May I ask why you are trying to create a synthetic language? If you are interested in a truly functional language product, I know a line of research and application (like you are doing here) that could have real world impact. I've not done much with it myself due to terminal laziness, but a think-tank kind of collaboration might be very inspiring. PM me if you are interested.

Any feed back on the effectiveness of Brutus drone? Is it worth it even at a low buy-in pcost of 1000 crystals? How effective is it with low MUs (2 or 3)? Does 1% make any difference at all? Is a 10% increase worth 51000 crystals or is Brutus mostly for folks with crystals to burn (this would be primarily buyers)?

Updated the lists today. I found several new additions to the ranks of Uber-Legends in the Honorable Mentions, but no one new in the Top 20. Some movement and shifting around positions, but nothing earth shaking. Boris4311 is about to become Legend 163...wow. Please leave a LIKE on the first page...the main page, if you llke the list of course :)

My god, the lag is so so so bad. It's not my cache. It's not my internet provider/conection. It's Tanki. I get "Server Closed the Connection" way too many times. The game crashes in mid-battle too many times. Every single battle, every single mode runs like a stop animation. Especially for the first minute or two of each battle. You run OK, then lag-jerk to a stop, then run four seconds and lag-jerk over an edge, spawn and run ok for three or four seconds and then lag-jerk again, run, jerk, run, jerk, run, jerk. It eventually clears up about three to four minutes into the battle.

In its current state, I don't think Tanki is worth advertising to get new players. I don't think many people would like the current iteration of Tanki. We veterans play it out of momentum from the old fun days of Tanki and...well, habit. I really don't think there is much to hold a new players attention. That, and it is a slaughter for actual newbies in the lower ranks. Tanki has become tedious and outright boring.

Tanki's marketing is going to come back and bite them in their brains...what they sit on. They sell through scarcity and pressure...those aren't exactly the right words, but this months Challenge is a perfect example of Tanki marketing...a microcosm of Tanki's approach to their customers and sales. They are trying to force players into buying a star pass thing by having empty tiers for non-buyers...a lot of empty tiers. It is a rude and nasty tactic. It might be effective, but it leaves the buyer with bad feelings and non-buyers with bad feelings and resentment. Tanki's marketing reminds me of The Company Store from the coal mining companies of the 1940's and 1950's in America. The company pretty much owned the town around the coal mine and all the laborers lived in that town. All the facilities and stores of the town were owned and operated by The Company. They sold to the townsfolk, but they sold their goods at very high rates...much higher than in towns 20 or 30 miles away. Laborers bought most everything from The Company Store since there really wasn't anywhere else to buy stuff and were forced to pay whatever the Company charged. If the miners and their families ran out of money, The Company would extend credit. They basically created "wage-slaves" this way. Tanki doesn't give out credit (only because they have no way to collect the debt) but their marketing is as unscrupulous as The Company Stores. Tanki Online is quickly becoming a horrible, horrible, callous, insensitive, ruthless, and above all, greedy, short sighted company.

i agree that if your product deteriorates, eventually you will suffer for it, but, like many businesses, I think Tanki is in it for the short term profit and let the long term be damned. I base this on how they used to harp on how obsolete flash games are. They also talk a lot about keeping in step with other online games. I think Tanki's mindset is "We best get what we can while the gettin's good, because our game is going to become obsolete very soon". Personaly I think this is a fallacy. What Tanki had was a classic kind of game that would NEVER go out of style. Pac-Man is still fun and still played even though it is ages old. This game still had another ten years if not longer...unless some snazzy new game technology becomes widespread like VR or something similar. And I also agree that eventually there will come a point where so many players have left that there are not enough to sustain MM. They could just do away with MM at that point or lower the entry requirements to 8 players in queue makes a battle (they sometimes do that now on the Latin servers because there are so few players)...the point is they can keep adjusting as the player count dwindles...as player numbers decrease, they get rid of servers and staff. Basically I think they can ride the landslide really close to the bottom. It's foolish and sad, since with the right approach, I think they could create a timeless game with a fairly constant cash flow. For one thing they do NOTHING to generate organic growth. For pity sake, all businesses try to generate new customers...Tanki does squat to get new players. If they put 1/10 the effort into getting new customers as they do bleeding the current customers, their bottom line would have to get better. We current players just can't be the only people that like playing Tanki..or "liked" is probably better. Tanki has a Chinese affiliate but their servers are a complete and utter joke. It is almost impossible to log in or get into a battle, plus they do no push for organic growth there either so the game just stagnates. There is INDIA with billions of potential players and Tanki does nothing. The point here is they could triple the amount of players with very little cash outlay...hell, they aren't even trying to tap Europe or the US efficiently. Another way to generate lot of revenue would be to introduce advertising instead of compromising the game to generate sales. Ads don't have to be horrible for players either. Agar.io had a great and mondo effective way to set ads...you watch a video you got in-game currency...the players loved it but didn't have to bother if they didn't want to. The trouble is Tanki would have to get off it's ass and develop a sales department to pitch companies on advertising with them...and I think they are too lazy to bother...just ride the game down and get what we can get. I honestly think that a Tanki with 90% of the last two to three years worth of updates removed (MM and the updates to accommodate MM) would make a very marketable online golden goose...all that would be needed would be someone with marketing skills and a percentage of profit re-invested into generating new players. As it stands now, Tanki is in a downward spiral. The question is how long can they (and us, their customers) ride it down before the end.

Too bad they only make it for like nine players. Make a grand prize of the hardware and those winners chosen at random, but where is the love for the common player that earns that level of stars? Would it kill Tanki to be more generous and hand out some crystals and a few containers to more players? In fact, I'm surprised that they didn't generate a blanket birthday gift for anyone that logs in or clicks a happy birthday Tanki on a website (Google Docs)...or choose one of five e-B-day cards to send to Tanki and all who send get like ten containers. ...stingy company now....only generating sales matters....everything is geared to generating more income. I see random drawing and I don't bother. I know my chances of winning are minuscule.

A Recruit that likes to collect gold boxes :) He also has the lowest K/D I've ever seen...0 What is also a bit odd is that he bought the Crusher paint for the current War/Challenge thingie...for 10,000 crystals! I guess that still leaves him with more than 135,000 crystals just from gold boxes. Well, he did buy ALL the M0 turrets and hulls...who knows how much he has MUed them. Another oddity is that he has used 63 DD...for what? He's only killed 3 tanks! TBou_KopoJl https://ratings.tankionline.com/en/user/TBou_KopoJl

I think this is the crux of the matter...you said it in a nutshell; "The game is much less enjoyable than it was 1 or 2 or 3 years ago" Even so, and even with player count still dropping, I don't think Tanki is dying. Many people think and say it is dying because they see the numbers and they, like most of us, aren't having as much fun with the game as they once did. There is also almost no organic growth...low ranks are mostly seasoned vets making alt accounts primarily because higher rank battles have become almost unplayable. I've said it many times already but I am convinced that Tanki is making WAY more money now than ever before....even when there were 120,000+ players on at one time. Pony Tail Boy may not have a clue as to how to make a game fun, but he knows how to squeeze a player base for every shilling. Tanki used to give the farm away for free, now the ONLY objective is to engorge their bottom line. And if that means impacting the quality of game-play negatively to increase income...who cares?...make more money. MM is the centerpiece of Pony Tail Boy's push for higher profits. It is how to control the player base more effectively. All the toxic updates that compromised the fun of the game have been implemented to support MM. MM was implemented to generate more cash. Previously players had a wide range of ways to play and enjoy Tanki. Now there is only one way to play...the devs way. And since we are a captive audience they are now applying pressure to buy buy buy buy buy buy buy. Today we got a new drone for only 1000 crystal availble for the 1st time at very low ranks....why? To improve the game...please...To sell more batteries. EVERTHING Tanki has done in terms of updates is geared towards the specific purpose of selling more stuff, not improving the quality of the game. And they are selling tons more stuff than they used to...tons. Even though their player count has dropped, there is a much much higher percentage of buyers now. There are a dozen bits of empirical evidence that point to this fact, but that would make this even longer and I've said it all before. The player count means NOTHING to Tanki as long as the buyer count, or the volume of buys are high. Pony Tail Boy may have trashed the game but he probably tripled or even quadrupled Tanki's sales...he is a hero to the owner/owners of AP (and pretty much a villain to us Tanki players). Tanki is not dying...it is thriving...at our expense.

I have enough crystals saved up already to MU any M3 kit all the way to M4. Which do you think is better, MU one M3 kit to M4, or buy two kits and MU them both about half way to M4? Or buy three kits for a very diverse M3 garage but nothing MUed much? Diverse like Fire, Rico, Hunter Titian but lower MUs or one badass kit like Prometheus fullly MUed to M4? I don't intend to spend any more crystals on M2 stuff, I will suffer and slog through to rank25 (M3 kits unlock) with what I have, but I want to come out of the rank25 gate slamming and jamming...so what kit or kits are the most effective in the Legend ranks? In the Uber-Legends, I mostly see them using almost every turret and hull but Titian shows up most often -------------------------------------------------------------- After quite a bit of seemingly sound advice, I've narrows the field a bit. Firebird, Shaft, Rico, Smoky and Hunter, Titian, Hornet so Prometheus (Firebird/Hunter) and Rock Climber (Rico/Titian) with Centaur (Shaft/Hornet) to come later. Prometheus and Rock Climber: I have enough crystals now to bring one of these up to M4 right away or bring both up to around 10/20 I'm kind of inclined to go with Prometheus straight to M4 and wait a bit on Rock Climber.

Seriously? Or are you being factitious? I will answer as though you are being serious, although you might be playing Devil's Advocate. Yes, the new drone is VERY cheap...to buy the drone itself. One might ask...why? The glaring answer is the consumable batteries that must be used with the drone. I'm actually surprised that Tanki hasn't put drones in containers as a prize/reward. The more players that have drones, the more batteries that will be consumed....that just stands to reason, right? Now in the lower ranks, players have been getting a few batteries now and then in containers or the Challenge thingie. So now they buy a very cheap drone at low ranks and use up their batteries...and like it :) BOOM, more battery sales...probably LOTS and LOTS more battery sales. If you already have 100, 300, 500 batteries laying around, why not put them to use with a VERY cheap drone. But eventually those few batteries will run out and new ones you get in containers will not keep up with the demand. Another percentage of freebie players will be converted into BUYERS. Once a player makes their first purchase, it is much easier for them to make repeat purchases. Tanki may only convert 1% or 2% of the current freebies into buyers, but that is all gravy...and a time proven tactic for repeat transactions. Is it possible to buy a drone and use your battrey hoard sparingly? Sure it is, but will most players do that, probably not. A tremendous amount of players use all the supplies they get an that will be the same with batteries. This new drone is not a game changer like the new ODs, but it is another step in the monetization of Tanki. Buyers (new and old ones) are going to buy the new drone in the lower ranks and supply them with batteries. Freebies will probably say, "Oh well, it's only 1000 crystals...what the hell...I got those useless batteries just laying around anyway...and the drone is VERY cheap." But then MUs will be applied..."poof" there goes another batch of crystals that previously would have gone to something else. The more things there are to give advantage, the bigger the need for crystals. The bigger the need for crystals will motivate some freebies to buy with cash. Those that don't will be at an even further disadvantage. More stuff to buy with a finite amount of crystals generates pressure to get more crystals...more buyers. So Buyer's Drone? Maybe not the drone itself, but the maintenance of the drone and capital backlash from the drone, definitely make this a Buyer 's Drone. Tanki sure didn't release it to help the freebies :)

Why let all those low rank players slack off and not contribute to the Tanki Greed Fund? Buyers of course will buy a drone and MU it asap, but even many many of the freebies will buy the drone and poof their minuscule supply of batteries. And the solution is...of course...turn a few more freebies into buyers for more batteries...and maybe a crystal bundle...and that badass kit...maybe some golds just for fun...might as well get Premium too since we are sending in money it's only $XX more :) Will this be tens of thousands of freebies? No...but if Tanki can convert 1% to 3% more players into buyers, that is bank they never had before...and, getting a player to send in cash the first time is the very hardest, after that, there is a huge chance that that 1st time buyer will become a repeat buyer...with little coaxing needed from Tanki I got to hand it to Tanki, they know how to market their product....at the expense of quality game-play, but what do they care? ...as long as their bottom line keeps growing.

Well, I've always liked Shaft, but never used it much. I have an old Twins/Viking account that has a good supply of crystals. I did the one mission a day thing religiously an got to rank 10 with only M0-Smoky10 and M0-Hunter8. Sadly, I bought my previous favorite kit, Corsair (Twins/Viking) and preceded to MU both turret and hull to 10/10 along with buying the 50K alteration that stops self damage (forgot the name)...so a huge investment down the tubes because, just as I put on the last MU, Tanki changed the speed of Twins projectile and totally ruined my style of play with Twins....I used to be an unstoppable demon with Twins especially when Viking was more stable than Hunter, but even after the Viking nerf I was deadly. But now, after the Twins nerf, I can't do squat with Twins. Tanki took my months and months of work and nerfed it to crap in one toxic update. Sorry, I'm still angry about what they did to Twins and thereby ruining my Twin accounts, but. I digress. That rank10 account still has enough crystals to buy the Piranha kit (Shaft/Hornet) and MU it to a decent level...so I bought it! I assume (I hope...probably should have asked first) it will be similar to the M3 version, Centaur. So I will be giving it an M1 test drive. Good idea or did I screw the pooch for my cash heavy rank 10 account? PostScript: Oooo, I just played my first few battles with Piranha. It's only MUed to 2, but I sure do have a steep learning curve...yikes! I did terrible. The Hornet at MU 2 is like paper and gets one shotted by everything. Shaft is fun, but I think it needs lot of MUs for the arcade shot to be of real value.

And yet another question along the same lines. At M3 would it be better to buy two or three kits creating an arsenal of diversity with low MUs or pick one kit and run it up to M4? In the lower ranks my strategy has been to buy one kit and MU it to the max asap. That has been very effective except where Tanki guts the equipment with a mondo nerf. Is it the same in M3 or is it better to have lower MUs and different turrets/hulls? ...like Shaft, Firebird, Smoky, Rico - Titian, Hornet, Hunter

Thank you. This is exactly the kind of input I was hoping for. I know I have a crap garage, butr every time I Mued something to the max Tanki nerfed it to garbage. I used to be a monster with Twins/Viking but that died when they slowed the projectile speed...now it is just about worthless. Same thing with Vulcan. I know many think that Viking has a great OD...and it does...once a battle, but that is not enough when everything else has a better more functional OD. Viking has the very worst OD. Again Tanki cut the rug out from under me with my 10/10 Viking. Tanki ruined Isida for a time, but it has made a multiple buff come back and that is my turret of choice for this account now. I can limp my equipment along to M3...I don't want to spend even a crystal on any more M2 stuff. The Shaft sounds fine and even fun. Is the arcade mode effective at the M3/M4 level? I worry about what Tanki might do to Hornet's OD in the future...it wouldn't take much of a tweak to ruin the effect you are talking about. Is the diameter of the "stop supply" effect large enough for Shaft to effectively snipe affected targets or is that used more in arcade mode?

I plan to update later today. I thought I might get some input from you guys about what M3 kit to buy. I posted the question in What to buy? Which is better? You could reply here even though it's a tad off topic or click What to buy? Which is better? and reply there...thanks.

Greetings O respected Legends and M3s...blessings upon your upper echelon slaughter. I have stated using this ByeByeBye account again in an attempt to see if M3/M4 is any better than the crap I am playing in now at this rank. I'm thinking I'm in a transition rank between M2 and M3 and getting creamed badly every single battle...everyone is always higher rank than me and I just can't compete with all the M4 equipment with my fully MUed M2. I can use any turret and any hull pretty well. In this new OD environment (yeah, I know the ODs will get changed around as Tanki fiddles for cash flow) what kit should I buy? I already have saved up enough crystals to MU anything to M4 as soon as wait times allow...actually, I don't even know if that is a good strategy....maybe it would be better to buy two (three??) different kits with lower MUs for more battle adaptability. I dunno. Based on M0-M1-M2, it looks like Firebird/Hunter might be a good start in the big leagues, but I've noticed many many Uber-Legends (I'm tracking the most advanced Legends...go look and "like"...Uber-Legends) are using Titians with various projectile weapons. But I'm very open to any suggestions (I do suck with Rail, but I could learn).

Read your PM (private message, top of this page, upper right corner by the "Search" has an envelope icon and should have a red indicator at this point.)

The sad thing is Tanki didn''t used to be boring...far from it. Now, it's just the same old thing over and over and over. All the battles are about the same, all the maps are about the same, the teams are about the same, now with stars all the modes are about the same (TDM), ODs make it even more luck than skill...so where is the challenge? Gone along with the fun of the game. All we are left with is tedium over and over and over. What's worse is it doesn't get any better the higher you rank...it gets worse! The only fun used to be in the lower ranks, but ODs are turning that into a bore-fest quickly.

The man with the plan! :) It's kind of along way to M3 and you have quite a bit of time to think things out. You might consider buying a Firefly kit if you have the crytals. You get the M1 Firebird early along with the Fire protection module for 20,050 crystals...the M1 Wasp is just gravy. If you don't have the crystals saved up (the Firefly kit should be coming around again pretty soon) buying an M1 Firebird on sale is a good plan. The beginning of June (next week) should have a big sale for Tanki's B-Day. Is the fire module worth it in M1? ....meh, maybe if you have crytals to burn. Personally I wouldn't bother with the protection module and make sure I had an M0-Hunter20/20 and an M1-Firebird10/10. Instead of a protection module, allow yourself to go nuts with DA...you'll save tons of crystals since protection modules at M1 are pricey (30K and 100K to fully MU...yikes!...that's a lot of DAs) A fully MUed M0-Hunter and M1-Firebird is devastatingly deadly and will see you well into the M2 kit time.

They are using Viking because they were using Viking previously. Who can afford to MU a Dictator or Hunter when your Viking is already MUed? Also, Viking is still usable and with projectile turrets is very dynamic once or maybe twice a battle...is it worth the outlay to change over to Hunter or even Dictator that moves like a brick? Titian is a great hull, but so slow for would be ex-Viking users...and there is the cost of MUing it even if you can live with the slowness. The two light hulls are still just that. Someone used to playing with Viking isin't going to change their style just to go with a faster light hull...and they would still have to be MUed. That leaves sticking with Viking...that is why there are so many of them and why there will continue to be so many of them. If there was a swap promotion for Hunter, Dictator, or even Titian, I'd hock my Viking in a heartbeat...but since there isn't, I'll continue to use Viking till the cows come home. It's a matter of crystals, not choice. Also Viking will continue to be super popular in the lower ranks because it is the first medium hull to become available in M0 kits. Also it seems like it is very OP to a newbie when every OD is a sure kill. It's not that Viking's OD is bad....far from it, it just takes forever to charge. A Wasp pretty much gets at least one kill per bomb and it charges 3 to 7 times per battle. Titian gets 2 or 3 ODs per battle and kind of an open ended number of kills (lots uually) Hunter, Hornet, Dictator, and Mammoth all have multiple kills per battle by employing their ODs. Viking has a massively powerful OD, but it happens so seldom...but is it worth changing hulls and incurring the cost to get a better OD profile and a few more kills per battle. Not for me and I bet not for most players...live with Viking even though it is the worst OD overall. Another point for me is that I'm sure Tanki will continue the nerf/buff cycle with hulls like they have done with turrets. Viking may have it's day again.

I really don't think Tanki is dying. In fact I think they are making more money than ever based on all the fully MUed kits in all the ranks as soon as the kits are unlocked, brisk paint bundle sales, star passes, the much much much higher demand for supplies, drones and their insatiable need for batteries, a myriad of alterations, and now the ever changing parameters of hulls along with turrets (gotta have the hull/turret de jour), and of course crystals, premium, and golds. Probably other stuff too that eludes me for the moment Tanki has become a marketing powerhouse. Tanki only cares about player numbers if it impacts their bottom line and I'm pretty sure their bottom line is growing. It used to be Buyers paid to slaughter Freebies. Now it's a much higher percentage of Buyers fighting Buyers...Tanki doesn't need the Freebies as much...they sold buyers on playing against other buyers. As long as there are enough players to keep toxic MM afloat and wait times to a minimum, Bob's their Uncle.

I did a full update today. Honorable Mentions are in correct order as of this post. Two more Legends 60+ were found and added to the Honorable Mentions lists. Big news in the Legend race: 35011 overtakes Dont_Panic for the number 3 spot. I just checked this again after I posted it and Dont_Panic is in the process of racking up some XP, so we will see if he re-takes third place... And just for your entertainment, I ran across a really weird Recruit profile...this guy seems to be a very dedicated Gold Mult :) https://ratings.tankionline.com/en/user/TBou_KopoJl He also has the lowest K/D I've ever seen...I've seen ".1" K/D, but never "0".

:) It wouldn't be hard or take too long to adjust...and it would be more concise and better organized. :) It would even shorten the page, making it less cluttered. :) Copy & paste to replace the image and copy/paste the 2nd "B"...done. :) It would get rid of your mis-spelled word. :) Plus, I'd shut up. :)