State of Air Sim 2025

This is going to be short. I fired up air sim in 2013 and instantly got hooked. Got my ass kicked, did my research on most WW2 planes and tactics they used during combat. I got better i think.

I had a break from 2020 to 2025, it was still nice coming back but i am missing Historical Battles, every battle is some kind of fantasy setting Axis vs Allies, or even worse everybody vs everybody.
Also, every fighter pilot is sweeping the floor, no matter if it is zero or P47 usually nobody flies above 2000m.

Cmon guys, it is not about who is getting the most kills, this is not Call of Duty or other similar BS game. This is a game of skill, immersion, and staying alive to fight another day.

Other than that, WT is still awesome, and it is a joy to fly so many different warbirds.

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Brewster,

I too am disappointed with what Air Sim has turned into. We have not seen any changes in quite some time. It’s true that fighters tend to have a better match and bombers and strike aircraft perform the same exact routine every time. Go bomb a base, bomb a ground battle, that’s if you’re lucky enough to not get intercepted early in your flight.

There is no denying that this game is amazing, it just feels as if this game mode has been forgotten. I think small changes here and there on a monthly basis would make it feel as if it were still alive. I miss the old objectives and small single-life mission sim maps.

If enduring confrontation is the only way forward, at least switch up the types of targets we deal with. I wouldn’t mind destroying a random pillbox, a patrol boat in a river, or even a random AAA or SAM. The objectives? How about an escorted aircraft carrying a HVT, or capture an airfield by destroying the defenses and landing on it. I miss the old pacific island maps where you only had a carrier and one island airfield.

Check out this video, it is much more in depth and thought out.

Enjoy the weekend.

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Long time no see Brewster! Welcome back to WT! I’m also disappointed with EC and lack of love by Gaijin. Given state haven’t really improved in a while (3-4 years), I would prefer playing Air Realistic Battle maps like 10 years ago.

So everytime there is a event, all they do is just destroy the airstrip module, and the enemy cant spawn in.
They ruin it for the enemy team, and also for their teammates too. They kill the airstrips, and leave. What a gameplay.

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Destroying airfield modules is part of the game mechanics and it does not make the game “unplayable”. In fact it shows how the bombers (who are usually considered “useless for team”) can help the team (besides killing ground units) and have impact on the gameplay, for example by bombing 2 airstrips of 3, the enemies are restricted to spawn at one specific airfield, which make friendlies much easier to find them and fight them.

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Yea, but they are destroying 3 out of 3 airstrips, and nothing more… a game is like 15-20mins tops.

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As long as the “zomber” tactic works to build up mission score quickly by attacking the modules. Players are going to continue to use it, and the same for any outside tourists playing Sim just to do their mission task.

It is a game design flaw the devs overlooked regarding the airfield system. The system was design to be based on logistics, but they never forethought about players using it as a giant farming hit box; either for grinding or for event tasks.

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Hello there, Ponzehhh.

Here’s a Zomber-focused thread you may be interested in.

Quick story: In a War Thunder world, long, long ago, a massive community action against bombers gunshipping fighters occurred.

The fighter community organized and universally agreed to make life so miserable (Within The Rules©) for those using bomber rear gunner turrets to accumulate points/Lions/etc, that said bombers surrendered and quit using this goofy method.

Maybe YOU are the one to organize the next wave of fighter pilots to drive out the current Zomber menace?

It’s absurd that straightforward botting zombie suicide runs generate more points than regular gameplay. Even if you hunt them down and get 15–20 kills in 40 minutes, for every zomber that leaves, two more join. So basically, even if you don’t die at all, you still have to spend extra time refueling, and no one on your team can spawn because the airfields are destroyed.

People are coming here not to actually play SIM, but to abuse it and paralyze certain brackets using farming mechanics.

Even if I score more points than them while hunting them, it’s not fun. I play SIM because I enjoy playing it, not farming events. I’d much rather play regular PvP matches than spend my time intercepting someone who will just J-out or complain in all chat that they want PvE gameplay.

@AIRFIELD_CAMPER Basically, we’re talking about you - your SIM stat card clearly shows you’re a textbook example of an F-111 zomber. Shame on you.

I don’t even know how many years we’ve been waiting… and will probably continue waiting - for mission score points from base hits to be fixed. Sadly, I do know how many good pilots have already left the game because they saw no reason to keep playing EC anymore.

The economy was already ruined a few years ago due to farmers running bot accounts.

The easiest fix would be to remove or significantly reduce mission score points if a plane is destroyed shortly after earning them.

@Schindibee I know you’re one of the people who supports the SIM community and might have some insight — is there any chance, or any way players can help push for a real solution to finally address the zombing issue in SIM?

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Been seeing it a lot for many past events, this fix is long overdue. The maps could use some extra space for safe airfields to take off from, leaving the forward airfields as a target for people that enjoy bombing. The game already has this to some effect, but the zombers can still black out the modules of the rear airfields without any opposition, so maybe some kind of anti-munitions system would solve that.

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Yea, its a cool idea, but the execution is not really doable, they are using meta aircrafts, you rarely catch up to them. Q5 and F111 with his maw…, Even if I know where are the coming from, its hard to intercept. :C

Yes I do zombing in F-111 and Su-34, and sometimes help my team by destroying AF modules.

And shame on you the anti-grind entitled fighter pilot. The “zombers” have done nothing wrong using one of fastest legit methods to grind an event where 750,000 score is required. (“Legit” means no asking PvE in chat or other rule-breaking, and flying to airfield - drop bomb - J out for another run itself is always a legit route.)

@AIRFIELD CAMPER You rather don’t have enough skill to play sim or get that points in normal PVE or PVP so you are forced to abuse that mechanic. Actually airfield modules where added to game in 2018, one year before first F-4C. It’s silly that game developers not fixed that for few years, creating opportunity for you and your fellas.

Just to add - it’s normal that you can attack airfield that way, it’s part of game mechanic. What should be fixed is that now it is way too EASY to make points and finish battle in that way by zombing and launching FFARs in suicide run. It could not be possible, that player performing usual ground attacks or playing fighters are rewarded less. For me sometimes it’s like I killed 15 players (inluding zombers) 10 ai as a battle task and I have equal number of points as zomber who made 10 suicide runs.
No one expects you to agree with that, as you already admitted that you are one who use that “tactic” .

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I pick up on what you’re putting down but, back then, there were Bomber gunshippers who had fabulous flight performance and seemingly insurmountable tail gunners but, the determined fighter community climbed and climbed and, by sheer willpower and sacrifice, they pushed their movement to overcome.

They also just gutted points rewards from ground units, which I farmed for the MiG-25 event. Used to get 150 points per heavy target, now it’s less than half that… I had 8 ground units killed in sim EC today and barely got any points. A destroyer only nets you about 40 points.

That’s true, and it is really stupid to be less rewarded for destroying ground or nav targets while someone who just keep suicide zombing, considering you do everything to survive while attacking convoy or destroyer and could “one-tapped”. High risk-low reward example. I made a topic with suggestion to rebalance mission score rewards, but now it is waiting already for 48hours for censorship xD

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Its more like 400k. But that is broken into 9 chunks. Its pretty easy to get the 45k score in sim via pvp.

I think zombing is fine.
After all, bombers need to have a place in the game.
I’m fine with it, even if they suicide into the air field aa.
As long as they don’t purposely J out to deny kills from fighters, there’s nothing wrong.

You just spoke againts your self

Should this suicide bombing strat also be the fastest way to grind event points, leading to matches full of suicide zombers until one team doesn’t have an airfield to spawn at and the server closes? Nothing is wrong with this? Come on man.

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