Um, no, that's wrong. None shaft users are the ones happy about this. I have already said my peace, but yeah, you guys are nothing but apologists for the dev team and self interested cry babies who couldn't stand having to stop and hunt for who's shooting you. I have played shaft again a few times since the update, and CTF is nothing but snatch and grab now. Rush, capture, repeat, this has become the most boring game in the world now for shafts. Serpove is the only place you can still camp so far, and that is only if you have a good team, otherwise it's a waste of time. Dusseldorf you can camp too, but the laser still alerts them sooner to the fact you're on the other end of the town. Brest is no longer any good except up top, where things we usually shaft on shaft anyways, but even then, beam across the field and their pretty much gone in a sec. Rio is a joke, shafting there now is a death sentence. Massacre was always a hard sell for shafts with a weak team before, now, even with a strong team, you're pretty much SOL. Death matches area joke too, no flag, just find people, hence I announce my place every time I shoot? You're nothing but a little sad player that hated getting shot right out the gate before you probably hit all three drugging buttons. That's another thing, druggers were really miffed when all their sheild was not enough to shake of serious damage. Three full power shaft shots could kill a shielded player in some instances. Two shafts running cover against (wimp) druggers was a excellent force modifier and equalizer. This update still sucks, the devs suck for putting it in, and the entire operation is nothing but cow towwing to you little dork druggers. I never drug and if I do, it's because a box was in my way, I never collect them on purpose, ever. So, go on, all you no skill. no sense of acheivement button mashers, enjoy for stupid fun.

I'm sorry, I don't know the shafts you know. 60/0 Kill/Death doesn't score low. A good, GOOD I repest, shaft, knows where to look for the fight, or expect it, and camps there. Again, you speak like an anti camper. If I next to cover the west building as the Red team on Serpuhov and my job is to kill any all in that corridor, my beam alerts them to it, AND, it I try to zoom in and get a good tack on them, I'm waiting nearly 2 seconds for the charge and the final barrel resting place before I can begin to adjust aim and fire, oh, and I'm letting them know I'm about to fire on them. As for it's new capabilities, I invite you to list those, I'm all ears, because apparently you have discovered something I'm not able to read in the update FAQ.

This is an echo of my sentiments early posted, and perhaps even better phrased still. We as shafts do not have the luxury of entering the fray and capturing and gold boxes and chasing down enemies, we have to pick and choose very strategicly what we do. Now here comes the part most non-shafts don't understand, we don't care about all that, we REALLY like our role. Shafts play for the end game, not the instance. If we can hold off a tough offense we're happy, we did our job, if we can keep a stubborn defense running and the flag is ours over and over, we have done our job. Players who find it an inconvinence to be shot while playing by a shaft are the same players who cannot play well anyways. I can recognize a handful of ricos and thunders that are exceptionally troublesome and problematic for shafts because they get it and they know it's a battle, not just a slugfest. It's thinking and planning and adapting. Button mashers need not apply. I know my rhetoric has become a bit more vitriolic since my first post, but I cannot help but get this way after reading some of the foolishness posted in favor of this by some players. As for Boppy, thank you for the very well stated commentary and the level headedness you are keeping in all this, because yes, it is infuriating to have invested so much into a unit and have it yanked out from under you like this. I hope all shaft players can speak their mind and state as eloquently as I have tried, and Boppy has done, to express the reality of this situation.

Nope. First of all, there is no such thing as excessive camping. THAT'S THE POINT. Snipe. Find a good spot, kill as much as you can from there for as long as you can, period. What kind of foolishness is this? "Dynamic" shafter? You been shamed by game play buddies into not being "manly" and hiding in the back or something? Really? PArtial charge is dumb, it usually doesn't kill off opponents at distance, they are on their side, not in the fray yet, not damaged yet, maybe even just spawned. I think you might be trolling and trying to throw a bone to the other camp. Dynamic shaft? You'd have to stop everytime to get a bead on your target, shoot, and then scoot. I'm calling BS here, flat out. You can do this in frenzied battles, I have, but only when there are clumps of opponents, otherwise you just hurt them a little, they get pissed, and you're hunted down in short order, so, whatever, but no, None of this camper penalty garbage. As far is I'm concerned, you should be able to buy a deer stand for shafts in the garage. Again, dynamic shafting, really? I want to ask how many people play shaft this way? To all shafts, how many of you run around the map, partial charging shots at targets when they just happen to cross your path? (assinine, pure and simple, stop making things up for the other camp, they already got their wish so far, and seems like even non-shafts with any ounce of dignity are also calling this for what it is, a failure and very bad idea)

I already said my peace to the devs on the Ideas section, but I'll restate here. Shafts have been gutted. No point, no need, they were perfect they way they were. I don't know who the people were that complained about shafts, but they obviously never played them, and certainly not in higher ranks. For the devs to have capitulated to this simply unfathomable and ridiculous, and yes, I believe most shaft players will either switch tanbks, or quit the game entirely. Shame, it was really a great game and they removed the arguably most important team unit from play basically now. No more long distance support for units going after flags, chasing down enemies with flags, no saving team mates caught up in huge battles (that one might still happen, but even then, no one wants to shaft all day waiting for a brawl to break out in order to finally take a shot), it's pretty much over. Staff, really, rethink this, like crystal boxes, focus on game play, not complaints. You took out crystal boxes, take out the laser. Real fighting and if little tankers can't hack being shot once in a while, that should be their problem, you don't hear shafts complaining about getting ganged up on in every game (and they always do).

I missd this post prior to my last one. I find an excellent point here and one I hope is simply not true. This game has a purity to it, and a following. It's combat, it's skill, it's talent, it's thinking, it's many things, you start to detract from that dynamic by tearing down peoples efforts and time spent for shenanigans like pushing players into situations that require them to spend money simply to keep playing well, and it becomes a farce. There is no reason to do this for thew sake of money. Shaft players are snipers, and they will always be snipers. Call of Duty, TC'S Rainbow Six, any shooter game, you have people that gravitate to one shot, one kill, and if you send them packing, they generally won't adopt something else, they'll just stop playing. I can't say for certain that this idea of yours is right, but if it were true, it would be a great shame and really petty.

So, again, ideas and comments to the devs, posting here. Played last night, Barda, 2 one hour games. Shaft, as always, and this is what transpired. Take route in the dark, find hidey hole, oh, and I see beams every where, it's like a damn rave. I decide to use good judgement and NOT optic up and just wait till I see movement in the distance and then start tracking my prey. OH LOOK! There one now! Begin to zoom, wait for charge to complete, oh no, he saw the beam and ran in a different direction and hid. Yeah. Okay, off to a poor star . . . BOOM, I got shot (wonder of wonders right?). Okay, spawn, pissed, down on it already before entering the game, and now more. New spot. Park, search, find, zoom, enemy hides before I can charge up, loose the shot anyways just to kill my beam. Oh, damn, look, I could have picked that one off in the open BUT I HAD TO FIRE TO STOP MY LASER BEAM FROM SHOWING and now it's charging, 3 minutes of game play and one death and zero kills. Okay, I don't like this, but I will finish this game. So, what does any good Tanki Shaft do when it's in a dilemma, it finds ways to circumvent the HUGE weaknesses they have. How to do that . . . .well, I can't ZOOM in on a spot and catch folks coming through there, I can't just linger and twist and turn the turret constantly looking for targets, all these things light me up like a Christmas tree. Hmmm . . . oh, look, a wall . . . I wonder, if I zoom in and look left or right of the wall, just leaving the laser there, I can still see enemies zoomed in, but they don't see the laser across the expanse. Yep, sounds like a plan. Fast forward twenty minutes later and I racked up some serious "killage", the no bounce barrel was sublime. Alas, frenzied anti-shafters were enraged and completely out of their minds at how this shaft could have POSSIBLY taken back the advantage, so I was hunted down the rest of the game, and note, the beam doesn't go far against the wall, but yeah, it lights up, I was screwed. That little story of course is made to make a point, it's all true, but even with the "trick", it was to no avail, once people got wise to it, it was over, and I really had a VERY hard time doing it, on one particlar map, and Rio and places like that will likely NOT allow for that game play. So I say this. Shafts got the shaft, and this will ruin shaft play. What I want to know, and I'd like to hear a long and serious answer to this, and explaination of how devs came to the conclusion that this was a problem and needed to be changed? How is it that a shaft player who is semi consistently never captures the flag and has sometimes 0 deaths and 30+kills and ranked in his battles at 3 to 5 place a threat to game play. I make sure some other snub nosed team member CAN GET the flag, or I stop the other team from taking ours. I'm sorry if the Rico had to drive out of it's way to find me and shoot me in order to take my flag and make points, I know that's very annoying and detracts from the deep and complex game play of rush, capture, run away. Since when have shafts been so dominant that entire map is nothing but a killing field for snipers? Brest might be the only example where shafts can MAYBE take the upper hand, and even then, it's shaft on shaft half the time, and two shafts lost on one side means the dynamic has changed and in the time it takes to spawn and get back into position, the enemy team is on your side of the map creating havoc. Again, I want to hear about the numbers, the complaints, the investigation and the result of that which made the devs give legitimacy to this decision and make them go through with it. It's a game everyone, and I know, the same could be said of myself, but the unit was there, I adopted, I upgraded, I practiced the tactics for THAT unit, it's my style of play, otherwise I might not even be playing Tanki. Again, someone, talk to us, and not one line platitudes, just a serious reasoning and explaination regarding this decision.

Thank you. I'm glad to see folks also see this. I'm really baffled at the decision to even consider this. I can see sight maybe that can be turned on and off and reduces the amount of barrel movement, but again, that should be an option, certainly not the only way to play. Again, thank you and I hope others jump on this issue too and let them know.

Improvements it said, so I'm posting here. Saw the latest video blog and I wanted to speak to the mods on the Shaft. As nearly all my game play is done in Shaft, I must say, the laser sight seems likethe death kneel to the shaft, flat out. Shafts have a hard enough time finding camp sites as it is once you get into Warrant Officer and above levels, where all the players know the maps well, giving away the shafts location LONG before it can even get shots off is ridiculous. Night mode is a bigger no brainer. It will be nothing to hunt shafts down and teams will likely designate a member or two to hunting down beams and killing them. We're nearly helpless in close quarters and shoot and scoot isn't an option on many maps, like Rio, and smaller ones, moving will instantly give your position away. There is really no good reason for this I can see except placating players that don't "like" getting shot by good shaft players, and I can attest to the difficulty of being a good shaft higher levels. 4 or 5 rapid kills (relatively rapid, it's still a shaft, nothing is "fast" in shaft life) and the other teams is looking for you soon. The moment a shaft becomes relevant in a battle, it is hunted incesesantly. If you draw a line to it for all to see in the air it will be the end of shaft play. Aside from routes that you discern from observing the enemy and making judgements on where to set up to snipe, there nothing for a shaft to do. If someone sees a beam, they retreat and that's it, it's over, shaft is no longer in play. Seriously, this needs to be reconsidered because it will wreck the game play for shafts.

Does anybody have an answer to this question: Is the library of props in the TTT download above the only library being used in the game now? I ask because I pulled down the Alternativa Editor from another English link, built a map, tried opening it in TTT and it wouldn't. I guessed it was the library so I opened Alternativa, loaded the library from the TTT download, and sure enough, those props weren't in there. So the question is, if you have any hopes of creating maps and maybe them having used one day, or at least get access to the testing server to upload them and try them there, do you HAVE TO ONLY USE the props in the MDK? Anyone with any knowledge on this, it would be greatly appreciated. Half of One