How does overheating and thermodynamics work in War Thunder Air-RB?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
,
1

So first off here is a link to the War Thunder explanation of how overheating / thermodynamics work in war thunder Air-RB:

Thermodynamics – Engine, Weather and more - War Thunder Wiki

With that out of the way, This wiki seems out dated, inaccurate and very much lacking in helping players understand why their planes are overheating and melting their engines.

I’m writing this too collect information about how this mechanic is currently working. To start I will share some observations I’ve made that show how this mechanic is working/not working. I welcome any feed back or comments to help get a better understanding of this mechanic. With that said lets start with some observations I’ve seen over testing:

*The following is directly from the wiki regarding operation time per overheat colour and seems mostly accurate regarding Heat wear:
"The remaining time of operation is shown by the colour of the temperature indicator: "
White: Engine is operating normally,
Yellow: 5 to 10 minutes,
Orange: 2 to 5 minutes,
Red: less than 2 minutes,
Flashing red: less than 1 minute

*Heat wear will be defined as follows:
The wear induced upon and engine from running in the yellow, orange or red.

*Heat wear (aka overheat) is typically what most pilots see in the form of yellow, orange and red overheat. This is the obvious overheat mechanic in the game.

*Many planes do not recover from overheat as the wiki suggests from simply running the engine in the white.

*To heal an engine from engine wear (aka overheat), I’ve found in extensive testing that turning the engine off and letting the engine sit in the white for 15-30 seconds then restarting, removes ALL heat wear from overheating. This so far has been the only reliable and efficient way to “heal” an engine from heat wear (aka overheat).

*Time wear (Wear over time, regardless of throttle setting) will show as (Time wear @ xxmin) will be defined as the sudden or over time drop in max temperature of the engine that occurs regardless of heat wear. This is the insidious overheat mechanic that usually and suddenly drops the overheat threshold of the engine midway through a game.

*Many planes have an arbitrary Time wear no matter what you set the throttle to. Almost all planes seem to develop a sudden drop in temperature threshold around 16 minutes into flight. for example, the German Bf 109 F-4 has (wear over time) Time Wear: (-2/-2°C) @ 16min lowering to a max threshold of 85/95°C from a max of 87/97°C. I’ll be writing as such moving forward to save space and time:
Time Wear with -2/-2 being oil/water radiator threshold reductions and finally @ xxmin will be the time the said degradation occurs.

*Time wear seems pervasive. Unlike engine wear, turning the engine off and letting the engine sit in the white for 15-30 seconds, then restarting, does not reset the timer on the Time wear. However, on many planes it does buy a few more minutes before the engine temperature threshold drops again.

*When in a color of overheat, it doesn’t seem to matter if you are at the minimum or maximum for that threshold. For example: Lets say a plane has a yellow overheat between 90-100°C and then goes to orange at 101°C. If you get 10:00min of flight time in yellow it will be the same for 90°C and 100°C as long as you don’t go into the orange at 101°C.

This is what I’ve gathered so far. Using this has allowed me to maximize running some planes in yellow overheat and simply doing a engine power off 15- 30sec power on cycle when it turns orange. When I start the engine back up I have the equivalent of a new engine ready to be abused again.

I hope this is helpful, but more importantly I’m sure someone else has some other techniques they use to mitigate this overheating mechanic. I welcome any working solutions that might help. Also, If anyone has a better term than “Heat wear” and “Time wear” please let me know.

5 Likes
2

I changed:
“Engine wear” to “Heat wear”
“Engine degradation” to "Time wear "

Let me know if you think these are more intuitive terms or something else should be used.

1 Like
3

I’ll keep adding new findings in testing as I find them here is another one to be added:

*When in a color of overheat, it doesnt seem to matter if you are at the minimum or maximum for that threshold. For example: Lets say a plane has a yellow overheat between 90-100°C and then goes to orange at 101°C. If you get 10:00min of flight time in yellow it will be the same for 90°C and 100°C as long as you dont go into the orange at 101°C.

1 Like
4

*The following paragraph from the thermodynamics wiki is untrue for most planes. Even when it does work on the few planes in the game, the Air - RB match is usually over by the time you recover and your plane is flying in a limited performance state. In short, this is the most inefficient way to “heal” your engine in game, if it even works at all.

(To be clear the following quote from the wiki is UNTRUE/INEFECIENT, DO NOT USE)

"Recovery after an extended operating time

After the engine has been operating for an extended period, it requires time to restore the time limit fully.

Prolonged usage at high speeds means that the engine needs to be cooled and lower power settings should be used for a short while so that the engine can “rest”. Generally, approximately half of the time limit of the required parameter is needed for full engine recovery (for example, when using WEP under automatic engine control for 5 minutes, it means that after reaching this limit, the aircraft should fly at 100% for around 2.5 minutes to recover all 5 minutes of the WEP limit)."

(To be clear, the above quote is: UNTRUE/INEFECIENT DO NOT USE)

1 Like
5

Moving forward, I think there is enough here to show that the thermodynamics needs some attention and is currently outdated, unnecessary obstacle, overly complicated mechanic that interferes with gameplay.

Some suggestions to Gaijin:
*Get rid of the arbitrary Timed Overheat mechanic that makes no sense and only kills engines, gamplay and fun.

*Simplify the overheat wear mechanic to be binary instead of this convoluded white, yellow, orange and red. Even a simple White and Red system would be better.

*Pick one map temperature for all the maps for now until this gets sorted. Right now there are different map temperatures that dont contribute to the game in its current thermodynamic state. Also, this would stop a lot of planes from behaving like the reactor cat (F8F).

*Finally, auto radiator and auto prop pitch need to be overhauled completely. Auto radiator is flat out broken accross so many planes I dont know where to start. Its either set too high/low or doesnt turn on with wep use until your in the red and then when you disengage WEP it slams open to 100%. You can start with the P51s, they are set wrong and pretty easy to correct. There are some brilliant examples of autoprop pitch for the spit fires where it dynamicaly changes depending on WEP use. I suggest that as a starting point for autoprop pitch.

Well, thats all I have for this, Ill try to implement this into a guide module.

Best,
MOBB

2 Likes
6

Not really a technique, more or less a workaround:

I simply refuse to fly any plane which doesn’t allow me to set infinite WEP (the whole match without overheating at all) with prop pitch and radiators whilst keeping the engine in the white temperature area. So even if i like a plane regarding flight performance and handling with a HOTAS - if i cant find suitable MEC settings for infinite WEP on hot/medium/cold maps i don’t fly them.

Only for BP tasks i use aircraft like the Fw 190 F-8 (for bomb and rocket kills in Air RV) which is like many others severely affected by “time wear” and “heat wear”- even as this seems to be somehow historically accurate. But i also read that the 80% PP and 100% coolers as infinite WEP setup for P-51 Cs was physically impossible as this would have required a constant activity by the pilot regarding the coolers…

So loitering with a Fw 190 at 8 km with a SC 1000 above the enemy airfields (late and very late game) in order to get some bomb kills becomes even more risky as soon as you face the combination of “heat wear” and “time wear” at the same time - simply because you have a flashing red oil temperature at 83°C (previously white) if you try to escape the usually very angry rest of their team after such a dive bombing attack. Therefore your advice to reset the heat wear by shutting off the engine for some time looks great. Thx for that!!

7

@Wick,
So, yes you have the concept down, that you can basically reset any engine wear with an engine shut down, once it gets to white leave it there for 15-30sec, then restart engine. Dont worry so much about the Time wear since you cant really do much about it. But, realize that you can basically run most planes in 5-10min yellow overheat cycles. Youll figure out how long the plane your using can run for pretty fast but most planes are in the 8-10min range.

That being said, one option that became obvious was running a given plane in the yellow overheat range (about 10min best case scenario). This lets you maximize performance with about 1 pause to power off/power on your engine since Air -RB matches are 25 minutes long.

There are some planes where doing this with even a 3-5min orange overheat is an option.

As a test case, try this with the P-40 E-1 and see what you think. This plane should be flown in a constant state of yellow overheat at a minimum, using engine power off/on for engine life management. Here are the overheat thresholds to help test it: Y=yellow, O=Orange, R=Red.

Edit:
P-40E-1 was one of few planes that did not suffer from Time wear.
*Overheat temps: Y=75/115, O=85/125, R=90/129

FW 190s recover very well from Overheat Wear.
Fw 190 A-8, Fw 190 F-8:
*Overheat temps: Y=85/210, O=87/214, R=87/215
*These planes seem to overheat less with WEP than A-4 and A-5 variants. Reason unknown.

Fyi, XP-50 was a plane that did NOT recover well from engine wear of any kind. This is one of very few planes that suffered this.

1 Like
8

What’s better, flying at a MEC setting that your cooling system supports, or intermittently turning off the engine? I have a feeling turning off your engine completely negates the benefit of working your engine hard with no limits, when it comes to gaining energy while out of combat.

9

You can use MEC in combination with “intermittently turning off the engine” or you can use it with AEC. They can totally complement each other and are not “one or the other”

Turning off the engine while out of combat does not negate gaining energy while out of combat. it has way less of an impact then when compared to letting the engine cool down and then maybe healing after 5 minutes (usually not). Engine power cycling is the better option from what I’ve found. It also usually resets some time wear for a couple of minutes.

10

Is that REALLY too complicated for you??!!

1 Like
11

I’ll have to try it out and get some data to see whether this is overall effective, but I can see this synergizing well with planes that have prop feathering, to minimize energy loss when cooling down.

12

Imho this is not a matter of complicated or not - the whole context matters.

It makes zero sense to have a 4 stage temperature system if the whole topic is flawed. Therefore the suggestions have to be seen as a whole package, so picking one of them out does not deal with the topic at all.

It boils down that gaijin is inconsistent as usual:

On one hand the game play becomes more and more “dumbed” down (in order to support rookies), on the other hand they feel the need for a rather complex thermodynamics model which is fundamentally flawed and makes no sense in a mode with fantasy g-forces & using mouse aim like Air RB.

The only real sense from gaijin’s perspective is to nerf certain vehicles with “special” settings - like almost all Italian props with radial engines which tend to overheat at the end of the runway during take-off.