World of Tanks

[Malicious Intent]

Yeah, free xp

Im driving one of those special tanks T-15 or something.

Ah, then it's a premium tank. Those tank are outside the regular techtrees, so you cannot research other vehicles from them, nor upgrade their modules. You have two options on them:

1. Activate crew training (crew member with the least overal amount of xp gets his XP gains doubled). This is very useful, since Premium vehicles can be used by any crew of the same nation and class without retraining.
I for example have a T-50-2 soviet light tanks. Through free bonus codes I also have a Tetrarch and a T-127, both soviet premium light tanks. I only have one light tank crew: trained for the T-50-2, which can also use the other two tanks at full efficiency.

2. Let the regular XP accumulate on the tank for later conversion into free XP (costs 1 Gold to convert 25 XP into free XP). Only usefull if you plan on pumbing insane amounts of real money into the game, since later modules can easiliy cost 50k and more XP.

A tip for free XP: Try not to tap into that pot too often. Use it only to get an early upgrade on a particularly shitty stock tank tank. A good example would be the tier 6 french TD, that comes with a tier 3 stock gun. To mount the better guns from earlier TDs you have to upgrade the tracks first, which cost 5k XP.

[Malicious Intent]

So, are you guys saying that if Im driving a PzII, the research to PzIII will go faster?

About 20 times as fast, yes.  Free XP is only 5% of the regular XP earned in a battle.

[frunk]

The best way to climb the research tree (and later the credits tree) is to get a premium account. The game is "free", but to be completely honest, it isn't really playable, IMO, without a premium account.

I disagree, you can play perfectly fine without premium.  Just don't expect to get through the research tree very fast (or the upper tiers at all), and be sure to figure out the types of tanks you like before you buy them.  The low tiers are great for that since tanks are relatively cheap.  As long as your goal isn't to get to tier 10 playing free is a great deal of fun.

[Bluebook]

FINALLY!

Now I have a PzIIIA with 50mm gun. Is this the end of the five-hits-to-kill nighmare?

[Bluebook]

Wow, that was a world of difference. Finally I can go head to head with the tier III-tanks

[DGuller]

I actually agree on the issue of gold rounds - honestly, I would rather they didn't even exist.

Although I did break down and buy some when they are half price for my Matilda. The 75mm howitzer with gold rounds is actually bearable.

I stopped though, when I realized I was going to be paying out about 40-70 gold per round, even at half price. That is just not sustainable for me.

I find that for most tanks, gold rounds are just extremely not cost effective.  On lower tiers, they can cost 10x-20x as much, and offer only marginal improvement in penetration.  That's because smaller calibers fire APCR, I find that in general, APCR rounds are just not effective enough, since they still lose penetration over distance, and don't punch much harder. 

HEAT rounds, on the other hand, can be worth it.  My M103 still doesn't have top gun, and I find that HEAT rounds compensate for it rather nicely, and cost less than 2.5x as much as regular AP ammo.  I figure that the savings from less bounced shots and less fire received may make HEAT ammo worthwhile.

[Malicious Intent]

Premium ammo is a big problem on certain tier 8 premiums: They generate enough money to still earn a profit and their main weakness (poor penetration guns) is completely bypassed. I am thinking mostly of the Super Pershing, Type59 and KV5 here.

It is also ridiculously effective on some tanks armed with howitzers. I've seen Shermans twoshot tier 5 heavies and tier 7 mediums....the SU-152 und KV2 are also plain evil now, twoshotting tier 8 heavies.

[DGuller]

Well, HEAT ammo did historically kill the concept of heavy tanks, so it's not unrealistic.  However, it sure does fuck with the game balance now.  Howitzer guns, which used to be an annoyance at higher tier levels, can now Panzerfaust anything.

[DGuller]

Well, crap.  Turns out the HEAT ammo I so loved for M103 due to its cheapness is ain't so cheap now.  It was at half price.  Now with 4x the cost, I'm going to have to go back to firing solid shot.  At these levels, credits are not XPs are what's limiting you.

[Strix]

So, just started messing around with this game, so I have too many questions and I am probably screwing myself over already but...

1) As I progress up the Tiers of tanks, do I delete the previous version I was using? i.e. use the same slot.

[DGuller]

So, just started messing around with this game, so I have too many questions and I am probably screwing myself over already but...

1) As I progress up the Tiers of tanks, do I delete the previous version I was using? i.e. use the same slot.

Sell, not delete.  And yes, practically speaking, you would typically sell the previous version, especially once you have a crack crew that you would want to retrain for the new tank.  You don't have to sell the previous version, but it's impractical to keep all the tanks.

[frunk]

I wouldn't sell the tier 1s until you get enough games to elite them (have enough experience to research all upgrades and tanks).  First off it'll give you experience in low tier, low stakes games.  Second it'll let you jump down new tank paths easier once you decide what you like.

[Bluebook]

Crap, I sold my tier 1 tanks in a fit of euphoria.  I can get them back for free, but without the 5-star thing.

[Syt]

The main reason for keeping your elite tanks (at least those you enjoy playing): the XP you earn with them converts to Free XP.

[frunk]

Crap, I sold my tier 1 tanks in a fit of euphoria.  I can get them back for free, but without the 5-star thing.

They are free to buy back, but if you ditched the crew/upgrades you'll have to suffer/buy them back.  Not a big deal overall.