Blogging and Me

I've noticed a downtrend in my blogging even though my time in EVE is still about the same as it was previously. I'm still getting out in space and PvPing, building capitals, and now planning on building Astrahaus citadels. But my fervor for writing here has suffered lately.

Part of it is that the game has changed so much from when I was top of things that I no longer feel much like an expert in anything anymore. I barely recognize some of the null sec entities fighting over... whatever it is these days. And locally the war with Caldari Militia has died down to barely-there status. No pushes, no resistances to speak of.

So basically the only thing I feel qualified and invested in to speak of lately has been my small industrial business which is gearing up for citadel product but that is still over a month away.

So I'm going to briefly talk about other games I've been playing that require less time to sit down and enjoy than a good PvP session of EVE Online does.

World of Warships and Tanks

Two of my sons love World of Tanks and to a lesser extend World of Warships. The longevity of the former for our family is a simple truth: it doesn't change much in execution even as new tanks and functionality are added constantly. The basic premise of get-in-tank-and-drive is the same now as it was back in 2011 and still just as fun although not as deep as EVE's PvP.

I prefer the slower pace and big ships of World of Warships but don't mind getting in a division with my son when time permits.

Dominions 4

Been playing multiplayer with friends from work and single player at home. Very different game obviously but has the advantage of loading fast and letting me play a few turns in a few minutes, unlike something similar like CivV which takes all the same time to load.

This game is scratching an itch but no plans to delve into further than that.

Battlefleet Gothic: Armada (BETA)

I used to play Battlefleet Gothic on the tabletop back in the day before kids destroyed my free time so when I saw that a PC game was coming out I knew I had to sample that stuff. I was expecting an experience like World of Warships in space but I was mistaken, its incredibly just like the table top game where online play against other players is 1v1 with each having multiple ships in a fleet.

We'll have to see if this game is good enough for a long term investment but I'm enjoying it a lot right now.

Tank Thursday: On Again

Yes, I know it says Tuesday, too lazy to edit.

My on-again/off-again affair with World of Tanks returned this past couple weeks for no real apparent reason. When we left off in July this year I reported thusly:

I'm still working on the tier VII Panther medium tank while working to unlock the Panther II at tier VIII, but honestly the Panther with its long 100 7.5 cm main turret is a hell of a sniper and a lot of fun, perhaps my favourite tank right now. I'll probably keep it and ignore the Panther II.
I gave up trying to do artillery. I was on the tier V Grille but only get frustrated all the time. Either I could not get any shots on target or my shots would land on target and fail to penetrate or do any damage. After 23 battles I had a 26% win rate and a grand total of 4 destroyed enemy vehicles. Yet, despite sucking so bad I still got mastery level 3 on it. Whatever.
Finally, I found I could unlock the VB 28.01 light tank at tier VI from my previously complete tier V Leopard light tank. Figuring "what the hell", I unlocked it and bought it and have been trying out scouting at higher tier battles. After six battles I'm enjoying it so far and working on unlocking the better suspension and motor.

Since then I've been using the tier VI VK 28.01 light tank, the tier VIII Panther II, and started working up the new German Tank Destroyer line, most recently with the tier V Pz.Sfl. IVc.

The VK 28.01 is all upgraded and I'm working towards the next light tank, but its more of habit than any great love. I found I had more fun in the tier IV and V light tanks than in this one even though there is nothing functionally wrong with it. Perhaps the quality of drivers and tanks it has to scout around is higher it seems to get me fewer sneaky artillery kills. Overall not a bad tank, just not a favourite.

The main tank I've been working on has been the Pz.Sfl IVc, affectionately referred to as the "toaster" or the "bus". Take a look at its image and you can see why. Its super high profile, low hit points, and low armour, I've been one shotted so much in this tank, even more than in light tanks. And even with its best gun its a frustrating experience because the arc on the gun is small so I find I need to re-adjust my position a lot. On the positive side of things, the top gun is terrifyingly deadly to lower tier tanks and a serious threat to tier V tanks. Starts to suck against tier VI and VII but overall its ok. Last night I finally got enough experience to unlock the tier VI Nashhorn TD so once I figure out my finances I'll move on.

Seriously, this thing is like driving a huge cardboard box filled with explosives.

Lastly, I've been working on the Panther II. After I mentioned how I loved the tier VII Panther, I was told I would like the Panther II which is similar. My experience was not nice. Even with the same gun as the Panther I, I had terrible games in the Panther II. My theory is that by being in a higher tier I was facing bigger enemies and my 7.5 cm long 100, which murders at range tier VII and lower tanks, struggles to be effective against tier VIII and higher so I was underpowered in my weight class. Then once I unlocked the next turret and got the old favourite Long 88 (8.8 cm L71) the slight increase in penetration and huge increase in damage made me feel competitive again, like a faster version of the Tiger tank.

So now I'm just enjoying it and working towards the E50.

Next step, buy and start working on the tier VI Nashhorn tank destroyer.

Tank Tuesday : A Funny Story

* * * * *

So one of the twins, Twin B we'll call him, loves himself some World of Warplanes right now and is not half bad at playing in matches. I have a second account set up for him to use so I can play World of Tanks on one machine while he plays World of Warplanes on another.

* * * * *

On my account, I have about 1700 gold saved up from last year when I was playing a lot and bought some. I've been using it periodically for miscellaneous purposes such as getting new crew at 100% when I buy a tank or removing specialized equipment when selling an old tank. As I got closer to unlocking the Panther II medium tank, I was considering splurging and converting some of it to credits to afford the beast. Possibilities.

* * * * *

My youngest son, who we'll call K, also likes gaming. He's two years younger than the twins (i.e. twins are 6, little bro is 4) and has recently decided to try World of Warplanes like his big brother. I don't let him play much because, at 4, he's not that good, but letting him bomb around with the mouse in tier I and II matches is not a big deal. I let him use my account since his brother is using the spare account already (and thinks of it as 'his account' with 'his planes').

* * * * *

I showed Twin B how to tell if he can buy planes by looking at the number of available hanger slots and how to filter in the store to researched and affordable planes. He likes to manage his own garage and since there is no real money invested on that account, I'm fine to let him do what he wants with minor guidance from me.

* * * * *

You don't have separate World of Tanks and World of Warplanes accounts. You have a Wargaming.net account and use the same credentials to log into either game (and World of Warships will be using the same thing when it goes live). The upshot of this design is that any gold you have to use in World of Tanks is also available in World of Warplanes for use there.

* * * * *

You see where this is going, right?

* * * * *

There I was, playing some World of Tanks while Twin B was playing World of Warplanes beside me. K comes down and wants to play too, so I relinquish my seat and log into World of Warplanes on my computer for K and he happily starts to play. I sit down beside them and pull out my phone for some Bubble Burst.

At this point Twin A, hereto unmentioned in this story as he's not a big World of Tanks/Warplanes fanatic, calls for help from another room with a Pocket Minecraft issue on his tablet. I go to assist him and while I'm gone Twin B decides to buy a new plane. K sees this and decides he wants to buy a new play too! He knows how to select a plane and how to queue up for the next battle but he does not know how to buy a new plane. But big brother Twin B is there to help and gladly shows him what to click on to bring up the store.

I come back a few minutes later and K proudly proclaims, "Look daddy! I bought a new plane!"

"Oh, that's nice dear."

... wait-a-minute...

Sure enough, he bought a premium plane with my carefully hoarded gold. I went from 1700 gold to 300.

Yeah, its only about $8 worth of gold but I was nursing that stockpile for so long! I had dreams for that gold, I tell you, designs, plans, ambitions! And all lost with a click of a four year old's mouse button.

Tank Tuesday

I'm Back!

Good old World Of Tanks. You can take a break for a year and still get back up to speed pretty quickly.

Last year was a dip in, swim around for a bit, and then got bored and left again. This time the investment has been more involved and my sons have gotten in the action as well again as my youngest is discovering the joy of driving a tank all by himself (and the frustration of losing) and one of the twins is getting really into World of Warplanes as the controls for using a mouse and keyboard have really improved since beta.

So where am I? I logged in to discover a new second Tank Destroyer line I had not unlocked with some promising "glass cannon" gameplay to I jumped back into a tier IV Marder 38T and bombed around in that to unlock the tier V Pz. Sfl. IVc tank destroyer that looks like a giant box with a gun. But its often in fun battles at tier V so I'm enjoying it and the next TD, the tier VI Nashorn which has a much better top gun than the Jagdpanzer tank destroyer in the other line that I remember hating.

In the heavy department, I'm still rolling in my tier VIII Tiger II and getting close to having enough experience to unlock the tier IX E-75 heavy tank. Don't know yet if I'm going to actually get it as I don't play enough to generate enough credits for it without spending real money for gold to exchange, unless I do a serious garage clean out.

I'm still working on the tier VII Panther medium tank while working to unlock the Panther II at tier VIII, but honestly the Panther with its long 100 7.5 cm main turret is a hell of a sniper and a lot of fun, perhaps my favourite tank right now. I'll probably keep it and ignore the Panther II.

I gave up trying to do artillery. I was on the tier V Grille but only get frustrated all the time. Either I could not get any shots on target or my shots would land on target and fail to penetrate or do any damage. After 23 battles I had a 26% win rate and a grand total of 4 destroyed enemy vehicles. Yet, despite sucking so bad I still got mastery level 3 on it. Whatever.

Finally, I found I could unlock the VB 28.01 light tank at tier VI from my previously complete tier V Leopard light tank. Figuring "what the hell", I unlocked it and bought it and have been trying out scouting at higher tier battles. After six battles I'm enjoying it so far and working on unlocking the better suspension and motor.

So there you have it! We'll see how long I keep it up this time.

Tank Tuesday: Big Cats

This past weekend I took a look at my garage and decided to shake things up a little.

Since repurchasing my Tiger II heavy tank, I found that my playtime with the JagdPanther II diminished greatly. Tank Destroyers in the high tiers were not working out for me, I had more fun and success with the tougher King Tiger. I still had my Tier VII Jadpanther which I have a lot of success with and scratched that sniper with the big gun itch for me.

With the Tiger II at tier VIII and little Panzer IV at tier V both being very long ranged sniper tanks, I found myself getting frustrated with the VK30.02 tier VII medium tank since it plays pretty much the same way, and I had no interest in the Indien-Panver tier VIII medium it was working towards. I decided to switch back to the tier VII Panther medium tank which I had built up previously and had a good crew in the barracks for, and work towards the Panther II. The VK30.02 only gets up to the short 88 gun, while the Panther has access to the long 75 gun, a sniper's sniper cannon. It may do less damage but it has higher pen values and a great rate of fire, and overall the Panther II looks better on paper than the Indien-Panzer.

So right now my rotation is Tiger II, Panther, Panzer IV, Leopard. Then sometimes to mix it up I use my little old Pz38 (tier IV) for lower tier matches (since the Leopard got bumped to tier V it sees more big tanks) and if I need to feel good about myself I jump in the Jagdpanther tank destroyer and ruin someone's day.

Post #2386

I am going on vacation for a few days, taking the kids to the Zoo and Wonderland in Toronto. So this will be the last post until next week. Unless I get bored and inspired at the hotel. With these monkeys, that's not likely.

Since its Tuesday, let's do a Tank Tuesday!

Last week I logged into World of Tanks again and looked around. Yeah, I got the treadhead bug again. It took me a couple matches to find my groove and it sucks playing on a Standard account as it means I usually lose credits with my JagdPanther II due to the insane cost of shells for the guns, but I was able to upgrade to the big gun on the tank finally and actually have some decent chance to penetrate Tier 8+ heavies again.

The Tier 7 Jagdpanther tank destroyer and Tier 5 Panzer IV medium continue to be my best tanks with a Ace Tanker Mastery Badge1 each, and I've been trying to drive better with my Tier 7 medium VK30.02D as I too often treat it like a tough brawler instead of a long sniper. I really am missing my Tiger II heavy tank and desperately trying to avoid dropping some cash to get gold to buy it so I can drive my monster again. Sigh.

We'll see if the current tank driving holds up before I get too frustrated again. With no new tanks affordable on the horizon for me it could be a short stay.

1 -

Tank Thursday

So yeah, I've been playing tanks. Quite a bit actually since the latest major update came out that added the new maps and game modes.

The new maps, Airfield and Wide Park, are both very good. The new game modes are not too bad; they definitely spice up old maps and make them new again, although I prefer the new Encounter mode (its a race for the flag type game) over the Assault mode (one side defends, other attacks). I'm hoping they continue to add modes and variations on existing modes.

Tiger II

Tank-wise, my main tank continues to be the reliable and impressive Tiger II. With the crew working on their second perk I find myself a threat to almost every other tank on the field and almost always near the top. With a Premium account it almost always makes credits for me.

VK3001H

I was working up the German line to the Panther and fell in love along the way with the speedy yet hard hitting VK3001H. It has less armour than the same tier 6 medium tank VK3601, but it a lot faster and sports the same mean Short 88mm gun. When I got to the Panther I kept the tank and am continuing to work it up to Elite status.

Panther

The Panther on the other hand, has been a disappointment so far. When I unlocked it I had to grind through to get better tracks and a batter turret, but even with the second turret I am still working on the best gun for the tank, the 75mm L/100 which has the penetration to threaten tier VIII tanks. Until then I'm running with the Short 88mm again and really struggling against higher tier tanks. Plus the Panther is more of a sniper than a brawler and I really need to adjust my play style for it.

Finally, I'm also driving around in a tier V Panzer IV and a tier IV Leopard light tank to unlock the tier VI VK3001P and tier V VK2801 tanks respectively, mostly to try them out and see if I like them over other versions.

Tank Tuesday : The Sweet Spot

King Tiger

So I stopped playing tanks for a while a few months back and came back to it near the beginning of March. Even though there has been a few patches and major releases I find the game it pretty much still the same deathmatch type that I left and enjoy.

Plus, I found the sweet spot. More on that in a second.

When I picked up the game again I found myself with enough experience to get into the Tier VIII Tiger II heavy tank, also known as the King Tiger. This tank feels like everything I wanted the Tiger to be: great armour, great gun. The thickness of the armour is not much greater than the tier VII Tiger but is sloped a lot more and I actually see bounces and deflections occur whereas in the Tiger they were extremely rare. As for the gun, you start with the long 88 with its penetration and upgrade to a 10.5 cm gun with about the same penetration and an average of 80 more points of damage with regular ammo (240 to 320). I'm still working towards the second gun upgrade which ups the penetration even more.

But what really makes this tank rock is that its tier VIII. The Sweet Spot of the ten tiers of tanks.

What I mean by that is that I'm rarely not in the top 5 tanks on my side of 15. This means that I am almost always facing tanks I can take on with little fear of being severely outmatched, and I often have lots of weak targets to prey upon.

 There are three driving factors that make 8 the sweet spot:

The first is that the lower tiers require very little experience to grind through and you don't slow down significantly until tier 6-7. Added to this is that running up a second line of lower tier tanks in the same faction (i.e. doing Panzer II-III-III/IV line) benefits a lot from a previous run as a lot of already unlocked modules are done and don't have to be unlocked again.

The second is that ammo and repairs after matches get increasingly more expensive in the higher tiers where its very hard even with a premium account to make credits in a tier 9 or 10 tanks. Without an awesome match that your side wins you find yourself losing credits. Even in tier 8 a bad or sub-par match loses credits. Meanwhile in tiers 7 and lower you have to pretty much shoot your own teammates to be penalized to lose credits in a match.

And, thirdly, there is only two tiers of tanks above 8 so that you don't have to worry about facing a tank 3-4 tiers above you that can one shot you and you have no chance of even damaging.

This creates a glut of tanks in the 6-7-8 tier range, which means that tier 8 tanks are often the top dogs. And the occasion that I do find myself in the bottom half, the tier 9s and 10s can still be penetrated and hurt by my gun.

So yeah, having fun in the King Tiger. I still suck, but at least having fun :)

Return of the Kodachi - This and That

My hell week(s) are over and blogging can resume! This is the first of two posts today, the second being the long promised but postponed Fiction Friday Actually I've been asked for significant changes to my EON article I submitted yesterday so fiction friday will have to wait one more week.

In this post, I'm going to touch on several things to get them out of my head.

* * * * *

Titan Tracking - during one of the podcasts Alekseyev Karde said that he was OK with the current Titan tracking mechanics stating that a Titan fit to be able to track many sub-capital vessels had a compromised tank and was thus a "glass cannon". I disagree with this position because I feel that a glass cannon should be something easily destroyed if caught (like a Caracal or a Gank Brutix) and that a base Titan is still pretty safe in waiting for backup from all but other serious cap fleets (at which they are in trouble anyways, tanked or not).

However, I want to actually look at the numbers involved and see if my gut is wrong on this one, so expect a post next week looking at Glass Cannon titans and how much they are glass as opposed to transparent aluminum.

* * * * *

One week in Red versus Blue with my alt Korneilia and in two short sessions of game time she has 7 killmails and one loss. Colour me impressed. I'll have more to say about Red v. Blue next week but in the meantime, if you are looking for quick PvP then putting an alt into the fight is a good idea.


* * * * *

CSM elections are going on and one thing to come out of the podcast listening I've been able to do has been the question of who was more responsible for the success of Crucible, the CSM6 members or the unsubscribing and rioting players.

I'm a little ticked with this question as it treats CPP as a monolithic ignorant block, and in truth I suspect that Crucible was part CSM, part unsubscribing players, and part passionate devs pushing at their managers for a reality check. Somebody(s) somewhere in CCP was taking all of the CSM input and player rage and numbers and waving in front of management's face, and when Hilmar finally relented on the Incarna "march of doom" and asked for "what instead?", I think that CSM got traction for the backlog because of these unknown dev crusaders.

I could be wrong, but its worth remembering that CPP is not necessarily a group-think hivemind.

* * * * *

Starting played World of Tanks again after a month and a half away from the game. Enjoying myself again and finally got to upgrade to the King Tiger, aka Tiger II tier 8 heavy tank. Still have the stock gun with is the long 88 of the Tiger so its a little underpowered for big tier 8 counterparts, but the superior armour thickness and angles has me noticing a lot more bounces such that the tank feels a lot more durable despite only have 150 more hitpoints (1350 compared to 1500).

Tank Tuesday - End of Line

(yeah, I know its Wednesday)

It's been fun but I feel like I've reached the end of line for continuing in World of Tanks.

I'm not frustrated with the game. I think the game is moving in the right direction. I can even still have fun in matches. I bought gold twice, once nearing the beginning and once in the middle of my run and I got my money's worth. But I'm not willing to continue to invest in purchasing gold and I feel that my progression without a premium account, and possibly a premium tank, has slowed to a crawl making the grind very very noticeable.

I've been at the Tier VII Tiger tank with all upgrades except the King Tiger for a while and grinding experience for the next level has not been too bad. However, grinding the necessary credits is horribly slow as the Tiger's repairs and ammo and consumables are expensive enough that if I have a poor round I lose credits in the process. And if I have a good round, I only make a small profit; only the rare great round makes me feel like I make progress.

Compounding my sorrows is that I upgraded my Jagdpanzer tank destroyer to the Tier VII Jagdpanther but I only have the short 88 gun and  I still need to grind a lot of experience to get the long 88 like I have on the Tiger, much less the superior 105mm gun.

So end result, I either need to become an elite player or grind for many hours to get the credits to get the King Tiger, or I purchase gold to get a premium account (doubles earned credits and experience). Well, I don't want another subscription game thanks, so I'm going to take a pass and accept that I'll never see the King Tiger.

Also, I have no interest in running up another tank tree at this time.

Will I still play? Probably. Its a good game for quick matches of vehicular PvP. I suppose I could use a Tier V or VI tank to grind credits as their repair costs are not as severe but I'm not sure I want to go back to that level of play after having the Tiger and the long 88. Time will tell.

But I'm definitely not investing more real money.

Tank Tuesday - Big Momma

Tiger!

 

Last week I got access to the Tier 7 Heavy Tank, the infamous PzKpfw VI Tiger. Unfortunately I lacked the free experience to immediately get the better turret and the long 88mm gun, so I barreled around in a handful of matches with the short 88 and had a surprising amount of fun. In no time I was able to upgrade to the long 88 and I've been very pleased ever since.

Essentially, the Tiger operates a lot like the VK3601H, and indeed their armour values are almost identical. However, what was good armour for the Tier 6 medium is terrible for the Tier 7 heavy and as such, the Tiger requires a more cautious and long range play style. To counteract this low armour, it has a phenomenal amount of hitpoints compared to the VK3601 (850 to 1350) which provides a bit of opportunity to take a hit or three and still keep fighting.

The long 88 is nice too. It finally upgrades my armour penetration to something that can penetrate Tier 6 medium armour with consistency, something the short 88 has a lot of trouble with.

The end result has been 18 wins over 28 matches, a really good win percentage. I still have trouble with tier 8 and 9 tanks but I'm learning my strengths and weaknesses and so far its fun.

However, I feel I'm peaking in World of Tanks. Although I'm looking forward to the two new maps and graphical updates in the next patch, I really feel my enthusiasm for the game is going down. The "newness" of the game has worn off and the upper tiers really feel the same as the lower tiers. In essence, being a tier 4 tank fighting against tier 6 tanks requires the same tactics as a tier 7 versus tier 9. Maybe some newness will return when I get a really brawling tank (Hello King Tiger!) but for now, I feel like I'm in the same tank as I was the last two tiers.

Ah well, time will tell.

Tank Tuesday: Bright Spot

Jagdpz IV

So late last week I finally saved up enough credits to dump my StuG III tank destroyer (which I had become bored with due to how fragile and low-punching-power compared to the VK3601 it seemed) and purchased the next tier up tank destroyer, the Jagdpanzer IV.

At first I was vastly disappointed. The stock model could not fit two out of three of my modifications (cammo netting and vents) and I couldn't even upgrade to the long 75mm gun which the StuG mounted. I needed to grind 4000 experience in a tier VI tank practically helpless against tier VI mediums. I was not impressed. However, the matchmaker realized I was gimped and placed me in matches against a lot of tier IV and V tanks and soon I was upgrading the suspension and getting back to the StuG firepower. A few matches later and I mounted the PaK version of the short 88mm with the same beloved damage and penetration as the one on my VK3601 but with 25% faster firing time. Yeeha.

VK3601(H)

I have to say I appreciated the thicker armour and more hitpoints over the StuG now as well as the bigger bang, but the VK is still my preferred tank.


Speaking of ol' reliable, I have all the equipment unlocked for the beast including the bigger engine, so now I'm grinding the experience and credits for the next tank in the line, the infamous PzKpfw VI Tiger.

Tiger

It will be my first heavy tank, but despite being a heavy its armour is not much better than the VK3601. It does, however, have a lot more hitpoints and can get the fearsome long 88, a weapon with 203 penetration compared to 132 for the short 88, and slightly better accuracy (but slightly slower rate of fire). I can't wait!

Tank Tuesday: Bringer of Death

VK3601(H)

There have been a few times in the past two months of playing where I would almost earn the "Top Gun" achievement in a match, only to come up short with only 5 kills:

Top Gun - Destroy more enemy vehicles than any other player in your team during the battle (at least 6).
If two or more players have destroyed equal amount vehicles, the achievement is granted to the player who has earned more XP for the battle, including additional XP provided to Premium account users. If the amount of XP is equal as well, the achievement is not granted.

Erlenburg

Finally late last week I was in a match on the Erlenburg map and it did not promise to be anything spectactular. I was a tier 6 tank with a couple tier 8 and 7 heavies and a few tier 6 and 5 mediums with a couple artillery per side.

As the match started I was in the southwest corner and led the advance up the west road to the northwest part of the map. A Type 59 tier 8 medium and a couple other tanks were close behind. Then as I turned around the corner of the hill an enemy StuG III tank destroyer faced me. We exchanged blows as I pulled back and spotted a PzIV medium supporting him. I took some damage but firepower from me and the friendlies approaching behind killed the two eager enemy tank, with me getting both killing blows.

I let the big Type 59 lead from here, and as I came around the hill to the middle of the north I spotted it trading fire with a couple tanks near the river. I contributed fire and once more got both killing blows. I advanced over the north bridge while the Type 59 ally moved south to deal with the enemy heavy tanks dueling with our heavies in the centre over the objectives. I spotted one artillery (one shot!) and then the next as I come into the northeast (one shot again!). The enemy was clearly beaten with only a couple tanks left, and I moved south onto the east ridge to try and take some high explosive long shots at the last remaining enemy heavies. Target, aim... fire! And the last few percent ticked off.

Top Gun

Victory for our side and, finally, top gun for me with 7 kills.

Tank Tuesday - Tier VI

VK 3601 (H)

So I finally grinded (ground?) up the experience for my Tier VI medium tank, the VK 3601 (H).  And my first impression is "OMG, you're kidding me! THIS THING IS AWESOME!"

It plays very much like the Panzer IV right now. I immediately upgraded the turret with free experience and mounted the familiar 75mm L70 on it, the same gun as on the Panzer IV and StuG III so I know what its capable of. The tank moves like the PzIV but has better armour overall and nearly double(!) the hit points.

Stat	Panzer IV	VK 3601
Health	460	850
Hull Armour (mm)	80/60/20	100/60/80
Turret Armour (mm)	120/60/60	110/80/80
Turret Traverse (d/s)	24	30

What this means that shots to the sides and rear that would cripple the Pz IV have far less effect on the VK 3601 and I can take a world abuse more before dying. No more bang bang dead matches that often occurred in the smaller medium.

I'm still working on the better tracks and two upgrades to engines, and the next tier gun: the 88mm L56 aka the short 88. It has slightly less penetration than my old favourite 75mm (132 mm to 138mm with AP ammo) but a lot more damage (220 compared to 135). Against targets in the same tier or lower (or on side/rear armour of higher tier targets) it should give me a boost in performance.

Tank Tuesday: Pew Pew Pew

Missed Tank Tuesday last week because of Turkey. Yum.

Anyways, its been two weeks. Where were we then?

The troubles with the medium tank Panzer IV have abated to the point where I don't feel useless playing it but I still have some of trouble getting good performance out of it. Part of the issue is I still don't have the best gun for it yet (that slow experience issue) so while I can shoot fast and accurately as a stay-back-and-snipe tank, my damage and penetration is bad. However, I'm close to unlocking the best sniping gun and then we'll see if things get better.

Well, I did unlock the big 75mm L70 gun and let me tell you, what a difference. Add in some experience from practice and I definitely feel like I've got my feet under me. But does the record show any improvement?

Changes over two weeks

My StuG fell a titch to 50.75% winning percentage (from 51.3), my Pz38nA also fell a bit to 55.56% (from 56.4), but my Pz IV climbed to 47.17% (from 36.3) over two weeks. The winning percentage for the two week period is 58.8 which I'm very happy with when you factor in all the random factors for teammates, match making, and map preferences.

My Pz IV really feels like a more mobile tank destroyer as my main gun has great accuracy and decent punching power (it is, coincidentally, the same gun the StuG mounts) so I tend to use it as such, hanging back and shooting from a distance and only advancing when an enemy flank is broken or one of our flanks needs reinforcements.

I like it so much that I'm eyeing up the next tier VI medium tanks, a choice between the VK3001(P) and the VB3601(H). The 3001 is a lighter tank than the 3601, and the latter leads to a lot more choices including higher tier medium tanks and the fearsome King Tiger.

Jagdpanther

Jagdpanzer IV

In other news, I've unlocked the tier IV tank destroyer Jagdpanzer and I've been saving up the credits to buy it (missing premium now), but I find my enthusiasm for getting it tempered by the fact that its best gun has less penetration than the gun my StuG mounts (but more damage) and that even the wiki says "... it is widely considered the worst tier 6 TD." Being a higher tier than the StuG means more battles with higher tiered foes and already the StuG has trouble with big Tier VII and VIII heavies. I'm thinking of pouring my energy into the medium tanks that at have the same guns at these tiers and at least more mobility. On the other hand, the other side of the Jagdpanzer is the Jagdpanther which has the big guns you would expect a tank destroyer to sport.

Decisions, decisions.

Tank Tuesday: The Grind

StuG III

Well, its been two weeks since my last World of Tanks update and things are going well, albeit slowly. I'm still chugging along without a premium account so I'm getting half the experience and credits that such an upgrade would provide. Up until tier V that did not seem a problem, but getting to tier VI has been a long slog and I just unlocked the tier IV tank destroyer last night but opted not to buy it as I want to train my crew in my StuG III more and it can be done faster in an Elite vehicle (i.e. all upgrade paths unlocked for it).

Pz IV

The troubles with the medium tank Panzer IV have abated to the point where I don't feel useless playing it but I still have some of trouble getting good performance out of it. Part of the issue is I still don't have the best gun for it yet (that slow experience issue) so while I can shoot fast and accurately as a stay-back-and-snipe tank, my damage and penetration is bad. However, I'm close to unlocking the best sniping gun and then we'll see if things get better.

Pz 38nA

I'm still having an absolute blast jumping into my light tank, the tier IV Panzer 38nA. Some of my best matches lately are coming from this tank, even when I'm the lowest tier by four or five levels. My strategy is to hold back at the start until I see where the enemy deployment is concentrated, and then blow by them in a hole in their lines to attack the rear areas, sometimes moving laterally on the map to confuse potential attackers. Then I move in and light up their artillery and try to take them out.

Taking a look at my stats in terms of wins/losses, you can see that I have a 51.3% winning percentage in my main tank, the StuG, which matches close to what I got in the Hetzer and Marder. My light tank shennanigans have got my up to 56.4% in that tank, but my Panzer IV frustrations keep me low at 36.3%. Ouch. Considering there is a lot of external factors to consider (random teams on random maps) you can figure that my percentage in the Pz IV are indicative of not helping my team very much so far. Hopefully a bigger gun will help.

Tank Tuesday - Medium Tanks, What The Hell?

I've decided that Tuesday's blog post every week is for World of Tanks.

I reached elite status on my tier IV light tank Panzer 38 nA very quickly which meant the tier V medium tank Panzer IV was available to me. With the grid up the tank destroyer line proceeding slowly I decided to splurge my credits on the new tank and try out mediums for the first time.

Sniping with Tank Destroyers I get.

Long range bombing with artillery I get.

Running and gunning scouting in a light tank I get.

Medium tanks? I don't get.

I mean, I get the theory: slower and heavier than light tanks, faster and lighter than heavy tanks, they kill smaller stuff and try and be eyes and flank the heavy stuff, blah blah blah. But I was just getting smashed in my first forays in the Panzer IV. Utterly useless.

I did some forum searches and and soul searching (more of the former than the latter) and determined my difficulties stemmed from several areas:

1) Stock Tank Syndrome - the base weapon of Panzer IV and the first upgrade weapon are both tier III, one with poor penetration and the other with poor damage. No wonder the tier IV light tanks were laughing at me. I've upgraded to a mid level gun that is actually powerful enough to give light tanks concern and there are more upgrades available later on that give the tank good bang for its firepower buck.

2) Actually not a brawler - I was treating the tank like a Soviet or American medium which are typically brawlers up on the front lines, but the Pz IV is more of a sniping medium tank meant to hang back a little more and provide distance support. (Again, the upgraded weapons will help). This is good because I like sniping and am fairly competent at it with my StuG tank destroyer.

3) Not used to having turret weapon - I spend so much time in the tank destroyer where I have to find a solid spot to aim my tank and then aim the gun, I quickly forget how to fire and dash in the medium tank: stop, aim, shoot, drive again.

Last night I tried a few matches and started to feel a little more competent, but its going to be a while before I feel comfortable.

That Happened Sooner Than Expected

BAM! I got you!

Tanks is surprisingly popular in our house lately. The first thing I hear when I get home from work is "I wanna play toynks!!!!!" from Twin B, aka Sean. Twin A, Luke, follows up with a "Yeah, tanks!"

It all started a few weeks ago when the boys saw me playing tanks and sat on my lap for a session. The excitement of looking out for bad guys while daddy drove around the map was so much fun that the technophile, Sean, had to give it a try himself.

Well, I wasn't about to let a 3.5 year old in a random battle with 29 strangers. For one thing, he would just get killed really fast and for another, he might start shooting friendlies and get blacklisted. But there is a Team Training mode in which he could drive around the map without outside interference.

Except for one thing. Team training needs at minimum two tanks.

So Sean got his own World Of Tanks account (hooray for free-to-play) and WoT got installed on the old computer (which has an upgraded decent video card so can handle it for the most part). Then I could log in both machines and have Sean roll around on his own.

Well Luke (and yes, I do say to him occasionally "Luke, I am your father") was not about to let Sean have all the fun so he started using my computer and account to drive around too. There is a lot of help from me to get them unstuck so I try to stay on open maps like Malinovka and Prokhorovka but the boys have their own opinions and Sean likes the city of Himmelsdorf (aka "Himmeldorfy!") and Luke like Sand River because it has lots of buildings to crash through.

And all was well... until they discovered the joy of PvP.

Apparently driving around exploring the map and occasionally passing each other was not enough. Sean wanted to shoot the bad guy. And as soon as Lukas realized what was going on, well he was on that mouse and trying to bracket Sean right away.

So we get to the crux of the issue: Lukas is on my account driving around in a tier IV fully upgraded light tank (Pz 38 nA for the win!) and Sean is in a rookie tier I tank. Sean might be able to aim and hit better, as he is the more technically adept of the twins, but Lukas one shots the little T1 Cunningham every time. My wife looks at me and says, "Get Sean a better tank!"

*Groan* I have to grind up a second account?

So last night found me running around Himmelsdorf and Malinovka in Sean's tank desperately trying to earn experience and credits to at least get the Tier II light tank, the M2. I finally succeeded in my quest around 11 pm and had to take it for a test drive to see if he would like it. Boy, is it fast! He should have no trouble zipping around the maps now.

But now he needs a bigger gun to compete with Luke...

Still Tanking

I'm still jumping into World of Tanks when I get little chances and feel I'm getting better in the random battles to the point where I'm confident of getting a kill almost every match in my Tank Destroyer and Artillery tanks, but still struggling with the concept of the light tank scout.

My "main" tank, the one I play most often to get the most experience for, is my tier III Marder II tank destroyer. With upgraded gun and some binoculars for longer viewing range, I can act like a nice sniper. I typically find a spot forward from our base but not as front line as our battle tanks and support the engagement from afar. I might lost some punching power, but even at half a kilometer I can punch through tier III and IV tanks easily and threaten tier Vs. I like to pick a spot in a bush near some hard cover for ducking behind and with a view of two likely approach routes.

I'm getting to the point where I can get one kill at least with a couple damages on others every match, and getting 2 kills is more common every day. Sometimes I get on fire (I mean figuratively as you can literally get on fire in your tank) and get 3 or 4 kills and once I picked up 5 kills.

My secondary tank flips between the artillery and the light tank, but I have more fun with my artillery (aka self propelled gun or SPG), currently a tier III Sturmpanzer II. Its not a well liked version of SPG due to limitations but I enjoy the ability to have a bird's eye view and drop little packets of doom on targets heads. Unfortunately, artillery tends to get matched up against a wider tier range and I have to be careful not to target the big tier 7 tanks as I can barely hurt them.

The rest of the time I run around in my light tank, a tier III PzKpfw 38(t). I have not got a good handle on scouting as I tend to end up dead a lot with few kills, damages, or even spotting. I'm too weak for the first two and often too cautious for the last, but I'm starting to get the hang of it. Just this morning I put eyes on a flank, spotted a rusher trying to flank to our artillery position and chased him until my damage and a friendly TD killed him. Then I did an end round run into their artillery and killed two before I was finally put down.

As you can see, I'm all tier III right now but I do have the tier IV tank destroyer unlocked, the popular Hetzer, but I'm short credits to afford it yet. Another gaming session will get me enough to buy one assuming I sell my sweet Marder II in the process.

World of Tanks - Lessons To Be Learned

So we talked about how World of Tanks and Eve Online are very different and offer very different types of vehicular PvP. Now we're going talk about what each game can learn from the other.

World of Tanks

To be fair, this is a relatively young game (1 year) and I have not participated in the Clan Wars part of the game yet, so my advice is mostly centered on the Random Battles and platoons.

If you look at the wiki, you can see the developers at Wargaming.Net have a lot planned for the future (see left). That's good because while the variety of maps, tanks types, and tiers gives lots of options for players, I can see the monotony of random battles, even with friends, eventually setting in. Variety of game play is the spice of life in Eve and WoT would be well advised to offer more variety.

Another thing is the interface. If I have a module in Eve and I want to compare its stats to modules of the same type but different tier (i.e. metalevel), all I need to do is click a single button. World of Tanks makes it not real easy to quickly see if I want to upgrade to the next gun. Also, some windows are modal (like the tech tree or market) and if I want to quickly check something in my hanger I have to close the window I have open. Modal windows suck.

Finally, its cool that WoT allows modding. I have a mod installed that gives me more indication of what the tanks are with colour codes for the different classes and the tier number on it so there is no need to memorize every tank of every faction right away. But some mods have been developed that allow player to reskin tanks to make them look different and some skins are done such to highlight specific hit areas on each tank so players can aim more precisely for vulnerable spots on their opponents.

Now I'm in a quandry: my mod is designed to help me remember the tanks I'm facing and thus improves my gameplay (e.g aim for lower tier tank I can hurt instead of higher ones, etc) and the skinning mod is designed to help a player find and remember the vulnerable spots on enemy tanks to improve their gameplay. Why is the former OK if the latter gives me feelings of a line being crossed?

Perhaps Eve has the right of it: prohibit modding to make sure players have as much of an even playing field as possible in terms of the client.

Eve Online

Eve needs arena PvP. Full stop.

It boggles the mind that this simple game play mode has never been added to Eve's feature set. Even worse, it was considered and technically sound a few expansions ago but cut because some people at CCP felt it didn't work for the game. I think that is poppycock but let's play devil's advocate and ask ourselves why arenas would not work in Eve.

1) Safe Space - By their nature, in order for arenas to provide an even playing field for the teams then outside interference must be disallowed. However, in Eve no one can hide completely safely in space, that is to say, that everyone can go everywhere in theory. These two concepts cannot exist together.

2) Lower PvP Population in Low/Null sec - Arenas would provide easy access PvP and thus cause a number of pilots to not bother with frustrating roaming to find targets when willing targets are available. As fewer people choose to roam, fewer targets present themselves for those that do.

3) Gaming the system - Eve players are notorious min-maxers and any system put in place to try and find even matchups would quickly get disassembled and analyzed to find the perfect combination to give an advantage, making casual arena players quickly loose interest as they can't compete with the "hackers"

To which I respond, bullcrap. (I realize this is making a strawman and then beating up on him, but since no official explanation was offered to the general public as to why arenas don't work, I'm going to do this. People can correct me in the comments and I will re-evaluate my position then.)

Docked in stations players are completely safe. Sure they may not be doing anything in a space ship but they can market PvP from there, including in null sec causing great havoc to enemy logistics. The casual PvP population in low and null sec is already low and the players most interested in arena type combat (assuming moderate consequences and fast turnover) are players not interested in long-ass roams and big risks anyways. In other words, the players most likely to participate in arena combat are players that would otherwise be tempted to log out and do something else, like World of Tanks.

Now I could go on to how I would design and implement an arena combat system in Eve much like Seismic Stan did in his latest blog post, and I hope other bloggers take this topic and run with it in a Blog Banter type idea (hint hint), but suffice to say that I think something needs to exist to provide casual quick PvP in Eve to keep players with short time scales in the game, to provide a stepping stone between PvE combat training and PvP combat training, and actual full on PvP combat in low and null sec (and high sec wars).