Proper way to play war thunder as a new player

Game Discussion General Discussion
2

Do you want to avoid losing SL?

Do not J out when you get critical or severe damaged. Only J out when your tail is blown off or pilot is dead/burned to crisp.

Literally all there is to it in Air RB.

Why?

Because SL costs scale by minute alive, but for whatever reason J-ing out while your plane is technically not “dead” sets the timer to maximum.

This makes a difference of possibly 10K SL in some rank IV/V aircraft.

There’s no way to lose SL in ARB if you follow this workaround. Play as much as you have fun, employ reasonable strategy and try to outplay your opponent.

Levels alone say nothing.

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3

Terrible advice.

Also not that good of an idea, because you’ll never play a single game ever.

???

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As a veteran i agree with this post…

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6

I know you’re probably just venting, but ironically you actually have a couple pieces of good advice in there. Of course avoiding the team entirely and sideclimbing into space is exaggerated, but on principle sideclimbing and not relying on your team are pretty good habits to have.

Don’t get fixated on player levels. I’m level 100, been for years. Got there playing bombers and tanks. I’m at best average at playing fighters. High level doesn’t mean skilled.

Crew skills aren’t that vital unless you’re playing jets. It doesn’t take that long to max out G-Tolerance and Stamina, which are the most useful skills. After that a few points on Keen Vision and Awareness are enough. Vitality is useless as you’ll die when your pilot is sniped anyway. It means you can have pretty good crew performance at level 10-15. If you need to boost your crew level to buy Expert training you can just put some XP on cheap gunner skills.

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7

great advice! Primarily, stay away from the furball (your team mates sure won’t cover you there), and stay away from players that are obviously more experienced then you are. I would also recommend watching the replays from the top scorers on both teams and see what they did to be successful. The very top players rarely fight low to the ground. Climbing high, diving in, and speeding away is the best way for a new player to get kills. It’s also important to understand the performance differences between vehicles. If you are short of experience it’s best to avoid combat with 109’s and spitfires altogether if possible.

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Your guide is a mix of hidden truth, frustration and rather misleading recommendations based on way too low experience.

The main issues with playing US props in Air RB can be traced back to player skill, wt meta and BR policy settings. As this is a topic mentioned every few weeks i copied a reply out of another thread (P-51 D):

  1. WT community in US props:
    US is one of the big 3 nations and extremely popular. Almost everybody wants to play iconic US fighters as fast as possible. This leads to a high ratio of rookies playing them - you have basically the same effects in Ground RB with Germany (“Germany suffers”) and Tiger I players. In other words: Flying with or allocated to US plane dominated teams is usually a real pain, almost every time a mixed bag and not really tempting for experienced players unless you fly in a squad and/or you can make them work.
  1. WT meta In US props:
  • The attributes “climb and turn” are decisive in wt as climb helps to get positional advantage and most less experienced players tend to start turn fights whilst being under pressure - instead of relying on their advantages “speed” and to a certain degree on “armament”. The focus on high altitude performance was a doctrinal issue due to the “Germany first” approach of the US and the USAAF in particular in the ETO.
  • So if irl events led to focus on high alt performance and most Air RB matches are decided at lower altitudes, you have the root cause of your pov. - and that stuff like the P-47s, P-38s were at least in Europe (except 56th FG) withdrawn from A2A duties (due to a lack of performance) should give you another indicator that history is biased.
  • For stuff like fighters active in the Pacific - after mid 1942 the IJA and IJN were out of trained pilots, like the Luftwaffe in Spring/Summer 1944. So it became a turkey shooting in the Pacific and war of attrition above Germany decided by numbers and lack of fuel for flight operations and pilot training since 1941 for the Luftwaffe boys…
  • To deal with “climb and turn” issues - wt gave the US players a hell of very capable fighters with air spawn - with alt advantage there is no need for “turn” if you are faster and can play energy.
  1. WT battle ratings for US planes
    Imho you are flat wrong with your assumption that US planes are overtiered. Most of them are severely undertiered, like 2.7 P-39 N, the 3.7 P-51 C or the 4.7 F4U-4 (=the same plane like the 5.7 F4U-4b with 20mm).
    The problem is that the experience level of their pilots is way too low, some planes need certain play styles to make them work and enemy aircraft usually climb and turn better.

If i see the rest of your recommendations:

Summary

From my pov any new player US air player who might read your OP won’t benefit from it.

So i won’t reply to your points as a whole, some of them like climbing are basics whilst others like playing as a bomber won’t improve the skill level regarding aerial warfare of those players.

It boils down that you missed 2 major things:

  1. WT is no rocket science and rather easy to learn. None of your recommendations included the necessity of players to invest some time to learn how this game works, how to fly & aim, how to progress whilst having fun - even watching some vid on YT by Defyn are helpful.

  2. WT (and your referenced mode Air RB) is designed to allow very fast progress up to rank III & IV without having any clue how the game works.

    So if you struggle with playing a rather mediocre plane like the P-38 E at 3.0 you reached your individual skill ceiling a little bit too early. But these drawbacks are fully intended as they shall encourage players to start investing real money.

Basics to play (US props) Air RB in wt:

  1. Be clear about your goals when playing.
  2. Your goals determine the necessity to have a strategy to get there.
  3. WT requires a lot of time or a lot of money to progress.
  4. WT requires the willingness (and ability) to learn.
  5. The wt forum is full of good advises to get better & to progress.
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9

Here you see a perfect example of the self serving veteran player from my guide.

He word spews to make himself sound knowledgeable and important. However he hides the truth for his own benefit.

He does not inform you on the state of mixed battles. As a US player, you won’t fight axis players, you will fight everyone. This includes French and British planes, planes that either have the same performance or superior performance.

If you engage in ACTIVE PLAY, no matter how you play or ‘good advice’ you take, you will either be out climbed, out dived, run down, or out gun.

Also keep in mind, this is the kind of player who also state ‘low tier=fun.’ Basically this is a bully giving advice on how to stayed bullied, he has a vested interest keeping you engaged in a losing fight so he can have his fun.

Need proof? His comments on 'not enough experience ’ his solution? Keep getting stomped until you get the ‘required’ experience.

Also you can see how he’s bought into the ‘active’ play mode I mentioned before. ’ needs a lot of time or money’, this is called OBSESSION and is very much a form of GAMBLING ADDICTION. This is to be avoided where possible, it doesn’t help your mental state nor provides a good balance in life.

Instead follow the advice ’ don’t plan to advance’ if you don’t look for that new plane, if you don’t be obsessed with making Sl that you throw it at modifications and repair costs. Again use the free repair system, play only 1-2 matches a day, and bait the enemy team to use orders after you reached safe outer space in matches (since most likely you be the last one on your team.) then you can avoid that frustrations and rage that comes with being a US player.

10

You literally cannot lose SL in air RB.

I can literally take off and suicide into enemy planes and make 4K SL profit after repair costs with the F8U-2. Props cost a third in repair cost except for things like the F4U-4B or F82E.

Also yes, prop tier is the most fun. Why? Engines are too weak to permit sustained turning and rapid climbs, forcing you to carefully manage your very finite energy - you can only regain energy slowly and in ways that leave you vulnerable. This creates a very exciting game of jockeying for position before commiting to the actual fight. Guns are short range, so the only way to get a kill is to either ambush someone or outmaneuver them - unlike the F8U-2 where pressing spacebar 4 times gives you a 4x multikill for very little effort.

Now, ARB props has issues. Namely match length and objective design making slow-paced, methodical gameplay be disadvantaged because playing with discipline means your team dies by the time you got your first kill or the enemy team does and you’re left doing nothing. Things snowball too easily and that’s because everyone flies at a low altitude into the middle of the map.

Also.

American planes are awesome. I love my cannon mustang and my F4U-4.

Watch your replays to see where you fucked up, practice your gunnery in custom matches if your aim is not certain and research the plane you fly and the planes you can face for their energy economy.

Seriously, watch your replays. They’re a goldmine of improvement. You don’t realize your mistakes in the heat of battle, but re-watching it makes them blatantly clear. Like, my duel in a p-51-d5 vs bf109k4 - I lost sight of the kraut and rather than play it safe as you should and accelerate away while assuming he’s behind me… I tried to be “smart” and try to ambush him in a cloud which gave him an easy shot due to me climbing and turning and boom, dead. Why did I die? Bf109K4 OP pls nerf? No. Violated one of the main rules of dogfighting: “Lost sight of enemy? Assume they’re right behind you and disengage as well as you can.” Why did I violate this rule? I got greedy and overconfident. Hell, even wins when you re-watch them will make you cringe. Another Bf109K4, we made a head-on pass and for some absud reason I decided to immelman after him. I only lived because he missed me by a few inches. I was very stupid and should’ve died.

It takes effort, yes. That effort is rewarding.

Beyond the questionable objective design that encourages snowballing, the only legitimate complaint one can have in this manner is crew skills. The maneuvers I can do in my P-51 cannonstang (maxed crew, expert crew) far out-perform the maneuvers I can do in the P-51-D5 as the D5 blacks out from just trying to follow a BF109K4 in a descending spiral since I was an idiot and I put the P-51-D5 on a new crew slot.

Also.

Levels mean jack.

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All this guy ever flies is the bf109 variants.

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This person seems to be confused as well, my skills are not in question here.

In fact I’ll display the evidence that explains why passive play is the best option for new US players

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Here is my up to date stat card.

The p38 e is currently my best plane with 174 players downed with only 69 deaths in 101 matches. This puts my K:d ratio at 2.5. But let’s look at the real numbers here.

Out of the 101 missions I have only won 30 of them. That’s a 70% lose rate and despite my overwhelmingly positive K:D I only averaged roughly 1,700 Sl per match and at a repair cost of 1,300 for the p38, the average winnings turns out to be 400 Sl a match.

So as you can see, across all my fighter I run a net positive K:D yet I have a net negative win rate. In fact the only aircraft that comes close at a positive win rate, at 45%, is the A-20g ; a bomber.

So armed with this info there is only one clear choice, switch to passive play, abuse free repairs, play only when your planes are done with free repairs.

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Fight Club - Imgflip

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Mate B-25s cannot outturn a Spitfire. If you turnfighting or are forced into a dog fight with a B-25 that is because the person who is using the B-25 knows what they are doing. Trying to micro-manage your turn and the direction you are flying while turn-fighting and using the turrets is high skill, high reward, and high risk. 3 great awards in 1 purple package.

One more thing your state meant “Best bet” is very subjective. Flying in loopy loops isn’t gonna help you out, you simply wasted time. Many people tend to climb on shallow angles upwards. That’s how you gain altitude, doing what you’re doing makes you a liability.

One again subjective, that was your entire own choice. I’ve turned matches from 3 people fighting numerical odds into a victory. Experience means a lot and know how matters as well.

Space climbing doesn’t gain you anything. You become nothing more than a liability for anyone above you and trust me people will be above you. Especially in aircraft not designed for high-altitude engagements that will lock up heavily.

Abuse?, matey it’s your job to realize what they are pulling off, if you’re not learning what other players have done that you fought you’re always going to become a one-trick pony.

Playing a bomber doesn’t mean anything, that’s easy mode to not gain any actual fighter pilot experience. Nor able to learn how to use a bomber in a combat role. You would turn your aircraft into nothing more than a turkey dinner.

One final post message/P.S.: A lot of your advice is very opinionated. Rather than trying to remain on a more neutral grounds. Just what you wrote has told me that you do not know how to read/understand what the aircraft’s limitations are. So you end up forcing it into the worse-case scenarios rather than the best-case scenarios.

Ex: People using the P-63 as a ground attack just because it has a 37mm which was bomber hunting not a ground attack, it can do that but only on the lighter side of things since it was not designed for it in mind. Another example is certain A6M’s designed to engage bombers because of their heavier firepower.

14

Obviously you missed the point.

The point of space climbing and all the other strategies I have discussed is to frustrate the enemy team in wasting a 5k order on the player while escaping to a location that is a pain to get to in the time limit.

There is no benefit to dogfighting, you actually have a better opportunity to earn more by annoying the enemy team.

15

Nah, best way is:
1-Buy Click Bait
2-Join battle
3-After being killed, leave battle.
4-Repeat first 3 steps

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You’re not frustrating anyone. At all dude.

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Tell that to the private dms 🤣

18

Facepalm Let me put this into basic words.

Pros: You gain experience
Cons: There are no cons. You aren’t paying Repair costs of 18,000 or 25k. Anymore.

Also, using the excuse “private dms” how many people? hmm? Is it 15 people a day, is it everyone in every match no. Most don’t respond or care. Those 1 or 2 people going to your dms is a needle in a haystack.

19

If your claims of K:D ratio are correct, I seriously doubt this.

P38E has a SL economy modifier in ARB of 80%

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Now, this data is from before Severe Damage was introduced which splits a kill into 80% severe damage, 20% finish off (own target) or 40% (someone else’s target).

Getting a K/D of 2.5 should, with 80% economy modifier should give a range of:

All our 2.5 kills are finishing off someone else’s target:
1400 x 0.4 (finishing) x 0.8 (economy modifier) x 2|3 = 896 to 1344

All our 2.5 kills are finished off by a teammate:
1400 x 0.8 (severe) x 0.8 (economy modifier) x 2|3 = 1792 to 2688

All our 2.5 kills were fully credited to us:
1400 x 1.0 (severe) x 0.8 (economy modifier) x 2|3 = 2240 to 3360

And this is before we consider assists (630x0.8), hits and critical hits. Also victory (1.47) vs loss (1.23). Oh, and awards. Awards can make you earn 18000 SL with a 130% (4.0 BR) plane.

With the claimed K/D ratio, I’m very skeptical of you struggling with SL.

Sure, you’re not printing as much SL for literally no effort as a F8U-2, but… your upcoming Rank 2/Rank 3 planes cost like 60K SL at best to buy and crew (Yak 9T, BF109F4, F4U-4).

Planes that cost more than this are preceeded by planes that have a 130-150% SL economy modifier. You’re using a plane that has a 80% economic modifier.

Once you fly the F4U-4 over the P38E, you get 130% SL per action and only pay at most 3K SL per spawn. Likely less if you die before achieving anything.

20

Okay then, as soon as you take off stay as low to the ground as possible to avoid people seeing you. When getting into a dogfight, turn your engine to 0% throttle so they overshoot, and pitch your nose up to avoid getting hit. If someone is on your tail, immediately try to turnfight no matter what plane it is, because if it turns better than you the enemy will turn too much and be thrown off your tail.

If you are really high up for no reason and need to get down, deploy your gear and flaps and pitch straight down. Your gear and flaps will help you not go too fast and rip your wings.

21

Depending on the plane your flaps and gear will rip themselves off and you’ll die.

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Okay, just so to confirm and not trust another person’s research entirely.

K:D of 2.5. A 3 kill game should more than fit the bill

C202 has the same 80% economy modifier as the P38E.

Reward per specific action broken down with individual proof

1 severe damage was worth 840 SL

Spoiler

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1 kill confirm was worth 210 SL

Spoiler

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1 crit was worth 105 SL

Spoiler

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1 hit was worth 53 SL

Spoiler

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Winning was worth 1957 SL, which scaled down to losing would be (1957/1.47x1.27 = 1690)
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The match over-all paid me 8K SL and I was flying a kind-of-stock plane with a mostly fresh crew still

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If you accomplish nothing, but get pity score for sake of activity (that is: get hit by the enemy and:

  1. Pilot is dead
  2. Tail is cut off
  3. You’re on fire/wing severed/control loss and you let your plane crash. DO NOT J OUT. IF YOU J OUT YOU DONT GET THE PITY SCORE. I think this is your issue. I used to struggle with SL in ARB a lot as well because I had 10K+ repair costs even if I died right at the start in the F4U-4B and F82E - it was because I caught on fire or lost a wing and J’d out. DO NOT J OUT UNTIL GAME SAYS YOU’RE DEAD.
    Yes, it’s very stupid and goes against common sense.

You’re guaranteed to make 1690 silver lions at absolute minimum as "Reward for participating in the mission.) for a 10 minute game

Your repair cost/minute in a c202 is 169 sl/minute capped at 1315.
Your repair cost/minute in a P38E is 181 sl/minute capped at 1299 SL.

You literally cannot lose SL.