Nah, it’s a Ventura (B-34/PV-1), the turret position gives it away
I think it’s normal for players to get upset when it’s an AI that kills them, only for the kill reward - which is extremely high - to go to a player who did nothing to earn it. AI gunners are extremely hard to balance due to this.
2 Likes
Now that you mention it, that’s actually a really good question.
My thoughts is that it’ll most likely be a blanket buff to all planes with gunners, since as far as I know only bombers and planes similar to those will get it (there will be exceptions of course, there are always exceptions…TBD comes to mind. It’s basically just a weak fighter with a gunner and bombsight.)
Another option is that they completely rework the damage system, but that’s much less likely.
I wander if the BC238 will get in the next update
Bv not bc
That is understandable and I agree with that sentiment.
The only problem I see with the current gunner balance is that we shouldn’t be in a situation where both the AI gunners and the manually controlled gunners suck at their job.
A lot of turrets are too inaccurate, leading to them being more of a luck based guessing game when it comes to manual control.
There’s also this annoying factor that the gunners love to pick awkward turret orientations after having tracked a target.
I’d love to see some improvements to the gunners, like having them keep their manually select orientation after switching back from gunner view and gunners that can’t fire at a target in gunner view should return to AI control, so they can track and attack other targets.
Would also be nice to have gun laying systems for turrets that historically had them
Getting shredded by turrets when approaching a bomber from the rear should be a lesson for players that treat bombers and gunships as pinatas
6 Likes
This is outstanding news. Bomber fragility has been an issue for far too long.
Now, while I want the damage models for bombers to be accurate/realistic, this issue was only half of the problem plaguing them. The other half is how absurdly ineffective aircraft AI gunners are - even with maximum Crew Skills and Ace Qualifications. Aircraft AI gunner effectiveness DESPERATELY needs to be addressed. Also, it’d be extremely helpful if players had the ability to order their AI gunners to attack specific targets.
This reminds me, when are we going to get the missing radar systems for the B-66B and B-52H rear turrets?
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AI gunners being bad at their job even at ace level is something that we’ll have to live with
There are some mechanical improvements that Gaijin could do, but buffing the AIs performance is pretty much a no-go
Though I personally definitely wouldn’t be opposed to a buff, the majority of players would start a riot, if such a buff happened
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Will the bv238bgetvit in this update for it can take shots without the tail falling off after 1 shot
AI gunners on Bombers buff? No
Ai gunners on ships nerf? Also no.
You mean FUNshipping?
Definitely, improvements that encourage and make it easier for players to use manual gunner, so AI gunner becomes a secondary option. I’ve seen countless times where players never choose to take manual control, even when they are still very far from the target and it’s possible to do so.
An important addition in this regard would be allowing full control of the aircraft (via keyboard) while in the gunner view without it constantly trying to level out in the direction you originally left the cursor, so players can perform full evasive maneuvers while shooting back. Currently, this is only possible by disabling the virtual instructor, which is very unpractical.
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I don’t remember having to disable the instructor entirely to be able to control the plane in gunner view without the auto-leveling
The setting I disabled is “Autopilot for gunner and bomb sight” in the Air Battle Settings
Still, there are many improvements that could be done to make controlling the gunners more reliable and turn it into less of a guessing game
Edit: nevermind, I never use the gunner view for long enough to realise that the Instructor does return to the mouse position even with that setting disabled
Did no one notice the new color correction?
This is a common misconception - based on plain wrong values in the crew overview.
I had even a sug mod agreeing to me - read for yourself:
His bug report (like almost everything regarding bombers) is, ofc, not processed - but in this case it is actually a good thing for players as the gunners would have been even more useless than today…
You can test this by yourself - watch replays of live matches and you will notice this too - i have done this years ago when Air RB was flooded with B-25 / B18-B/Ju 288s with bot scripts.
How ai gunners work
Next topic:
I described this here how to deal with that:
Have a good one!
2 Likes
Wont be much of a buff since missiles do overwhelming damage overall, pretty much just takes 1
Seeing this topic “bomber survivability” as a whole - a short reminder:
And the core message is actually correct:
WT is a plain vehicle based shooter (with an ultra strong grinding aspect) and the “classic” bomber role (PvE) in a PvP environment (like in a classi air mode like Air RB) is technically seen an anachronism.
Why? The idea being allowed to progress in a PvP dominated video game with PvE action requires imho a trade-off between the interests of PvP players (imho the overwhelming majority) and PvE players which are just in combined arms game modes actual PvP players.
That’s why a large portion of this thread looks like “Grounhog Day” (Time loop comedy) - all points were discussed several hundred times - for ages - and sounds familiar.
What i noticed:
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Gaijin has a long history of being unable to balance prop bombers. From my pov they gave up latest May 2020 when they introduced respawning bases. Imho a direct reaction to the F-4E Phantom IIs ending matches even faster than 4 Tu-4s/B-29s/Me 264s…
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This topic “survivability” is imho just dealing with thousands of forum posts addressing highly unrealistic damage models - without mentioning that gaijin created these effects on purpose. All you have to do is to watch older Air RB vids from various content creators to notice that bombers were way more robust 8 years ago.
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Before that there were a hell of delayed (B) kills - classic example was “lost tail control” - and gaijin replaced these B kills with instant (A) kills in order to satisfy the majority of their PvP player base to ensure that enough dopamine gets released - way earlier.
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So trying to create a narrative like here (“we looked at historical evidence”) looks nice on paper - but is imho not really convincing as gaijin proved long ago that they are fully aware of that they did a way better job in the past. Referring to historical data makes zero sense - there is a reason why the USAAF lost 10,000 bombers in Europe - or the RAF BC the same amount.
The idea to reduce the whole topic “bomber survivabilty” to damage models is deeply flawed - survivibility is a way more complex topic and consists of way more important topics.
What gaijin misses is that the sole purpose of aerial warfare is centered around either supporting or defending own ground troops in their clash with enemy ground troops.
In other words: War Thunder should try to look how they advertise the game:
What game modes are available in War Thunder?
The great diversity of missions and modes allows players to choose their desired level of difficulty. The simplified Arcade mode best suits rookie warriors who want a quick tutorial in combat and winning battles. Realistic Battles and Simulator Battles, on the other hand, are tailored to those who wish for maximum historical accuracy. All three modes see players fighting each other in team battles while completing objectives that include capturing and holding special points or destroying/defending designated targets.
I highlighted (bold) the issues…
8 Likes
Very interesting, thanks for bringing this up
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Sorry to disagree here, but a high number of absolute losses can simply be due to an overall greater number of sorties or aircraft deployed, this does not by itself reflect how lethal the interceptor fighters were. In 1943, even before Allied escorts were widely available, bombers recorded a loss rate of barely 3.6% per 100 direct engagements with German fighters. More still, the Luftwaffe needed to deploy almost 7 fighters in the air per bomber to statistically achieve a single bomber kill!
NP - Deviating opinions are essential for an interesting exchange.
This is imho a perfect example why playing with irl statistical data (or irl events) can’t be used in a video game. The absolute claims (3.6% and “direct engagements”) needs clarification / a definition as on a stand alone basis they say nothing.
Your underlying logic is based on data which are as reliable as the sources of the data. If you dig deep enough into the web you find the same quality of data in enemy fighters shot down by bomber gunners (the same source). Those data are highly inflated (to be polite) and not reliable at all.
In other words:
The loss rate data of 3.6% does not pass the “common sense” smell test - otherwise the USAAF wouldn’t have stopped daylight bombing after the Black Thursday (October 1943) with a loss rate of >20%. The LW losses were reported as 186-27-89 (kills-probable kills-damaged) which were actual just ~ 40 total losses.
The bomber game play in wt looks like this:
Have a good one!
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