Aircraft Carriers - WT Discussion

[LamawDoniczce]

It’s nice, but in my opinion the current mode with ships is very badly done, it has poor maps and zero balance, and for years gaijn hasn’t fixed it and won’t fix it because it doesn’t pay off for them, especially adding aircraft carriers and their balance, probably not an option, and even more so controlled by AI, it doesn’t pay off financially, It’s a nice idea, but Gaijn has it in…

[Motherhen357]

@Cavethug

if you’re going to create the conditions which would make carrier relevant, namely making maps where the only way to spawn planes would be from carriers

@Cavethug

Clearly you’re not going to be spawning heavy bombers from carriers.

Hi ! I’m not really sure what this is supposed to mean, since all naval maps already have an air-spawn location for player aircraft which have an SP cost - carrier capable or not.
There are a few maps which have a carrier to land on / rearm and refuel afterwards for those players using aircraft which have that ability, though. Mostly in the NFEC weekend events.

@Cavethug

currently there are planes designated as naval attack roles, however I don’t think there are any planes with “naval fighter” roles assigned.

There 's an overarching " Naval Aircraft " classification ingame( Category:Naval aircraft - War Thunder Wiki ), but it 's mostly an abstraction - it determines if a player aircraft is allowed to spawn from a Carrier on the Air mode maps which feature one.

@Cavethug

To have maps where these planes can only be launched from carriers, no heavy planes at all, and some maps where there is an existing runway, in which all aircraft can be spawned. However add some kind of a mechanic where airbases, just like carriers, can be destroyed, or rendered inoperable, eliminating the ability to spawn aircraft altogether.

Something similar to this is present in NFEC, airfield structures there can be damaged to the point of not allowing player aircraft to be rearmed similar to how it works in the Air SBEC mode.

@Cavethug

There’s have to be some kind of mechanic where the carrier an aircraft was launched from would get some kind of credit for the damage the plane did.

That 's how it works for catapult-launched aircraft( Shipboard reconnaissance aircraft - War Thunder Wiki ) currently, the aircraft being another " weapon " of the launching vessel means that any actions the player makes using it resulting in rewards are counted as being actions taken by the ship - the aircraft is not an independent vehicle in that regard.

You might be interested in reading my breakdown of how Aircraft Carriers work in WTM, as that might have similarities to how they’d be implemented here in the base game - some of the aircraft carriers already here came from there, after all !

[Cavethug]

Yeah, I’m not going to go back and basically retype everything I wrote because you can’t think rationally. Try approaching the post exactly as it was stated from the beginning. What would need to be done if you put carriers in, AND altered existing mechanics to suit it. There’s literally a section that says “maps with only carriers, and maps that would function as the currently do.” In maps with only carriers, clearly the existing “you can spawn whatever you want, you just can’t land” model would not be in effect.

Actually that’s on me, for figuring most people would get that, and that I wouldn’t have to be OVERLY nitpicky in my post.

Now if you can only spawn planes that can be carrier launched, because there is no airfield on a map, and only carriers, then wouldn’t that require more planes to carry the designation? Yeah, I kind of thought so.

Then how “shipboard recon planes” currently work… can other players spawn those planes and launch them? No? Huh… so how’s that going to work if the only planes that can be spawned, are from player controlled carriers? Okay, thank you.

In my opinion, there’s no need for carriers, absolutely zero. At this stage in the game you can spawn any plane you want, on complete open ocean maps you could spawn a B29 if it was within the BR. So… why carriers? It would destroy what little population plays the naval side of things here. If your goal is to ensure that the only opponents on the other side are AI, then if you’re lucky they’ll put carriers in tomorrow. If you enjoy playing against other people, then keep hoping and praying that they don’t add them for years to come.

[Motherhen357]

@Cavethug

Try approaching the post exactly as it was stated from the beginning.

I’ll try to explain why I put what I did in the previous reply, then. There 's a few areas where I addressed your new questions, apparently not clearly enough.

@Cavethug

In maps with only carriers, clearly the existing “you can spawn whatever you want, you just can’t land” model would not be in effect.

There are maps already ingame which do only have aircraft carriers as landing zones, in Naval these are mostly the [Conquest] open-circle cap maps* such as Midway or Jungle.

How they work is, aircraft which cannot land or take off from them have the normal airspawn location, or can choose to be air-spawned at speed, approx. 100m above sea level directly above the carrier. Much the same is found in those Air maps which, too, only have carriers to start and rearm from - for one or both teams. Examples: [Operation] Wake Island(light vehicles), [Operation] Malta. That 100m airspawn is also automatically applied if a non-carrier-capable aircraft 's player crash lands on the carrier and is not so critically damaged as to prevent airfield repair.
*an aside, other open-cap maps such as La Manche used to not have any kind of rearm zone for aircraft, only the airspawn to start from.

I brought those up previously bc I did not understand where the idea that a player spawning a plane for SP would be somehow restricted from using it if the map only featured AI carriers as rearm zones - these already exist ingame but do not have any such limitations.

I see now that you’re talking abt this from the perspective of how a playable carrier might be implemented ?( or atleast it seems like that, correct me if I’m wrong ) The idea where a carrier would be controlled by a separate player from those using it 's aircraft mostly fell out of these discussions w/ the introduction of catapult seaplanes, since - as you noted - there 's not much relevance to playing a carrier if the carrier player cannot perform actions, i.e. directing carrier-based aircraft in offense. The seaplanes showed that having aircraft under the direct control of the player of the ship which launches them, rather than needing to be controlled each by other players, was indeed possible w/in the framework of WT.

@Cavethug

Then how “shipboard recon planes” currently work… can other players spawn those planes and launch them? No? Huh… so how’s that going to work if the only planes that can be spawned, are from player controlled carriers? Okay, thank you.

As above. I brought these up as they exemplify how a WT aircraft carrier 's player might be able to control the aircraft their ship carries, w/o needing other players to control those.

It 's also why I pointed you towards how we’ve found playable carriers to work in War Thunder Mobile - codewise, theirs work much the same as our catapult seaplanes do, simply extending on that mechanic to allow employment of multiple aircraft at once and adding a few more basic controls on top of " orbiting " to allow those aircraft to be used in an offensive capability while the player retains direct control of the launching ship.

And, as WT and WTM share the fruits of eachothers development - including some of the carriers currently implemented here - knowing how theirs work might have some relevance to how our future additions could.

[Kernow1346]

@Cavethug

Now if you can only spawn planes that can be carrier launched, because there is no airfield on a map, and only carriers, then wouldn’t that require more planes to carry the designation? Yeah, I kind of thought so.

Possibly not. You can spawn from carriers in Air EC and, as far as I’ve found, only RL carrier-based aircraft can do this; land-based can only select airfields. It’s probably due to possessing the arrestor hook, which the game already ‘knows’ is found on certain aircraft, even though there is no player control for it. So, it seems the game already knows what can and can’t operate from a carrier.

However, as you noted, whether players will be happy with such realism in Naval Realistic Battles is another matter.

[Motherhen357]

!! Aircraft Carrier control inputs have been added to the files !!

gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine/blob/master/gui.vromfs.bin_u/wt/config/hud.blkx#L2580

[Shadow_CZ]

Very very interesting and it looks remarkably similar to the suggested/speculated functions. I am also interested in the difference between attack and hunt.

My main takeaway is that it looks like that it will support multiple planes/squads in the air.

[Fireraid233]

Thats interesting are they actually planning playable CVs hmmm

[Motherhen357]

@Shadow_CZ

I am also interested in the difference between attack and hunt.

It will probably become clearer when it 's iconography and especially it 's localization is added, but to me it seems like that would be to set the selected aircraft group to automatically attack targets which enter their proximity, rather than the player manually selecting targets for them ( which is probably the purpose of the _attack / _add_attack keys ) or the aircraft group waiting for a target to enter the aircraft carrier 's proximity to attack it ( which might be what the function of _defend is ).

[Shadow_CZ]

@KhorneFlakez1337

Well, I don’t know how you would make carriers just being carriers fun gameplay wise, but having them be remote control stations for fighter swarms seems kinda out of place to me.

I’ll just wait and see what gaijin has planned for naval, I don’t play it much anyways. I’ve got plenty of questions going through my mind when thinking about playable carriers, but those shall be questions that gaijin is gonna be answering when the time comes.

Just me rambling, no need to answer

Do you run out of aircraft at some point? What happens then?
Do you control more than one aircraft at a time? If so, do you just point the squadrons at targets while sitting at the edge of the map? Doesn’t naval just turn into a RTS for the carrier players then?
Would the amount of carriers per team be limited? If not, how would you go about making people use other ship classes?
Would carriers even be useable on all maps?
Wouldn’t carriers enable even more botting than regular ships?
What eras would carriers be available to? Do all Bluewater nations have fitting carriers?

I and others also pondered about many of the thing you bring up. I will just link and quote my post in the CV discussion thread. Feel free to ramble I am happy to discuss the ideas and after all this thread is for the CV discussion:

Aircraft Carriers - WT Discussion

The WT Mobile indeed provied a lot of interesting informations. Of corse the CVs are long way evay because of the gameplay but I really think the CVs could be implemented with no major modifications to existing mechanic. With all the new info and especially the progress made from the 2016 I decided to ponder how the CVs could look like based on the new knowlege this is what I have comeup with.

New CV gameplay idea based on the new knowledge

The first thing that needs to be said is that for CVs …

@Shadow_CZ

The first thing that needs to be said is that for CVs to be implemented current gameplay/objectives should change since currently the game isn´t able to acomodate the CVs.
Another thing which must be considered is vehicle and nation balance so the CVs can not be too powerful and the loss of planes should have serious SL consequences.

Looking at the current in game mechanics and the gameplay contrains. I believe that best approach is to allow CV player comand limited amount of planes in several squads and then give the player ability to take control of one of the squads for attacks against the surface combatans. Since this approach would both limit the damage output and give player to prepare and perform several tasks and objectives simultaneously.

The gameplay would basically combaign both old and current WOWS style CV gameplay.

---

In battle the CV player would have acces to up to 3 different types of squads to which player could assign numbers of planes based on their preference in same way as with ammo for guns.
EDIT As with ammo they could decide to carry less then the 3 different types or not to carry all planes. The selection of the planes would depend on the researched modification so the fully spaded CV would have acces to more options then just one dive bomber, one fighter and one torpedo bomber.

For example in case of the USS Saratoge I though about these options:

1. F4F Wildcat with no suspended weaponry
2. F6F-5 Hellcat with no suspended weaponry
3. F6F-5 Hellcat with Tiny Tims
4. TBD-1 Devastator with Mk. 13 torpedo
5. TBF-1C Avenger with Mk.13-6 Case Torpedo
6. Maybe TBF-1C Avenger with 2000 lb bomb
7. SBD-3 Dauntless with 2 x 100 lb and 1 x 1000 lb bombs

From these seven the player would choose up to three.
But even if player chooses the F6F-5 and F6F-5 (Tiny Tim) the numbers wouldn´t be interchangeable between these two.

Like this

End of edit

The CV would also have new “weapon control group” replacing the main battery with “aircaft command”. There they would have acces to launching the 3 different squads, command view and switching between squads.

The command view would be the main way how to command the plane squads.

Command view

• On the left, next to the the DM view is an overview of the state of the aircraft complement showing destroyed, rearming/repairing and ready for flight planes divided into the 3 types the player chose.
• Above the DM view is the deck/hangar overview. Which displays the progress of launching and landing of the squads. This action would take time based on the number of lifts, plane catapults the deck arresting gear and deck layout.

For example in case of the USS Saratoga used in the example she has only one elevator which will slow down the deploying of the planes to the deck / from the deck. But she has two aircraft catapults so the lanching will be quite fast.
And as all WW2 carriers she has straight flight deck so she can´t land and launch planes at the same time.

Squad launching view

• On the right is the squad overview which shows current number of squads in the air, the type of plane in the squad and its main armament and also current task and remaining fuel time.

It also highlights the selected squad and shows the actions which can be done with it.

• In the centre is the sommand map. Which would show locaition of each squad and the point where the squads is heading to and in case of the patrol also the area which the squad patrols.

To send squad to specific point on the map the player will choose the squad which they want to give command to with the cycle button [V] simmilarly to the cycling between the gunners. And then by clicking on the map with LMB to place pin on the map to wich the squad will now fly. Player can also decide to send the squad back to CV [Z & +/1], make it patrol the area around the pin [Z & ě/2] or to take direct control over the squad [ř].

The amount of planes and squad would be limited to only 5 squads with 5 planes per squad. This is done to limit the server impact and also to limit the disparity betweent he different CVs. And to make the controls easier.

---

In the direct control the the player would control only 1 plane from the squad while the other planes would fly after it / circle around.

Direct control

Dive bomber squad

Torpedo bomber squad.

• In the hotbar player has option for quick switch to “Comand view” and to “Ship control”
• There would be also button to switch between different planes in the squad simmilarly to the squad cycle function in the “Command view”. Next to it is dispay of the state of the other planes in the squad and if the plane still has the main weaponry.

After the player performs the attact with the plane they can switch to different plane in squad to perform the attack again. This is done to allow player to precisely place attecks and to limit the possible damage of completly RTS gameplay and if the AI planes would attack with the player. If the damage output and or the planes would be too easy to shoot down (even despite the distraction of other planes) the player can be given one ore more wingmen to perform the attack too.

---

The modification for CV would consist of two types.

1. These would be new armament/plane modification which would allow the use new planes or new armament.
2. These are more general amrmament upgrades which would improve the performance of the air arm.

Modification screen for the USS Saratoga

New armament/planes

• F6F-5 Hellcat and the TBF-1C Avenger these would allow to use new fighter planes / new torpedo bomber planes in the respective squads

The stock USS Saratoga would have acces to F4F-4 Wildcat, SBD-3 Dauntless and the TBD-1 Devastator

• There is also modification which allows to equip F6F-5 with Tiny Tim rockets as one of the squads (this isn´t replacement for the F6F-5 just another different squad)

Upgrades to the equipment

• Aircraft elevators would spead up the preparation/move of planes from the hangar and make the lift more resilient to damage
• The arresting gear would spead the landing procedures
• The combat air patrol would make fighter actively target enemy planes even without the patrol area command.

---

The landing/launch would be completly independent from the player, the launch would be animated just after the launch when the AI would take over. The laning would work in simmilar way where the AI would just fly into square right behind the carrier and rest would be amimated.

Both of these function are in the game but aren´t polished enough to be used in closeups on the CVs

Current AI landing

[Seahawk_2015]

There’s only one way I can image this.
So, to have carriers, they should be Ai controlled ships stationed at the back of the fleets. They’re Ai would be programmed to avoid bombs and torpedoes just like it happens in Air Battles. No there wouldn’t be much players to fly tons of planes. So, just when the battle starts, the carriers on both sides would launch Ai planes - fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers en masse. When a player selects to spawn an aircraft after getting his/her ship sunk, it would also spawn on the carrier. Landing on the carrier would be necessary to reload, refuel and rearm both player and Ai aircraft. Only one carrier would spawn each for both teams in most battles but four would spawn in open sea battles. Sinking a carrier would cause win point drop of the team which it belongs to.

[Motherhen357]

Localization for ships not yet available in WT Mobile, incl. player-controlled aircraft carriers, was briefly added and included details on the refit they’ll be represented as being in:

( https://github.com/gszabi99/War-Thunder-Mobile-Datamine/commit/eb9acb763cb36be9db76b1f9943411f588f74ecf )

[Hyrikul]

I saddly guess they gonna let France on the side (how original) when they gonna add CVs, that’s sad because even if we don’t have SO MUCH choices (like other countries), we still have somes:

Commandant-Teste, a hydroplane-carrier, could be fun for low tier:

Joffre (2 were to be built but cancelled during ww2. But one of them has been started, so it’s a possibility after the konkrast thing)

Béarn (1928)

Clémenceau (1957)

And of course the actual one, Charles de Gaulle, only nuclear powered CV outside the USA.

And here for the curious how would looks like the next CV for France, the PANG (Scheduled for 2036)

I don’t talk about all CVs, we also got some gived by Ally country for some times.

[Admiral_Pieter]

I think this is a very interesting way to implement player controlled Aircraft Carriers to War Thunder. Some bits of this also give me the vibes of the old Battlestations: Pacific, a game which also shows how Carriers may be feasible.

I would personally love for player controlled carriers to eventually make it to the game, as it’s a piece of history that really intrigues me. I can’t wait to control a IJN Shokaku in several years from now.

[Motherhen357]

@Motherhen357

Some quick thoughts on these before the year ends:

-USS Essex being in her earliest configuration possible makes some sense, being the lead ship of her class. Being the first carrier available to players in WTM( based on her previously added economic data ) she 's probably intended to be the benchmark " lowest " capability one, after all.

-IJN Zuikaku seems to be JPN 's " late war " carrier, but that might not be as much of a difference as it would be for other carrier-operating countries - the capabilities of her airgroup did not change as drastically over the course of the war.
The antiaircraft rocket barrage might be interesting, if it 's modelled - similar weapons have been in the files here in WT for other ships and are still unused.

-Even in her earliest configuration USS Midway is a massive increase in capability over all other carriers yet found in WT Mobile, except one: the USS Forrestal.

• In the other direction, IJN Kaga and USS Lexington are below the capability level I was expecting aircraft carriers to begin at in WT.
  Even though Kaga is reportedly in post-reconstruction form, her airgroup at the time still looked like this:
  
  

Which, well. imo these would struggle to destroy ships that could not be done in by Kaga 's own guns, or those in that size range having virtually any antiaircraft weaponry beyond " none ".

USS Lexington(CV-2) seems to be in a similar, but slightly worse position:

Again w/ the low flight performance/too-small payload airgroup, but also 1929 was a very specific year in her service: the first one for her to have close-range antiaircraft guns onboard. Six 7.62mm machineguns in two triple-mounts.

Though it 's probably no accident by WTM 's development team that they’re represented as earlier fits since they’re 8in-armed - that’ll be a noticeable capability on Mobile 's small playable areas compared to more modern AC 's. In WT …

Lexington is unusual here since her model has already been transferred to WT, where we can see that her configuration is the mid-1941 to early-1942 one - the combination of 8in gun turrets and 1.1in AA gives it away.
The capabilities of the ship and it 's airgroup over a decade later are very different from what would be implied by this year shown in the files.

---

Mobile is probably closer to the addition of Aircraft Carriers than we could be, they’ve now completed the addition of all battleships in the files during the Beta period( and representatives of all battleship capability progression from Dreadnought to the end too ) and have a typically monthly schedule of update release compared to WT 's DEC-MAR break. It 's possible they could be made available there as early as the end of next month, almost certainly it’ll be before the middle of 2024. When they’ll come to WT is harder to predict, though it 's reasonable( and ambiguous ) to say that it’ll be after Mobile gets them. Probably after the addition of 16in-armed battleships starts here (?)

[Admiral_Pieter]

@Motherhen357 I’m just wondering, how likely do you think it is that playable carriers will come to both War Thunder Mobile and (after obviously longer time) to “normal” war thunder?

[Motherhen357]

@Admiral_Pieter

to “normal” war thunder?

Hi, thanku for the question ! After the extended control inputs were added to WT, it has appeared that this shipclass is intended to be made playable in both games.

[Motherhen357]

Names of HQ carriers in the files. Includes techtree icon and statcard extended names:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine/master/lang.vromfs.bin_u/lang/units.csv

The WW2 american carriers have refit date specified, and it does not appear that IJN Shokaku has any names for the HQ model currently.

[Shadow_CZ]

While it is interesting it isn’t something new, these names are there for several updates (well at least for the update before). So I wouldn’t say that this is any indicator.

Maybe it has something to with how these have secondary, AA armament modeled which is same system as player ships so they are implemented as player vessels, so they have stat cards? IDK

[BleedingUranium]

Thank you for so much detailed info, and keeping us up to date on game files stuff! The things in WT mobile that have yet to make it over here (WWII BBs, and especially subs and carriers) are always interesting. Hopefully it’s not too long until we see more about them!