Dear players,

Another round of questions and answers, with War Thunder producer Vyacheslav Bulannikov!

Aircraft

Q: Now that aircraft such as the S-81 and F-222 have been added to the game, rank one bombers have been given a new lease of life. Will other nations receive similar machines with 1.3–1.0 BR?

A: We haven’t ruled it out.

Q: I've got a question about German aviation's jet-powered era. The long-standing leaders here are only the CL-13A and the MiG-15bis. Why don't you add an aircraft that was the first military aircraft put into full-scale production in Germany after WWII, namely the modification of the Italian G.91R3?

A: Right now, we're thinking hard about what the future progress of aviation is going to look like in our game. It's possible that this aircraft will find a spot in the German tech tree, but it's also possible that completely different vehicles will end up there instead.

Q: Why are all aircraft in tank Arcade Battles equipped with standard ammunition? For most aircraft, this doesn't matter, but in aerial events you get the IL-2-37, the Ju 87G-2, and the Ме 410В-2, where half of the standard belt consists of fragmentation rounds. This halves their effectiveness when it comes to attacking ground targets, and this is their entire objective.

A: We've checked, and all these aircraft get specialized ammunition.

Q: What determines the earning power of premium vehicles? If you take the Soviet P-40E and P-39K, the difference is huge, and you can also include the I-16 type 28 and the I-153P. The BR of these aircraft is virtually identical, but the returns vary considerably.

A: The economic level and effectiveness of the specific vehicle. There is an error in the economic level of the I-16 and the I-153, we'll fix it. I-16's reward will be a little smaller, but on the other hand its cost of repair and crew training will be lower as well, while the situation with the I-153 is the opposite. Thank you for pointing it out! Do not hesitate to submit such errors on our forum in bug report section!

Q: Is the aircraft damage model going to be tweaked and improved in terms of graphics, visual aspect, and in terms of making the physics more realistic? Maybe you already have something in the works?

A: We do. We can't go into details now, but we'll definitely talk about it when it's ready.

Ground Vehicle

Q: Are you going to bring the German Nahverteidigungswaffe grenade launcher into line with its real-world technical characteristics? I'm specifically interest in the 360-degree rotation. This is especially relevant for SPGs, where they need to rotate the entire hull to set up smoke screens to the side.

A: Yes.

Q: Why can you call in artillery support only on light/medium tanks and SPAAGs? Shouldn't this ability be available to all vehicles equipped with a radio set? Do you plan to review this mechanic?

A: We answered this question a long time ago, before tanks were added to the game. This mechanic is simply an expedient way to slightly increase the combat value of medium and light tanks. Right now, we have no plans to introduce calling in artillery support for all vehicles.

Q: Will the amount of ammunition for ground vehicle machine guns be shown in the future? This could be considered an important thing to have for anti-air guns on tanks and AAA.

A: We don’t currently have any plans for to introduce this.

Q: Are you planning to add Sergeant Don "Wardaddy" Collier's tank, the M4A3E8 Fury, to the game (with various interesting and atmospheric decorators) as a premium tank similar to the IS-2 "Revenge for the Hero Brother"?

A: We don’t have any such plans at the moment, but it's a good idea.

Q: How far-off are tank defense modules like sandbags and other similar devices? Nothing like this has been added in a while.

A: Yes, you're right. The introduction of these modifications has slowed since the first large batch was added. We are working to find more interesting modifications that could be used on vehicles in the game.

Q: Interface question – will there be an indicator showing weapons selection for multi-turret vehicles?

A: We'll have a think about this. It might be worth creating a mechanic similar to the one used on ships, where the selected weapons group in highlighted in the damage model indicator.

Q: Are you planning to somehow solve the problem with the "atomic sun" in tank battles? After all the talk about how "favorable conditions" are used in battles, time after time, every battle ends up on the morning preset, where the sun shines straight into your eyes – it's like a dirty trick.

A: This problem is most noticeable when the time of day (morning or evening) is combined with the cloudy preset. We have already removed this combo from the production server – all other weather presets except for cloudy will be used for morning and evening.

Q: Are you planning to add visualization for the track hanging? Currently the game only shows the movement of the suspension of the rollers, while the caterpillar tracks are static and have only a standard scrolling animation, which doesn't look overly realistic when braking, accelerating, jumping or hitting any bumps.

A: This is what you might call a "physically authentic" track – but this is quite challenging to implement both in terms of the code and in terms of reworking existing resources. This is on the back burner for now.

Q: You said you would fix the hull roof breach from HEAT and HESH shells. But it looks like nothing has been done. So what's the plan for this effect?

A: It's in the pipeline, we haven't forgotten about it.

Q: What criteria do you use to allocate maps? Lots of tank maps are identical in gameplay, size, and urban structures, but they are available to different ranks.

A: The idea behind it was simple: flatter and smaller maps for earlier vehicles, and larger maps for high ranks.

Other

Q: Do you plan to focus on VR mode? Currently, VR headset owners can't use the "zoom in" and "check your 6" functions. I don't know why they're set up for VR users, when in this situation you can't tell the difference between "own/other" contact and the game experience just isn't equal.

A: This is standard practice in VR games. Zooming in is usually performed by changing FOV (Field Of View), and significantly changing the FOV translates poorly to the headset: viewing modes like this are usually linked to use of an optical device (sight or binoculars). In the game, we have implemented it in the same way: when you use an optical sight, the FOV changes.

Q: Is there any chance that you'll bring back the SINGLE slider for setting engine volume (for aviation and ground vehicles) for your own engine and other players' engines, instead of the current separate sliders (yours at 20% and others at 100%)? This setting is spoiling the gameplay and reducing the number of possible tactical maneuvers in the game, e.g. surprise boom and zoom attacks or coming from a blind spot.

A: Given the number of sound modifications that let you (among other things) set varying sound levels for your engine and other players' engines, we decided to offer this feature to all players and not just to the small group of mod users.

Q: Will the vehicle card show whether it has a loading machine or a gun stabilizer – just like it shows the design version — as well as whether it has controlled suspension and "Schräge Musik"? Right now, if you want to get this information you have to trawl through devblogs and third-party resources.

A: Yes, we plan to add this data to the game, but we think the vehicle card already has a lot of information on it. Maybe the better option would be to add this to the vehicle x-ray mode in the hangar.

You can ask your question to the developers on our official forum in the "Questions to the Team" section.