Well-written article. Easy to read, but still sophisticated. I would suggest tweaking the title a bit, because I was a bit unsure on what it meant. Also, check out @Night-Sisters guide on formatting in the most recent issue of the newspaper- this article would be taken up a notch by tweaking the formatting a bit. Otherwise, keep it up!

Cool contest. The one big suggestion I have is to not make 3 angles "mandatory". For the groups that remembered to do so, they did not really lend more to the overall feel of the pyramid, so I feel like a well-done picture from 1 angle suffices. For example, look at our entry- another angle would not have added anything to the picture.

Having trouble opening it. Dragged it into a tab on firefox, but now its just a gray screen.

Nice guide. Will take some of this stuff into account in the future.

Its definitley arguable. Simply looking at statistics can only go so far, so we will see how it really turns out.

There is always a chance. We have never been told any details about a sale this far in advance, so there is a chance they are withholding some info.

We have all heard about it, and we all have our own opinions. Without a doubt, the rebalance take II is the biggest update in the past few years. However, the tables of numbers are incredibly challenging to sort through, and not worth the time to read as of right now. So, I decided to do some of the work for you, and compile a completely objective list and explanation of the biggest winners and losers of this update. I will start with the hulls and then get into the turrets. For all analysis, I will be looking solely at the M3 stats, to reduce confusion. The biggest winner of the hulls With a minuscule decrease in hitpoints, a sizeable increase in speed, and only a small loss in acceleration and weight, Viking is the biggest winner of the hulls. The speed stat actually makes it swap places with Hunter, with Viking becoming the fastest medium hull. While the loss in weight will not be ideal for the hull, gameplay using Viking never has involved a whole lot of pushing, but rather moving around enemies. The biggest losers of the hulls When you think of Wasp, you think of a speedy hull that has the ability to get behind cover, quick. The fact that Wasp has lost so much speed, acceleration, and turning speed ties it for the biggest loser of the hulls. While it has gotten a bit more hitpoints, that has never been the purpose of a Wasp. On the other side of the spectrum is Mammoth, which got a major nerf. It has gotten the largest decrease in hitpoints, where the main purpose of a Mammoth is currently to be big, and not die. Even with the major increase in speed, Mammoth has now become weak in comparison to its former self. Where the rest of them rank The rest of the hulls all fall in-between the extremes. Out of the remaining ones, Hornet and Hunter came off fairly well. They both got increases in hit points and overall maneuverability, which play into the styles of each hull fairly well. Hornet got a handy increase in speed, and I can see it becoming the choice attacking hull, whereas Hunter seems to be a great choice for a roaming midfielder. Dictator and Titan did not get off as easily as the rest of the hulls. They both lost health while gaining some speed. Dictator lost turning speed, which seems more fitting for such a large tank. Titan lost a large amount of weight, which does not work in favor of its physical, pushing playstyle. Overall impression of hull balancing If you are looking for an objective piece here, go ahead and skip this section, as this will be my thoughts on the hull balancing. I think that this is not the direction the game needs to go. One of the best parts of Tanki has been the extreme diversity of equipment, with a wide array of hulls being one of the key aspects of this diversity. However, this update seems to have squashed all hulls closer together, effectively decreasing hull diversity. The biggest winners of the turrets Here are the big 3. If you have at least one of these turrets already, you should be set once the update hits. The most improved turrets are Freeze, Firebird, and Thunder. Freeze has gotten a much-needed increase in damage, along with the ability to Freeze up enemy tanks much faster. The one main thing it lost was a little bit of rotation speed, which should not be too big of a deal to Freeze-users. Firebird now promises to be the definitive short-range weapon. Its damage and reload speed have both gotten better, while the heating rate has been cut in half, with another decrease in temperature limit (whatever that means…). While the decrease in heating rate is definitely a loss, the heightened damage and reload speed being cut in half definitely take the cake here. The other big winner is Thunder. For a long time now, Thunder enthusiasts have been lobbying for a shorter reload time, even saying that a shorter reloading time and lower damage is fine. However, what happened is even better- the minimum damage has been increased, the maximum damage has been decreased but only slightly, and reload time has been decreased by about a quarter of a second. The higher impact force and longer range is really the icing on the cake (hmm, I’m starting to see a theme here) The biggest losers of the turrets Isida and Vulcan users, prepare to buy a new turret. Both have gotten major nerfs, with the most important aspects of each getting major changes. The most notable change in Isida is self-healing getting decreased by over 4x. No longer will Isida be unstoppable while in small maps, and no longer will it be able to kill a Twins and still have half-health. While the damage has been increased, its special sauce has always been the ability to lose minimal health in combat. While I, personally, am excited about most of these things, I am worried to see the large decrease in healing. Isida has always been the medic, but with that value going down, I have a feeling that popularity of Isida will go down a lot. Light hull-users, rejoice! The impact force of Vulcan has been chopped right in half! This means that all hulls will actually be able to control themselves when being fired upon by a Vulcan. For Vulcan users, some other notable changes have happened. Your damage has been slightly increased, but rotation speed has been made even slower. Furthermore, your tank will heat up faster, which does not bode well with the decrease in hitpoints in the large hulls. The most absurd change of the Turrets When I viewed the changes to Railgun the first time, I immediately refreshed my page to fix the chart that I thought was glitched out. Turns out, it was correct. This is the change that will, no doubt, have the largest effect on the game. Its damage has received a major nerf, while reload time has been decreased by almost two seconds. This means a faster-paced, less camping oriented playstyle for Railgun. With Railgun being the most-used turret in the game, this will completely shake up the speed of gameplay on almost every map. Where the rest of the turrets rank While some turrets have undergone major changes, Hammer, Twins, and Ricochet have remained almost the same. All 3 have received increases in damage, with Hammer also getting an improvement in reload time. However, Twins will now fire more slowly, and Ricochet will have more time in-between shots. Of course, all of these changes have been balanced out with other stats, such as Ricochet using less energy per shot, Twins getting an increased range, and Hammer’s impact force being reduced a good deal. Upon first inspection, it appeared Smoky was getting one of the largest nerfs. However, it will only have a reduced effectiveness in battles. Its range and recoil have been improved, which will be interesting to see. The biggest change is a major increase in damage per shot, a major decrease in critical chance, and a slight decrease in reload time. With critical shots being crucial to Smoky, this will really shake things up, but since its base damage has been increased, it will even out. Finally, Shaft. It appears that it will be about the same, but the 17 stats are impossible to extrapolate anything from. We will just have to wait for the update to see how Shaft has changed. Overall impression of Turret balancing Well, the objective part of this piece is over. From here on out, it will all be my impressions on the update. I definitely approve of the turret balancing. From Freeze and Thunder getting better to Isida and Vulcan being nerfed the most, the game is definitely heading in the right direction with regards to turrets. As much as I, a loyal Twins user, hate to say it, I think Twins should have been nerfed. It is too powerful using supplies and needed something like a decrease in range or damage per shot. Conclusion Like any update, and especially this one, it is hard to tell how big of an effect it will have until it hits the game. I am excited for “mid-October” when the update hits, to use all of my equipment. Look at it on the bright side- the update will be like getting an entirely new garage, and should definitely add some excitement back into the game for the first month. Also, the accusations that Tanki is releasing this update for monetary gains needs to be addressed. While yes, this will bring in more revenue, I think the underlying reason for the rebalance is that Tanki has had a weakening level of excitement. Games have been expected, and lots of once-loyal players have left the game. So, overall, I am looking forward to the update. While I am not happy to see the changes in hulls, the vast improvement in turret balance outweigh the hulls. Thanks for reading! I hope you found this one helpful. I also hope that this was not too similar to @GoldRock’s article, but it should hopefully be a bit different. -@Jwimmer, @jwimmer2

Yeah I always forget that its AWC and not AWG (amateur writing group). I'm getting a bit better with it now though.

Yes,I totally agree. A turret that can make its hull literally invincible... Isida is already OP enough, and it completely needs/deserves this update. I just got out of a game on Noise, where the other team was absolutely destroying simply because they had 5 isidas out of their 8 members.

The thing with this situation (and one that happens every so often) is that I was first place on my team, with about 600 xp points. If I leave, that's all wasted xp. And anyways, it was a very competitive game. I'm not going to leave a great game because a noob joined last minute. Not true at all. While clueless, most likely young, tankers do come up every so often, the completely clueless ones only make up about 1-2% of players I see. That is a very good point, and really the crux of the problem. Hopefully I will find this guy who lost the game for us at some point and destroy him... Gameplay at high ranks is very monotonous, making it boring at times. Having a second account spices things up, and also I learned from my mistakes on this account to make my alt very strong. Also, I can buy new items and rank up quicker than I can on this account, so there is more satisfaction involved.

Not even remotely close to what I am saying. Let me clarify. What can I do in real-time that will help solve the problem of having clueless people in my team? I know that being a noob is bannable, and sabotage can be filmed, but it does not help during the game itself.

So I just got out of a game on my alt, where 1 member took actions that lost an extremely tight game for us. The score was tied, and each team had the other team's flag. Our flag carrier died, and a m1 titan + shaft managed to pick up the flag. I figured that, since he had an isida near, he was good hanging out in cover, so I started to go to the other base to try and return. A few seconds later, I looked back, and he was driving to his sniping location, carrying the flag, in plain view. He was seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had the flag in such a tight battle. After about 30 seconds, the other team easily returned the flag, and we lost the game. My question is: what do you do about people like this? Most of the time, they (clueless people) don't use chat, don't rotate their turrets, get in the way, and don't know how to drop the flag. There's nothing that I have found to deal with teammates like this, so I am wondering if anyone else has a method for dealing with the problem.

...and? Not a whole lot of umph to this one, if you feel me. Just kinda outlining a feature of the game that we all know about. However, the only way to get better at writing is to write, so keep writing.

I can not thank you enough for this. I have been confused since the announcement of the update. Based on this, here is my thoughts on the update. It seems an overall faster game-play is being sought. More hulls were made faster than slower, and a lot of reload times (notably railgun and thunder) have been decreased. I am also very pleased to see hornet will no longer drift. I like most of the turret balances. I have said for over a year now that isida has needed a major nerf, and luckily for me, that will happen. It will no longer dominate completely on maps like island and ping pong (@RIDDLER_8 may not be happy about this though...). Happy to see thunder's reload speed decreased and damage staying around the same, and also glad that twins is relatively unchanged. The major decrease in reload time and decrease in damage for railgun, will have, in my mind, the largest effect on the game. Railgun is the most used turret, and also the most changed- I am excited to play xp/bp with the changes. Last of all, smoky. I initially thought it was a massive nerf (because critical damage was cut in half and reload time increased), but after looking at it, it is not all that bad. Oh yeah, almost forgot about supplies. I am actually very displeased with this. People will now be able to equip and double armor and armor quicker, and they will last longer together. This can only mean one thing- heavy druggers have been buffed. Something that definitely did NOT need to happen whatsoever.

Fun game on the alt. Gold box snapped the pic late, but it was an easy grab 50th gold on alt Ranked up to Captain Pretty close to getting Ram on the alt. I'm hoping for some newspaper contest crystals coming in soon, and also the sale after the big update means that I will definitely have it by then.

Yes it is. Critical damage was essentially cut in half.

I think turrets will definitely be more balanced, but hulls are too balanced. Their main characteristics should be protection, not speed and weight. Making them all the same protection is definitely not the best idea I've ever heard.

Really looking forward to this update. Bringing all M3 turrets and hulls to 1 unlock ranks is a great idea- hoping I can get my hands on DictatorM3 now. I also like the rebalancing of turret damage and specs. Glad to see Thunder getting a nice buff, and twins not changing too much. The few things that I have seen that I disagree with a bit are raising isida's damage, while lowering its healing. However, I think that the major nerf on its self-healing will cancel out with it. Also sad to see Smoky's critical damage reduced so much, because critical shots are what make Smoky good. Overall excited for the update, and also the sale accompanying it.

Follow this guide. My keyboard ghosts as well, but does not using the steps in the guide. Also, take it from me, no worries about malware with autohotkey, I have had no issues with it whatsoever.

I think this is my first gold on my new computer. The story: I was driving over the drop zone as it appeared. I managed to flip the guy taking our flag, and then let him be to try for the gold. Pushed into the side of a few tanks to get over the drop zone, and hoped to stay on the ground. I popped up at the last second, but luckily the gold did not go through me. Also, I have never seen this drop zone before. It makes it even, because there is one similar to this in the other base. The game was also very tight, ended in a tie- we almost won, but I was killed just before returning at the end.

While there may be a way to treat the launcher crashing, the problem with Tanki crashing and losing your spot in battle has always been a problem. I would reccomend using the Standalone flash player for now. If you log back into the server you were playing on when Tanki crashed, about 50% of the time you will be placed right back into the same battle, and will not lose stats.

Swimmer

yeah, literally any day except for one with a sale.

Only 10 people per clan in the first phase of the clan update? Thats almost nothing. Perhaps raise that bar up to 20? I know you said in one of the later updates max members will be increased, but nobody wants to wait a few months to have clans of reasonable sizes.

You are claiming that adding new features to the game is essentially ruining it. Think about it- would you want to play a game that only has new stuff added once a year? The new things keep Tanki fresh, even if you cannot afford them. They change up gameplay enough that keep it exciting.