War Thunder - Free PS4 WW2 Fighter Jet Game - Tips, Tricks, etc

[Psycho Sonny]

Been playing this for a while now and it's a lot more complicated than I originally thought.

It is a very well developed game and much more so than I had originally anticipated for something that is free to play.

Any of you got some tips to share on the best way to do things?

Currently I have 5 crews but I have no idea what so ever what the send on holiday or research options do.

Obviously I have all crews doing research on the vehicle assigned to them. But what happens if that vehicle is maxed out? Can I assign them to do research on another vehicle owned by another crew, so I can essentially research 2 components at the same time? Or is it 1 research per 1 vehicle at a time.

What is the point of sending on holiday?

I read somewhere that it costs money if you end up getting killed (vehicle destroyed), etc. How does this work, I have just been playing recklessly trying to rack up as many points quickly and not caring if I destroyed all 5 of my vehicles in a game. Does that mean I am essentially losing money every game?

Any tips or help with this would be appreciated. The game is really growing on me.

PSN ID's to add for Squadding up;

PsychoSonny
Rhodri2311
Windle
Deathjumps
Muray97
Brown_Pants
GeminiTiger77
Worzel_Dubbage
kennyuk77
CrapFarm
beachboyken
Spooky-Willow
BrutalBiff
Torment86
DaBozMan
ps_legend
ratmanuk
Niroe
scarecrow82
Mikebuk
rhysduk
grandfromage1
Retromattic
Thundery0308
Demondoguk
Richdog_OCUK


Overclockers (OcUK) Squadron

If you want to join the OcUK squadron go to squadron in the main menu (the page which has options, settings, etc) top left.

After your in the Squadron menu it should show you the top 15 Squadrons in the world.

Now you must go to the search box and type in ocuk iirc is what I put in then search.

Overclockers Squadron should now appear, then you have to click on it then at the bootom right there is an option to apply for membership, click on this.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I'm also really enjoying it and equally confused by the things you mentioned. Grabbed a hurricane as quickly as possible and finding it great fun, I use the simulator controls as I hated the default way of flying.

Feel free to add me - Rhodri2311

Great to hear I'm not the only one, was confused when I didn't see a thread about this game.

It's by far the best game out of all the "free" ones imo.

I figures out you should try and make "specialist" crews. e.g. when spending your crew points, focus on the things that are specific to the type of vehicle that crew will be using.

e.g. in the bomber crew you want to increase the gunner stuff (second page) because you have gunners in the back.

in the fighter jet crews, you want to increase the pilots stuff (first page).

if your pilot has more vitality and stamina, he can take more damage, like when he gets shot in the leg and stuff. increase the pilots vision and he can shoot from further away or something like that or with more accuracy.

i have been spending them willy nilly so far, going to start making specialist crews from now on.

will add you when i get a chance, is there an option to play with friends? i normally just drop straight into a random battle, doesn't look like there is any group matchmaking.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

The controls melt my simple brain

are you using simplified or advanced controls.

i'm on simplified and it's the easiest flight sim game controls i have ever used on a console tbh.

also do the tutorials, i did all of them first before playing the game.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

upgrading the crew is essential to how well everything works in the game tbh.

even when you upgrade the ground/maintenance page of your crew, if you upgrade reload speed and gun maintenance, that also effects reloading and gun jams and overheats in the air.

it takes like 75 seconds to reload bombs, but if you keep upgrading the reload speed you can get it down to 45 seconds.

it is a very very hard grind, i imagine it could take a full year to get the crews points up to a respectable looking mark.

i also read that once you get to a certain point your forced to buy golden eagles to upgrade, i'm not liking the sound of that tbh, but since the game is free, so long as it's not a huge amount i am willing to pay for some here and there, so long as the game community stays strong.

since it is such a hard grind that is why i am focusing on upgrading certain parts tbh at a time.

i currently have a plane that has torpedoes but none of the arcade battles require them from what i can see.


anyone found a way to team with people on here? it just seems like it's completely random. also figured out how to auto aim the other day, which has made killing things a lot easier.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

How does research progress? Is it real time, or is it after every battle?

Also divulge more on auto aim!

you need to get research points from battles i think, it's not real time.

i usually upgrade at least one item after every battle because it has managed to research it during the battle.

first of all you need to select a target using X, this is very important, because if you don't and your locked onto say someone behind you and you press the auto aim button and your low to the ground, your going to crash.

so press X, make sure target is relatively straight in front of you. then get close enough that shooting will be effective (be within 500m range the closer the better). then press and hold L2 and you will auto lock on with machine guns. now press r2 when it goes red and just keep firing until target is destroyed.

this game is all about grinding but i find it so enjoyable i don't care about the grind.

i imagine when i get the better planes, i will be like tom cruise in top gun, getting pretty good at it i think now.

oh and if your shooting at ground targets, slow down to 30% engine power, cruising around slowly at tree level picking off armoured cars with auto aim.

otherwise when fighting other jets, i stay at 100% to make effective getaways. so if someone gets on your tail, forget the armoured cars and power up and get out of there.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I am playing this game allot

Its hard as hell and flying a bomber is boring :/

get your bomber reload up, get your gunner accuracy, precision and vitality up.

i get more points with the bomber than any jet.

i have 2 gunners in my bomber and they can automatically kill at least a couple of jets every battle.

forget upgrading the pilot in your bomber focus on the gunners and the reloading and gun maintenance.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

you said this was WW2?? Soo what are ur german jets fighting?? Im pritty sure the allies didnt have any till after the war

i dont know the technical aspects of the engines, but i probably used the wrong word.

should i have used propeller plane fighting instead?

there is lots of different nations though, i think japan, usa, uk, germany and a few others too.

i'm not into planes at all but i do like dogfighting games.

the game is very historically accurate though i imagine from how technically complicated it is and the planes used.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Wait - you can lock on?! I've been doing it all manually, and still seem to be downing far more than I die I really should finish up the tutorials...

yeah i was doing it manually too until yesterday lol.

lock on only works within a certain range, when it zooms in your locked on, manual zoom is square, auto aim is L2

only works with machine guns though, need to drop bombs manually

 

[Psycho Sonny]

k i will need to look out for that mission in future.

i'm just amazed more people aren't playing this, out of all the free games it is clearly the best imo anyway.

there's games out there for £50 which aren't close to this in terms of gameplay and longevity.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

do any of you know if you can actually team up?

otherwise it's pointless adding you all lol, i did add rhodri but i don't see any way to team up, it seems completely random the way teams and battles are made.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I've not really messed about with the friends list, but I noticed if you press options there are a lot of options blanked out so may be feature to come rather than present atm to play with friends.

this game is like a work in progress.

i think it constantly just gets update after update after update.

atm only arcade battles are available on ps4, on the pc they also have realistic battles and historic battles available.

basically this is just a small preview of the whole game, they will add to it continuously i imagine like they have the pc version so long as people are buying eagles.

at the end of the day it is a free game, but they aren't a charity, they won't put in the work if it isn't paying off, thats why they most likely have only bothered getting arcade battles running to start with to see what the response is like.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

the hurricane MK1 is a beast it has 8 machine guns on the front. basically takes out most fighter style planes with 1 hit. i have it fully upgraded.

in fact i have 3 unlocked planes fully upgraded, the research for new planes is killing me, it takes so long.

going to unlock spitfire, the next hurricane (oh lord it's going to be epic if it's better than the mk1), then the 3rd bomber.

the torpedo plane is a waste of time, useless at killing anything, i would stay away from that tbh it's really slow and struggles to climb even a few thousand feet.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I don't get how domination works I landed on a runway and capture it no issue it wasn't occupied.

I then land on enemy runway and nothing happens, just took off after a minute and started dogfighting.

Game is brilliant when you get to grips with how everything works.

Need to upgrade spitfire and second bomber.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

You need to do research to get a front firing gun on the second bomber.

I am finding that the reload time on the bombers is terrible coupled with the fact that you need loads of crew points to get an experienced second gunner it's going to be grind fest to get it up to a standard I would be happy with.

Also I imagine since crews cannot switch between countries once you have chosen a country your pretty much better off sticking with them forever and therefore completely ignoring the rest as you essentially need to start from scratch again.

Golden Eagles are only worth spending on advanced training of crews

 

[Psycho Sonny]

well if there is a big enough demand we could make our own squadron.

I wonder if Windle would want to be the leader of the squadron he seems to be really into it.

i think it would help us know who is all playing this game on here, who to add onto friends list and then hopefully we can team up together.

because there is obviously a lot of noobs out there and the less on your team the better.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I'd be happy to sort out a squadron, not sure where you set it up though? Spent a game last night dogfighting with 3 guys who were obviously in a squad, was really tough as they were helping each other out.

Yeah I had the same the other day, there was a bomber and what looked like 2 guys helping him out by following behind him. I went for one of them and the other one got me whilst i was chasing him.

I thought you would probably be the best candidate, as I go away on holiday soon and won't be on for a few weeks, so not ideal for me to do it.

Yeah a squad would be a godsend, 99% of the games I play are just lone wolfs dogfighting each other even though its a ground attack game requiring bombers. Nobody wants to be a bomber though because they have no fighter protection so losing is inevitable.

Also bought some gold eagles but keep getting an error when i log in so my balance remains at zero

Edit - have they removed the "send crew on holiday" option? My bomber crew has minus numbers after their stats, though it may have something to do with my lack of experienced gunners rather than them being overworked.

yeah the minus numbers are to do with inexperienced gunners.

i think the send crew on holiday option is to basically help swap aircrafts around.

some of the upgrade packs are really expensive, i saw one which was like £70ish for like 4-6 planes and some eagles and stuff.

What's everyones PSN username then? Will try and add through in game option although PSN is down for maintenance tonight (5pm to midnight)

Mine is PsychoSonny and I don't have a preference of being a bomber or fighter, but the sheer slowness of the reloads on my bomber would probably make me a more effective fighter.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

i was playing for a while there.

absolutely thrashing people with the hurricane mk2 i got like 5 kills or assists withing a few minutes.

they are going to be making the maps even bigger, which i think is a bad thing unless they up the number of players, sometimes it takes ages to get from one target to the next. think i read about bigger maps on wikipedia or their official forums, unsure if it's for pc version or both.

i also noticed i manged about 6 clean bombing streaks on an enemy base without an enemy plane even coming to attack me, think it's due to the size of the maps or maybe noobs just simply playing for themselves.

anyone know if they will be keeping development for both the same? or will the versions be different?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

i seem to be the only one who knows what im doing in my teams most of the time in terms of destroying bases or targets.

i mean nobody bothers taking the AA out first, which is basically the biggest threats to planes.

crew grinding is starting to peeve, i mean the number of XP required for an experienced gunner or increasing anything is starting to stack up, i now normally have to play a full session before increasing a couple of stats, rather than playing 1 battle then doing it.

i really hate that stupid torpedo plane you need to use to unlock that bomber, i can't seem to do anything with it, what did you guys use it for? it's crap at everything.

currently using hurricane mk1 and mk2, spitfire, two bombers in the third line of research tree.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

i had a look at the squadron thing, it costs eagles to build a squadron - omg now that is disgusting, it's quite a lot of eagles too i think it was 1500.

the tutorial is easy you literally just follow the instructions exactly how it tells you to do it and its done.

i did it for the free stuff you get for completing it and to learn how to do the different things, other than that it was mind numbingly boring.

random battles on the other hand are just simply amazing, not bothered with the campaign, is it worth doing?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

I played a blinder last night, Killed about 10 planes in a row with my little Gladiator MKII, I realised I hated the Hurricane at the start but all the planes are pretty crap to begin with until you level up your crew, and my Gladiators are all leveled up, so will see how I get on NOW with my hurricane.

I bought 150 gold eagles last night for 85p from PSN store as I wanted to finish off the research for the Spitfire. Its pretty deadly but as I have not upgraded the crew at all yet its a bit pants flying wise and gets shot down easier at the moment.

I will be on this souly for the next few nights and will try to upgrade my SpitFire MK1 as much as possible.
It has the same amount of guns as the hurricane (8) but they are more spread out which makes it deadly.

spending eagles on research is a waste, you should have spent them on upgrading the crew.

with time research gets completed automatically, and usually pretty quickly anyway, i upgrade at least one thing every battle usually.

crew upgrades are far far harder to do so i would spend eagles there.