Allow plane change on airfield in Simulator mode

Game Discussion Simulator Battle
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Hey everyone,

I wanted to bring attention to a difference between Realistic Battles and Simulator Battles in aviation that many players have probably noticed.

In Realistic mode, when you land on an airfield without any damage to your aircraft, you can leave the plane and select another one.

This allows you to change loadouts, aircraft types, or mission roles without losing Silver Lions — rewarding players who return to base instead of crashing just to switch planes.

However, in Simulator mode, this option doesn’t exist.

Even after a perfect landing, if your aircraft is undamaged, it’s impossible to leave it without destroying it — which means an unfair loss of SL and no way to adapt your aircraft or objectives during the same battle.

This is unfortunate, since Simulator mode focuses the most on realism, multirole aircraft, and mission management.

Not being able to return to base and switch planes or loadouts goes against that realistic spirit.

So I’d like to suggest adding the same mechanic that already exists in Realistic Battles:

Allow players to land on an airfield, exit an undamaged aircraft, and select another one without losing Silver Lions.

This small change would make Simulator mode:

More realistic and immersive,

More consistent with Realistic mode,

And more enjoyable for players who take the mode seriously.

I think many Sim players would agree that this simple improvement could have a big positive impact on gameplay.

Thanks to the War Thunder team for their ongoing work and for listening to the community!

4 Likes
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Agreed.

In low level helicopters your choices are guns (to kill helicopters) or rockets or ATGMs… so if you spawn with a gun and no enemy helicopters spawn you’ve wasted a weapon slot. If you spawn with 2 sets of ATGMs it’s extremely difficult to kill the helicopter unless they land or hover… which would be trivial with a gun (you can ‘land’ on their rotors but this doesn’t give you a kill or points).

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Well, it does work like that already. If you land, wait for the plane to rearm/refuel/reposition, you can ESC+leave plane, then change the loadout, fuel and the rest and respawn at the SAME airfield with the SAME aircraft for free - it even shows (-) as cost to spawn. If you change your plane or airfield, you will pay the spawn price for the selected plane.

What I haven’t tested is for instance landing Plane1 at AF1, leaving plane, spawning Plane2 at AF2 - does the mode “remember” even if you crash with Plane 2, that you have a free respawn on AF1 with Plane1.