Stronk Hall of Fame Ratink

Thanks to dzudzubajac for this one!

Hello everyone,

check this out – this is the printout of the official Hall of Fame. Check the number one player by rating and stats:

stronk

So, mariofi has the highest personal rating of them all, yet his stats are below average – how is that even possible? Well, if you look at his stats, you will find the answer. Most of the battles he actually played are team battles – wasn’t it announced that team battles would have separated rating?

Anyway, it’s the number of the team battles that drives his rating up to heaven, it apparently influences the formula strongly, which is weird. I have no idea whether this is intended or just a bug somewhere. He almost certainly is innocent of any rigging, well, at least it’s not a bot (like months ago)…

9.0.4 Hotfix Coming on Thursday

Thanks to Dom1n for letting me know (that awkward moment when a Polish guy tells a Czech guy about a post in Czech section of the forums). English version by Ectar:

Source: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/391788-eu-cluster-downtime-micro-patch-15052014/

Please note that on Thursday morning (15/05/2014) we will have a short downtime to apply a micropatch to address some issues. The game servers will be unavailable starting from roughly 06.00 CEST (04.00 UTC). The downtime is expected to last for about 1 hour.

Content of the patch:

  •    Fixed some issues with minimum rendering range.
  •    Fixed low FPS when shooting automatic guns.
  •    Fixed performance issues on Hidden Village.
  •    Fixed artefact issues on some graphic cards (square on trees).
  •    Fixed disconnections with FX and Phenom processors.
  •    Fixed charging gold by default on maintenance page when changing gun module on a tank.
  •    Fixed some rare memory leaks and crashes.

Unwarranted Bans from FTR

Hello everyone,

yesterday, while trying to update the entire banning system, I made a mistake and unwittingly banned a shitload of people. It should be fixed now, I apologize. The comments should be operational now as well.

- SS

Weekly FTR contributor review

Hello everyone,

once again it’s the time to thank the contributors, it’s you who keep FTR running after all! This time, following people donated via Paypal:

Krystian K. (Poland) – member of the [-DRG] clan (mentioning as requested)
Geir O. (Norway)
Siegfried M. (Germany)

Thanks guys!

The best way to help me and FTR is via the Patreon service

http://www.patreon.com/silentstalker

This is the Patreon account of For the Record. In case you read this for the first time and feel like contributing, here is an explanation what it is, how it works and how to contribute. You can find a list of all those, who pledged and help to keep FTR running here.

Thank you all!

Bad Apples – EFE

Hello everyone,

I believe it’s no secret that I am not a fan of the EFE clan, that, in my opinion, carries the torch of the “rudest clan out there” after EXNOM was disbanded. And there is a reason why I am not exactly a fan. Check this out:

j6o1v4
2nlvms8
35b9m6c
2ikb4ig

Do you think the clan leadership is concerned with keeping their clan clean of such complete retards? Think again.

104kpb7

Continue reading

Czechoslovak Post-War AA Gun Tank Projects – Part 1

Hello everyone,

this doesn’t concern directly World of Tanks (because you know what the stance of Wargaming on AA tanks is), nor does it really concern War Thunder (though… hell, for a Czechoslovak branch with crews I might even consider becoming a turncoat), but I think it is interesting nonetheless.

The AA vehicle category evolved fully during the Second World War, but the vehicle concept itself is quite old – first AA vehicles appeared as early as WW1, although those were simply flatbed trucks with guns mounted on them. Some development went on before the war (including Czechoslovakia), but the real boom happened during the war, especially on the German side, with every chassis from Panzer I up to Panther was used to create anti-aircraft vehicles.

This development did not escape Czechoslovak engineers of course. After the war, quite a high number of indigenous anti-aircraft guns was developed in calibers ranging from high-caliber machineguns and 20-30mm autocannons over 57mm models and 100mm heavy AA guns up to the massive 130mm R14 cannon and even a 152mm heavy AA gun by Škoda. It was only natural that some of these guns would be used on a fully tracked or half-track chassis to provide mobile AA support to the mechanized units. There were even attempts to create guided AA missiles and to put them on halftrack platforms, but that is not the scope of this article.

Lehký Podvozek

One of the first attempts to create a modern AA vehicle was concieved in November 1948. Between 18.11. and 20.11., a conference was held at Škoda Works in Pilsen between the representatives of the industry, the tank forces and the artillery forces of the Czechoslovak army. A large number of interesting demands and proposals came from this conference, but two of them are currently most interesting. One demand by the tank military branch was to create an AA vehicle with a 50mm AA gun based on the so-called “lehký podvozek” – (“light chassis”). The other was to use the same chassis for a quad-20mm mount.

LPAA

Continue reading

Latest Micropatch – Stronk!

Hello everyone,

so, player PkPsycho finally encountered the “you have low FPS, change your settings” message – and it’s a stronk one!

tanks error

He’s running some mods though, so it could be that. What is interesting though is that he followed the setting advice, offered by this mod. It did fiddle around with his settings, some got actually higher and in the end he claims to have gained extra 5 FPS – that’s actually not bad, I am glad this mechanism will help some people.

Pictures from Cobbaton Combat Collection (England)

Hello everyone,

player Venturius_ was kind enough to share with us his pictures from the Cobbaton Combat Collection in North Devon (west of England) – thank you!. As he says, it’s a private collection, so the space in the buildings is a bit cramped for good photos, but I think it’s very interesting nonetheless. Descriptions are written by him.

Centaur Cruiser Tank MK IV (1994)

Build by Leland with a V12 27 litre 395 BHP Liberty engine. 0.6 MPG and top speed 28 MPH, 50 MPH with modified governors. This tank was converted to bulldozer tank by the army in 1945 and sold as scrap in 1957. The owner bought it in 1978 and restored it to full running orer and built a steel turret with replica 95mm howitzer. The markings around the turret are the degrees of the compass which were used to help bring all the guns in the troop to bear on a target quickly. This Centaur is identical to the much used Cromwell tanks with the exception of the engine which in the case o the Cromwell was the R&R Meteor, a detuned Spitfire Merlin. The Centaur has a detuned WWI Liberty bomber engine.

DSC03600

Continue reading

Kubinka Museum Situation Followup

Hello everyone,

this is a followup post to the Kubinka Maus situation, which is currently developing and it’s not closed yet. Today, yet another post appeared on official Kubinka web pages:

kub4

The post says following things:

- the restoration of Maus will proceed as planned (not as a part of any anniversary) in cooperation with company Wargaming
- Kubinka and Wargaming are “strategic partners and loyal friends, working together to save and popularize historical heritage of the Motherland”

(and that some official statement is to be issued in print or something)

Either way, I contacted a reliable source in Wargaming RU. What I got told about the background of the story and how it happened is the following:

It all started when some retarded sensationalist Russian newspaper printed an article, saying that Kubinka along with Wargaming will be restoring a fascist German tank as a part of the Day of Victory anniversary, which is not patriotic. Now, to understand what this means for Kubinka, you have to know two things:

- as we all know, Russia is – when it comes to press and its effects – not a free country, press rules are quite harsh and for example there is a new law (or regulation), that forces bloggers (!) with blogs above certain amount of visits per day (3000 I think) to register (!!!) – their content is reviewed and they can be fined for “slanderous info”, anti-patriotic stuff and such.

- Kubinka is purely government funded and controlled and with current moods, being associated with anything even remotely pro-fascist could have very real and nasty consequences, hence the “we are patriots” kneejerk

At that point, Kubinka employees panicked, closed the VK group and started deleting all the info from their portal about Kubinka cooperating with Wargaming (for example the original Maus announcement, it got deleted). Obviously, since we have Google cache, they failed, which made them panic even more. To make matters worse, one of the employees, who really dislikes Wargaming (but is a big fan of War Thunder) saw an opportunity to blow off some steam against Wargaming and the result was that angry rant (which got posted without his boss’ knowledge) plus the peaked patriotic tone, which comes out of fear of being associated with anything “fascist” in any way.

At this moment, Wargaming PR and law department are working to calm the situation down and to reach an agreement between both sides.