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Hey everyone, thanks for checking in for another edition of covert disclosures. This is a new-ish series where we keep you in the loop with what we and the developers are up to behind the scenes, you can read our previous post [here].
Today I’ve got some info on several upcoming features, and some breakdowns of what we’re currently working on, so let’s get into it!
FOX-3 Missiles and extending the top BR
The first week after a big update is always incredibly busy for all of the team, and the key focus from basically minute one of the release was gathering feedback and data from top tier air battles. Adding a new weapon type across the board was a big jump in ability for the top set of aircraft and was something we had to monitor very closely.
We started by felling Yggdrasill and lowering the height of many particularly large trees on air maps so flying under the multipath threshold was more convenient.
It didn’t stop there however, and we recently increased the max BR for air battles up to 13.7, decompressing a bulk of aircraft in the 10.0+ range, and moving all of the FOX-3 capable aircraft up a fair amount to give the earlier aircraft some breathing room.
Also to improve stock performance, all top BR aircraft at rank VIII can now equip a smaller amount of advanced missiles by default (a full loadout of these missiles can be taken as normal once the respective modification has been unlocked).
We’d like to note too that these changes in this instance are not replacing the standard BR changes, these will come a bit later and include changes for lower tier vehicles as well.
I’d like to say a further thank you to everyone who spent time leaving feedback on top tier and the new missiles, there was a heap to look through and regularly over the last two weeks when I was signing off, I’d see the developers in calls together well into the night discussing everything and looking over the data. While we can’t respond to every item of feedback individually, everything that can be forwarded is forwarded, so from all of us here thank you very much for sending us your thoughts, these changes are made with you.
The next event vehicles
Let’s cut to the chase! The next two event vehicles will be a vessel (Alcione) and aircraft respectively, quite high tier. These two will both be analogs to vehicles we have in the tree already.
It does bring up an interesting point though about event vehicles, we talk about this a lot internally. On one hand having entirely unique event vehicles is great, but if we do that frequently we’re locking those vehicles out of being placed in the tech tree, but on the other hand having already existing vehicles in the tech trees as event vehicles may to some be less appealing if someone already owns them.
Generally for these we like to go with interesting modifications or historically significant examples of existing vehicles, or even just a vehicle that would give a good representation of what high tier gameplay for a certain nation would be like for players who aren’t there yet. So in tandem we don’t lock something unique out of the tree, while also offering an alternative to something that exists already, so it still offers something new, especially for players that don’t have everything unlocked yet.
That’s not to say we won’t have some more extravagant event vehicles in the future though, we’ve got some interesting stuff planned for later in the year. The upcoming Battle Pass should be a nice one too, it includes a vehicle I’ve been waiting for for a while which you should see very soon. This one is also a bit different and includes something of a wildcard, I think you’ll like it.
Updated Helicopter Damage Models
Coming up later on our 2024 roadmap are refinements to helicopter damage models, this is a big one, and one I’m particularly looking forward to. We’re right in the middle of the development process so there’s not a heap of WIP images I can show but I can outline the current plan we have for improvements.
The main one will be to add multiple new internal modules, much like we’ve done recently with certain ground vehicles. This will take a while to implement across the board, but we plan to add internal objects like electrical equipment, as well as FCS, MAWS, helicopter control systems and optic elements that will all affect the functionality of the heli once damaged. The list of added modules will vary depending on the helicopter.
There’s a bit more too it though, we’ll also be changing how impacts to already existing DM elements are handled, currently the plan is to add a way for damaged modules to affect the functionality of other modules and/or systems. For example, a one-time massive explosive or fragmentation impact to the fuselage of the helicopter will likely cause damage to the flight control and weaponry systems, even if the modules themselves do not exist in the geometry of the helicopter yet, which will allow us to change the behaviour of all helicopters after heavy hits in one go.
If the tail is hit with enough force from an impact with the terrain or an environmental object it’ll be severed off consistently (this will also happen if the main fuselage body is hit with enough force). Also, if the rotor blades are destroyed, there’s a chance that the angle of the destroyed blade will shear off the tail section as well.
Recent Bug Fixes
It goes without saying that we’re always working on bug fixes and corrections, I’ve picked a few out that were mentioned to me on stream that have now been fixed, and have just been deployed to the primary server. FOX-3 missile fixes include the overcorrection of all missiles at long ranges, and the Derby missile wobbling mid-flight. In fact in the update today all new FOX-3 missiles have undergone minor adjustments in regards to their autopilot and ballistics, so the majority of issues on launch should be sorted now, and the overall performance of these missiles might change a bit as a result. The team is always working on issues, with a game as complicated as War Thunder with all of its possible interactions and various elements we’re always running into things not working correctly, but the QA team never stops working on problems.
If you have the time please do make sure to report any issues you run into, personally over the years I’ve found that for every 20 or so people that encounter a bug only one person ends up actually reporting it. A lot of the time bugs are specific to certain software or hardware, as well as particular variables in matches that can lead to bugs, which are hard to consistently replicate. Even though it may seem like a really obvious problem it’s often an issue that’s invisible outside of a certain combination of hardware/software so the guys really need your specific data when a problem is encountered.
Make sure to make a report on our platform, if you see any other reports that relate to you, make sure to click on the “I have same issue!” button.
RP Bonuses for New Nations
To get straight to it, this feature is being finalised now. I appreciate we’ve very much been saying “it’s nearly done” for a while, but it turned out to require a lot more work than it initially seemed on the surface, we were a bit optimistic with the initial release plan and we should’ve been more realistic with the time frame from the offset, but regardless we’re finally on the home stretch now.
The server back-end is complete and the UI elements are being finished off as we speak (well, type, I suppose). At the moment, the developers are making sure everything looks and works properly before release. We first plan to test the feature in its final state internally and make any changes (if any are needed) and then release it onto the live server for a 7 day test period.
I could give you the exact ETA we currently have now, but given that this has been delayed a while, if there’s a problem and the ETA is wrong it might end up leading to more disappointment. I’m very aware that to some this may come across like we’re just riding this feature out until it’s forgotten, but we are (hopefully!) several weeks away from it being ready. The designer showed me the current status of the code but to me, who can’t code, it was like trying to read Akkadian Cuneiform so I can’t say much other than it’s a complex system that’s nearly ready.
Actually maybe some of you remember, after the last major update squadron RP broke for a day, and that was due to live testing the New Nation Bonus, it created some kind of conflict and had to be turned off and parts of it rewritten, which is part of the reason for the extra delay.
Once we know for sure that we’re good to go, we’ll let you know too.
Major Update Dev blog text reflection
We ran into a few problems during the last dev cycle with the vehicle blogs themselves, and I think it’d be good for us to reflect on it here.
The aim is of course to make sure that text is 100% correct by the time we publish, that goes without saying, but due to the nature of sources and information we’re often checking and rechecking info after publication, and sometimes either naturally or via player reports certain particulars need correcting, and that reflects in the text too.
It’ll likely be the case that we’ll never be able to completely avoid this, especially as the vehicles we add get more and more complicated, but we’re more aware of the issue now and everyone involved is taking further steps to avoid this possibility for future blogs. On our end, we’ll clearly indicate in dev blogs that the text and images are purely WIP. For any text edits, especially major ones after publication that may relate to mechanics of vehicle tech, we’ll always pin a comment in the comment section of the blog to clarify any changes so we can stay transparent and up to date.
Regarding the wording of the text, with our blogs the writers always try to add some personality to the text so that we’re not just blandly writing about vehicle data, but sometimes that enthusiasm can manifest in the embellishment of certain elements which we need to be more careful about in the future. Of course in no way do we want to misrepresent the abilities of any vehicle, it has no benefit for us or for anyone reading, so we’ll be more cautious around describing the “soft” performance of vehicles in the future, manoeuvrability and reliability etc. We’ll be better here going forward, no one on the devblog team wants what they write to be received poorly, so everyone is going into the next cycle with more vigilance and care.
Stats!
We wanted to provide some interesting stats that have occurred over the past 30 days. We haven’t really done this before (I suppose the last time we did was with the Glorious5 series if anyone remembers that), so we’ve picked out a bunch of random things from the game that you may find interesting. Take a look and let us know what you think.
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/d/d/dd70a0238b4252f62575d6cecdd550aec9ba2faa.jpeg
Customization Galore
As part of the next roadmap, customisation of your profile is on the list. I’ve taken a look at the tasks for this and wanted to share some early WiP screenshots of how it will end up looking. More details to come on this closer to its release!
The account profile screen is now a full-screen window and can be customized in various ways, including choosing your favourite mode, picking favourite vehicles, how many nuclear aircraft you shot down, plus avatar frames and the ability to customize the background of your profile. There’s more in general, this is just some early screenshots.
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/5/a/5a5de27923893d59b7af7112600f4ef1f1f1a423.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/f/7/f7f09ac12f15cdbdd8e710535bfd27b35307fd33.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/d/6/d63622a772b66824cb95e3db112691ca91571994.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/b/0/b0c1e8c71f035b6106f0532acf3e8116c0c7a75b.jpeg
That’s all I’ve got for you today, thanks for taking the time to read through my wall of text. We’ll be in touch again soon when we have some more things to share with you, but until then, keep your feedback trebuchets squarely aimed at our faces.
Thanks again everyone, see you soon!
Oxy
Today I’ve got some info on several upcoming features, and some breakdowns of what we’re currently working on, so let’s get into it!
FOX-3 Missiles and extending the top BR
The first week after a big update is always incredibly busy for all of the team, and the key focus from basically minute one of the release was gathering feedback and data from top tier air battles. Adding a new weapon type across the board was a big jump in ability for the top set of aircraft and was something we had to monitor very closely.
We started by felling Yggdrasill and lowering the height of many particularly large trees on air maps so flying under the multipath threshold was more convenient.
It didn’t stop there however, and we recently increased the max BR for air battles up to 13.7, decompressing a bulk of aircraft in the 10.0+ range, and moving all of the FOX-3 capable aircraft up a fair amount to give the earlier aircraft some breathing room.
Also to improve stock performance, all top BR aircraft at rank VIII can now equip a smaller amount of advanced missiles by default (a full loadout of these missiles can be taken as normal once the respective modification has been unlocked).
We’d like to note too that these changes in this instance are not replacing the standard BR changes, these will come a bit later and include changes for lower tier vehicles as well.
I’d like to say a further thank you to everyone who spent time leaving feedback on top tier and the new missiles, there was a heap to look through and regularly over the last two weeks when I was signing off, I’d see the developers in calls together well into the night discussing everything and looking over the data. While we can’t respond to every item of feedback individually, everything that can be forwarded is forwarded, so from all of us here thank you very much for sending us your thoughts, these changes are made with you.
The next event vehicles
Let’s cut to the chase! The next two event vehicles will be a vessel (Alcione) and aircraft respectively, quite high tier. These two will both be analogs to vehicles we have in the tree already.
It does bring up an interesting point though about event vehicles, we talk about this a lot internally. On one hand having entirely unique event vehicles is great, but if we do that frequently we’re locking those vehicles out of being placed in the tech tree, but on the other hand having already existing vehicles in the tech trees as event vehicles may to some be less appealing if someone already owns them.
Generally for these we like to go with interesting modifications or historically significant examples of existing vehicles, or even just a vehicle that would give a good representation of what high tier gameplay for a certain nation would be like for players who aren’t there yet. So in tandem we don’t lock something unique out of the tree, while also offering an alternative to something that exists already, so it still offers something new, especially for players that don’t have everything unlocked yet.
That’s not to say we won’t have some more extravagant event vehicles in the future though, we’ve got some interesting stuff planned for later in the year. The upcoming Battle Pass should be a nice one too, it includes a vehicle I’ve been waiting for for a while which you should see very soon. This one is also a bit different and includes something of a wildcard, I think you’ll like it.
Updated Helicopter Damage Models
Coming up later on our 2024 roadmap are refinements to helicopter damage models, this is a big one, and one I’m particularly looking forward to. We’re right in the middle of the development process so there’s not a heap of WIP images I can show but I can outline the current plan we have for improvements.
The main one will be to add multiple new internal modules, much like we’ve done recently with certain ground vehicles. This will take a while to implement across the board, but we plan to add internal objects like electrical equipment, as well as FCS, MAWS, helicopter control systems and optic elements that will all affect the functionality of the heli once damaged. The list of added modules will vary depending on the helicopter.
There’s a bit more too it though, we’ll also be changing how impacts to already existing DM elements are handled, currently the plan is to add a way for damaged modules to affect the functionality of other modules and/or systems. For example, a one-time massive explosive or fragmentation impact to the fuselage of the helicopter will likely cause damage to the flight control and weaponry systems, even if the modules themselves do not exist in the geometry of the helicopter yet, which will allow us to change the behaviour of all helicopters after heavy hits in one go.
If the tail is hit with enough force from an impact with the terrain or an environmental object it’ll be severed off consistently (this will also happen if the main fuselage body is hit with enough force). Also, if the rotor blades are destroyed, there’s a chance that the angle of the destroyed blade will shear off the tail section as well.
Recent Bug Fixes
It goes without saying that we’re always working on bug fixes and corrections, I’ve picked a few out that were mentioned to me on stream that have now been fixed, and have just been deployed to the primary server. FOX-3 missile fixes include the overcorrection of all missiles at long ranges, and the Derby missile wobbling mid-flight. In fact in the update today all new FOX-3 missiles have undergone minor adjustments in regards to their autopilot and ballistics, so the majority of issues on launch should be sorted now, and the overall performance of these missiles might change a bit as a result. The team is always working on issues, with a game as complicated as War Thunder with all of its possible interactions and various elements we’re always running into things not working correctly, but the QA team never stops working on problems.
If you have the time please do make sure to report any issues you run into, personally over the years I’ve found that for every 20 or so people that encounter a bug only one person ends up actually reporting it. A lot of the time bugs are specific to certain software or hardware, as well as particular variables in matches that can lead to bugs, which are hard to consistently replicate. Even though it may seem like a really obvious problem it’s often an issue that’s invisible outside of a certain combination of hardware/software so the guys really need your specific data when a problem is encountered.
Make sure to make a report on our platform, if you see any other reports that relate to you, make sure to click on the “I have same issue!” button.
RP Bonuses for New Nations
To get straight to it, this feature is being finalised now. I appreciate we’ve very much been saying “it’s nearly done” for a while, but it turned out to require a lot more work than it initially seemed on the surface, we were a bit optimistic with the initial release plan and we should’ve been more realistic with the time frame from the offset, but regardless we’re finally on the home stretch now.
The server back-end is complete and the UI elements are being finished off as we speak (well, type, I suppose). At the moment, the developers are making sure everything looks and works properly before release. We first plan to test the feature in its final state internally and make any changes (if any are needed) and then release it onto the live server for a 7 day test period.
I could give you the exact ETA we currently have now, but given that this has been delayed a while, if there’s a problem and the ETA is wrong it might end up leading to more disappointment. I’m very aware that to some this may come across like we’re just riding this feature out until it’s forgotten, but we are (hopefully!) several weeks away from it being ready. The designer showed me the current status of the code but to me, who can’t code, it was like trying to read Akkadian Cuneiform so I can’t say much other than it’s a complex system that’s nearly ready.
Actually maybe some of you remember, after the last major update squadron RP broke for a day, and that was due to live testing the New Nation Bonus, it created some kind of conflict and had to be turned off and parts of it rewritten, which is part of the reason for the extra delay.
Once we know for sure that we’re good to go, we’ll let you know too.
Major Update Dev blog text reflection
We ran into a few problems during the last dev cycle with the vehicle blogs themselves, and I think it’d be good for us to reflect on it here.
The aim is of course to make sure that text is 100% correct by the time we publish, that goes without saying, but due to the nature of sources and information we’re often checking and rechecking info after publication, and sometimes either naturally or via player reports certain particulars need correcting, and that reflects in the text too.
It’ll likely be the case that we’ll never be able to completely avoid this, especially as the vehicles we add get more and more complicated, but we’re more aware of the issue now and everyone involved is taking further steps to avoid this possibility for future blogs. On our end, we’ll clearly indicate in dev blogs that the text and images are purely WIP. For any text edits, especially major ones after publication that may relate to mechanics of vehicle tech, we’ll always pin a comment in the comment section of the blog to clarify any changes so we can stay transparent and up to date.
Regarding the wording of the text, with our blogs the writers always try to add some personality to the text so that we’re not just blandly writing about vehicle data, but sometimes that enthusiasm can manifest in the embellishment of certain elements which we need to be more careful about in the future. Of course in no way do we want to misrepresent the abilities of any vehicle, it has no benefit for us or for anyone reading, so we’ll be more cautious around describing the “soft” performance of vehicles in the future, manoeuvrability and reliability etc. We’ll be better here going forward, no one on the devblog team wants what they write to be received poorly, so everyone is going into the next cycle with more vigilance and care.
Stats!
We wanted to provide some interesting stats that have occurred over the past 30 days. We haven’t really done this before (I suppose the last time we did was with the Glorious5 series if anyone remembers that), so we’ve picked out a bunch of random things from the game that you may find interesting. Take a look and let us know what you think.
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/d/d/dd70a0238b4252f62575d6cecdd550aec9ba2faa.jpeg
Customization Galore
As part of the next roadmap, customisation of your profile is on the list. I’ve taken a look at the tasks for this and wanted to share some early WiP screenshots of how it will end up looking. More details to come on this closer to its release!
The account profile screen is now a full-screen window and can be customized in various ways, including choosing your favourite mode, picking favourite vehicles, how many nuclear aircraft you shot down, plus avatar frames and the ability to customize the background of your profile. There’s more in general, this is just some early screenshots.
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/5/a/5a5de27923893d59b7af7112600f4ef1f1f1a423.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/f/7/f7f09ac12f15cdbdd8e710535bfd27b35307fd33.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/d/6/d63622a772b66824cb95e3db112691ca91571994.jpeg
https://forum-en-cdn.warthunder.com/original/3X/b/0/b0c1e8c71f035b6106f0532acf3e8116c0c7a75b.jpeg
That’s all I’ve got for you today, thanks for taking the time to read through my wall of text. We’ll be in touch again soon when we have some more things to share with you, but until then, keep your feedback trebuchets squarely aimed at our faces.
Thanks again everyone, see you soon!
Oxy