I’ve been playing this game for a few months now, mostly in air-sim because it’s the only mode that really interests me. I think it’s the perfect mix between authentic gameplay and vehicles you’d expect from a sim while not bothering you with the complexity of having to read manuals for every plane you want to fly. You can just join a lobby, pick your plane and off you go.
My goal going into the game was to unlock the german EF2000 and rn I’m about to enter Tier 7 but I’m starting to doubt if it’s worth it at all.
Recently I’ve become more and more aware of the bugs and general issues this game mode has and that they don’t seem to be addressed at all. On top of that I’m playing on Linux, which is mostly a very smooth experience but also has some issues that seem to be ignored by Gaijin.
If Gaijin neither cares about the only mode I enjoy nor the platform I play on, should I even keep playing? Does it get better? Are the higher BRs in air-sim that I’ve aimed for from the start somehow a more enjoyable experience? Is there any reason to believe Gaijin will fix these issues anytime soon?
I appreciate any thoughts from people who have more experience with the game and air-sim in particular.
It’s not worth the grind, but it’s worth the gameplay.
I also cannot speak for jet tiers, but as a WW2 player this is my perspective on sim:
Compared to Il2: Great battles -
You can find a lobby throughout the day regardless of timezone. Naturally lobbies are the healthiest around UTC+0 20:00 or later but it’s the case throughout the week.
Compared to Il2, I regularly check - even on weekdays - and find Finnish pilots empty or barely populated and Combat Box scarcely does better. Even the dogfight server, Berloga, often struggles to present more than two or three people and when it presents more it’s often seriously lopsided.
Additionally, if I want to fly eastern front aircraft I’m often out of luck as most servers seem to prefer Normandy/Bodenplate leaving no room for yaks.
Finally, I feel due to prevalence of SRS (Simple Radio System), a lot of servers have began to emphasize using voice chat for navigation, mission hand-out and so on. Consequently, if you do not use voice chat you are disadvantaged.
Here are my discord inquiries joining WingalingDragon & co in my A-20 to bomb Normandy on Combat Box.
Based on the above things, even though I own and enjoy Moscow-Stalingrad-Kuban, I will play Warthunder more often than not because in Warthunder I can fly whatever WW2 plane I want whenever I want, find populated lobbies more often than not and through “Follow me!” “Cover me!” “Leading for landing” and map pings, I can easily communicate with my team and receive missions (however simplistic) without ever having to open my mouth.
I think air sim is the best way to grind top tier actually, you just have to play in a way to maximize rewards and minimize losses. For starters, activating sl and rp boosters before entering a scenario (i don’t think it works if you enter, quit to activate boosters and then rejoin) makes a world of difference - and getting boosters from air/ground assaults or from recycling unused wagers/orders is fairly straightforward. Single use boosters only last for 30 minutes and you get awarded rewards after 15 minutes of gameplay, the optimum way to play is to get at least 400 points before 15 minutes have elapsed, land on the runway, get at least another 400 points and land again after 30 minutes - and taking down a single player is worth around 600 points. Ideally you won’t get killed within those 15 minutes because then you’ll only get a percentage of the rewards, but while the sl boosters are on you’ll probably still get enough to cover respawn costs, at least. After the boosters wear off it might not be worth it to keep playing, but it’s a game; the important thing is to have fun.
You can reduce spawn costs by switching off upgrades you don’t need (and some are unreasonably costly), and if you have some skill you can try to get extra sl from completing wagers; I think the easiest one is “kill 5 enemy players”, since in Air sim it can be completed with just 3 kills, and unlike in Air RB you can respawn as many times as necessary (or don’t, if it isn’t worth it). There are some other wagers you might want to try out, depending on the plane you are using.
The most difficult part of air sim is having good controls and good situational awareness, but i think the easiest way to learn that is to play on cold weather maps since there will be more contrails so it’s easier to keep track of the opponent in a dogfight, and thus it’s easier to accept the skill issue when you lose. In a pure bomber you might want to try a map with irregular terrain, to hide from enemy radar as much as possible.
Honestly playing Sim to grind is an awful way to unlock stuff. It used to be quite good but Gaijin in their infinite wisdom decided that the best way to deal with botters was to nuke the rewards and give us the useless action system we have now.
Sim is best when you just want to fly. Not caring about unlocking the next plane but just enjoying the fight.
Best way to grind right now is to learn ARB and grind there. With a good game in a premium you can easily make the same (if not more) rewards in a few minutes than a whole 2 hour Sim match.
From a gameplay perspective .Air sim is better, could be a lot better with a lot more dev time. Has major issues they have yet to even consider fixing yet
From a grinding perspective its… complicated.
If you can consistantly do well in ARB, then you will probably earn more quicker, but if you are mostly playing a mud mover then ASB is probably better because you can be far far more consistant in what you can earn and will likely end up earning more.
My advice though, play whichever gamemode you enjoy more. It is that gamemode you will earn more in. This should also include what you are flying. I do recommend working on spading aircraft, the spade bonuses are really decent, and pay attention to research effeciency (you research things more slowly when you are more than 1 rank away, so researching rank 7 with rank 6 is fine, but rank 8 would start getting less than if you were in a rank 7) but after that, just pick aircraft you have fun in.
For grinding, this basically sums it up. If you enjoy the game mode you are playing, you can continue playing it for longer without burning out or hating the game. Personally I despise ARB, and I’m not good at it either, but I love flying the MiG-23MLD and MiG-21Bis in sim.
Though if you wanna go by the numbers, ARB is definitely more efficient for grinding. If you enjoy it, definitely go for it. For me personally I grind in sim because I wanna enjoy the game, not endure torture (or as others would call it, play ARB) just so that I can get my hands on a particular plane and feel burnt out after doing so.
