Today we’ll be taking a look at the Severe Damage mechanic which was first announced last year.

Back in the first Roadmap, we spoke about a new aircraft destruction mechanic and made an article asking for your feedback. Ever since, we’ve been thinking through this idea and have been carefully designing it. Let’s take a look at what we’ve been up to, and when and where the testing of this new mechanic will take place.


Briefly, the severe damage mechanic simplifies the system for scoring an aircraft destruction and makes it more understandable and transparent: as long as an aircraft can theoretically continue to fight, it’ll not be considered as destroyed.

To destroy a plane you’ll need to hit its pilot or inflict enough damage so that its tail is torn off. For helicopters, the conditions for destruction are similar: knocking out the pilot or inducing a large accumulated amount of damage to the fuselage, which emulates the destruction of the main structure, in aircraft it usually leads to the tail being torn off.

All damage that significantly reduces the performance characteristics of an aircraft and can be formalized falls into the category of severe damage. Inflicting this damage means that you have most likely damaged the enemy to the point where their combat effectiveness is critically reduced. The enemy can still fight on, but their effectiveness depends on their skills, aircraft model, control method and the nature of the damage.



Severe damage to a plane is considered to be: destruction of all engines (or destroying one engine if there is only one left), destruction of all elements of the control system (or the remaining controls left), which makes impossible to control the ailerons, elevators and rudders, separation of more than half of at least one wing, and destruction of all horizontal stabilizers (or the remainder of the horizontal stab).

Severe damage to helicopters is considered to be: destruction of all engines (or destroying one engine if there is only one left), tail separation (except for helicopters with coaxial rotors), damage to the tail propeller’s control rod or shaft, which makes it impossible to control it (except for helicopters with coaxial rotors), destruction of any propeller shaft, and destruction of any transmission.


When you deal severe damage to an enemy aircraft, you’ll receive a new “Severe damage” reward. This reward is 80% of the reward for a destruction. At the same time in the statistics window, the number of enemy aircraft destroyed will be supplemented with a “+” symbol by the number of current severe damages. For example, the entry “3+2” means that 3 vehicles were destroyed, and 2 more were severely damaged and are still alive. When a severely damaged enemy is destroyed or they repair themselves, they’ll disappear from this column.

If you continue the attack and achieve the destruction of the enemy, you’ll receive the remaining 20% of the reward. Accordingly, the reward for severe damage and subsequent independent finishing off the enemy is equal to the reward that’s given for destroying the enemy without the severe damage mechanic (80% + 20% = 100%).

If you didn’t manage to finish off a severely damaged aircraft and they flew away, this status will remain assigned to them. If your ally finishes them off, the following will happen: they’ll receive a new message saying “Aircraft finished off” or “Helicopter finished off”, 40% of the reward for destroying the enemy and an increase in the number of destroyed aircraft in the statistics window.

When this happens, you’ll be shown the “A kill of a severely damaged aircraft / helicopter counted” message and the destruction of an aircraft will be counted in the statistics window, but without occurring an additional reward, since you did not play any role in finishing off this enemy, and had previously received a reward for your action. The overall reward when two players play a part in the destruction of an enemy is higher with the severe damage mechanic: 80% to the player that caused the severe damage, and 40% to the player who got the finishing off. As a result, both players will receive a kill in the statistics window for defeating the enemy, which is taken into account when unlocking camouflages and completing tasks.



An aircraft can only receive severe damage once: all subsequent damage by the same or other players can only be normal or critical damage, or will lead to the destruction of the aircraft. Therefore, the destruction of one aircraft can only be counted towards two players: the one who inflicted severe damage and the one who finished off the aircraft.

A new “Severe Damage” item will also appear in the summary at the end of the battle if you received at least one of these rewards in battle. In the detailed table for the tooltip for the “Destruction of aircraft” statistics item, a new column will be shown: “Finishing off”, which can take the following values: “Own target”, if you destroyed an enemy who was previously severely damaged by yourself (20% reward), “Ally’s target”, if you destroyed an enemy who was severely damaged by an ally (40% reward), or “—” if you destroyed an enemy without severe damage (100% reward).


If a severely damaged aircraft crashes, its destruction is awarded to the player who caused the severe damage. As soon as this occurs, they’ll receive the rest of the award.


After successfully repairing an aircraft with severe damage at an airfield, the player who caused the severe damage will have this severe damage subtracted from their statistics (the issued reward will not be taken away). They’ll also not receive an increase in the number of destroyed enemies in their statistics, if after the repair, the battle ends and the aircraft crashes or is destroyed by allies.

After repairing an aircraft with severe damage, it can receive new severe damage again, as if it was a new aircraft having just spawned in.


At the end of a battle, all severely damaged aircraft will be considered destroyed — players in this state will receive the following message: “Written off due to severe damage”. A death in the statistics will be credited, and the player who caused the severe damage will be credited with a destroyed aircraft, where the rest of the reward will be given. This is done so that players with a severely damaged aircraft don’t try to hide and avoid combat in the hope that they’ll not be finished off.

So that you can familiarize yourself with the changes described above, we’ve prepared a special event for testing this new mechanic. These are available in the “Events & Tournaments” window. There are 3 events in total: initial ranks, Arcade Battles (Battle Rating 1.0 to 1.7), average ranks, Arcade Battles (Battle Rating 4.3 to 5.3), high ranks, Realistic Battles (Battle Rating 11.0 to 12.0). All events follow the normal rules of the specified game mode with the economy and achievements enabled (except Battle Pass tasks, challenges, and stages for the Sword of Justice event in order to avoid match-fixing battles as this test would be sparsely populated).

Events are available from February 20th (11:00 GMT) until February 23rd (11:00 GMT).

We welcome all of your feedback on the Severe Damage mechanic in the comments!

Launched on February 19th 1931, Aigle (“Eagle”) became the lead ship of the French destroyer series of the same name. In the early years of WWII, Aigle accompanied convoys transporting soldiers and gold bars, and in the summer of 1940 took part in a raid on Genoa, repelling attacks from Italian boats. Aigle was scuttled at Toulon along with other ships of Vichy France in November 1942 to prevent it from falling into the hands of Nazi Germany.

You can get this destroyer for 850 Golden Eagles.

• The Aigle is a very speedy destroyer. Its ammunition is stored just below the waterline, allowing for protection against explosions, and each turret has anti-fragmentation protection to help protect the crew. The Aigle also features decent torpedoes, and its available shells are well suited to countering boats and other destroyers!

Happy lunar new year! Thanks for sharing your screenshots from last week, we enjoyed getting to look at them! The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!


Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen107. You have time until the 23rd of February to submit your screenshot.

After that date, 6 winners will be selected (3 of which will be the highest rated by the community and 3 selected by our judges), each of which receive a reward of 300GE.

• Your screenshot must include any two player vehicles together.
  
• You must add the #WTscreen107 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
  
• Artists may only win by popular vote once per four screenshot competitions.

[/b]

Screenshots need to be compliant with the War Thunder rules.

You need to be the author of the screenshot.

Screenshot needs to be new. You cannot use those which have previously been published or used in other competitions.

We will only accept raw screenshots from the game. You cannot use any editing software nor any other visual enhancements (like Nvidia Ansel filters).

You can use filters and settings built into War Thunder.

You can use the replay functionality built into War Thunder.

Rewards will be delivered to the author's account within 14 working days.

[/list]


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3158316767
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3157602212
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3157593757

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3154530128
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3161040797
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3159039549

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!

A multi-purpose helicopter, the Bo 105 was developed by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm and first flew on February 16th 1967. This helicopter’s design and materials are impressive, as it features a hard titanium rotor head and fiberglass-reinforced blades!

You can get this helicopter for 8,560 Golden Eagles!

• The BO 105 CB-2 is a demonstration version of the Bo 105 that was built in 1978 and features BGM-71C TOW anti-tank missiles. This helicopter is capable of carrying 8 of them at once, which is an effective amount to use against enemy ground vehicles. This, its small fuselage size and good maneuverability allow it to effectively use cover and engage in different scenarios in battle!

• In Ground Realistic Battles, active scouting of a recently destroyed enemy (less than 1 second ago) is no longer considered a miss and blocks the reuse of scouting for 6 seconds, which is the same time for a successful scout, rather than for 45 seconds.
  
• Starting with the Sword of Justice event, the cost of purchasing an event stage with Golden Eagles will be significantly reduced when the player reaches 85% and 95% progress in completing a stage.
  
• Disappearance and deformation of textures when using the latest NVIDIA video card drivers has been fixed.

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

War Thunder’s regular cycle of events is continuing, and today we’re announcing the aircraft event. Show off your piloting skills to earn mission points to receive unique decals, a profile icon and the formidable Indian Jaguar IS, known as Shamsher (Sword of Justice)!

From February 22nd (11:00 GMT) until March 11th (11:00 GMT), earn mission points in Air Battles, unlock stages and receive rewards!

Meet the Indian variant of the British Jaguar, also known as the Sword of Justice. It features just one cannon instead of two, plus a targeting pod with a thermal imager allowing it to drop guided bombs. In addition to this, it can carry a pair of Magic 2 air-to-air missiles on overwing pylons, and also features an RWR and countermeasures against missile threats. Overall, a great all-round aircraft!





Among the rewards of the event is also this chest that you can open and get the chance of one of the following items:

• 50,000 - 100,000 Silver Lions
  
• Silver Lion and Research Point boosters
  
• Random Wagers and Orders
  
• Universal Backups (1 - 3)
  
• A random camouflage for a vehicle you own
  
• 1 day of Premium Account

Each stage can be obtained for 45,000 mission points, where every new stage obtained will give you a new reward.

You’re able to earn mission points in Air Battles at Rank III or above in Arcade, Realistic and Simulator Battles. The number of mission points to complete a stage depends on the game mode and the maximum Rank of the vehicle that you use in battle. There’s a multiplier for earning mission points, which is shown in the task description in-game.

You can also earn mission points by using event vehicles that are Rank I and II. Event vehicles that can be used have the name of the event that they were obtainable in on their stat card.

Stages change every two days at 11:00 GMT on February 24th, 26th and 28th; March 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th.

• For 1 Stage: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 2 Stages: one of the decal rewards
  
• For 3 Stages: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 4 Stages: one of the decal rewards
  
• For 5 Stages: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 6 Stages: “Dogfighting Pilot” profile icon
  
• For 7 Stages: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 8 Stages: non-tradable coupon for the Jaguar IS
  
• For 9 Stages: unique camouflage and 4 random modifications for the Jaguar IS

Unfinished stages can be purchased for Golden Eagles, but If you’re significantly close to completing a stage, its price will now be significantly reduced.

Let’s say you have earned 85% of the required mission points to complete a stage, then the price of purchasing this stage will be halved. If you’re near the finish line for a stage and are at 95% progress, then the price will be reduced by five times. For example, if you’ve scored 39,000 mission points, then the price for unlocking this stage will be 499 Golden Eagles. If you’ve scored 43,000 mission points, then you’ll only need to pay 199 Golden Eagles. Remember to keep this in mind if you cannot complete a stage on time!

When you complete 8 stages, you’ll receive a non-tradable coupon for the Jaguar IS, where using it will immediately activate the vehicle onto your account. If you don’t want the vehicle and would like to sell the coupon on the Market, you’ll need the “Upgrade for coupon” item.

The “Upgrade for coupon” item can be earned in parallel with the stages throughout the event from February 22nd (11:00 GMT) until March 11th (11:00 GMT) for 750,000 mission points.

After receiving the “Upgrade for coupon” item, you can convert a non-tradable coupon for the vehicle into a tradable one and sell it on the Market. The tradable coupon can be sold after 6 days from the moment it’s created.

The “Upgrade for coupon” item is valid until 11:00 GMT on March 14th. Until this time, you can use it or exchange it for War Bonds. Afterwards, it’ll disappear from your inventory.

You can track the progress of completing stages and receiving the “Upgrade for coupon” by clicking on your Nickname > Achievements > Sword of Justice. If you don’t manage to complete a stage on time or would like to purchase a stage, until March 14th from the Achievements window, you can purchase each stage with Golden Eagles which will give you the corresponding rewards.

• Tearing off the tail of helicopters with coaxial rotors is no longer counted as destruction, since it does not have a significant impact on the performance of these types of helicopters. This should help situations where players stop firing at one of these helicopters thinking it is no longer a threat.
  
• The detachment of an aircraft wing when the allowable load is exceeded is no longer counted as a destruction, the same as with the tearing off of flaps or landing gear.

Previously announced changes to vehicle grouping have been implemented:

• The 2S3M has been grouped with the 2S1, and the He 111 H-3 has been grouped with the BV 138 C-1.
  
• The BV 138 C-1 has been grouped with the He 115 C-1.
  
• The “Strela-10M2” has moved from Rank VI to Rank VII.

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

It’s Valentine’s Day. A time to give your soulmate gifts and spend time together! It’s also a time to decorate your vehicles with a love themed decal and decorations. Just like previous years, we’ve prepared a Valentine’s decal and the opportunity to purchase a trophy with decorations, plus a rare Valentine tank temporarily returns!

Get yourself this love-themed decal by completing the following task.


“Heart of Roses” decal




A trophy with themed decorations is available to purchase in the in-game Item Shop for 499 Golden Eagles. This trophy includes the “Love Anchor” ship decoration, plus the “Bear with a Heart” and “Compound Bow” decorations for ground vehicles. When opening it, you’ll receive a decoration that you don’t yet have.




For 1,000 Golden Eagles, you can get this rare tank this Valentine’s Day.

• The MK-IX “Valentine” is a British Valentine IX tank that was delivered to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. It’s sluggish and slow, but durable and accurate — a good sniper! A quick reload and a low profile allows it to effectively use cover for long-range shots.

Today, we’re going to be talking about the work on improvements and bug fixes to the game over the past 2 weeks. We’ve selected some that we think will be interesting to see, so let’s take a look!

If you’ve found a bug that you’d like to report, you can do so on our community bug reporting platform.




In the battles of War Thunder, not only does every second count, but even a split second is enough to decide the outcome of a situation. That’s why a stable frame rate is so important, especially when flying an aircraft over a tank battlefield.

It was precisely in this situation that the game could freeze up: in ground battles, when flying over a cluster of ground vehicles, an aircraft pilot’s screen sometimes froze for about a second, or even longer in some cases. This could cause an aircraft to lose control and crash.

We’ve found the root cause of this problem and have fixed it.




We’ve received many reports from you that active scouting did not work as it should. In Ground Realistic Battles, enemy vehicles were not scouted at a noticeable distance, even if the target was directly in the crosshairs of the gun sight or binoculars: it was not marked as scouted.

Not only did we fix this problem, we continued to improve the logic of active scouting.

Another improvement concerns rewards for scouting. If a player has already shot at an enemy before you scouted and then destroyed them, then the game has nothing to reward you for, since another player successfully detected that enemy themselves. Therefore in this situation, you’ll be given a reward “Not by intelligence”. It’s less valuable, meaning you’ll not receive an increase in air strike and artillery points (in Ground Arcade), and a reduction in the cost of spawn points for aircraft (Ground Realistic).




We’ve improved the HUD in the Battle ground gamemode, to make the goals and objectives of each team clearer. We’ve removed the team points bar in favor of a more readable display of the number of destroyed vehicles to win and the current number for each team. Under this indicator you can now also see a timer, where when this runs out, the team that has destroyed the most enemy vehicles wins.




Targeting pods and built-in optics for high-ranking aircraft help in detecting ground targets and ensure the use of weapons at ranges comparable to the engagement ranges of air defense systems at similar Battle Ratings. However, due to an error in applying the angular dimensions of targets with the detection range through sights, these ranges were noticeably less than those necessary for small targets. This meant that for small vehicles like the Swedish Lvrbv 701, the maximum range at which it could be detected in a sight or targeting pod was about 8 km. Now, after fixing this issue, its detection range is over 20 km, and for larger vehicles, even more.

The full list of improvements can be found in each update note! Let’s go through a few: stabilizers no longer allow you to increase the turret rotation speed, creating a new preset no longer leads to the gamemode changing, and the penetration values of shells are now again visible in the stat cards of all vehicles.

• Update 2.33.0.114
  
• Update 2.33.0.111
  
• Update 2.33.0.110
  
• Update 2.33.0.105

• A bug where the selection of machine guns and cannons did not function correctly has been fixed.
  
• Ka-Chi — incorrect placement of decorations when the pontoons were removed has been fixed.
  
• Ariete — incorrect placement of decorations when the War Kit modification was removed has been fixed.
  
• Missing armor penetration values on the stat cards of some vehicles has been fixed. (Report)
  
• Incorrect operation of the stabilizer, which allowed the player to increase aiming speed and turret rotation has been fixed.
  
• The animation of tracks on destroyed armor vehicles when they are being towed has been removed.
  
• Ratel 20 — a bug causing no separate ATGM sight to be present has been fixed. (Report)

• A bug with the radar on the F-14 where in ‘Track While Scan’ mode, the radar could switch between targets, which made it difficult to launch AIM-54 missiles has been fixed.
  
• A21A-3 — a bug that caused the wrong order of bomb drops has been fixed.
  
• All airborne radars with BVR mode now have a target tracking prolongation time of 3 seconds.
  
• ACM and HMD radar modes range for F-16A/D (all variants), AV-8B Plus (Italy), Mirage 2000 (all variants) and J-8F was increased to 10 NM.

• The inability to activate a tow rope has been fixed.

• A bug where in some cases in Ground Realistic Battles, active scouting did not work, despite the fact that the target was in the crosshairs of the scout’s sight or binoculars has been fixed.
  
• In Ground Arcade and Realistic battles, when a scouted target is destroyed by a player who attacked it within 60 seconds before the scouting, the scout is now always given a “Not by intelligence” reward. This also means that the scout will not receive an increase in air strike and artillery points (in Ground Arcade), and a reduction in the cost of spawn points for aircraft (Ground Realistic).
  
• A bug in Ground Arcade battles when destroying a scouted target from an aircraft, the reward “Not by intelligence” was always given, without taking into account whether the player had seen the target before the scouting or not has been fixed.

• A bug that led to FPS drops in Naval Battles due to the display of damage in the hit camera has been fixed.
  
• Critical FPS drops (freezes) when flying over tank areas have been fixed.

• A new HUD for the “Battle” ground mode has been added. Instead of a bar of team points, it shows the number of destroyed vehicles required for an instant victory, as well as the current number for each team. It also includes a mission timer, after which victory is awarded to the team with the most kills. The logic of the mission has not changed, but has just become more clear.
  
• A bug where crew slots were hidden when the crew window was open due to a larger interface scale has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused the game mode to change when creating a new vehicle preset has been fixed.
  
• A bug where a squad invitation was not shown in the chat has been fixed.
  
• The text color in the skill bonus tooltip in the statistics window has been changed for better readability.

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

Last year after long training and qualifying matches, 8 of the strongest teams earned the right to participate in the most prestigious tournament — Thunder CUP 2024! However, only one team will become the champion in 5x5 RB battles, but which one will it be? Cheer for your favorite team and receive prizes throughout the event!

Throughout the three weekends, a wide range of awesome prizes will be available during match broadcasts.

• M1A2 SEP V2 Camouflage (up to 3 items)
  
• F-15J Camouflage
  
• Profile icon (up to 2 items)
  
• “Popcorn” decal (up to 3 items)
  
• Dragon Box (up to 2 items)
  
• Silver Lions Booster 50% for 10 battles (up to 3 items.)
  
• Research Points 50% Booster for 10 battles (up to 3 items)
  
• 1 Day of Premium Account (up to 3 items)
  
• Universal Backup x2

Profile Icon


“Popcorn” decal

Watch the tournament and get Twitch Drops only on the official English, German, French and Russian War Thunder Esport channels!

During the 3 weekends of Twitch drops, you’ll be able to receive up to 21 items. Missed one prize from the stream? No worries, as you’re able to receive it during the next weekend, but you’ll need more stream watch time to get it. If you receive the camouflage, player icon or decal multiple times, you’ll be able to exchange them for Warbonds.

Login to your Twitch account → link your Gaijin account → click “Allow” to be able to receive Twitch Drops!

To keep up with all the happenings in the world of Esports in War Thunder, join our community on Discord! Starting today, we’ll be giving away premium bundles there:

• M1A1 HC "Click-Bait" Pack
  
• Tornado IDS WTD 61
  
• K9 VIDAR
  
• HMS Iron Duke
  
• Saab J35XS
  
• AH-64A Apache

Just like last year, you’ll see exciting 5v5 (+2 spare) battles in realistic battle mode with markers! This time, it’ll be up to four victories and in the Advance to the Rhine mission. On the battlefields of War Thunder, you’re going to see incredible plays and unexpected comebacks at top tier ground and air battles.

Participating teams will use unique tactics in an effort to win Golden Eagles, part of the $5000 prize fund and compete for the “Thunder CUP 2024 Champion” title!


“Thunder CUP 2024” decal




Available on the Gaijin Store!

• "Hoplomachus Snail" decal
  
• "Snailonidas" title
  
• 300 Golden Eagles