It's time for another round of Questions and Answers!

 Ground Forces

No, they don’t.

Yes, we plan to change the parameters for launchers and rockets, and add other components (the ATGM sight) to the DM, so that hitting them can knock the rocket system out and block the ability to launch.

Yes, we plan to introduce more types of APDS with differentiation based on DM mechanics (penetration depending on angle, post-penetration effect etc.).

We plan to rework the hit action of HESH shells, in particular we plan to fix their ability to set alight the engine or fuel tank. For APCRs, we have plans to move them gradually to a new system of secondary fragmentation.

No, we have nothing like that planned.

We have taken a look at the popularity statistics over the last 10 days, and in terms of number of battles in rank 5 ground vehicles (AB/RB/SB combined), the Maus and IS-4 occupy positions 23 and 24 out of 50 in the table. The difference in number between uses vs tanks is in the top 5, not 10 or 100, is 4-5 times, a difference of 2 times vs 10th place for example. For example, these tanks are used more often than their ‘killers’ the M60A2 or the Chieftain Mk 5. i.e. it’ i incorrect to say that these tanks have died out. They aren't the most popular vehicles, but they are played. As for changing their BR, or the BR of tanks that cause them to ‘suffer’, yes, redistributing top rank tanks by BR is possible, but it’s worth remembering that in any case, there’ll be a certain split by rank, and these tanks will still encounter some more modern vehicles.

The smoke problem existed in reality. Consider that the aimer observes the entire volume of the smoke with the entire trajectory. For example, you can read about this problem in Vehicles and Armaments No. 2010-01 “The Dragon That Scourges Tanks – the IT-1”, pages 10-11.

We’re aware of the multitude of modifications and additions for this tank, as with the T-55, which significantly increase its effectiveness, but as we answered before in our Q&A dedicated to the introduction of era 6, these modifications might appear if necessary as a balance correction, with a simultaneous change in the vehicle’s BR.

Currently no, and in addition, not all crews of these vehicles were necessarily tankers specifically, or artillerymen/AA crews.

Yes, we plan to add historical magnification for all eras. But with the condition that if the real magnification was lower than x3, then in the game it will be set at x3, for player comfort.

Aircraft

We still have more aircraft maps in the game than tank maps, but that doesn’t mean we don’t plan to add more. Yes, we have plans to both add new maps and change matchmaking settings in such a way as to let players play on a wider variety of maps.

In aerial RB, pilot death doesn’t influence the reduction in crew XP. The difference in the amount of experience in comparison with aerial AB is linked to the fact that in RB fewer crew members are required on average. And the difference isn’t 3 times, it’s roughly 2.6.

 Other 

Vulcan is very interesting to us and we support its development (link). We hope that it might replace OpenGL in the Linux and Windows versions in the near future, and possibly Direct X 9.0. That depends on whether graphics card manufacturers support it.

The launcher did have a x6 MSAA setting. But since almost no graphics cards (old and new) support it, we removed that antialiasing variant from the settings. MSAA is actually pretty poorly compatible with modern lighting technology, so manufacturers don’t bother to support it. Various types of temporal antialiasing are more suitable for modern lighting. Unfortunately, they have their own limitations and price. But we are not ruling out the possibility of using temporal anti aliasing in the future at some point.

 Questions translated from recent Russian stream

Yes we plan to do this with several vehicles, and not only in the Soviet tree.

Yes. At the moment we are working on S-5 containers and high-calibre rockets for the MiG-17. There is no ETA right now though

That’s possible, however we cannot discuss when.

We are discussing this. There are several difficulties. From the historical point of view after such bombs appeared all vessels received jamming transmitters and these bombs became useless. The second thing is that bombs were controlled by a joystick aiming system using a bomb tracer. So the control is similar to that of 1st gen ATGMs only in an aircraft. Thus accuracy would be pretty low even if a player does everything right. Thus we haven’t decided yet whether we will implement this feature or not. 

At the moment not all armament uses the new system (recalculation to a TNT equivalent). Thus currently rockets are a bit more powerful than they were IRL, once we apply changes to all rockets they will become less deadly, however they will still be efficient if you manage to shoot against the top surfaces of the enemy vehicle. 

These are complex mechanics, we have completed only part of the work and are still working on it.

We plan a lot minor changes in different spheres. We will not announce them yet, probably some of them will not be finished by 1.71 release, but yes, there are changes in DM and ammo.

That’s an interesting question, but implementing this system will be bad for gameplay - for both sides, it will also decrease the importance of player skill. This is why most likely we will not introduce such a system.

All BR changes should be made after the release of the update. The introduction of rank 6 will most likely lead to BR changes in many vehicles, not only top-rank ones. Let’s wait and see.

These are our plans at the moment, yes.

It depends on the balance in the game. If it will be required, then yes they will.

That’s possible. Especially when “Ontos” is actually close to this idea. No promises however so far.

Of course not. We have just introduced a whole new nation in the previous update! As well as many other aircraft. All the game aspects are being developed in parallel. There will be lots of interesting stuff in the aviation part of the game later this year.

We are constantly working on it. We never planned to introduce vehicles that fire whilst being invisible, all such bugs are being fixed.

We are always looking for your questions! Feel free to submit them in comment section, or on our Official Forum!

The War Thunder Team