Approximately 245 days to finish US Air Rank VI

Gaijin has never been able to say what they consider the appropriate level of grind to advance in a tree. I started playing consistently (i.e. every day where possible) in July of 2022 with a smattering of Rank III and IV aircraft. This was my result as of September 2023 after the alleged RP reductions:

On March 12th I finally earned the AV-8C which completed the Rank VI tree for me. I played almost every day for at least an hour, sometimes more. There were a couple of days I missed around the holidays so lets call it 240 days to be fair. This was playing AB with a very small smattering of RB but my earnings in RB are statistically insignificant. Yes I have Premium and a couple of talismans, some of which I won as rewards. I used boosters as much as possible while participating in a couple of events and Battle Pass.

I expect Rank VII and VIII to take longer due to the increased RP and SL that is required. I estimate that in 3 years I should be all the way through Rank VIII, assuming a Rank IX is not created during that timeframe.

I eagerly await the “you suck, git gud, I finished the entire tree in an hour” crowd. Not everyone is you, not everyone can spend as much time in the game as you, and not everyone is a content creator like you. The larger question is whether or not this is considered “normal” by Gaijin. I don’t think it is. I can’t think of another game that takes 5 years to finish, not including the first 2 or 4 years that I played sporadically.

@Stona_WT what say you? What is Gaijin’s honest answer here regarding advancement? How long did it take you to reach top tier or any tier for that matter?

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I would also suggest to post stats so people can actually determine what your problem is, because if i had F-5C and premium time and played 240h with it im damn sure i would have F-15/F-16 already.

Im basing this off my experience with grinding the us air tt with F-4S.

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It doesn’t take that long if you destroy bases. I finished the entire US tree within 6 to 8 months of playing. I managed quite a few games with the F-105D where I would get around 50k rp in a single game. I assume you mostly played for kills in order to progress, which is not at all the most consistent and quick way to gain rp.

I missed it the first time, but playing arcade is where your problem lies. I played RB, where rewards are much higher for everything. I can almost guarantee that is the reason it took you so long.

I took a look at your stats, and I can easily demonstrate what happened. Look at your stats for the Ju-288C in realistic battles. You have 183 battles that earned 936k RP. If you compare that to your B-25J-20 in arcade you have 690 battles with much better stat spread for only 193K rp. The fact you played mostly arcade is the reason it took you so long. I personally only play Air RB and have about half the time played in planes as you. I have finished the US tree (which I have earned a ton of RP for after finishing that has been wasted), gotten rank 7 in Germany, Rank 7 in Israel, Rank 6 in Russia, Rank 6 in Britain, and rank 5 in Sweden in about half the in game time that you have. If you want to progress faster in Air, RB is going to be the way to do it.

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really waiting for them to do a boost to doing other nations. i’m buring out trying to grind the USSR air tree and will not do another one unless i can get it done faster. Im also using premiums but base bombing is so congested with people doing it, unless you have a fast plane you cant get it done consistently so that gets slowed down. People were making too much rp with the 1 min base respawn so the fixed the glitch to put it back to 5 + min.

Was this done in Arcade or Realistic? Arcade takes forever to grind, Realistic is better for grinding. Took me 1 day to grind F-16 AJ with premium a whole day of free time and another to spade it in RB.

From February 2019 to present I completed 10 air tech trees, and 6 ground tech trees; progressing at least half way through the other 4 ground tech trees.
Progressed into naval trees as well.

There were no RP reductions since you started playing. Allegedly there was in 2017, I however wasn’t actively paying attention to the economy then.

My first tech tree completion was Japan air and ground finished within 3 months of ~2.5 hours a day of play in early 2019.
I played exclusively RB for Japan grind.
Today it takes a bit shorter.

I can’t advance to top tier using the B-25J since I get the 60/70/80% RP penalty so I stopped using it except for specific battle pass tasks. You are right I fully spammed the JU-288 because it was brainless RP grinding for at least one base but I can’t do that with a B-29, B-57 or A-4 Skyhawk. I also rarely use the JU-288 anymore except with an SL booster because of where I am in the German tree I get a penalty. Base bombing also gets boring.

Air RB takes too long for minimal rewards. Unless you fly perfectly and place within the top 3 you are wasting your time and losing SL. At least with AB if I die in 45 seconds I can spawn another plane. With RB if you die without killing anything you earn nothing but negative SL and have to wait 3 days for a Rank V or VI plane to finish repairing.

I’m sorry that is not mathematically possible unless you played for 24 hours straight with no breaks. Either you are trolling of you have some really good scripts.

You are very incorrect. Every single action in RB earns more than arcade. If you bomb in RB, you can earn like 5-6k rp for a single base. I have had games where I’ve earned 50K rp in a single game of Air RB. I have never heard of Air Arcade ever being close to that. This is a single base kill game in my Mig-23ML. If it wasn’t a premium it would have about half the rewards, but still like I said, about 5-6k for a single base.

Victory in the [Operation] Sinai mission!

Takeoffs 1 204 RP
1:01 MiG-23ML 51 + ¶102 + (Talismans)51 = 204 RP

Destruction of bases 1 8909 SL 1489 RP
3:47 MiG-23ML 30 25900 5939 + ¶2970 = 8909 SL 372 + ¶745 + (Talismans)372 = 1489 RP

Damage to bases 2 15591 SL 2980 RP
3:43 MiG-23ML 209 84 + ¶42 = 126 SL 6 + ¶12 + (Talismans)6 = 24 RP
3:47 MiG-23ML 30 25690 10310 + ¶5155 = 15465 SL 739 + ¶1478 + (Talismans)739 = 2956 RP

Time Played 1 6844 RP
MiG-23ML 78% 5:58 1711 + ¶3422 + (Talismans)1711 = 6844 RP

Reward for winning 11443 SL

Earned: 35943 SL, 11517 CRP
Activity: 78%
Automatic repair of all vehicles free.

Researched unit:
Su-9: 11517 RP

Session: 287c7b50026a173
Total: 35943 SL, 11517 CRP, 11517 RP

ummmm base bombing gave me 3k RP to 9k RP to research the jet so it is possible.

You can’t get from tier 0 to the F-16AJ in one day. Your RP penalty from the lower tiers wont’ let it happen.

If I die before I reach the base I earn nothing. If another teammate bombs the base and I have to turn around to find another one and get shot down I get nothing. If I am in a fighter and I can’t outturn an enemy and die within the first 2 minutes of a game I get nothing.

That means you need to learn how to play in RB. Your level of skill is the BIGGEST DETERMINATOR on how fast you can progress. I know for a fact that bombing can grind the tree, I’ve spaded the ENTIRE US bomber line, I’ve spaded almost the entire US attacker tree. You need to learn how to do it, and it will absolutely speed your grind up.

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I agree it can help with the grind in certain trees, just not the US. The Ju-288 and Wyvern helped tremendously in those trees. There is no equivalent in the US tree.

Ahh, well duh, im talking about just researching just the AJ with the F-4 EJ Phantom with base hunting/air kills with missiles lol For the TT grind, took me 2 weeks to grind the French Air TT from Rank 1 to Rank 5 in RB. Not that hard.

The lower tiers aren’t the issue.

There is, go down the US bomber tree and use each bomber at it’s rank. Tree finished. You are trying to argue with a US Air main that has spaded about 60% of the planes. Put a talisman on the B-57B and F105D. When you learn how to use them well, they will get you every plane other than the rank 8’s (you’d need the F-111 for that). I have over 1.5m RP gained in the F-105D. I know the US tree, and you’re right, there isn’t any brainless grinders like the Ju-288c or Wyvern. Get better.

I would agree with you up until you reach the B-29 which is a free target for jets. Even the A-26 can’t outrun jets if you get stuck in an uptier against Me-262s. You might get lucky in a B-57 if you are fast enough to get to a base first but then the enemy fighters will catch up to you after you turn around to re-arm.

Aaaand we got our first “git gud”. Thanks for the helpful suggestion.

If I were you, I’d use the B-57B Bomber and go straight for the Bases in RB then try to kill other planes for that extra RP/SL then repeat since you already have the B-57B researched.

I takes me 7 months to research a ground tree, 7 for China, 7 for France, 6 for US but I had up to Rank IV.