After FOX-3 added, now we can discuss the Air SB economy system again

Game Discussion General Discussion
6

Firstly, just for clarification I’m only talking about Air SB, I have not played ground SB, so I don’t know what the situation is like there. This also has “AIR SB” in the title of the thread, secondly, Sim doesn’t favour anyone. You hardly need to do anything to fill up a “useful action” every 15 minutes, I recall someone saying it only required like 600 mission score, which is only 1 kill of equal BR, but could be slightly more, regardless, usually it means you only earn RP/SL for the first 3-5 minutes and then nothing for the remaining 10-12 minutes, whilst still paying full respawn cost during this whole time, which is why even some of the best sim players in the community that don’t have premium account, sometimes have to go grind RB for a bit just to afford to play SB.

Using the Mirage F1C with premium account for example, I filled up one useful action and got 12,501 RP in SB. I can only do this every 15 minutes, meaning it equals out to 50,000 RP per hour. I am capped at this amount, there is no way to earn more without boosters. However I can definitely earn more by doing better in RB. (edit, someone actually had a 10% booster for allies during this game, so it’s closer to 45,000 RP per hour lol.)

I also played 3 games in RB

They all lasted between 3 minutes, and 5 minutes and 49 seconds. I got 1-1+1 kills + 1 base with the same Mirage F1C. The games payed between 9,077 RP and 16,417 RP. The one game with a loss calculated to 153,763 RP per hour, and the 2 with wins (win bonuses applied), equalled to 169,344 and 181,540 RP per hour.

I also did a game without bombing, got 3 kills A2A with the F1C, and won. It was pretty drawn out (lasted about 8 minutes) and I didn’t do anything for the second half due to the last guy running, but it still earned me 18.597 RP, which equalled 126,797 RP per hour.

Also, keep in mind they removed the RP bonus for winning in SB. You only get a measly +47% SL for winning. There’s also no “skill bonus” for getting 2-4+ kills like in RB. Nothing.

It all equalled out to RB being 2.8x - 4.05x more efficient for grinding aircraft. And these weren’t games where I kicked ass. I only got 1 base and 1 kill with a win for the most profitable game. Of course, I only tested this with 1 aircraft, and I didn’t include time spent in hangar (for either mode, just match-time), however I think it’s safe to say that sim is not a “powerhouse to research aircraft with”.

I can accept that we have lower earnings in sim due to all the freedom we have, for example freedom of choosing what BR bracket we play in, effectively eliminating up-tiers with the BR rotation system that I love, however it’s at a point where people can’t afford to play sim. This is a game where you need to progress through tech trees, and purchase planes costing up to 1 million SL, and people without premiums struggle to not bankrupt themselves… In addition to this you earn at least 2.8-4x as much RP in RB*.

3 Likes
7

Did you get a kill or did you strike bases? How many people were in that lobby? How many times were you within weapons range of an enemy? What was the flight time? Did you have to take evasive action?

How many people were in that lobby? How many times were you within weapons range of an enemy? Did you have to take evasive action?

I’m going to start off with a common difference between the two modes. Sim has respawning and RB doesn’t. That is the biggest difference in the modes earning potential. Air RB is an outlyer in Warthunder and isn’t comparable to any other mode because of the lack of respawns. Sim’s difficultly has nothing to do with that. You should compare Sim and Arcade, not Sim and RB as the game modes are closer because of the respawns. The rest I will address below.

The reward earning system was put in place because of how abusably simple it is to earn loads of RP in Sim. It requires nothing special for jet aircraft (premiums especially) to spawn, fly out to a base or airfield, drop ordnance, and fly back to the airfield. Damping mode and mouse joystick make it almost effortless to do so. Add to that that you can pick lobbies with 4 players in them on massive maps you can usually accomplish that without EVER seeing an enemy that can threaten you. You can be almost braindead and earn RP in Sim. If you have time and want to do effectively nothing, you can do so in Sim. I know that Sim ENJOYERS don’t do that, but Sim ENJOYERS primarily play for kills and look for decently sized lobbies. RB is harder from a skill standpoint for grinding RP by bombing bases, Sim is not at all. You can effectively AFK Sim and gain RP, that makes it an RP powerhouse.

Sim favors strike aircraft usage. Nothing better for a subsonic strike aircraft (insert whatever one here, doesn’t matter) like having virtually no enemies and plenty of respawning bases/airfields. You can take a fully loaded F-111 and hit an airfield or multiple bases with 50 500lb bombs or 456 rockets without being threatened. I challenge you to do that in RB. The F-111 isn’t even really good enough to have a chance to get one base carrying 114 rockets. This applies to the USELESS A-7s, the Su-25s, Su-39s, A-10s, and all the other TERRIBLE strike aircraft in RB. Sim makes them viable to use.

8

well, just 5-times the basic income, just like old times

9

keep dreaminga dn leing to others. You will intercpeted on the airfield. US, french and brits are liek vultures killing each other to get a air kill.

10

I would love to know how I am dreaming or lieing when you have players coming in to Sim games asking if it is a PVE only game or having players get angry/upset when people engage in PVP actions. Don’t even get me started on prop bombers and the plain out advantage they get with mouse aim 3rd person gunners, but I digress.

Hard to get intercepted on the airfield when you can pick a game with only 2 enemies in BR brackets where search radars and missiles can’t work well because of ground clutter interference while ensuring that you play when your aircraft is top tier.

11

Just want to leave this here for @VonMarder and @CorporalApollo. I was using the Tornado IDS WTD61 while learning/testing my controller vs M&K relative control while also playing Runescape and still managed this. Saw one enemy plane the entire time and managed to missile him undetected while he killed an AI plane. He was an F-4S player so take that however you wish. Absolute RP powerhouse. Nice SL too since I didn’t die at all. This is the exact reason why Sim’s economy is so terrible (especially at top tier), the ability to grind near effortlessly in matches with virtually no resistance.
image

12

I’m sorry but respectfully, I can’t take you seriously, I checked your sim stats after your last response due to how out-of-touch it was. I really don’t mean to stat-shame or anything, I’m happy your trying out sim, it’s definitely not beginner friendly and we need more players, but it’s pretty clear you’re very new to it. You even used the only kill you’ve ever gotten in the Tornado in your example (you’re 1-9…).

I’ve already proved how RB earns you 2.8-4.05x more RP per hour, for games that weren’t even that good. I literally haven’t even bothered to setup my keybinds for RB because of how easy it is to out-earn sim.
Calling sim an “RP Powerhouse” is just misleading and deceptive and I’m not even going to entertain it. Sure you might not always run into big resistance in some tiers but I’d argue playing RB, where you can literally take a 15 minute break between each game, do nothing, and still out-earn sim is less effort than ‘grinding’ in sim. It’s not like RB requires much effort anyways, mouse aim flies the plane for you, I just point where I want to go and put down my controller until I arrive at the base/enemy, maybe pop some flares or fly low if I have to on final approach. It’s not comparable at all to sim.

13

@CorporalApollo thank you for demonstrating my point for me. I am OBVIOUSLY a shit Sim player. Yet I can put up 30K RP and 110K SL in a single life without really meeting a threat. This was my first game with relative control K&M and I still made quite the killing, in a plane that is near useless in RB now because of the rocket base striking meta. Why would I want to get kills? I can basically AFK a flight across the map and bomb a base and then fly around a bit and bomb another and then return to base while earning max rewards for basically nothing. This is why Sim’s economy is the way it is. The low effort (and bottable) behavior required to earn massive amounts of RP dilutes the mode’s rewards, regrettably to a point that actual enjoyers can’t play worth shit.

I don’t know if I have to say this, but I will anyway. I don’t hate Sim or anything of the sorts. I think it is a great gamemode even though I haven’t played it much because I could never find a HOTAS to my liking. Now that I know I can use relative control with K&M I will probably fly out more so I can grind my Russian and German Tree.

Once more, you are making a terrible comparison by using RB. Air RB is an outlier and comparing any other game modes earnings to RB is pointless. You need to compare Air Arcade and Sim because they both have RESPAWNS. Air RB will always have better rewards because each game is one chance to do anything, and that’s all. You seem to be quite intelligent, but your comparison with RB has nothing to do with difficulty or skill ceiling, the earnings are because of the lack of respawns. Sim will never reach those levels of earning because you can respawn freely. The entire reason I call Sim an RP powerhouse isn’t because it outearns RB, it is because the effort required to gain large amounts of RP is almost nonexistent when compared to RB.

1 Like
14

This “useful action” change made sim even more shit than it already was. It’s just not a fun gameplay mechanic to play around versus direct rewards like in RB.

15

having more time in the same match does not matter when you can play many much easier games of RB to get even MORE reward. Sim requires more reward than currently to be its own gamemode.

16

Because nobody plays the mode right now, because it’s bad, because of changes like this. Stop using “you can respawn” as an excuse like it isn’t infinitely easier to make 2 or even 3-4x the amount of RP/SL in the same amount of time in RB.

17

Ok then, since the lack of respawns is an “excuse”, how would you explain the difference in RP/SL gains in Air RB compared to every other mode?

18

What? How would I explain gaijin’s awful decision making? Do you hear yourself? They make bad awful decisions, that’s what they do. Sim was the most rewarding mode for 8-9 YEARS before being changed to this sloppy version of the mode.

Air RB straight up simply hasn’t been nerfed yet. When it does (it will), it will be different lmao

19

So, you don’t have an explanation, thank you. Until someone can give a better explanation of why Air RB gets so much more rewards for actions when compared to the other modes comes along then I’ll change what I say. Until then, the best explanation for the difference in rewards is the lack of respawns.

20

Ostrich in the sand

21

I’m sorry, do you have that better explanation yet? If you don’t, then your words about it are meaningless.

22

I don’t need to sway your opinion (one that has proven to be bad in the past) to know I’m correct. The explanation is gaijin doesn’t know what they’re doing. Simple.

23

Ok, that doesn’t do anything to further the discussion. Again, meaningless.

24

Why are you so hung up on the “Why” regardless? It’s a shit excuse to say “you can respawwwwwn!” in air RB when air RB is an easier gamemode in general with 2-4x higher rewards AND lower costs to play. (Did you know respawning is a BAD thing because it MAKES YOU PAY FULL REPAIR AS MANY TIMES AS YOU DIE IN THE MATCH?) (You also pay full SL for even spawning in once because sim has to be special and be even worse than RB btw)

25

Because things are the way they are for a reason, and I like to know how things work and why they are that way. The reason why it is different is not simply “because Gaijin sucks”, there was a decision made that the characteristics of the game be the way they are, and I am interested in what that differentiating characteristic is. I can attribute the difference in spawn ability to the higher rewards in Air RB because it is an outlier in terms of reward potential. I see no other solid explanation why it is that way.

I have no better explanation than that. Sim (or even Ground RB) has less reward potential than air RB. I get that Sim SHOULD have more rewards because it is a higher difficulty game mode, but it doesn’t. By all means, if there is another reason that makes sense please explain it. Until someone can do that this is the best guess I have on why it is the way it is.

I get that you may not agree with some things I say, but if you have a problem with me then PM me and address it.