I only kill during golds.

Good-day to you! In the last issue of the Tanki Newspaper, I set you the task of selecting a well-known scene from a book or film before using your Tanki garage to recreate it in a comic-strip style! I am happy to say that contrary to popular belief among my fellow Reporters I did receive numerous entries. Here, I have selected what I believe to be the best of these entries. Here they are. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Place: In first place, winning 40 000 , are , , , , and Second Place: In second place, winning 30 000 , is @M-axis Third Place: In third place, winning 20 000 , is @KodiakReaper

Few golds. Taking my own one (I dropped it). :ph34r: Guess who.

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He made Candidate. Then quit.

Done.

Yup, I've peaked.

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I only want your likes and views, don't worry. ;)

Thank you very much for the positive feedback. Much appreciated. Yes, there should be future articles in this series. Stay tuned!

35 minutes later, he's still at it... <_<

Not all Reporters are mults you know...

No one has interviewed me yet. :ph34r:

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Oh sure, but it now deals far too much damage. If I'm not careful, my M3 Hammer will get beaten by an M2 Isida at close range. The self-healing removed in #441 was not doing much for the turret anyway. Anyway, we are straying off-topic (as you pointed out).

Hammer got nerfed twice. It's Isida which needs nerfing now. The damage output is far too great.

Maybe your Captain account is using different equipment which is triggering the Critical Error?

Nobody is "forcing" anyone to complete Daily Missions, in non-PRO Battles or otherwise.

Guess what? We have just come to the end of another fantastic Tanki holiday, but that does not mean that the fun has ceased as well. Behold, I am here to bore entertain you with another section in my series of holiday reviews! It has not been long since Cosmonautics Day, but Tanki decided to unleash something far more spectacular even than that for this month, including an entire week of increased Battle Funds, sales and a whole-new limited-time feature - ZERO-S! ________________________________________________________________________________________ Introduction Another event! 2017 has been one of the busiest years in the history of Tanki so far. It has been packed with updates, celebrations, and experiments of all shapes and sizes. Less than three weeks after Cosmonautics Day came to a close, another celebrations announcement broke cover, promising plenty of entertainment for all ranks. What's more, a special supply feature was added for the duration of the celebrations, which lasted from 02:00 UTC on April 29th, till 02:00 UTC on May 10th - an incredible 11 full days of fun. This makes it the longest-running event this year, with the exception of the New Year festivities. The above mentioned supply feature was almost like "Supply Experiment #3", though nothing was changed with supplies themselves. It was simply a feature to "test the waters" and make the effects of supplies slightly more accessible to the majority. Of course, the official announcement also gave details for sales, special missions, decorations and possibly most excitingly - increased funds and Gold Box drop rates! All will be explored below, and we will take a look at May Day itself as well as hearing some feedback from several forumers. Read on! "ZERO-S" Supply Mode Like the "Space" Mode for Cosmonautics Day, this event also received a special battle feature which would only be present in the game for the duration of the festivities. For the duration of the May Holidays only, we were treated what could be called "Supply Experiment #3". As with the previous experiments, this feature was only available in non-PRO (regular) battles. The special "ZERO-S" button is shown on the far left. However, it did not resemble any of the previous supply experiments. There were no cooldown increases, or duration decreases. Instead, a 7th image was added to your in-battle supply hotbar. Essentially, it provided a way to acquire the effect of supplies without using any yourself. Here is how it worked. 1: Over the course of the battle, the Zero-S supply key would charge up (increasing faster depending on the amount of experience you were earning). 2: When the % hit 100, you could activate the effect by pressing the SHIFT key. 3: This would do several things. First of all, you would receive the effects of all 4 supplies, as well as dropping a mine. Secondly, all friendly tanks within a close radius of you would acquire the same effect. 4: The supplies would then be active for their normal length of time, and the ZERO-S key would be reset. However, all your supplies (including repairs) would be on their respective cooldown times. Tankers who activated the "ZERO-S" feature would trigger a red star to be broadcasted above their tank, similar to the effect caused by a rank up, that can be seen from the other side of the map. A picture of this is shown below. Now, let's take a look at the way this feature affected the different gamemodes. CTF Currently the most popular battle format by a distance, so this addition understandably featured a lot in non-PRO battles. It was a devastating feature in many aspects, but you had to be a coordinated team to achieve the best from it. Even so, a single tanker could make it in and out of a base of supply-full defenders by simply activating ZERO-S after his/her regular supplies had been exhausted. Isida users took full advantage of this feature, and Isida "chains" were a fairly common site in the regular battles I played in, where they healed each other while donating the ZERO-S supplies where appropriate. It made campers in CTF much less of a threat, as I sadly found out with my alternate accounts. You would be carefully lining up a Railgun shot at an approaching Firebird only for it to press Shift and rapidly annihilate you. CP Out of the four gamemodes, CP is where this feature really came to the fore, especially in smaller maps such as Polygon. Whole teams could simply camp around a/the point, gratefully taking the free supplies donated to them by the feature. It could be game-changing if used by the correct players and equipment, and battle were brought back from the death in several games which I had the fortune to be part of. However, it was simply too overpowered in the smaller CP maps for my liking. TDM Although this could be viewed as a format where the ZERO-S simply didn't make any difference, I beg to differ. Since TDMs usually revolve around campers, I noticed that several Shafts and Isidas were taking full advantage, with the snipers killing enemies while the Isidas healed them. When the Isidas eventually reached 100%, they could top-up the snipers' supplies. Highly effective. DM Sadly, DMs with this feature seemed to favour heavy druggers a lot, since they'd be the ones earning the greatest amount of EXP and this reaching 100% much faster than any of the others. Did not change anything much here, especially as the "splash-fill" seen in team battles did not come into the reckoning. An interesting and very tactical feature. It made gameplay more interesting, but certainly more chaotic in maps such as Polygon where entire teams would sit around the point, activating ZERO-S after ZERO-S. It still favours heavy druggers, as they will have greater scores and thus reach 100% faster than their opponents, but I think it could be introduced into the game permanently, albeit after a little tweaking. May Holidays - Breakdown As with the other celebrations that we have received so far this year, the May Holidays Celebrations in 2017 were the largest Tanki May festivities in the history of the game. Not only did the event span 11 days, we also found ourselves surrounded by increased funds and Gold Box drop rates, sales and exclusive holiday decorations. And let's not forget the limited time "ZERO-S" feature which has been explored above. For now however, let's take a look at this year's in-game decorations! Themed Decorations As usual, there were an assortment of festive in-game decorations that hit the game after the server update on the 29th of April. However, most of them may have looked strangely familiar; this is because they are. The Gold Box drop zone (a red star replacing the normal crystal sign), the Gold Box texture (green and gold decorations with a red star) and the Red and Blue flags (except for a minor change) were all identical to the corresponding features found during the Iron Days 2017 celebrations. Even the drop parachutes were similar, with both featuring a collage of stars. One can simply assume that there was not simply the time available to create unique features. However, it is slightly disappointing when things get reused frequently. The colour of the drop parachute (red) suited the Gold Box zone much better than the Iron Days' green one had, and maybe we must simply count our blessings. But after the wonderful decorations that appeared for Cosmonautics Day, you can't help but feel slightly disappointed. As usual, the standard Holiday paint was altered and completely restyled for the occasion, sporting an interesting pattern for the duration of the festivities. Essentially a striking red overlay on a green background, "New Camouflage" was available for purchase in the garage for the price of 120,000 crystals. However, since all garage paints were on a 30% discount for the whole celebrations, all players who bought this paint did not pay the full price. Here we have both exclusive paints, with "New Camouflage" being available for purchase in the garage. "Fire of Valour" was a "Shop" paint. An interesting and striking design, but the name is very underwhelming and probably put many potential purchasers (such as myself) off. There was also a Premium Bundle for this celebration, which included the special paint "Fire of Valour" (seemingly a combination of Phoenix and Amber) and the items shown below. It was available in the Shop for the price of 24.99 Euros for the entirety of the holidays, but was not discounted during the Shop sales. We also had three exclusive in-game gifts, available for purchase in the Garage. These were: "Ribbon of Valour" - essentially the ribbon from 2016 made into a different shape, "Tanker's Helmet" - a remake of the standard "Helmet" gift and "The Eternal Light" - an interesting red star with a flash of orange-red flame. All the prices and the visual appearances of these gifts are shown in the image below. Other Exclusive Features Per the norm, we were treated to some super-tough missions that no one ever completes where you must perform certain difficult tasks wearing the Holiday paint. These missions were present in the game for the entirety of the event and offered Tankers some extremely profitable rewards that previously would have been much easier to complete had the mission update not been introduced. However, it is not clear if the rewards were affected by the double 10% increases in mission rewards, as these are exclusive missions. Gold Boxes and Battle Funds The increased funds and Gold Box drop rates were possibly the "icing on the cake" for this event. Gold Boxes dropped twice as often across all battles during these celebrations, regardless of whether it was a PRO battle or not. Increased funds only applied to regular battles however, which probably came as a disappointment to Tanki's Fire/Wasp-ers. The funds increase was actually increased itself over the course of the event, and we eventually finished with 48 hours of double funds after an assortment of increase values. The values and their respective dates are shown below. 1.25X Battle Funds for 72hrs, from 02:00 UTC on May 01 till 02:00 UTC on May 04 1.5X Battle Funds for 48hrs, from 02:00 UTC on May 04 till 02:00 UTC on May 06 1.75X Battle Funds for 48hrs, from 02:00 UTC on May 06 till 02:00 UTC on May 08 2X Battle Funds for 48hrs, from 02:00 UTC on May 08 till 02:00 UTC on May 10 By the end, Gold Boxes were a common sight in regular battles, as they were essentially dropping four times as often. Special Discounts Of course, no event is an event without sales of some description. For May Day 2017, we received sales on every single item (except XTs of course). There were 30% sales off just about everything. 29th April - 30th April: 30% off all Shop items, but not including the Premium Bundle, Premium or Clan Licenses. 30% off Microupgrades (except XTs) and 50% off Speed-ups. 29th April - 10th May: 30% sales on Paints, Supplies and in-game gifts. 2nd May - 3rd May: 30% off all Hulls (non XT). 3rd May - 4th May: 30% off Modules 4th May - 5th May: 30% off all Turrets (non XT). 5th May - 6th May: 30% off all Alterations. 9th May - 10th May: 30% off Microupgrades (except XTs) and 50% off Speed-ups. History of "May Day" May Day is celebrated differently across the globe, though it is mainly acknowledged in Europe. There are many variants on "May Day", with different names and methods of celebration. Though our "May Day" originates as an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival, it is a traditional spring holiday in many different cultures. In the earlier forms of the Tanki Online event, "May Day" was celebrated as a day to remember workers, and is not strictly the same. However, they both come under the same "May Day" banner, though today we will spend time looking at the older festival. The earliest May Day celebrations appeared with the Floralia, festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, held on April 27 during the Roman Republic era, and with the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. As you might expect, these celebrations had very pagan origins, though "May Day" was partially celebrated to mark the beginning of summer. Maypole dancing in England, Morris Dancing in Scotland, Lily-of-the-valley from France and a maypole being raised in Germany. Now, let's take a look at the origins of May Day in different countries and how it is celebrated today. United Kingdom and Germany May Day is actually a deep part of these countries' heritages, with Traditional English May Day rites and celebrations including crowning a May Queen and celebrations involving a maypole. Historically, Morris dancing has been linked to May Day celebrations. In Germany, a maypole is also used, though acts of gift-giving are much more common there than in the UK. Young German people tend to use the holiday as an excuse to party, though the holiday itself was not officially recognized as such until 1933. In the UK, May Day is recognized as a celebration of fertility (in animals, people, and land) and the symbols used during the festival show this, though many of the old traditions have been lost. In Germany however, much has remained the same. It is a romantic time, and here is how it works: The maypole is covered in streamers and sent to the house of a girl the night before. The tree is typically from a love interest, though a tree wrapped only in white streamers is a sign of dislike. Women usually place roses or rice in the form of a heart at the house of their beloved one. It is common to stick the heart to a window or place it in front of the doormat. All the action is usually done secretly and it is an individual's choice whether to give a hint of their identity or stay anonymous. In both countries (and in many others from Europe) the tradition of dancing around a maypole has stood the test of time. Other parts of Europe In France, a lily of the valley has become a May Day symbol due to a tradition started by a king. The Irish celebrate with bonfires, whereas the Italians perform a romantic gesture in a similar way to the Germans. Greece is very fertility-based with the month of May itself taking its name from the goddess Maia, a Greek and Roman goddess of fertility. The day of Maios celebrates the final victory of the summer against winter as the victory of life against death, stemming from the legend of Persephone and her mother, Demeter. North America May Day was also celebrated by some early European settlers of the American continent. In some parts of the United States, May baskets are made. These are small baskets usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone's doorstep. May Day is also acknowledged in Canada, and remembered as "Lei" Day in Hawaii. May Day in Tanki Now that we have covered why this particular date is recognised across most of the world, let's move onto looking at the past May Day celebrations in Tanki. 2011 - 2012 As you should remember from the information given in my previous articles, Tanki introduced the "Holiday" paint in later 2010, with Halloween being the first holiday to be officially celebrated. The first "May Day" holiday paint was introduced in 2011, with the texture similar in appearance to the green with a red star paintwork used on Soviet battle tanks. 2011 was (in my view) less inclusive than 2012, as shown by the holiday paint. The 2012 paint was a much more inclusive flowers-and-leaves on a blue background, rather than simply portraying largely Russian symbols like the 2011 version. 2013 - 2014 For 2013, things were made a little more interesting. Aside from the holiday paint, which was given a largely uninteresting makeover (similar to Metallic but with a blue sheen), holiday billboards were introduced and the Gold Box value was doubled. These exclusive changes lasted until the 5th of May. 2014 was an extravagant outing for Tanki May Day. There were double battle funds lasting until the 12th, triple value Gold Boxes, 25% sales on all garage items and 50% off Micro-upgrades as well as sales on crystal purchases. Interestingly (and sadly), there was no Holiday paint for 2014. 2015 Of course, the May Day holiday was bound to return eventually. It did so in 2015, along with massive celebrations. There were double funds which lasted for four days, Gold Box values which increased daily, special flags and billboards and sales of all kinds. There was even a special pass which cost 70 crystals. If purchased, it provided you with unlimited Supplies for 24 hours. As for the Holiday paint, you should be able to recognize it instantly. After the event had finished, it was left to gather dust for a bit before eventually being re-added to the garage under the name of "Golden Star". 2016 Very similar to the previous May Day events in many ways. 2016 saw less double battle funds than in previous years, and Gold Box values remained constant. There were 25% sales on turrets, hulls, paints and a 25% bonus for all crystal purchases. There were 5 new and exclusive gifts which appeared during the event, some of which are shown above. The Holiday paint was a peculiar collage of tiger-like colours. Opinion Corner: Players As usual, it's time to hear some feedback from several tankers who took part in the celebrations. Question 1: First of all, did you like the May Day 2017 Celebrations and why? Question 2: How did you find the ZERO-S Supply feature? Did it create a better balance between "druggers" and "non-druggers"? Question 3: Would you prefer regular smaller events (like now) or larger events (with larger discounts) that are spaced further apart? @lukey0 Answer 1: I thought the May Day celebrations were great! It has been quite a while since we had more than 24 hours of increased funds then alone a week of them! The sales were better than I expected and the double dropping rate meant there were plenty of Gold Boxes to go around. The only let down for me was that the same Gold Box design was used for the Iron Day's celebrations. A new design would have been nice. Other than that I really enjoyed the event. Answer 2: The Zero Supply feature was really cool. It made the team work together and invented new strategies to win team/solo battles. It was decently fair, the only disadvantage was that clans could rule a battle very easily making it an easy win. The same with single point CP maps like Polygon and Island. But that could be fixed by only allowing the 2 or 3 closest people receiving the effect if the feature was to stay. It did help with the balance between druggers and non-druggers, because scoring points allowed you to drug and keep up with others. Even if you score 0 points you could still activate the feature roughly after 7 to 8 minutes which is nice. They can also receive the effect from other teammates so it did even the playing field that little bit more. Answer 3: I really don't mind these smaller events, as long as the major events like Tanki's Birthday, Tanker's Day and New Year stay. A good mix of both is always nice. The smaller events normally prepare you crystal wise for the larger events. @Hate Answer 1: Yes, I did. Personally what I liked about the holiday was the sales even though they weren't 50% as most players like but the 30% was totally worth it especially the 11 days, it is something we don't see that often. Answer 2: Personally I liked it as it usually gives you free supplies once every 2-4 minutes depending on how good your team is and how good you are playing, but it has its downsides as well. We all know how powerful Isida is nowadays so let's say you go and try to take the enemy Flag and one of the defenders uses this supply to thicken their defense and meanwhile that player who activated the drug as well as the one who was near him both got full supplies, it is likely that you will succeed in getting anything in there, let alone a flag. Normally if the players on the team are randoms and everyone activates the 0 supply randomly whenever he/she wants to, it is fine and it isn't really powerful but.... if the team are on call or let's say Clan mates who are in call and they all didn't use their 0 supply and on top of that, they are drugging normally... once one of them is low on health, from the 12 players in that team 1 can activate his zero supply and all other 11 players will get full drugs and once they are running low, their normal drugs came back for them so they can use these and continue the attack and if more drugs are needed, the 10th player can activate and BOOM! My point is that if the players are in call than the zero supply can be an infinite drugs none stop but if they are randoms than it is likely that they will work as a team like I said. Answer 3: Small ones are different, I mean I personally would prefer small ones over big ones, not only do they make players happy but they also last longer than the big ones which is another great thing that will keep players happy and busy @Ninja Answer 1: I certainly liked the celebrations, though I think they could have done a lot better, for example; an original gold design would been nice, a shop paint that didn't look so much like Phoenix and increased funds in PRO battles, the latter was the biggest disappointment and I think it watered down spirits quite a lot. The best things I found about the celebrations were double golds, special mission, the celebrations longevity and zero supply mode. I feel like I'm being overly critical here so it'll be interesting to see what the rest of the players say. Answer 2: Zero supply was definitely the most interesting thing about the celebrations, they made a team incredibly dominant if they could use the feature effectively especially in concentrated games like Polygon CP. I do think it made a better balance between duggers and non-druggers but I don't think its a solution to the problem. It felt more like non-druggers could stand a chance against druggers instead of being constantly spawn killed whereas an ideal situation would obviously be druggers and zero-supply users being equally as powerful and theirr ranking in the game would be dependent on their own skill. Answer 3: I would definitely prefer larger events more spaced out since buying new equipment isn't something you do all the time, having spaced out events with larger sales allows you to save up more crystals and have a spending spree when the event finally arrives, whereas with regular smaller events you would buy one or two pieces of equipment at a time which isn't so fun to me. Having them spaced out also gives a bigger sense of occasion which I think is important. Answer 1: Yes, I really liked the May Day 2017 Celebrations as always. Sales, double golds, May Day theme and of course something new to try out: The Zero Supply feature. What else could a player wish for? However, I was kind of disappointed, because the increased battlefunds didn’t apply in PRO Battles. Answer 2: When the teams were balanced, the zero supply feature was really affected by the teamwork. I had the feeling that teams have finally started cooperating, timing the attacks and using the zero supply feature smartly. Of course there were also many imbalanced battles where druggers took over the non-druggers. Non-druggers countered attacks with this new feature on times, but it kind of made druggers even stronger. It restarted the cooldowns, so they were able to use supplies for a long, long time and completely destroy the enemy team. Answer 3: Everybody likes large events with larger discounts, but who can’t resist this regular increased battle funds and double golds. It is hard to say what I prefer more. I earn lots of crystals in smaller events and save them for bigger discounts. @Captain.x Answer 1: Yes for the most part, I certainly liked the double gold box drop rate and the special missions, as a no supplies player I didn't like the increased battle fund as it was only in non pro battles which tend to have less funds on their own, playing Pro no-supplies battles was still more rewarding . Answer 2: It was an intersteaing feature, it gave rise to new tactics such as using it to get out of difficult situations, rescuing a team mate, or simply boosting near by friendly tanks then make a push to achieve objectives When it comes to balance in team battles, sometimes it seemed to balance things out since both druggers and non druggers had a couple of minutes of free supplies, other times druggers seemed to have a much bigger advantage since they get to use the feature more often, resulting in spawn killings, huge wins, and a huge difference in Kill/Death ratios In DM battles there was no boosting by other tanks which gave druggers an advantage. I think if there was a limit on how many supplies a tanker can use in each 15 mins battle, such as 5 of each supply, and a slower counter for the zero supply mode it would have made supplies battles more balanced since players won't be able to abuse supplies and will need to carefully chose when to use them Answer 3: Hm, I think I would prefer to see larger events less often than what we are seeing now. Conclusion Phew! We have just blitzed another event review! May Day was an interesting, if largely unoriginal event. I think Tanki should spend time making the important celebrations more fulfilling and simply keep the smaller holidays to just a holiday paint and a few small discounts perhaps. Let's hope we get more double funds for Tanki's Birthday, because they were super fun! Many thanks to all the players who contributed with their feedback on this event, I'm very appreciative. Thanks for reading! _________________________________________________________________________________________ How did you find May Day 2017? Do you think that the "ZERO-S" Supply feature should be implemented permanently? Feel free to post your opinions below! That's all from me!

As usual, I have no money for the Premium Bundle. <_<

- Application to join the Footballers' Corner - Nickname: @Savage Favorite Player(s): Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Gareth Bale, Callum Robinson Favorite Club(s): Spurs, Preston NE Favorite Country(ies): England, Wales Let's hope we can take this all the way :D

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