Killed in a Smiling Accident.

Do you like War? Do you like Thunder? If you do, you’ll love War Thunder! As long as you also love online World War II aircraft combat. In fact you don’t really need to have a view on Thunder at all, and you can hold a morally complex position about the terrible nature of War rather than simply liking it, but I don’t think Facebook have got a button for that just yet.

Anyway! To take to the skies, the first step is to sign up for an account at warthunder.com; if you have any friends already playing the game they may like to send you a referral link to get a few rewards. It’s the usual process: first choose a name, find out it’s been taken, choose a different name, find out it’s also been taken, add ‘xXxX__=+’ to the beginning and end of the name and substitute random letters with numbers to become ‘xXxX__=+De4thK1ll4zz+=__XxXx’, and watch the world tremble with fear at your undoubted skill. Not to mention grasp of grammar. Then choose a suitably strong password, like correct horse battery staple. Once you’ve created an account download the game client, which is 7Gb+, so might take a while. Why not make a nice cup of tea, maybe have a biscuit or two?

The first time you start the game you have to choose a country:

This is quite important, as you’ll be restricted to flying aircraft of that country only to start with, you unlock the other nations as you progress. It doesn’t take too long to unlock all five countries, so don’t agonise too much; if you feel you’ve made a terrible mistake and can’t even face playing enough to unlock your preferred option you can always sign up for a new account and start again, though you’ll have to be xXxX__=+De4thK1ll4zz+=__XxXx2 this time.

There isn’t a massive difference in aircraft performance in the early ranks, so feel free to pick your preferred country for patriotic or historical reasons, or based on your favoured national cuisine, or because you like the style of the chaps doing their best catalogue poses in the above pictures. If you have no preference at all, or absolutely have to have any advantage you can, try the USSR as their Rank 1 aircraft is probably the strongest of the five. Also the “point off camera” is absolutely textbook, so they edge the catalogue pose category too. I’m going to pick the UK, though, tally ho pip pip God Save The Queen etc.

The game then asks if you want to complete the Basic Fighter Tutorial:

This is a Good Idea; certainly easier than Flying a Light Aeroplane Without Having Had Any Formal Instruction. Even if you have had some formal instruction it’s worth running the tutorial, it’s nicely done, short and to the point, and rewards you with 70 Gold Eagles and an extra crew. Gold Eagles are one type of in-game currency, like many free-to-play games there are two varieties: ‘Silver Lions’ are earned from playing, ‘Gold Eagles’ are generally bought with real money (though some can be earned as rewards for completing tutorials, recruiting friends to the game etc.) Don’t worry too much about currency for now, but you might want to save up Gold Eagles until you’ve a better idea how you might like to spend them.

Just follow the instructions in the tutorial:

And you should soon master the basics: going Up! Down! Flying around, shooting up trucks and defying the ground. Five entire minutes is more than sufficient training for life-or-death aerial combat, don’t you think? So let’s put those newly acquired skills to the test.

If you were expecting to jump straight into a Spitfire you might be slightly disappointed to be starting off in a Hawker Fury, an open cockpit biplane, but like most aircraft in the game they do have actual combat pedigree from World War II; Håkans aviation page is a rather interesting place for information on biplane aces.

You can fly against AI opponents if you like via the “Missions” option under “Game Modes” in the top left, but the online PvP battles are the main focus. Hover over the “To Battle” button and, unless you’re feeling incredibly confident, leave it with “Arcade Battle” selected. One setting that you might want to change, at the bottom there’s a “Current Server” option; for the shortest possible queue you can change this to “Any available”:

Fighting alongside (and against) players on other servers doesn’t seem to be a problem, I haven’t encountered any serious latency issues; you might not be able to understand general chat, but there are probably disadvantages too. Should some sort of tactical co-ordination be desirable you can always issue voice commands/requests in game via the ‘T’ key by default, or you could just shout detailed battle plans at your hamster for all the good it’ll do in a team of random strangers. Click “To Battle” to get started.

After a (hopefully) short queue and a loading screen, you’ll get the starting screen for the battle:

At the top are your available aircraft; below the selected aircraft you can change its weapon load-out (if there’s more than one option), its camouflage paint scheme (if there’s more than one option), and stuff like the gun targeting distance (if you can be bothered). Don’t worry about those for now. To the right is the map over which you’ll be fighting, with the fighter and bomber spawn points highlighted. I wouldn’t worry about that too much either, we’ll just point ourselves in the vague direction of the enemy and hope.

Pick which aircraft you want to start off with; I don’t think there’s any difference other than cosmetics between the Fury Mk I, Fury Mk II and Nimrod (naval version of the Fury). Click “To Battle” in the bottom right corner, and after a countdown it’s chocks away and time to deliver the bacon! (Except you don’t have to worry about the chocks, as you start in the air in Arcade mode rather than having to take off).

Advanced Tactical Combat Summary: red dots on the ground are enemy vehicles/emplacements (shoot them). Red dots in the sky are enemy aircraft (shoot them). Blue dots are friendly (don’t shoot them). Keep shooting red things until either (i) all the red stuff is gone or (ii) you explode. If (i), congratulations, you win! If (ii) you return to the aircraft selection screen; pick your next plane, hit “Select” again, and return to the fray! Repeat until either (i), or all your aircraft have exploded. There’s probably a flowchart in there somewhere, but I reckon you should be able to just about get the hang of things.

After your first battle you get a nice present: a new free aeroplane!

Let’s put it into service, and buy ourself something new while we’re there. Click the “Research” button in the bottom left corner of the screen; this takes you to the tech tree for your nation, all the lovely stuff you’ll (eventually) be able to fly:

Have a browse of what’s available; the right hand column are premium aircraft, purchased with real money Golden Eagles, the rest you can buy with Silver Lions (the Lion/Eagle icon under the name of the aircraft shows the type of currency). The number in the bottom right, next to the silver chevron, is the rank you need to be to fly them; you gain XP from battles, and what do experience points make? Prizes! Also, air force ranks. Premium aircraft are exempt from this requirement, and conveniently our free plane, Tuck’s Gladiator (at the top of the right hand column, the gold border indicates we own it already) is a premium aircraft, so even at the dizzying height of Rank 0 we can equip this awesome Rank 1 beast. Click on it, and select the right hand icon over the top, “Put Into Service”, replacing one of the starter aircraft.

We can buy another new plane while we’re here, the Rank 0 Swordfish Mk I, the venerable Stringbag. Click “Order”, and put it into service replacing another starter aircraft. The Swordfish isn’t really ideal for early battles as it carries a torpedo, not much use against armoured cars (apart from making a nice ‘clang!’ sound if it bounces off them), and naval targets don’t turn up for a little while, but it does have a rear gunner, controlled by the AI by default; the AI isn’t a very good shot, though, so if an enemy gets behind you, take control of the gun yourself by pressing F6. When you do the plane will continue flying straight and level, so make sure you’re in a nice open bit of sky and not, say, at tree-top level with a big old mountain straight ahead. Wave the mouse around to control the gun, and give that bandit on your tail what-for.

With the new planes in service, hit “To Battle” again, and repeat the whole “shoot the red things” process. After (I think) three battles, you should unlock another country:

Other countries follow after more battles.

That should get you through your first few sessions, see Part 2 for an introduction to the two main Arcade battle modes.

War Thunder has just released update 1.31, and amongst the myriad changes there’s one you might like to pay particular attention to:

Added New Premium Level 1 aircraft:

USA – Thach’s F2A-1 Buffalo;
Germany – Marcolin’s CR.42CN ;
USSR – Zhukovsky’s I-153-M62 ;
Britain – Tuck’s Gladiator Mk.II;
Japan – Hagiri’s A5M4 .

After your first battle against other players (in case you receive any XP) – You will receive one of these aircraft for the nation you chose. (One free aircraft only)

Choose your first battle carefully!

The new aircraft have, I believe, the same stats as their regular counterparts, but new paint schemes reflecting their historical pilots. The I-153 is generally regarded as the best Rank 1 aircraft, so you may want to play as the USSR in your first battle after the patch, or just pick your favoured country; you can always buy any of the others for 250 Gold Eagles (about £1).

In a world of World War Two aircraft at war, two games are going head-to-head: World of Warplanes and War Thunder. But which is better? There’s only one way to find out: play both of them and compare and contrast the relative features to determine which better suit personal preference!

(OK, two ways to find out. Moving on, before this turns into some sort of Spanish Inquisition…)

Both games are technically in beta, though at rather different phases; WT is in Open Beta that’s release in all but name, accepting money with a promise of no progress wipe prior to (official) launch, WoWP is in Closed Beta so changes are likely to be more significant and frequent. Being online games, though, they’re always going to be subject to change in the future, so apply suitable caveats (the quality of gameplay can go down as well as up, your premium status is at risk if you do not keep up repayments, objects in the rear view mirror are probably trying to shoot you down etc.) I can’t promise a completely balanced comparison as I’ve been playing War Thunder for three months and just dabbling in World of Warplanes for a week or two; it may be that I have an unconscious prejudice having become used to the way War Thunder does certain things, but short of obtaining a neuralyzer or attempting to induce amnesia I can’t get the perspective of a completely fresh player, and my dedication to impartiality only goes so far (stopping well short of massive head trauma).

Control Handling

One of the first things that jumps out when moving between the games is the difference in the way the planes handle when flown with mouse and keyboard. Aircraft in War Thunder are beautifully responsive. In Arcade and Realistic modes there is an “Instructor”; you wave the mouse around and point where you want to go, the Instructor handles all that complicated pitching and rolling and what-not so you don’t have to worry your pretty little head over it. This makes flying a much simpler business than in, say, Planetside 2; emboldened by my War Thunder success I tried to fly a Scythe fighter in PS2, and it didn’t end well. Although that might have something to do with PS2 having a lot more keys that need mapping, so when I pressed ‘E’ to apply a bit of rudder I’d forgotten it was actually the ‘enter/leave vehicle’ key, and promptly ejected.

Aircraft in World of Warplanes are also easy to fly with the mouse, but its version of the Instructor is a bit dozy; via To Game for Life, a post on Z’s Blog measures a 500ms delay in response to input, quite significant in high speed aerial combat. Apparently the controls in WoWP had a major overhaul in version 0.4.0, and more tweaks in the (current) 0.4.2 so it’s obviously something Wargaming is working on, but they just don’t feel great at the moment, especially when put up against WT.

Aircraft Selection

Both games feature hundreds of flyable aircraft from World War II (plus a few years either side), but with differing philosophies behind their selection. Gaijin look to have started off from a more historical perspective with the key aircraft of WWII for War Thunder, making their tech trees slightly ramshackle; some ranks unlock a whole swathe of new fighters, bombers and/or attack aircraft, other ranks have few or none. Wargaming, on the other hand, currently have full branches in World of Warplanes, completely populated from Tiers I to X for all nations, one aircraft per branch per tier (plus a few premium options). Classes are clearly delineated as well, each nation has one line of single seat/light fighters plus a second nation-specific line; heavy fighters for Gemany, attack aircraft for the USSR and carrier aircraft for the USA (Japan just has the one line of carrier fighters at the time of writing).

War Thunder has 20 Ranks compared to the ten Tiers of World of Warplanes, but the modular upgrade system of WoWP allows for greater variation within tiers, with aircraft able to upgrade the airframe, engine and armament, often quite substantially. The gun armament and basic powerplant of WT aircraft is fixed, so there’s not much to upgrade in a dedicated fighter; attack aircraft and bombers have more options with rocket and bomb payloads, some of which have to be unlocked. Individual crew also have skills to upgrade in WT, apparently crew skills will be added to WoWP in the future. War Thunder can look as though it has a lot more aircraft available, but it has separate instances of the Bf 109 G-2, G-6 and G-10 at Ranks 9, 13 and 14, whereas WoWP reflects those sub-variants in the various modules of the Tier VI Bf 109 G.

Neither approach is without issues; some branches of the War Thunder tech tree are horribly cluttered, most obviously the six Me 410 variants at Ranks 8 and 9; as you have to buy each one to unlock the next, if you want the Me 410 B-1/U-2 you have no choice but to buy the four preceding variants; condensing those into one or two main variants with multiple weapon options would clean things up. The upgrade system in World of Warplanes, though, looks like it brings the same issues as World of Tanks, where the excitement of unlocking a new vehicle is dampened by the knowledge that, without any upgrades, it’s almost certainly going to be pretty lacklustre, with any out-of-the-hanger improvements over its predecessor negated by harsher matchmaking. It’s not so bad in the lower tiers, where stooging around for a match or two while the rest of your team does the hard work (or catching a break from the matchmaker) nets enough XP to unlock some decent upgrades, but a right pain later on unless you use Free XP for rapid unlocks (probably the point, so you buy Gold for XP conversion).

From a gameplay perspective Wargaming’s trees makes sense, (presumably) well balanced and distributed. From a historical perspective, though, I’m not very keen. Almost all the Tier I to III aircraft are pre-war, many of them prototypes, with barely any combat service; Tiers IV through VII are much better, with your icons of WWII (Bf 109, P-51 Mustang, Il-2 Sturmovik, A6M Zero etc), but then Tier VIII+ is silly season with all sorts of oddities alongside occasional “proper” late-war or post-war jets. I don’t want to come across as some grumpy grognard getting furious about an improperly modelled supercharger intake, I’m not after a strict World War II simulator; the odd Flying Flapjack here and there is a bit of fun (as the actress said to the bishop), but, for me, I prefer the much stronger WWII flavour of War Thunder to the curiosities of World of Warplanes, your mileage may vary if you’re a fan of sellotaping Messerchmitts together.

Of course both games will get more aircraft over time; War Thunder has received several new planes in the last couple of major patches, and the site has planned tech trees showing quite a lot more aircraft to be added. Wargaming have talked about aircarft to be added to World of Warplanes, with the UK as the next nation to be added, so it will presumably follow in the footsteps of World of Tanks, which has received three new nations and scores of new tanks since release.

Game Modes

War Thunder has three game modes. In Arcade everyone piles in with random countries on both sides, automatically replenishing ammunition and bombs (after a short in-flight reloading delay) and you can respawn with as many planes as you have in the hanger of one country. Historical Battles use more realistic flight controls (without getting right into prop pitch and fuel mixture settings), national teams face each other (e.g. US vs Japan, UK/US/USSR vs Germany, or UK/US vs USSR in a Korean scenario), you select one of your aircraft and don’t get to respawn, and you have to return to base to rearm and repair so ammunition conservation is a lot more important, especially as Historical Battle maps are sizeable. Full Real Battles, using Simulation controls, are a bit like Historical Battles but you’re locked in cockpit view with no game HUD elements like the mini-map and target indicators, it’s down to you to squint for dots in the distance. You can also set up custom battles, either solo or with friends, with friendly and/or enemy AI if you don’t want to go up against random humans.

Within those game modes there are further battle types: Ground Attack and Domination in Arcade mode, where the objective is to destroy ground forces and capture airfields respectively, and Operations in the other modes, in which you support AI ground forces. Maps can have fixed emplacements, individual vehicles moving in convoy, and ships from patrol boats up to aircraft carriers, or you can always just ignore the stuff on the ground and shoot down enemy aircraft.

World of Warplanes has, so far, a single mode, an arcade-y battle of mixed nationalities on maps with a smattering of non-moving ground target. Destroying buildings and aircraft earns your team points, you win by either shooting down the entire enemy team or gaining a decisive point advantage. It’s fine for a bit of a blast, but I’m not so sure about its long term prospects, and while different maps can have a tactical impact in World of Tanks, terrain plays rather less part when you’re flying over it, so other than a change in visuals and ground target positions the three maps I’ve seen so far don’t play very differently.

A key difference between World of Warplanes and the Arcade battles of War Thunder is that in the former you select a single aircraft and it’s game over when you’re shot down, in the latter you can respawn with as many aircraft as you have in your hanger (everyone starts with three; a fourth and fifth can be purchased, quite reasonably, for game-earned Silver Lions; further slots, up to eight I believe, cost real money Gold Eagles). There are pros and cons to ‘hanger battles’; personally I rather like being able to grab another aircraft from the hanger if you get shot down quickly by a lucky/unlucky shot, and being able to switch roles between air superiority and ground attack depending on how the battle is going. They can prolong fights, though, and the ability to respawn may make pilots less cautious in their manoeuvring, or more prone to deliberately ram the enemy (though there are still plenty of collisions in WoWP). The ability to buy additional crew slots and “Backup Plane” tokens for real money that allow you to use an aircraft twice in Arcade mode can be something of an advantage for players with bigger wallets, though unless I’m having a really bad time I can survive most fights with the five respawns that in-game currency buys, so I don’t regard it as a heinous flaw.

Matchmaking in War Thunder Arcade battles must be challenging, with players having aircraft spanning five or more ranks in their hanger. Ranks 0 and 1 are kept together to give new players a chance to learn the ropes, after that you can easily be facing things many ranks above or below you (there was a glitch/exploit that could result in Rank 20 jets in matches against biplanes, but that seems to be fixed now); this can be pretty rough at major transitions, like when you get one Rank 2 aircraft, but by and large there isn’t a huge difference between ranks, more incremental increases in performance and armament, so you’re never a spare part and can always contribute in some capacity. World of Warplanes seems to use the matchmaker from World of Tanks, or something very similar, with Tier I and II aircraft in starter battles, then subsequent battles tending to span three tiers. Though this seems like tighter balancing than War Thunder, the difference between WoWP tiers is more pronounced, especially with component upgrades. Matchmakers are always something of a contentious subject, as exemplified by the current kerfuffle in WoT; both WT and WoWP seem reasonable enough at the moment, but you never really know how things may be tweaked in the future as the size and distribution of the playerbase changes.

While Wargaming are well known for adding new vehicles to World of Tanks, different game modes are another story; I’d like to see national battles and hanger/garage battles with both tanks and planes, but I’m not sure what the prospects are.

Damage Models

War Thunder uses a location based damage system; engines, control surfaces, pilots etc are all modelled, so a burst of fire can pass (relatively) harmlessly through a fuselage, or damage an aileron making a plane harder to control, or instantly kill your pilot. The exact model varies between game modes, generally being more forgiving in Arcade and becoming increasingly harsh in Historical and Full Real Battles; it’s also subject to tweaking, v1.29 saw a substantial overhaul that increased the number of locations modelled, but it needed a couple of minor patches to smooth the kinks out.

World of Warplanes has a hybrid model, with some location based damage (coarser than WT, I’ve experienced engine and wing damage so far with comparatively minor effect), but aircraft also have hitpoints, and are destroyed when their HP are reduced to 0.

War Thunder feels more realistic, and the model is a good part of the reason that there isn’t a huge difference between planes of different ranks, as anything can shoot anything else down, even a biplane vs a jet (albeit the jet would have to fly really quite badly). It can be frustrating, though, when you’re blazing away with seemingly little effect on an opponent, then someone lands one burst on you and hits your pilot. Large calibre weapons are also brutal, like the 37mm cannons of the P-39 and especially Yak-9T that can rip planes apart in one or two hits; in Historic Battles the fact that it has only 30 shells is something of a counterbalance, but in Arcade battles, with in-air reloading, it’s ludicrously good. It’s also annoying to survive an attack with seemingly little damage only to find your elevators have been destroyed and you have little or no control over pitch, consigning you to a long, slow glide to almost certain death; then again it can be exhilarating to glide home with no engine, or limp back to the airfield with one wing barely hanging on, land, and get repaired and back into action.

The hitpoint system of WoWP is more controlled, so you’ll seldom die from one shot (unless you go head-to-head with a rocket armed opponent), and higher tier aircraft have a more concrete advantage over lower. Heavy fighters and ground attack aircraft have many more HP than single engine fighters, so chasing one with a couple of machine guns can feel like an exercise in futility, especially with the lag in the control system making it more difficult to bring your weapons to bear. I bought the premium Tier V XFL-1, a prototype naval adaptation of the P-39, to see how scary a 37mm cannon would be, and it is powerful, without being quite so devastating as in War Thunder.

Economy

Both games have the same general set up with one type of currency earned in-game (Silver Lions/credits) and one purchased with real money (Golden Eagles/gold). Silver is used to buy new aircraft, upgrade them, and repair and rearm them between battles. Gold can be used to: purchase Premium account status for a period of time, granting bonus XP and silver; purchase Premium aircraft, comparable to standard aircraft of the same tier/rank, but that earn more XP and silver; convert free XP to allow for faster progress with an aircraft or nation; buy additional hanger/crew slots; and convert directly into Silver.

Economic discussions are tricky and get very emotive, with companies subject to accusations of greed, cash grabs, “pay to win”, implementing excessive grind, etc etc. Economies are also subject to change; War Thunder was substantially overhauled in v1.29, dramatically increasing the cost of higher rank planes and causing much vocal unhappiness, but I imagine the changes were necessary to slow players down a bit and get them to stick around, the age old problem that some people will get bored when they reach maximum level and leave, and others get bored if it takes too long to get to maximum level in the first place. Premium vehicles can also cause problems, as World of Tanks demonstrated with the Lowe and especially the Type 59; War Thunder is currently suffering from a glut of premium Fw 190 D-13s in Historical Battles, and it’s more of a balance issue in nation-vs-nation battles where only one side has access to the aircraft in question.

With World of Warplanes in closed beta and not taking money it’s impossible to directly compare the two at the moment, but I believe both games are eminently playable without spending any money at all; of course you won’t progress as quickly, but if you’re enjoying individual battles then that’s not such an issue.

Conclusion

With the games in their current states, it’s hard to look past War Thunder; better mouse controls, more game modes, and (for me) a more appealing selection of aircraft. World of Warplanes is fun enough to drop into, but once the novelty of rapidly unlocking new planes fades I’m not sure I’d stick with it for months or even years, though updates over the rest of beta and into launch could change that situation, and if you’re very keen on exotic aircraft prototypes or single-respawn arcade battles it may be the better choice. A shared economy with World of Tanks could be a further incentive for existing players; it’ll be interesting to see if the situations are reversed when War Thunder adds tanks.

With both games being free, as the ultimate cop-out I’d suggest giving both a try, unless your time or bandwidth are severely limited. Though that makes the rest of this post a bit pointless. In hindsight maybe I should have just opened with that, and saved us all a lot of time. Oh well! If you have a preference for one or the other, do leave a comment, I’m curious to see what features other players consider more or less important.

World of Warplanes, the aerial companion to Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks, is currently in beta. Obviously. Everything online is in beta; I think the last game to receive an official release might have been Ye Worlde of Cheſs in 1486, after the 0.9.7b patch that buffed the initial move distance of pawns. It makes sense in a mutable online world to test early and often with a realistic user base, and a gradual increase in population is far less stressful for both developers and servers than dropping a whole bunch o’ people from launch-day height, but “beta” now covers a multitude of sins, from “proper” testing to previews, stress tests, head starts, soft launches and such. Google were always a prime culprit, and Neverwinter is the most recent of numerous games (including War Thunder) to move to an “Open Beta” where, unless I’m more vastly mistaken than a man who believes Hillaire Belloc is still alive, you can buy stuff and there isn’t going to be any progress wipe before “launch”. It’s hard not be slightly cynical of the ubiquity of the “beta” tag, not least as it provides a handy cudgel that some forum warriors love to beat dissenters with; “Of course the current version of the game erases your entire hard drive and hijacks your Facebook account to send ‘make money fast’ spam, IT’S A BETA, DUH!”

World of Warplanes is in Closed Beta (you can apply for entry on the website); I don’t believe you can spend money on it and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are progress wipes, so it’s closer to the “actual testing” end of the beta spectrum than “well, we’ve sort of launched, unless something goes wrong, in which case we haven’t and you can’t have your money back”. The NDA lifted about a month ago, but I’ve only been in for a week or so, playing a few matches at Tiers I to III; take the following with an appropriate quantity of early-impression-beta salt.

WoWP doesn’t have a tutorial at the moment, but you can practise a bit in a 2-vs-2 fight with bots to get the hang of things before facing the terror of human opponents. The visuals are nice, having been buffed up in a previous update:

It’s very much a drop-in action game rather than serious flight sim; third person (or third aircraft?) view, simple controls, target and lead indicators, no faffing around with 20 switches just to start up the engine. Matches start with all players in the air, flying around a fairly small map containing a smattering of ground targets; shoot down the enemy aircraft, strafe and bomb stuff on the ground, and win! Or lose. One of the two. Both air and ground targets are able to soak up a fair amount of fire, especially from your starting armament of a pair of small calibre machine guns; you get to tool up with cannons, rockets and bombs in later aircraft, but if you’re stuck with machine guns against a higher tier heavy fighter their health bar takes an awful lot of whittling. Flying with keyboard and mouse works well enough, though the controls feel a bit heavy; gradually lining up on a ground target from a distance is pretty straightforward, getting an enemy plane in your sights is tricky. I haven’t tried it with a joystick, as I fear my stick manipulation skills have atrophied since the days of X-Wing. Collisions are commonplace with (in descending frequency order) friendly planes, enemy planes and the ground, at least in Tier I when most players are wearing metaphorical L-plates (note to devs: maybe add L-plate decals to the customisation options).

Between battles the hanger interface is highly reminiscent of World of Tanks, as you’d expect. You start with a Tier I aircraft from each of the current countries: Germany, USSR, USA, Japan. No Britain. That’s OK, though, I’m not going to launch into some spittle-flecked rant; they’ve said that the British will be the next nation added, and though no timescales have been mentioned I’d be surprised if that wasn’t during Open Beta or soon after launch. Everything’s fine, we know the World of… games happen in an alternate timeline, no need to start subtitling a Downfall parody just yet.

Unless they were lying and put a French tree in next…

Anyway! You have three options for each plane:

Under Service you can repair, and resupply ammunition with a choice of Incendiary and General Purpose as well as the default Armour Piercing. Upgraded ammunition costs Credits (i.e. currency earned in-game), I’m not sure if that’s just the case during beta or if it’s a way of avoiding the “pay-to-win” accusations levelled at Gold (i.e. bought with real money) ammunition in World of Tanks, prior to the changes that allowed it to be bought with Credits as well.

Modules shows the main components of the plane (airframe, engine, guns etc), with upgrades that can be unlocked with XP and purchased with Credits. “Additional Equipment” includes extras to boost the accuracy of guns or toughness of the airframe. As with World of Tanks there’s quite a difference in capability between a fresh-out-of-the-showroom runabout and a fully upgraded deathkite; the Fw 57 in the screenshot starts with a pair of 7.92mm machine guns and no bombs, a line-up of aircraft gun cartridges gives an idea of how much more metal it chucks out after upgrading the MGs to 20mm cannon, and a single 100kg bomb makes short work of ground targets.

Exterior allows you to tweak the colour scheme of your plane with options for the main camouflage and further highlights or decals around the nose. Camouflage costs Gold in WoT but seems to be free at the moment in WoWP, I wouldn’t be surprised if that changes for release.

All in all, it’s a solid game, worth a look if you fancy some drop-in WWII aerial combat.

There is a war-elephant in the thunder-room, though; Gaijin’s War Thunder. I’ve avoided comparisons in this post to try and give World of Warplanes a fair crack of the whip but the games are very similar, so I’ll try and do another post looking at the two games.

Breaking radio silence for a quick guest spot on episode 51 of The Three MMOsketeers on the splendid CSICON last week, one of the news stories covered malware attacks on MMORPG companies, reminding co-host Breki of Charles Stross’ novel Halting State. My “to read” pile keeps growing; it includes the sequel to Halting State, Rule 34, and another Stross novel, The Apocalypse Codex, from his Laundry Files series, which I must get around to.

From the “have read” pile I really enjoyed the first two books of the Milkweed Triptych by Ian Tregillis set in an alternative World War II of mad science and blood magic, sharing some of the occult/espionage themes of The Laundry Files (Tregillis and Stross have a nice chat at Orbit Books). For those who like to read a full series in one go, the third book, Necessary Evil, has just been published; I don’t tend to pre-order books due to aforementioned “to read” pile but made an exception for this one and would highly recommend the series. Excerpts are available on the author’s site, and there’s a standalone story on Tor.com that gives a flavour of the universe.

While poking around similar things on Amazon, the “Customers who bought this item also bought…” section threw up perhaps the greatest book title ever: Ack-Ack Macaque. From the first sentence of the synopsis, “In 1944, as waves of German ninjas parachute into Kent, Britain s best hopes for victory lie with a Spitfire pilot codenamed ‘Ack-Ack Macaque.’ The trouble is, Ack-Ack Macaque is a cynical, one-eyed, cigar-chomping monkey, and he’s starting to doubt everything, including his own existence.”, it was an instant buy, and it’s a lot of fun.

(Fascinating etymology corner: ‘flak’ and ‘ack-ack’, terms for anti-aircraft fire, have completely different derivations despite the similar sounds. Flak is from the German for anti-aircraft gun, fliegerabwherkanone; ‘ack’ is the letter ‘a’ in the World War I British signal alphabet, thus ‘ack-ack’ for ‘anti-aircraft’.)

Everything’s rather busy at the moment, resulting in a bit of a backlog of Stuff To Play. The polymath Mercenary Leader and Arch-Mage of Skyrim is languishing as a jobbing bard and rookie thief, waiting for the next round of MasterChef: Whiterun (the vegetable soup in the first round could’ve used a bit more seasoning, but the judges liked its 12 minute health and stamina regeneration boost), and is a bit behind on some building work picked up on the side. People keep talking about rebellions, dragons and stuff, but rather more importantly there might be an opening in the Guild of Insurance Brokers and Chartered Accountants to investigate. The alien invasion of XCOM is just about under control; Ramsay MacDonald sadly didn’t survive a terror attack, but Neville “Maverick” Chamberlain picked up the squad leadership and took the battle to the enemy, attacking their key base. I got a bit distracted, though, so haven’t quite got around to entirely saving the world. My Elizabethan empire in Civilisation V finished off the Romans and penned the Persians back, naval expeditions uncovered a nearby continent where powerful Egyptian forces are besieging the last couple of Ethiopian cities, I ought to finally decide whether to sign a non-aggression pact with Ramesses and carve out a bit of a foothold or launch a major invasion while he’s distracted.

The co-op multiplayer of Mass Effect 3 had surprising longevity, but I haven’t got around to updating it with the most recent Reckoning DLC pack as other games have been fulfilling the first/third-person shooter roles, like Borderlands 2 and its DLC; finished the first couple of packs, but haven’t got around to Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt yet, being distracted by still other games including Defiance, which shares several characteristics with Borderlands allied to fairly traditional MMOG elements. It hasn’t really grabbed me, though, much like Rift before it; seems perfectly fine and all, but I haven’t got much of an appetite for dodging mobstacles and clicking on glowing things. Speaking of appetites it’s the first MMO I’ve seen mentioned on Saturday Kitchen, but frankly I’m more interested in the beef bourguignon recipe… I might try and catch the accompanying TV series that Jaime Murray was plugging, but the gaming backlog is also causing things to stack up on the PVR and I can’t say I hold out high hopes for it as a televisual masterpiece. Shooter-wise there’s also Bioshock: Infinite. I’ve only just managed an hour or two of it so far, though; the world design is beautiful, but the gunplay doesn’t *quite* seem to entirely fit with it, especially when you’re mowing down waves of normal humans rather than twisted Splicers or hideous bio-zombies. Looking forward to exploring more of the story, though.

One of the games I actually have been seriously playing is War Thunder, as could probably be gathered from the series of guides which have resulted, possibly for the first time ever, in the majority of KiaSA search engine hits having a fighting chance of vaguely relating to what the searcher was looking for (though whoever was after “vintage cadburys roses pixelated graphics” is still out of luck. Sorry.) It’s completely taken over from World of Tanks as my “play a battle or two per evening” game; I did patch up WoT and grab the first couple of British tank destroyers when they were added in, but I’m just enjoying War Thunder more. I’ve hit a point, Ranks 7 & 8 with the German, Soviet and British air forces, where new ranks and planes are a long time coming, if that was the sole purpose for playing then it would be a grind, but I’m not so fussed about the progression aspect, I’ve got a couple of Spitfires, I’m happy. With the NDA on the rival World of Warplanes dropping, posts over at To Game For Life have prompted me to sign up for the beta of that, I think it’ll be quite an interesting comparison, but if Wargaming.net take as long to add a British tree to WoWP as they did to WoT there’ll be trouble…

My main game of the last three months has been Planetside 2. Inspired by the How To Murder Time podcast I downloaded it for a bit of a look around, and have been playing it pretty solidly ever since. On the surface its a fairly straightforward MMOFPS; point gun at enemy, press trigger, but as you play you become aware of the web of interactions that make up continent-wide rounds of rock-paper-scissors. Though with many elements, so more like rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard. Or rock-paper-scissors-spock-lizard-missile-tank-mine-shotgun. Or… well, you’d probably end up with something like RPS101. Or the weapon systems matrices illustrating combined-arms synthesis from Jones’ Art of War in the Western World, if you’re more of a grognard about these things. Despite the Inevitable Perpetual Fury (note: possible band name if Trans-Neptunian Panic Zone is taken) of the forums, SOE’s gentle nudges seem to be keeping things pretty reasonably balanced over multiple air and ground vehicles, with multiple weapon and system options, and multiple infantry classes, again each with multiple weapon and accessory options. Apart from NC MAX units, natch. (Actually even they’re almost sane, after shotgun rebalancing. Almost.)

One of the problems of the rock-paper-scissors nature is that sod’s law (Murphy’s British cousin) dictates that you always run into your counter; if you’re in a tank column with no anti-air cover you can guarantee a bunch of rocket-spamming flying gits will turn up, strafing with impunity, whereas the second you climb into an aircraft it’s instantly a magnet for every lock-on missile and flak cannon within four miles. Kit yourself out with a long range rifle for a bit of sniping and inevitably you’ll find your forces pushing forwards into a close-quarters battle against shotgun-toting opponents, and the moment you get the chance to swap loads for a more suitable SMG there’s nobody left in the buildings, but a bunch of the enemy over on a ridgeline presenting ideal sniper targets…

Still, apart from occasional frustrations it’s generally rather fun, thanks in part to Brigadier Van Hemlock and Five Rounds Rapid, less of an elite combat unit, more a travelling troupe of improvisational slapstick and high farce. Sometimes we shoot stuff! On rare occasions, the ‘stuff’ in question isn’t a member of our own squad! With DJ Melmoth providing the soundtrack, even something mundane like taking a convoy of tanks and armoured personnel carrier across the map is enlivened by the strains of Get A Bloomin’ Move On.

The payment model for the game is quite reasonable too; completely free to download and play, abilities can be bought with game-earned certificates, cosmetic items are available for cash in the shop, weapons can be bought for either certificates or cash. Well worth a look if you fancy some online FPS fun; it’s not big on hand-holding, though, chucking you straight into action on first login, so it might be worth having a bit of a read of the wiki if you haven’t got a friendly outfit to show you the ropes.

If you’re a new player looking to get started in War Thunder, the multiplayer online World War II flight sim from Gaijin Entertainment, these guides may help:

• Part 1 – Getting Started
  • Signing up for an account
  • The tutorial
  • Into battle!
  • Buying and equipping new aircraft
• Part 2 – Battle Types
  • Ground Strike
  • Domination
  • A few tips for general air combat
• Part 3 – Aircraft Types and Weapons
  • Fighters
  • Bombers
  • Attackers
  • Weapon Selection
• Part 4 – Miscellaneous
  • Camouflage and Decals
  • Crew Skills
  • Repairing
  • Premium Options
  • Which country should I play?
  • Other game modes

Note: this guide was first written with the game at version 1.27, I’ll try and note significant changes in future updates where relevant. Some of the screenshots may be out of date due to interface changes, but the general principles should still apply.

We’ve had a letter about our series of War Thunder guides, from a Mr J. Clarkson. He says: “Dear KiaSA, never mind all of this signing up and game mode and aircraft type nonsense, how can I paint ‘The Fighting Cock’ on my aeroplane?” Well, Mr Clarkson, you’re in luck, as Part 4 is a bit of a miscellaneous wrap-up, starting with with aircraft camouflage and decals.

Camouflage and Decals

Click the left hand icon over any of your planes, “Hanger”, to open the hanger view. From here there’s a “Test Flight” button on the right, if you’d like to try out some aerobatics without a bunch of people trying to shoot you down, a “Weapons” button next to it to see the weapon loads of the plane, and an “Information” button for a bit of historical detail. In the bottom left corner is the painting section, with “Camouflage” at the top, and decals below.

Aircraft start with a single camouflage option, some (but not all) have new skins that can be unlocked. To see what’s available, click your username at the top of the screen to access your profile, then select “Skins” in the tabs along the top, and select the country you’re interested in. Click an option on the left to see what aircraft it’s for, a bit of information, and the criteria for unlocking it (often a number of kills).

If you’ve unlocked additional skins then the “Camouflage” option in the bottom left of the hanger has left/right arrows to make the selection:

After choosing the basic paint scheme you can add your own your own touches via decals. Everyone has access to two decal slots (the boxes under the Camouflage section), with two more being available to premium players. Select a decal slot and you can scroll up and down the various decal options; again more can be unlocked through various achievements, but there’s a good selection available to start with. National insignia decals (e.g. the various roundels) are restricted to appropriate aircraft, but slogans and emblems can be applied to all.

After selecting a decal the cursor changes to a paintbrush, and you can position the decal on the aircraft. Hold the right mouse button to pan around your aircraft, and as the on-screen guide says use Shift+mouse wheel scrolling to change the size of the decal (you can manage some pretty gaudy effects by scaling decals up to cover most of the plane), and Alt+mouse wheel to rotate it.

For Mr Clarkson’s benefit, in the “Allies (inscriptions)” section he can find “Panchito: the fighting cock”, based on US Bomber nose art inspired by a Disney character, though perhaps he was thinking of No. 43 Squadron, The Fighting Cocks.

Crew Skills

As you gain air force ranks, your crews are also gaining skills. The third button over a plane, the pilot’s head icon, opens the crew window with four tabs: Pilot, Gunners, Ground Service and Qualification. There’s a good guide to skills on the Wiki, including tables showing how much faster you reload with higher skills. The amount of crew XP needed to raise a skill by one point increases as the skill goes up, so it doesn’t make much sense to pump all the points into a single skill

You’ll probably want to focus on the Pilot for a single-seat aircraft, not much point improving Gunner skills (unless you’re planning to put the crew into a different aircraft later; the crew retain their skills). With multi-crew aircraft the Gunner skills are more important; the first of these, “Number of experienced gunners”, is crucial as you start with a single skilled gunner, and if you have more than one turret position on your aircraft (quite likely on medium and heavy bombers) then the effect of skill points spent in the other areas is dramatically reduced. Extra skilled gunners are awfully expensive at 240 crew XP; you can use the “Accelerated Training” option to purchase crew XP for golden lions, otherwise it’s a lot of saving up. The third tab, Ground Service, allows you to speed up repair and rearming times; Reload Speed is especially useful in Arcade mode where you don’t even have to land to reload. The final tab, Qualifications, are specialisations that can be purchased (for silver lions) for each aircraft once your crew reaches a certain level, and offer a hefty boost to a number of other skills.

Repairing

Although your great skill and masterful tactical aptitude will surely ensure you emerge from most battles unscathed, every now and again, through pure bad luck or unsporting enemy behaviour, you might get shot down. Or rammed by an enemy aircraft. Or rammed by a friendly aircraft. Or you might misjudge a strafing run and prune a few treetops with your wings (note: your aircraft warranty doesn’t cover using the plane for horticultural purposes). Or your graceful landing attempt to capture an enemy airfield may result in an interaction with the ground at a somewhat higher velocity than would be ideal. On reflection, it’s incredibly unusual to come through a battle unscathed, so you’ll need to repair your aircraft. By default this is done automatically, but if you want to save a bit of money you can un-check the box in the bottom left of the screen next to the spanner, “Automatic repair of all airplanes after battle”; your aircraft will then gradually be repaired for free over time. Each aircraft gets 10 free repairs after you buy it, you can see how many are remaining, along with the time to repair for free and average repair cost, in the stats of a plane when you mouse over it. The Rank 1 Gladiator takes 21 minutes to repair for free, or on average costs 208 lions, for the Rank 19 Meteor if you don’t want to pay 21,960 lions then you’ll need to wait 17 days, 1 hour and 56 minutes! I tend to switch between two or three different nations while waiting for aircraft to repair, or you can always manually repair an aircraft (a spanner icon appears on its bar if damaged) if you’re in more of a hurry.

Premium Accounts and Planes, and Converting XP

As mentioned in Part 1 there are two currencies in the game: Silver Lions earned from playing missions and battles, and Gold Eagles bought with real money. Gold Eagles have several uses: each nation has three crew slots to start with, a fourth and fifth can be bought with silver lions, then further crews cost gold eagles. Crew XP can be purchased with gold eagles in the “Accelerated Training” option, as per “Crew Skills” above. You can purchase some Premium Aircraft with gold eagles; these are usually shown on the right hand side of a nation’s tech tree, and tend to be more unusual variants, often foreign aircraft. Premium aircraft can be flown at any time, regardless of your national rank (e.g. if you’re Rank 3 with Britain and buy the Rank 7 Hellcat F Mk.I, you can still put it into service and fly it); be careful in Arcade mode, though, as you’re put into matches based on the highest rank aircraft in your hanger.

The “Shop” button in the top right of the screen has a few more options. You can upgrade to a Premium Account, boosting the amount of experience and lions you earn from battles (the results screen at the end has a “Here’s what you could have won…” section, showing how much you would have earned with a premium account). The Store features a couple of campaigns, and starter kits containing both premium aircraft and gold eagles.

As you gain ranks for a particular country you also gain “Free XP”, this can be used with the “Convert XP” option to boost the rank of any country, so you can either really focus on getting to a high rank for one nation, or if you want to try something different but aren’t keen on being stuck in biplanes for a couple of ranks you can skip past those.

In this example I’m spending seven eagles to convert 10,500 Free XP to boost my British Air Force Rank from 2 to 3.

You certainly don’t need to buy any Gold Eagles if you don’t want to; player skill and teamwork will get you a lot further than just spending money. Like many games of the genre I imagine the pressure to spend real money increases as you move up the ranks and the cost of new aircraft, repairs and the like gets steeper and steeper, but if you’re not too hung up on progress and enjoying the battles I wouldn’t worry too much about it. If you feel the game is worth it, though, and want to progress a bit faster, by all means buy some Eagles.

Which country should I play?

I’ve seen a few people asking which country to play; there are no terrible choices, every nation has strengths and weaknesses. If you have a particular favourite aircraft in the game, go for that country and work up to it (or enjoy it right away, if you happen to be especially keen on the P-26 Peashooter). There’s nothing to stop you playing all the nations, though advancement will be slower than if you concentrate on one; as repair costs rise in later ranks, you may want to turn automatic repairs off and play a different country while waiting for aircraft to repair.

If you have no particular preference then starting off with the Soviet Union isn’t a bad idea as the I-153 Chaika they get at Rank 1 is lovely, fantastically nimble with strong armament for a biplane, a good way to get to grips with the game; some players like to keep the low rank Soviet planes around for a quick, fun alternative to higher ranked battled every now and again. Further up the ranks the fighters are decent enough without being spectacular (at least until the Rank 8 Yak-9T with its 37mm cannon), the Soviets really excel for light/medium bombers and ground attack, notably the IL-2 series with rockets, bombs and cannons to really make a mess of columns of vehicles, and the Pe-2 series of medium/dive bombers, relatively quick and able to deliver 500kg bombs with precision, ideal for tougher targets like ships and pillboxes.

For fighters the British tree starts out strongly, by Rank 6 you can have two Hurricanes, two Spitfires and two Beaufighters, a nice mixture of manoeuvrable dogfighters and cannon-packing heavies. They’re rather lacking for early bombers, though, the Blenheim and Beaufort don’t have much of a payload, so rockets from the Hurricane Mk II and Beaufighter Mx X were my primary ground-attack weapons until the Rank 7&8 Wellington medium bombers. If you really like torpedo bombing the British are worth considering, most of the bomber/attack line can unlock torpedo pylons, but without being able to specifically choose maps featuring shipping targets it’s something of a gamble.

The Germans, conversely, aren’t blessed with fighters until Rank 6. I never got on with the He 112s, and though some of the Italian fighters have decent performance, particularly the MC.202 Folgore, they’re not heavily armed. They have ample bombing options, though, with numerous variants of the Ju 87 Stuka for dive bombing, and the He 111, Ju 88 and Italian S.79 series of medium bombers. From Rank 6/7 onwards the emphasis changes with a swathe of Do 217 J/N and Me 410 heavy fighters, the introduction of the very strong Bf 109 single seat fighters and even stronger Fw 190s from Rank 11, and only a smattering of medium bombers in the higher ranks.

The USA take a little while to get going, though the F2A-3 Buffalo is a nice little Rank 2 fighter; the F4U Corsairs are probably the stand-out fighters, as the iconic P-51 Mustang isn’t as strong as it should be due to flight model issues (at the time of writing; it should be sorted out in a future patch). The 37mm cannon of the P-39/63s pack a hefty punch, and the F6F and P-47 can carry a literal ton of ordnance for ground attack as well as being reasonable fighters. If you’re a fan of heavy bombers then you’ll probably want to go for the USA (or possibly Britain for the Lancaster), though it does take a long time to unlock the B-17 at Rank 13 and the B-24 at Rank 16.

Japan suffers slightly at the moment with a comparatively small tree, but they have a good selection of nimble fighters. They’re very lacking for ground attack, though, and bombing isn’t really their strong suit; the H6K can carry a decent payload at the low ranks, but handles like a boat with wings, probably because it *is* a boat with wings.

Not having reached the dizzying heights of Rank 20 I’m not sure how things change as jet aircraft come along, but then that’s probably a little beyond the scope of a beginner’s guide…

Other Game Modes

These guides are aimed at getting a new player up and running in Arcade mode, a whirling maelstrom of instant action. If you’re seeking more realistic and considered gameplay, you’ll probably want to step up at least to Historical Battles.

Historical Battles use the Realistic mode; you can still fly with a mouse and keyboard quite easily, the Instructor takes care of the basic flying, and you can stay in third person view, but you won’t be able to get away with the really silly stuff from Arcade mode like vertical dive bombing from 30,000 feet in a heavy bomber. You’re limited to one aircraft, no respawns, so choose carefully, and bombs and ammunition don’t reload in flight, you have to return to your airfield and land. Historical Battles are based on real scenarios and therefore have fixed teams (e.g. Germany vs the Soviet Union or Japan vs Britain), though (possibly due to player numbers) your aircraft selection isn’t limited by the date of the battle, so you can find biplanes up against jet fighters. I’ve only poked my nose in a couple of times, they seem to be more tactical affairs with larger maps and longer flight times coupled with the greater caution needed in Realistic mode.

If that’s still not real enough for you then there’s another mode after that, Full Real battles in Simulator mode, no assistance at all with flying, you get to control the prop pitch and mixture and trim and magneto positions and… I tried a test flight in Simulator mode, and very nearly made it to the end of the runway before crashing. OK, that’s a wild exaggeration, I got nowhere near the end of the runway before crashing. One rather interesting thing is that the game supports head or face tracking hardware that allows you to look around in the game by… looking around. I gather this works in all modes, but is probably most useful in Simulation when you’re locked to the cockpit view, there’s a guide on the forums if you’d like to try it.

If you’re not so keen on player vs player combat you can fly missions or campaigns against AI opponents with either AI wingmen or human chums at the realism level of your choice (Arcade, Realistic or Simulator). Under “Game Modes” in the top left select “Missions”, from there you can join someone else’s mission, or create your own with the “Dynamic Campaign”, “Single Mission” and “Mission Editor” buttons in the bottom left.

Well, I think that about wraps it up; if you have any questions do leave a comment, or there are some Contact details at the top of the page if you’re terrifically keen. Soupy twist!

Part 1 got us into our first battle, Part 2 covered the main mission types, in Part 3 we’ll have a look at buying new aircraft and weapons.

As you fight battles you should hopefully be gaining experience, and therefore ranks in your chosen air force(s), allowing you to buy new planes as we did with the Swordfish in Part 1. Looking at the British tech tree, Rank 1 unlocks the Gladiator, a slightly better biplane fighter, Rank 2 gets us into monoplanes with the Hurricane Mk I and Blenheim Mk IV, and Rank 3 upgrades those to the Hurricane Mk II and Beaufort Mk VIII.

As more aircraft become available you may want to expand your hanger by clicking the “Recruit Crew” button at the bottom of the screen. The fourth and fifth slots are available for Silver Lions, further crew after that cost real money Gold Eagles. Extra crews are most useful in Arcade Battles, where you can use your whole hanger, if you’re planning to focus on Historical or Realistic battles then they’re less important.

Aircraft in War Thunder are in three main groups: Fighters, Bombers and Attackers. For quick identification, aircraft names in e.g. tech trees and your hanger are colour coded: Fighters are yellowy-orange, Bombers are blue and Attackers are green. Within the main groups are several sub-classifications, and as per their historical counterparts many aircraft can fulfil multiple roles.

Fighters

Fighters, as the name suggests, are designed to fight other aircraft. Most War Thunder fighters are single-engine single-seat planes, including many of the iconic aircraft of WWII such as the Spitfire, P-51 Mustang and A6M Zero. Early rank fighters have quite a light machine gun based armament that isn’t ideal for bringing down large bombers (though lucky/accurate shots can take out pilots or key components, or enough bullets will get anything in the end); once up to Rank 4 or 5 cannons or larger batteries of heavy machine guns have a much greater weight of fire.

Heavy Fighters

Heavy Fighters are like Fighters, but heavier. They’re twin-engine, often twin-seat, aircraft such as the Bf 110, Beaufighter and Pe-3 and tend to pack heavier armament than single-engine fighters of the same rank at at the cost of manoeuvrability, so try and avoid dogfighting with more agile enemies. Rear gunners can offer a little protection, but one or two machine guns aren’t a terribly scary deterrent so don’t put too much faith in them. Heavy fighters are well suited to bomber hunting, where the lack of manoeuvrability isn’t an issue.

Medium / Heavy Bombers

The job of a bomber is to drop bombs; the clue is in the name, really. Medium and Heavy Bombers such as the Heinkel He 111, Lancaster and B-17 Flying Fortress are designed to drop bombs in level flight from medium-to-high altitude using the bombsight. There is a bombing tutorial, but if you skipped it the general technique is to get a bit of altitude, line up a ground target, switch to the bombsight (F7):

And when the target is in the sight, hit the space bar:

In Arcade mode, as well as the bombsight you have a nice, big crosshair on the ground that shows where your bombs will land, if you prefer you can use that for aiming in the third person (third aeroplane?) view; after locking on to a ground target (middle mouse button by default) then you can center the camera on that target (right mouse button by default) to keep it in focus while lining up a bombing run. The crosshair should be solid in level flight, as you climb and dive it opens up, representing bomb dispersion, you really want the crosshair completely solid for optimal accuracy.

Medium and Heavy Bombers are big, slow, lumbering targets. They have multiple gun turrets for defence, which can be quite effective with trained gunners, or if you man the rear guns yourself by pressing F6, but as fighter armament gets heavier it’s not often a duel you can win. If you want a friendly fighter escort you’ll probably need to bring a squad-mate, team co-ordination is something of a rarity in Arcade matches, so one way of trying to stay safe is to climb as high as you can, especially in the early ranks when less powerful engines mean it takes a long time for enemy fighters to gain altitude; if the enemy team are all distracted in low level engagements you can drop your bombs and potter around in safety waiting for them to reload, although if any enemy fighters also climb to high altitude at the start of the match you’re just postponing the inevitable. High altitude bombing works best against static targets, unless you can calculate how far a tank will move in the time it takes the bomb to fall and lead the target appropriately.

Dive Bombers

Some bombers such as the Ju 87 Stuka, SBD Dauntless and D3A Val are designed to deliver their bombs from a steep dive, unsurprisingly classified as Dive Bombers (this naming scheme is really quite straightforward once you get the hang of it). In a way their attack pattern is the opposite of the previous level bombers: in level flight the target reticle doesn’t show up on the ground at all, in a shallow dive it appears with wide crosshairs signifying inaccurate bombing:

And as the dive gets steeper, the crosshairs close up until they are solid for pin-point precision:

I like to gain a decent amount of altitude and fly slightly past a target (as long as there aren’t any prowling fighters), so after the attacking dive you use all the speed you built up to continue back towards your home airfield and (hopefully) comparative safety as fast as possible, rather than bleeding that speed in a turn.

Torpedo Bombers

Torpedo Bombers like the TBF Avenger, Swordfish and B5N Kate are bombers that carry… anybody? Award yourself five points if you said “a torpedo”. Though if being really pedantic, you could argue that a torpedo isn’t a bomb, so they should be called “Torpedoers”, but that sounds silly. Anyway, once again there’s a tutorial that covers torpedo attacks if you’d like to practise, it’s pretty easy; you get a nice big line showing where the torpedo will go that turns green when a target is lined up (if it’s not on screen look in the bottom right hand corner and it should explain why, usually either “Too High” or “Wrong Angle”. Alternatively you might not be carrying a torpedo, in which case you’re in quite the wrong section of the guide.) When you’re about a kilometre away from your target, press space to drop the torpedo:

It’s quite straightforward to line up a torpedo attack, but flying straight and level at low altitude does make you vulnerable to both fighter attack and ack-ack fire from Destroyers and Battleships.

Attackers

Attackers are ground attack aircraft that operate at low altitude, armed with cannons, rockets and/or bombs. Few aircraft were designed specifically for ground attack, the Il-2 Sturmovik being the definitive example. The other Attackers currently present in War Thunder are the German Hs 129 and American A-20 Havoc. General technique is to point yourself at a hapless tank/pillbox/artillery emplacement, shoot it with rockets or cannons, then pull up before you smash into its charred ruin; that last bit is particularly important. For dropping bombs they tend to be most accurate in a dive, keep an eye on the crosshairs in the bombing reticle. With their powerful guns Attackers can be pressed into service in a Heavy Fighters role if there are no ground targets around, but they don’t tend to come off too well against dedicated Fighters.

Light Bombers

Light Bombers are something of a mixed bag; some early war Light Bombers like the Blenheim operate in a similar way to their Medium and Heavy brethren, dropping bombs from altitude in level flight (just with a much smaller load), others like the Soviet Su-2 are more similar to Attackers, better suited to diving attacks from low level. As the war progressed and engines became more powerful, dedicated Light Bombers generally became obsolete as Fighters could carry similar loads; the Typhoon, a Fighter / Light Bomber, can carry the same 2x500lb bombs as the earlier Beaufort.

Multirole Aircraft

Many aircraft can fulfil multiple roles, depending on weapon load; the Beaufighter Mk X, for example, is classified as a Heavy Fighter / Torpedo Bomber, but can also be fitted with rockets instead of a torpedo for more of an Attacker role. Most Torpedo Bombers can also carry conventional bombs, so they’re not completely useless on maps with no naval targets. The Soviet Ar-2 Dive Bomber / Medium Bomber can deliver its bombs either from level flight using the bombsight or in a dive. Perhaps most common, though, are Fighter-Bombers such as the Typhoon, P-47 Thunderbolt and certain variants of the Fw 190:

Fighter-Bombers generally attack ground targets like Attackers, at low altitude with rockets, bombs and/or cannon, dropping bombs from a dive, but are more capable in air-to-air fights. Hanging bombs from an aircraft will affect performance, though, so if air superiority is a priority (as it is in Historical Battles, or a Domination match after the ground targets have been destroyed) then just stick to guns. If you’re in a Ground Strike Arcade battle you might as well fit a bomb or two if you have the option, you can always just drop them if you find yourself in a frantic air fight (just be a bit careful you’re not over friendly ground forces at the time).

If you really excel at one particular aspect of the game you might want to concentrate on a single type of aircraft, but generally it’s useful to have a mix in your hanger to allow you to fulfil different roles within an Arcade mission, such as ground attack at the start of a Domination map to clear out some targets, then switching to a fighter to defend the airfields. With a selection of aircraft of different ranks you can make tactical choices, like starting off in your lowest rank fighter and hoping that everyone else gets their better aircraft shot down, so you’ll have more of an advantage later in your better planes, but then if everyone else is doing that then maybe you’re better starting in your top aircraft to rack up some easy kills…

Weapon Loads

Some aircraft also have multiple possible weapon loads. Click the Weapons button (three bullets on the icon) to see the possible weapon selections; the Hurricane I, for example, can only ever have 8 .303 machine guns, but when you buy the Hurricane II at Rank 3 you get some more exciting choices:

As well as its machine guns, you can fit two bombs or six rockets. If you’re used to homing missiles in modern flight sims, by the way, these are unguided rockets, for air-to-ground attacks, although if you do happen to hit an aircraft with them (like a nice big bomber at close range) they will make a mess of it. You need to spend silver lions to unlock the options, but as they’re pretty cheap then unless you’re stone broke I’d suggest hitting the “Buy All Weapons” button. Once you’ve bought them, you can choose which to fit at the start of a battle or when you respawn:

I often like to start a battle in a fighter-bomber; head for the nearest enemy ground units, rattle off the bombs or rockets, then look out for any friendly bombers who might need an escort, and see how the battle is developing when it comes to respawning.

The Hurricane II has the extra options available from the start, but other aircraft like the Beaufort have to unlock extra fittings to get new weapons:

Looking at the “Modifications” section, you can see that the TBC pylons required to carry a torpedo require 22,000 aircraft experience:

I must confess that I don’t know the precise mechanics behind individual plane XP compared to country XP, player XP and crew XP. You can see the current total at the top of the the window (zero in the screenshot above in my newly purchased Beaufort); basically the more you fly and better you do, the more experience you get. Keep checking back in and eventually you’ll be able buy the pylons to fit bigger bombs and torpedoes. Most aircraft can also upgrade their engines and reduce air resistance for better performance, with enough XP.

Update: Patch 1.29 introduced new ammunition loads for guns, allowing you to upgrade the default ammunition belts to include all sorts of fun like Armour Piercing, High Explosive and Incendiary bullets and shells. You need to unlock the options with Aircraft XP then buy them with silver lions, much like other Modifications.

Different calibre weapons of different nations have various options available; most have “omni-purpose”, a mixture of various ammunition types that should be suitable for all target types, and a “stealth” option with no tracers so that you don’t alert your target if you miss with your first burst (if you hit them, the big holes in their aeroplane are usually a bit of a giveaway). There are also some specific air and ground options, and a few other exotic choices like All High Explosive Incendiary Tracer, All The Time.

For more information on the various abbreviations and ammunition belt types the Reddit FAQ is a good place to start.

While on the subject of weapon loads, a lot of bombers have the ability to carry a lot of light bombs or a few heavy bombs. The Su-2, for example, with the right pylons can carry 12 x 50kg bombs, or 6 x 100kg, or 2 x 250kg. Though, as per the old maxim, quantity has a quality all its own, I tend towards the other maxim that bigger is better. If you can get nicely lined up on a road packed with a column of vehicles it can be glorious to drop a long string of bombs down it, but irritatingly the enemy are seldom generous enough to lay out their forces in nice, geometric, easily bombable patterns. Larger bombs don’t have to be quite so precisely placed, particularly useful from high altitude, and some targets need heavy ordnance to destroy them.

Regarding weights, just to confuse people metric and imperial weights are used by different nations (e.g. 250lb bombs on the British Beaufort, 250kg bombs on the Soviet Su-2). 1kg = 2.2lb, so as a very rough rule of thumb you can multiply or divide by 2 to get a general idea of comparative bomb loads, or type a phrase like “500lb in kg” into Google and its handy-dandy converter will give you a more precise figure.

To wrap things up, Part 4 covers the most important feature of the game: painting your aircraft, along with some minor sections on crew skills, premium options and the like.

At the end of Part 1 we’d got the game installed, bought a new plane and set off into battle with the helpful advice of “point yourself in the vague direction of the enemy and hope.” That’s surely a complete and comprehensive strategic and tactical guide to air combat, isn’t it? No? Oh. Well. All right.

There are two Arcade PvP mission types in War Thunder (at the time of writing, subject to change over the course of the beta etc.): Ground Strike and Domination.

Ground Strike

A mode called “Ground Strike” suggests that the objective is to strike the ground as hard as possible with your plane. Turns out that’s not the case, although there’ll probably be a fair amount of crashing going on anyway. The objective is actually to destroy all of the enemy ground units before they destroy all of yours, or to shoot down all enemy aircraft. If there are airfields on the map then destroying the enemy airfield is another way of winning. This requires dropping a lot of very heavy bombs on the enemy runway, I’ve never seen a team successfully manage it in lower rank fights, but it’s something to watch out for once the heavier bombers start appearing.

In the early Rank 0/1 battles, when most people are in biplanes with a couple of machine guns and everyone’s keen to dogfight, it’s fairly common for everybody to pile in to a big furball in the middle of the map and keep flying around in circles until one side has been entirely shot down. As attack aircraft and bombers start arriving (and people expand their hangers) the ground targets really become the focus, it’s much more unusual for a higher rank battle to come down to the last team flying. (Update: patch 1.31 introduced two new Ground Strike maps for Rank 0/1/2 battles that are very compact, and finish very quickly if a team concentrates on attacking ground targets.)

Even without any bombs or rockets you can still have a crack at ground targets in a biplane with a couple of popguns; Artillery and Anti-Aircraft Guns (either mobile or fixed) are soft targets (though careful of the latter, they shoot back); Armoured Cars are vulnerable to machine gun strafing, but take a few more shots; Light, Medium and Heavy Tanks and Pillboxes are tougher and need progressively larger cannons, rockets or bombs. Basic technique should be pretty obvious, point nose of plane towards thing on ground, shoot it with guns, then (and this is the important bit) pull up before you crash.

I like to fly with mouse aim and W and S as pitch down and pull up respectively, so mashing ‘S’ as you get near the ground can just give a bit of a helping hand, especially in some of the more lumbering planes that take a bit longer to respond to your mouse wiggling. You can always re-run the tutorials or have a go at some single player missions if you want a bit of practise without 15 maniacs trying to shoot you down.

Speaking of the other maniacs, before commencing a strafing run it’s worth checking around for no enemy fighters poised to pounce; look out for red dots on the mini-map, and hold down ‘C’ for a visual check about the place. Though you can’t exactly be stealthy in an aeroplane, you can check where everyone is on the map (‘M’) if you want to head off and find some undefended ground targets, but be careful as you get near the opponents spawn point as newly appearing fighters can really put a crimp on your day.

Domination

The other main mode is Domination, in which the goal is to capture airfields. So a bit like Capture the Flag, but with airfields instead of flags. Except you don’t have to bring the enemy airfield back to your airfield, you just hold onto it, so it’s territorial domination. Probably why they called it ‘Domination’, in hindsight.

On a Domination map there are one, two or three airfields, and the aim is to be holding more than the enemy, which causes their red bar to go down. If they hold more than you, your blue bar goes down. Once one bar reaches zero, the other team wins. (Update: patch 1.31 tweaked the mechanics slightly so that simply holding an airfield causes the enemy bar to go down, so if both teams hold one airfield, both bars go down.) So that bombers aren’t entirely useless there are also some ground or naval units on Domination maps, and destroying them also takes a chunk off the enemy score bar; destroying all the targets won’t win the round, but it can give you an edge.

What the game doesn’t seem to mention is how to capture an airfield, and it turns out that you have to land on the runway. There is a landing tutorial available, under “Game Modes” on the main screen, that teaches you to land safely: very carefully banking around, gradually losing altitude, gently reducing the throttle, lowering landing gear and gracefully touching down. You don’t want to do that in a Domination match; you’re trying to get to the airfield and capture it as quickly as possible, so max the engine and point at the ground, full speed ahead! Except of course you have to be going slowly to land, so then cut your engine completely, hit ‘G’ to extend landing gear (if it’s not fixed) and ‘F’ for flaps and pull a load of violent turns to dump speed as quickly as possible as you get near the ground. Needless to say this can get a bit tricky; all airfields start neutral, typically there’ll be one by each spawn point, so it’s not uncommon for a Domination match to start off with a bunch of people on each side going straight for the capture and an airfield littered with the burning wrecks of planes that misjudged their approach (or got in each others way and collided in mid-air). You might want to leave it to others to actually capture the airfield to start with, though there are nice XP and cash rewards for doing so, so give it a crack if you’re feeling confident.

I say you have to ‘land’ on the runway, technically you just need to have your wheels in contact with the ground, you don’t actually have to come to a standstill, so once the control point turns blue you can whack the throttle back up and take back off again to get into action. It also means you don’t have to bring your speed right down as you would for actually landing, but the faster you’re going the more risk that a slight twitch will result in a crash of flaming death; swings and roundabouts… If, in the process of landing, you clip your propeller on the ground it’s not always fatal, though obviously you’re not going to be flying anywhere. Fortunately landing at an airfield repairs your aircraft (and you get an XP bonus for landing with a dead engine, even if it was self inflicted), so as long as you weren’t going so quickly that you head off the end of the runway into a hanger building or inconvenient tree you might be able to gently brake, come to a stop, then get back into action once the repair timer has counted down.

You ought to be doing one of two things on a Domination map: defending a friendly airfield or trying to capture an enemy airfield. Defending is probably the easiest, especially if you’re not too confident on landings, just hang around a blue airfield and shoot down anything red trying to land. As a landing plane has to fly slow and straight they’re pretty good targets; if you gain a bit of altitude and loiter a little way away the enemy might be so fixated on landing they don’t even notice you until it’s too late, but don’t loiter so far that you can’t make it back in time to stop them. If you’re on your own and there are multiple incoming bandits you can try and get a bit of help via the voice commands (‘T’ and then a number; ‘Defend the base!’ or ‘Cover me!’ are worth a shot, but don’t hold your breath). If you’re going to try and capture the enemy airfield, you really need to shoot down any defenders first; if you’re lucky there might be a big old dogfight going on in the middle of the map, allowing you to sneak around a map edge to an undefended airfield, but if there are any opponents in the area it’s probably not worth trying to land unless you’re really confident of your damage absorption powers.

If you end up in a bomber, either by choice or from a lack of alternatives left in the hanger, then you can always have a crack at ground targets. On a map like Stalingrad: Winter, though, the 30 vehicles on each side tend to be wiped out in fairly short order, leaving you lumbering around with poor air-to-air armament feeling a bit of a gooseberry. Fear not, though, in some ways you’re the ultimate airfield defender. An enemy aircraft has to land, after all, or at least get its wheels on the deck, and you have… bombs! You can’t destroy your own airfield in a Domination match, so line ‘em up, and as the enemy aircraft touches down thinking “ha, that bomber will never be able to stop me with its pathetic turret guns”, bombs away! You need to be at low altitude (or to have incredible skill at judging bomb drop time to account for the speed of the enemy plane); the bigger the bomb the less precise you need to be. I have to admit to giggling slightly on the few occasions I have managed to catch someone out like that.

General Air Combat

Of course regardless of the game mode there are a bunch of enemy aircraft trying to stop your team doing what it’s trying to do, which might be trying to stop their team doing what it’s trying to do, which all gets very circular. Anyway, you’ll end up shooting at aeroplanes at some point. There’s masses of literature already devoted to air combat, both real life and simulated so I won’t spend too much time on Thach Weaves, Immelman Turns, boom and zoom, turn n’ burn, salt n’ shake, Chaka Demus n’ Pliers and the like; Boelcke’s rules from 1916 aren’t a bad starting point, and there’s a War Thunder Wiki with some useful articles.

One thing to watch out for is overheating guns. As you fire, a red circle fills around your gunsight; this represents your guns heating up. The longer you fire the greater the chance of a jam; you might well have seen a ‘Gun Jammed’ message, which confused me to start with as my guns still seemed to be working. As I understand it, a ‘jam’ in War Thunder actually knocks a chunk off your ammunition supply. Whilst not a disaster, with machine gun ammunition resupplying after a short delay (cannon take a bit longer), firing in short bursts is generally a better idea than holding the trigger down, unless you really need to bring something down in a hurry, like an aircraft about to land on your airfield in Domination.

Speaking of really needing to bring an aircraft down, there is a last resort: ramming. Rather a divisive subject, liable to cause outbursts of anger in the chat window, but there is precedent and it’s undeniably effective if someone is about to capture your airfield, or is lining up to bomb the last friendly ground target. Many ramming incidents happen during head-on attacks, and if you’re playing a game of chicken then you’re at least as much to blame as the other person if you do crash. If you really like your plane you should take early evasive action in such a situation; if I’m in a shiny new high rank fighter I’ll break off and circle around for another shot, if I’m in something of a lower rank that’s suffered some damage, heck, I’ll keep the fire button held down, and if the other guy doesn’t turn that’s his problem… There’s always a risk of accidental collisions and friendly fire too, especially if there are three or four people chasing the same opponent, or if one person is performing a daring low-level strafing attack on a target that a high-altitude bomber is attacking; these things happen, it’s best not to get too worked up about it, but do be careful, even if just to avoid the cash and XP penalty from downing a friendly.

That should get you progressing through the ranks of your air force, we’ll continue in Part 3 with a few tips on aircraft and upgrades.