Sure a lot depends on circumstances. I only mean it is possible to hit those circling/speeding small targets with more accuracy than most players imagine. And when you do hit you ruin their day. You also need only shoot for the nearby terrain too. Another use for the laser is to firm up that aim. Laser up; as soon as the laser is on target snap off a single shot. That often also adds some vertical tracking. But mostly you just need to learn how to aim by eye. So hitting at rage really isn't that hard. Striker has 100% damage at massive rages + a huge splash circle. When you can launch accurate single shots it is very easy to exploit these strengths.

I don't know about best but it is both fun and deadly in the right hands. Not against a Striker pilot who can shoot. That's why Strikers should fight with single shots most of the time. Plop away. I'll splash you to death. When using a light/medium/heavy hull, learn to shoot and hit moving targets with single shots fired while you are also on the move. There's little more fun and satisfying in Tanki than putting a couple missiles on a speeding Wasp at a range of about 200m. And remember... you don't have to hit the enemy tank you just have yo hit something - anything - near it. If my teammate is up front fighting the enemy I shoot hit and surround him with splash death for the enemy. Splash is a massively OP damage mode in Tanki. Exploit it. Laser salvos have their uses. You have to read the situation. A salvo into a enemy group is so temping. But single shots are faster and they still splash. That adds up. But what if there's an un-moving large tank in the group? Then the salvo might be the way to go. Of course it does not get better then when you laser a moving tank and it runs into a pack of his pals with 4 missiles arriving a half-second later, The laser is also a good psych weapon. Light up an enemy just to make him run for cover .. or drive off the bridge. But it all comes from being able to land single shots.If yo can do that the only turret that you can't fight even up is probably freeze. And of course much depends on the circumstances. Since I am running off at the mouth (fingers?) I'll just add I never noticed a difference in the patch when they sped up the missiles at launch. I could not see a difference. For the record I run a 3LT Striker m1_9 / Titan m1_10 with 18% vs-Striker protection. I didn't use any non-map drugs at all - none - until I reached WO5 (~150k exp) yet still had a k/d of 2.0. My hope is no one takes my advice and learns how to shoot single shots. Right now it is a rather unpopular hull. As soon as that changes the Striker will be nerfed mercilessly. :D

Gold Boxes do not drop once every 10,000 gold. They drop on a 0.01% chance for each gold added. Or at least that is how Tanki words it... that's been wrong before. 2 GBs cold drop witin seconds of each other... but that would be very rare.

Thank you. I don't think I could have gotten a better answer for my interests! Long story short, I decided to convert a Smoky / Titan into ... some other turret / Titan. Finally decided on Shaft but I havn't used it since the first weeks when I had just discovered this game. As a long time Smoky user I don't want to just sit and look through the cope all day. So your answer provided exactly what I'd hoped to learn. :)

Is the m1 alteration useful?

Gold boxes, sales, extra battle payouts ... none of this matters when you cannot log into the game. And when you can at last you are forced to play games with players 5+ ranks above you. Then let's mix in some "Zero" Supply to accelerate the drugging and turn 95% of all team games into blowout wins for one team. That is of course if you are not dropped out to to an error. Last night in one game I was dropped a second before I hit Shift for Zero Supply ... when I came back the bar was re-set to 0%. Twice in one game. Zero Supply is a bad feature but my point is you expect a basic level of quality Tanki fails to deliver week after week. And Tanki wants my money. Who actually pays for this level of quality? SMH. Sounds great is theory, but in practice this magnifies the power of full-time druggers. one enemy full-time dugger turns into 3 or 4 full-time druggers. The team without one loses. The End. If they do "forever" will mean the 6 months until Tanki goes out of business. I did have a Pro Pass and all it offered me was Poly CP and Noise. I don't use a railgun so all those special modes do not exist for me. But none of that matters anyway. I am a daily missioner and I cannot do missions in the Pro side. Therefore there is no reason for me to buy a Pro pass. None. I still have over a dozen of them from Christmas. Want 'em? I disabled my 6 button so I do not drop one by mistake.

Same exact thoughts crossed my mind.

Like hell the aim cannot be knocked off. You can't be serious. I use the same combo and the New! Lightweight! Viking gets knoocked off aim quite easily.

Zero Supply is yet another example of how "More" Is Not Always "Better". I have considerable complaints about some turrets and hulls etc. But none of that matters compared to two major recent changes: Cutting missions from Pro Battles and expanding the ranks allowed to compete. We should be happy Zero Supply was tried because this has acted as an accelerant. The bad effects of those two changes are magnified under the power of Zero Supply. It is very hard now to find a battle that (A) matches against reasonable ranked opponents and ( B ) is not a blowout for one team. The effect of Zero Supply is to increase the odds any given match will result in a blowout. (Yes, Tanki has had this problem before Zero Supply. 0S makes a bad situation worse. That is not good no matter how hard it is spun.) It is good to be on the winning side in a blowout but in practice the winning team outnumbers the losing team so you cannot join the winning side. You have to join the losing side or jump servers. With 0S joining the losing side means being spawn camped and slaughtered. ... such joy. Last night on three different accounts I jumped to every EN server, the DE and PL servers, and about 10 RU servers ... and failed to find a single decent game to join. Not a single game. This afternoon with even more players online those same three accounts came up with no good games to join. None. So that is what I mean about all other issues fading into irrelevance. If I can't find a matchup that is fun nothing else matters.

So much agreement here... I left only a few in the quote to highlight those but I agree with almost every sentiment. I can feel your frustration. I've tried to communicate the same feelings here before. Bottom line its come down to a dramatic loss of fun. Before this mission fiasco, the earlier fiascoes were annoying but they did not undermine the basic fun. A turret or three would be out of balance but you could still find a fun game. I speak of the time after the introduction of the Battle Button. There were many basic games at the right rank levels. I always bought a Pro Pass so I could do my missions quickly. then I would have time ot play a couple normal battles where all I had to think about working for the team win. Now there is no way t justify the Pro Pass cost so I do my mission in normal battles. I keep the weekly chain going but that means I am forced into more lopsided games and more bad teams. The last three days doing missions has left me in a bad mood, not having fun. The worst part is, there is no reason to even want to gain exp or even to upgrade one's tank. Game-play never changes except drugs beccome more and more common. Upgrading your tank is of course worth doing but even with that there's no real pressure. Tank recently made m0 more like m1 more like m2 more like m3 more like m3+. So those massive amounts of hard-won Cry don't buy much ,,, a 40k MU step might get you +1% DPS... wow! The bottom line is the bottom line. I wish I could trust the Tanki management team enough to support them with some purchanses. But I do not trust them. Worse, in the last month tjey have made the game less fun.

You broiught up spawn klilling not I. For crying out loud.

And I return to the original comment, that the Magnum learning curve is steep. Wait until you've played a magnum player who has climbed that curve. Then you will see battle dominated. Though yes they will probably not be big flag-getters themselves. But get the flag, not get the flag, these are different topics than "enjoying the game". I do well in almost every DM game I play but I almost never have fun, because I find that mode so damn stupid most of the time. There's nothing fun about getting killed only because a tank spwned directly behind you 5 seconds after you spawn. There's nothing fun about getting killed because you can't shoot the enemy and can't use cover to escape him either. Win schmin, there will be no wins or losses unless the game is actually fun to play. I played Kunger CP (which I consider a badly flawed map) last night. The enemy had 2 magnums and at least one shaft. They were all very good players. The shaft locked down the long low land along one flank of the map. The Magnums clearly knew how to set the angle and power to hit any area on the map. Any attempt to capture points resulted in the slaughter. I player my fast Wasp/Viking tried flanking them. The magnums dis not allow it. No matter how I maneuvered I was wiped out either en route, or at the firing position as soon as I arrived. The whole game thus boiled down into a long-range sniping affair. It was painful dull. I've messaged around with the magnum on a low-level account. I am starting to get a "feel" for the shots. Once I can shoot shots by timing not by watching the gauges I might convert the account Tanki ruined on me earlier this year. OTOH Tanki will have to jit this turret hard with the nerf hammer. Of course bing as Tanki's devs seem to play favorites I wonder if Tanki really will nerf their favorite artilery toy.

The learning curve is steep but like all learning curves it will be climbed. Then it will be massively massively easy for the magnums to lob shells from where thy cannot be jit ever by the siilly LOS Target-Class tanks. Already seen this. On Kunger last night there were two Magnukms who knoew what seeting to use to hit the key map areas. They cominated that game - dominated it. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just going to get worse. BS they are helpless at close range. I had a 2.00 k/d rate on my striker account at the 150,000 exp mark and I did not use a single drug in those 150,000 exp points. But that is besides the point. The point is they are so dominant the tactical goal changes from get the flag to kill the hidden Magnum because we ain't getting the flag unless we get teh Magnum first. That is what I mean about changing the nature of gameplay. To which I add your casual idea that I should pop a DA every single timne I spawn. I dont do that. Forcing me to do that means THE GAME PLAY HAS NBEEN CHANGED and not for the better. Don't blame you. The game is being dumbed down for its dumb players.

Everyone in this debate on Isida's damage output is ignoring the context in which this is happening. Right now Tanki is in the middle of a major increase in the damage output overall. There used to be 2 of 11 turrets that could kill you without seeing you: Thunder and Rico. That was an issue when you ran into one of these guys but they were not affecting gameplay across entire maps Now we have 6 of the 12 turrent that can either bounce shots off walls of do massive splash damage. The game is turning from cover/shoot/recover to spawn die from spash damage read "LOL" on chat from the enemy. Both Magnum and Striker can deliver many thousand-point attacks that also cause splahs damage to everyone around them. This has increased the amount of damage infllicted across a battle and is every day making direct Line Of Sight turrets obsolete 2nd-Class Target Tanks. I also put the changes to premum passes in the damage inflation calculation. Those daily awards put even more drugs into play ... that put more damage into play. And people hee are complaining that Isda has more damage output now after three straight major nerfs to it. You all have bigger problems than the Isida. The whole game is going down the crapper because Tanki's recent hard-on for massive splash damage is re-writing the entire nature of game-play. The forest is burning down and people here are debating if one single tree should be pruned or not. Ability to one hit kill any tankin the game without warning ... you missed that change. And what do you know... that one chance outweighs the others. The answer is obvious: They are playing in the only game on all servers that is at their rank and desired format (e.g a CTF format to do a CTF mission). Before the Battle Button system went I wasted a lot of time going form server to server just t find a battle I wanted to play in my skill level. (I hate Poly CP and Noise) When the Battle Button went in Overnight I could find at least 6-8 game to chose from. All the Piky CO.Noise junk went to Pro. Overnight the game was more fun. Then Tanki did yet another 180. Now all the ranks mix up in standard battle to do missions. I am back to server jumping. There are tie when I litteraly find zero availble games to do my missions. Zero. Overnight tha game became less fun. So why are plkayers showing up in bbattle where they seem misplaced? It is because theitr only other choice is to log out and not play. There's your answer. Now what will Tanki do about it? Ruin some more is the answer to THAT questions.

Magnum is definitely making the game less fun. Magnum isn't alone in this - it is the sudden multiplication of splash damage weapons really - but Magnum is the biggest culprit. It simply is no fun fying over and over to an enemy you cannot see and cannt shot at if you do know where they are. A few months ago there were two weapons that could attack you without seeing you: Thunder and Rico. Now there are 6: Thunder and Rico, plys Twins, Hammer, Striker, and Magnum. Before 2 of 11 could kill you while you were under cover now 6 /13 or nearly half can do so. The game was about maneuver, cover, timing and aiming. Now it is about splash damage. The kings of the game can kill the silly little target-class tanks what with their sill need to actually see and aim at their enemies. The rest of the player base will figure this out soon enough. The magnum players are starting to figure out how to explot the massive advantages of their hull. I wish this turret had never been considered much less developed. It's ruining game play.

I never doubted you understand the Smoky system to that extent. I meant are you aware of the fact the "20%" does no tmean "20% for every shot?". Your 1st shot has 20% chance to crit but if it doesn't shot #2 had a 40% chance, then 60%, 80% then 100% on shot #5. But the 1st two shots after a crit hit have a 0% chance to crit hit. That is the system I meant. I do not know i the progressive ladder remains. I do know that under this system the effect of mooing to 15% from 20% is considerable... and it also makes it hard for th eplayer to mentally track the constamntly changing odds. And players say Smoky is a "noob weapon". So does Tanki. But they expect Smoky users to constant run a probability table in their heads with the result of every hit changing the calculation. That is what I meant about the luxury of time. A crit hit fo4es help if you are killed before you can deliver it. While the rest of the game is moving to bigger damage and killing without line of sight Smoky is left with popgun LOS damage. It is a nerf in the sense that the other turrets are getting dealier but smoky isn't.

WEll well Tanki has to un-nerf the damage they did to the last Isida design change. You know the one that was going to give Isida a massively huge attack and make it the most deadly short-range turret in the game ... but turned out to be yet another nerf? Let's hope they get it right, mayve 5th or 6th time will be the charm.

The huge blow came because they nerfed its damage output at teh same time. The loss of the self-heal itself was a nerf yes. But in the same patch they also reduced the amount of damage an Isida could deliver in one full energy bar. It was the combination that did the damage. And this balance change coming in a few hours proves Tanki knows the F'ed it up last time.

I think this turret (indirect fiure) is going to have a tremendous impact on the ways many maps are played. And I am not sure it will be more fun. But time is still needed to see. Right now though it strikes me as way way too powerful compared to the way it can hide completely out of to direct fire.

Do you have an account that actually uses Smoky? I have two full-time. Do you know how the ctit hit system actually works? I osed to but I do not know if they have changed that too. But if you do not know what I mean here, maybe you should consider Learning Mode?

Correct. But crit hit damage numbers remain flat (or nearly flat) across all m-levels. IOW once again the design concept is re-writteny.

For low ranks perhaps. That is not at all clear true for upper ranks. The flat 20% system made it very useful to predict crits at long range (if you know how the systemn really works). With a floating percentage it will take more long range shots to get that one crit hit. But when will Smolky have that luxury of time ? In the meantime the rest of the game is seeing bigger and bigger hitters. One turret out of 11 used to do splash damage now 5 out of 13 do so. The pace of the game is speeding up but Smoky is being slowed down.

The maximum crit hit chance is now 20% for a m4 Smoky and down to ~11% for a m0 version. It used to be 20% for all levels of Smoky. So unless you have a full m4 Smoky it is a nerf. It was the last turret that needed another nerf.

Smoky is nerfed yet again. Because why? Because other turrets are overpowered that's why. Great. Wonderful. Smoky is already fast on its way to "Aww look at the cute widdle Smoky he thinks he's a weapon" staus in the game. Tanki has fallen head over heels in love with splash damage and big-damage one-hittters. The gamed used to reward using cover and require some ability to actually aim. It was possible to hide behind obstacles or dodge fire. Every day the game becomes more and more just shoot at unmoving terrain and watch everyone die from spash damage. Emerge from cover a shaft one-hots you. Stay in cover a magnum spalshes you. So have fun with your little Smoky that takes several aimed hits to kill a tank it has to see. But none of this balance crap really means shinola. What does matter is once again finding a non-blowout battle at your rank is tedious. We are back in the days when you might have to visit every single server to find the one Basic game what gives you a chance to complete a mission. This is a tragic change. This reverses all the good of the Battle Button. Before the Battle button it ewas tedious to find a game. When the Battle button was added is was suddenly easy to find many games worth joining. But Then Tanki reversed themeselves one more time and the tedium ois back. I've learned nothing good in Tanki lasts very long. But the lag and the connection drop-outs, those are eternal. I wish I could support this company financially but with this history I cannot.

So next Tanki is going to reverse its earlier reversal of is hull design philosophy. Suggestion: long-term planning in Tanki is futile so don't do it. Play for the moment and quit the fracking game on the inevitable day when the chimps at Tanki break the game one time too many. Or wait for it to fail financially. Either way you'll be happier no long planning. :D