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Answers from developers!

It's time for another round of Questions and Answers!

Ground Forces

Do crew skills affect reloading speed with an automatic loader?​

No, they don’t.

Will the durability of tank destroyer rockets be corrected from super-durable to ordinary levels, with real-world values? Maybe they won’t blow up, but they could be knocked out and have to be reloaded when shot with machine guns, for example.

Yes, we plan to change the parameters for launchers and rockets, and add other components (the ATGM sight) to the DM, so that hitting them can knock the rocket system out and block the ability to launch.

Will there be a division between types of APDS shells such as solid homogenous APDS and soft-alloy core APDS? I’m referring to the APDS for the Leopard, М60, М60А1, Vickers, Centurion Mk 10, Chieftain, and T-10M.

Yes, we plan to introduce more types of APDS with differentiation based on DM mechanics (penetration depending on angle, post-penetration effect etc.).

Will armoured APCR and HESH shells be fixed? Right now it is a sometimes strange picture – a HESH shell creates a big shrapnel vector in the post-penetration space, dealing critical damage to internal modules, while an APCR can deal precise, non-penetrative damage through modules that is specific to the fragmenting action of HESH shells in particular. The APCR had significantly more shrapnel, with a temperature of 700-1000 degrees. Its penetrative ability allowed the high-speed shrapnel to pierce crew members’ bodies and compartments, setting the ammo rack and fuel tanks alight. The HESH shell had incommensurately less shrapnel, a speed of up to 600 m/s, a temperature no higher than 200 degrees. I.e. it couldn’t set alight a fragment of the tank’s armour or pierce crew members’ bodies, while saving energy for a subsequent hit on a module and crew in the post-penetration space.

We plan to rework the hit action of HESH shells, in particular we plan to fix their ability to set alight the engine or fuel tank. For APCRs, we have plans to move them gradually to a new system of secondary fragmentation.

Will the new experimental APCR for the 12.8 cm Pak 44 be added? The one you spoke about back in the tank closed beta test. Since a great many MBTs have been added, and it can be difficult to hit them with old German cannons (88-105-128). Also, is modern ammunition for the 88 cannon possible?

No, we have nothing like that planned.

Can we expect a reduction in BR for the Maus and IS-4 in RB? (The tanks have completely died out in battles after the introduction of ATGMs and powerful MBT shotguns)

We have taken a look at the popularity statistics over the last 10 days, and in terms of number of battles in rank 5 ground vehicles (AB/RB/SB combined), the Maus and IS-4 occupy positions 23 and 24 out of 50 in the table. The difference in number between uses vs tanks is in the top 5, not 10 or 100, is 4-5 times, a difference of 2 times vs 10th place for example. For example, these tanks are used more often than their ‘killers’ the M60A2 or the Chieftain Mk 5. i.e. it’ i incorrect to say that these tanks have died out. They aren't the most popular vehicles, but they are played. As for changing their BR, or the BR of tanks that cause them to ‘suffer’, yes, redistributing top rank tanks by BR is possible, but it’s worth remembering that in any case, there’ll be a certain split by rank, and these tanks will still encounter some more modern vehicles.

Why is there so much smoke in the flight trajectory of an ATGM? In reality, this smoke would prevent tracking the tracer and the aiming system would lose control over it. There was a bug report for this, but no response.

The smoke problem existed in reality. Consider that the aimer observes the entire volume of the smoke with the entire trajectory. For example, you can read about this problem in Vehicles and Armaments No. 2010-01 “The Dragon That Scourges Tanks – the IT-1”, pages 10-11.

Please tell us, do you have any plans for the T-62? Installing DShK, spaced armour on the sides of the tank, or possibly some other modification of the tank?

We’re aware of the multitude of modifications and additions for this tank, as with the T-55, which significantly increase its effectiveness, but as we answered before in our Q&A dedicated to the introduction of era 6, these modifications might appear if necessary as a balance correction, with a simultaneous change in the vehicle’s BR.

Do you have any plans to replace tanker models in German and Soviet vehicles with open cabins for models that look like tankers, instead of soldiers?

Currently no, and in addition, not all crews of these vehicles were necessarily tankers specifically, or artillerymen/AA crews.

Plans previously included the addition of a historical magnifying sight for all eras. How do matters stand on this now?

Yes, we plan to add historical magnification for all eras. But with the condition that if the real magnification was lower than x3, then in the game it will be set at x3, for player comfort.

Aircraft

Can we expect new maps for aerial RB? New maps for aerial RB haven’t been released in 3 years. The current ones are really boring now (Sicily - Norway)

We still have more aircraft maps in the game than tank maps, but that doesn’t mean we don’t plan to add more. Yes, we have plans to both add new maps and change matchmaking settings in such a way as to let players play on a wider variety of maps.

Why does the crew get 3 times less skill experience in RB than in AB, and when the pilot dies – 3 times less again? I agree that virtual life must be preserved, but 9 times less experience is excessive. Could you bring RB in line with AB, but leave the penalty when the pilot dies? Then in the worst case, the crew would get 3 times less XP.

In aerial RB, pilot death doesn’t influence the reduction in crew XP. The difference in the amount of experience in comparison with aerial AB is linked to the fact that in RB fewer crew members are required on average. And the difference isn’t 3 times, it’s roughly 2.6.

Other

Will there be Vulcan АPI and TXAA antialiasing, or will 6x FXAA at least be returned?

Vulcan is very interesting to us and we support its development (link). We hope that it might replace OpenGL in the Linux and Windows versions in the near future, and possibly Direct X 9.0. That depends on whether graphics card manufacturers support it.

The launcher did have a x6 MSAA setting. But since almost no graphics cards (old and new) support it, we removed that antialiasing variant from the settings. MSAA is actually pretty poorly compatible with modern lighting technology, so manufacturers don’t bother to support it. Various types of temporal antialiasing are more suitable for modern lighting. Unfortunately, they have their own limitations and price. But we are not ruling out the possibility of using temporal anti aliasing in the future at some point.

Questions translated from recent Russian stream

Potentially, rank V Soviet ATM’s have many similar vehicles that require researching due to the introduction of rank 6, do you plan to combine some of them in one “folder” so that it won’t be necessary to research all of them to progress

Yes we plan to do this with several vehicles, and not only in the Soviet tree.

USSR has an awesome attacker - the SU-6 with rocket armament. However they have no jet attackers unlike other nations. Are you planning anything?

Yes. At the moment we are working on S-5 containers and high-calibre rockets for the MiG-17. There is no ETA right now though

Since you are introducing the BMP-1, do you have any plans for the BMD?

That’s possible, however we cannot discuss when.

We now have destroyers in Naval Battles, should we expect glide bombs?

We are discussing this. There are several difficulties. From the historical point of view after such bombs appeared all vessels received jamming transmitters and these bombs became useless. The second thing is that bombs were controlled by a joystick aiming system using a bomb tracer. So the control is similar to that of 1st gen ATGMs only in an aircraft. Thus accuracy would be pretty low even if a player does everything right. Thus we haven’t decided yet whether we will implement this feature or not.

The Su-6 and Thunderbolt are very deadly attackers when using rocket loadout in combined battles, do you plan to change their BR or spawn point requirements?

At the moment not all armament uses the new system (recalculation to a TNT equivalent). Thus currently rockets are a bit more powerful than they were IRL, once we apply changes to all rockets they will become less deadly, however they will still be efficient if you manage to shoot against the top surfaces of the enemy vehicle.

What about armour fatigue?

These are complex mechanics, we have completed only part of the work and are still working on it.

Besides the new vehicles what else should we expect in 1.71? Any changes in game mechanics? DM? Other features?

We plan a lot minor changes in different spheres. We will not announce them yet, probably some of them will not be finished by 1.71 release, but yes, there are changes in DM and ammo.

What about automatic fire extinguishers?

That’s an interesting question, but implementing this system will be bad for gameplay - for both sides, it will also decrease the importance of player skill. This is why most likely we will not introduce such a system.

Do you plan to increase the IS-6 BR?

All BR changes should be made after the release of the update. The introduction of rank 6 will most likely lead to BR changes in many vehicles, not only top-rank ones. Let’s wait and see.

Will the KPz-70 be placed after the Maus?

These are our plans at the moment, yes.

As far as I understand, the current top ground vehicles in rank 5 will be moved to early rank 6, will they receive new ammo?

It depends on the balance in the game. If it will be required, then yes they will.

Are there any plans in further development of the tank destroyers without armour? Like open-top vehicles with ATGMs?

That’s possible. Especially when “Ontos” is actually close to this idea. No promises however so far.

Have you stopped the development of aircraft?

Of course not. We have just introduced a whole new nation in the previous update! As well as many other aircraft. All the game aspects are being developed in parallel. There will be lots of interesting stuff in the aviation part of the game later this year.

What about the visibility system? Disappearing tanks are frustrating.

We are constantly working on it. We never planned to introduce vehicles that fire whilst being invisible, all such bugs are being fixed.

We are always looking for your questions! Feel free to submit them in comment section, or on our Official Forum!

The War Thunder Team