http://warthunder.com/First of all, this isn't a simulator. You've got a plane, but if anyone's played World of Tanks they know what I mean. You press 'shift' to accelerate and 'ctrl' to decelerate. In mouse mode, you just point and the plane will bank and turn for you.
Granted, it's still not the classic 'space fighter shootem'up' cockpit view games. As you raise altitude, you loose speed, leveling off can regain speed, and descending gains speed fast. Gain too much speed and your pilot starts to black out from the g-forces, tunneling your vision down to a small cone in the center and going black and white. Apparently go
too fast and your wings can break off! Go too far straight up and your engine can easily stall. Take a banking turn too hard and wind up in a mountain. Despite the casual elements of gameplay, flying can take a little to get used to, and learn how not to flop around awkwardly, or outright fall out of the sky.
It's also got some unusual ways to handle combat. For instance, during combat you can be damaged and lose ammo (especially bombers, for both), but landing at a friendly airfield will allow you to repair, lower the fatigue from your crew (all those sharp turns and g-forces take their toll), and re-arm, which takes time depending on your crew levels. However, sometimes you run into trouble! I had my fuel tank hit one time, and suddenly ran out of fuel in the middle of a fight, so I decided to flee, hoping I had enough remaining fuel to make it back to the airstrip - I didn't. I looked quickly, and found a stretch of road through a thick forest, so I swoosh down as best I can, and break my landing gear during a crash landing. This provided me with experience points - for surviving a dangerous situation where I'm flying and all that's left is my gliding power. I bail out of the plane and grab a new one.
There's also more than just planes. Currently during a match, you can find ships and ground armor, and be tasked to destroy them. They'll shoot back, and rarely kill but very often give a flak burst on your side and scare the hell out of you. So, Assault planes can use the cannons and dumbfire missiles to smash them, fighters can attempt machinegun runs, and bombers of course can drop 400 pound carpet bombs. Similarly for warships, you can attempt runs, dive bombings, torpedo bombings, or just suicide into their faces, as I tend to end up doing.
Oh yeah, also naval fights. Good luck landing on the carrier!
As for the rest? If you've played World of Tanks, you know the deal. 6 different nations (USA, Britain, USSR, German, China, Japan... I think...) and you gain experience points into your player level AND what nation you're using. The higher your national rank, the better down the tech tree you can buy, once you've bought the previous plane. There's also a handful of 'reserve' fighter planes, your no-cost-free-repair noob frames. One thing that's nice, however, is that you gain crew points to spend. Instead of 'the crew is better' you get skill points and decide if you want a better pilot or gunner - for that matter, you decide if you want the pilot able to see enemies from a further distance or if you want the pilot to withstand g-forces better. Each crew has 5-6 different attributes to rank up independently, many of them on very long tracks. Like gunner accuracy goes up to 50, and 3rd rank costs 2 skill points instead of 1. So it can take a long time to fully rank up a single plane. Fortunately, you get more than 1 skill point per match, if you're doing decently.
There's also lots of ways to earn exp. Shooting planes, of course (enemy planes!) but also destroying enemy tanks or water targets, capturing runways by landing on them, even landing and taking off successfully will earn you a little exp! Being critically damaged and making a 'saving landing' will earn you as well, and probably lots of other things I haven't discovered yet. Unlike World of Tanks that merely encourages rushing and/or sitting behind a wall, War Thunder prompts the player to act as they normally would during a fight and rewards them for being active.
There's also development plans for allowing players to own and use naval vessels and land vehicles, although in open beta all they've got is airplanes. Still, there's swap buttons that don't work yet, so that's promising.
http://warthunder.com/
Author
Topic: War Thunder. Casual Dogfighting MMO. (Read 214412 times)