Wow OK, that is indeed a bizarre set of openings. 150 UC and only 2 Legendaries & no exotics is about the worst UC opening I've ever heard of - whereas Hammer AP, Rail AP and Shaft Healing Emitters from only 7 is about the best UC opening I've ever heard of ? I'm not a buyer - so I can't give my own comparison - but that sounds strange I have to say, ye.

3 Legendaries - and awesome ones at that - from 7 free Ultras? Wow those are insane drops I have to say, 3 of the very best Legendaries you can get ?. So you might be on to something - however you didn't get any Exotics from the free Ultras either. You mentioned the Legendaries from the free Ultras (truly amazing drops yes - never had 7 Ultras that good) - but how many Legendaries did you get from the 150 bought Ultras? I think that would be necessary to know, for a fair comparison.

Freeze vs Freeze is funny now. Who will crit first and one-shot the other guy xD ?

I also have protections against many of the other popular turrets. I mean, given that I have protection whereas most others players don't - I am not finding Tesla a particular problem to face so far. If I am using 40% against Magnum and 40% against Tesla, I am not finding the Tesla guys harder to deal with. Haven't been playing against the Tesla hordes for that long yet - but that's my experience so far. Other players - unlike me - have protection against all the other turrets but not Tesla, and I think that is part of the reason why it seems so strong. Take a look at @Tanker-Arthur's screen shot above - not a single player in the enemy team using Weasel.

Maybe you are just a good player :P The thing is though, very few people have Tesla protection right now. With my 41% against Tesla, I'm personally not finding enemy Teslas much of a problem - unless they are 9999s.

Firebird now has x2 critical, although 20% chance for it. But Firebird and Freeze now have a hideous 15 yard range - having tried it I have to say I hate the new range. I don't know why that was changed, it is painful to use TBH.

I don't think the changes in tomorrow's patch to Fire and Freeze are good - there is no need to give Freeze an x5 multiplier on crits, wowww! And I don't think they needed to have the range shortened, that is kinda weird. Don't see the point of these changes, strange but also imbalanced at the same time.... Would have been better to just take the changes from last week and give them a slight reduction. It is nice though that Viking overdrive with various turrets and augments is being fixed, melee turrets were the last things that were substandard with Viking overdrive. All the same though, these changes will leave Firebird and Freeze in a weird place, and in many ways imbalanced. But if they nerf them, they will be left with an annoyingly short range.

There is one thing that Tesla is useless against, and that is Vampire Nanobots augment for Isida :p All melee turrets are useless against that, and yes it needs a phat nerf. However if you know something else, I wish I knew too!

It's cool that Tesla is finally here :) What I am most pleased about, is that we are finally getting new Garage augments - it is cool that we have new augments that are not just Ultra Container only. This will give something for all players to work towards. Gauss could also do with some new Garage augments, it boring that all it has is Adrenaline. I am also glad Firebird and Freeze got a buff last week, so that they are not now made useless with the release of Tesla. Excited to try it out at last.

A ranked system is a nice idea - many would be interested in such a thing, myself included - but sadly I don't think Tanki has the player numbers for this. As others have said, it would dilute matchmaking numbers - which already either increase queues, or make ranks spreads which are already too large even larger. Alternately, if we moved from the current matchmaking system to a "pure" ranked system it would turn a lot of players off, as it would make gameplay more stressful. Some would like it, others would not. I think with the low playerbase Tanki currently has, maybe we could get away with a ranked temporary event for 1 or 2 weeks perhaps at most - but we don't have the numbers for a full, permanent ranked system I'm afraid. The closest thing we have for that are Esports tournaments. If somehow Tanki's playerbase increases to 50k or more during weekends - then maybe this kind of thing could be considered. But not before then.

It's nice that it will be more equal for everyone with those settings. Experienced players will still have the Mk8 turret/hull & module advantage, as well as better augments, but yes fully upgraded drones are the main things lower GS players tend to lack.

I wonder if they will be - who knows. We will have to check container rewards tomorrow. Also, annoyingly Magnum's Harpoon augment is still not in regular container rewards, still hoping for a fix on that.

There are 3 new Garage augments for Tesla (and possibly 4 either now or eventually with Tesla Adrenaline?) All 3 are for Tesla, check the announcement on the home page for more info: https://tankionline.com/en/2021/08/tesla-in-the-garage-and-new-augments/

Looking at the announcement, a really interesting point is that they are putting in new GARAGE augments! Awesome - I am super glad they are now going back to adding some Garage augments as well, this will make the game better for everyone - giving something for all players to work towards. New augments in both the Garage, and Ultra Containers from now on would be cool.

Actually you are right - my bad. That should take longer than the 300 kills then.

Only 5k battle points is pretty nice IMO, that will take about the same amount of time as 10k in regular modes, and a lot less than 20k battle points in any mode. The 300 kills between all hulls will take the most time, missions will therefore take a little longer than last week but not too bad at all. And... Tesla finally out! Awesome :) EDIT: Thanks to @TheCongoSpider for the correction. 5k battle points in DM is 500 kills, which will take the longest.

This is not true, there are current exactly 4 melee range turrets (Tesla, Isida, Firebird and Freeze) as well as 4 medium range (Smoky, Thunder, Vulcan and Striker) and 4 long range (Shaft, Magnum, Gauss, Railgun). The only category we have less in is short range for which we only have 3 turrets. B0-NK is great as a fun turret for special modes, but I don't think it would be suitable to become an actual main turret to join the game.

Well, in a sense you're right - the immediate impact of the MU change is terrible. However with the challenge at 3000 stars to complete, we can at least gain Tankoins again which will, eventually, enable us to get battle passes which will be a large boost to our accounts. What they could do about the MU change is provide a discount to the next modification - a discount equal to the amount spent on MUs. That would be the only fair way to do it if they insist on removing the upgrade button. Hazel flatly rejected this kind of idea with no explanation in the last V-LOG, which I found ridiculous. This would be THE logical and fair fix to it - there really isn't any logical reason not to, as the system now is totally unfair and will cause new players to waste crystals on MUs, when without warning, the upgrade button disappears when they rank up. I gave my thoughts on that here: As for the challenge being back to 3000 stars, I'm very glad about that.

The 4000 stars requirement for the challenge was simply awful. Very happy that it has been moved back to 3000, this is a game changer. Now casual players can complete the challenge, and we can once again complete on alt accounts even without a huge amount of trouble. Glad they listened on this. As for the battle pass, to be honest I understand why they have increased the price - because now that Ultra Container augments are included in the pass, TBH it was giving too much really for a 500 tankoin price tag. However, I agree the price should be around 1000 - it would be better if it did not give Tankoins in the gold tier, and the price was reduced to a more achievable 1000 tankoins - to make that first battle pass easier to get for everyone. The problem if the pass was moved back to let's say 500 Tankoins as it was before, as with augments like EMP Gauss/Stun Striker in it now - and probably soon stuff like Vampire Isida - these augments would become very common, and it wouldn't be great for balance. It would also devalue them quite a bit, while making Garage augments overall less useful. Now of course, part of the problem here is that these augments are simply too strong - and yes quite a few Ultra augments need a nerf - but perhaps you see what I'm getting at. With the current situation, the battle pass effectively costs 1100 tankoins (or 600 if you are one of the 0.001% of players who have all the skins), as it costs 1500, and you get 400 back from the gold tier (100 from the silver tier is NOT counted - as you would have received that anyway even if you didn't buy the pass). So that means if you complete your weeklies, and complete the challenge every time - you are looking at 5 1/2 months to earn first battle pass, and about 4 months for each pass after that. That is certainly a long time, but now that the challenge is more achievable, it is doable. I think reducing the pass down to 1000 tankoins, and removing the free tankoins from the gold tier would be better. But frankly, given how often we get Ultras from special events now/ AP Immunity augments now being available in the Ultra Container rewards/ shards - battle passes are slightly less important than they used to be. But they still do give a considerable advantage for those who can get them.

It is hard to quantify the level of positive or negative effect that good or bad updates have, respectively - but I'll try. Lets compare the microupgrade change to switching back to 3000 stars for the challenge. Now I agree totally that the change that means you can no longer microupgrade once you have reached the rank for a new modification is a horrific one, that has caused big problems for new players and low ranks - and also majorly screwed over players who had equipment which was lower than the best for their rank, but with several modifications on it - especially players with Mk6 items which are heavily upgraded (as I know you have on your alt). This change means that you have to be super careful not to rank up before you finish microupgrading an item to the 10th modification, which is annoying, it hurts new players who don't know about it - and for those like yourself, who have accounts with heavily upgraded items below the highest rank, many crystals spent on upgrades have been wasted. However, I think the change to 4000 stars for the silver tier of the challenge was overall much worse. Why? Well with the microupgrade change, if you know about it, you are screwed over once - protections that are Mk6-4 for example, you will need to save up and buy Mk7 on a 50% sale - all crystals spent on MUs wasted, which is painful. However, with the 4000 stars challenge, there is on-going damage to your account progress. 4000 stars made it impossible to do the challenge unless you no-life, it meant lower rank players also need to gain a painfully huge amount of experience to complete the silver tier, and it meant you have basically no chance to finish the challenge on more than one account. Now I know that they are only reversing a bad change, but I think the switch back to 3000 stars for the challenge has more "positive" impact, than the negative impact of the microupgrade update - in the long term. The microupgrade update is terrible though. Other great updates: Shards, buffing weak turrets recently (Firebird and Freeze - probably too OP though), fixing Viking overdrive with all augments and turrets (finally), fixing Magnum no damage bug, finally nerfing Incendiary Brand/Heat Immunity (should have been done MUCH faster though). Harsh, but lol ? Glad we agree for once ??

Absolutely ? This would be funny. After your faithful service to Tanki and to the forum, well deserved. At least a RIDDLER paint needs to be made lol

B0-NK should be given exclusively and only to @RIDDLER_8 as a true Legend of the game ? . A bit like the guy who has the 50% against all module. This would be grossly OP, but I support it lol.

A lot of valid points, but wow - Tanker's Day in September xD? I really hope they will not wait that long lol, players would be furious. That would mean buying players would have had access not only Tesla, but also Tesla with many special augments for a long time before free players even got access to standard Tesla. To be honest, I think Tesla will come soon - but it won't be discounted perhaps until Tanker's Day. It will probably be out this week or next, but the first sale that will apply to it may be Tanker's Day. That's what I'd guess. I agree that the gap between free players and buyers is closing currently, which is a good thing. With all the Ultra weekends, free players are catching up as they get more and more Ultra Container items. The 4th module is indeed the current advantage, and Crisis only in certain modes - but Trickster has closed the gap quite a lot there too. Personally I think the overall shape of the game has improved a lot with recent changes, although it still has quite a few problems (and I hate the unwarranted nerf to Driver drone for instance, and the change to the MU/upgrade buttons). Having Tesla out soon would be good, and buyers can have their new augments to play with before everyone else.

That is indeed a valid point. I do think they give some thought to balance - although of course Ultra Container augments are intended to be stronger, and also there is a fine line between stronger and broken which is too often crossed in this game. I wouldn't be surprised if giving some tuning to the new augments for Tesla is behind the delay however, but still it should have been released by now anyway even if the augments were not ready.

I'd be fairly sure that Tesla will come this Friday, along with the new augments. If not I'd be very shocked tbh. Given that they announced the new augments in the second-to-last VLOG, I think it would be about for them to arrive - and with that advantage in place for buyers they will give regular Tesla to everyone else. Although then again, we did expect it last Friday... but I'm sure they won't delay it any longer. They might have delayed it because they wanted to milk it from Ultras a bit more, or POSSIBLY because they haven't finishing working on the new augments. Let's not forget one of them is a Jammer augment, which will be the first of its kind - could perhaps be a little tricky to balance. Even so though, yes it probably should still have been out by now - augments could have came a little later if there were issues with them.