We're continuing our regular QnA sessions with the devs! You can ask us anything about the game on our Forums, the Blog and even on Larsia 'Priolia' Vishnya's Discord or on her stream!

Q: Any chance of adding the YB-35 or it's jet engine version as a high-tier US bomber?

A: Yes, this is a possibility.

Q: Are there any plans for buffs to machine guns (especially the later ones in the US fighter line)? It doesn't make sense that you have guns from 7 mm to 13 mm that can fire for 20-30 seconds and then you go up 8 mm and suddenly you can only fire for like 5 seconds.

A: Historically, an aircraft’s armament was a sure sign of its supposed role. Long salvos with 6 machineguns provided high shooting “density” and did not strain the ammo capacity too much. This approach made the less powerful bullets sufficient for hitting and destroying small maneuverable enemies. On the other hand, higher caliber cannons had very limited ammo, much more powerful projectiles, and were much more suitable for engaging durable large sluggish targets. The same thing is conveyed in the game: machineguns are best for dogfighting other fighter aircraft, cannons — for shooting down attack aircraft and bombers. The overheat time is a gameplay depiction of the ammo capacity for specific aircraft.



Q: Do any type of bots ever have equipment or pilot skills? Does their pilot have 100% proficiency? Or is that stuff ignored and their plane is just given certain characteristics regardless, for example they always turn at a certain rate no matter what their plane is capable of? Or they have a certain level of accuracy that's tied to the "difficulty level" of the bot rather than the equipment/skills?

A: Bots have 100% proficiency but do not have any skills. They don’t use any equipment and can only have consumables that are available for credits to the players. Top-tier bots use universal ammo belts.

A Bot is just an AI that controls the same aircraft as a player. Consequently it cannot push the aircraft further than its parameters allow. Depending on the bot’s mastery tier, it varies in maneuvering and shooting skills. The “newbie” bot will barely ever maneuver and will shoot very inaccurately. The veteran will be very precise and execute advanced maneuvers to evade fire.



Q: When does the "climb rate" stat apply? Is it a certain angle? Throttle? Boost?

A: At the moment, this parameter states the maximum achievable climb rate. To calculate it we find the best suitable speed and angle of climb. Currently, it shows the climb rate without boost, which is actually not quite correct since the current meta is climbing with boost in the vast majority of cases. In future patches, we will change this parameter to consider boost.

Q: There were a lot of optional modules for planes that were removed before 2.0, for example gunpods on the Bf 109 planes, a different number of machine guns on the P-51, a 50 mm canon on the Me 410 and Me 262; will there be a review to see if any of these options could be added back to the planes now that 2.0 has changed the gameplay so much?

A: We are currently developing a system that will enable us to add “alternative loadouts” to existing planes. Some of the modules you mentioned will be brought back.



Q: Client side prediction (CSP) is now enabled by default. However, it can be turned off manually. When this is done, plane response on the screen is slower but more realistic and returns some of the sense of flight. However, this seems to cause a major desync, and rounds that register as hits on the screen (producing a flash on the enemy aircraft) don't do any damage and an increased lead is required to inflict actual hits. Any plans to make the game playable without CSP enabled?

A: The whole point of this system is to minimize lag between what’s shown in the client and what is calculated on the server (flight trajectory and shooting), which is caused by high ping values. Naturally if you disable it, the controls will become slightly laggy (that’s what you’re perceiving as more realistic flight — laggy response to controls feels like inertia). Accurate shooting will become much harder because of desync between your aim on the client and your calculated position and aim on the servers. This is why we don’t recommend disabling the CSP system.



Q: Is there anything more that can be done to improve the hit registration/prediction for high velocity guns? I have to fire behind enemy aircraft within 400m with the Ta-152's 30mms because the enemy is not where I see them.

A: Unfortunately, high ping and packet loss situations can cause this effect.



Q: Will there be something done about GAA spawning into the mountain side?

A: We will fix it ASAP.



Q: Any plans to allow gun convergence?

Setting up gun convergence on a P-38 Lightning

A: It already exists, salvos from guns converge on the point of maximum shooting distance. Considering our shooting system, this provides a maximum shooting “density” over all possible distances. We think there is no point in making a manual convergence setting simply for the sake of being “lifelike” since in real life ballistics, the shooting distance and overall complexity of actually hitting a target from an aircraft are absolutely different from what’s in the game.



Q: Since the release of 2.0, the planes seem much slower, it feels like you are flying through molasses, even when boosting you do not get a sense of true speed. So I ran some tests and posted the results in the thread below. Can you confirm that speed and distance have been scaled in the game? Can you confirm my suspicions that the speed showing does not match the planes actual speed? If I am correct, can you let us know why?

A: The calculations in the thread are correct. Since the release (Update 1.0) we have a speed scale of 0.8. When making Update 2.0, we did not change the scales of speed and distances. Camera angles and FoV composition changed, however, and this is what causes the effect you describe.



Q: What additions to the Japanese line can we expect to come in the following years?

A: The near future will bring a mini-branch of Japanese heavy fighters that will specialize in bomber interception.



Q: Will the Ki-61 ever see its synchronized Ho-5 20mm cannons, or its Ho-155 30mm wing cannons?

A: No plans for that currently.



Q: When is Precision Gunner going to be nerfed/removed? It’s insanely ridiculous to play against. In addition, when will the range buffs to rear guns be removed? When stacked with Precision Gunner, we have RB17s and Il-40s critting people up to 1,400m away.

A: There are no plans to remove this skill. The effects of combining gunner skills and equipment might be nerfed since we initially designed both of these components without manual control in mind. We plan to rework the rear gunners later this year; we will have more information then.



Q: Considering data found here the turn time graph of the Spitfire I assumes that as the aircraft slows down, the amount of lift produced by the wings increases...until it doesn't. This is not very realistic and is contrary to the way turning was modeled in 1.x. It also says that the best turn is a few km/h above stall. Are my results at all accurate or is it a bug?



A: The calculations in the thread are correct. All aircraft in 2.0 have a wide speed range that provides maximum maneuverability. We don’t use complex dependencies between speed, altitude, and turn performance anymore. The range of speeds from stall to the plateau you are seeing on the graph corresponds to the loss of lift at low speeds. The section after the plateau shows the inability to perform sharp turns due to rising g forces. For a real aircraft, this graph would have been a bell curve with one minimum. The trapezoid form in our case is a simplification that we need, to make controlling speed and maneuvering efficiently easier. This is what you are seeing in the colored numbers of speedometers: white is in the plateau range of speeds, yellow is outside of it.



Q: What game modes are in the plans (prototyped, discussed)? Is it possible to include players in the decision making early on in the creation of new content?

A: We already have several promising concepts for new game modes. But for now we’re focused on developing “Escort”, a game mode where the attacking team’s objective is to escort a group of strategic bombers across the map, while the defending team must stop them.

The game mode creation process is not only the generation of ideas. It must take into account the paramount needs of the project and its development strategy. Besides that, we’re relying on а combination of various data we’re gathering. That’s why we can’t directly involve players in the early stages of development, but we often discuss their ideas with each other.



Q: Will there be more types of bases like mining plants?

A: You might have noticed that along with the new game modes we added a "Stronghold" – а new kind of territory that resembles the plant in its parameters. We’re going to increase the diversity of game objects, but this task is not for the near future.



Q: Any chance that it will be possible to respawn in different aircraft regardless of whether there is an Airbase in a match? It would be convenient for situations when you find yourself in a plane that is next to useless in a certain situation or when a lot of planes on the enemy team can counter your aircraft. In addition to that, is it possible to only have one type of airfield that always has a repair station? It could prevent confusion for newer players and make life in general a lot easier. It would also make some airbases generally a bigger priority.

A: You are right; the ability to select your aircraft type while waiting for respawn can provide some tactical advantages and can be very useful. That's why we want players to choose which advantages they would like to achieve through their attacks and fight for them.

As for the second part of the question, we’re trying to present game mechanics gradually. The “Airbase” is more protected than the “Airfield”. It has a whole complex of game mechanics which become available only at medium and high levels, once the player has mastered the basics. So no, we don’t want to have only one type of these territories.