Couldn't find the edit date on the Wiki page but anyway, inb4 Smoky coconuts:

PSA for Shaft from ye old vets For those sniping with any Shaft alt other than LCs, and especially for HCs / RFM: Tap "P" once* and let go of the spacebar at the same time to cancel sniping mode, retain your current energy gauge, and avoid alerting the enemy that you have fired. Hard to master since Shaft recharges so fast anyway, but it can make the difference between a dead flagbearer / extra kill / point defense and failure. Use SBE over LC if you want to quickscope but still want the potential to kill medium hulls in one-shot, or can't afford to let the target use RK While I hate RFM hit-and-run style, it is still 10x more reliable at doing Duplet's job *Only works on flash version

True, but in a post-Hornet OD world both still need to get relatively close. Without even the Titan dome there will still be people with Defenders and Mk7(+) Modules whom you have to 1-on-1 right after the other if you didn't get them all first with 1 use of Hunter / Wasp OD. And Viking, well... needs a lot of setup and leg room to maximize. Hornet's OD ignores all that and simply dances around the mechanics; after its nerf, it will be much harder to consistently get through all those defenses yourself, instead having to rely more on teamwork in MMS (*gasp*) Personally, I would rather just do away with the ignore mechanics of Hornet and just give it a flat damage boost like a stackable DD so low rankers also reap the benefit while undrugged.

This is a very tall order to fulfill considering how TO has shifted its direction toward a "checks-and-balances" system similar to RTS games. Hull Overdrives, Modules, Drones, and Augments were made exactly so people HAVE to choose the right equipment in order to be efficient in battles, or else lose without a fighting chance. However, the real problem in such a system arises when certain equipment combinations become too viable in too many situations. A glaring example would be the Hornet + [any non-melee turret] + Defender / Crisis meta - it can speedily cruise over any MMS map, hits like a truck on OD, and has its one weakness in armor offset by the drone. It can bypass most other ODs by either running away from it with ease or overwhelming the opponent before or even during their OD. It is no wonder that people who have even the slightest knowledge of statistics and min-maxing will flock to this perfect combination of speed, offense, and defense then call it a day. Suppose Hornet OD gets fixed in such a way that the piercing damage is considerably nerfed or even removed. The next question would be, "How in the hell are we going to get through all those 50% modules with Defender camping by the Titan dome?" I would happily nominate for a Nobel Prize the person that can address that without opening up another Pandora's Box. But anyway, Hear me out on this one and don't laugh just yet. TO is notorious for ignoring its playerbase's opinions, but they will never ignore cold, hard statistics - revenue, online player count, and whatever else profile parameters they snuck into the MMS algorithm. It is also common knowledge that most balance patches nowadays are done with the intent of promoting a new equipment meta, followed by a nerf once enough sales have been made. Therefore, I will play by TO's buff-cycle game and continue to "abuse" the Hornet meta. If enough people (read: everyone) just got it over with and switched to Hornet for at least a whole day or two, their Marketing Dept. will know something's up. Here in Tanki Online, change on part of the community does not come without swift, decisive, and collective action.

Please do elaborate on this "potential" defense. Do you mean by destroying the user before they get a jump on you? There are so many open variables at play here. Let's assume then they are on a Hornet steamrolling through your base. If so, then it simply comes back to whoever can reliably deal the most damage in the shortest amount of time while minimizing received damage. What equipment can do all this? You guessed. Keep in mind that an Mk7+ RFM on Hornet OD before the hotfix could potentially deal 2.1k damage before DD within 810 ms. In that same span of time a Gauss can at most deal 830 before DD, or get a bit less than half a lock-on, while the current Mk7+ Vulcan can deal ~713 damage if all shots land. My main complaint when making this topic is that before the hotfix an RFM shaft could literally spawnlock anybody without even a split-second warning should they come close, or just snipe to the same effect if you run far away. No amount of skill would have saved you when you spawned in front of an Overdriven RFM Hornet, only a maxed booster and/or timely Hornet OD on your part (or teammates') will. You may continue to discredit my stance on the basis of my background all you like, but the truth behind my complaint still stands. So long as TO supports / doesn't fix their broken idea of balance, we will continue to see the same narratives and situations about the Haves and Have-Nots on either side of the equipment meta. On a final note, I should have indeed copy-pasted my main post and put it under my neglected Brigadier account Vermilion from 2017. Maybe then you would have been more likely to agree rather than cry hypocrite, even when all is said and done on this alt.

Ok, let's dissect this critique point by point: Here is a different perspective. If even maxed-out buyers like myself are assembling in the forum to complain about these half-second kill metas, something has obviously gone wrong somewhere. And that is this game's ludicrous idea of "balance", which had been steadily crumbling since October 2016 into the cesspool that is Hornet OD + [insert newest buffed turret here]. And here is my history with the game: Played on and off since 2011 on many other accounts, starting as an F2P with Longcat970 then scaling up to this current alt Played enough hours to do an RTL at least four times and reliving the low, mid and high ranks on said alts but in different "meta" climates Sunk well over $2000 and an equivalent amount of hours on said accounts spread over the years, allowing me to play with almost every equipment combo and assess their relative strengths / weaknesses Lived through controversies such as the 2012 global rebalance + garage refund, economy rework, countless MU and turret balance changes (*cough* Shaft laser and penetration removal), alterations, MMS implementation, Shop / Tankoin overhaul, etc. Owned an M3 Hammer, Vulcan, and Striker on the same day of their release and seen their power level arbitrarily change over time Been a Shaft-Hornet main throughout the years and played with the OGs such as ShadowVisions, Stinger911, Vikingsrall, Contaminated, cheap_plastic_flower, [...] all of whom had different perspectives on the declining state of TO I have just as much experience as you playing this game from beginning to end, if not more. I know perfectly well my place in the game's balance and that profile checkers like you will quickly point fingers and cry hypocrite without understanding the nuances of my position, hence why I made this topic. My three cents: This alt was made to main Vulcan and Gauss. There is little to no point in buying the same equipment in similar Mk lvls for different alts. I already had Vulcan long before the OP rework update, and Gauss in the first 2 weeks of its release. Would you believe me that it was pure luck they won the buff-cycle lottery while I was trying them? Probably not, because you would rather focus on how -I- break the game, and not the development decisions that give rise to it in the first place. The power I have in battles is still limited by the parameters imposed by the devs, no matter if I drop $0 or $10000 on the shop. And even then, some random bloke with Hornet OD and any long range turret can just poof me away with a tap on Shift and two on Spacebar. And how do you counter this? You suck it up and join the meta - kill them before they kill you. How is it -my- fault or other buyers' that such powerful buffs end up being in the game? The devs always have the final say in what is OP or not with each new patch. I am no less victim to their whims as you are. All we can do as players is to adopt the latest in the buff-cycle as prescribed by our TO overlords, or simply respawn again and again until you somehow gain spectator mode at -0.00 K/D. For the same reason you say it's bad because people who adopt the meta just to stay relevant in-game are "breaking your game." I'll explain it to you in simpler terms - I'm complaining from this position because riding the meta is the only way to be competitive in the last 4 ranks of the game, which if you didn't already know are filled with 20/20 Defenders, Boosters, 50% protections, Titan domes, unlimited drugs, and other meta-Hornets that know how to deal with your and your whole team in more ways than one. Is that the players' fault? I don't think so. It is more the will of Hazel the Omniscient than anything. Only half-right. This game has become literally unplayable as a consequence of devs' half-baked attempt at providing novelty to disgruntled buyers on the verge of quitting.

Honestly all parameters of this turret are already good... except the delay between shots, which is a bit too long considering the fire rate of other turrets at similar ranges. Using Slugger on my other account allowed me to get much more score in battle than any other hammer alt since I could stay alive longer at a distance.

Since there is a trend of melee range turrets being able to inflict status effects (I consider Isida's healing to be the same as Repair effect), I predict this Tesla turret will have an innate EMP ability that may mimic either of Hunter's effects, but not both.

Most of the patch seems to be reasonable, but the Hornet OD question still remains. The slight Twins DPS and Viking OD buff seems a bit random, but I'm guessing it's prep for when Ares and Tesla drop. Only time will tell...

The only thing luck has to do with Hornet OD is for them to roll low on their turret's damage range so that you survive with <5% HP. Skill? The only skill involved with Hornet OD is point-and-shoot, hide while reloading. Which is what you normally do with other hulls anyway, minus the immediate carnage.

Since the advent of status effect indicators on HTML5 there is little to no reason why you should be surprised when you die next to a charging Mammoth. Even on Flash without the fancy OD indicators it should be common sense to keep your distance from a Mammoth. You know what makes me furious though? I have all these decked out protections and Defender under a Titan dome with spawn protection on, and I STILL VANISH WITHOUT WARNING because of a stupid OD that can be used anytime anywhere with anything.

I added a 2-wk poll to gather opinions about the current state of ODs in the game (especially Hornet). Also, please refrain from going off-topic. We are here to discuss the impact of the newest equipment meta on the game, not gold-digging and drop zone etiquette.

What the actual fah? ...Ok, please outrun an RFM Shaft / Rail / Gauss on Hornet and we will believe you.

Use either Twins + Heavy Plasmagun / Striker + Cyclone or Uranium and Defender on Ares, thank me later when it drops on the main servers.

This patch update dropped at the same time as the discount weekend. If you put two and two together, it's not hard to see that they are pushing a new meta for people to buy into, should they not have it yet. The only shred of subtlety that can be gleaned here is that there was no front page banner announcing the update.

Yes, it has been a pain for a while but at least there is a significant damage penalty to sniping damage and a longer window (1.5s) to unload all 3 shots. That meant they moved more predictably, having to get close before they wreaked havoc (almost nobody used sniping mode on RFM before this patch). But now Shaft has received a base 40% recharge buff, and RFM's major weaknesses have been removed. Now they can run to and fro, unload at least 2.1k into you in ~0.5s, AND have a faster recharge, plus snipe you if you get away.

It seems there was a ninja "BaLaNcE" patch last Thursday which I only became painfully aware of when slugging it out in MM battles today. I noticed an unnaturally high number of Shafts out and about, mostly with RFM, Hornet, and Defender / Booster. Huh, must be just MMS shenanigans again, I thought. Boy, was I wrong. Not only did it seem to fire much faster than before, they seemed to be taking sniped shots like they were playing with LCs! Even with my EMP Gauss / Hornet OD / Defender, these guys effectively spawnlocked me the whole game. They deleted me in the blink of an eye if I got within 60m of them, and sniped me dead before I could even strip their supplies with the charged shot! Even then, I'm still dead because my Hornet is eating 3300 unmitigated damage no matter what because of their OD. The only way I could fight back was to play stealthy and catch them by surprise... that is, if I could get out of my base before they locked it down with their absurdly fast-charging Hornet ODs. Luckily they had no EMP protection so I could at least slow them down, but if they did, they would virtually be little Godmode_ONs. I thought Vulcan and Gauss was bad, but this is a whole 'nother world of evil. This new meta is almost perfectly capable of murdering anybody at any range, only limited by how many tanks it engages with at once. For the love of god, something ought to be done with either RFM or Hornet OD at the very least!

Theoretically speaking, yes. Being a PvP game, someone has to lose in order for someone to win - it's a zero-sum equation. But since we're talking statistics here, the reality is that distribution of wins and losses won't be as smooth and linear as win > loss > win > loss > [...]. Especially when equipment plays a massive role in tilting the balance. From the perspective of a data analyst, it will look like typical random clusters. But as far as players are concerned, it's a game design problem when it happens too frequently to the point of annoyance. I will tell you the problem with a losing team. First look at this: You should be able to tell the Red Team lost due to the star distribution. Now look at the score differences and the battle funds awarded. The more scores you get, the higher the payout. How are you going to score? By destroying, capping, or doing assist actions - a.k.a. "dominating." When you and your teammates dominate, it also has a nice side effect of making your team win. Now here is a question. How high of a score can you get in a match where you and your teammates are getting spawn-killed every 10-20 seconds by Vulcan-Hornet-Defenders or EMP Gauss-Boosters? Still think payouts will be the same for you and your poor buddies that only managed to get <200 score by the time the dust settles? How will you feel when you can't do anything meaningful for 3 games in a row, let alone enjoy TO as a "fun gaming experience"? As for stars, you can earn them all you want in the losing team. But then you have to ask yourself in the long term - would I rather earn 6 stars trying hard and getting bent the whole match, or earn 6 stars and more crystals minus the frustration? So there is a quitters issue. Why do people quit MMS games in the first place? To you, it's cowardly way to cycle into rigged matches to "dominate". What I see is a refusal to play by Tanki's cannon-fodder system of placing an obviously stacked death-squad against moving score tanks in the name of buyer retention. When team composition is already broken at match start, players can't be blamed 100% for turning down a sure beating. Who in their right mind even stays in a blowout match and says they enjoyed playing in intervals of <4 seconds inbetween respawns? Here's the thing. MMS is designed to put players into unwinnable fights and guaranteed victories regardless of how geared or skilled they are, making it a pure gamble whether you get to do well or not. Granted in other games there are some battles that just can't be turned around, but here in TO the one-sidedness just gets plain disgusting and downright un-fun. You can try P2W'ing your way and it does help improve your chances... until you get put by yourself in a dysfunctional team against your same kind. At the end of the day, you are entitled to believe whatever opinion you have of my attitude to the game. Although, you have to wonder if it's really just my personal bias when time and again we see people echoing the same sentiments against the travesty that is the slot machine MMS.

I find MMS is actually very smart, in the same way a slot machine is configured to keep unsuspecting players coming back for the occasional jackpot. You lose 3 / 4 games but the one time you do dominate the game, you get a nice payout and a rush to play more. This is the reason why most of the time there are mega-buyers + super drone druggers on one team and mults / hopelessly undergeared f2ps on the other. Sometimes there will be that one tryhard carrier too, but the battle is already decided by the time the buyers all spawn with Crisis / Booster / Defender at 06:45. So... Improve MMS? What is there to improve? So long as the buyers get their bullying fix, there is no lost profit. And as long as there is a gray technical area where devs can simply say, "just your luck," "not enough players of your kind online now," or god forbid "sometimes you have to lose too," there will be no compromise. Keep in mind too that the devs are swamped with HTML5 development, Flash maintenance, Ares / Tesla and a myriad other shiny things nobody asked for, all with the goal of buyer retention at this point in the game's lifecycle. Before MMS gets any improvement (if at all, considering how well it works right now for the buyer$), all these updates have got to be finished first with an accompanying explosion in new player numbers. Sounds like a dream? Exactly.

Clever update to clean out everyone who benefit from the M2 10/10 > Mk7 conversion update from a while back. Otherwise, it's a way to shovel more cannon fodder to the high rank buyers ?

Careful what you say there, devs might next give Striker the same treatment as Vulcan based on their "unpopular turrets" statistics. Ares and new turret are coming soon which may / may not delay a BaLaNcE uPdAtE, but rest assured, TO is always looking for ways to monetize recycled stuff.

New turret just looks like an Ultra Isida that shoots like a Twins... but the projectiles have a proximity Isida effect. Can we also get a new Ultra Striker that shoots big cluster missiles that break up into smaller homing rockets? How about a Magnum that shoots shells but they fragment in the air raining down a hail of explosive shrapnel when they come down? The possibilities are endless, turrets shooting little familiars of themselves! Ingenuity +100 ?????

I was ready to believe this topic until I got to the 4th sentence. Expected some comparative data between TO Youtubers' drops and the average players, but again, just indignity like 95% of this forum. Move along, people.

How to win 99.9% of your battles after this update: Pray you get an Adrenaline augment for a turret* that can self damage (Crisis drone is nice bonus) Use either Hornet to ignore every buyers' defenses, or Mammoth to instantly heal to 100% in an emergency (need good reflex) Damage yourself enough to be killed by 1 undrugged twins shot (helper isidas can adjust your HP) Use DD on Crisis/Booster and camp the enemy team out of the battle ??? PROFIT *For maximum benefit use either Gauss or Magnum

It's hard to have an opinion on something that doesn't technically exist yet, but hover ability on a heavy hull, hm, sounds counterproductive.