From the very first moment, I’ve loved playing Simulator Air Battles in War Thunder. It’s my favorite mode, but there’s always something or someone that ruins the experience for me. What simulator enthusiasts generally look for is authenticity — the experience as close to reality as possible. I won’t comment on the game physics, but I will on the aircraft.
Yeah, because when I come across an American Ki-66 or Bf-109, a German Yak, an Italian P-47, and so on — it just kills my desire to play. If I’m playing against the US, seeing a Bf-109 with stars on its wings really disgusts me.
Now, I know I’m an “extremist” — I search the internet for decals to make my plane as realistic as possible, and I would never put a bomber decal on a fighter. But this isn’t about aesthetics — it’s about the gameplay experience. Having to chase an American Bf-109 while flying a German Bf-109 is ridiculous.
Chasing a Yak for ten minutes only to find out it belongs to a German ally — equally ridiculous.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
Sure, it’s just a game, but if we’re talking about simulation, then let’s simulate. In Arcade, anything goes, and I’m fine with that. But in Sim? Come on…
History, realism, and simulation are three entirely separate things.
Simulation is… recreating environments in a digital space to serve a purpose.
Arma 3 is a communications and teambuilding simulator as an example.
Realism is the physics, and weapon systems.
History is in the record.
It’s how you can have arcadey simulators that focus and don’t focus on history.
It’s how you can have historical reenacting video games that aren’t realistic.
And so on.
Yeah, there are definitely moments when it gets frustrating but the sheer variety of planes is one of War Thunder’s biggest strengths. If you want extreme realism you should just play DCS.
I’m not trying to completely dismiss your opinion. The game probably needs some kind of penalty system for captured or lend-lease vehicles depending on the matchmaking.
There’s simply no reason to put the same aircraft in opposing teams.
It all comes down to that stupid tech tree progression.
Whats the point of having to play one nation to unlock vehicles of only that nation?
Sure WT has a million vehicles but to unlock them you need to play vehicles in a specific tech tree.
The cherry on top is having to unlock an identical vehicles, that only differ in paint schemes, multiple times.
Considering that captured and lend lease are for the most premium vehicles I doubt this can happen. Captured vehicles, apart from testing, were used during the conflict, so if your concern is about realism, get lost.
Back in the days we had historical matchmaking, with the current system there are countries facing each others whilst in real life they never did. And you CAN’T just want to penalize players for using the vehicles they like just because you don’t like that, it’s a bit selfish and unfair.
This is definitely frustrating, especially at high tiers where aircrafts require lot of rp and sl.
Just to make a quick correction.
I wrote “vehicles” earlier, but in this context “captured planes” would have been more accurate. well…captured planes that were actually put into combat service are extremely rare. The German P-47 and Yak-1B, American Bf 109F-4 and Ki-61, Jap P-51C were never operationally used in combat. Having multiple examples of these aircraft appearing on the battlefield —even in a game— would look quite ridiculous.
That would be even more problematic if it were Simulator Battles right?
There are a few exceptions I can live with - like, Italian P-47 when italy is on the allied side? It’s not as bad because at least P-47 fights with P-47. Similar for the german yak if USSR is on axis side.
My issue is planes flown against planes of the same sort (italian P-47 vs allied P-47, germans flying yak when USSR is allied).
Added hate: Finland on Allied side. Historically it ought be axis. OK, fine. Sweden is a thing so…
But I’m still salty over making positive identification of a Gustav in a hectic fight over bombers on dover strait (the bona fide LARP map) in my 109 F-4, then got shot down by said gustav.
And the countless times I see a P-38 flying above me in my corsair or mustang, I file it as “Fren :D! I’ve someone covering me!” and then get dived on because it was on axis side apparently. (or I see a P-38 in my 109 and dive on it and then have to break off after losing my altitude because it was… axis (taiwan)).
Imported or lend-lease planes should basically be locked to the team of the country that originally built them. With this “Cross nation
planes” system matching planes by Battle Rating would become much clearer — at least from WWII through the early Cold War.
For example, Jap and Italy and Hungary, Finland and Romania Bf109 should only be available on the Axis or German team, while Italy’s P-47 should be restricted to the Allied team. Captured planes should only be usable if their original producing country is on the same side. Things like that.
In BRs without IFF it’s really annoying. If I fly a Mustang, then a Bf 109 should be an enemy. Point. No discussion. But as most captured planes are premiums, the mammon-snail has another opinion…
90% Of us also hate the shared nation aircraft as well. An easy fix would be to make all of those captured aircraft fight for their parent nations/folder them in their parent nation. The Italian P-47 goes in the American tech tree, the German Yak-1b goes in the Russian tech tree etc.
We already actually have this I believe, the German/Italian C.202 can change skin to be either the German flown version or Italian.
I also say bring back Historical EC!! I never saw an empty game, it was fun and dare I say it the game actually regained some of the immersion it had lost.
The other thing I’ll mention is captured aircraft in mixed battles where there’s no cheesy blue I.D tags on friendlies.
Dude, That’s not right.
I’m okay with imported planes being added to the producing country’s tech tree. But captured aircraft are a different matter. It would be enough to just make them unusable in SB.
we had italy in the german tree before the italian one was added.
For the rest nothing will change. TEN or more years of requests for historical match up constantly ignored and they WON’T move captured premium from a tree to another.
For those ones complaining about how hard is to id a plane without IFF, well you know, there are markers and I doubt you open fire above 1 km in a prop plane
Just press TAB and you can see if there are captured flying in your own team, it’s not so difficult. There are way more important issues on this mode than captured/lend lease. Not to mention that in game we have aircrafts that never saw a battle or even paper planes, so… This is all pointless.
Captured planes are simply not realistic, they were used for testing at most and just painted so the people on the ground didn’t think the frontline was suddenly at their doorstep and shot down the precious info treasure.
Sweden is kind of a problem since Finland is glued to it
And China I forgot what side it fights for, I believe should be allies so japanese props will just evaporate.
Gaijin won’t do that, we’ve asked them before to remove captured aircraft from SB and they won’t do it. No doubt the money factor plays a role.
The captured aircraft are essentially just skins. It’s incredibly rare that one of them offers different performance compared to the original aircraft. They could easily go into their parent tech trees as rarer versions of the aircraft and it’d cure the captured problem.
Gaijin makes money.
We have the captured issue sorted.
It’s easy to do.
Sorted.
Looking at the scoreboard is almost useless as soon as one of your own team mates take off in the same aircraft. You’re also at a disadvantage as you’re having to stare at another screen as you potentially lose sight of the other aircraft. Meanwhile the captured plane is already getting into position to shoot you down.
The exact same complaint was made about captured tanks, because it’s a legitimate one.
Having aircraft that never flew is something I also massively disagree with as well but two wrongs don’t make a right.