Honestly right now for me Shaft seems to do best with Adrenaline because I run it stock most of the time. I can concede for sure on the Smoky aspect though. I think it might not be the most efficient with Firebird because the best alt for Firebird is Incendiary Mix (if you are going the meta route ?) and Firebirds often don't survive for long at low health (cause they have to take damage to attack oftentimes). That means you will probably only get the effect for a VERY short period. Shaft doesn't suffer from this, so it seems like a great candidate overall. I can survive with Shaft and have low health plenty of the time. At that point, you are just getting free extra damage, therefore more killshots and less non-lethal ones.

This is why I wouldn't make them free. They are already very easy to get. Just remove drones and many of the supply related issues will be solved. Before drones, things were relatively balanced in terms of supply power imo. Cosmic, I meant buying ultra containers to get Crisis. You buy enough, you'll eventually get it.

Balance is more appealing in the long run yes. The people who feed off the imbalance are buyers because they can keep up and subjugate those who can't as cannon fodder. The way you attract players who are still insane buyers to play a game that isn't imbalanced is by creating features that are legitimately interesting and which everyone can take part in. People will be willing to spend money on what they enjoy. You can have fun in the game without destroying every player. The game is fun even when it is balanced, so that will bring in those willing to buy paints and spend crystals to get better faster. The keyword here is "faster". A balanced game should not allow the guy with the fattest wallet to be objectively better. It should only allow him to get to the finish line faster. The game is so imbalanced right now that if you are a buyer you just get Hornet/Fire immunity/Vulcan/Magnum/Gauss/Thunder/Rail and get all of the OP alts for them, buy Defender and Crisis, tons of supplies, and you automatically have an advantage not based upon experience or skill but based on parameters. The way they can fix the game is by removing these cancerous updates, which will automatically alleviate some of the stress put on f2p players. I think if they do it slowly enough they won't lose their buyers either. At the same time, they need to introduce updates which make the game genuinely better. If you look WAY back in the articles on the website, you will see that years ago many of the updates were designed to fix bugs and things like cheating. They also legitimately tried to balance the game. They added new modes, like Control Points. There was even a huge rebalance where the whole garage was refunded. IT IS POSSIBLE TO RESCIND UPDATES!

Yes, and yes about the devs I think. The community for the game is pretty good though, at least on the forum. I don't think supplies should be free, just that they should remove drones and things that make them get chewed through so fast. Playing normally (without drones) it is actually not that easy to go through a ton of supplies if you use them cleverly. The problem right now is playing normally gets you destroyed by buyers with Defender. Hull augments - removed Drones - removed Augments being upgrades - removed Game balance - unremoved Html5 bugs - removed Augment prices - balanced Hornet Overdrive - balance EMP Gauss - Added to the garage for crystals and nerfed hard. Lower the prices in the shop and start selling only skins and aesthetic changes (paints) Add kits back to the Garage!! Lower insane rank disparity that makes it so the midranks are impossible (kits in garage at 3 star rank, kits in shop at 2 star rank only is a better system). I don't think I will ever advance my alt account because if I do the midranks are going to be a horrific grind. Kits were my savior on my KamiGT account. Pro battles are dead, and that was by far the best way to grind crystals and xp without getting murdered by buyers. Used to play tons of Polygon CP, there is usually only one going on right now, used to be about 5.

Yes, pretty much it.

That's good, not many people seem to use Vulcan because they actually love it anymore. Probably not at high ranks, anyway.

@Sacrifice, where did FogOfWar's posts get moved to? I can't find them now, and I'd like to read them.

You are incredible. Great job, not even close to sure how you do it. Nice job Tide, I now respect your shaft game even more.

I'd give you that title, but you've been playing vulcan for about 1/7th of the amount of time he has been playing shaft. And used twice as many drugs. Do you use Vulcan because you love it or because it is meta?

Oh, and the fact that you play more efficiently than me with ONLY Shaft.

I like your minimalistic account build, FogOfWar. You are clearly super disciplined in the way which you upgrade and plan. Hard to believe you can make it so far with only Shaft.

Well, I just realized something which fits this topic perfectly. For anyone who uses their turret in the standard form (no alteration) and the standard form only, an AMAZING buy from the standpoint of upgrade value (not actual price) is the adrenaline alteration. It is a huge buff for free whenever you are low health. For 122,500 cry (50% sale), it seems like this is pretty good value for Legends or those with the means to get it. I wouldn't suggest it for melee turrets, as you are normally taking damage when fighting with them, but I would suggest it for Smoky and Shaft because both I use without alterations basically 100% of the time. Smoky may have better alterations, I haven't tested. Shaft seems like the perfect candidate because of camping, allowing you to take full advantage of not dying.

That's exactly what I am saying Congo. The devs haven't balanced the immunities against the lack thereof, which is what they should be doing. Alts/augments should alter gameplay, not improve it. That means that the standard version of any piece of equipment should be able to keep up relatively well against that piece of equipment with alterations. As of now, not at all true. Take Hammer for example. Hammer is generally far better with the slugger alteration, and now that it was given out in the challenge, it is far more popular, likely because it is a direct improvement. It has a drawback (turret rotation), but that barely affects anything. Immunities are like this but far worse. The point I was making is not that you will still be vulnerable against turrets other than Firebird, it was that you are far better off vs players who don't have any immunity equipped. Hmm... There are six paywall locked augments per hull. 48 in total. The chance of getting the one you want is roughly 1/48. You can get three containers a week from daily missions. According to the great DaringDeer container project, there is a 1.14% chance of getting a hull augment. This is shown at a data resolution of 2463 containers opened. I think the data may be at least slightly inaccurate because hull alts did not exist when this was started iirc. But, we can reason from this information that with a (1/100 chance of getting a hull alt) * (1/48 chance of getting the one you want) = 1/4800 chance of getting the hull alt you want!! Now, 1/4800 doesn't seem like the sort of odds that get you anything quickly... I mean, at 3 containers a week, it'll only take 30 years (1600 weeks) of weekly mission rewards to get the item you want!! I guess I'll get Viking Heat Immunity by the time I'm 47. Imagine how dead TO will be then ?

They actually announced in the Vlog #216 (Tankoin announcement) that you are supposed to be able to get any item without paying. AKA, grind for 5 years to buy one immunity. Seems a bit ridiculous to me! I guess they don't think we realize this. Not everyone who plays tanki cannot understand the implications of these things... For anyone in the US, the situation with these updates seems to closely parallel the mail-in voting battle currently going on, simply a poorly made Trojan horse for voter suppression.

I disagree. The standard version of each piece of equipment should be able to keep up (hence the term alteration) and the fact that the statement says things will be balanced. With two Firebird/Hornets, the one with Heat Immunity is certainly far better off than the one without. Don't forget that with 6 weekly containers a week MAX, it would take 277 weeks or roughly 5 yrs to get a single stupid immunity. Doesn't seem balanced to me, certainly not in terms of economy...

If you take a good long look at games like Clash Royale, the devs ACTUALLY are responsible about balancing the game and seek to make revenue by having a legitimately popular game. They attract players by making a balanced and fun game, and get money in small microtransactions. To juxtapose this, we have Tanki Online, in which you can spend between $50-$100 USD on a few items or even a single item. I think people are far more likely to buy a $20 USD chest bundle thing in CR as opposed to a $120 USD bundle with Ares mk2, fire/freeze resistance, and 150 ultra containers. Small transactions are probably where it's at, and Tanki largely lacks those. In Tanki, they have applied the philosophy that they will make things wildly unbalanced, and instead of selling small gameplay enhancements or aesthetic changes, they will sell massive advantages with very high price tags attached. The problem with this is that although both systems have the potential to work, one actually benefits all players (promoting balance, small transactions) and one ruins the game for everyone playing except a select few who make sure to keep their "silver spoon in hand" at all times. Honestly it probably isn't even much fun for buyers anymore, as spending $50 dollars here and there really adds up and could be spent on much more rewarding things in real life. That is, unless most buyers are younger kids (8-15 ish) who aren't responsible for actually procuring any of the money they spend. Then it's all fun and games...

Hah!! what is this lie?! I was just looking around on the forum when I read this on the augments page: "Augments are modifiers that allow a player to alter gameplay features of turrets and hulls while keeping them within the overall game's balance. For example, an augment can weaken one characteristic in favor of strengthening another one." So, the wiki writers/devs/whoever promotes this rhetoric claim that the augments actually keep balance... What is the drawback of fire immunity?? What is the drawback of the adrenaline augment, which is simply a direct buff to damage? The only "weakness" of these augments is the fact that you are potentially not using an EVEN LESS BALANCED ONE. I.e. using the adrenaline alt on Firebird as opposed to using the incendiary mix alt which is arguably the most broken with Firebird when paired with Hornet OD or just in general (500 damage per tick roughly with DD). By the way, at full value, Firebird M4 with DD and Incendiary Mix does 2100 dps. In the ten seconds of shooting time it gets, it can go through five heavy hulls.

That's why I said I'm dropping this here, it isn't mine, I haven't read it all etc. It's just food for thought and intended to create discussion.

Congo, I look at it as a benefit (no splash I mean) because if you want splash you just go for the snipe shot. This is also where you will get the most value from the splash BY FAR, which is why it makes sense to give the alt this in the interest of making it powerful. For example, in Siege, you will not go for a snipe shot on 1-2 enemies necessarily, so splash will be less useful. But, when 6 players group around the point being captured, it will be easy to lock on for sub 2 seconds and hit them all with massive damage. Basically, I think EMP gauss covers its own weaknesses very well. Remember, it literally functions as a better stock Smoky from what I compared. In short, I just think you should have looked at this more holistically because in that situation it doesn't seem like a negative at all.

Ares is... pretty terrible. I was wondering what others would think of it, I had tested it on the test server days in advance and thought it was bad the whole time, I guess most agree. Funny thing happened on the test server today. I made a new acc, went to the mission tab, and I kid you not there was one of those things to collect with 500 ultra containers, with the title as "Token of apology" and the message "We've messed up the game for a long time" or something along those lines ? Too bad the devs aren't "testing" this to actually give to players... The caption sure holds true. Thought I'd drop this here, it isn't mine but it is a long list of ideas about possible improvements. The thread it was in got shut down, so it'll never see the light of day (which I thought would be a shame because it looks like it took him a really long time to write) unless it gets posted somewhere else. I haven't read it all yet. By HUNTER_SMOKER

Are you advocating pay-to-win? Because it sounds very much like you are advocating for a pay-to-win system right now... Don't you see anything wrong with that?

Soo.... Are you sure of this?? Where is your evidence? I would say the game itself is a good indicator of this, but it hasn't been proven in any way, so why are you stating it as if it is fact?? The architecture of the game seems to be bad, I agree. HTML5 does run better on my computer, but it crashes a ton and does some weird stuff, such as basically random self destructs when I jump off something.

I agree! On a different note, I am starting to believe two things about the horrible state of TO currently: Alternativa has clearly replaced their developers that they had a few years ago with monkeys, which are of course responsible for all of this horrible lack of balance in game. Smoky has become completely useless in favor of EMP gauss for all intents and purposes. This disgusts me as Smoky is one of my favorite turrets in the game. To go into more depth on my reasoning behind the latter (the first has been clear for a while now), I will compare some of the stats between the two turrets. For these purposes, assume that we are comparing M4s. Damage Smoky: 420-650 Gauss: 580-830 DPS: Smoky: 300-464 Gauss: 386-553 Reload Smoky: 1.40 Gauss: 1.50 Other Factors To Consider Gauss gets the massively damaging sniping shot with a lock-on time of 1.70 seconds and a reload of 1.50 seconds. Gauss gets no self damage/splash on the arcade, and gets splash on the snipe shot. Gauss has supply disabling ability. Gauss gets a large projectile speed buff. Smoky gets an instant shot. Smoky gets no self damage/splash. Smoky gets a critical shot roughly every 5 shots that deals 800 dmg. Same range on both. So, in conclusion, WHAT IN THE HELL IS THIS?!?!? EMP gauss has almost no drawbacks compared to Smoky. These horrible programmers we call developers have no idea how to balance a game. Instead, they paywall a direct buff to the most powerful turret in the game (for EVERY purpose). This exactly meets the definition of pay to win. This garbage we once called Tanki should be renamed Gauss Online. Oh, and did I mention that Hornet and drones only make this problem worse?! The same people who are dumb enough to spend $46.99 USD are also going to be the ones willing to buy batteries and max out the most overpowered drones in the game. Surprise, they also love HORNET! When you combine all these factors (I have tested this on the test server), the game requires zero skill. Just pop supplies and Hornet overdrive, and you will be getting kills at a rate of about one every 5 seconds. "Tanki is dead, and Gauss killed it."

They're called M0, M1, M2, M3, and M4. M4 is a max MUed M3. Same look for that reason (between M4 and M3 I mean).

I agree with most of this. I would not say that Micro upgrades are that hard to get, and I think the F2P aspect was very alive in 2014. I would've described the game as very grindy but also quite enjoyable and playable back then. I think it has shifted to being a not outright pay-to-win but quite pay-to-win on a de facto basis. As someone who had a higher ranked account for the past few years (at least for the last two years or so I have had m3s because I got 3 kits from the garage at the three star rank) many of these changes have not affected me nearly as much as mid rank players especially. The low rank people have been largely shielded from these garbage updates, but once they hit the middle ranks I bet a huge amount will stop playing. That seems to be the most imbalanced rank range in the game. I'm just happy I was able to get kits that actually were GREAT value from the garage before the horrible update which removed them. That was probably the most f2p killing update of all. I definitely think Hull augments count as a paid feature, and so do drones. The biggest problem with the dumb drones is that they require batteries and consume ridiculous amounts of supplies. I saw a buyer once named Mr.Worship in an MM battle, and he was using Defender. He told me he had gone through 4,000 double armors in one day using it. This is definitely not something I would consider to be F2P when it can consume supplies that fast. The challenges are also becoming somewhat pay to win because all the good items are locked behind the pass and to get to the 50th tier premium is close to necessary (the only way I ever got a challenge done was because I got 10 days prem. from a container TWICE in a row in the same week, also had abt 400 tankoins saved so I was able to get Hornet heat immunity). I miss the old VLOGs and Semyon Kirov. EDIT: Also @asem.harbi for the sake of your sanity and your account during these especially bad times to play, I would suggest not playing the game outside of completing your missions each day, after changing them to make them less grindy and quicker. Build up your nest egg, and wait to spend for either a big sale or when your dream kit comes around. I'd stay away from any heavy hulls in today's meta, they don't seem to be a good investment. For med and light, I suggest Hornet and Hunter. As far as turrets I wouldn't pick Isida or Freeze (I like both but they are pretty unbalanced in a weak way) but anything else should work, just pick something that can be used in all maps. Work on collecting a large drug stash, you will need thousands. Try to play in such a way that you always get a few drugs instead of losing some. Upgrade your protections as much as you can on sales also. Try to stick to abt three turrets or less, maybe going with a short/med/long range build. Good luck, and go enjoy your summer!!