War Thunder - free to play air combat

Maniacal · Feb 28, 2013

http://warthunder.com/

If you want to be awesome, you can also use this link to register and it will give me some minor rewards.

War Thunder is a good free to play WW2 to Korean War air combat.

Currently the main game mode is team deathmatch with objectives game (also some up to 4 player missions as well that you can unlock and give you more rewards) with future additions planned to add tanks and ships (both of which are in maps already as objectives).

It is a very beautiful and yet not demanding game and it works perfectly fine with a mouse or joystick. It has an arcade mode that most people play but planes are still fully modeled and have numerous parts that can be hit and that will affect your plane (you can even kill the pilot without taking out his plane). There are realistic and simulation modes as well.

Its fairly similar to World of Tanks when it comes to the tree for unlocking new planes and stuff, but without as many upgrades and its much easier to get decent planes and is a far better game.

The matchmaking is still a work in progress but it works most of the time, you can form squads of up to 4 players to ensure you all end up in the same match. Currently I think its 32 players max but that isn't final (its in open beta). There are no NA servers yet, only EU and Russian (Russian developer) but despite having 200 ping I have had no difficulties at all.

It was also Greenlit on Steam this week too.

Some screenshots:
Amazing mountains!

Spoiler :

Fully modeled cockpit view!

Spoiler :

Eat lead!

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More lead!

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Weather effects!

Spoiler :

A few tips (more will be added):

- Do the first three tutorials.
- Each plane you have is basically a life, once you are out of planes you have to spectate or just leave the game and go start a new one (you still get the rewards).
- Spend 100 Golden Eagles on each of the first two crew slots to buy XP for the crews to level them up. Focus on g-resistance, reload speed and make sure the mechanics repair skill is at least the same as the level of the plane you have in that slot (I just set it to 4 for now).
- Steam overlay will not work, but F12 is the in-game screenshot button.
- Out of ammo completely? Engine damaged or dead? Just need repairs? Fly back to spawn and land on your airbase (map mode dependent) and wait around for ~half a minute to repair, rearm and refuel.

Esckey · Mar 1, 2013

Its great fun but the matchmaker and flight models and damage models and general research tree need some work. Had a Lagg ram my PBY's tail and just sit there stuck between my wing and my tail till I finnally rolled over and he slid off while I flew away relatively unscratched(I'm sure lag did attribute to some of that but once it caught up I should of died rather then carry on bombin stuff) And it's very annoying to go against jets and late WW2 planes while flyin a hurricane. Oh and the grind is just god aweful, it feels like griding from T7-8 in WoT

But it is fun, and very addicting and very natural and easy to fly especially with just a mouse. Arcade can be a blast(sometimes it's a total crapfest) have had some really fun and amazing moments(flew a Lagg that had no alerions and damage elevators all the way back to base to repair on nothing but my rudder, engine cut out on approach hit the runway to hard broke off both wings, a tail skiped and hopped along the run way and came to a halt a few feet short of a buildin, 30 seconds later I was back in the air)

If you like IL-2, you'll like this. It does have a full realistic mode as well for anyone thats a hard core flyboy, but time vs reward is not great. In the time it takes to wait for a match and then fly one you can make more exp and credits(Lions in this game) just going from arcade match to arcade match

Maniacal · Mar 3, 2013

Yeah the matchmaker needs work but it seems to be something the devs are working on. The research tree could be better but it isn't bad and the damage model seems fine to me and quite detailed. Flight model isn't realistic. I never played it, but apparently its quite similar to Wings of Prey which is made by the same developer (also you can link your WoP CD key for 500 Golden Eagles, wish I'd picked it up on sale a while a go now

).

Ramming usually involves both parties losing wings, except for some Russian planes that seem to be like flying tanks, I haven't seen anyone get stuck inside each other.

The grind doesn't seem too bad since I am already level 6 and rank 6 in UK and 2 in Germany after only a few days and the first several tiers are a lot of fun. Getting to the high tiers will be quite the grind though, that's a problem with F2P games models.

The golden eagle prices aren't the greatest though, especially if you want Premium with gives you much more XP. Also had problems playing with Subi tonight, he could not get connected to the chat :/ Still though I have been having a tonne of fun with this, especially playing with others on TS.

GoodGame · Mar 5, 2013

Maniacal fall for a Free-2-Play MMO? Suspicious...

FriendlyFire · Mar 6, 2013

What PrinceScamp failed to tell you is that you can find your tiny tier 1 biplane up against Korean era JET FIGHTERS thanks to the matchmaking.

They need more maps and missions. The good ones only open up later on as you reach the higher levels.

GoodGame · Mar 6, 2013

FriendlyFire said:
What PrinceScamp failed to tell you is that you can find your tiny tier 1 biplane up against Korean era JET FIGHTERS thanks to the matchmaking.

They need more maps and missions. The good ones only open up later on as you reach the higher levels.

That's horrible

Maniacal · Mar 6, 2013

FriendlyFire said:
What PrinceScamp failed to tell you is that you can find your tiny tier 1 biplane up against Korean era JET FIGHTERS thanks to the matchmaking.

Well, unlike him at least I mentioned it, sort of.

The matchmaking is still a work in progress but it works most of the time

Yeah the matchmaker needs work

Its incredibly unlikely you will end up with a biplane vs a jet fighter, but once they enable the 0-4, 5-10 and 11-20 check boxes that will be a thing of the past. If you have all reserve planes and maybe one or two unlocked planes (rank 0 or 1) it almost always puts you into a match with only reserve planes and rank 0-1 planes.

Except the odd time when it doesn't... and the matchmaking gets worse from there on (it goes off the highest ranked plane someone is currently using in your squad).

They need more maps and missions. The good ones only open up later on as you reach the higher levels.

I've found the variety in maps to be pretty good, there are a couple of maps that only seem to get chosen when only rank Reserve to 1 planes are present and the rest all show up as soon as you get above that.

alpav · Mar 7, 2013

Are they actually planning on adding infantry?

Maniacal · Mar 7, 2013

No and I don't know where you heard that. They do plan on adding in tank and naval warfare, but it may or may not be on the same maps.

Leonel · Mar 7, 2013

My favorite plane is the P-40 with the Gay Yoga livery. :lol:

alpav · Mar 7, 2013

http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1218196
AI controlled infantry. Just checking the validity.

Maniacal · Mar 7, 2013

Oh cool, I hadn't heard about that.

FriendlyFire · Mar 8, 2013

Maniacal said:
Its incredibly unlikely you will end up with a biplane vs a jet fighter, but once they enable the 0-4, 5-10 and 11-20 check boxes that will be a thing of the past. If you have all reserve planes and maybe one or two unlocked planes (rank 0 or 1) it almost always puts you into a match with only reserve planes and rank 0-1 planes.

Except the odd time when it doesn't... and the matchmaking gets worse from there on (it goes off the highest ranked plane someone is currently using in your squad).

Yeah except the Free beta Premium plane is tier 6.

So expect to be butt raped by jet fighters, They dont even care if they come for head to head pass, I was spraying bullets desperately and got smacked down like I was in some canvas and wood biplane while he was in an all metal jet fighter ...... oh wait !

Not playing until they fix this. I watched a jet fighter rack up 19 Kills and 6 assist in a single match.
Constantly facing way higher tier planes which have incredible advantages and I struggling to kill them despite pouring thousands of rounds into them. So Been reduced to playing bombers which isnt that fun.

Maniacal · Mar 8, 2013

Yeah except the Free beta Premium plane is tier 6.

I don't know which plane closed beta testers got, but it certainly isn't one that shows up a lot. EDIT: I don't know what you mean by tier 6 because the three tiers are 0-4, 5-10 and 11-20. The gift plane is the Typhoon Mk.1b for the British and its a rank 10 plane and expensive to repair (you get way fewer silver lions unless you get a LOT of kills at tier 2+ ranks).

So expect to be butt raped by jet fighters, They dont even care if they come for head to head pass, I was spraying bullets desperately and got smacked down like I was in some canvas and wood biplane while he was in an all metal jet fighter ...... oh wait !

Not playing until they fix this. I watched a jet fighter rack up 19 Kills and 6 assist in a single match.

That can happen to almost any plane, especially from cannon rounds which can do a lot of damage but still happens with MGs. It just depends where they hit and to some degree the plane, I have shot down lots of people with only a few hits and others take a lot of bullets.

I've played nearly 60 hours of War Thunder have seen a grand total of FOUR jets in battle. All of them late at night when there are a lot fewer people playing so matchmaking gets desperate, and three of them when someone in my squad is flying rank 9-11 planes. They did get a lot of kills but their team didn't win and anyone who has a jet unlocked already has played the game a lot and should be pretty good at playing it regardless of the plane.

Jets also cost a lot to repair so people don't tend to play them after the initial free repairs are up.

I've taken rank 3 and 4 planes into matches against rank 6-11+ planes and shot them down.

Constantly facing way higher tier planes which have incredible advantages and I struggling to kill them despite pouring thousands of rounds into them. So Been reduced to playing bombers which isnt that fun.

Like I said, matchmaking can be pretty bad ATM but most of the time it really isn't a problem. If you're finding it too hard in matches with rank 6+ planes then play with some lower tier ones and it is less likely to match you up with high tiers. Or fly planes that have cannons because MGs aren't as useful. The only planes that are definitely unbalanced are some of the Russian ones, and even then they can still be killed. I've spent the last couple days playing with someone with rank 10 and 11 planes and we haven't see an single jet.

FriendlyFire · Mar 8, 2013

Maniacal said:
I've played nearly 60 hours of War Thunder have seen a grand total of FOUR jets in battle. All of them late at night when there are a lot fewer people playing so matchmaking gets desperate, and three of them when someone in my squad is flying rank 9-11 planes.

Guess what time is prime playing time in Australia? Probably that late night in Canada where the match maker gets as you say " desperate ". General wait 5+ mins for a match to start so thats probably a bad sign. :lol:

Did you not get the Free Beta premium bomber ?

Maniacal · Mar 8, 2013

Ah Australia yeah, but still I have played it until 3 AM and it hasn't been too bad.

Did you not get the Free Beta premium bomber ?

I wasn't in the closed beta and its $19.99 for the Typhoon starter pack with 2 weeks of Premium and 2000 Eagles.

Maniacal · Mar 12, 2013

New patch incoming, looks like they are working on improving the "To Battle" interface, hopefully this means better match making options!

Link to video.

EDIT: I found an unofficial change list in a comment:

Spoiler :

Esckey · Mar 14, 2013

Whens the patch?

Maniacal · Mar 14, 2013

I don't know, but I did play on a North American server today as I had a ping of 80-89 for the match. I have server selection set to All (other choices are currently EU and RU). I noticed absolutely no difference having 100+ less ping though.

Leonel · Mar 14, 2013

FriendlyFire said:
What PrinceScamp failed to tell you is that you can find your tiny tier 1 biplane up against Korean era JET FIGHTERS thanks to the matchmaking.

You just gotta know how to twist and turn! That's how I got the Great Equalizer or something achievement. Took down a Meteor with my F2A Buffalo.

Of course I crashed afterwards thought since I took it down with my wing. Jet fighters get complacent and overly confidence when dealing with props.

War Thunder - free to play air combat

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Codex WMDicanious

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the green Napoleon

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