WarThunder - Hit Detection/Reporting in 1.53

I've been having some issues with hit and damage reporting on WarThunder, and I wondered whether I should take this to the public forum or not for a few days...

Firstly, I was having issues with my Tiger H1, I'd get hits, and find them be glancing blows or they'd penetrate knock out crew, but never ignite fuel or ammunition, then I'd get hit and find my ammo burning so fast as to make me look like a zippo.  This discrepancy was not resolved for me with any change of ammunition, and as I changed to other vehicles the effects became more or less pronounced, but were always there.

Switching to aircraft, I found hits were registered a lot, however, many were sparks... But more annoyingly were hits reported to me as critical, or even pilot kills, which had no effect for the opponent... Here is my coverage of just one such instance, I swing into the path of a TBD, I aim for the cock-pit and get a report of the pilot unconscious.... Gun camera footage style, we can see this from the replay:

Clearly, I heard the ding of the critical, and the reported pilot unconscious.

So, at tree-top level, pilot unconscious, in a left banking turn... How did this TBD fair?...

Well, it flew on, and indeed on the return of the circle was firing it's .50 cal, main armament in the wings.

Unfortunately, I collided with it, whilst staring in disbelief, but this is getting typical, that aircraft should have gone out of control, that should have been a crash, my aim was true, and intentionally on the cockpit, both rifle calibre and 20mm munitions struck that area from my point of view.

From his point of view however, they only struck the left wing!

This is clearly something of the server-side, the WarThunder clients don't make decisions as to whom as shot whom, else they'd be open to external influence; we know they're not.  But clearly the server informed my client that I'd knocked the pilot out, when clearly he was still there flying.

Frustrating!

WarThunder : Enduring Confrontation Thoughts & Tiger H1

In WarThunder, I've had a bit of re-grind to do, after months of absence from the game, I logged back in a few weeks ago to take part in the Enduring Confrontation test, they did two back to back, first was an EC with a set battle rating bracket, you chose your line up and the game put you into your battle bracket based on the maximum Battle Rating of the vehicle line up you selected, I only played air.

My immediate feel for this was, that I spent an eternity in my reserve bi-plane flying to a target, half way to which the timer for a better plane would be up, so I was stuck with trying to farm a ground kill or two before bailing for the better plane, or just being hunted by already airborne opponents, whom had fudged their battle ratings to overwhelm.

Now, the test was German versus Russian, and the Russian sides, in my experience dominated this and it was not very fun to play.  More fun than sitting in the Simulated Battle queue for 12-15 minutes without getting a game, but still not as fun as the next test.

The next battle test Gaijin undertook was an EC with a fixed set of historically accurate aircraft for the line up.  And you had the timers based on Battle rating for this.  I played both the Russian and German sides in this test, and I found it to be much more accessible, you understood much more quickly the tactical situation, you knew what the opponents would be flying, and as such you flew accordingly, it felt like you were more "there" in the moment, and you had a feel for what to expect and do.

For instance, in the first test, it was overwhelmingly, fly at each other, or over each others bases.

In the second, we have bombers, escorts, interdiction, interception, we even had some players flying to distant locations to kill convoys and targets, whilst others did diversions, we saw proper employment of the fighter-bomber role, we saw good use of fighters, and all in all it was a much better experience.

Whether gaijin took these same lessons away with them is unknown, becuase it's been weeks since that test, and there's been no sign of it, the forum post opened up for feedback is a whining nagging, rambling mess, which I can't make head nor tail of, there just seems to be great ideas for game modes from Gaijin, but then they ask the audience for feedback, and the feedback; as with everything on the internet; is so garbled they can't get a clear picture.

This echoes the tests some six months ago, of combined arms, where one selected tanks and an airframe or two and off you went, I remember playing excellent games with my BF110 flying close air support, I saw MagzTV publish videos in the same vein, showing how good close air support and working together is... You know what, not heard a peep about it since, can't find it in the game, can't get a simulated battle, can't play in those fun, real, ways.

So, I've spent sometime in Arcade Tank battles.  I can't stand arcade air battles, but I suffered them in this re-grind, to ace out all the lower planes again.  For some reason all the engine injection system perks were removed, and I had to re-earn them... Having done so, I then went into arcade tank battles, and set about levelling the new tanks in there up.

So, the Pz35(t) was brand new, and then I had to max out all the AA gun platforms.

The end result however, was my opening up the Hetzer and this baby....

As you can see, she's a beauty...

And that's where I stand with WarThunder, I wish Enduring Confrontation would come out.... I really do.

WarThunder - Simulated Log

I've been spending time, time after time, trying to get my Track IR set up just right for my new monitor positions on the desk.  Last night, I think I finally cracked it, but the unit does seem to be very quirky.

But, un-phased I went into WarThunder and queued for some Simulated Battle... Long Queue times they were too, 6+ minutes.

I flew out my BF109-G2/Trop three times in all... My take offs were good, handling was good, climbing to altitude and maneuvering all pretty good... I got one burst at a target and got hits, but beyond that my whole flyouts were total disasters, the first flyout, I was hit from below and behind by a Russian i185... This plane was painted bright red, and I simply never saw it, the rear view from the 109G2 is pretty bad with the armour plate, plus he was below me, but I was in a descending left hand turn and he just swiped up and got me, it annoyed me that I was at over 1800 meters, and he must have been at ground level and saw me against the sky, whilst I could not discern him from the ground clutter.

Next, fly out, twice I approached dots only to find they were friendly players, whilst watching in the combat log friendly bombers get slashed from the skies.  Not one of those bombers called out a location for the enemy, so ther was myself and two Fw190's flying from enemy bomb target to target trying to find anything to shoot at.  We finally ended up in a swirling fight around cloud level at 3000 meters, I closed on a target trailing an fw190, if the 190 had just turned or done something else it would have been a better engagement, I fired a burst, it missed, he then split S, and I went into a hi, yoyo turn... and boom, my tail was shot off by a second unseen Russian aircraft, not only did I not see him, but he was at less than 100 meters when he fired, and I didn't hear him... I could hear the other two aircraft, and was recording, I went back and could not hear this guy.

But, even with better look-out I would not have seen him, again because of the G2's armour plate arrangement.

The final flyout, just annoyed me, I flew at near tree top level, against the ground clutter, I circled over brown fields using the brown summer camo the aircraft has to best advantage... I'm there looking all over, I see dot after dot coming from the German direction, finally see a dot coming from the Russian base direction, and move to intercept... As I move... BOOM... one shotted by a Yak.

I just, don't know... It's clearly player skill, or their knowing how to spot me, but I didn't see this guy, and I tried every trick I know to stay low and fast to blend into the ground clutter.

I'm playing the game on Ultra high settings, and I'm figuring I might do better on ultra low, because it's just a case of who see's whom first in Simulator... or of course as GrmlZ pointed out this week, who is in a bomber wins.