War Thunder - F2P Combat Flight MMO

[Kalmah]

Will this game work with an xbox360 controller?

 

[Genx87]

After playing it for a day. I would honestly say use a mouse and KB. So much easier to fly that way.

So am I missing something? When i captured an airfield last night. Twice when I landed my engine cut out completely and it wouldnt restart. I looked through the key mappings and couldnt find an engine start. One time I got strifed on the runway. The other my plane kept rolling over this slope for about 2 miles before running into a group of trees and exploding lol.

 

[clamum]

Yeah I've found mouse and keyboard much better. At least for Arcade battles; I don't know how the simulator/realistic flight models are.

Not sure why your engine cut out. When I land I just reduce throttle to 0 and when I touch down, hold down the "Lower Throttle" button which then applies the brakes. To take off, just hold down "Raise Throttle" until I'm at 100% or WEP.

 

[Rinaun]

Pro tip: Leave one hangar with all reserve planes, and when you want incredibly balanced gameplay queue with that hangar. I've found everything above tier 2 to be rock paper scissors, whereas in tier 0 (reserves) planes are almost identical. I earn more EXP doing incredibly successful in reserve tier than I do in tier 4.

 

[Genx87]

Yeah I've found mouse and keyboard much better. At least for Arcade battles; I don't know how the simulator/realistic flight models are.

Not sure why your engine cut out. When I land I just reduce throttle to 0 and when I touch down, hold down the "Lower Throttle" button which then applies the brakes. To take off, just hold down "Raise Throttle" until I'm at 100% or WEP.

It didnt happen every time. I played about 8 games last night. And landed maybe 10 times? But 2 of those times when I reduced my engine to 0 it cut out. And I couldnt get it back. Advancing the throttle did nothing. And one time it was really funny. My plane rolled for about a mile or two over open ground down a slope into a group of trees and blew up lol

Game is really fun though. They really did a great job on controls. Making it useable with a mouse is unbelievably smart. Adding in ground targets is pure genius as well.

 

[pontifex]

this game is cool but hard, especially with the starter planes i guess? Seems like I can never take anyone out. take a long time to get xp too.

 

[Kalmah]

Seeing everybody talking about this is making me want to play Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 1 and 2 again. How does this game differ from those?

 

[ddjkdg]

If you land too fast and can't bring your nose up, you'll wreck your propeller on the ground. You can still land and capture the airfield, but your engine will be dead. If you brake to a full stop and wait ~30 seconds your plane will be repaired and you can take off again. If you don't actively brake then you will just continue going off the end of the airfield until you crash somewhere.

 

[power_hour]

Just d/l and played a few tutorials. Not bad. Looking forward to mixing it up with y'all later.

 

[Skott]

This sounds fun but it also sounds like it has some serious problems. Is one nation easier to play than another? For example in WoT the Russian tank lines are easier to learn with than the others when first starting out. Also how many hours does one need to play before they can get up to tier 2? Sounds like the tier 1 planes suck badly and worse that the MM is badly broken when playing at that level. I don't want to spend time on a game that will do nothing but frustrate me.

 

[Genx87]

If you land too fast and can't bring your nose up, you'll wreck your propeller on the ground. You can still land and capture the airfield, but your engine will be dead. If you brake to a full stop and wait ~30 seconds your plane will be repaired and you can take off again. If you don't actively brake then you will just continue going off the end of the airfield until you crash somewhere.

This is exactly what happened. I went into a test flight to figure out wtf was going on. I was coming in with too steep of a pitch and snagging my propeller in 3rd person mode. During the heat of battle I didn't notice the warning that came up.

 

[Rinaun]

Is one nation easier to play than another?

Not really. There are differences, but it's more trade-offs if anything.

Also how many hours does one need to play before they can get up to tier 2?

Not many. I spent maybe 2 hours ingame getting to rank two IIRC. Then again, I was shooting 3-4 down per match every time. For me, the reserve planes are addicting and since everyone has the SAME plane in each match, I don't feel robbed when I die.

Seems like I can never take anyone out. take a long time to get xp too.

The trick is to practice. If you haven't played any "flight sims", this game is a perfect entry point. The controls are awesome (haven't tried joystick, love mouse+KB) compared to other keyboard-based flight games. All the people I fly against when they get shot at just swing wildly left and right at full speed. This is what happens when you don't actually know how to properly dodge bullets/flip a fight around. The easiest way I can tell you how to get rid of an enemy on your back is altering speeds in a chase (causes the enemy to sometimes fly past you).
I just today was dogfighting someone way out of my league, he got behind me and nearly chopped me to pieces by countering my advanced evasive maneuvers. I got lucky and a ally helped me out; got away with only the engine alive! I really wouldn't be mad if I had died because my attacker taught me a few moves 🙂 Just remember how you died and keep practicing!

edit: another trick I learned is leading the shots a bit farther ahead than the UI shows. Ping affects registry, and I seem to get a ton more hits when I aim SLIGHTLY before the black crosshair.

 

[Elcs]

Russian planes have the edge. They appear to be made of Invulneraballonium and move in ways mysterious to anyone whom is outside of the deepest, darkest bowels of the government.

The Japanese planes have some absolutely wicked agility and turn so darned fast.

They have a lot of planes in the game which have not had their flight model implemented fully or at all so some of them use placeholders, assuming that they're using the closest equivalent until that part of the Dev Team can modify them appropriately.

The gun sight gets everyone. When in a battle, before you launch your plane, you have a figure for your gun sights ranging from something like 100m to 800m. I believe that if you set this figure to say 400m, the black lead indicator will be 100% accurate at 0.40km, being less accurate at 0.20km and 0.60km. Nevertheless, aiming is hard and hitting is even harder. Practice, it'll come.

Important keys
F3 - Standard 3rd person view
F6 - Turret view - If you point in some direction, any gun position that can aim at that point will be under your control. This is a very, very cool system which will automatically give you control of every gunner that can aim where you are aiming and instantly allow any other turrets to be AI controlled. If a gun position cannot point at the direction you are aiming at then that gunner will use the AI automatically. Turret AI is good with enough experienced gunners and can shoot down some planes but manual control is superior. If you need to fly away, dodge and get the hell out of where you are, do not be afraid of letting the AI gunners chew out anything that comes into their range because they can do something positive.
F7 - Bombing View. Ideal for higher level bombing runs with your plane roughly level. If a red dot comes close to dead centre of the heavy white crosshair, press the spacebar to drop a bomb. Press multiple times to drop several. You can move around in this view but it does get tough to aim so try to restrict any movement necessary.
Z - Zoom - Ideal for better aiming at those slightly further away targets, trying to decide which way an enemy plane is moving and ideal for bombing in conjunction with the F7 Bombing View.
Right Mouse Button Zoom in on target. Your camera pans and zooms in towards your currently selected target. Can be useful but difficult to use effectively.
Y Manually reload MG's and Cannons. If you've near exhausted your ammo supply and have the time, press T, get a fresh full load of ammo for your next little sortie. Also clears weapon jams.

Hope some of this helps.

 

[power_hour]

OMG I am terrible at this game with these beginner planes playing as German. I did manage to land mine intact in enemy territory after they shot out my engines. I was like great I landed now what... doh!

 

[Mutilator]

I caved... downloading now. I'll play arcade a bit with kb+mouse then decide if I'm gonna have to use my joystick for the realism stuff or if I can use my Cessna yoke setup lol... not sure how well that would translate over from a Cessna 152 in FSX to a WW2 fighter but it might work. 😉

If nothing else it'll at least give me something else to use Track IR in.

 

[mooncancook]

I just installed RaceRoom. Now I really want to try this one also. These f2p games are really eating into my gaming time, how am I ever going to be able to finish all those single player games in my steam library?

 

[KMFJD]

Pro tip: Leave one hangar with all reserve planes, and when you want incredibly balanced gameplay queue with that hangar. I've found everything above tier 2 to be rock paper scissors, whereas in tier 0 (reserves) planes are almost identical. I earn more EXP doing incredibly successful in reserve tier than I do in tier 4.

Very good advice, is there anyway to remove a plane from your hanger (and leave the spot empty?)

 

[Kalmah]

I'm currently downloading this game. I see a lot of people talking about how they suck at this game. lol. I don't know how realistic this game is yet but I do know that there are several maneuvers that you can pull off to get enemies off your tail. In the MS Combat flight Sim games their was a whole tutorial series teaching flying tactics such as when to do barrel roles and many others. That one specifically makes your plane fly a longer distance so that the enemy behind you flies past. Maybe this game doesn't let you do this kind of stuff. I hope so or it's going to be a quick uninstall.

 

[Elcs]

Very good advice, is there anyway to remove a plane from your hanger (and leave the spot empty?)

AFAIK no... which is a shame as there are only ~4 Reserve planes and my Brits have 6 Hangars.

 

[Elcs]

I'm currently downloading this game. I see a lot of people talking about how they suck at this game. lol. I don't know how realistic this game is yet but I do know that there are several maneuvers that you can pull off to get enemies off your tail. In the MS Combat flight Sim games their was a whole tutorial series teaching flying tactics such as when to do barrel roles and many others. That one specifically makes your plane fly a longer distance so that the enemy behind you flies past. Maybe this game doesn't let you do this kind of stuff. I hope so or it's going to be a quick uninstall.

In Arcade, it is completely unrealistic and is quite fun but tricky 🙂. In Arcade, mouse look rules, you can't stall, can't burn out your engine and can't dive so fast that your wings are ripped off.

From some of my friends whom are more into the IL-2 kind of game, they say that the more realistic game modes are quite good.

 

[Skott]

Maybe I'll give it a try this coming weekend. Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

[ddjkdg]

The gun targeting distance doesn't matter in arcade mode, it will autoadjust to wherever you are aiming. If you just fire off into the distance you can see that the bullet streams never cross over because they are zeroed on infinity without a target.

What does make a difference is fuel load, you can switch it to 5 minutes to lighten your plane and maneuver/accelerate better, without any penalty because in arcade mode you don't consume fuel. The only time it would matter is if you don't have self-sealing fuel tanks (like on biplanes) and they get punctured, you can leak fuel until you go empty and your engine starves.

 

[Genx87]

I am addicted to this game. But last night was brutal on the MM. Rolling around a Falco and got shot out of the sky by a FW-190-D12. Before I made my run on this kingfisher I looked around to make sure nobody would be on my tail. Dive in and next thing I know dead.

Cannon fodder!

 

[KMFJD]

matchmaking is broken in this game though, how is it with a hanger full of reserve planes and a lvl 1 that i am matched up against a couple of 163's and fw190's?

 

[Rinaun]

matchmaking is broken in this game though, how is it with a hanger full of reserve planes and a lvl 1 that i am matched up against a couple of 163's and fw190's?

Don't upgrade any plane in one hangar. I've had more fun playing with the hangar I didn't touch than I have with my full tier 4 hangar. The tier system is just stupid if you aren't matching planes that are somewhat similar.