Hello again, pilots!

The progression system that we presented in the previous issue of developers’ diaries has changed significantly. We did our best to improve it, taking your opinions and the results of the tests into account. These changes are still directed towards the same goals though: we want to motivate the players to use planes of all ranks and nations while ensuring fair conditions when it comes to researching new models. We hope the improved system to become more comprehensible and better reflect the expectations of our community - your expectations.

The basic principle remains the same: in order to access a new aircraft, a player earns Research Points (RP) by flying other planes, researching the next vehicle in line and modifications for the current one at the same time.

So what exactly needs to be done to access a new aircraft? Let’s take the American F4U-1d Corsair  rank III fighter as an example. To obtain it a player needs to:

a) Unlock the rank the chosen aircraft belongs to. Thus the F4U-1d belongs to rank III, which means we should unlock and purchase 3 planes from rank II. Let us choose, for example, F4U-1a and F6F-3a from the same branch and premium A6M2.

b) Before we can take F4U-1d into flight we should research the plane itself choosing it from the other aircraft available for research. The process is similar to researching modifications, but research points will be from all the planes of the chosen nation you fly which will be used for research of the chosen aircraft.

This all means that experience gained for successful actions in combat gives access to new modifications of the plane a player is currently flying and brings him closer to unlocking another plane a player has chosen.

We wanted to make the introduction of the new progression system non-problematic for both new and experienced players that is why all achievements, obtained modifications and planes will remain available when the 1.37 comes out, including those you unlocked but did not yet purchase!

Modifications speed up your progression

To open a new aircraft you don’t need to research modifications and upgrades of a previous one any more. You can research a new model by flying any other plane, but it is more effective to use aircraft of the same or close rank. However it is still beneficial to spend some time opening modifications, as unlocking a full tier of them will give a meaningful boost to the research of the next aircraft.

Follow the research branches

Researching an aircraft by flying the previous one in a research branch  will also give you a significant boost to the amount of RP earned. For instance, flying F4U-1a to open the subsequent F4U-1d will greatly speed up the research.

Personal contribution matters

The RP reward a player earns after battle depends substantially on his effectiveness on the battlefield. Even if the team performed poorly, a skilful pilot will earn a bigger amount of RP than his teammates. On average, the RP reward for personal actions is 2 - 2.5 times higher than the reward for completing teamwide objectives. Of course, estimating personal succesfulness of each player is only possible after the battle, so pilots leaving before it is over will only see the preliminary amounts of RP and Silver Lions earned on their Results screen. The final amounts depend on many factors such as game mode, victory or defeat of the team, personal achievements and activity, premium account and first victory bonus.

Below you can see the battle results screen from a 1.37 test version, showing the preliminary results of a battle and the number of RP earned after preemptively leaving a battle that ended up with a defeat.

The Bf.110 performed quite well in this realistic battle, destroying 2 enemy aircraft and 2 ground targets, and the amount of RP showing right after leaving the battle is 416. However, it is impossible to fully calculate the battle effectiveness and the team bonus before the battle is over. And that is way the final RP results (to the left) are almost twice as high.

The second example features He 112 B-0 having some really bad time and leaving a battle that results in a victory. Landing only two successful hits results in laughable 12 RP. But it all changes when the final results come, bringing as many as 668 RP of reward.

As you can see, the battle results menu is not always informative, and that is why we are going to redesign it completely - one of the many changes that the future 1.39 will bring. But it does not change the fact that each player’s personal contribution directly influences both the outcome of the match and his own RP reward.

War Thunder developers team

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