What is War Thunder, exactly?

What is it?... Well, according to the developers it's 'a next generation MMO combat game' Work that out

Well, if/when they get the naval and land components in, they have a great claim on that. Arma and BF have some water ops but nothing you could call a naval battle. The only game of recent past I can think of (and it only had patrol boats) was by the people who did Blackhawk Down/Somolia Delta Force games, but it had helicopters/patrol boats and ground forces and huge maps.

So they aren't selling themselves as a next generation flight sim... It's going to be a glorified and pretty Battlefield 1942?

That's a little harsh. The FRB part isn't single acft study sim level, but that is not to dismiss it. At the moment, the biggest ding against the flight sim is that historical scenario's are not reflective of time period/place for aircraft mixes. You have Tony's flying at Midway...either they had blimp sized drop tanks or Japanese had loooong aircraft carriers. You also end up with mixed bags of aircraft in player vs player scenarios which don't necessarily match time/location. e.g. B-25s in Russia.

It has its moments.. but it was big upped by various people trying to put CloD and IL2 down because this was going to be the best thing since sliced bread as far as flight simming goes.. but as we can see,it's not geared to serious flight simmers.
I still have a go at it now and then, but its pure dogfighting, nothing else is historical about it at all...
It sure looks nice, but the system model is pretty barmy, lol!

If you are a hardcore flight simmer I'd stick to flying in FRB mode. That's what most of us fly on here. That's the closest Warthunder will become to a flight sim.

I would say it's about even with IL2 1946 when flying in FRB mode.

Yes not all sim features are done yet in all the planes. Manual mixture, Prop, and Radiator controls don't do much right now in most planes. Some flight models are still pretty arcade compared to others. No bomber cockpits being a big one for me (but they are working on them!) Also flying non historical planes on certain maps takes getting use to, I really hope they do something about this.

But the game looks AMAZING. Great graphics, runs smooth on older systems even. Great music, menus. Plus it's FUN to play. Oh and did I mention it's FREE? You can't really complain about a free game that looks and plays this good.

I would disagree with pure dogfighting view. Yes, if you choose to only fly fighters, but then you aren't very effective against ground targets. I would say that for the time I've spent, you do see a mix of ground attack and fighter aircraft and you really need both to win.

Second on the looks amazing. The Port Moresby New Guinea maps, IMHO, are spectacular.

so is it realistic?like il2 1946?

I would say no the FM`s are not ready yet. One of the things I will point my fingers at, is plane set and time period, where in IL2 1946 server admins would take some serious time to use the correct plane set according to time period. In WT you can go up against jet`s in your prop plane - I'm not arguing the time period like 1944 and the German jet`s against P-51.

When money comes into play, I get a little suspicious (I have played since closed beta). Look at the forums and all the talk about nerf that, buff that and all the economy stuff.

Also the issues in FRB regarding Lod issue for some people. Sure there are some, who dont have that problem - TF seems to have solved that issue in CLoD (the reflection part), which seems not possible in WT (the suggestion have been made) for whatever reason and nothing done yet.

I think as long as it's all controlled centrally, it will not always be possible to suggest that something must change. Just see what happens in HB where people who use mouse / keyboard, as well as instructor and 3rd person view, fly against people with joystick / closed cockpit. No responsible admin would allow something like that in the interest of fair play - here however no problem with accepting it.

I wonder if the company can accept things like that, what other can be accepted. Just a few problems I se with WT right now.

Im somewhat hooked on it :\.

It has a great balance of real tactics\pick up and playness. Easy to control, hard to master.

I thought I'd give this one another go, its a good game, but not really for me. I must admit, I was seriously wanting to do harm to the instructor at one point during the takeoff/landing tutorials (which is easy even on full realism mode) as you have to go over really basic things and cannot skip. Hardest part is getting all the controllers properly aligned and working properly, which is probably another reason the tutorial instructor was getting irritating.

I would suggest right clicking the planes icon at the bottom of the screen as you can go for a test flight, this maybe a better deal than calibrating equipment through any of the tutorials.

So far the FM's don't seem up to the standard of DCS/ROF, with so many planes released does it even need to be? I hope games like this bring more into the hobby.

I've actually been wishing lately for IL-2 '46 with updated graphics and was thinking of giving WT a try (I mean, it is free after all...). I never a "full switch" guy in '46, so it sounds like the "Full Real" mode or whatever it is in WT might be close to what I want.

One question though - how much to additional aircraft cost? Both in real world $$$ or in game currency?

They get more expensive the better the plane as you climb the ladder. It doesn't take too much grinding to level up to a better plane if you are a halfway decent player that can score points each mission. I have yet to spend a dime on the game and never really felt like I was truly "grinding" in an RPG like way, because each FRB mission can unfold differently. Even if you're on the same map and using the same plane.

It's getting better; some chaps have got together for Wednesday 'Custom Battles', (19.00 GMT) which are more like the co-ops on H/lobby. Spotting seems to be better, but in FRB matchmaking still somewhat odd Jets v biplanes in some instances.

I downloaded this weekend and gave a try. I jumped right in to using my joystick and Track IR from the cockpit view. I tried some of all three realism levels and pretty much got my @$$ handed to me at each one. It definitely seemed like my "realistic" approach and control setup was putting me at a disadvantage at the lower realism levels.

Later in the day I tried to get a few more FRB matches in, but ended up waiting around 5 minutes and then giving up before I could find a match.

I really like the graphics and the FM/DM seems fine to me. We'll have to see if I can stick with the lower level aircraft and getting my butt handed to me long enough to get good and get some better planes...

Tried it yesterday and decided it wasn't for me. But then my main interest is in realistic offline and well designed coop missions. I can understand the appeal of WT for the dogfight crowd though. Nice to hop in and go blast something out of the sky.

You guys are so wrong. Playing a game for one day is not enough time to be so judgmental. This game is still in the beta stage. Full real will appeal to most SimHQ visitors. The lower tier aircraft are just fine. Getting into a multi-player does sometimes take awhile there are some methods to cut down the wait time. Come play with us for a few weeks, FFA squadron is open to all full real pilots and we have a TS room in the official War Thunder TS.

Wishful thinking because of the pretty graphics. WT is an arcade game, even in "full real," whatever that means. I gave it a chance for a while but eventually uninstalled it and never looked back.

6 years on, its grown quite a lot, now with tank ground combat and ships.

I don't like it, ,tried it a few times,. Its totally unrealistic and nothing but a money pit. Its not a simulator at all.Its world of tanks/planes,ships with a cockpit.