War Thunder New Player’s Guide

War Thunder New Player’s Guide by nbarloya

The reason i am writing this post is because I believe it will be helpful to new players and also informative to old ones. This guide is focused on historical and full real battles but I believe it may help in arcade battles too. Also I am doing this is because i have seen many ”sure” wins become losses due to lack of player capability to understand some simple fundamentals in aviation. This guide is focused at fighting in the air.

NATIONS

I started writing a guide about each plane but I stopped due to 2 reasons. The first and least important is that it will take me days to write a comprehensive guide that focuses on plane characteristics, nevertheless there are guys that have already posted information about those aircrafts and second and most important this is NOT the purpose of this guide. This guide is about awareness and decision oriented flying rather than knowing  each planes characteristics. However to be amongst the top pilots you must know every detail of every plane. Acceleration, top speed , dive speed, climb rates , turning rates, roll rates , optimal height performance, energy retention, how it performs damaged , and many other parameters that will give you the edge in the air.

 No guide or manual will teach you how a plane behaves. They will give you a general opinion about their flight characteristics. You must fly them , fly alongside them , fly against them , test them in varius situations and then and only then you can have an opinion. When you finally face them you will know exactly how it perfoms, where it lacks and where it excels so you can take those desisions that will give you the upper hand.

TIPS, TRICKS, TACTICS AND SELF AWARENESS

In how many situations have you been involved or saw as a spectator only 1 simple action of only 1 individual plane changed the flow of the game and resulted in a loss? I have witnessed it more than 30% of my games. How many times you did something that resulted in watching the game as a spectator? Numerous times. How many times have you witnessed as a spectator an absurd decision from a team mate that cost you the win? No comment.

The majority of the games we lose, we lose them due to our incapability to survive, be efficient and help our team and also our teams incabability to survive , be efficient and help us.

As you can see there is a mutual reliance between your performance and your teams performance. If you fly bad and die your team will have one plane less to fight and it will perform worse. If your team fails and you are left alone vs 5 fighters you can’t do much. For sure we can’t change how the team acts but we can change how we will act at certain circumstances that will aid our teams performance

Here is what i try to do when i enter a battle

1) Loading screen. You can’t imagine how important is to look and analyze the planes your team has and the planes you are going to encounter. You can already start creating your strategy for this session. Even after 1. 27 patch where the roster names for each plane were removed , you can identify them (with little effort and practice) by the shape of the sprites that represent them.

2) Deploying. For me its the A and the Z in ANYGAME. Having a better position than your enemy gives you solutions to any given problem. Attacking or defending. 90% of my initial positioning is to gain altitude, try to reach as high i can , so i can have my opponents below me. That gives me advantage in attacking them and also at running away from them. The other 10% is for some bizzare situations(mostly due to matchmaking) such as when the enemy has plethora of bombers and no serous fighters to defend them or when there are better planes in terms of climb rates compared to your plane(trying to gain altitude and go higher than an la7 or yak3 with me flying a a6m5 reisen will always put me on disadvantage) .

3) As i said before know what plane you have , how it performs which plane you are facing and then plan a strategy that is efficient against it. Its probably the hardest thing you may achieve and you will own it only after hundreds of flying hours. Day after day you will become better at identifying plane characteristics thus you will be better at fighting them. At any competitive game the best are not the ones with only great reflexes but the ones that combine them with self awareness and proper knowledge for any given situation.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results od a hundred battles –Sun Tzu

4) You can spot enemy planes instantly after you take off and continue spoting their altitude and heading by just seeing the black dots in the horizon. And if you have paid attention to the loading screen you can guess with a high success what plane is in each dot!!!!!. E. G japanese as an enemy. You noticed at the loading screen that one of the enemy planes is a N1K-J/A. Game starts , you take off and after 30 seconds you see a dot in the horizon that is above everyone in the enemy team. This is the n1k-j/a 10000%. You already know where is it and what is it. You can start making your strategy at how to engage him. How cool can this be?

5) DO NOT HUNT THE A. I PLANES AT THE START OF THE GAME. I am so sick of seeing fighters being deployed at 5k meters and suddenly diving down to 1-2k just to hunt and kill a freaking a. i plane. Also i am so sick of seeing 5 fighters deployed at 5k meters and suddenly diving down to 1-2k just to hunt and kill an a. i plane.

Possible results:
a) successfully killing the ai but loosing your altitude advantage with a result of being the prey for your opponents.
b) successfully killing the ai but loosing your aircraft due to bad controlling, due to friendly fire, due to collisions with other friendly aircraft.
c) above mentioned but without killing the a. i.

And now i ask you. Was it worth it? You got one more kill in your killstreak board with a possible result of losing your plane and losing the game. What is worth more? 1 kill or 1 victory plus returning to base safe? Those planes are powerless and can’t change the tide of the game but you and your team are the only ones that can.

6) Always watch the Mini map. Radar is your eyes that you have on your back. Its a great tool to understand what’s happening around you. Where your team mates are , where are your enemies, where is the guy that asks for support. Its crucial to watch the minimap all the time. It may save your xxxx sometimes from unexpected attacks. Many times i was chasing a plane and suddenly i saw a red dot on the minimap heading to me. i had to kill the plane i was chasing in 2-3 secs and then be prepared for the plane that was coming for me or else disengage and plan another strategy so i can return to base alive. The minimap is your eyes and your team mates eyes combined and  if you being left alone you will see only what you are truly seeing in front of your screen. To find somebody who is behind your or above you you must look him by yourself that’s why. . . . . . . . . .

7) Always check your surroundings constantly. Especially always check above you and behind you(6’o clock) at any given time, even when you are on somebodys tail and you are throwing your shells ferociously at him. You never know what may be lurking into the clouds and waiting you to make the wrong move so he can strike you. And he will strike you hard. . . . .

8) Do not get psyched when you are on somebody’s 6 or generally when you are attacking somebody. This is one of the worst things you can do. I have done it in the past and still do it sometimes and 9/10 times it gets me killed. After dancing in the air for 10 mins with an enemy you finally make a brilliant move and you finally are on his 6. In case you surely know that you can’t be threatened from anybody else take your time , enjoy it and tear his wings apart. But in case there are others around be wary and ready to disengage him at any given time without a second thought. Another day will come and if you did it once you can make it again. I know that having somebody on your gunsights helpless, is tempting and after your checkmate move the game must end here with you being announced as the winner. Its up to you to decide if one more kill deserves you being shot down. I personally believe not.

9) Know your class. You have picked high altitude interceptor dont go low to kill enemy ground targets. Most of the times you will be a priority target by all those planes that are above you. . . . . And believe me none will help you.

10) Ammunition capacity. In arcade it doesn’t matter, when you deplete after some seconds , depending on your reload skills you are ready to go again, but in Historical and full real battles you need to land and resupply. You must be conservative. The more ammunition you have equals more time on air equals still dangerous to your foes. Some ”op” planes considering our community i personally believe that they are not so ”op” due to their scarce amount of ammo they are carrying. Such as the la5 and la7. Really wonderful planes. Fast , agile, powerful guns but with a low ammo capacity. You must be very precise and stingy to be effective or else after 1-2 prolonged bursts you must go back to base for resupplying. That’s a major drawback for considering it an ”OP” plane in my opinion.

And last but not least.

FLY YOUR PLANE AS IF YOU WERE FLYING IN REAL LIFE!!!

Now you will think. OMG. . . This guy is obsessed, i just want to have fun with this game and not having cardiac pills near my keyboard and i totally agree with you. But who would enjoy a game that he was prescribed to lose? This is the game we are playing. Its intense , it needs cunning and after each battle there will always be nurses at the hospital near the airport to treat your wounds.
I hope you enjoyed. Thank you for reading