- Yes.
- No.
- Yes.
- No.
- I don’t care.
- Yes.
- No.
- I don’t care.
Hello ladies and gentlemen, today I bring you a big re-work suggestion for naval forces!
After having played War Thunder Naval since it’s Beta testing, I’ve always had opinions about the gamemode and how to improve it. But now it’s time to turn those ideas into action and make this sugestion!
This idea is a complicated and detailed suggestion, so I’m setting it up in steps to make sure I explain everything nice and slowely. So let’s dive in!
Step 0, the current in game situation
Spoiler
What we have in game right now are two separate techtrees: The Bluewater fleet and Coastal fleet.Although these two trees are separate, they still join the same matchmaker.
This setup for the naval techtrees is not so bad at first, but when you start to think about the future of naval we run into some problems.
Let’s start with the Coastal fleet:
The highest BR ship here are the German frigates Köln F220 and Lübeck F224 at a BR of 4.7. These are modern frigates that have access to the post war 40mm Bofors with time fuse shells. And on top of that this ship is filled with radar and other modern equipment. Yet it sits at 4.7, where it can come across aircraft like the Spitfire and P-47.If we look at the future of naval, where we will eventually get more guided missile ships too, then these would be somewhere around 5.7 in BR going from the in game logic. These would be deadly missile frigates fighting things like AM-1’s and Griffon Spitfires.
This ofcourse is very unbalanced and weird to have in the game. So something here has to be changed.
Next let’s talk about the Bluewater fleet:
Here you start with destroyers with a BR of 3.3 or 3.7. This is already a problem since all other reserve vehicles in game make you start at 1.0. Why is this a problem? Take the recent battle pass event, you needed to play at a BR of 2.7 or higher to earn points for the event. So anyone who just downloaded the game could hop in a destroyer and earn points, where people who don’t play naval first have to get to a BR of 2.7.Everything else looks okay here for now, and with more and more bigger ships getting added, this also won’t change much and so it’s not a big problem.
But there is one very specific type of vehicles that make problems here. That is modern destroyers or modern cruisers. Aside from the HMS Tiger, we don’t have any proper modern light cruisers yet, but there are plenty out there that have things like guided missiles. Their armour and conventional weaponry make them just like any other cruiser, but if they have guided weapons then suddenly they sit at a BR that is way too low for them. But put them up in BR to let’s say 6.0, they constantly face battleships which is also far from optimal. And just like the problem with the coastal fleet, these modern destroyers or cruisers will be fighting WW2 aircraft.
Step 1, merging the techtrees back into one
Spoiler
The first step of my proposal is to merge the bluewater and coastal fleet back into one techtree.
But there is one important thing here!
All modern vessels will be left out! This combined naval tree is strictly for vessels around WW2, or before.We will cover what happens with the modern vessels in Step 2.
Now that the tree is back into one techtree, we will still keep the vertical setup (We won’t go back to the old horizontal setup). The current coastal fleet will just be put back together into Rank I and II of this new combined techtree, and the Bluewater fleet continues from Rank III and onwards.
I’ve also added some different BR ranges. Naval forces right now is very compressed and unbalanced in some cases, so here I showcase a more un-compressed BR range for the naval vessels.
This combined techtree again puts all vessels of around WW2, or before WW2, into one techtree. And the top of the line vehicles in this techtree are ofcourse battleships!
Step 2, the “Modern fleet”
Spoiler
Here is where we introduce something completely new.We’ve got a smaller naval techtree which branches of from the regular naval tree, just like Helicopters do from the ground and air techtree.
The way you unlock this “Modern fleet” is by unlocking either Rank III naval, or Rank V aviation.This new naval techtree specifically includes only modern vessels. Vessels with radar, modern guns, missiles, you name it.
And most importantly, this “Modern fleet” has it’s own matchmaker!
They cannot join any battles people have with the regular naval techtree!
Another thing worth noting is the BR range I’ve setup here. We can see that the first vessels you get start at a BR of 6.0. So now your modern vessels will sit at a BR which is much more realistic. Guided missiles can be added in full to all these modern ships. They no longer fight WW2 stuff, so for balance sake it’s become much easier to implement.
Something that you can see in the illustration above is that I pointed out the Italian cruiser Garibaldi (1961 refit). This is a WW2 light cruiser which got most of it’s older weaponry replaced with more modern weapons, and anti air missiles. These very interesting modern cruisers will now have their very own spot in this “Modern fleet”. If they were to be put into the current Bluewater fleet, then it’s very messy since they really lack in primary weaponry to fight other cruisers. But they have powerfull 76mm Oto Melara secondaires which will destroy any small ship that dares comes near. So either the BR for it would be to low and it’s stupidly overpowered, or it’s to high and it’s straight up useless.
So again, having them in their own “Modern fleet” techtree makes much more sense.
Also, light cruisers like the Belfast, Tiger, Chapayev and Sverdlov are also modern light cruisers. So technically these could go into the “Modern fleet” too!
Fun little thing, technically even the USS Iowa in it’s 1984 refit could be added into this techtree. It is modern after all, but it would be one of, if not the only, battleship in the “Modern fleet”.
Step 3, discussing aircraft in these naval battles
Spoiler
Another big thought that came to my mind are aircraft.
The higher we go in BR, the more modern we get with aircraft of course. So battleships will eventually go to BR’s of around 9.0, which will introduce many modern weapon systems, while the battleships are stuck in WW2.
So here is what I propose:
For the “WW2 fleet”: Aircraft of BR 1.0 up to 8.0 can join the battles. Even if you are playing a BR 9.0 battleship, you can only take planes up to 8.0 into battle with you.
This makes sure that WW2 battleships won’t have to fight things like cold war supersonic jets.
For the “Modern fleet”: Aircraft from Rank V and higher can join the battles. The “Modern fleet” starts at a BR of 6.0, so when playing these first ships you won’t encounter many aircraft (Maybe a He 162 here and there). But as you go up in BR with the ships, so do the aircraft. And eventually we’ll come to the point where you can take out your F-4E Phantom II, together with your BR 10.7 modern frigate.
But there is another issue I have with aircraft. At the higher levels of Naval you as an aircraft have to face stronger and stronger anti aircraft weaponry. And one aircraft vs an entire battleship with WW2 era anti-aircraft weapons just doesn’t work.
For this I propose a simple idea. When playing at, let’s say, the BR 4.7 area when you spawn in a plane, you now also spawn with a second AI controlled plane that will follow you in a tight formation (This AI plane will ofcourse be the same plane as you, carrying the same loadout).
When you drop your weapons, the AI drops theirs. When you manoeuvre around they follow. When you do a loop they do too. Heck even if you activate your aerobatic smoke they do too!
And the higher in BR you go the more AI’s will spawn with you in your formation. So at the battleship level it will no longer be you against an entire battleship. No it will be you with four more AI controlled aircraft.
This higher number of aircraft flying towards a single ship will also start to stress the AI gunners. If you get lucky as the pilot the gunners might target your AI buddies first and you get more time to get in close and drop your payload!Imagine this when you are flying the AM-1 and carrying 3 x 2,216 lb torpedoes. Now the battleship will have to deal with 15 torpedoes if you and your AI buddies all make it through to him!
Same goes for dive bombers. You can now get so many more bombs of at a single battleship, this will start to even the odds!One final exception to this idea would be strategic bombers. I’m not looking forward to seeing a formation of five Pe-8’s flying overhead. So strategic bombers still only spawn as just the one single plane.
Step 4, future additions to these techtrees
Spoiler
One final thing I want to touch on are submarines.
We’ve so far had events which tested modern submarines. I’ve always found this interesting, but never saw this working ingame because modern submarines vs battleships……well the battleships will almost always lose to them.
Now modern submarines have their place in the “Modern fleet”, whereas WW2 submarines have their place in the “WW2 fleet” where they have a much more balanced fight against WW2 destroyers and WW2 sub chasers.
Step 5, the final end result
Spoiler
So, let’s say all this is added in game, what have we got?
We now have a proper separation between WW2 and modern vessels. Things like the PG-02 or Freccia P-493 no longer ruin games where they fight against WW2 Higgins boats. Instead modern vessels fight other modern vessels, even jet aircraft.
For the battleship players, they now have a fair game where it’s strictly battleship vs battleship. You won’t have to worry about getting ammo wreaked by a modern frigate’s anti surface missile.
One thing people might point out is that they only want to play big ships. So now they have to start with small boats again.
Well all I will say to this is that when I started playing this game, I wanted to play with jet aircraft, but I still had to start with biplanes.Plus it’s only two ranks which include small boats, you can grind through it in only a day or two. So I really don’t see this as a problem whatsoever.
Here are some ingame examples of what the current techtrees would look like:
USA:
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Germany:
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Russia:
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Britain:
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Japan:
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Italy:
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And that is it!
I seriously came up with all of this when I couldn’t fall asleep last night, and I spend two hours laying awake thinking of every possible solution, and I do strongly believe that this is by far the best idea for it!
Please let me know all of your opinions on this in the poll above and the comments!
Take care everyone, see you on the high seas!