You earn Research Points in battle. Apply all relevant modifiers EXCEPT for research penalty/connection bonus (so modifications research is more or less the accurate value to look at)
If you are playing Arcade, multiply this number by 0.03
If you are playing realistic or simulator, multiply this value by 0.01
The result is your crew XP gained
You can allocate crew XP as required, with increasing XP costs for each new level.
There is also a “total level” which adds up all individual sources of crew XP you have. This is used as a requirement for acing your aircraft.
Here is a plane I haven’t got around to experting yet. I click the “Upgrade expert” button and this happens:
To upgrade to Ace, you need significantly higher crew levels than expert and it’s a very, very slow grind.
For my premium Rank 3 plane, I need to fly it and earn the following:
This window is found under “Qualification” where it also shows you the crew level needed (in this case: 35). To get this tooltip, hover over where it says basic/expert.
Now, there’s a trick to achieve the 10 crew level needed for a rank 3 expert faster than naturally possible.
Getting 5/5 G/Stamina takes an insane amount of RP:
That’s 514 000 RP to get one plane to 5 G-tolerance and 5 Stamina (Crew level 10).
Alternatively, you can approach it by going 2/2 G/stamina (22+64+110+160)*2 + 2/2 keen/aware (15+50+90+145)*2 and then
Then repair speed 1, Gunner G tolerance 1/1/1 (4+4 so far), and fire prec/fire acc 1/1 for another +2 for a total of +10
In terms of RP needed we’re instead looking at:
((22+64+110+160) * 2 + (15+50+90+145) * 2 + (12+35) + 3 * (17+40) + 2 * (12+29) ) / 0.01 = 161200 RP! That’s easily about a third of the effort originally needed.
Thank you, I understand better now. So it’s a good idea to buy the expert thingy for my main crew? Costs 270k so I wasn’t sure if it was necessary or just to make things faster
I don’t get it, does that thingy put my crew to a superior level that I wouldn’t reach otherwise or does it just speed up the process I’ve already been through?
The main stats all help quite a lot but I usually do vitality last. Keen vision and awareness helps you identify enemies from further away to have them marked. G-tolerance and stamina are self explanatory.
Repair speed and rearm speed also help after you have the main stats to at least like 4. Since they cut down the repair and rearm time on the airfield by a lot.
You can’t get expert without buying. It always costs SL.
You may be conflating buying CREW levels with buying expert.
IF AND ONLY IF you intend to use the plane for a long-time, yes - get expert.
If you plan to skip it ASAP, you can avoid it but its absence is going to hurt you when flying defensively or in high energy dogfights. It’s very expensive, which is why we are OK with skipping it and eating a bit of suffering.
Only relevant for getting cheap crew levels to qualify for expert (see table of costs above), otherwise G/Stam, then keen/aware.
Did you take a shower afterwards? Every time I play the B7A2 I feel absolutely disgusting… it just so badly out classes so many other aircraft.
It’s one of those planes I hate seeing, no matter what I’m flying… because I know it will be above me, and it will out turn me. It also has the benefit of being teamed with aircraft that will devour anything that dives to avoid it, and typically flown with more skill than the US/USSR/LW aircraft.
Imho you should try to fly it without mouse aim and instructor - with a classic Hotas/JS. That means: No head-ons = potato aim - so no point & click.
I like it simply because the plane has a stable FM and is supports my play style - rather defensive and capable to deal with meta planes like Ki-44s or Yak-3s which are spammed like there is no tomorrow.
During grinding events the plane guarantees a base kill (often) and a player kill. The air spawn prevents you from teamkill attempts during take off. And it is capable to fight in full uptiers - i struggle way more in full downtiers, stuff like B-239s or the cannon Tchaika flies circles around you, so keeping your situational awareness is extremely important.
In order to win a match i prefer to go for the best enemy player / aircraft - decapitating the enemy team is from my pov way more successful than trying to kill numbers. Especially if you fly a plane which needs to be flown with some brain vs stiff competition.
If you fly a B7A2 frequently you are fully aware of its downsides like slow top speed , slow dive speed, rather bad acceleration / energy retention and stiff controls / compression at high speed. I can’t remember getting killed by B7A2 - but i killed a lot of them in the UK Thunderbolt (energy/BnZ) and in full uptiers in the C-3604 (turn fighting).
Imho JP teams saw since the introduction of the Thai SB2C-5 a massive decline - a lot of non-pilots use them and as soon as you play 6 vs 6 on Pacific maps you can kill an entire team in a plain P-47 or Hellcat. And a Hellcat can kill B7A2s if he keeps his speed high.
Imho you might revisit the prop tiers - France has some pretty good props.
You might want to go on yt and watch some vids about the MB 157. A BR 3.3 Rank III fighter able to outturn any Yaks. With decent aim you can work around the imho single negative aspect: Low ammo count.
But as written also by others: In order to use the full potential you need g-tolerance and stamina otherwise you black out.
A word to your 4.0 VB 10 - u need MEC to deal with the overheating issue; use 80% Prop pitch and keep both coolers at 50% and you can fly with infinite WEP the whole match. Use superior top speed vs Yaks and La-5/7s and drag them above 6 km - you outturn both Lavotchkins and most Yaks use min fuel, no need to take head-ons.
