I’d fly low and pop up at about 7-8km from the S-300 site, then fire a HARM or two. They’ll draw fire from the ZSUs and OSAs while I can gun the two S-300 radars. Usually one of the HARMs will get through, but not always. Then I mash chaff and dip to do the same on the next site. The Walleyes are useful as bait if you run out of HARMs to hit the third S-300 site on one sortie, or as insurance if the OSAs focus you. It’s mostly about delaying your pop-up for as long as possible to give the AA as little time to engage your munitions, since I tend to use the munitions as bait to buy time to strafe.
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Wouldnt you just be quicker and safer dropping the walleyes for the extra speed and maneuverability, both to get to the S-300 site, and when attacking it?
actually I found the harms suck at killing the strella since they fire to late to dodge or get a good lock, the gbus work great against them tho. the a7e is pure sead against the sams.
No, the Walleyes don’t meaningfully affect the top speed much and depending on outmanoeuvring Osas and Buks isn’t reliable. Having 2 extra munitions to distract or kill SAMs is usually more valuable.
Please tell more about adjustig Air simulator mode EC. Gamemode struggles for a long time. Sim player base is annoyed and bored at the same time. Everyone know that game will focus on a most populated gamemodes, that is a fact, but you have really nice and more and more populated air sim mode which is forgotten by a developers. New aircraft generations broke the top tier EC. Rewards are embarassing. Lack of variety, every map is just the same thing, a a few bots for a PvE engage, maps too small for higher BRs. Game not punish “J” out before missile hit. SIM EC struggle a lot. Can you share with a players what is planned for a SIM mode?
I think the best change would be reducing the amount of short range AAs and changing the mobile ones attached to convoys to IR sams like the LAV-AD and Strela. We shouldnt have 4 times the amount of SPAAs as we have regular ground forces.
rare footage of anti radiation missiles working well
Honestly, you’re embarrassing yourself, use StatShark.
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I appreciate the thought but the damage is long taken hold. I lost feeling in half my face, i haven’t had good sleep, i know my reputation is garbage and I’m the worst Warthunder Player of all time for losing 800,000 silver to deaths. I’m constantly being killed in Air-to-Air even if I beam and dump countermeasures. I should not have come here.
Also, the Russians are constantly winning now in every match. Glad Real Life was never this 1 sided in the Cold War.
3 Likes
Hello, dear War Thunder development team!
My name is Nick. I have been actively playing War Thunder since last summer, although I originally joined the project back in 2013 when ground vehicles were first introduced.
I would like to share my feedback on the new “Nuclear Thunder” mode.
First, I want to mention the positives, which in my opinion outweigh the negatives.
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This is truly a new mode for aircraft gameplay. Air RB has been stagnating for quite a long time, and this is the first time in years that something genuinely fresh has appeared, bringing a different kind of aviation gameplay. It is not just PvP between aircraft anymore, but a full tactical mode with strikes on enemy fortification lines, where your actions can determine whether friendly AI forces manage to break through the frontline.
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Faction-based confrontation with aircraft of roughly the same era. Personally, I have always wanted a mode like this — where things are closer to reality and NATO aircraft fight against Soviet aircraft that were historically designed for this kind of confrontation. This adds a sense of realism that sets War Thunder apart from many other games.
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Reworked AI units and the introduction of new air defense systems. You managed to create a believable battlefield environment where ground forces are protected by strong air defenses and AI behaves in a more strategic way. I would really like to see similar AI systems eventually appear in standard Air RB as well.
Now about the downsides and some suggestions.
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As much as I like the new AI systems, I have to admit that at the moment the SAM systems on the map — particularly the Osa — feel excessively strong. They almost completely prevent ground attack and close air support. Aircraft like the A-10 or Su-25 are destroyed on approach almost instantly, and even complex maneuvers with countermeasures often do not help. Unfortunately, the new anti-radiation missiles also feel ineffective, since they are easily intercepted by enemy air defense systems.
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The main reward of the match — killstreak that allows you to spawn a strategic bomber (B-52 or Tu-95) — currently feels disproportionate compared to the effort required to obtain it. You need to play using all your knowledge and earn a large amount of points. But once you finally spawn the bomber, you can be shot down immediately by enemy interceptors, right near the spawn point, where you don’t have a chance to defend yourself in any way.
I would suggest either lowering the number of points required to obtain this reward or providing additional protection for the bomber — for example by increasing its survivability or adding some form of enemy aircraft detection near the bomber spawn area, similar to how it works in Ground RB.
During the regular part of the battle, your success mostly depends on your skill. But once you spawn the strategic bomber, your personal skill matters much less, and the outcome depends purely on luck — and not in your favor.
Thank you for your work and for bringing new ideas to the game. I hope this mode will continue to evolve and become a permanent part of War Thunder.
2 Likes
can someone put a photo of the updated map of the event, with the farest airfield from the center? And if you are so kind put even the old one for compare them?
Wasted yet another booster because you force us into mostly completed matches. Thanks a lot Gaijin.
This is simply a knowledge gap players need time adjusting to, I genuinely don’t think toning down the AA’s capabilities would be good for anyone in the long run. AA can be reliably dealt with by those who understand how to, as demonstrated here:
Otherwise, glad to finally see some constructive criticism today :)
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how to see this stats?
thx <3
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notice how it says average player not bad player
mine is probably horrible since i played alot of stock f15 ge, f18e f4j and so on lately
instead of going stat padding in my Russian top tier
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Yeah, that’s not the bad part, I don’t like using stats to prove something but have you seen his comment? The one I replied to?
haha nope
There are 2 problems with SEAD:
One is the visual sight AA guys are somehow detecting an upcoming missile on them and always destroy the coming missile. Not realistic for tech out of 80s much.
The second is the same AA assume perfect tracking between trees or if your aircraft is semi visible behind hills.
2 Likes
Preface
The Good
This modes fixes a lot issues normal ARB has.
I do think the following are good and absolutely should be kept:
- Multiple spawn points spread the players across the map
- Ground attackers, bombers and multirole planes doing air to ground stuff (“bombers” further in the post) actually have a purpose *more on this later
- Actual objectives that matter
- Respawns and longer match timer
I absolutely love the overall shape of this mode.
While ARB mostly limits you to using a fighter or being next to useless (for the match outcome) in a bomber this mode provides opportunities for a lot more planes to actually contribute and not feel like dead weight. There is actually an incentive now to protect your bombers as they are now useful and will help you long term in the match.
Or at least that’s the idea. While at a glance this mode seems to fix most ARB issues it doesn’t really work. Let me elaborate.
The Bad
Game ending nukes/killstreaks
As it stands now you can get a game ending 1.5Mt nuclear bomb even if you completely ignore every single objective in the mode and just go in the middle of the map to mindlessly destroy fighters. It completely undermines the bomber role once again as you can lose a game in which you are holding a huge tactical advantage. Why have your bombers go and chip away at enemy depots, AA and radars when you can replace them with fighters to deny the enemy from getting the big nuke. These strategic bombers literally go around the objective of the mode.
To quote myself from the main event topic:
I lost games in which my team had a massive 4 AF advantage and a large number of enemy AA was destroyed simply because someone accumulated enough SP (going negative on the K/D btw) in the middle of the map. I had the opposite happen as well. Camping the air spawns for strategic bombers is not a solution as it is the most boring thing ever.
It just doesn’t feel good to lose a game this way. It doesn’t feel good to win it this way either if you are in a bomber as it feels like all your efforts have been for nothing.
Now let me propose a solution much more in line with the spirit of the mode.
First of all these slow subsonic bombers (B-52 and Tu-95) will not work for this at the BR spread we had in the event. For these BRs we need some supersonic delivery methods.
What I propose is actually very simple. Just have planes carrying the big game ending nuke spawn all the way back on the main airfield. This would promote more teamwork (more on this later) as it would encourage the team to escort their win ticket to the other side of the map and it would also give the enemies time to react and defend.
The Ugly
As it stands right now AA is way to powerful, there is too much of it and it straight up cheats.
We have SACLOS AAs on the frontline that cannot be flared and cannot be notched. And there is an insane amount of them. All approaches to destroying them seem bad. Gunning them is basically out of the question. Launching AGMs from long ranges is also a bad option since the AA is most likely to intercept them. Saturating them with bombs seems to be the best option but if you want to do it from relative safety you need to drop from high alt where longer range AA will target you.
Worst of all is even if you manage to destroy them they respawn straight on the frontline again fairly quickly.
Then you have the fact that they can fire on the move while it is impossible to do so while driving the same systems in ground modes.
Then you have the fact that their tracking is absolutely perfect not to be impaired by foliage or trees.
Then you have the fact that they simply have their search radar down until they are ready to shot at you while still having real time information to where you are at all times.
Even after the supposed reloading nerf it still feels the same. Not to mention that even after that I still got shot down by a Buk and by the time it showed me the system for the killcam it had all 4 missiles on the launcher.
Not to mention the bugs where radar guided AA will simply not trip your RWR.
This issue is so huge there is no single change that can fix it.
Let me be clear. I want AA systems in this mode. I want them to present a real threat. But I also want at least one reliable way to fight them and I want to be rewarded with actual game impact when I destroy them.
Here are some ideas:
- Reduce the number of “short range” AAs (Osa and Roland systems).
- Push them further from the frontline.
- Place weaker AA systems on the frontline. Make it so that they can be destroyed.
- If you make them gun AAs make it so that they are not aimbotting.
- Make it so that destroyed AA doesn’t respawn in the middle of nowhere like on the frontline. For depot or AF AA it makes sense but not for frontline AAs or other encampment AAs. Make it so that they respawn back at a depot and have them drive to their station.
- Make them unable to fire on the move (follow the same rule as players do).
- Make it so that they are not omniscient if they have their search radar down.
- Give all AA systems longer reloads. Make it so that they have a limited number of ammo next to them, and if that is depleted they must wait for resupply (more on this later, I have an idea).
Similar thing goes for those early warning radars. It makes no sense for them to just respawn after a few minutes or whatever.
More Ugly
This event and this mode bring into the spotlight how awful communication systems are in War Thunder.
You have 3 main modes of communicating and they all suck.
- Text chat. It’s the most expressive options as you can say whatever. However it’s not auto translated so it’s not really useful. Also you need to stop controlling you vehicle to use it. Not ideal.
- Radio buttons (T-4-6). They are both quick to use and are localized however they are extremely limiting in what you can say. There is only a few useful commands and that’s it.
- Pinging on the map. Gives you the option to relay positional information but nothing else. This needs to be used with either chat or radio.
Gaijin just copy other games with their contextual radial menu. Make it so that you can ping on the ground/map, spotted targets, friendly players and friendly assets (airfields, ground units etc.) with options like attack, defend, cover, etc.
Here’s Apex’s wheel for example
Spoiler
Make it so that you can respond to pings (affirmative, negative, moving on the mark, etc.)
Another thing that would be very useful it to be able to draw something on the map. Similar to the XVM mod in the other tank game. Have us be able to draw an arrow/path to signify what path we plan to take.
Another issue we had for a long time is that the weapons display for your teammates (in the leaderboard) is broken. You don’t know what loadout they are running. Hope I don’t have to explain why that is crucial for team coordination. Please fix it. Also make a separate icon for nukes alongside the yield.
Random ideas
- Add carriers and naval targets/assets. Such a wasted opportunity. We straight up have an ocean on this map.
- Add helicopters (both AI and player controlled). Have them help in assaulting enemy positions. You can have them carry materials for repairs and ammo to resupply forward positions.
Closing words
I have been crying on the forums for years at this point about ARB. I am very happy that we are getting a new mode. I am also happy that you seem to be listening to feedback or at least I hope that you are.
You are so close Gaijin. I am hoping that this will get fixed and that these are just small setbacks in early stage of testing the new mode.
Please don’t screw it up.
Thank you for reading my semi unhinged unfiltered rant. I might update it after the event is over and I collect my thoughts a bit more.
Also don’t you close this. If you truly want feedback you will not close it.This needs not to be lost in the main thread with thousands of replies
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