[2023] Following the Roadmap: Reducing Research/Purchase Cost of Aircraft + map changes

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

We’re continuing to move along with our Roadmap that we released back in June. In today’s news article, we’re going to be talking about the reduction of the research and purchase cost of aircraft, as well as the changes to numerous maps thanks to your feedback. These changes will come to the game in the upcoming major update — thank you very much for leaving feedback across all War Thunder platforms, which in turn helps to make the game better!

Reducing the Research and Purchase Cost of Aircraft
We’re pleased to announce and present to you the changes that will see the reduction of the research and purchase costs of top-tier aircraft! These changes will not only affect VI-VII as we previously announced in the Roadmap, but in addition, rank V as well as many reductions and some increases in the price of vehicles of other ranks due to rearrangements in ranks and future placements into groups. After we sat down to work on aircraft that needed to be reduced, the decision to also reduce the costs of rank V and other aircraft ranks was made after we looked at detailed analytics as well as statistical calculated data. As with our previous Roadmap news article, we’re presenting these changes to you today so that you can have a detailed look and prepare for them in advance. These changes will be released in the upcoming major update alongside the progression changes in September, so that the Research Point cost for vehicles moving up in rank don’t need to be changed twice.

Let’s dive into the details as to what exactly is being reduced. The following parameters will see reductions:

• The amount of Research Points required to research aircraft.
  
• The amount of Research Points required to research modifications of aircraft.
  
• The Silver Lion cost for purchasing aircraft.
  
• The Silver Lion cost for crewing aircraft.
  
• The Silver Lion cost for purchasing an Expert Crew.
  
• The Silver Lion cost for purchasing modifications.

As there will be a lot, we’ve prepared two Google Spreadsheet documents that contain preliminary data for you to take a detailed look:

• Table with summarized changes.[docs.google.com]
  
• Table with detailed changes for specific vehicles.[docs.google.com]

In addition to the above, during the work we carried out, we’ve also decided to take a closer look at the game’s initial ranks — this includes the smoothing of purchasing vehicles. We realized that the balance of Silver Lion costs in relation to the earn rate of Research Points and vehicles could fall behind. Because of this, we’re excited to say that the purchase cost of a wide range of most vehicles in all ranks: aircraft, ground vehicles and naval forces, will see a reduction. This also includes a reduction in crewing vehicles, purchasing Expert Crews, as well as vehicle modifications. The details regarding these changes are also included in the two linked tables mentioned above.

Research tree changes and Research Point reductions for grouped vehicles
To reiterate, the changes to research trees and the reduction of Research Points for grouped vehicles that we have previously talked about will be coming to the upcoming major update[warthunder.com], and alongside this, the dynamic reduction of repair costs. We’d like to admit that it has taken a little more time to dynamically reduce repair costs than we would have liked, but it is now in the final testing stage.


Improvements being made to Maps We’re continuing to work on significant improvements to a variety of maps in the game. These improvements are based on the valuable feedback that you have left on our platforms, as well as from content creators. Thank you! To start, we’ll mention some initial changes to the landscape and design of the following maps: El Alamein, Aral Sea, Iberian Fortress, Normandy, Alaska, Ground Zero, Maginot Line, Stalingrad, Sun City, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and Seversk-13. These are not the only changes, as we’ll continue to be improving these maps. At the end of this news article, we’ll also let you know about the detailed changes to the following maps: Poland, Karelia, American Desert, 38th Parallel, Normandy, and Jungle.

The improvements that have been made to these maps will come to the game in the upcoming major update, as well as the revision of collision models for objects located on these maps. We know that these changes are anticipated, and for those who want these changes right now, we’d like to quickly note as to why they are coming in the upcoming major update. An update only for map changes would require a large download, and many maps would be temporarily removed from the map rotation. To avoid this, waiting a little and releasing these changes in the upcoming major update will ensure that this does not happen. Thank you for your patience!

With all of this in mind, let’s dive into the detailed improvements that have been made to some of these maps.

Fields of Poland The issues surrounding the Fields of Poland map were the open fields surrounding the main city: these fields were too open and were very easy to shoot through. This issue was partially fixed on the winter version of this map, and now these fixes have been applied to the summer version. We’ve relocated the spawn points behind cover, so that now, you will not be hit by incoming shells as soon as you spawn in. In addition to that, we’ve also grouped all variations of the Poland map into one folder, making it easier to Like, Dislike or Ban this map in the map filter!

Before:

After:


Karelia Karelia has had some changes to its overly powerful map positions around the map edges, as well a reduction of ravines that were easy to fall into and get stuck in.

American Desert On American Desert, we’ve revamped the northern part of this map. In particular, the large hill in this location that was prone to being camped on. In addition to this, the C point has been completely redesigned, as well as the area behind the railroad tracks.

38th Parallel 38th Parallel suffered from asymmetry — one side of the map had very powerful positions to shoot from, whereas the other side did not. Both sides of this map will now have equal positions.

Normandy The Normandy map will now be more symmetrical, and the eastern spawn point that was located on the beach will be significantly moved south, closer to the city. The church near this area has always been a powerful interest spot, but ultimately, only for one team. Therefore, an updated capture point, in the form of a windmill, will now be located near the center of the map. This new windmill will replace the church that we mentioned. Some of the roads in the southern part of the map will be removed.

Before:

After:


Jungle For Jungle, we’ve reduced the density of some of the vegetation, which in turn will help improve visibility and will reduce the number of ambush spots. In addition to this, the color palette of the vegetation has been improved, therefore making this map much more pleasant to play on.


That’s all for now We sincerely hope that all of these changes have met your expectations. Once again, we thank you for all your feedback and patience regarding these changes. Please do continue to leave your feedback and comments: be it either on our official forums, social media, on Steam, Reddit, as well as other platforms that we read.