Not all ideas require new mechanics. Things like removing the kill cam, limit ceiling of planes or making them markable would already improve the situation and make life for planes harder.
I would increase the size of the air map to at least a 30 mile radius and force all planes to spawn at a airfield 20-30 miles away, but still give them a forward airbase to repair etc. This would allow Combat Air Patrol players to intercept Close Air Support before they could do harm.
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Or put them like really close to the battlefield so tanks can drive into the airfield to kill them while they are taking off lol since CAS can spawn kill ground vehicles why can’t we do the same lol
So I thought about a system that can work in war thunder for balancing CAS in the future when longer range weapons get added (AGM-88, JASSM and so on).
Gaijin can put on the map for every tank spawn a small empty field where you can spawn in an Anti-air system (Patriot for NATO and S400 for USSR and maybe a copy of the S400 or smth for China) that can work like a normal SPAA. Just like drones. You will need idk how much SP and you can spawn an long range SPAA. There can be only 1 for one enemy spawn(or they can add a limited number of aircraft and a limited number of SPAAs to balance it out like: one S400 for 2 planes or smth idk). However this will not limit the mobile SPAAs that can engage aircraft below 20 Kms and maybe add the CRAM or something so you can engage the ordonance dropped by enemy aircraft. This is my idea, let me know yours.
in the future, I’d like to see those as fixed base Anti Air. Patriot and S300 or S400. after they MASSIVELY increase the size of the battlefield of course.
I’d like to preface this by saying that I fly CAP most of the time (as in, using planes as SPAA), but also do CAS regularly in small amounts if there’s nobody for me to shoot down. These suggestions are also mostly relevant for mid tier.
Reduce spawn cost of the actual plane, severely increase spawn cost of any A2G stuff. Especially the very effective stuff like the FAB-5000 and 12000lb bombs.
Using planes as SPAA is the most effective method and this would improve that, as a pure fighter wouldn’t cost almost as much as one loaded with bombs.
Just add more SPAA, the forum is FULL of great suggestions for almost any tree. Especially USA in the 4.0-7.7 gap. I can name quite a few just off the top of my head.
Potentially add some form of ground radar station which would tell SPAA (of any time period) if there is an aircraft up, and direction/altitude. This is more of a general idea, nothing specific.
Increase SPAA rewards. Shooting down aircraft doesn’t pay well due to low activity % (hence little incentive to do so), a possible solution is having SPAA be spawnable from another vehicle (similar to the AT guns from the Sturmtiger event, or the scout drones on high tier light tanks where you can switch between either vehicle at any time). This way, a player wouldn’t have to throw away the tank they’re using to shoot a plane down.
Lower airspawn of all aircraft so they’re easier to intercept and heavy bombers mentioned above aren’t nearly invulnerable to gun SPAA just by virtue of being so high up. Regular attackers would also arrive slower at the battlefield, being easier to shoot down with both SPAA and aircraft.
I don’t want airfield spawns for them because in a marker-less mode like Ground RB, they’re much harder to spot than when they’re contrasting against the bright sky.
Ability for SPAA to resupply all their ammo, anywhere on the map, just once per spawn. Hit a key, and it gets instantly replenished, or a resupply zone spawns on the ground under your vehicle.
At high tier, introduce an artificial ceiling done by longer-ranged SAMs - go above a certain altitude, say 5km, and you get bonked by an S-75 or HAWK, or even the bigger stuff like an S-300. There should be an on-screen warning for this similar to the map border one - this is to deter someone sitting 10km up dropping guided bombs.
Also not entirely sold on this idea, but WW2 spaa would have a sorta aim assist where if you target a plane, it’ll show you a little straight line of the direction it is travelling in. Won’t tell you lead or anything, just its direction.
Also not entirely sold on this, but high tier SPAA could enable its player to spawn a ‘free’ fighter kinda like Arcade, with a longer timer or none at all. This would enable players who haven’t ground out an air tree to also hit aircraft beyond the range of their SPAAs.
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Of course increase the size of the battlefield. Like now they can spawn the planes like maybe 40 kms away instead of 20 so you have time to do anything
20 clicks is about the average distance, airfield to battlefield (SPAAs). The battlefield is roughly 25 km in radius. Both are too close at Ranks 7 and above in my opinion for a multitude of reasons. Trying to get a suggestion passed for it atm.
Yes and the range of the Pantsir is 20 clicks
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so i’d do :
- higher reward for shooting down a plane
- introduce a reward (SP, Lions, and RP) when shooting down an enemy missile
- easier access to reload while playing AAs (already in the works)
- lower the SP cost of AAMs equipped-only planes
This would require SPAAs of all nations to be able to shoot down enemy missiles though, so either make IR ones able to lock enemy missiles, or introduce SACLOS / guns for everyone
in parallel, try testing a TO mode for a few weeks, and see how that goes
I though about long range AAs, but let’s face it current maps and gameplay mechanics are ABSOLUTELY not fit for them right now, and bringing them in would probably prove to be costly. The only way i see them being introduced would be through naval
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Or maybe just have TO mode instead of buffs/nerfs which will only make more people angry ;)
Sorry but it solves everything.
People who just want to play tanks have their place to stay and combined people is full of people who want to play combined gameplay.
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Sorry but I think You don’t understand how much the game mechanic would change if people who just want to play tanks weren’t in that mode.
Reconsider it and You will understand what I mean ;). With nerfs/buffs You won’t get anything. I know that You will never accept the need for TO as You have said in one of Your comments, but trying to make other people angry by nerfing/buffing won’t change a thing regarding the situation of people who just want to play tanks. No matter how much You nerf the air or buff the SPAA, the situation for people playing tanks won’t change.
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I honestly don’t see the former ever being practical, at least not in Ground RB. If we add NPC targets, they could be easily farmable by a CAS player, leading to severe ticket loss without any counterplay aside from spawning a fighter.
So the latter option it is.
Yes to both, though I’d prefer SPAA didn’t become TDs as like with the Falcon, it can cause them to increase in BR past their usefulness for AA work. Hence why I suggested for SPAA to be a secondary vehicle of sorts that you can spawn in while still using a tank. This would also fix the earnings/rewards issue, as you wouldn’t spend so much time in SPAA to begin with.
Gun SPAA always requires planes to get quite close and by then they’ve already dropped their bombs on your team. Tracers are very visible and outside of server desync or snow/desert maps making tracers nearly invisible, an alert pilot can easily fly well within the range of gun SPAAs and remain unharmed.
IIRC the M163A1 added some form of APDS, which wasn’t too shabby. Don’t have penetration data on hand, though I don’t think it would be too useful.
Ostwind did have APCR, it uses the same ammo and is pretty much the same cannon as the BK 3.7 mounted on a few german props. About 110mm of pen, which is quite nice. It also had full caliber solid shot with much less pen, but still better than the current APHE’s 49mm.
I could see that working pretty well.
I really like this, though heavy AA like the flakbus could also get a mechanic where, like naval, the crew has to calculate the aircraft speed and lead, and then it’ll have a lead indicator at much higher distances. AAs like the Flak 88 were used for much higher-flying targets, so this could be an interesting way to model that.
100% agreed.
I don’t doubt that the Stinger is very capable IRL (and it is missing a lot of performance in-game), but the Strela is a much bigger missile and that brings its own set of advantages. It could be big out of necessity (due to less advanced technology), but it could just outright be a better one too. I’m not sure on this though, just pointing it out.
Big issue there, some countries just don’t have better SPAA - and even the Pantsir and Type 81, probably the two best SPAAs right now missiles-wise can’t always do this.
Most countries moved to stationary or multi-vehicle systems to deal with higher-flying aircraft, and/or are accounting for having air superiority. Hence my suggestion to add an artificial ceiling to ground RB, so that even MANPADS can be reasonably threatening.
There was AI tanks in GRB at one point, they later removed them though. Basing this off from memory since it was a long time ago.
Yes, there were:
-AI tanks
-AI controlled AT guns
-AI trucks
-AI AAA
If I recall correctly only the trucks and tanks affected tickets
Edit: on the Jungle map there used to be an AI destroyer near the beach. It did nothing, but it could be sunk.
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This was also only in existence while in the “starter pool” of pre-3.0 vehicles from what I recall (Or might have been Tier locked as they altered what Tier does over updates).
Do new players no longer have this starter pool? And did they remove AI from that? Of course when I experienced this we still had the D point spawning at random moments.
In my opinion, the only balance would be the mode combination, as this would completely change the game structure and maps,
All players choose whatever they want according to the map, plane, tank, ship, but they stay in the vehicle they choose until they die, the next spawn chooses what they want again. Additionally, if what I wrote above is done, a single spawn always makes more sense.
If there is realism in the game, even if it is an arcade, the player should not be able to jump from the tank and fly into the plane. If this is prevented, then CAS will be as it should be. If there is no realism, then tanks need to be equipped with auto defense so that I can escape from a helicopter firing guided missiles and rockets from 3 km away. Isn’t all the imbalance here?
The worst offender of this is that all allied cannons that can pen nearly 40mm dont pay extra SP. For reference the Mk 103 with its nerfed pen sits at 165 SP for 58mm of pen at 10m for its API and 77mm for its HVAP with 70-240 shots. At the same time US, Russia, GB etc. pay literally nothing extra for being able to destroy any tank with plane cannons or HMG´s especially in context to their abundance of Ammo. For comparison at BR 5.0 the D-28 has 8x.50´s with 30mm of pen at 10m, 8 HVAR´s, 6 M8´s, 2x 1000lbs and 1x 500lbs (yes all in one setup), the F-8 has two low velocity 20mm with 27mm pen at 10m, one 1000kg or 500kg, 4x 50kg or 2x Mk103 with 70 rds or 14 Pb2 rockets.
One can delete a postcode on its own, the other in a best case scenario two postboxes yet same BR and same SP for their maximum setup.
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Well, they aren’t wrong. Pressing spacebar a couple times isn’t anywhere as involved or skill dependent as getting a couple fighter kills provided your enemies aren’t paid actors. And in a mode without respawns, the fastest and most reliable way to win is to shoot down everyone else.
Giving Bofors HE-VT would send their BRs up through the roof, would also not be particularly good for the slower attackers and tactical bombers you want to facilitate.
Same would go for 120mm pen APDS - you’d send anything with a bofors all the way up to 6.0 and beyond.
I can only say two good things about the 190 F8 there, the 1000kg bomb can be hilarious if you find a nice group, and it makes for a decent low alt CAP fighter, unlike the D28.