OK, ieww. I just looked at M3 kit prices. I fondly remember low-cost Thunder M3 kits. However, it's not 50% off for equipment on any Thunder kit [assuming the paint is worth zero]. So let me advise against my own advice [which I'll leave because, hey, Paladin and Medic and others are still better than separate purchases, if you're into that equipment]: If that pile of crystals was hard to get, then MU slowly at 50% off as much as possible, and you won't unlock until Marshal. If you seem to come by crystals easily [though it will get harder later with M2s against M3s/M4s], then save up and buy a kit at 3-star which you can upgrade a bunch right away and immediately compete. When do you want to be the most awesome?

Let's assume that there's no buying, otherwise, yeah, the point is moot. So M3 kits and MUs to be effective in the long run are INCREDIBLY expensive. You can slow-MU a bit on sale days to get to M3, or stop spending MUs now because you are going to need every penny at M3 ranks. With a good war chest and patience, you can suffer a bit in high M2 ranks and be an awesome Lieutenant General on M3.* as soon as the first 50% sale at that rank.

I'm going to reserve judgement until I see the next challenge. Let's do equivalent math while we wait. There are 38 kits which buyers and non-buyers alike can get from the garage at a total of about 16 million crystals. The average of the 38 is exactly 423,320. So this is the target kit. Some are better deals, some are terrible, but this is average. The best rank at which you can buy kits is Marshal. The weekly container crystals for Marshal players are 2570. So just off weekly containers alone [no battle funds, no cost of entering contest, crystals from containers, gold boxes, MU spends, etc.], and assuming you get all 6 every week, you still need 27 weeks to collect that much. Half a year. The shop currently has 41 tank kits valued at full price of 373680 Tankoins. That is an average of about 9114. So just off weekly containers alone for Tankoins at 18 per week, that's 506 weeks... That sounds terrible. The truth is a bit better: If you are a non-buyer like me, you aren't buying overpriced equipment, you're buying the cheaper stuff. So the Medic kit is "only" 7000. Non-buyers cannot afford at high ranks not to wait for sales. It's 4900 right now. That is "only" 388 weeks?... We know from V-Logs that Tankoins are coming from challenges. Probably not many... If you pay in crystals instead of Tankoins, there is an opportunity cost of no longer having the crystals for MUs, other equipment, protection modules, PRO pass, and so on. This alone should mean that it should take longer in Tankoins than it would in the garage. If you are a non-buyer, you probably can reason that paints are not for you. Get a cheap camouflage paint for summer, winter, and maybe night if a PRO pass user, and that's all you need. Once you are up to the M3 ranks, there's no reason to buy most of the kits. The individual equipment pieces are cheaper on the deepest sales. [And you're poor, remember? You need the best sales to spend several playing months on equipment.]

This is a no-brainer. Tanki can make more money by having pricing control on mobile. Buyers can get discounts on mobile. Non-buyers can get access to more stuff without buying, Everyone wins at least a bit.

This is a mockup screen shot; they copied the repair kit description. It might as well say "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." as nonsense. The point is not to show you how that exact element will display on the new interface in detail, but rather what the UI as a whole will look like with a semi-plausible example. The is no/minimal code behind this. I also have to give the feedback that this thread is excellent communication. Let's us know what is coming down the road, why, how all of us can cope with it, and looks forward to an even better way than we have today. Tanki is still working on fixing some of the original architecture, and no one should be surprised that some of the game's complaints can be directly tied to the Flash implementation and accompanying hacks to make it work.

I would like to see the ability to open less weekly containers at a time. The later rank at which a weekly container is opened, the more it is worth (assuming you are not currently a Legend). However, a tanker may benefit from opening some now if needed for a current opportunity. The regular containers allow the option to open 1, 5, or 15 at once. It does not seem difficult to provide the option to do the same with weekly containers, possibly opening all instead of 15.

Let me pull this one out and take another angle. MM user interface would be a hard time and place to cram in a Summer/Winter vote; too much action before a 7-minute game. How about designating a default Summer paint and default Winter paint? No designation means we use whatever snazzy outfit we have equipped. It shouldn't be hard to switch renderings in the Garage to jump to Default Summer, Default Winter, or the third case [ "All Season?" ]. This lets tankers choose weather-appropriate camouflage or showing off... or, if you keep getting paints from containers instead of useful items, both? [ ducks ] More seriously, the request is to add a feature to designate at most one paint as a Default Winter paint. In a similar way, the tanker may designate at most one paint as a Default Summer paint. One paint can be used for both. To clarify whether the equipped paint or the default seasonal paint is used in Matchmaking battles, the tanker will have the option on the equipped paint to prefer it over any default seasonal paints, and this will be presumed enabled at implementation time. During a battle, the tanker will retain the ability to equip any paint, subject to normal cool-down rules. This will allow all equipped paints to remain so until tankers opt into seasonal paint selection, and they can go back before any battle for special events, and so on.

I'm thinking that the game economy was flooded with container bucks from the last War. I would be very surprised at 50% off this time. Maybe 50% MUs or certain shop things... 40% garage discount is my guess, with moaning to compensate. But seriously... when players below WO1 have 6 figures, they literally cannot spend it logically without buying every kit and blowing it all on M1s (not so logical). Either they wreck their account or Tanki notes that players are awash in cash and scales back the sales a bit. Another thing to consider is they have this live event going on in Mother Russia. That will occupy a lot of attention for those players. The in-game holiday will mean less to them as a result, even if deferred a week. I'm afraid this time might be a bit of a bummer... I hope I'm wrong.

Thunder specialist here... If you're a short range turret, close the range. Easier on Iran than Desert, but hey... equip Freeze! If you're a medium range turret, close the range. You get less splash damage than Thunder and probably a higher firing rate. If you're a long range turret, extend the range, peek-a-boo, and/or take higher-percentage shots. Thunder got the most buff at medium-long ranges, so you're the most impacted. As for the formula, the #1 indicator of a winning MM team is unimpeded Shaft/Magnum batteries. 2-3 Magnum or Shaft turrets together will be able to cover each other (crossfire or overwatch) and effectively ruin the other side from spawn to midfield. The other 5-6 will then have a clear run past midfield, where they either continuously mop up enemy remnants or go further to spawn-kill. Another way to measure victory, actually, is to count the number of drugs used by each side. I suspect you're going to see a strong correlation between differential drug usage and blowouts. But I see your point to an extent... there are maps where I am one of 5 Thunders running around out of 8 (cough, Seruphov/Desert). I can't stand Hammer/Fire/Rico on Rio. Similarly, how many people are put on Highways and switch to Shaft? Certain maps lend themselves to certain turrets. With so much turret diversity and only 10 minute maps... why can't we restrict turret switches or turret counts per team? I mean, Highways with 4 enemy Shafts is no fun either... Lots of possible problems with this approach, but I'm sorry, hypothetical 80% protection against Freeze is useless if several players are using it, and if they can come up from behind on a cramped map with low visibility.

Good catch. It'll be hard to take the middle and defend all places against two factions for long. That said, you're right that it could be done. The ability for the other 2 factions to attack into the leader's home front and just start trashing everything is a possibility, but the middle (plus the medium ring) is worth more than a faction's entire heartland.

Thanks for the update on the non-repair spots. I wonder if it's simply just decoration. I strongly doubt it is a War thing. The War will be over within 2 weeks total*, so there is no need to add yet another mechanic here during an already chaotic time. Maybe something after the War, though?... Give me a Radioactive Tank... Cause decay damage to all enemy tanks within a range... Only sure way to repel Freeze On Steroids. * - First turn, 1 pt. Second turn, 8 pts. Third turn, 27 pts. Onward, the average team will own about one-third of the map, so add 35 pts. per turn thereafter. (Container lands aren't until turn 4, but this is approximate.) So, Turn 14 will be where the average team gets over 400. But, this is the average team. That means that there's either a better team which scored more quickly OR this is a 3-way tie for the worst team. Therefore, 14 days is the maximum War length.

Have to echo LittleWillie here... M2 Freeze > M4 Legend equipment. I have started upgrading my M2 Freeze on sale days. That has not stopped me from topping maps with M2 2/10 against Gizmo/Legends when I play with it. The forum topics will all be taken over soon with complaints about Freeze dominance, just like the game is being taken over with that turret. Edit to fix spoiler formatting

I've only seen them on a single Repair Kit drop zone on each map so far. My speculation is that they replaced a Repair Kit with a never-drop dummy supply to increase carnage during the War. If I'm right, the box and spot are in the game files so that the drop zone doesn't have to be deleted during the 2-3 week War. They'll set it back later. Also, it is likely that some placeholder has to be there for the game not to crash, including the box (if it's in their load logic).

I usually find you insightful, but I have to differ a bit here. A great sale in Tanki is 50% off, right? And to buy a turret or hull you have to be at the unlock rank or higher (and higher is almost already obsolete). This is more of a framework than a road map, because everyone travels to the beat of a different booming turret... but here goes! If you count the paint at zero bucks, these kits actually still come in BETTER than 50% and unlock stuff before you can get it otherwise: M1 ----- M1/M2 Hybrid (Hunter M1 is so close to M2 that it worked great for me for a long time) ----- M2 (yechh, so few options) ----- M3 (save for 2 of these, 1 light, 1 medium, with different turrets!) ----- More advice: Finally, a disclaimer:

Un-buff Freeze, at least a bit. I'm in matchmaking games where people are pulling out their barely-upgraded Freeze M2s and winning the map. I did the same thing and it's almost free wins (not as good at it as some). My Freeze M2 is better than anything else in the garage right now. If this sticks, Corrosive Mix would just add to the OP. Wow.

I "differ to beg".... Had an M4 module and received nada for anything in return, outside of the individual peak modules.

Oh my goodness.... Windows XP is so broken for TLS compliance that you might as well have a transparent wallet. XP doesn't support any IE over version 8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security#cite_ref-note-k_150-0 XP doesn't support any TLS over v1.0 (same link for citation). The next following two versions have serious vulnerabilities and v1.3 is trying to get out of draft process to beat these. XP doesn't support AES ciphers, instead supporting things which ivory-tower academicians have finally defeated after running out of PowerPoint slides to create. Imagine what the black hats have already done... If you are using IE on XP to log into gaming accounts, stop. If you are using it to log into your mail, stop. If you are using it to pay for anything with a credit card.... dear heavens, STOP. If you must keep using XP, switch browsers and don't turn off its auto-updates. Firewall your PC off. Hire a guard dog for it or something. But wow, drop IE on XP, no matter what else you do. We want to see you back here and not hacked. Let me point out that these are permanent limitations of Windows XP. Microsoft will NOT fix it. Tanki's team doesn't want your accounts, credit cards, or personal information hacked, so they have to turn off old encryption technology. This will break old things. They cannot save you from your Windows XP technical debt. Switch browsers to the latest version you can get of something else up-to-date. Let us know here if that is not working.

Oh, and if you're going to allow tank platoons to form up before going into a matchmaking battle... please pit them against each other. These groups will be the best-coordinated among the tankers in the battle. It would be grossly unfair in a 10v10 CTF to have 2 platoons on one site talking on Skype about threats and where to set up Isidas on the flag return path, with a randomly-selected group on the other. The platoons will have same-language cohesion, increased communication bandwidth, and will be able to talk and move at the same time. These sound like force multipliers to me. Besides, the ability to form ad hoc platoons is awesome, and feels like a "next level" of play. It follows, though, that those users will have a "next level" advantage above the randomly-selected players, so the feature needs to have a counter-weight.

If you are going to shorten it, make the gold box a variable/random drop delay. Shorter delays will favor light hulls more, especially on larger maps. I didn't care if the drop rate would have been 10x on the recent event weekend; with the size of most maps, my Mammoth had no chance to get anywhere for a gold box. Occasionally, there needs to be a chance for larger hulls on these maps (because they DO have important roles to play). However, a heavy hull user shouldn't expect to be in on every gold box dog-pile on the largest maps either. By using a random delay (or at least one tuned to the map size), everyone will get some chances, and some quick drops will even leave out heavy hulls on smaller maps. A big reason for using the random delay is to make it unpredictable. On the 30 second delay, you'll see lots of self-destructs and ignoring the game goal in order to go for the far more lucrative gold box. Since most matches are blowouts now anyway, it doesn't affect the outcome to ignore the game for a minute. Tankers will gladly forgo a few tens of experience and crystals for at worst a 1 in 20 chance at 1000 smackers. Many of us reading this can do much better than that. I caught 3 in a row last night and doubtless ticked off 57 other tankers in the process! If the delay is unpredictable, it adds to the risk to self-destruct. You may be too incapacitated to go for the gold. Imagine if you weren't sure that it would drop in 30 seconds or 5. You can self-destruct, set yourself back in the round, and have a better chance of the gold (and far over-achieve your expected battle result) if it's a long delay. Or you can throw away any chance you had because you will re-spawn too far away while watching it descend upon a pile of red-lining battle machines with drivers licking their chops and reaching for the heavens in unison. Selfishly, I don't want short drop times because I am a heavy hull user. Maybe better, more fairly: I think the intrigue of the gold box simply goes up if no one has an obvious winning strategy just because they can find the spot.

Graphics aren't "energizing"... Try unique hull overdrives.

125 DD, 100 all supplies, 3500 crystals; all told, I have not been doing badly.

Have the devs look into an Apache JMeter implementation and set up a load testing environment. That should be practically zero software cost. If the testing environment can simply be shut down to do load testing, then you might be able to reduce that hardware cost to a tiny amount too.

Watched the screen in-person while a referred user opened a caught container... 10K crystals (No fair, they've caught as many as I have...)

Everyone bury Little Willie under millions of supplies! 5 Golds, 125 double armor, 10K crystals, niiiiiiiice

Following prime directive to post results to one thread... 125 Speed Boosts, 3500 crystals, 3500 crystals... I'll take it. Bucks > space filling boxes I can't use except as filler. (Hello? Mammoth? Twice nuttin' is still nuttin...)