Bump (btw, thanks FrozenRailgun for your advice when we chatted in the lobby!)

Phew, haven't been to this topic in a while... Anyways, I've managed to save 243k crystals (and more over the next week or two), and I'm looking to spice up my Garage to better adapt to the metagame. I've been thinking of buying the Saboteur and/or Defender Drone, but I think I need at least one more hull, turret, or protection module before spending on Drones and Batteries. For hulls, I'm thinking of getting M3 Titan. For turrets, M3 Hammer (alongside its High-Capacity Alteration) will definitely help me in mid-range combat. For protection, I'm tempted to get M3 Gauss protection, but I think M3 Mines or Smoky protection would be better for me. So what should I get first? How good is stock Hammer? Thanks for your advice!

Personally, I think the random team depth generated by the MM system hurts team defense further. For every team with coordination, effective offense, and strong defense, there's a team that is good but with flaws and (too often for me) a team whose members do their own thing and are easily exposed by better teams. It's this randomness that has prompted me, a longtime CTF player, to ditch CTF as my main mode. After all, why should I bother playing consecutive CTF matches if I'll only get placed in two or three meh teams awaiting slaughter?

I definitely see similarities as the new Hornet (I call it Radar Hornet) is designed like a Pick class character. That is, for Hornet to utilize its max potential, Hornet must be mindful, agile, and opportunistic when delivering its kills, like TF2's Sniper and Spy. Otherwise, bulkier enemies will just outright dominate the Hornet assassin.

My bad. Must have seen a Mammoth being killed by a Wasp bomb immediately after the Mammoth lost its Invulnerable state. Unless the devs make changes to the new Overdrives, Mammoth will be enjoying every second in the limelight as recompense for being the "inferior" (i.e. slower) Heavy Hull to Titan.

On the topic of counterplay, I didn't necessarily mean that all of us HAVE to have all or multiple hulls at our disposal. I mean, I have M4 Viking and M4 Hornet, and I'm finding success thanks to Hornet's OD and my teammates with different hulls (especially Titan and Wasp) being somewhat cooperative. Edit: Even so, I get what you mean. My success was predicated on having teammates that had some idea of what they were doing with their Overdrives (and confused opposing teams). Once everyone gets settled with the Overdrives, we'll definitely see more Groups vs Randoms battles occur. Not to mention there's the cruel MM system to worry about since the system likes to cobble together variably balanced and horribly mismatched teams and feed into the plague of battle imbalance. -end Edit- Unless Tanki gets the "bright" idea of nerfing Mammoth's Overdrive, it seems that Tanki has made Mammoth THE Boss Hull once again, likely as an homage to Mammoth's former greatness as the Bulkiest Hull out there before the devs made Mammoth play second fiddle to Titan. It'd be interesting to see Tanki revert some of its updates (mostly Alterations and Drones for me) while keeping the plethora or new paints. Given the devs' track record, however, that is merely a pipe dream.

Understandably, some players are probably unhappy that Double Armor and Module Protections have been diminished by the new OD's. I know I saw at least one comment lamenting how Modules don't matter as much as they did before, especially if one is brutalized by a Viking or steamrolled by a Mammoth. Personally, I was getting tired of the previous "Medium and Heavy Hulls" metagame, which was a race to become the most invulnerable player/team with the All-Supplies Overdrive, tons of Supplies, tons of Batteries, M4 Drones, 3000+ HP, and M4 Modules. For me, these new Overdrives have reinvigorated Tanki gameplay with new forms of counterplay. Against Crazy, Rapid-firing Vikings, Titan's Force Field significantly minimizes the Vikings' blows for teammates. Against Invulnerable Mammoths that everyone's calling OP, Wasp can drop an N-2 bomb and eliminate them. Against any heavily protected tanks, Hornet's Radar enables the user to penetrate tanks' buffs and quickly dispatch them. There's also Hunter's EMP shock that can disable any non-Mammoth tank and their Overdrives. Of course, there will be some groaning that they might have to spend on new stuff to keep up with the new meta. Additionally, the MM system continues to be a cruel mistress giving players variably good and bad battles. And we should still be cautious of the devs given their previous boneheaded decisions (i.e. the Incendiary Band). Time will ultimately tell how this update will turn out in the long run. Whether we like the changes or not, I'm sure most of us can agree we all needed some fresh, new scenery, in Tanki or elsewhere.

So I've been playing in TDM (yes, actual TDM) and taking in the new Overdrives. So far, it's been fine. Standard Tanki fine. Barring a couple of battles with clearly mismatched teams, I've enjoyed success with Hornet's Overdrive, which really rewards you for being agile and hitting your shots. I'm really loving how Hornet's Overdrive boosts my Damage output and makes Hornet more viable than before. Of course, Vikings are gonna be really annoying to fight from now on seeing as the stupidly rapid fire effect will allow, say, Hammers, Strikers, Thunders, and Magnums to wipe out multiple enemies in an instant. Time will only tell what the long term effects of Viking's OD will be (I'd imagine there'll be many calling it OP and threatening to quit Tanki). Fortunately, Titan's Overdrive is there to help stabilize teams, not only healing teammates but also significantly reducing the damage from oncoming enemy fire. With all that said, I haven't played the other modes yet, so I can't say much about them as of writing this. For all I know, maybe TDM battles will turn into trash once the devoted players have fully settled in with the update. Maybe not. Perhaps the devs will make another bone-headed move and "rUiN tAnKi aGaiN". Can't wait to join the reaction bandwagon, lol!

Well, the devs also nerfed Vulcan's damage when overheating by a whopping 70%. That should make it harder for lazy incendiary Vulcans to rack up kills while overheating. Source:

RIP the batteries of the "Driver" Drone bandwagon. However, I am concerned with the drones' "permanent boost...to turret damage and hull defense". Sigh...I'm not pleased with Devs incentivizing its players to splooge more on Drones and Batteries.

On one hand, the new Vulcan patch significantly minimizes Vulcan's continuous firing quirk, which sucks. Personally, Incendiary Band should have never been in the game in the first place. But back to the patch. Obviously, the patch smites down lazy Incendiary Band Vulcans to the point that the other Vulcans are more viable again. Also, shortening the rev-up time is a sweet gesture I'm thankful for.

I agree that short team battles prioritize chaotic blitz-style gameplay, and that longer battles offer more potential time for the losing team to mount a resurgence and perhaps retake the lead (especially with the new Overdrives). However, a longer battle doesn't always equate to well-coordinated team vs team gameplay since these days, one team simply gets the jump on the other and it's all over for that battle. And I doubt the new Overdrives will "magically" make team battles nice and competitive again. Oh sure, the tight battles will be spicy. But I reckon the new Overdrives will make random battles just as random, if not more, as they have been, with well-coordinated teams bashing random teams over and over and over and over and over and over and over... In other words, only the gangs clans and closely knit battle groups will reap the most from the new Overdrives, and I personally can't be bothered to get one of my friends to come to TO and bash randoms together.

@OKDad70 Yeah, I agree that the whole "score equal to or more than one's faction’s average star count" makes participating in the Gender War less meaningful for the average TO player UNLESS they pay for the Battle Pass and/or Premium. As for game statistics, there is the daily player count site as well as a Steam Chart of TO (Oh yes, TO had a Steam release). https://tankionline.com/graphic.swf https://steamcharts.com/app/562010 It definitely speaks volumes how TO doesn't actively promote its own statistical resource. Edit: Didn't expect my post to load the SWF of the daily player count site. Anyways, to get to the site itself, type "tankionline.com/graphic.swf".

It's an honor to join the ranks of Legend!

Ohoho, but I believe there's something worse than a hissing player: a teammate that tries to sabotage you for taking "their" gold. So I was in a Yorkshire TDM battle when the Gold siren rang at the start. I decided to go for gold just for the fun of it and I managed to catch the gold (yay!). Consequently, however, that ticked off my XP teammate who was close but not close enough to the gold. After I respawned, the XP teammate found me and began shoving me in my Viking. I tried climbing onto the one of the castle ledges to try and push the XP player off. Unfortunately, I miscalculated as the XP player kept pushing my Viking upwards until I was upside down on the ledge. Apparently satisfied, the XP teammate ditched me. Afterwards, I was certainly disgusted and wanted to retaliate somehow. Still, I figured that given how outmatched my team was in the battle, it'd be a waste of my time trying to chase down that XP teammate. So I accepted my loss and changed into an Isida-Viking combo, trying to make the most of the battle. Although I had a bad K/D at first, I soon got going and was able to finish 1st on my team with 126 points, 5 Kills, and 8 Deaths. Not pretty, but certainly better than my XP teammate's efforts that only got them 50 points, 3 Kills, and 9 Deaths. So while I couldn't thwart my XP teammate's sabotaging efforts, I think finishing in 1st place and getting 3 Stars while they get no Stars is a sufficient comeback.

I went to a TDM battle in Red Alert with stock Vulcan M3 (yes, stock Vulcan M3) and Viking M3. I was on Red and there was this one aggressive 4-Star General player (let's call them Alex) on Blue that donned an Isida M3 and Viking M2. In the middle of the battle, Alex had stormed the Red base with full drugs and was ready to lunge at my tank while my DD and DA were in cooldown. Once I saw Alex, I wasted no time running away and laid a Mine just in case. In their fury, however, Alex didn't avoid the Mine I laid and was subsequently destroyed. Shortly after, Alex hissed at me in the chat, taunting me as they said, "run / run id iot vulcan run / id iot vulcan". I saw no need to retort back in words; I simply kept my Vulcan game up, even nabbing Alex one more time. By battle's end, I clearly saw that Alex was Blue's #2 player (13 Kills to 11 Deaths), but I'm amused that Alex saw the need to growl at me when they overlooked my laid Mine.

While the original announcement doesn't explicitly clarify whether you can drop out of the Gender War, based on statements like the "buying a ticket" statement, the implied answer is no (you can check out the relevant info in the below spoiler).

From my personal experiences in these forums, most newcomers either express their praise for something they find nice in Tanki or (if they are really newbie) post their topic several times to try and make forumers notice them. The discontented newcomers I do find typically drop several of their frustrated comments (commonly on the latest meh/controversial TO update) before eventually logging off from the Forums for good. One such newcomer that I remember was this Major/Lt. Colonel player who was upset with how Isida was balanced at the time and decided to post their own ideas on fixing the issue. As much as their topic(s) attracted some back-and-forth discussion on Isida, the player eventually gave up on their ideas after a couple of weeks and declared that they were migrating to WOT (OOooooh , that'll show Tanki!) and left in a huff.

These days, I'm pretty sure the current Challenge has preoccupied and/or drained players from chilling in the EN forums. Not to mention that the loss of passionate forumers like LittleWillie has made the EN Forum less vibrant than before. Even so, the only way to restore some healthy forum activity for the future is if the quality of gameplay in TO genuinely improves. That way, more players will be happy coming to the EN forums as opposed to being tired, frustrated, and angry at Tanki. There's only so much disappointment and discontent a forumer can take and/or express before they simply stay logged off, after all. I'm sure OKDad70 knows what I'm talking about...

Hi all! I've completed the #NonBuyerChallenge, and I have two cases (with screen shots) below as proof. The first time I completed the Challenge, I actually tied with another teammate nicolahcm for 1st place on our team in a CP victory. I certainly could have stopped there, but I figured that I could get a more convincing result and decided to keep going. In the end, the second time around, I finished in 1st place on my team in a TDM loss. 1st Time 2nd time

I can see kinda the head of a giraffe there, but for me, I think the side profile of Magnum XT has the head of a ram.

Hmm! Coming out of 2 weeks of hiatus, and Tanki lands this bombshell of a missions update. Hehehe. Looks like the 6 loot boxes won after completing all missions was the dev's experiment on all of us to get us hooked to them. All the clamor is folks relapsing from the allure of loot boxes. They're probably panicking like "NUUUUUU MUH 25k Crystals Containers! MUH Paints Containers! MUH 250 Supplies Containers! NUUUUUUUUU!" As for the buffs and nerfs...well I dunno. I'm glad Duplet was nerfed, though stock Isida is gonna be...interesting to play around with. At least Support Nanobots means something now, but I can imagine all the healer-first Isidas are recoiling to the changes.

Yeah, the way TO designed the insignia for Battle Pass rewards does seem like they can be earned with a Premium account, even though that's not actually the case. Given how Premium skips some of the long and tedious grind for earning hundreds of stars, however, I'm guessing TO was insinuating that acquiring Premium is the perfect complement to buying a Battle Pass for Challenges.

Thing is, you still get points healing injured allies. Still, I agree that you will yield zero points healing Vulcan allies that are only hurt because of their self-overheating. BUUUT if the Vulcan you are healing is legit getting hit hard by enemies, overheating or not, you will get points for patching up that Vulcan's injuries, not for keeping it alive through its self-inflicted burn. Then again, the hardest lesson any Isida player must learn is that Isida takes some selflessness for success.

So basically, with this hypothetical alteration, Vulcan fires bullets at intervals rather than continuously, right? I should also point out that, per the EN Tanki Wiki, all Stock Vulcans rev down in 1 second. I don't think changing rev down time from 1 second to 1.5 seconds counts as "reducing" rev down time... That typo aside, this MFR alteration has piqued my interest somewhat. I'm not too big a fan of burst fire, but I definitely dig reduced rev up and rev down times w/o damage penalties. From my experiences with stock Vulcan, I know I would be falling short of crucial kills had I equipped the "Shooting speed regulator" alteration.