How to install the Dev Server

IMPORTANT: The Dev Server is only open during certain times, please check the forum news for recent announcements.


How to install the Dev Server

Watch the Official Project News section of the forum for information on Dev Server opening windows.

IMPORTANT: The Dev Server is only open during certain times, please check the forum news for recent announcements . Any progress or unlocks you make on the Dev server will not be reflected back to the live server - It is purely a test environment. This also applies to any GE, silver lion or research point spending on the Dev server - it will not be subtracted from your live server account!

  1. Download the Dev Server launcher. (if the link is not working, enter the following adress https://launcher.warthunder.com/wt_dev_launcher.exe )
  2. Install like a regular War Thunder copy in its own folder.

FAQ:

Q. When I launch the Dev Server, it tells me The game hasn’t been activated for you account?

A. The Dev Server is not open at all times. It will only be accessible during certain test windows, which are announced in the forum news section. Please check there first to see if the dev server is open.

Q. Will any progress or purchases I make on the dev server with RP, Silver Lions or Golden Eagles carry over to the production server?

A. No. All progress and purchases on the dev sever will not affect your account on the main servers. It is a test environment only.

Still having technical Issues? Please contact myself or any Technical Moderator!

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PSA: “Alternative” method for installing also works on Windows even thought it’s not listed. If you don’t want to have twice the space taken by War Thunder you can enable a selector that will let you switch between production and dev. Instructions can be found here.

Relevant section is this one:

Alternative method (Linux/Mac OS)

(Optional) Make a backup of your game
Create empty file at Warthunder root directory named "matchingdevmode"
Edit config.blk to contain inside "yunetwork" section
    curCircuit:t="dev"
    isExpertMode:b=yes

Edit: another cool thing if you are installing two different clients is that they will copy the same files between each other, so you are only downloading the difference. This also means that if you have both production and dev clients installed you will only need to download a tiny patch once the update hits live. (This tiny patch is the difference between the last dev server and the final release pushed to production). The rest is copied from your dev install, significantly cutting down on install time.

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