We’re back, and this week we’re Crossbowing another amazing Weapon off our list of spotlights!
Welcome back to another Spider Tanks Showcase! This week, we’re exploring a Weapon design plucked from Earth’s distant past to unleash a wave of destruction on the arena fitting of the new millenia!
This week is, in fact, all about the Crossbow. This medieval warfare tool was originally outfitted on an archaic weapon of war called a “batmobile” in the early 24th century. Clever Earth scientists though quickly developed this into an easy to carry hand weapon, and the Crossbow was born as the height of modern destruction. Today, the Weapon has been revamped and retrofitted for Tanks throughout the Planetary Union.
The Crossbow is an extremely long range Weapon. The longer it is charged, the further it goes and the more damage it potentially does. That’s not to say it can’t be deadly at close range, but short pull backs only result in half the damage of long shots. All shots from the Crossbow pierce opponents though, so you could always fire that long shot through the adversary in your face to your real target to take out two birds with one bolt. Look out though! Whenever you charge the Crossbow, your movement will be massively slowed!
Skewering the Competition
When you’re playing as a Crossbow, you want to prioritize your ability to maneuver and achieve good position in matches. This isn’t to say that you always need the fastest Tank, but any bulk you add into your build should serve your positioning. Obviously, a Titan with a Crossbow won’t need to scramble and run from opponents as often as a Flea, so that could mean you get more shots off with time to line them up.
A Crossbow on a heavier Tank can give you some versatility in both the range you use it and how you maneuver.
The learning curve on Crossbow can be pretty high for most Pilots, so don’t get discouraged if you have trouble with it early on. Its single projectile style and massive range require you to hone your ballistics instincts a bit. When both you and your target are zipping across the arena and you’re firing halfway across the battlefield there are a lot of variables to account for. Eventually with practice, however, you’ll be able to shoot from the hip and time your bolts well to lead targets.
Whether you choose a small or bulky Body, you’ll need to account for those drawbacks with Abilities. Crossbow isn’t totally helpless up close, but if you’re a medium to large Tank that’s unable to quickly put distance between yourself and your opponent you may need to consider a defensive Ability for those “Oh $#*&!” moments. Shield Drone, Reactive Plating or even a quick Relay Drone can be extremely valuable to buy you a moment to regroup.
Combatting Crossbow
When you’re up against a Crossbow in the arena, it can be easy to feel like nowhere is safe. The range on the Crossbow is very long, but you can minimize the danger they pose by understanding how they exploit the weaknesses of opposing teams.
Grouped up enemies are paydirt for a Crossbow. Every crossbow-wielding hunk of metal in the arena would love to make a Tank kabob out of all three members of a team while they’re grouping up for a Heal Zone or on the Command Point. When you are close to your opponents, shift your attention to the enemy Crossbow to make sure you aren’t giving them any easy opportunities. While your team is scattered, they can only concentrate on one of you. While grouped, they can ruin your match pretty quickly.
With the enemy team all spread out, this Crossbow doesn’t stand a chance.
The best way for a Crossbow to hit opponents unaware is to line up long shots laterally. Often in matches, a firing line develops where both teams are squaring off on either side of some imaginary barrier. While more straightforward Tanks are lobbing cannonballs and laser blasts at each other across the line, however, an enemy Crossbow will often sneak off to the side.
Attacking diagonally across the field like this allows the Crossbow to potentially hit more enemies and makes misses much more likely to find some chassis behind their intended target. Don’t ignore the Crossbow in these situations… it can turn the tide of battle very fast.
When you get close up on a Crossbow, don’t think they’ll be an easy kill. Short charges do indeed do considerably less damage on a Crossbow, but that doesn’t mean all short shots do. A fully charged bolt can still do full damage point blank, which could easily mean a one shot kill for a small Tank in a Crossbow’s face.
Crossbow Tactics
When you’re playing Crossbow on a team, you need to remember that you depend heavily on the other Pilots with you. You’re not carrying a 1v1 Weapon, even if you can pull it off sometimes.
While a Crossbow leaves something to be desired solo, it does complement other long ranged Weapons very well. A Crossbow can lend much needed mid-range support to a Sniper Rifle or Railgun.
Snagging kills with Crossbow often depends on catching opponents when they are distracted. Look for opportunities where enemy Tanks are clearly paying attention to your allies. Catch opposing Tanks en route across the battlefield when possible. If they’re looking at that repair kit, they may not see your bolt zooming towards them as they come around the corner.
Never underestimate the power Crossbow can have for zone control to benefit your team. This may result in your kill count ending up lower than your allies, but that’s not always a bad thing. If your enemies know that you are covering a particular angle of approach with a deadly rain of bolts, you’ve successfully controlled their movement. If you can effectively limit opponents’ options for much of the match, that’s usually far better for your team than a kill or two along the way.
Pew Pew Power
Crossbows are a very unique Weapon in the arena. They can take practice to be truly deadly, but in the hands of a master they can unleash unparalleled destruction. In this age of high tech weaponry, never underestimate the little analogue arrows sniping from the corner of the arena.
Deep in the jungles of Silvanus, an ancient ruin from a mysterious, departed race hides beneath the canopy. Perhaps this was the site of great battles or horrific sacrifices in ages gone by.
Today, the grandeur of the crumbling structures and the great device in the center of the ruins bear witness to some of the greatest destruction in The Planetary Union.
The Shrouded Shrine arena is a favorite of Spider Tanks Pilots among the Silvanites. The balanced, circular arena allows evenly-matched starting points like no other arena can, and the 180-degree path of the carnage creates unique avenues to leverage superior strategy and teamwork.
Whatever this ruin was originally designed for… it sure feels like it was designed just for Spider Tanks.
Know Your Battlefield
Shrouded Shrine has several key features that distinguish it from other Maps and require you to fine-tune your strategy to excel. There’s no large open area on this map, which may shift the advantage towards speedier Tanks. There are only two Repair Kits available here… one on a bridge in the North and one on the cliff at the South end.
Area 1: The Outskirts
Both the East and West sides over the bridges are questionable areas to dig in. These locations allow any enemies surrounding you easy access to repair kits, while you have none.
Don’t get stuck here, there are too many angles to approach you. Instead, use these lanes as a second and/or third vector of attack when the enemy is bunkered in on the North or South side.
Area 2: The Cliff’s Edge
The South side of the arena is a mixed bag. On one hand, with readily available Repair Kit and the center mechanism to hide behind, this are offers a lot of cover. On the other hand, there are four lines of approach to attack you here.
With some clever maneuvering, this could be a great place to maintain a stronghold. Attacking Area 1 through this area is particularly effective, since you can brush off early hits with the Repair Kit.
Area 3: The Runway
On the North side of the arena, you’ll find a large strip of straightaway with only one bridge to access it. Controlling this area is often the easiest, if you can maintain the bridgehead enough to keep enemies from using the Repair Kit to their advantage.
You’ll be open to fire across the chasm, but there’s plenty of room to shelter outside of most Weapons’ range. Controlling this area is a particularly effective way to have clean access throughout the entire map.
Area 4: The Killbox
Area 4 is where it all happens. Here, you’ll find the Control Point during King of the Hill.
Literally any other area on the map can threaten this position from some angle. That having been said, you can threaten everyone else from here as well. If a team can properly control this area, the other team will have no choice but to hide out trapped on this cliff or the south side of one of the outskirts.
Shrouded Shrine Best Practices
Keep Moving
Staying mobile is absolutely key. The arena is a circle, so you if you stay perceptive of enemy and ally positioning, you can bob and weave through the level without ever needing to turn around or run a straight line for too long.
The outskirts and the runway are large enough to weave back and forth… and you’ll need to. There’s no fence protecting you, so keep zigging and zagging as you serpentine through the level to get the advantage on your enemies.
Stay in Contact
Always know your allies’ position on this map. On Shrouded Shrine, it’s easy to get cut off as enemies move around the circle.
If you let the enemy get between you and your team, they could easily just herd you down into the Southeast or Southwest corner and separate you. Then you explode.
Solid example of how quickly Shrouded Shrine can turn on you 👆
No Cover Is Reliable
The bridges have no fences on them. The chasm has no fences. What cover there is on the South side is even made vulnerable by the gaps in cover around the SE and SW bridges.
The mechanism in the middle isn’t even particularly reliable cover, as any enemy could bring you into their sites by just running around the opposite side a bit, only to duck back into cover right away.
Bridges Are NOT Safe
The bridges on the East and West sides can be hit from the bridge opposite them to the North and South. This makes them ways to get from point A to point B rather than reliable bridgeheads to hold.
The North bridge is less exposed, but still very dangerous. It can be hit from a wide range and is arguably the most exposed spot in the map, but very powerful if you can hold it.
Rumble in the Jungle
Shrouded Shrine can be hard for beginners to wrap their heads around, since you can get everywhere from everywhere basically. This can be an advantage though… once you learn to use it.
That’ll be all for us this week, but we’ll be back next week to knock up our bolts and zoom in on the Crossbow Weapon!
Let us know your favorite ways to destroy Tanks with the Crossbow for a chance to be featured in the next edition!
Spider Tanks was the first game launched supported by GalaChain, and it’s always held a special place in our hearts. As one of our original collaborations with an external studio, many of our long-term community members and employees love Spider Tanks.
We wish to respond to community comments about development on the game, which has stalled in the last half year. We agree with you: this has gone too far.
The community deserves official word about Spider Tanks, so we’d like to share information about the current situation and what we hope to do about it.
Spider Tanks Today
Spider Tanks has always been a game that inspired fun development and progress. The addition of custom Pilot contracts, missions and other features increased the engagement of the game. We were very excited to see where the arena was going next.
The developer that we hired, GAMEDIA, however, slowed development of the game, then stopped altogether. Over months, the game received less and less GAMEDIA support. Eventually only one GAMEDIA employee was supporting the game at all… then no one.
GAMEDIA entered a long-term contract with Gala Games to support the game, and it is our belief that they have failed to do this. We have tried to find a friendly resolution to this, whether it be allowing us to bring in another developer, work out a new arrangement or allow us to access source code and develop the game internally. GAMEDIA has been unreceptive from our perspective.
At the same time, GAMEDIA has openly discussed waiting out the licensing period on the contract with inaction and then releasing on other platforms. It has also said that it won’t respect the entire licensing period. Basically, GAMEDIA wants to abandon its partnership with GALA and to be the only company to control the game. GAMEDIA’s promises weren’t only made to us, they were also promises for you, the community.
The Future
Because of our commitment to the community, we are currently actively pursuing legal mechanisms to enforce the contract terms upon GAMEDIA.
Our goal is simple: to continue the development of Spider Tanks and meet the community’s needs. We were reluctant to do anything to show GAMEDIA in a negative light originally, because they helped make a great game, and we still believe they are talented developers. However, we also believe they are significantly out of alignment with our expectations for the support of the game.
We were informed that development stopped nearly 6 months ago on Spider Tanks. There are still hundreds or thousands of people playing every day. That is a testament to how awesome this game is, and we don’t want it to die.
We hope to see you in the arena soon! You can find a link to our legal action here.
Rev up your engines Pilots, because you’ve got a new way to grab upgrades in the arena!
$SILK: The Universal Arena Token
From now on, every item will be able to be purchased in $SILK! While items like Components and Drop Ships have always been available in $SILK, certain Weapons, Bodies and Hero Tanks have only been available in $GALA, ETH or USD up to this point.
Being able to use $SILK on any explosive, implosive or otherwise destructive toys in the arena means you can turn your rewards into a new kit much easier!
While new Tanks in the arena may eventually mean more Victory Points coming from matches, all the $SILK that players use on those tanks increases the available $SILK to be distributed to all VP holders at the end of the day!
Spider Tanks has teamed up with Gala Music to bring sweet tracks and unbridled destruction together at last.
Researchers throughout the Earthen Cluster are always eager to find more windows into our prehistoric past. For generations, everyone in the Planetary Union has gazed at the sky and wondered about our origins on the mysterious Earth.
A recent cache of analogue records has revealed more insights into the culture of our ancient shared past than ever before, and we’re bringing that excitement to the Spider Tanks arena!
The recent discovery includes recordings from long lost great poets and composers of the 21st century — Earl Sweatshirt and the Alchemist!
TranslationBot375.aÞv12 is still decoding the cultural nuance of these ancient verses, but anthropologists believe that Mr. Sweatshirt and Mr. Alchemist’s recordings were beyond simple music, as song and poetry often carried culture and oral traditions to the far corners of the planet in the Terraclassical Era.
Gala Music — the biggest authority on audiographical entertainment in the solar system — released a limited run of an all new album by the great Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist on August 25th! This previously unreleased treasure is called VOIR DIRE, and for a limited time only, owners can also receive a shiny new Tank in their garage!
Earl Sweatshirt x The Alchemist Tank Combo Deal Details
That’s right Pilots, we’ve teamed up with Gala Music to bring you some sweet synergy between your tunes and your Tanks!
Last Friday our friends at Gala Music dropped the new Earl Sweatshirt x The Alchemist album, VOIR DIRE. Three weeks after the sale (September 15th), we’ll take a snapshot of all purchasers of this album. Note that this reward is for those who purchased the album from the Gala Music Store only.
Buyers of three tracks will receive a random Common Tank
Buyers of five tracks will receive a random Rare Tank
Buyers of all eleven tracks will receive a random Epic Tank
Random Tanks from this reward can consist of any of the following parts:
Weapons:
Sniper Rifle
Fire Artillery
Carver
Bouncer Gun
Rail Gun
Repair Gun
Bodies:
Tracks
Fletcher
Mantis
Maul
Crab
Plate
Remember, the tracks will have to be held in the wallet connected to your Gala Account at the snapshot!
About Earl Sweatshirt
Earl Sweatshirt is the byproduct of L.A.’s fertile ground where hip-hop sowed its seeds. The prodigiously gifted writer, lyricist, and producer grew from a zeitgeist on which contemporary collectives in hip-hop today are predicated. And while most movements are fleeting, Earl pushed forward and cemented himself as one of the foremost culturally relevant MCs in the game.
About The Alchemist
The Alchemist, a prolific record producer and musical visionary, has carved an indelible mark in the realm of hip-hop and beyond. His distinctive beats have graced tracks for Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Earl Sweatshirt, and Freddie Gibbs. Continuously evolving, The Alchemist remains an influential force in modern music, proving that his sonic alchemy transcends eras.
Don’t miss out. This latest Earl Sweatshirt x The Alchemist album dropped last Friday on Gala Music and there are still some available at https://music.gala.com, but once they’re gone you can still find them on sale from other fans at The Official Gala Music OpenSea Collection.
Alright Pilots, get yourself some scratch paper and let’s dive into the numbers behind battle rewards!
Battles in the arena are– in a way– their own reward. The thrill of victory, the smell of burning fuel… this is what true arena champions are all about, but Spider Tanks brings you rewards that go a little beyond the pure satisfaction of destroying your opponents.
Today, we’re going to dive into the Victory Point formula for battles and hopefully shed some light on the finer functions of the great machine that is the arena. This will let all Pilots plan out their entire rise to glory from their humble beginnings to their highest hopes of Tank Pilot glory.
The Victory Points (VPs) you could potentially win each match are influenced by a number of factors. Your Rank, the rarity and level of your Tank Parts, and how many battles you’ve already won using those specific Parts that day are the major variables in how many VPs you’ll rack up from each victory. Other factors– such as Honor– may also eventually affect your potential VPs.
Note: This is a snapshot of how the VP battle reward system currently works at the time of this article. Fun gameplay, balance and sustainability will always be priorities of Spider Tanks. If necessary, this formula may be altered in the future to better support those core goals.
Base VP Potential
Determining the amount of VP you could earn from each win starts with your base potential. This is a set number for each rarity and level to which multipliers are applied to reward you VP. Each Tank Part has an independent value for its potential VP… even if it’s a Hero Tank that was purchased as a package, all Weapons and Bodies are accounted for separately in VP calculations.
Weapons tend to have roughly 30% more VP potential from each win than Bodies of equal rarity and level. This is due to the original pricing disparity between Weapons and Bodies. As Weapons often define a playstyle more than Bodies, this also helps discourage players from swapping out Bodies only to augment VP without the work of mastering another Weapon in the arena.
The following charts represent the base theoretical maximum VP potential of each rarity/level Tank Part for a particular day. This is before any modifiers are applied for Rank or upgrade quality.
You’re welcome to pick through these numbers and check out what the potential for your specific build is, but even at a glance it should be obvious how important the level of any specific Part is in relation to VP potential. Once other factors are introduced, this base number will massively affect your overall VP gain from wins, as multipliers can make minor changes in your level more pronounced.
Starting Strong
Now that we’ve discussed the intrinsic VP potential of each rarity and level of Tank Part, let’s get into what factors influence that to arrive at the amount of VP you receive from each win.
First off, each win in a given day with a specific Tank Part will reward diminishing VPs. As we said earlier, the charts above are to indicate what the theoretical maximum is for a particular Part, but in reality you’ll continue to win diminishing amounts of VP indefinitely. The first few wins each day will give you a much larger share of VPs than your 19th and 20th.
By 5 wins in a day, you should be just shy of 50% of your Tank Part’s total theoretical potential. At 10 wins, you’ll have received around 75% of that total potential. By 20 wins, you’ve received right about 95% of all total VP you could possibly get from that Tank Part that day. You’ll never totally stop winning VP with any Part, but the amount you receive will continue to diminish exponentially as you win more and more.
Swapping out Tank Parts doesn’t have to be done at the same time to get your full VP. Each is factored separately then added together to give you your total VP from winning a match. If you’ve already won 10 matches on a Titan/Crossbow and you swap out the Crossbow for a Cannon you haven’t used that day but keep the Titan, you’ll be getting a fresh flow of potential VP from the Weapon, but your Body will still have the diminishing returns of 10 matches won.
Upgrade Quality
Every upgrade on a Tank Part randomizes several stats independently of each other within a range. The overall quality grade (Decent, Good, Great, Excellent, Perfect) is a generalized measurement of how high these rolls are rather than the factor that determines them. The best upgrades are called “Perfect”, but one Perfect may be slightly numerically better than another.
For VP calculations, the quality of all your upgrades up to level 30 is taken as a percentage measurement of how close to numerically perfect they cumulatively all are together. This is used to determine a multiplier between 1 and 2 applied to your base VP potential.
A level 0 Tank Part (or a Tank Part with the worst possible upgrades each level!) is 0% quality, so its multiplier would be 1. A level 30 Part with only absolutely mathematically perfect upgrades would be 100% quality, thus a multiplier of 2. It’s important to note that it’s incredibly unlikely any Tank Part will ever have a full multiplier of 2 in this calculation.
This crucially assumes 100% quality is 30 levels of totally mathematically perfect rolls. A level 15 Weapon with absolutely perfect rolls to that point would be 50% quality (15/30) and have a multiplier of 1.5.
Upgrade costs increase as you get higher, spread across all Components required by the specific Part. Weapons cost more to upgrade than equivalent Bodies, in line with their increased potential VP. At a different level for each Part and rarity, upgrades will begin to require Arachnium and will require increasing amounts until level 30. Epic rarity and higher Tank Parts will require Arachnium starting at the first upgrade, though they do start at a higher level.
Battle Ranking
Your overall Elo rating is the number behind that bar that fills up or drops down when each match ends. This number is used for matchmaking and Rank calculations and increases or decreases based on your wins and losses, but also on your performance in each match, how successful your opponents were in other matches, etc. Though at this scale and speed the system can seem complex, it’s something most people are very familiar with. It is the same basic ranking system used by most major sports leagues.
This Elo rating is also (at the time of writing this article) the only factor in VP calculation that does not rely on your specific Tank Parts. This one is all about you as a Pilot!
The multiplier from your Elo can be anywhere from .5 to 2 depending on your overall position among active players. The lowest Elo score in the game has a multiplier of .5– halving VP received from any win. The highest Elo score will have a multiplier of 2 — doubling VP received from any win. The vast majority of players will fall somewhere in the center of this spectrum, but increasing your rating relative to other players will always increase the multiplier applied to your VPs.
Adding It All Up
So now that we know what factors go into VP calculation, we can simplify it down to a pretty basic equation for how many VPs you’ll receive from your first win each day.
VP=(VPbase) x (Quality Multiplier) x (Elo Multiplier)
After the first win you’ll receive gradually less from each until a new day starts, but you can use the charts above to estimate what that base should be after you reach your win goal for the day.
The SILK distribution based on daily VP you win varies depending on a number of factors. More SILK spent within the Spider Tanks Ecosystem results in more SILK being distributed, whereas more SILK in circulation but not being spent results in less SILK being distributed daily.
This distribution is designed to gravitate around 1000 VP resulting in one SILK during that day’s distribution, but it could be higher or lower any given day depending on the factors mentioned above. This figure also depends on consistent spend in-game, and if users stop burning SILK, there will obviously be no SILK to be added to the remint quantity, reducing this number.
For Victory!
Knowledge is an important part of each battle in the arena, and hopefully this crash course in the math behind your battles lets you get an edge every time you get in the driver’s seat.
Remember, it’s all about victory at the end of the day! Knowing the systems running under the hood in the arena won’t do anything if you can’t triumph over your opponents. So get out there! Blow some stuff up and rack up some wins today!
We’ll be returning to dive into more numbers soon, so if you have any questions about this basic overview, shout them out in the comments below or let us know on Discord!
