I think Tanki likes these modes because they are major supply burners in the Neo-Tanki Drug Fest. Juggy has not hit missions yet (shocking really) but ASL and RGB are constantly in missions for me and each take twice the amount of drugs DM, TDM, and CP take. CTF does eat its fair share of drugs similar to ASL, but RGB is just brutal on hoarded supplies. Increase drug use and eventually some players will send in cash for drug kits.

I just played Future. It is just further homogenization of all the maps. Future is playable but lost most of the quirky little features that made the map unique. Tanki seems to be going for all maps doing the same thing but slightly different cosmetics. Get rid of the place to hide or camp...keep everyone moving all the time, get rid of corners, bumps, and other obstacles or places where a tank might flip or get caught. It's like Tanki got sold to some nitwit company two years ago and this new company has no clue on how to run a game.

Why 8 minutes? Well, really 7:20 at the max and more like 6 min and a few seconds by the time you spawn in....so why? 1. More churn for MM. The shorter the battle the sooner players are ready for another battle...more idle players for MM to place. 2. I think they are trying to solve the quick exits from battles. Players may be inclined to stick out an entire 8 min battle even if they are on the losing team. (doubtful in my opinion) 3. When a battle has an average of 6min 40sec of real in game time and there is a one minute or more wait for supplies to drop there are fewer supplies per battle (no more than 3 and now sometimes only 2) making players use their stockpiled supplies faster. Tanki ultimately sells more supplies. With 10 min battles there were four or even five drops per battle. When MM started I predicted 18,000 to 20,000 players by mid-August. With the advent of Juggernaut, The War, and a few Star events Tanki managed to only lose several thousand players after MM. Pre-MM numbers at peak times seemed to be around 28000. Right after MM they only dropped to around 25000 through mid-Aug. Now I am starting to notice that after the last Star thing, players have dropped to 18000 to 22000 at peaks and have been dramatically impacted at non peak hours. With these super short battles and long MM waits (I see no reason that wait times would be reduced) of a minute to play a 6 1/2 minute battle, I think my original 18K to 20K average at peak times will come to pass very soon. I will now guess that after Halloween Tanki will start to see another 10% loss even from my grim prediction and have 16K to 18K player at peaks. How can they be so blind? It is amazing to me...they had 90000 players (!!!!) before they started all these toxic updates to accommodate the inferior MatchMaking system.

OK...I had to follow the trail, just one more post...just one more; Stevie Ray. So very very badass with his skanky Fender. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVI7I-WDGx4 The tempo is a bit brisk on that live version, but the guitar work is outrageously stupendous. I stuck in the studio version in the spoiler below for referance...it' quite different. It has a funkier feel with the groove calmed and seems a bit more sedate...if sedate is possible to use in regards to music like this :)

I see your Nazareth and raise you a Mahogany Rush :) ...and another Mahogany Rush just for good measure...maybe even more Hendrix-esk than Look Outside Incidentally all the Black Motorcycle Club posts have been brilliant...never heard them before...thanks for the turn-on.

Ooooooo, I love this piece...I never heard it titled Once Upon A Time In Paris before. Was it used in a movie or something? I've always heard it as Gymnopédies #1. I first heard it as a kid when it was covered by one of the original fusion bands, Blood Sweat and Tears. I still think their horn arrangement of it is haunting and full of pathos...maybe even more so than as just a piano solo. They also do an outrageous arrangement of Satie's Gnossiennes #1, which follows directly on the heels of Gymnopédies ending (1:26). This video also has a more typical BS&T's tune, Smiling Phases (2:30)...kinda dated sounding mostly due to the singer's highly stylized vocals, but the actual instrumental sections are still spot on after almost 50 years. Also, if you like Once Upon A Time In Paris (Gymnopédies #1), give this 2nd & 3rd variation a listen...they go so well together. They remind me of split canvas picture on the wall. If you don't want to take the time to listen to the entire songs, try to pop on like ten seconds of #1 at the beginning, then a few seconds of #2 at the beginning and a few seconds of #3 at the beginning. You can see how interconnected and well fitted they are to each other...maybe listen to them in their entirety another time. Gymnopédies #1 #2 & #3 Sorry, I post so much...I know I kinda hog the forum, but I just get so excited about good music.

A favorite English song I like better in French I sang Santiano (English version) with my crew all throughout the South Pacific. We taught it to a bunch of Tahitian friends on Bora Bora and sang it once at a town council meeting in Vavau Tonga in front of about 250 of the town's men. They always sing at these meetings (kinda sorta church-like) and it is awesome hearing 250 deep male voices sing hymn like music. This is the only thing I could find on YouTube...It's only about 8 or 10 guys, so it doesn't have even a fraction of the impact of a real Tongan men's choir of 250, but it does show the basic bass to baritone range of the traditional Tonga male vocal music. They liked us singing Santiano and applauded like mad, but that may have had more to do with the kava we were all drinking and the fact that the palangi (foreigners) were singing for them. :)

I have listened to everything from these guys on YouTube and I like them,, but they don't quite have the raw and raunchy feel of Led Zeppelin. The kid that is singing has a very very similar voice to Robert Plant...maybe even a better voice, but the instrumental work is not quite as dynamic and seems to rely much on tech wizardry...but it is still damn good, don't get me wrong. I'd go see these guys in a heartbeat, especially since I never got to see Led Zeppelin play. In 2018 I'd rather see Greta Van Fleet live than Zeppelin since (most) geriatrics just don't have the edge they once did. ...good post

Yes. I like almost everything, but I am kind of extra partial to music where I don't understand the lyrics. I think lyrics in pop music many times detract from the music...great tune/groove with poor lyrics equals a kind of let down song. If i don't understand the words they can't be poor poetry and the human voice acts more like an instrument. So yeah, I like a lot of French music. Jambalaya some American French music...(Zydeco from Louisiana)

Night School is one of my fav Frank Zappa pieces. It is off his last studio album, Jazz From Hell (love the title) There is a great animated video for this piece, but the sound's fidelity was lousy on the YouTube version.

Me thinks there may be lots of fresh mobile meat in the not too distant future. I would be shocked if mobile responds anywhere near as accurately or effectively as PC keyboard controls...we will see, but I expect some easy-peasy slaughter.

This is at 4:31...what is he saying...or, what does this mean? "And we've decided to combine M1 and M2 so each turret will soon have a slot for one lidficator(?) which will change the turrets parameters." Does he mean modifier maybe?

Dumb question: Will the mobile version players play only against other mobile players or will they be playing mixed with the PC players?

You guys are totally off base. Matchmaking is awful, just awful. It does not create "balanced" games...not even close. The rank brackets are way too wide...way too wide. M2 should never have to play against M4. About 3/4 of the battles I enter, I am the very lowest of the ranks. Many times I will be the only tank of my rank with every player on each team higher. I just finished two CP missions. It took me 9 battles to complete a score of 750 and 10 points. Out of the 9 battles not a single one of them was a battle from the beginning...not one! One battle I didn't even get a shot in (I got spawn killed once) and the game ended. I don't remember exactly, but I don't think any battle was more than four minutes. It also took me about a minute to a minute and a half to even get into one of these mis-matched almost finished battles. And of course I always entered on the losing team. In one battle, when it ended, there were only two players on the losing team that had a positive score, and two more that had a zero score...the victorious team had a full compliment of 8. Not today, but previously I have counted more than 23 payers being squirted into a single battle by the MM system as players quit the battle when they spawned in and saw the futility of being on the losing side. I have also seen the opposite where MM doesn't put anyone into a battle to fill the empty slots and it ends up 2 or 3 players against a full team of 8. There is no consistency to MM other than it is trash. There are probably a dozen other reasons why MM is junk and they have all been discussed at length in this forum, but Tanki just doesn't care. You can try to spin MM anyway you like, but the stone cold fact is that it is an inferior system for battle placement...by far...no matter how you try to justify its implementation. We are stuck with it because its your game...that's the real reason we are burdened with MM. And that is the reason number of players keeps dwindling.

Frank Zappa wrote this originally as a drum solo...a very difficult and strangely metered drum solo. Then he adapted this rhythmic nightmare into an arrangement for melodic instruments. The result is one of the most difficult peices of music ever written. The melodic version was originally titled "Easy Teenage New York Version" but quickly became The Black Page #2 while the drum solo version became The Black Page #1. There are tougher pieces of music out there, but not many, and none as easily accessible to the layman as The Black Page (lotsa notes written on the score). That is not to say that The Black Page is actually easy to get into, but there is a feeling of continuity and pulse generated even from the first time listening. To really appreciate it takes several run-throughs. It is horrendously dense and, well, ...nuts. Mutant polyrhythms of 4 against 5 colliding with 3 against 2 and tuplets battling quintuplets with nested tuplets scattered here and there. There is no way anyone but a very highly advanced technical musician could read this after quite a bit of study. And, I doubt a musician has ever lived that could sight read it...it is a beast of a piece of music. Usually complex stuff like this is the arena of classical composers like Varese, Stravinski, Schonberg, etc. but Zappa brings complexity and avant garde musical art into pop music/culture. I am a big Zappa fan. Some of his stuff leaves me cold and I don't care for it at all, other pieces are great. Some are silly, some fun, some heppy-peppy chart topping pop fodder, some serious orchestral works. A person could devote years to listening to the Zappa catalog and keep discovering new facets of the his music for all those years. Zappa's kid Dweezil has gotten some criticism for covering his dad's work, but I personally think he is doing a great job with his band Zappa Plays Zappa. If anything I think he has brought FZ's music more into the limelight after his dad's passing. This is their version of The Black Page 1 & 2 with the original drummer, the guy it was originally written for, Terry Bozzio doing Part 1 and FZ's guitarist of many years, Steve Vai, joining for Part 2. If you can't handle the entire drum solo (Part 1) skip to the melodic section and give it a minute or two. It starts with a vamp interlude where Vai gets introduced at about 2:14 and the actual melodic music starts at 2:56

The more I listened to his work the more I liked...clever lad...talented film maker. Stromae - Papaoutai Stromae - Alors On Danse Stromae - Carmen Classic tune with a great video and poignant observation. Just cruising around I found this cover of Papaoutai by a Tanki Forum favorite Lindsey Sterling and Pentatonix...both of whom I generally like, but I must say this rendition seems a bit gutted and somewhat vapid in comparison to the original...it seems to have lost most of it's drive and soul along with losing the focal point of the video.

I needed something to soothe my mellow back into submission: I like this rendition of Unchained Melody done by Maurice Jarre. It is a tad slow but haunting...my kind of haunting. I picked this video because it gives you something to look at as the music flows through you. The piece is only four minutes long. It just repeats throughout the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyvYL4fF5kA

I'd be happy to send in $100 a year or $10 a month to play a version of Tanki right around the Paint Separation time...let the paint separation update stand, but roll back all the other toxic updates. I wonder if Tanki has thought about starting another game like this...the code should still be somewhere and it might only take one or two servers. It would be really cool to have Tanki be fun again. What do you think? Would you pay to play a good version of Tanki? How much?

Wow, the new maps (Bobirusk, Magistral, Sanbox, etc) have become just like the old maps in MM. All the choke points removed, big lanes, no hidding places, just bash and hack, and bash and hack, ad infinitum. The devs have trashed and homogenized the game so much that it is 80% luck now and maybe 20% skill. A poorly skilled player is now competitive at any level...grab a Firebird and away you go. A lousy player may not get top scores but they will still do OK...probably place in the middle of the team standing if they play the entire nine minutes (8 1/2 minutes by the time they spawn in on a no lag day). I started a new alt account to try my luck with the star thing. I shredded with a Fire/Wasp. There are no real beginners anymore...there are just players like me making new alt accounts because the gameplay is less insane drug crazed and therefore more fun. Tanki has changed so much it is jut a bland game now. The last bit of fun was during The War...now with these junk star events it is even worse than normal...players quit as soon as they see they are not going to get two or three stars...even on the winning side! I wish there was a way Tanki cold launch a retro Tanki...even a pay to play Retro Tanki. I'd send them $100 a year to play real Tanki instead of PonyTail Boy's version of Tanki.

I have learned that dealing with tech support and especially customer service is an exercise in futility. You fill out forms and NOTHING is effected...your problem is still your problem, compounded with frustration and a waste of time. Thanks, but I will pass on tech support or customer dis-service. I would have been happy if this could have stayed a topic unto itself so I could at least garner some commiseration for my slight MU loss, but merged away into obscurity. Ya just can't win with Tanki.

Not only is there a unique way of developing video games in Tanki Universe, now there is a new system of math too! M0 micro-upgrades were just changed from ten levels to twenty levels, right? In the normal universe it would be a very simple conversion...just double the value of any existing upgrade...an old MU4 converts to a new MU8...very straight forward. In Tanki Universe this may or may not be the case based on some criterion known only to Tanki devs. MU6 might become MU11 or maybe it will become MU12...possibly depending on how the moon casts a shadow on a borscht stained balalaika. This is a Viking M0-MU6 that became a Viking M0-MU11. ??? Here's a Viking M0-MU9 that converted to a Viking M0-MU17. At least it didn't convert to a Wasp...maybe next update.

Best damn cowboy movie theme EVER! A french horn field day...and tympani too! If you'd like to watch something instead of just listening, there are movie clips set to the same music inside the spoiler...I personally think the visuals detract from the "theater of the mind" in this particular case, but that is probably just me...

...it's a good tune too :)

Japan, where Godzilla has citizenship. Japan, the folks that brought the world octopus flavored ice cream, toilet museums, and restaurants that serve only canned food, now offers us (...wait for it) ...BABYMETAL. Wicked metal head musicians, mosh pits, slam dancing and a kawaiicore singing choreography team. I'm so confused. ...but, I like it :)