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?)

WoT: The "He Sucks & He Don't" Mod ... Showing Win Rate In That Tank

A guy on the forums put a mod to the XVM mod (that's 2 mods if you're keeping up) -- the ol' "he sucks and he don't" mod -- that he claimed would show wins in _the_ specific tank that _the_ specific guy is in, not just global win rate.  Well, just now, I got it working and it works:

XVM: Kuroialty's Win Rate In That Tank Mod

Download

I am only running this on one computer I play WoT on, to see how I like it comparitively.

But, it works!

I compared a player in the game to his Service Record.  Indeed, it showed his win % in that vehicle.  His global was a different number.

Screens (some I took and some from Kuroialty, along with his explanations):

Here's yet another mod to the mod to the mod, did/done by Plunky:

I did things a little differently. The way I have mine setup, I now have a better understanding as to how good a person may be in the specific vehicle they have brought into the match.

Normal OTM Explanation:

Line 1: Tank (enemy), Player Nick (allies)
Line 2: Player Nick (enemy), Tank (allies)
Line 3: Tier - Health Bar - Health %
Line 4: Total number of games played - Global Win Rate - Global Efficiency

Note: The color of line 4 denotes Global Efficiency

----------------------------

Alt OTM Explanation:

Line 1: Name
Line 2: Number of games played in current tank - Win Rate % in current tank - Global Efficiency
Line 3: Health Bar

Note: The color of line 2 denotes Win Rate in current tank only

World of Tanks: Late German Exhaust Explained: Exhaust End Pot With Flame Shock

I broke down and finally decided to googles the funky, but neat-looking, exhaust on late German tanks.

My fav tank & design: Panther I Ausf. G
Just look at that nice ass!!!

And here we see my 1/72 model replicating
the Bovington, England Panther
I painted the main exhaust pipes navy grey

According to this German page:

Served to reduce / prevent the flames
from the exhaust in the engine part-load range. were built from 1944 on Panther IG, and would probably get all 1945 German tanks ... ... were shown above in the production of Tiger III S but again not just available....
That's a google translation

I ran, "auspuff end topf mit flammen dämpfer" through http://www.microsofttranslator.com, and it came back with:

"exhaust end pot with flame shock"

I had always -- it looks like, wrongly assumed -- that it some how squelched smoke, so as not to reveal the tank as easily and/or, a camo effect.

Was this the purpose of preventing flames?  To prevent detection?  Did it also hinder smoke?  Was it so the tank could not be seen at night?

World of Tanks: CliffsNotes: Lead Designer Sergey Burkatovskiy Talks The Future of WoT & The Coming T26E4 Super Pershing Premium Tank

• They will not make unique skills/perks per nation.  The many tanks by nation are enough uniqueness.
• More changes are coming for tournament play, via the web.
• Spectator mode coming.
• Replays to be saved to server, better quality, and rewind feature -- hopefully by end of year.
• Will there be matching by skills?  Keep noobs from pros -- like in Dota?  No,  This will not happen.  Noobs and pros always to play together.
• Along with the new physics, map destruction is coming.
• Historical and garage battles coming.
• IS8 and KV4 complaints: no changes planned.
• T-50-2 deletion: why?  It is not based on any prototype.  IRL, it was a slow vehicle for infantry support.  In game, it is a motorcycle with a gun.  A replacement is coming.  They have a guy on their team with a huge stack of photos, who researches tanks.  He has found a replacement for the T-50-2, created in 1943, equipped like the T-50-2.  It will play like the T-50-2.
• How can you get non-clanned players to play on the global map?  Historical battles will be similar to the global map, but without obligations.  The clan global map takes a lot of dedication.  The historical global map will not.
• T26E4 SuperPershing: New premium tier 8 medium coming?  Yes, American super Pershing.  It was apparently a modification of M26 Pershing -- the Americans captured Panthers, removed the armor from them and welded it to the T26E4 SuperPershing.
• New Trees Coming:

                 British
                 Japanese
                 Chinese
                 Europe

• Japanese and British trees are coming.  Also coming: Chinese Tree and European Tree.  Chinese tree: real problems with it.  It did not begin until after ww2.  Its 1st ank is based on      T-34-85 -- tier 6.  Team Europe: more problems -- many vehicles widely built and traded among nations.

                                        World of Tanks. Show 'ASAP'. You Ask We Reply

The T26E4 Super Pershing:

T26E4 Super Pershing

World of Tanks: A Thinking Man's Game

This game has sucked me in for many reasons:

#1, tanks. That's like, nice, huge, firm, tits....

I've seen this pic on the internets forever now
I wonder who this kid is, and how old he is now... prolly 30?

#2: an FPS -- a genre I will never tire of ever, and that has staying power forever (Diable 3 being a genre that was honestly good in the 90s if not earlier, like, old ultima, pre-UO; don't be hatin' on me, I'm not dissing D3, just sayin' -- yes, I played me some D3):

What Diablo III may look like

But 3 things have inspired me recently regarding WoT, and had my brain go, "hey, FKD, this is a thinking man's game....":

A. Platooning with a great player
2. A death with defeat in my Marder II
D. Watching a novice player think and grow

A: I platooned with a great player for hours recently. Let's call him: Magnus. At first, Magnus was giving me hard advice, which I typically rebuff (believe it or not, I can be hard to talk to). "You should do this" and "why did you do that?" However, I kept my mouth shut, with mild frustration at his didacticism, but then, like a diamond bullet, something he said stuck, and I realized he was right. Get ready for great words here!

If you don't know, ask. If you know, say. Otherwise, listen.

The great advice of Magnus:

1st, never go to the fight a high-tiered tank destroyer makes. By-pass them. T95s, Jagdtigers, Object 704s, are only successful when enemies come to their fight. If at all possible, simply avoid them. They are slow. They are only a step-up from a pill box. They cannot get-to-the-fight like a medium, or even a heavy tank. What do they do? They plant at a spot where they want to fight, and it will most likely be the best place for _them_ to fight _you_.

I must admit, in the some 12k battles I've fought, I had never thought of this. Yes, yes, one must adapt, and situations dictate you _must_ fight them where they be, but otherwise, if at all possible, avoid them where they decided to place themselves, and if you can win without engaging them, do so. There are plenty of oppurtunities in battles to do this very thing.

E.g., was on map: Fjords the other day,
Ran into 2 T95s at sector J5, followed Magnus's's advice, did not fight
the huge TDs, went through middle (aqua dotted line), defeated mediums
Capped and won!  It wasn't like a T95 can race back to stop you....

2nd, how to properly play the VK4502PB and Maus. Provide only a very shallow side to the enemy, keep nose pressed against defilade (i.e., a building wall) between reloads. Back up to shoot at an angle. I had seen a Maus do this, and didn't know wtf he was doing. Now, I know. Hey! Maybe I'm the last one to know this technique, but the point of this post is: World of Tanks is a thinking man's game.

What a Maus may look like if you placed a Ken doll next to it....

Both of these nuggets were simple, understandable, deductive and genius, and changed age-old thinking on my part in the areas they addressed. Oh, how I loved my VK4502PB, and how much I lamented my below 50% win rate in it.... Again: a thinking man's game.

2: I died yesterday in my Marder II, resulting in a loss. I did not think beforehand. Had I spent the countdown clock reciting what I knew worked on that map, in that vehicle, I woulda lived, and maybe had a victory, or a draw, or at least not died -- that's the progression of course: worstest=death/loss, worser=live/loss, worse=death/draw, better=live/draw, best=death/victory, bestest=live/victory <-- duh. (Note: please do not take this scale seriously and/or, the markers of worstest, worser, etc. I sorta shit shot that, ikr!)

The map: Abbey. In my TDs, I love to go to the hill-top that runs roughly along columns 2 and 3, and defend my flag from there (I play my TDs heavily and about 99% of the time on defense, especially on natural maps -- city maps, of course, one has to do otherwise, especially on maps like Himmelsdorf).  [Hrm, Abbey is apparently also called, "Monastery"...].  I like to get behind the brush at positions B3 or H3 (depending on side I spawn on), and snipe the enemy flag capturers from there.

What map: Abbey may look like....

What I've learned is this: especially at lower tiers -- but even high tiers too you know, scouts, madmen, might come racing along that ridge, having avoided allies -- or like, allies might have gone that way at all (never happens right?) and you get caught with your pants down.  In smaller, hideable TDs, like the Marder II, I've learned, especially at map start, plant myself with the brush between me and column 1.  You know what I mean right?  Expose my back, if necessary, to my flag, and have brush in front of me, as I turn toward column 1, to get ready for the madmen.  Honestly, you can put yourself in the middle of the brush, and there just enough to cover your front and back, but the key here, is to be facing away from your flag until your team establishes good coverage that way, etc.


Well, I didn't do it.  An artillery had gone up there too.  I think I was so thrown by this fact, that I just sorta sat there with my ass exposed, and fully visible to any ridge-runners.  Sure enough, an astute, but-as-mentioned, madman, Luchs, came racing to my nest, having avoided any allies (thinly dispersed on that side) and, although I did some panic moves and damaged him -- he killed me.


Now, in my Marder II, in that position, I have saved many a victory from defeat, or draw from defeat.  I was the first to die due that fact, and I watched the rest of my team struggle, and then love the match due to being out-capped.


Again, a thinking man's game.

Me on the toilet

D: Watching a novice player think and grow: We'll call him, Parvus.

If his win rate has improved as I see it due to my advice, then this is, indeed, a thinking man's game....

Parvus, for the longest, rushed in, died. Rushed in, died. Fought without defilade, without cover using rocks or buildings or whatnot. I've admonished him for ever to play more defensively, more conservatively, more patiently. Slowly, but surely, he has been. Now, his constant win rate of around 45% has climbed to the high 50s. Realizing this, and hearing he followed my advice, filled the room with dust I say. It was dust! /snif.

This is not me, and I'm not crying!

One last time: World of Tanks is a thinking man's game....

A squirrel contemplating and about to blog about nuts,
the same way I have today about world of tanks