I’m for clouds and fog in air battles, one hundred percent!
I understand that on lower tiers with propeller planes it can be a problem, but with planes with radars, the problem is significantly less and gives the game much more realism…
Not so long ago, a lot of players protested the nuclear glow of the sun, on most maps, and finally Gaijin did something about it, bravo!
I hope that fully night maps will also return on the higher tiers, of course under the full light of the moon.
These maps were great a few years ago but there were too many players who cried a lot and these maps were shut down…
I remember the night map when there was no moon and that was really unplayable hell, but the night map with the moon, plus the ground searchlights, amazing … !
You clearly don’t understand this issue.
It literally causes problems in the jet games as well.
Come back here if you played Gen’3 jets or later one.
I understand this issue very well.
It may be a problem for some, but I don’t see a problem with it.
I see it as Gaijin’s attempt to take the game to new heights, so that players use the different characteristics of the planes …
I see in all tiers of the game that players don’t want to think three-dimensionally… It’s constantly endless mowing the grass low to the ground and it doesn’t matter if you’re flying a spare biplane or a twin-engine supersonic… Unfortunately Gaijin helps a lot, the total absence of all strategic bombers, higher than is a Tu-4 aircraft, so there is not much reason to fly high, especially when it is going to hunt, with a little caution ground AI technology…
You have a different opinion, fine, but so do I.
Unfortunately, only in events, which are only sometimes, you need an airstart at 7000 meters and it’s a different game…
Thing is, even if you climb you still need to dive on people on the ground.
Which is very hard if they’re covered in clouds as you cannot line up your shot, predict their speed, direction anything.
And in sim it’s a major bother as well because one of my korean jet games I had a bunch of people hide inside the cloud during a “Capture the A point” objective making it impossible to capture it OR engage in counter-play with them. Like legit, friendly and I were capping the point and got it to like 3/4 and it suddenly stopped. I searched over the clouds, I searched under the clouds. I made myself a bait for whoever is hiding to show themselves. Nothing.
Like sure, use clouds tactically - use them to disengage with a damaged plane and RTB. Use them to disengage from unfavourable matchups and RTB or reposition for a counter-ambush. Use them to sneak past the enemy using instruments and the map to drop your bombs! That’s fun and what’d happen in real life.
Hiding in clouds without any impact other than “game detects plane is in the sector so it prevents objective tickdown” without aggressing the local planes (nothing on killfeed or anything) is… not fun. It does not feel like air superiority either.
That’s because You have never played the BR which has clouds issues.
That is the problem with Jet BR, not just prop BR.
No.
Most of the problem is that the cloud generation algorithm is not synced with the surrounding environment.
They apparently generate clouds based solely on sea level altitude, so the entire runway is often not visible on relatively recently implemented high-altitude maps (Space Port, Rockey Canyon, Pyrenees, etc.). They should vary in the clouds produced depending on the location of the mountain.
Also, unlike 2016-2020 clouds, it is no longer possible to see targets at very close range. In the case of legacy clouds, although spotting was still inconsistent but, it was not that difficult to identify enemies/teammates who were very close.
And the problem becomes worst in SBEC.
In three sentences, you described exactly the problems with clouds and the change of day into night, during aerial battles…
I completely agree with the first two sentences…
When it goes down, in the air force they say … through a hole in the clouds… , so you have to see at least approximately where the enemy is moving, but if you get to his height, it can be quite an unpleasant surprise for you too, when you will find that there are more enemies around than you like…
The third sentence is more complicated
I will try to write it in a shortened version…
- until the Second World War there were no flights at night, there were definitely no air battles and certainly not anti-ground attacks
- rather, there were high-altitude bombers in the air and they were navigated by radio, the so-called ground radio control - radio beacon
- then the night fighters slowly came - battles in bright moonlight, the first radars, etc.
- even then, the first aircraft with an early warning system began, the US NAVY and their redesigned Avenger AEW_TBM 3 played a leading role
- at the time of the Korean War it was still a provisional system, based on ground controls (radio beacon), patrol boats with anti-aircraft radar and land-based air patrols and airborne aircraft with radar, but these were primarily used to protect the fleet of aircraft carriers…
- after the Korean War came the Lockheed Constellation EC-121 Warning Star, with which he communicated with the second crew member of the RIO/WSO and this aircraft with a powerful radar, controlled the airspace around Phantom IIs and other aircraft at a long distance…
- that’s why all-weather aircraft, night fighter aircraft have more crew members, until now, even if the 6th generation aircraft only count with a pilot and a complete overview of the situation with AWACS, satellite and on-board radar…
- The EC-121 remained in service until replaced by the E-3A Sentry
In the game you are alone in all this, you have to look for other planes and you cannot ask about the position of other planes in the vicinity…
In addition, under fog and clouds, it is difficult even today to attack ground targets or objects near the ground, so usually this type of attack is ideally carried out on cloudless nights, or during the day, if there is a moment of surprise on the part of the attacker…
Quite often the attack is called off if the enemy’s early warning systems are not eliminated…
The Spaceport maps and the Pyrenees map, I got both now, twice in a row. Both in the clouds, I didn’t have a problem… The usual problem is that with the Me-262 against planes from the Korean War period …
That’s how Gaijin set it up, so we can either play or let it…
You just have to climb and it turns around low to the ground in a small valley … in the mountains, it was always difficult with an airplane, clouds everywhere …
Whilst you post regarding AEW aircraft looks quite complete, it looks like you have not considered the night raids of Zeppelins and Gothas on London during WW 1 - at night and with clouds. And British fighter pilots killed or got killed whilst intercepting them…
Have a good one!
Hmm, I admit I’m not that familiar with this…
I know of some airship raids on London and other raids, on British port cities on the east coast of England …
Perhaps some S.E.5A biplanes, as part of the British Air Defense?
Rather, I was trying to give general information, within the scope of this game…
Once upon a time, Gaijin indirectly claimed that he did not want this game to be an ultra-accurate simulator, but rather a commercial game.
I get it for basic tiers, sun-drenched skies, reasonably interesting game map environment…
Then the first, relatively simple search radars came into play …
aka Beaufighter, Do-217, etc… ok, that’s good, it was a shift in real technology, but players should still shift in abilities, this is mainly about players starting to perceive that the radar is here …
But as you get higher, there is no need to move on in understanding more modern technology.
We have radars here that are much more sophisticated, and more and more demanding jets, so the demands on the players are also more demanding…
Personally, I would imagine, from the level of the F3D-1 aircraft, the deactivation of enemy markers in ARB, but the question is whether the maps are ready for this… I mean the higher tier in ARB and SIM…
I feel that there should be something more detailed in the game … some AI info-setup about what’s going on in the game … something that would simulate AEW and for the top tier also AWACS …
Flying by eye only and with search radar, in the age of long range air guided missiles is a bit archaic…
It’s not primarily about the speed of airplanes anymore, it’s about better equipment of avionics systems… and their proper control, of course…
And another is also how the player approaches it …
If he wants to understand the rules of modern air combat a little more at the level of an aviation fan, or he perceives it as a simple shooter …
Every battle, I watch how about half of the players on both teams are able to mindlessly shoot themselves within 2 minutes, in the style of a kill or the next game - they fly to the ground and either the head-on comes out, or the next game…
Using the ability of planes (plane for dogfight, for Boom and Zoom, tactical variant of the game - it’s not my plane in the game changer, so I don’t rush forward …), so far it doesn’t say anything to a lot of players…
… and to return to the title of this topic, clouds and the alternation of day and night is another quite essential thing in the game, for the air combat mode…
too difficult, we can’t see anything… in fact many seem to want a map without any cloud, any challenge? knowing how to navigate in this kind of weather conditions is part of the skill
on the contrary I like losing my enemy in the clouds, no longer seeing him so that suddenly he brushes past me at full speed etc etc
Clouds are just lazy way to try to fix how bad is top tire Air…
They also missed most of their targets - and night with some clouds is not the same as day flying in windless thunderstorms.
We don’t even do that today - weather is a critical factor in planning sorties.
The clouds in War Thunder are simply not realistic - they don’t move (at least as much as they should) there is no wind in the game and they never change shape. There’s no wind in the thunderstorms (which we wouldn’t be flying in anyway) and there’s no real navigation equipment available.
The clouds are also glitched where you can often see ground objects and airplanes through clouds when you shouldn’t.
I’d be fine with some clouds around but it needs to be scaled back drastically and we need to have more clear days than not.
And the inverse is true. If a plane is flying with a cloud behind it, its black dot might decide not to render despite flying outside the cloud.
The night interceptions above London in WW 1 were performed with various types, but further discussion about that are imho off topic.
Regarding your overall position:
Should be seen in context to the game mode Air RB - and how the mode is designed.
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The main issue is that Air RB is actually just Air AB+. So adding selective (and randomly implemented) realism like this weather conditions make imho zero sense - simply because the mode Air RB is not Air SB. There is a reason why the term “all weather fighter” was the successor of “night fighter” and covered only planes with the necessary avionics (and crew training) able to take off, fly, fight and most important to find a friendly airfield and land in bad weather / at night.
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As a prop pilot bad weather prevents you from gaining and keeping situational awareness. Even if some pilots benefit from clouds or enjoy playing hide and seek in the clouds - the realism claim by gaijin is absurd. Irl the current weather conditions (and forecasts) decided if you flew a sortie or not - there were no sorties with 10/10 clouds and very low cloud ceiling with day fighters / bombers simply due to a lack of flight instrument and crew training.
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As a jet pilot you face serious AAM threats at higher alt, which forces you to stay low. Using your radar (if you have one) compromises your position, etc. Earlier cold war jets did not even have radar as targets were either assigned by ground controls or had to be located with the Mk. 1 eyeball.
So if gaijin implement stuff like this, your conclusion:
looks somehow reasonable, but imho their main goal is totally different.
The “bad” weather just adds another factor to their efforts to make the outcome of a match a random event as the resulting furballs in case a poor soul gets spotted first.
I do agree that clouds (correctly implemented) add a lot of fun and immersion, but (at least for props) i see just 2 player types gaining any benefits from clouds in Air RB:
- The imho very rare battle-hardened veteran in a fast single engine fighter - able to read a match and able to use the clouds to his advantage.
- The hordes of untrained rookie pilots (mostly tankers) farming ai ground units early and late game as more experienced pilots won’t sacrifice position for a strike aircraft / ground pounder if enemy fighters are up and it is unclear where they are.
In other words:
It becomes easier for both player types to score points - whilst the rookies are in the absolute majority. I am really tired of losing matches which were decided by ground pounders whilst you fight “real” threats like enemy fighters high above the clouds…
IMO, at some distance, the target should be visible even if flying through clouds just like legacy clouds.
In the current games, you can’t see these targets at same situation.
You’re missing the point, what I’m talking about is when above an entire cloud and you see all white but the bridge on the ground or a plane flying through below the clouds. It’s probably the least of my complaints about clounds and I don’t have a screenshot.
Gaijin has a vision and will stick to it.
So it doesn’t really matter if we like clouds or not, we just have to learn to work with them!
Considering the trailer of the new update “Firebird”, I feel that they have added clouds regarding their future plans.
To your last paragraph…
When WT came to the gaming market, it was … Wow, Wow, Wow !!! …
There was only the air component of the game, perfect.
The moment the tanks came I knew there was going to be a problem…
On the current Air Top tier I’m not sure the maps are big enough … a lot of powerful planes are missing …
In addition, the meaning of the game maps is still the same from the low tier - a ball of hell in a small space in a ratio of 12 vs. 12 players… the tactical nature of all maps
So this is how I would see it for myself (I assume that Gaijin probably won’t care)…
Air Battles - air supremacy format only game, interception and ambush pursuit, high altitude bombers, medium bombers, fighter bombers, highly range fighters … minimum of destructible ground AI targets
Air Battle Targets - Military Factories, Military Refineries, Military Stations, SAM Systems Stations, High-altitude Combat, etc…
Ground Battles - Tanks, Vehicles, Area/City/Port Combat, Fighter Aircraft, Attack Aircraft, Medium Bombers, Medium Range Fighters.
Ground Battle Objectives - Bunkers, Ground AI, Supply Bases, Area Control, etc.
Naval battles - everything that belongs to naval battles, either in coastal areas or on the open sea/ocean,
Objectives of naval battles - convoys, islands-supply bases, refineries by the sea, controlled area … plus all types of naval aircraft …
As it is, it seems like random chaos to me…
But that’s just my opinion and over the years of playing, I’ve long since found out that Gaijin follows his line and only reacts to a lot of crying from the players…
But the clouds in the trailer are acceptable - light rain and partly cloudy… it’s the windless thunderstorms (especially in the desert) that are problematic (for the most part).
Also F-117s are specifically one of the worst vehicles to fly into bad weather - they can’t even be in the rain.