That's because your Smoky is M1. M2 and M3 Smoky are vastly better.

It's very possible for two (or more) people to have the same idea. You're not the only person here to think of a shotgun, you know; if you dig around in the Ideas and Suggestions forum, I guarantee you that at some point in time, somebody suggested a close range weapon similar to a shotgun. I remember in particular a Tesla Coil idea that acted like a shotgun. Besides, shotguns are commonplace in both games and the real world, so you can't blame Tanki for thinking "Hey, wouldn't a shotgun be a pretty cool think to mount on a tank?". Did you rip off the idea of a shotgun from someone else? Probably not. Did Tanki rip off the idea of a shotgun from someone else? Probably not.

Never said anything about the density, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Dictator has more weight than Viking, so it's more stable in general. I have no way of knowing the volume of Dictator or the volume of Viking, so I can't calculate density.

Part one is here. Part 2 is over here. Part 3 Remnant Dimitri woke up in sweats. He looked around in a panic. "I really must have been dreaming...", he thought. "Could have sworn I got shot in the head a while ago. Man, what a story that would be..." He opened his eyes fully, before coming to a stark realization. This was not his room. He blinked his eyes in disbelief. As his eyes got adjusted to the dim light of the room, he realized he was in some dark basement. His body was aching, and there was a splitting pain in the back of his skull. "So I really was shot in the head...", he thought. "Why am I alive? Where am I?" Dimitri got up and started walking. He nearly tripped on some debris on the floor. The debris felt rather strange. Stiff, yet a little bit malleable. It was a human body. "...this is a morgue?". Piles of dead bodies appeared, scattered around the room. They were extremely cold, their faces frozen in an everlasting scream. Dimitri stumbled through the labyrinth until he bumped into a cold, steel door. "I better not be trapped in here", he mumbled to himself as he turned the handle. To his relief, whoever last used the door forgot to lock it. The door opened, and he entered a well-lit hallway. It was clean and built out of professional materials. It seemed to go on forever, with many doors and other branching hallways along the way. He heard the footsteps and a conversation. Dimitri opened a closet and hid as two people passed by. "How's the construction on the bunker going?", boomed an unfamiliar voice. "Great! We've gotten enough lead to shield us from the radiation. All we need to do to finish the outer layer is to get more insulation. The nuclear winter's not going to make us any warmer, that's for sure". "Alright. Focus on obtaining what you need. Whatever you do, make sure you don't leave any evidence behind that points to us. We already have a lot of people to settle the bunker with, we don't need any more." "Nuclear winter?", Dimitri thought. "They said it wouldn't come. Maybe that's why they're building the bunker. Sounds noble enough, but they definitely can't go around shooting people to get what they need!" As soon as he was sure the two men had left the area, he quietly stepped out of the closet. "If I want to stop these guys, I'll need a weapon. Where would they put them? An armory? I should start looking around." He traversed through several hallways. The doors were marked with simple signs, denoting things like "Living quarters 2B", "Mess Hall 2B", "Sewage System", and "Bathroom 1". He approached a curiously open door. It was marked "Armory". Dimitri walked inside. It was a small room, with paint chipped walls and a dim incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling. The main object of his attention was a weapon rack directly in front of him. On it, there were several battered Kalashnikov rifles and a few archaic revolvers. He was reaching out for one before realizing that the rack was locked. "So much for that plan". A shrill noise sounded from the loudspeakers. "Men, someone left the morgue door open! Sensors indicate it was opened from the inside! We might have an intruder at hand!". Instantly, he heard the sound of doors opening, weapons being readied, and footsteps. He ran out of the armory, and entered the nearest unlocked room he could find. He was startled at what he saw. A suited figure, sitting in a desk was facing Dimitri. The man was tall, and seemed to be about 50 years of age. His features were pronounced, and he had a slight grin on his face. The room was very clean, neat and organized, with several bookshelves, a globe, a grandfather clock, and many stacks of paper. Dimitri immediately turned around and tried to run, but a burly soldier pushed him back and held a pistol to his head. He had no choice but to look into the office once more. "Hello, Dimitri. I've been expecting you. Please, do take a seat and make yourself comfortable. We have much to discuss."

Dictator can actually fire at people on the platform in Sandbox without having to drive up there. Viking can't do that. Viking's shortness is good for stealth, I'll give you that, but I never found Dictator's stability to be a problem. Dictator's actually more stable than Viking in general, since its weight is higher.

Trom, would you rather play without your Thunder or without your Wasp? Just curious.

Yep. It's a Shafter's paradise. The only problem I find with it (besides the lag) is the fact that nobody really wants to leave their base after a while, since there are so many Shafts and other campers around. Hence why I don't like it for CTF. If your computer doesn't let you play on Lost Temple, you can try Brest. It's the second best map for Shaft in my opinion.

Lost Temple is one of the largest and laggiest maps in the game, so I'm not surprised many people haven't gotten a chance to play much on it. For the purposes of this guide, all you need to know is that there's a huge patch of thick, thick vegetation directly to the right of each flag. There's always one or more Shafts hiding there.

Gold boxes don't fall all of the time, unlike crystal boxes, so it's not a huge distraction for gameplay in the long run. The 10 crystal boxes weren't a huge distraction. They started becoming problematic when they were changed so their values depended on the fund. I kid you not, almost half of my teammates during those few days were out hunting for crystal boxes; they were completely disregarding combat, control point capping, and defending/capturing flags. I am glad to see that iteration of crystal boxes is gone. I don't know why the 10 crystal boxes weren't reinstated instead of complete removal, but I can deal with how it is currently. A losing team gets a minimum of 20% of the fund and a maximum of 40% of the fund, so it's a bit more fair to the losing side now. I feel much more incentive to stay in losing matches, since even 20% of a fund can give you quite a few crystals if you stay and fight to the end. That said, I respect your opinion. I understand that not everyone likes this update.

Erm, wrong section. It doesn't belong in "Discussion of Turrets and Hulls".

I'll test it out. If it's true, I'll update the article accordingly.

The wiki refers to the "impact on YOU" as recoil, and I do the same in the article. In the other games I've played, impact force and knockback are used interchangeably, so I've done that here as well.

Enjoy the newspaper, guys!

The size of the dot doesn't really matter here. The issue is that a Shaft could simply aim at a side of your tank that you can't see due to the camera, which would effectively make it invisible unless you turn your turret around a lot.

Viking can't really run away from Freeze/Firebird/Isida either. Dictator's large size never bothered me. To quote myself from a while ago:

This is a great idea. While I'd prefer having no laser sight, a small dot at the endpoint of the laser provides warning to the target while not exposing the user's location. Perhaps the whole length of the laser sight should be visible to teammates so they'll have a better idea of what your line of sight is. The only issue I can find with this is the fact that it's hard to see a small, 2D dot if it's on the front of your tank.

There are lots of Hornet players out there, so I think it's safe to assume that the new shotgun will be popular with Hornet users. If it's available by Christmas, I'll get it and try it out on different hulls.

Here's my final list of names that I think are good. In no particular order: Shellshot- My current favorite. Unique and technically accurate, since the shots the weapon fires are (presumably) oversized shotgun shells. Haven't heard this name in any other game, so points for being original if you pick this one. Enforcer- A quite imposing/intimidating name. Law enforcement officers around the world also use shotguns, so there's that vague reference. Scattershot- Fires lots of small rounds in a scattered pattern, so yeah. Perhaps a few other games name their shotguns this too, so it's not the most original one around. I don't think Blitzkrieg would be a good name, given the negative connotations the word has (in case you don't know, it's the name of a certain strategy the Nazis used in WWII).

Here's my full review on the laser sight, after trying it out more in action: Pros: The laser sight makes it much easier to get out of a Shaft's line of sight, but that means fewer snipes for Shaft users. At the very least, you can use the laser sight to signal to your teammates that "I'm covering you". It makes teammates feel more secure, I suppose. Cons: Since the laser sight gives away your position, EVERYONE on the test server was using Mammoth-Shaft, since you need health to survive the much, much higher volume of fire you're taking. The laser sight favors heavy hulls over light hulls, and that's a problem. I'm not even bothering with camouflage anymore, since a neon laser sight is easy to see in any map. It's a sign that "Hey world, there's a Shaft over here! Come and get me!". This is a huge detriment. I suggest you implement one of the following: Add a toggle function for the laser sight. When it's off, only allies can see your laser sight. You will have scope sway. When it's on, everyone can see your laser sight, but there is no sway. For stealth players, they can switch it off and retain their camouflage in exchange for more difficult sniping. For non-stealth players, they can switch it on and enjoy no sway. Turn on the laser sight 2 seconds after you've fully charged your scope shot. For stealth players, they can zoom in when they see an enemy and use that brief window of stealth to take out their enemy without giving away their position. If stealth isn't a concern, you can scope in and scan the area with a laser sight.

"Real snipers" stay quite far away from the battlefield and don't give away their position unnecessarily. If you think that's cowardly, tell that to the thousands of snipers serving in armed forces around the world. Also, it's pretty easy to figure out where a Shaft is hiding with some knowledge of the map and logic. If your teammates are always getting sniped at a certain spot, figure out what camping spots have a line of sight to that area. I don't think Shaft was ever unbalanced before.

I am definitely going to get the shotgun once it's released. It looks pretty cool, and if they keep the gameplay similar to what's been shown in the VLOG, it looks quite powerful. I like the 3 close range weapons we have right now, but I think something like the shotgun would be a great change of pace.

I do not like the laser sight as is. While it does look really, really cool, everybody will know where you are. It nullifies the value of camouflage a lot. If the toggle function would be a hassle to program, I suggest that the laser sight only appear if you've been fully charged for about 2 seconds. For players who don't care how visible they are, they can scope in and use the laser sight for as long as they want. For players who want to stay camouflaged, they can zoom in when they see a target and use the short window of time before the laser sight appears to take them out quickly and stealthily. Please do consider this idea, since I think the laser sight would alienate a large proportion of Shaft users.

Might be a tad bit too OP. Shaft campers in night mode would already be really hard to find and counter-snipe; this thermal/night vision would not make things easier.

Dictator-Ricochet is not to be underestimated. Dictator has a lot of health and decent mobility, which fits well with Ricochet. The turret placement doesn't really matter here, since Ricochet has good range. I've fought several M2 Dictator/M2 Ricochet users, and they were really, really tough enemies to fight. Somebody even managed to capture flags with it. Hence why I'm getting M2 Dictator-Ricochet on New Year's. With a few MUs, Ricochet can take down M2 Vikings quickly and be able to go compete with M2 Smokies, while a few health MUs on Dictator will get it to the same level as M2 Viking.

I am up to my eyes in crystals now. At the moment, I currently have 195,514 crystals. Yes, that's enough to buy Prodigi if I was at Marshall. I'm not going to use any of it right now. I'll wait until December 1st to get a SMP, and from there on I'll just play and write articles to the best of my abilities until the New Year sale.