Answers from the developers

Dear players,

We have another round of questions and answers for you, with War Thunder producer Vyacheslav Bulannikov!

Ground:

Could the IPM1 be folded with the M1 Abrams so you don't have to unlock a marginally different tank to get to the M1A1?

Maybe in the future.

Can you tell us if you are close to a Japanese SAM? Right now they remain the only nation without one which puts them at a disadvantage. 

Yes, we are working on such vehicles.

Are there any plans to customize camos: wooden logs, camo nets, camouflage barrels maybe?

Sounds interesting, but petty hard to implement since we don’t have a system that would suit us in terms of quality and effort needed. We might have such a system in future though.

Good day! Is it possible in RB to keep burned tanks on the battlefield?

In a multi-respawn game, destroyed carcasses might cause different problems, for example driving through. At the moment, we keep burned carcasses of tanks for player unable to respawn in the match.

Air

With aircraft providing an increasingly more active role in Naval Forces (particularly Naval EC), is it possible we will see some more floatplanes? Some nations are without any in their standard tree and there are many famous examples of Italian and German aircraft like the Ar 196 that could be added.

Yes, we agree that in naval battles seaplanes have their niche. We plan to add similar vehicles in the future too.

It was mentioned that the implementation of modern aviation in the game is limited by the secrecy of their flight, performance characteristics and systems. Where is the “border” for it? 3rd generation, 4th or 4th+? We would like to know what the limitation is.

It is difficult to say because time goes on, documents that were closed are declassified and more information gets into free access so the limitation is gradually shifting. Simply we can say that the aviation of 3rd and partially 4th generation may well be added to the game, perhaps even newer vehicles.

Helicopters

Is it possible we could see a PvE mode for helicopters? A co-operative, objective based mode with reasonable rewards may be a good solution for the low rank helicopters who can’t counter higher rank ones in Helicopter EC. It would also provide an opportunity to explore more interesting and specific gameplay for helicopters, such as naval targets. 

Recently we have added the ability to use helicopters in the tank assault mission so it is possible to research them there as well.

Would there be any possibility of adding more lower tier helicopters that do not have access to missile or rocket armaments like the AH-1G?. Instead they would be armed with guns and/or bombs, providing support from the air.

Such vehicles will have low battle efficiency. And because of this, expansion of the helicopter research trees in this way isn’t planned yet.

Navy

HMS Hawkings is outclassed by all of the other same rank heavy cruisers. She is a WW1 ship fighting mostly modernised WW2 heavy cruisers. Why was Hawkins selected?

Actually this ship is like the founder of the class of heavy cruisers and we couldn’t avoid it and of course we are already working on more advanced British ships of this type.

Is it planned to rework the “all-seeing” ship Captain’s binoculars? Or would it be even better to remove the selection using the “X” button at all? It is too simple just to press “X” several times and the ship’s captain will detect the enemy through all the bushes, trees and smoke.

There are only such targets available that are in direct visibility or that are visible to your ally. So when it seems to you that the target is not visible for you, most likely the top of its masts are above obstacles. Additionally in update 1.93 there was a bug of visibility calculation where for ships at distance beyond a threshold (more than 10 km) were not being checked for obstacles on the view line (ships that appeared at a respawn and had a visual barrier between themselves and the enemy actually have been marked as detected - a translucent marker appeared in AB - and it was possible to shoot at such targets) has been fixed. Perhaps for a purpose that isn’t fully open to view (not fully visible) we will introduce additional penalties for range detection and shooting.

Is it planned to do anything about the current sinking system? Ships don’t sink convincingly much of the time. Do you consider decreasing bilge pump efficiency?

Yes, we have some plans in this direction but so far without any details. In general, our desire coincides with yours to make the look of majestically sinking ships appear more often for the eyes of our players. 

In an interview with mmorpg.com, Kirill Yudintsev announced a Saetta-class gunboat which was armed with anti-ship missiles “Nettuno” (or sea killer mk.1) on the screenshot. Can these rockets be first anti-ship missiles? 

Such anti-ship missiles are possible but for its usage you will need additional control and countermeasures systems. So we can say the final word only after internal tests.

Is it possible to make sure that on a ship from the destroyer class and above it would be possible to take control over a group of the required for target main calibre turrets (for example on one side of the ship) and all other turrets remained in their original positions?

Recently we changed the aiming algorithm of the turrets from one side to another and now all the turrets attempt to hold the maximum possible number of barrels in the direction of the sight. It looks to us that this is a rather convenient implementation of multi-turret vehicle control. It is quite difficult to point out those turrets that “will not take part in the battle” because the ship usually maneuvers and turrets that can not be pointed at the target will be able to shoot at it after a small turn in the hull - such situations happen constantly.

Will there be a similar rework to bombs which was given to rockets in recent years? Specifically, as an example. AP bombs, such as the Japanese ones are not really useful and a rework may give them more of a purpose in the game.

Yes, we have such plans as well as the implementation of the mechanics of kinetic penetration of armour-piercing bombs which becomes relevant with the implementation of larger ships in the game.

The War Thunder Team