War Thunder – Dev Q&A 12.10.2017

 Ground Forces

Recently, there were spawn point tests for SB. Are there any changes planned in tank SB in terms of increasing the number of respawns or introducing spawn points?

Impressions from players were mixed, so we’re still analysing the results. There may be a few more tests, after which we’ll make our decision.

Do you plan to remove rocket flight trajectory distribution for fully leveled-up modules and aced crews?

Right now, rocket clustering is high when playing with a fully leveled-up crew, even somewhat higher than in real life. So it all depends on the player and their firing skills.

Do you plan to add a more modern shell for the T-64A and alter its rate of fire?

As of now, the newer T-64A shell isn’t necessary, because apart from the T-64A itself, there’s only one opponent in the game whose turret it won’t penetrate – the Chieftain Mk.10. If other branches get armour with a higher protection level, we’ll reconsider this. As for the rate of fire, it’s already as high as possible: the T-64 only had such a loading rate when firing shells of a certain type, placed consecutive in the autoloader. Data on the reload time of 6 seconds was mistakenly migrated from the technical specification for Object 432 (the T-64 with a 115 mm cannon) – the sequence diagrams of the loaders’ operation for the 115 mm and 125 mm are identical, but the reload time for the 115 mm loader is lower and happened to be 6 seconds. And, before you ask about Object 432 – yes, it may be added to the game sometime.

Is it possible that Object 292 will be added to the game in the future as a top Soviet MBT? The cannon successfully completed testing, the tank was incarnated in metal.

It’s too early to talk about this. When we get closer to those times, then we’ll make a decision. But generally, we’re not ruling it out.

Do you plan to introduce a variable reload speed for the MBT/KPz-70? I.e. when loading rockets, four-five seconds are added to the reload time and it becomes roughly 10-12 sec or even longer. After all, you can’t replace such a long rocket in such a small turret capsule quickly. And the same system for changing shells in the T-64A, only with lower values, since its AL is much faster.

According to the documentation we have, the rocket was housed in the automatic loader (AL) in a niche in the turret, so there was no difference in its loading time.

Give us the exact answer regarding the PZGR TS shells (APCR HE) for the 105 and 128 mm cannons of Germany. Are you going to add them to the game? These shells were used in 1944-45. Other nations have received experimental shells. We need these shells to increase lethality against enemies with thick frontal armour at BR 7.0.

We don’t plan to add these shells, particularly as there’s no need for them.

In tank Simulator Battles on some maps there are so-called ‘aerial exits’, that allow you to quickly respawn on an airplane. In some cases, this saves 1-2 minutes and it contradicts the ideology of Simulator Battles.

Such ‘exits’ were designed for special World War missions, and in SB (or any other modes apart from WW), they shouldn’t be there. As of now, these issues should be fixed already.


Aircraft

Do you plan to add seaplanes and hydro boats to the regular branches of nations like the USSR, Germany and, of course, Italy? Also, is it possible that you’ll add a separate branch for seaplanes for all nations?

A separate branch for seaplanes is unlikely… As for adding other models – we’re not ruling it out.

Are bomber cockpits going to be developed further? I’m interested in the visualisation of steering controls. Fighters and assault airplanes have this, but bombers don’t. It seems a shame to be looking at a wooden yoke in SB that doesn’t move as the airplane does.​

For dimensional prototypes of cabins – no, we have no plans for that. Only for separate cockpits, as is the case now.

What improvements do you have planned in the Confrontation aircraft mode, and what are your plans for this mode in general?

Very soon, there will be changes detailed in patch notes. Keep an eye on our news.

‘Cockpit gunners’ have been introduced for bombers. Right now, the third-person view for the gunners in SB looks very odd.

The view from the gunners for airplanes with a single defensive point were introduced to increase firing effectiveness due to decreased parallax, not with the aim of somehow making bombers or attack aircraft worse. So, until we find an elegant and simple solution to implement firing point selection in the gunner view on airplanes with multiple defensive turrets, it isn’t worth talking about the strange third-person view.


Miscellaneous

Will the graphical effects be developed further? If you fire from a 14 mm or 12 mm machine gun into water towers, wagons or fences right now, then for some reason a huge cloud of dust forms where you hit. The same happens when you run into a wooden fence half a meter to a meter high.

Yes.

The question of the difference between metric horsepower and UK/US horsepower is an interesting one:

  • 1 English hp = 0.746 kW
  • 1 metric hp = 0.735 kW

Take 2 engines with 500 hp, but one is metric and the other is English. The horsepower is identical, but the English engine should be more powerful. How is this question dealt with in the game?

When necessary, we translate from one system into the other.

From the A. Yudintsev Q&A at DMMGAMES 2017

What will the final version of the project look like?

In general terms, online games develop throughout their lifespan – since the game continues to attract new players and its audience grows as long as the game is developed. If the game stopped developing and stood still, it would be dead. So for us, we don’t have a specific “final version” in mind, our project is alive and it should change constantly. But we do have specific plans for the next half a year to a year, and we’ve already announced most of them. For example, we plan to introduce naval warfare and World War mode. Very recently, we announced the addition of modern tanks and over the coming six months, we’re going to be actively developing this. As for naval warfare, we recently announced the introduction of destroyers, and soon we plan closed internal testing of light cruisers and possibly even heavier ships.

How is work on World War going?

World War is high-level content for our game, right now it’s in the very earliest stages of testing. Not so long ago, we launched the closed beta test for World War mode for several squadrons and we plan to gradually increase the number of communities participating in the test. Later, most likely this year, players without a squadron will be able to participate in the testing. The end of this phase will determine the start of the mass launch of World War.

How do you record audio for vehicles that didn’t survive to now?

If the vehicle itself is lost, but the engine installed on it remains, we record the engine’s sound. If the engine is lost too, we find the closest comparisons that we can (with the same number of cylinders, same design, etc.) and record the sound from that instead. Then, with the help of additional processing and synthesising, we bring the sound as close as possible to what we think is the real sound of the engine from that model. Nonetheless, if there’s at least one example of the vehicle we need somewhere in the world, anywhere, in a museum or wherever, we do everything we can to record the original sound from it.