@Akame Flexing a scoreboard screenshot while running Shaft Hopper completely exposes your entire bias and invalidates your lectures on close range combat. You are flying around the map with the most broken, high-mobility escape-tool in the game and you have the nerve to tell a defensive Viking player holding a base that close range defense is "easy" and that they should just stop "coping." Try defending a baseline flag against a coordinated rush without your flying monkey crutch and let's see how much you laugh then. Listing your six historical nerfs doesn't make you a balance guru, it just shows you are trying to derail the thread away from concrete numbers.. Nobody cares about your past adaptation timeline. We are discussing the current state of the matchmaker where base sniper damage was chopped and the arcade mode was turned into a turtle-slow tractor with very low damage.. You keep bringing up Light Capacitor and status augments as if every regular player is obligated to play according to your personal garage standards. You claim status augments are fine because you and "several other players" can make them work.. That is the definition of a privileged forum bubble.. A weapon shouldn't require a specific high-tier augment or a paid drone setup just to achieve basic, standalone functionality on the battlefield... Remember this firs of all.. You are not a developer, and nobody here needs to justify their garage or playstyle to you.. The developers gutted this turret's defensive capability, turning it into an easy kill for aggressive rushers and elitists like you are celebrating it because it makes your own preferred setups safer on the map... You and your circle of like-minded voters can keep laughing and dropping "TL;DR" insults all you want. It won’t change the factual reality that Shaft has been reduced to an obsolete liability at a distance and target practice at close range.

@THRN I really appreciate this highly constructive and realistic take on the matter my friend... You hit the nail on the head, especially with your final point. Your idea about hitting the turret acting as a "headshot" to destroy a medium hull is an excellent concept.. I completely understand what you mean because I am someone who has spent matches precisely hitting hidden Magnum players right on the tip of their barrels across the battlefield. That level of high-skill precision should be rewarded, which is exactly what a true sniper turret should be about, rather than forcing us into spamming weak arcade shots because our baseline capabilities were destroyed... and I completely agree with you on the compensation aspect. The current 5-second window for assist points is an absolute joke. If I put a heavy high-risk shot into an enemy and half-destroy their HP, I should be fairly rewarded for that contribution to the team whenever they drop, unless they manage to heal up. Right now, the game punishes you for doing the heavy lifting while giving all the credit and score to whoever lands the last basic hit. Thank you for bringing actual logic and interesting ideas to this thread instead of just toxic forum spam

@neet Telling a player to "just stick with what you have and wait for a container drop" is the most anti-player balancing advice you could possibly give.. I am discussing the mechanical viability of accessible gear right now, not sitting around waiting for a 1-in-1,000 RNG lottery win to make my turret functional again.. Your comparison to Firebird is completely brainless. Firebird doesn't need long-range capabilities because it has massive, melting damage and high speed to close the distance.. Shaft is supposed to be a long-range turret, YES, but when its sniper damage is heavily reduced and its close range defense is completely destroyed, it fails at BOTH roles. You are left with a slow weapon that cannot properly punish medium hulls at a distance and gets easily farmed by any rushing hull at close range.. If a sniper is weak at a distance and turned into a defenseless target practice at close range, it's not a functional weapon anymore..it's a liability. Your logic is what's baffling here.

@Acecaddy Thank you for seeing the bigger picture here. You made an excellent point While they are completely stripping away Shaft's ability to hold a line or stop a rusher, other turrets are still running around with insane one-shot capabilities against light hulls. It shows a massive inconsistency in how the developers balance the game.. If the goal was to reduce instant-kill metas, it should have been applied fairly across the board, rather than selectively destroying the only defensive deterrent a sniper has. Appreciate your constructive input.

@LambSauce Calling a post "low effort AI" just because you are incapable of formulating a proper logical counterargument regarding game balance is a text-book definition of derailment.. I shared actual numbers, math, and an actual screenshot from my own garage. There is nothing "low effort" about pointing out the broken mechanics of a turret that affects regular players. If you have nothing valuable or constructive to add to the discussion about Shaft's balance, then do not post here just to summon the moderators because your feelings got hurt. The topic here is the Shaft nerf, the ruined arcade reload, and the 4,990 Ruby paywall for status augments. Talk about the game or move along.

@Akame Starting your comment with "Whole lotta yap" just shows you lack real arguments and have to rely on cheap toxicity. If you can’t handle a structured balance debate without getting emotional, maybe don't reply. First of all, how I got my Stellarator was pure luck from an Epic container (RNG), not a choice. Second, your obsession with telling me to use EMP, Stun, or Healing just proves you don't understand the reality of matchmaking.. Look closely at my screenshot: things like Incendiary or Freezing are locked behind a 4,990 Ruby paywall that I don't own... And the status augments I do have are completely useless for a defensive solo player because they gut Shaft's raw damage. If I run Stun or Jamming, I am just running a charity service for my team-applying an effect, getting no kill and no crystals, while leaving myself 100% defenseless with a turtle-slow turret rotation and a pathetic 300-500 arcade damage. Let's address your garage-philosophy about my combo.. You stalked my profile, saw Viking and made lazy assumptions. I do have a maxed Booster drone, but unlike P2W whales, my supplies do not fall from the sky. Running Booster constantly drains your drug supplies in no time, forcing regular players to run Saboteur to manage resources.. Your entire argument is based on the elite, detached mindset that everyone can blindly burn max supplies and run rare status setups every second. Stellarator was the defensive backbone for average players to push back against aggressive rushers. Dropping its damage to +300% while ruining the base arcade reload turns the turret into an absolute liability. I am living in the reality of the actual matchmaker where Shaft is currently being used as target practice. You are living in a theoretical bubble wrapped in premium items. Keep your garage philosophy to yourself.

@neet You are completely detached from the reality of a regular player. Let me show you what the garage of a non-whale actually looks like. Those status augments you love to rank on your imaginary tier list? They are locked behind a 4,990 Ruby paywall or impossible container RNG. Telling me to just "use them" is a joke. I have to rely on what is accessible—Stellarator and SBE—both of which were just gutted. Furthermore, your idea that status effects are "more than enough" is mechanically useless on the battlefield. If I run a status augment with Shaft's current nerfed state, I am just acting as a charity worker for my teammates. I freeze or jam an enemy, my team gets the kill and the crystals, while I get left behind with zero score, a turtle-slow turret rotation, and a pathetic 300-500 arcade damage. Shaft cannot win a close-range fight now, period.. While I am waiting a literal lifetime to reload a single weak arcade shot, any mobile hull running, railgun, thunder, smoky, twin, vulkan, Isida, Firebird, or Freeze will melt me down 3 times over before I can even turn my turret. If a sniper is weak at long range because its damage was chopped, and completely defenseless at close range because its arcade reload is broken, it ceases to be a threat. You are defending a patch that turns a high-risk turret into an easy kill and a free point on the scoreboard for aggressive rushers. I am not playing to be target practice for your P2W setups.

@YourLovelyCrush You start by admitting that you are NOT a Shaft main and that you don't play the turret, yet you claim the nerf "feels fair." This is exactly the problem with forum balancing-players who don't face the mechanics in high-tier matches giving opinions on what is fair for a playstyle they don’t experience. So, i am ready to talk about your math and the reality of the battlefield... First, saying the damage drop from 3k to 2.8k is "fair" because it allows a medium hull to survive completely misses the entire point of a sniper turret.. Shaft is a high-risk, high-reward weapon with a massive reload penalty. If a medium hull can easily survive a fully charged, well-positioned sniper shot, the sniper becomes obsolete.. You are essentially saying that a sniper shouldn't be able to punish a medium hull for running out in the open, which destroys the strategic role of Shaft. Second, your argument about using "Booster" to hit 3k damage is a classic pay-to-win mindset. You are assuming every free-to-play player has a maxed-out drone setup and a bottomless pit of supplies to constantly burn just to make a basic sniper shot viable. Heavy and medium P2W hulls already walk around with insane defensive configurations.. Forcing a Shaft player to rely on active drone boosts just to achieve what used to be baseline damage isn't balancing-it's shifting the goalposts to favor aggressive rushers. It’s easy to say a nerf is "fair" when it makes your own preferred hulls safer on the map.. It’s especially easy for players who run around with expensive setups like the Booster drone and the Rapid augment, spamming arcade shots and pretending to be "snipers" when their entire playstyle requires zero sniper skill. But for those of us who actually main the true mechanics of Shaft, this change stripped away our only defensive deterrent. I used this turret to defend our base, hold chokepoints and provide heavy cover support so my teammates could fulfill the objective.. By destroying its high-damage defensive capability, you don't balance the game..you just turn me into another useless number on the scoreboard with a broken weapon.

@TheCongoSpider Calling it a "reshuffled parameter" or a "relative buff" is a massive stretch to justify a clear performance downgrade, and it completely ignores how a match actually plays out in reality. First, SBE didn't get "buffed" just because the base Shaft arcade became worse. That’s like saying a broken leg is a buff because the other person broke both legs.. The turret as a whole was slowed down, which inherently hurts SBE’s viability. Furthermore, comparing Shaft's arcade reload to Thunder’s 2 seconds ignores basic mechanics. Thunder has splash damage, excellent horizontal tracking and aggressive mobility.. Shaft in arcade mode has none of that. Let's look at the brutal reality on the battlefield.. if any other turret gets within half a meter of me, I am already dead. While I am stuck waiting for that slow reload, the enemy has already blasted me twice with weapons that deal far more consistent damage. Even when my shot finally reloads, a Shaft arcade hit deals a pathetic damage.. Against modern, mobile hulls, that is literally just a scratch. By making SBE an "Excelsior-lite" and a "must-pick," the developers didn't add variety; they destroyed choice. It is not a buff, it's a desperate crutch. Players are forced to use it just to make the turret semi-functional, while still being turned into target practice for every aggressive player on the map. Try playing Shaft on the front lines against an aggressive hull before calling this a "relative buff" from the safety of the garage.

Dear Community and Developers, I want to propose a simple yet essential feature that is critically missing from TO: a fully functional Direct Messaging (DM) and Invitation system for our Friend List. Right now, having someone on your friend list feels almost useless.. We have a public chat, but we lack a proper way to communicate privately and coordinate our gameplay. To fix this and significantly improve player retention and teamwork, I propose adding two major features: Offline Direct Messaging (Inbox System) Players should be able to send private messages to their friends, regardless of whether that friend is currently online or offline. If a friend is offline, the message should wait for them in a private inbox on their profile.. When they log back in, they can see the message, read the strategy or proposal and reply. This allows players to schedule times to log in and play together. Direct Map and Lobby Invitations We shouldn't have to rely on the server matchmaker to accidentally throw us into the same battle once every hundred years. There should be a direct "Invite to Battle" or "Invite to Squad/Lobby" button next to every active friend's name. Why this is vital for TO: Tanki is a team game, but currently, social interaction is severely limited.. Implementing these features would drastically elevate the quality of team play. People would socialize more, making it much easier to form clans and teams, while boosting overall engagement. It’s a standard feature in modern gaming, and it’s high time TO brings its social UI into the modern era. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and support on this.

Dear Developers and Community, I am writing this out of sheer frustration, but with cold, hard facts. The recent 2026 balance changes regarding the Shaft turret and its augments haven't balanced the game; they have completely gutted the only viable options for free-to-play (F2P) sniper players, turning us into sitting ducks against the unstoppable wave of pay-to-win (P2W) aggressive hulls. Let’s break down the math and the reality of what you just did to Shaft: 1. The "Short-band Emitter" Illusion You decreased the arcade reload penalty from +34% to +15% and probably thought you were buffing it or keeping it stable. But you conveniently forgot-or ignored-the fact that you increased Shaft's base arcade reload from 1.5s to 1.8s. In reality, this completely kills the fluid, mid-range playstyle. It’s a hidden nerf wrapped in a fake buff. 2. Destroying the Purpose of "Stellarator" Stellarator was the only tool F2P players had to stop heavily armored, aggressive hulls charging into our base like maniacs. Dropping the initial sniping damage from +380% to +300% destroys its one-shot potential. Now, a heavy hull will survive the shot, close the distance and obliterate us while we are stuck in a 100-year-long reload animation. 3. The Assist Timer Penalty (Adding Insult to Injury) Cutting the assist time from 10 to 5 seconds is a joke for a sniper turret. Shaft requires positioning and long reloads. If I land a massive shot and deal 90% damage to a target and my teammate finishes them off 6 seconds later while I am taking cover to reload, I get absolutely nothing. No points, no crystals... You are actively punishing Shaft players for doing their job. The Bigger Picture: Getting competitive augments like Rapid, Quasar or Excelsior takes forever or requires a credit card. Regular players relied on Stellarator and Short-band to stand a chance.. By ruining these two, you have left us with a turret that is slow to reload, slow to aim and rewards less than half the points it used to. I am not asking for Shaft to be overpowered.. I am just asking for it to be usable. Right now, on the battlefield, my Shaft feels like a broken tractor. Please review these numbers and give Shaft its defensive capabilities back.

That's a problem we still face and it still doesn't make any sense to have that flying crap on the battlefield with ground hulls.

Honestly my friend @Positive, what your message is saying is: If you don't accept our definition of what a tank is, then your problem is not gameplay but terminology. I’m not arguing semantics, I’m pointing out that hover tanks, by both mobility and combat outcome, don’t follow the same risk-reward logic as tracked hulls. If you call them tanks, fine.. but then balance them as tanks, not as gliders that can outmaneuver everything while still out-DPSing tracked builds. The issue isn’t the word, it’s the fact that hovering hulls ignore terrain disadvantage, rotate faster, take better defensive positions and yet suffer no significant drawback. That’s not semantics. That’s imbalance. Here are a few examples that I can publish every day, and what I'm talking about and what I'm showing, the developers know very well what I'm talking about and keep that form of injustice in circulation This is a classic case that keeps repeating itself, day after day when on the opposite side we always have these (stronger) flying objects.. the people who use it are aware that they don't need any tactics anymore, they don't need skill, they just rush around the battlefield, do some stunts and destroy everything in turn.. Or let's say this case that I'm talking about, which usually happens the most, that the players with the best GS, especially if they are flying objects, they are always on the opposite side. Should we talk about what the outcome of the game is? It's literally not playing, it's bullying and humiliating all of us who were in the blue team, because many are aware that they can make fun of us because there is no balance. Then cases that happen very rarely.. at least to me.. Here we have an example when by some mere chance, once in 100 years, I ran into a team like this.. and that must have been a system error, I guess. This was also not about playing, it was about humiliating the opposing team that they had to leave the match because the battle was pointless. Do you think that I, as an individual, had any effort in this fight? Not at all, it was like on a field trip, I was literally fighting to destroy a tank because these guys from my team were mowing down everything in front of them.. Is this a fair game? Of course NOT. NEXT... Here you can see that we didn't even try to win, the match ended in a draw, but what was the point.. Destroying enemy tanks to the point that it was more rape than a fight.. the players from the opposing team were literally unable to cross half of the battlefield.. because the strongest flyers took the front line and beat them, if they accidentally destroy one, they hold the line again until one or two flyers reach the front line and then beat them together again as if the cheaters had stepped into the front line.. So there is no action, no tactics, they are aware that they are too strong. I have not experienced anyone hitting me at least once. Is this a fair game? It is NOT and never will be. That is what I have been saying all along, and we can talk about it for days, the fact is known, the developers know, and what the developers have allowed makes no sense or justice at all. @POWER-OF-ONE

@Positive I see your point, but the issue isn’t just about raw strength - it’s about the fundamental mechanics of how these hulls behave. Floating hulls don’t use tracks, have drastically different handling physics, higher acceleration and completely different hitbox behavior. Even if you technically balanced their damage or HP, their mobility advantage breaks the ground combat dynamic that defines the game... So no, it’s not about semantics.. it’s about realism and core gameplay integrity. They simply don’t belong in the same environment because their mechanics bypass the limitations that make tank battles tactical in the first place. Do we need to mention that those flying hulls end up on the roofs of some houses and buildings and from there they shoot ground tanks unhindered? Where are normal tracked hulls allowed to cross that line and end up on some roof? That they fly around and you feel like someone has activated a flying cheat. An no.. Not really a contradiction, it’s actually the point. GS is one component that needs to be part of a more advanced balancing formula, not the sole factor. What I proposed is symmetry of GS ranges combined with hull-type weighting, so that identical GS setups don’t result in huge real-world performance gaps. The problem with the current system is that GS alone dictates balance, while ignoring what kind of hull or equipment generates that GS... That’s why a 9999 GS flying hull can outperform a 9999 GS ground tank by an absurd margin - the numbers say “equal,” but the match result says otherwise. Fair question - As for K/D - sure, if we treat it as a standalone stat, it’s meaningless. But what I meant was a weighted performance index, not a raw K/D ratio. It would evaluate multiple recent indicators like average damage dealt, objectives completed, assists, and sustained activity.. to reflect actual impact. For example, I once had a match right before reaching Legend rank with 69 kills, 0 deaths, and a D/L of 69.00, and yet we still lost the battle by three points. That alone proves that “K/D” can’t describe what truly happened - I was in the middle of the fight the entire time, carrying the team, not camping behind a wall. This is exactly why I said it should be hidden not to punish or reward players publicly, but to help the system identify who is truly contributing versus who is just stat-padding. In the end of the road.. I think the biggest misunderstanding here is assuming that all “balance” can be achieved by tweaking stats. The issue is systemic.. mixing fundamentally different vehicle types, relying on GS symmetry that doesn’t reflect actual power, and ignoring gameplay-based performance patterns. I’m not asking for perfection, just logic, a tank game should primarily reward tank mechanics, not hovercraft agility. Once that line gets blurred, balance becomes mathematically impossible to achieve no matter how many numbers you tweak.

@Positive I appreciate your response, but the issue is that most player suggestions are either ignored or brushed off with a generic “noted.” So it’s hard to talk about solutions when feedback never translates into actual testing or changes. Still, since you asked.. here’s what could realistically improve MM balance: Don’t mix flying hulls with ground hulls in the same matches. ? Separate flying hulls into their own matchmaking pool. They completely disrupt balance and don’t belong in the same environment as traditional tanks. Force matchmaking to prioritize symmetry of GS ranges between teams, not perfect mirroring, but at least parity. (Two players can have identical GS, yet one with a flying hull and optimized setup is light-years ahead in actual power.) Introduce a hidden balancing weight per player based on GS, hull type, and kill/death performance over the last few battles. In any case, there should be a balance, and the game cannot be divided into a stronger and weaker team that the system just randomly distributes. But to solve the problem, we must first accept the fact that flying hulls are the core of the problem. So, to solve the problem with this imbalance, we must first separate ground hulls from flying ones, because that has no logic with any principle of warfare. I would also like to add.. ideas don’t matter if every player suggestion ends up labeled as “not aligned with dev vision”. Players keep repeating the same issues for months, and nothing changes. You can’t call it “player feedback” if all the feedback goes straight into a bin. I genuinely love this game, but pretending this chaos is “intentional balance” is like saying a broken leg is a new running technique.