(I’d love to post this into the aviation section of the academy once there is one again.)
Context:
Let’s assume we talk about aviation only.
Let’s further assume I am relating to BRs I through IV.
Analysis
The way I understand how crews are advanced right now, some skills are of very different value to diffeent aircraft types.
I can see three distinct skill sets:
Single-seat fighters and attackers
don’t need ANY of the defensive armament skills
planes with a single gunner, which still have maneuverability, like heavy fighters, some attackers
don’t need “number of experienced gunners”
but benefit from all other skills
heavy bombers
can skip the G tolerance (mostly at least… )
apparently need the “number of experienced gunners” urgently
Now my question
Is it a good idea, to have crew slots always assigned to the same type of aircraft, so you can skill the crews differently? Thus saving crew skill points / being more efficient?
I’m assuming everything from previous forums is gone?
Pilots I always get G-force/vitality/stamina then keen sight and awareness.
If in a bomber pilot first up to stamina then gunners for crew experienced/g-force/vitality and again back to stamina/keen sight/awareness.
Regarding slots. I have 5. First 3 are Fighters and last 2 are Bombers done by tier
I would suggest the solution above…4/5 crew slots with 2 for fighters and 2/3 for planes with gunners…it is way more “expensive” to have 5 (or more) crews that can do it all…
Personally I used to distinguish between fighter/attacker/bomber and tank/TD/SPAA/CAS crews but I stopped doing that because I found I just didn’t play attackers or bombers very often, and as a result I would end up with one crew at level 40 and another at level 10. This then also blocks expert crewing Rank III+ vehicles on that crew which is really bad.
On the other hand, aside from your argument about skill specialization, you can also make the argument that when e.g. grinding an air tree to top tier, having one crew at level 35 that can be experted on every vehicle is better than having five on level 20 which just can’t.
I’d say overall the best strategy is dependent on your long term plans. Are you planning on playing a lot of WW2 bombers? If so specializing a crew for them makes sense. If not then these valuable crew XP could’ve went towards Keen Vision or Stamina which are just more important for everything else.
That looks reasonable. Three slots for bombers/attackers seems like too many to me, but your mileage might vary – It kind of just depends on what kind of vehicles you actually play.
It all depends what you’re playing, AB you need as many slots as possible, makes sense to initially specialize them, if you stick to air RB in theory you could focus on a single slot.
Something like reload speed isn’t really needed in RB while it’s essential in AB.
I’d say initially have a couple of slots pushing for fighter, and a couple for bombers/ attackers.
But in the long run it won’t really matter, except for the newer nations all my slots are maxed for air, ground and sea, but that’s after 10 years of playing…
Oh yes, I should have mentioned: I play both AB and RB. And to save SL’s when I am in the mood for RB, I play each slot and then leave the vehicle in to be repaired, then use the next slot.etc.
Fully agree regarding Air RB - one slot is a major advantage. If you are able to create undisturbed 1 vs 1 on your terms (i fly props only) you can beat a hell of far superior planes just by forcing them to commit to high speed and high g-load fights.
I liked your idea, but as previously stated by a fellow player: It depends on your personal goals which path you might choose.
Imho your approach to allocate specific slots for specific plane classes is correct.
For bombers (in Air RB) i would focus just on gunner reload time and their vitality - if an enemy gets close enough that the ai gunners open fire you are most likely dead at this time.
For fighters (in Air RB) it depends imho to a very large degree to the nation you play.
So in a Japanese fighter slot you fight with turning advantage (g-force and stamina) as you start fights after you had gained positional advantage. As you outturn everything vitality is less important as you avoid headons and you don’t chase bombers - i mean you fly a paper plane so your goal is to avoid any hits the first place.
The US P-47 pilot might choose g-force and vitality if he enters the fight with a significant alt/speed advantage.
Yes, specilization is the way to go.
Why?
Battle pass requires tasks.
Tasks need all three type of planes.
Learning how to fly all three types of aircraft is good.
You will get that slot to maximum quicker.
Once at max, you can use the extra crew experience gained on other types of aircraft or even different vehicles.