozen from behind, especially if you are using a heavy hull. Once you're stuck, you probably will be destroyed since the damage per second is quite high. This leads to a lot of anger, frantic mine placing, and anti-Freeze paints being equipped. These characteristics lend it to use for both flag defenders and flag runners in CTF- intruders won't escape your base alive, enemies can't chase you if they're frozen. For maximum annoyance: Sneak behind enemy lines to attack unsuspecting victims from the back. They will have to rotate their hull and turret a full 180 degrees or so to attack you, and in the meantime you will be damaging and freezing them. Against damaged or light hull using enemies, you will often be able to destroy them before they can even look at you. Circle-strafe when possible, i.e. driving around your target so that you are in the opposite direction of their turret for as much as possible. This will ensure that your opponent won't be able to even look at you once they're frozen, protecting you from retaliation. Plant mines. Frozen enemies panic and drive in the opposite direction, usually trying to look at you. This means that they won't pay much attention to where they're going. If you plant mines on common escape paths, you can lead them into driving onto one of them. You can also use this to make them drive into pits. Very useful in CTF. Freeze can be useful for crowd control, just like Firebird. While it doesn't have afterburn, you can constrict large clusters of targets since the freezing spray passes through enemies. You can use this for defense, offense, or annoying everybody in the mosh pit that usually forms below a gold box. Countermeasures: If you're being attacked by a Freeze from the front, try to back into a corner or a wall, preferably the former. This will prevent the Freeze from circle strafing you effectively. If you're in a corner, the Freeze won't be able to do a whole lot, so if you have a strong weapon, you can win. If you're being attacked by a Freeze from behind, not much can help you. If the Freeze is just driving in a straight line behind you, try dropping a mine. Health kits will unfreeze you. While this isn't guaranteed to let you escape if the Freeze still has energy, it can help a lot. You can survive the damage and try to run away while your opponent is low on energy and you are more or less unfrozen. Firebirds can raise the temperature of friendly tanks. If you see a teammate being attacked by a Freeze, try to line up your stream so that you can defrost your teammate and torch the Freeze at the same time. If a Freeze is busy circle-strafing a target, they're very vulnerable to fire. Friendly Isidas can heal and defrost you. While the defrosting and healing rate is slower than the rate that Freeze, well, freezes its targets, it will keep you alive for much longer and let you maneuver more easily. Bloodsucking leeches: Isida Shall I compare thee to an Isida? Thou art both ugly and indisposed: Red streams do disintegrate the fragile treads of Wasps, And Hornet's health is all too small a number; Sometime too hot the eye of devils shines, And often is its hot white sparks dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime destroys, By chance or battle's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal evil does not fade, Nor lose possession of the scum thou heals; Nor does Death brag thou patients wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as Wasps can drive or Twins can shoot, So long lives this, and this gives life to my enemies, arrgh, die already pls I don't want to fight 2 full health druggers I already used my drugs up my teammates quit pls pls pls -Me, after one too many matches with drugging Isida trains I think that the above sonnet (lovingly plagiarized from William Shakespeare) sums up my feelings towards enemy Isidas oftentimes. They repair damaged enemies at an alarming rate, damage you at a similarly alarming rate, and drain health from you at an alarming rate. Similar to a leech, a vampire bat, and a mosquito. Notice how I wrote "and". That was on purpose. Because Isida is as terrifying as these three critters below combined. I'm left wondering which one one of these would win in a fight. To become a weird yet terrifying parasite with a penchant for regurgitating blood into its teammates: Heal teammates, especially that Mammoth sitting next to your flag. It heals faster than most weapons, so it's not too hard to keep your patient (client?) healthy for quite a while. Bonus points if you pop a Double Damage to increase your healing rate. Attack enemies with Double Damage on. Because Isida's self healing is a percentage of the damage dealt, using Double Damage will double your self healing rate. You'll be healing yourself almost as fast as a friendly Isida can, which makes you nearly invincible. Take advantage of Isida's surprisingly long range. It's about as far as Firebird or Freeze, but what's nice is that the damage does not drop off over range. This means that you can engage enemy Firebirds and Freezes from a safe distance. Attack enemies to self heal. Isida's self healing is pretty nice, even if you're not on drugs. This extends your durability against targets at close range since the extra health counteracts some of the damage you'll receive. Countermeasures: Isida is absolutely useless at range. Shafts can take them out from afar, since it's usually paired with a light hull, Railguns can do that too. Most turrets can destroy Isidas without sustaining damage if you use a light/medium hull and back up. If you have Freeze, you can freeze an Isida for a little bit to slow them down and then back up to escape. Lay down mines. Isida has a limited lock-on cone, so the connection breaks fairly often. This pushes Isidas to rush forwards to reconnect, which means that they'll be a little less cautious. Clutch mines are easier to score on angry Isidas and can deal hefty damage. Use an Isida paint. Besides protecting you from damage, it also reduces the self healing that an enemy Isida will receive. Being charged by an Isida on Double Damage? Pop a Double Armor to negate his/her advantage. Isida healing is annoying, yes, but well coordinated Railgun and Shaft shots can destroy a healing target before he/she can be healed since both turrets deal high instantaneous damage. A drugging Mammoth with Isida support can be killed with two Double Damage Shaft shots. Alternatively, just shoot the Isida first. That shouldn't be an issue since Isidas can't attack while healing. Less healing = easier time killing the Mammoth. The penetration of Railgun, the splash damage of Thunder, and the penetrating streams of Freeze and Firebird can damage both an Isida and his/her healing target. [FaZe] [oPtIc] [NoBeZt].::XxxrAiLgUnNxxX::.[MLG]( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)[#1] "My grandfather smoked his whole life. I was about 10 years old when my mother said to him, 'If you ever want to see your grandchildren graduate, you have to stop immediately'. Tears welled up in his eyes when he realized what exactly was at stake. He gave it up immediately. Three years later he died of lung cancer. It was really sad and destroyed me. My mother said to me- 'Don't ever smoke. Please don't put your family through what your grandfather put us through." I agreed. At 28, I have never touched a cigarette. I must say, I feel a very slight sense of regret for never having done it, because your Railgun gave me cancer anyway." -anonymous Some of you are wondering why I put this on the list. Actually, I think most of you are wondering why I put this on the list. Yeah, yeah, Railgun's a pro gun k, but a lot of its use involves sitting snugly behind cover, covering yourself with a blanket, heating up a cup of hot chocolate with that water heater installed in your tank, closing your eyes, drifting..off......to....sleep.. NOPE! You see someone, press the spacebar, and pop out for half a second as the railgun round speeds out of the barrel and hits something. You're back in cover before anyone sees you. Is this pro? Sure, I guess. But it doesn't make it much less annoying. A Railgun with some nice cover can take you out from across the map before disappearing and becoming essentially immune to attack. There's little risk involved in Railgun-camping, and I often think it's kind of cheap. With Shaft, at least you have to expose yourself for several seconds as you charge up... To become a godlike pro MLG esports player that's in like 10+ clans because you're so good with Railgun: Camp. Don't do anything other than that. You'll soon become that guy who takes off a nice chunk of your health from a distance and then you can't do a whole lot about it. There's plenty of time while you're reloading to pop some drugs, type in chat, and whatnot. Survival should be pretty easy as long as nobody sneaks up behind you or Shafts you. Shoot enemies while they're airborne. If someone's jumping a ramp on Monte Carlo, they're prime targets for Railgun's impact force. It can send them flying or make them flip. Use Speed Boost so you can run between cover quickly and pop in and out of cover quickly. If you're going for a flag, this will help you make a quick escape. Drug! Everybody knows how annoying and visible a drugging Mammoth-Shaft is, but drugging Hornet-Railguns are more common and often more annoying due to their mobility. Double Damage basically turns you into an express Shaft, Double Armor makes you even harder to kill. With a full set of drugs, you can capture flags (even if Railgun isn't a very good weapon for flag capping). Using a Shaft paint ensures that enemy Shafts will have a harder time successfully sniping you. Switch camping spots once in a while. If you keep using the same spot, eventually some Shaft or other Railgun is going to be constantly eyeing that spot, waiting for you to show up. So, surprise them by setting up shot at a new spot and giving them a high-velocity tank kebab delivery. To annoy everyone: Extol the virtues of Railgun to the enemy team, your own team, people in the server chat, your clan, the reporters, the mods, everybody on the forum, and even the developers. Railgun is the most pro weapon in the game that takes 4000000 years of skill to master, you love it so much, have used it since you were a Recruit, is the best weapon in the game, can beat all the other turrets, all the other turrets take no skill to use and are noob, you can beat Gismos in a 1v1, you can beat any opponent in any situation with your trusty Hornet-Railgun, the moderators should make Railgun reload instantly and deal 9999 damage, you have built a shrine to your personal Railgun, worship it religiously every day, hope that it will bring you to Railgun-heaven (where everything is Railguns and Hornets) when you die, and hope that the heretics who dare to use putrid turrets like Twins or Ricochet (or simply don't like Railgun) either burn for eternity or become enlightened by the shining gloriousness of Railgun and join your cause. Join the Cult Church of the Eternal Holy Railgun today!...wait, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah. With that out of the way, let's go to countermeasures. Wear a Railgun paint. This seems like common sense, but Railgun paints help a lot since Railgun's overall damage per second is low. They'll only be able to hit you once in a while, and if they don't do a whole lot of damage then, you'll have a big advantage. Use Smoky or Hammer. Both are Railgun slayers at close range, although Smoky does the job well at medium range too. Both turrets have enough impact force to make Railguns miss reliably, which means that you have a good, what, 5-7 seconds to chase your target down and end them. Use a medium or heavy hull to minimize the effects of impact force. Use Shaft. Camping Railguns must pop out of cover to fire (duh). With some practice, you can snipe them as soon as they expose some part of their tank. This is a challenge, but satisfying if you pull it off. It's very annoying to those on the receiving end. Sneak behind enemy lines to attack. Railguns, while not as farsighted as Shafts, are generally not too aware of their surroundings when focused on a target. If you catch them by surprise, nearly any turret will do. That's about it for this article. What tactics or turrets bother you the most? Maybe hulls? Anything else that annoys you? Besides Fen, of course. Would you rather fight a leech sized mosquito or a mosquito sized vampire bat? Do you want to join the Church of the Eternal Holy Railgun? Of course you do! Reply to this topic if you have anything to say, and I'll see you next time! By the way, the order of the Shaft pictures is reversed (M3 -> M0) compared to the rest of the turrets. Did you notice that? Probably not. Why did I leave it there? I'm too lazy to fix it.

Quebec? :lol:

I'm happy that my arsenal is much improved, but at the same time I think this is a problem for game balance. Before, I could upgrade only the parameters that were important for me- damage on Shaft, reload speed on Thunder, etc. Now, you have to pay for the other steps too, which jacks up the price considerably. Things like rotation speed and critical chance aren't important, and being forced to pay for those on future micro upgrades isn't very economical. This means that you'll have to pay more to get the same improvement to useful parameters, which leaves non-buying players at a disadvantage. We'll have to see how this plays out in the long run, but I suspect that Premium users will become considerably more powerful- 200% crystals means that they can sink more money into micro-upgrades, and a large number of them buy crystals anyway, so they can afford top notch equipment.

Had lots of fun with Shaft on a Madness CTF today. Our team started losing, and by the time the match ended, I only had 2 other teammates, so I figured that setting up shop on the upper levels and picking enemies off from above would be a good way to pass the time. I got quite a few kills and was called a "noob shaft", which means I did a good job. :)

Eternity paint looks rather ugly. Well, time to memorize its protections...I might see it in the future. I'm excited for the other celebrations, but I probably won't be able to complete the special Daily Mission. Ah well.

Plenty of people use Ricochet-Mammoth, I'm sure that you're not alone.

VLOG Analysis: Unity Tanki Part 3 We've seen a lot of interesting things regarding the Unity Tanki (or should I say Tanki X?) in the past few weeks- graphics, sounds, its name, and more! There's a hefty amount of information to cover, so take a probiotic, drink some warm water, and let's digest what we've seen so far! Note that I've skipped quite a few things due to redundancy- if we've seen something before, I've omitted it. This is due to length constraints- the page would take a huge amount of time to load otherwise. I've also separated the article with spoiler tags for convenience. That's about it. Did I miss something? Did I make a mistake? Do Antarctic land birds, small horses, and ashy colored felines get along? What is the mathematical limit of Fen's height? If you have the answer to any of these, reply below. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!

Looking back, Vulcan was incredibly strong before they started nerfing it (borderline OP, actually). With a micro-upgraded M2 Vulcan (~halfway MUed on damage, a few steps on impact force), I could shred anything in my way- M2 Hornets would die in a little more than 1 second on DP, and Double Armor cut the self burning damage in half. I remember a Factory DM that I was in with Shedinja, where I used M2 Vulcan-Dict. Enemy team was mostly Hornets, so I went on massive killing sprees. I won the match easily, and the second place player had about half the number of kills that I had. I was miffed about the nerf during the early summer, but I guess it's for the better. I can't imagine what the game would be like if everyone was using full-strength Vulcans. I find that mine is still quite powerful now, but I'm much more wary of engaging targets at range and can't exterminate the enemy team in one go when drugged up. :P

I think that the test server Railgun was too powerful. It reloaded quickly enough that there was essentially an endless stream of Railgun shots every time I tried to peek out of cover. I think it's about perfect right now.

M1 Twins is fairly good, but it is no match for M2 Twins and isn't suited for combat against late M2s like M2 Viking. You'd be better off saving crystals until you can get better equipment. Fighting with drugging Twins is hard, but remember that Twins doesn't have very good range and requires a constant line of sight to its targets to do damage. If you keep driving around, keeping them just out of sight, they won't be able to damage you. Mines are very handy- a lot of Twins users get complacent and don't mind their driving since they put a brick on their spacebar, so a well placed mine can take out a huge chunk of their health.

I'd recommend either M2 Hunter or M2 Viking. Both of them are versatile and strong M2 hulls that go well with M2 Firebird and M2 Railgun. Viking goes a little better with Railgun (more health, more sturdy), but Hunter goes considerably better with Firebird on medium maps (much better speed). If you like using Railgun more, buy Viking. If you like Firebird more, use Hunter.

This is my first try with custom paints- I made an attempt at dazzle camouflage. Pretty bad, but I think it looks better than Holiday. :P

I'd recommend M2 Thunder. When using Twins, you'll be forced to be exposed if you want to attack (shots are fired continuously), so you'll often take quite a beating in the process. Thunder has superior range and requires that you only pop out of cover every few seconds. If you like to play aggressively, roll with Twins, but note that Hunter isn't the best hull to use Twins on. If you play more conservatively, buy Thunder.

From what I've heard, it seems to be pretty good. Supposedly faster than previous versions, better UI than 8, and some cool features. Some people are concerned about possible privacy issues- the OS likes to send data to Microsoft. There are workarounds, but I think this is a bit of a hassle, so I'm not upgrading until some time next year, when I have more time. Back on topic: this doesn't sound like an issue with Windows 10. Ping is determined by your internet speed and also how well Tanki's servers are doing. They seem to be pretty laggy recently, so if your internet is OK, it's the server's problem. I can't speak for the FPS changes (which depends on how well your computer can handle things), but Windows 10 is supposed to be faster and more efficient than previous versions.

VLOG Analysis: Unity Tanki Part 2 It's time for another analysis of the clips of the Unity Tanki that the developers have shown us in the V-LOG. Quite a few new things have been shown, so with no further ado, let's dig right in! This is a picture of the new Hunter and Freeze. Freeze is considerably boxier and larger than the current version, especially on the back end. The particle effects from V-LOG 58 can also be seen here, as the spray is very fine and well-animated. Hunter has retained its general profile, but it appears to be slightly flatter (it might just be the perspective). In addition, look at the two exhaust pipes- we'll know why they added those in a little bit. In addition, the tank that this player is attacking appears to be a Ricochet-Mammoth. Most of the details are obscured by the bush, but the Ricochet projectiles appear to be slightly larger and more orange than they currently look now. This is a nice shot of Smoky-Wasp on Sandbox. Because of the lighting and camera, we can look at the fine details. First, let's look at Smoky. The two circles on top of M0 and M1 Smoky are now protruding cylinders, which gives it a bulkier, less refined look. Take a look at the back- see the faint yellow-and-black striping next to another circle, just under the health bar? That's the ejection port. The circle covers a hole where the shell is presumably sent to before ejection. From the gameplay we've seen, after Smoky is fired, the striped panel slides to the left, which exposes the hole underneath the circle, and the shell is ejected, before sliding back into place. This is the same Smoky-Wasp from before, just destroyed. The model doesn't appear to have changed at all (similar to how it is now), but the texture is a lot better than what we currently have- scorch marks are modelled better, with the panel at the side glowing with heat. Here's a Smoky-Wasp and Hammer-Titan on Sandbox. We just saw the Smoky, so no need to investigate here, but this is the first time that we've seen Hammer in-game. However, this is not a detailed picture, so let's wait for now. There's a better image from the next V-LOGs. However, right after this, the player fires at the Titan. This reveals that, befitting its name, Smoky now produces a large cloud of smoke upon hitting something. In addition, that red speck you see at the bottom appears to be a shell. The odd thing is that no red shells were seen in the past V-LOG, so I'm inclined to believe that this is a placeholder texture (currently, if a texture fails to load, it'll be a lightly speckled red color), although I could be wrong. This is the new model for the Gold Box. It's quite different from what we're used to, with extra details and panelling. The one on the left is opened, but the one on the right appears to have separated into two pieces as well (you can actually see some seams on the inner parts of the top of the box on the left). I don't know why the Gold Box would open and separate like this. Maybe an animation for picking it up? In this picture, we can see two more boxes. The one on the far left is completely unopened, and the next one appears to have its latches partially open. Here, an artist is drawing the textures for the Repair Kit. It's more detailed, and the icon is slightly different. This is a view of Hornet-Ricochet in the garage, the combination that many have learned to hate in the early ranks. This gives us a good look of how Hornet's changed- there's an extra cylinder at the back of the treads, and the angles have been accented. Ricochet appears largely similar, but the back section is bulkier, with what appear to be cylinders. This is a view of Titan-Twins in Boombox. Twins is more detailed than the current incarnation, and the two protruding parts of the barrels at the back of the turret now move back when firing. In addition, the silver parts on the top now rotate after every shot. We've seen Titan before, but now we can see the fine details; it's flatter, has sloped armor on the sides, and the back end has been redesigned quite a bit. Note the two exhaust pipes. These are a few building props. They look rather similar to the current ones, but these are from a distance and are low resolution, so it's hard to tell. Here, we can see some classic maps in the Unity engine. Here's that picture of Hammer that I was talking about earlier, mounted on Wasp. Hammer is more detailed and bulky this time around- there's a metal rod on the sides of the barrel, a cylindrical thing (part of the barrel?) underneath the top rail, and most noticeably, there are now 2 blue lights at the front. The garage is now divided into Turrets, Hulls, Paints, and Supplies. The four buttons here are different, however - they are for the start screen, where you can view your tank and pick whether you want to go to battles, the garage or chat. Here, a developer is using Dictator-Twins against an enemy. Twin's projectiles now create a small cloud of plasma upon impact, dissipating very quickly. This certainly makes it look more powerful. Here, another developer (who is most likely in the same match as the developer above!) is using Hammer. The back end looks a bit different too, compared to the current version. This is the Dictator-Twins from earlier, but this time, the developer has activated Speed Boost, causing flames to come out of the exhaust pipes. Because supply indicators will not be visible to enemies in the new Tanki, your opponents must be able to see what supplies you have activated from the model of your tank. This is why the hulls all have exhaust pipes now- a quick peek at the back will tell you if Speed Boost is active or not. Here's the same combo, but with Double Power activated. A panel on top of the turret pops up, revealing two reddish revolving cylinders that will presumably last until the effect runs out. This is a Wasp on Speed Boost. The exhaust pipes are a lot larger here, so it looks a bit like a furnace. This is a good view of Rio. As shown in the previous article, the platform where the Red Team flag is looks different, with corners of a destroyed building instead of pillars. It seems to be easier for Shafts and Railguns to aim in there, with fewer obstructions. Here's a Viking-Twins on a map that I don't recognize (any ideas? edit: It's Kungur. Thanks to everyone who pointed it out!) The sun seems to be towards the right of the map, giving it an afternoon feel. Viking now appears to be even flatter, and has two exhaust pipes on the back. The rest of the footage in V-LOG 61 shows the new physics engine working its magic on Wasp and Viking. Tanks seem to react with their terrain much more closely, in part due to the fact that a lot of props aren't perfectly horizontal surfaces anymore. They will be jostled slightly by small bumps in the terrain. That's it, folks. If you feel like I missed something, feel free to reply here. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time!

I think omrot means that a lot of Shafts in Brest pick unimportant targets, stay in cover most of the time, and don't contribute that much to their team. This can be an issue in CTFs and CPs if you have too many of them, but it's perfectly fine in TDMs since they can get kills without dying too often.