World of Tanks: Ruin on Ruinberg

Battle Type: Encounter

Map: Ruinberg

Vehicle: T28

tl;dr: cover the flag, be aware of the east, but the battle is lost if that red bar finishes the journey to 100%....
My experience, thus far, on this map, on this side of it and on battle mode: encounter, is that there is a fierce medium struggle at around the townish intersection at E0 -- at least, the enemy will bring it, and my team should answer it.  If not, then it won't be much of a struggle at all....

Being in a T28 -- with a top speed of 18kph (if I'm lucky, and being pulled by a French medium upper tier, down hill, being sucked forward by a super massive blackhole) -- I decided to go to hide at the toppish part of H8 -- nice rocks, nice bush, just nice.  I could offer supporting fire to E0 and/or, when it turned into F0.  Also, it affords the opportunity to move up, in the event my guys at E0 did well, and take shots at enemy corner-lurkers that often appear at the top of F6. 

Indeed, reds did show at F6.  Indeed, an enemy wolf pack of lights and mediums did show at E0.  Indeed, my, XVM-gave-the-win-to team, did represenT! at E0 as well (capital T was intended there), very much so, erm, too much so, uh, guys, we have a lot at E0....

But placing myself at H8/G8 also affords me the ability to race back to flag (heh, I said, "race" when referring to a T28), in the event a capping battle breaks out.  Mind you, I am in a slow-moving T28, and this, "get-back-to-the-flag" part is honestly a tertiary plan, but part of it. ...this part depends on the fact that my team is well spread-out, balanced on both flanks with just enough going right (east) and just enough to flag (west), with just enough to do both jobs, including, keeping the enemy flag-cappers reset until I can get there -- hopefully, going the very back, safer way along toward G1.  If not, then a much shorter and quicker route straight down the path from J7 to F2.

As it turns out, by the time I see all the red dots at both spots, I realize: As much as we have put too much on the east, they have put too much on the west, at the flag -- and if you think about it, it's not such a bad idea to overstack at the flag ... in the _right_ circumstance. 

I begin my sluggish trek back, but at the same time, a lone M4A3E8 begins a solo-man cap.  A slow, solo-man cap (did I say that twice?).  This occurred _as_ I'm considering and quickly (heh, quickly) _do_ make the trek to the flag -- but now, realizing I have to do the shorter and dangerous route.

A sprint in a T28 is like a gnat watching an elephant take a dump, waiting for the foods of it.

 

"Not a total crisis," thinks I.  After all, there are 2 mediums -- on the wrong side of the flag -- and some heavies near the flag.

Then, to my horror, I realize: no one but me is making the journey to _really_ reset this capture.

• And they do not.  The 2 mediums and fast TD on our team seem unaware.
• The heavies are all locked in blocking battles that are not near enough to the flag to get at the US medium, who is utilizing good defilade and avoiding hits.

It is as if my team is frozen in time, and only I can do the work of resetting.

I manage only to get close enough to damage the KV-3 who joins, and I do think our Lion manages to hit him as well, but for all else, the first capper -- the M4A3E8, is never reset, and it is a loss....

Bottom-line: cover the flag, be aware of the east, but the battle is lost if that red bar finishes the journey to 100%....

 

Dark green indicates spawn point and trek to hide. Lime green indicates trek from hide to begin journey to flag. Light bluish line indicates path to flag wherein 2 or 3 shots did result in damage to capper, but only secondary capper....

iSpawn or iFKD....

@ hide, awaiting to see how it all unfolds ... doesn't get pretty....

The futile journey and useless attack on the enemy flag capture

A hit ... on not the one I wanna hit....

Duh howwah!!!

 

The Birdhouse

A bit ago my wife says to me, "you need to build something with the kids."  This past weekend, we built/builded (builded?) a birdhouse....

 

 

The 3 of us went to the basement.  I found a sheet of Luan board and some rather thick molding.  I ended up using the molding for the rough frame and the luan, of course, for the main walls.

 

 

Before we got going, the 6 year old saw me getting all the stuff ready: work bench, drill, nails and screws, etc.  When he found out it was going to be a bird house he said, "I don't want to build a birdhouse.  I want to build a clock."  To wit I retorted, "based on the tools, materials and engineering expertise at hand, I can assure you that we will not be building a clock, unless it is a sundial...."

 

 

And thus, so, the birdhouse began.  As it started coming together in my mind and before my eyes -- the 6 year old jetted from the project about 5 minutes into it, but my daughter stayed enthralled over the entire weekend, and was eager and asking to do more, a great assistant -- before long, the project took on a life of its own.

 

 

I thus approached the project, the thing -- a birdhouse -- as a analyst/engineer might:

• What are we building? a birdhouse.
• Why? for birds to live and raise a family in.
• How should it work: for years, over many seasons.
• What are the challenges:
• Maintenance
• Adaptability (you know, making it so different birds can live in it of different sizes)
• Durability (the birds need a safe, dry home)

 Maintenance: cleaning a birdhouse is something any proud birdhouse maker/owner should do.  If you don't agree, then I question your claims to ornithology.  To answer this challenge, I created a removable shelf in the bottom, with a crude handle.  The front panel was only framed, allowing the some 5 inches of shelf to be fully removed.  Using tin snips, I cut a piece of old metal blinds, attaching this to the rear of the shelf.  This will grab the debris of the old nests, and yank it out when the shelf is removed. 

 

 

(Finishing nails were only used at first to hold pieces in place, but screws throughout of both 3/4 inch and up to 2.5 inches in length.  All were pre-drilled.)

 

 

Adaptability: the front panel is entirely separate, held in place by screen door levers I had lying about.  Simply turn all 4 corner levers 180 degrees clearing the entire "fake" front, and it is removable.  This feature serves a 2-fold function: ability to apply different front panels, ergo, "bird holes" (and the size of the hole matters, google it) while also allowing for the maintenance feature listed above.

Durability: I caulked with White Lighting all purpose interior/exterior caulk the entire structure, which now consists of a nice, pitched roof -- well fortified in the interior with more thick molding -- and also, Ace Hardware provided very nice, new-brand exterior latex paint, which my daughter and I applied just yesterday.

 

 

The project continues.  I plan on purchasing new Dremel bits -- lost mine in the move -- in order to finish cutting off any screw-points within the structure (my daughter is worried they will hurt the birdies; yes I did Dremel down many prior to the roof; these are the roof screws that punched through ... they were _that_ long).  I bought exterior green and yellow paint for the kids to finish the look, and I'm considering attempting to paint/caulk the insides as well.

 

 

I think in Bird House v.0.0.12b, I will make even more adaptability by being able to disassemble the structure further, in order to perform deeper maintenance.

 

 

Last night, my wife says, "I think the next time you show it to me, it will have electricity wired-in."  I thought, "hmmmmm."

And so, according to Progressive Theology, this is exactly how we and our cosmos came about.  God set out to make a simple garden, with a simple man and some animals.  He thought this would be cool and fun.  But not long into it, Adam was lonely, so god made Eve (by ripping Adam apart mind you).  This became problematic as well, and before you know it, god is instilling such concepts in the minds of people as Wall Street, French food, hamster cages and weird Japanese pop culture.  He also took the time at some point after the initial project to toss in Super Novas, red Mars' dirt and solid ice on Mercury that exists along-side molten rock.  Once we started reeeally looking at the stars, he went, "oh sh*t!" and threw some other galaxies out there.

 

 

Now, we're seeing about 14 billion years into the past.  Currently, he's affixing new features to look at beyond this.

 

 

He left up to us some work too -- like, the birds will build their nest, not me -- and to this, we as people created Big Brother, Jersey Shore and wearing one's pants "on the ground."  God looks at these things as we do the bird's nest containing a discarded 6-holed, plastic, soda can holder and bits of garbage VHS tape, and he thinks to himself, "they really just throw anything together they can find, no matter if it fits or not...."

Here it is with the roof not yet complete, no caulk/paint and some other things not yet done.  It is currently very caulked and painted "Designer White," exterior latex.  More coat going on tonight and hopefully some more dremeling -- ayeday I'm dremmelin'....

World of Tanks Statistics

I love stats when it comes to lots of things: boobs, tanks, boobs on tanks, and boobs, I mean, tanks.

Having said that, I installed a player-made stats proggy called, get ready for it:

"World of Tanks Statistics"

(Reminds of how my Grandfather used to jokingly remark when someone in the house answered the phone: "Joe's fish market, Joe speaking....")

NSaaiman's World of Tanks Statistics at WoT Forum, US

Main Site & Download

First install and run of it just today
It promises to track me progress as I progress (or degress/digress/regress?)