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  1. So you're downloading War Thunder and want to know more about it. This is a combination faq/newbie guide to hopefully help you get off on the right foot. This is mostly written from the planes perspective of the game, but I expect much will carry over to the tanks aspect of Ground Forces as well. There are other newb guides out there, and I read them when I was learning, but I felt some of them were incomplete, or were outdated, and I had a number of questions left unanswered that took me awhile to learn. Hopefully this can fill some of the gaps.
  2.  
  3. Which nation should I pick?
  4.  
  5. This is the first question the game will ask you. You might see a lot of arguments about the strengths and weaknesses of each nation, but much of that is for higher level game play. At the moment it really doesn't matter. You will quickly unlock all five nations after only a few matches of game play, and you will be able to fly aircraft from all of them.
  6.  
  7. The only long term consequence of which nation you pick will be the free premium airplane that you get as a reward for winning your first battle (the premium planes in this case are aced versions of airplanes you can unlock anyway, i.e. an aced airplane is a plane where all the modifications are unlocked and uninstalled, essentially you'll get a second copy of a plane you'll get anyway, eventually).
  8.  
  9. Now all of the starting “reserve” aircraft at the beginning are very weak Tier 1 aircraft. There aren't a whole lot of differences between the various nations at this point, and since you're learning how to fly the differences won't be appreciated a whole lot. That said, the Soviets are generally considered to have the best reserve aircraft. They turn very well, they're very sturdy, and they have exceptional fire power. Furthermore, the gift plane for the Soviets, the I-153 “Chaika” is probably the best of those early gift planes. Note: if you're having trouble identifying all the different planes based on their names and numbers, don't worry about it, that just comes with practice.
  10.  
  11. On the other hand, the Japanese reserve planes are often considered the weakest. They turn well, but are fragile and have very poor firepower. That said, their gift plane, Hagiri's A5M4 “Claude” is also very good. You'll probably want to fly all the different nations' reserve aircraft, just for the variety, and the experience.
  12.  
  13. How do I actually fly the planes? Can I use a mouse or do I need a joystick? Controller?
  14.  
  15. Sure. Most players probably use a keyboard and mouse. After selecting a nation, the game will prompt you to fly the first tutorial mission, be sure to do this.
  16.  
  17. In the default mode, there will be a cursor, and a separate crosshair indicating the direction the nose of the plane is pointing in (an also the direction the guns are pointing in). You can freely move the cursor (with mouse or other device) around the screen, and the plane's “instructor” will automatically move itself to point in the direction of where you placed your cursor. There is lag between moving your cursor, and the plane turning. A very agile fighter will very quickly respond to the movement of your cursor, a big heavy bomber or damaged aircraft will respond very slowly. When you're in combat, you'll have to be aware of your cursor, where your aircraft is pointed, and where the enemy aircraft is, and where it's going to be when your bullets it. It can be disorienting at first but it doesn't take much practice to get used to it.
  18.  
  19. All of the planes actual movements are handled by an “instructor.” Mostly you just tell the plane where you want it to go. If you're new to flight simulators, or you've been intimidated by them in the past, don't worry about it, in the default mode, the game is very, very generous towards new players. There are much more complex and difficult modes of flying, if you're into that as well.
  20.  
  21. Note: The game will only prompt you to fly the first tutorial mission. There are actually eight in total, and new players should fly them all. The other seven are listed under “tutorial” on the game's main menu. A lot of new players miss this, so be sure to check it out. I've seen numerous players in higher tier matches ask things like “how do I drop bombs?” Please don't be that guy.
  22.  
  23. Alright, finished the tutorials. Now I'm in my hangar. What is all this stuff?
  24.  
  25. It's not as overwhelming at it looks. Center of the screen is the plane you're in now. You can rotate that, zoom, etc.
  26.  
  27. From top left going clockwise. You've got the main menu. You can adjust all your controls, settings, fly single player missions, tutorials, all that obvious stuff.
  28.  
  29. Next to that is your pilot info. There will be a ton of info here about planes you've shot down, ground targets destroyed, medals won, titles earned, etc. It's always worth a read through. There's a lot of stuff to unlock in this game.
  30.  
  31. To the right is your convertible research, silver lions, gold eagles...
  32.  
  33. What are silver lions?
  34.  
  35. Silver lions are the in-game currency you get for playing the game. Hitting aircraft and shooting them down, destroying tanks, shooting down most enemy aircraft, random rewards, these are all the kinds of things that will get you silver lions. What can you do with silver lions? You can buy new airplanes that you've unlocked with research. You can buy new modifications for your plans that you've unlocked. You can rush your repair jobs, and things like that. At the beginning you'll probably be getting a lot more silver lions than you're spending. Go ahead and spend these freely. By the time you're unlocking expensive planes, and doing costly repairs, you'll have a much better idea of how to save and earn silver lions.
  36.  
  37. An early tip on saving lions: turn off automatic repairs. When you start the game, or unlock new planes, each plane gets ten free automatic repairs. After that, it starts charging you lions after each mission. You can repair planes for free by waiting a set amount of time, at at early tiers, the wait time for free repairs is very short. You can just fly some other plane while your damaged plane is repairing for free.
  38.  
  39. What are golden eagles?
  40.  
  41. Golden eagles are the currency that you actually pay real money for. They can be used for buying special unique airplanes, or for advancing in the game without grinding. The game will give you some free golden eagles when you start. I would highly recommend playing the game for a couple weeks before you spend a single golden eagle, even the free ones you get at the beginning. Because then you have a much better idea of what is worth your money, and what you can get for free by grinding. That convertible research icon has to do with spending real money to, hold off on that until you get a better idea for yourself. That's really outside this newb guide.
  42.  
  43. Continuing down to the bottom of the hangar screen you've got tabs for each of the five nations, and in each tab we've got the crew slots.
  44.  
  45. Crew slots?
  46.  
  47. This is the meat and potatoes of your hangar screen. When you start the game you're in one nation, and you've got three planes. These are probably biplanes, unless you're playing Americans, which have early monoplanes. Each plane occupies a crew slot.
  48.  
  49. You can sort of think of these as parking spaces in your hangar. Each slot can have one plane at a time. Each slot has its own crew: pilots, mechanics, gunners, etc. As you progress in the game, you'll get experience that you can use to increase the skill of these crew. Now if you unlock a new plane, you can put it in one of these slots- but you still keep the same crew, so you get to keep all of your crews experience.
  50.  
  51. Note: you get to keep all the planes you unlock. It is not like some other games where you have to discard old vehicles in order to get knew ones. It's a simple matter of changing the vehicle in each crew slot.
  52.  
  53. Each nation starts with three free crew slots. You can buy two more with silver lions. And several more with golden eagles. I think most players eventually end up with just five crew slots in each nation. It's unlikely that you'll ever need more than that, since it's so easy to switch out vehicles.
  54.  
  55. Right clicking on the crew slots gives you several options.
  56.  
  57. You can switch vehicles.
  58.  
  59. You can examine the crews and their skills. There are three different crew tabs: one for your pilot himself, one for your gunners, and one for your ground crew. Each has a range of skills and all are very important. There's also a qualifications tab. More on all of this later.
  60.  
  61. You can look at your plane's modifications. Each plane has quite a few modifications. New ammunition. Improved guns. New engine. High octane fuel. All sorts of stuff. You'll unlock these as you fly missions in them. Note: a lot of people will unlock new planes, take them out to a battle, and get shot down and think the plane sucks. But that's just the stock plane. A fully modified plane (given a little ace of spades icon, people call them 'aced') performs much, much better than the stock plane. Try to get a plane aced before passing a final judgment off on it.
  62.  
  63. You can also change the planes appearance. There are numerous skins you can unlock for some planes by doing certain missions with them, as well as numerous decals you can put on any plane. You can also make your own skins now, but that's outside this guide.
  64.  
  65. Finally, you can take your plane out for a test flight. Might be good for trying out a new plane without having the worry of getting shot at, or screwing around and messing up your teammate's matches.
  66.  
  67. One last important thing on the hangar screen: your research tab. Here's where you select which plane you want to fly next. You might not recognize a lot of these planes, don't worry too much about it, you'll learn. There are a lot of people who play because they're only interested in one plane. Say they really like P-51 mustangs, so they beeline straight for the plane they want, and try to get it as soon as possible. I don't care for that approach. While it's fine to do, I like to play all the nations, and unlock all the planes in each tier first.
  68.  
  69. Planes are organized into five different tiers. Early primitive biplanes at the bottom of tier 1, advanced Korean War era jet fighters at the top of tier 5. By grinding from the bottom to the top, instead of beelining for a high tier plane, you unlock and get to fly a lot of really great planes you otherwise might have missed. There are a whole bunch of really fun tier 1 and tier 2 planes. Furthermore, all that flying you're doing is gaining you a lot of practice, and crew skill experience. Just my opinion, but I feel like the grind is worth it.
  70.  
  71. OK, that's enough to start with, on to battle...
  72.  
  73. Wait, there's three different modes, right?
  74.  
  75. Sure, briefly...
  76.  
  77. Arcade: by far the most popular mode for planes. It's a very generous and easy flight model. All of the planes in your hangar (for each nation), you get to take with you. If you get shot down in the first plane, you get to respawn in the next plane of your choice. Your plane will automatically reload its ammunition in the air. There's a “lead indicator” that helps you know where to shoot in order to hit your target. It's very short, fast paced action. There's a lot of excitement to be found here, but many players also find era lot of frustration too. They usually complain about awful players, rammers, etc. You'll see this for yourself.
  78.  
  79. Realistic battles: Less popular among the masses, but it still has a lot of enthusiasts. You only get one plane, and that's it. The flight model is more realistic, you'll need to know how to land properly (and you even have to redo the tutorials with the realistic flight model). You won't be able to reload in the air, but have to land instead. The maps are much bigger and the matches last much longer, though you'll spend a lot of that time climbing instead of dogfighting. There's no lead indicator. It's much harder to shoot down any planes, but it's a much more rewarding experience when you do.
  80.  
  81. Simulator battles: this is the hardcore mode. Very few play this. It requires a stick, and is much harder to fly the plane. I think there are a lot of players who don't even finish the tutorial on this. There are enthusiasts who love it, I've never actually tried it myself, so I won't talk more about it.
  82.  
  83. There's different opinions on the subject, I say for now just do arcade. Rest of the guide will be from a arcade perspective.
  84.  
  85. What about tanks?
  86.  
  87. Ground Forces has the same three modes, but the differences between them are much smaller than with planes, at the moment. In arcade you get to take all the tanks in your hangar, same as planes. You also get a convenient indicator showing the drop of your shells over range, and the likelihood of penetrating. You lose that indicator in realistic so you have to judge range yourself. Also only get one tank that you selected. In simulator you are limited to the commander's view or gunner's view, instead of third person view, and it's harder to spot enemy tanks since they don't have the large red tag any more. At the moment there are a lot more people playing realistic and simulator compared to planes, though at the time of writing this, it's still closed beta, and all of this is very subject to changes.
  88.  
  89. Any rate, forget that, you downloaded War Thunder to play, so lets jump in. Hit battle..
  90.  
  91. Holy shit... I just... what happened?
  92.  
  93. So you've just finished your first arcade match. Congratulations. I didn't watch it, but I'm going to guess what happened. You spawned in your biplane at altitude. You looked around the battlefield, either Stalingrad or Foggy Albion. It is a beautiful game, isn't it? After a few seconds you saw the field in front of you light up with red targets. Some planes, a lot of ground targets. You dove in. You turned a lot. You got lost. Shit happened. Holy fuck.
  94.  
  95. Did you die? Did you die three times? Did you overestimate how fast you can turn, and ran straight into the ground? Did you clip a tree? Did you get shot down by AAA? Did you run straight into another player and you both died? This happens all the time to everybody at the beginning. I think getting shot down by enemy aircraft might just be the least likely way to die. At any rate, hopefully you managed to kill some targets. Maybe even an enemy player. Or at least scored a few hits? You'll get better. Hope you had as much fun as I did my first time.
  96.  
  97. After the match, win or lose, you'll get a couple of summary tabs to look at. Both how you did yourself, and as a part of a team.
  98.  
  99. You'll get two kinds of research points. One will unlock new modifications for the planes that you flew. The other will go towards unlocking a new plane. The screen about unlocking new modifications is kinda weird, and not the best UI. You'll get used to it though with a little experience.
  100.  
  101. Did you win the match? They throw a lot of stuff at you if you did. All kinds of rewards, medals, honors... mouse over these to see what they mean. You'll also get that free gift premium plane. Instead of replacing one of your three reserve planes with the new one, consider buying a new crew slot. That way you'll get to take four planes into battle next time, instead of just three.
  102.  
  103. This wasn't anything like the tutorial? How do I play better? Any tips?
  104.  
  105. I've got a few, but they only go so far. The best way to get better is practice. You'll be surprised how fast it happens.
  106.  
  107. Speed is everything. Which means altitude is everything. Higher altitude means you can dive, which can engage faster, or escape faster, or do all kinds of things. You always want a speed advantage.
  108.  
  109. Don't climb straight up. A lot of new players do this. They've got an enemy on their tail. So they turn right, doesn't work. They turn left, doesn't work. They think “I know, I'll go straight up! They'll never follow!” This doesn't work. They go straight up, they lose all their speed, and they've not just made themselves a perfect target for the guy behind them, they now stick out like a sore thumb for everybody on the battlefield. It's a good way to die.
  110.  
  111. Speed advantage is super important at higher tiers. It's not so obvious in reserve plane battles. That said, always keep it in mind, and make it a good practice to have a speed advantage. In a turn fight, it's probably better to stay throttled up, or even use WEP, than to drop the throttle just to make a single turn a little easier.
  112.  
  113. Situational awareness is key. Use the c button (or whatever you've re-mapped to) to constantly be looking around you. All players learn this eventually, but a lot of new players, your enemies, haven't gotten used to it yet. The faster you learn it, the better an advantage you'll have. Some people swear by zooming. I never use it, because it leads to tunnel vision, which hampers awareness.
  114.  
  115. Keep an eye on your ammo and guns. Don't hold down the trigger and spray, fire in bursts. That will keep your gun from jamming usually. In the beginning, reload times are frustratingly long. You'll probably lose kills because you were still reloading. Higher crew skills really helps this a lot.
  116.  
  117. Don't engage in head on attacks. You will anyway, but try to learn to avoid them. Chances are you'll just get yourself killed, and in early matches you'll almost always just run into each other, and lose both planes without getting any points for it. It's a temptation that's hard to fight.
  118.  
  119. What do I do if I get somebody on my tail?
  120.  
  121. This one is super frustrating to new players. Chances are, you probably can't do anything. All of the biplanes turn really well, so you won't be able to out turn him. Definitely don't try to climb out of it, like I said early, because you'll lose all your speed. You're probably going to get shot down, not a huge deal, just respawn. But this is where situational awareness plays a role. The only really good way to have somebody get off your tail is to get a teammate to shoot him down for you. Don't wander too far away from the pack. If you see a group of teammates some distance away, try to weave and bob your way over there. If you're lucky, maybe you'll just make it. Friendly AAA can also help sometimes. And be sure to return the favor. If you see a teammate struggling with an enemy on his tail, be sure to dive in there and help him out.
  122.  
  123. I'm starting to get the hang of it, but how do I win matches? I keep losing them.
  124.  
  125. Ah, here's the tricky part. Sometimes it's possible to carry a team. But there will be plenty of matches, where you'll absolutely dominate. You'll shoot down a dozen enemy fighters and take out half their ground vehicles, but you'll still lose a match because the rest of your team was a bunch of assholes who weren't trying to win.
  126.  
  127. I think the best thing you can do is just not to get too worked up about it. Try to have fun, and try to win the match, but don't expect the other players to be helping you out to much.
  128.  
  129. Early missions with reserve biplanes are all ground strike maps. That means the first team to destroy all the ground targets will win. So the natural thing to do is to go after all the ground targets as you can. You'll see other teammates going after enemy fighters, and it seems like they're not interested in ground targets at all. Maybe they don't know what they're supposed to do. Maybe they don't even care. That said, maybe they're going after an enemy fighter who was going after friendly ground targets. That's still an important contribution to the team. Maybe they're going after a fighter who was on the tail of a teammate who was trying to attack ground targets, also an important role.
  130.  
  131. Don't worry too much about teammates and their motivations. Maybe they're shit-for-brains screwballs. Maybe they'll save your ass when you need it. Just have fun, and make an effort to help win the match.
  132.  
  133. What's the best way to win the match, after all that?
  134.  
  135. Early matches are all soft ground targets, you can take them out with your machine guns. Easiest of all the targets are artillery. They won't shoot you down, they're immobile, and they're easy to take out. Though they are at the back of the pack, and you'll have to go through enemy fighter to reach them. AAA are also easy to take out though they will definitely shoot you down. They're dangerous for biplanes. SPAA are a little trickier, since they're mobile, but their not too difficult. Armored cars are the toughest nuts to crack at this point. They're not to dangerous, but they're small and mobile, and might require multiple passes. Later in the game, you'll encounter tanks, which can't be taken out with machine guns. They need bombs. You'll also run into enemy bases and airfields. Bases look like bullseye targets on the map. In later ground strike maps, you'll need to take out the bases first, then the airfields, whichever team does that first will win.
  136.  
  137. Some of the reserve planes can unlock and then carry bombs. These are much better at taking out ground targets than strafing. They'll make those early ground strike matches much easier to get through. These planes can be very effective at farming the xp you need to unlock better planes.
  138.  
  139. Later in the game, you'll play Domination matches, the only other type of arcade match. These are “capture the flag” matches, where each team lands on the airfield to capture it. The win goes to the team that holds the most airfields the longest. It will be very helpful to practice your high speed landings for these. The enemy won't make it easy for you, anybody trying to land will make themselves a juicy target.
  140.  
  141. These matchs have very, very intense, and very fun, dogfights. Note: they still have ground vehicles that you'll have to keep an eye on. Enemy AI tanks can still capture an airfield, even if you land on them. So you will have to take them out if you want to keep control of the airfield. You'll see players trying to land but they won't cap because they haven't taken out the ground units.
  142.  
  143. How important are crew skills?
  144.  
  145. They're incredibly important. A lot of time experienced players will get back into their tier 1 planes, and they'll just dominate the matches. This is mostly because they're well practiced at the game, but also because they've got much higher crew skills.
  146.  
  147. What do the crew skills do?
  148.  
  149. Pilot tab:
  150.  
  151. keen vision: when there's an enemy approaching from far away, you'll see a single black pixel. At a certain range, you'll be given the name, airplane type, distance, and be able to target them. Keen vision improves the range at which this happens. This is very important, especially early in the match, when you're deciding on your strategy.
  152.  
  153. Awareness: like keen vision, this alerts you to nearby planes but in your peripheral vision, or behind you.
  154.  
  155. G-tolerance: when you perform high g-maneuvers at speed, your pilot will either black out or red out, and you'll actually see a decrease of vision on your screen. In some ways, the visual effect is easy to ignore. The biggest problem,though, is that you can lose your target, and have to struggle to find him again if you don't know which way he turned. This can be fatal in a dog fight. Increasing this skill minimizes the effect, so it's very important.
  156.  
  157. Stamina: the longer the match goes on, or the more heavy maneuvering you do, the more the pilot gets fatigued. This worsens the other skills. Higher stamina lowers the effect of fatigue.
  158.  
  159. Vitality: When enemies shoot your planes, they can damage your wings or your tails, or your fuselage, but they can also shoot your pilot. If they knock out your pilot they'll cause you to crash. Increasing vitality decreases the chance of this happening, so it's an important one. In early matches, you'll die an awful lot because your pilot gets “sniped.” Increase vitality to help prevent this.
  160.  
  161. Gunners tab:
  162.  
  163. Note: this won't have any effect in your reserve plane. Gunners are important in later, usually heavier aircraft, where there might be, for example, a tailgunner.
  164.  
  165. Number of experienced gunners: each plane gets one free experienced gunner. But if there are, say, two different gunners in the tail, you'll get skill penalties for each inexperienced gunner. Having two experienced gunners will eliminate the penalty for a two-gunner plane. More gunners means you need more experienced gunners to eliminate the penalties.
  166.  
  167. Fire accuracy: self explanatory. When the AI is firing, this influences how likely it will hit the target. If you take over for the gunner manually, this won't matter. But if you're trying to maneuver the plane, this is very important.
  168.  
  169. Fire precision: like accuracy, only it influences the spread of the bullets. You can have a very high accuracy, but if your precision is poor, you'll still miss the target a lot because your bullets are spraying everywhere. It's just as important as accuracy.
  170.  
  171. G-tolerance, stamina, and vitality: just like with pilot, only it influences your gunners.
  172.  
  173. Ground crew tab:
  174.  
  175. Repair speed: You might not notice this at first. It influences how fast your plane is repaired in the hangar after a mission. You get ten free repairs anyway, and if you've got automatic repairs on, you won't even notice it.
  176.  
  177. BUT it also influences repairs in mission. If your plane is damaged in combat, you can return to your friendly airfield, land, and repair in a certain amount of time. There will be times when you're sitting on an airfield, helpless, and you'll see an enemy airplane bearing down on you, and you'll be looking at that plane, and the timer counting down, and you'll wish you had more points invested into your repair speed, so you can take off and defend yourself. I've had some real nail-biters here.
  178.  
  179. Repair rank: kinda complicated. If effects the efficiency of your repairs for planes of different tiers. If you've got a damaged tier 2 plane, it's going to take a lot longer to repair if you haven't got a higher repair rank.
  180.  
  181. Reload speed: super important, obviously. This will greatly decrease the amount of mid-air reload speed for arcade matches. It's less important for realistic battles, but still pretty important. An obvious skill to spend a lot of experience points in.
  182.  
  183. Weapon maintenance: your guns jam if they over heat. Higher skill here greatly decreases jamming from happening. It also makes your guns more precise (less spread). And it will also help make your bombing more precise. This is a pretty important skill. Note: if your gun jams in a middle of a battle, it will automatically clear when you reload. If one gun has jammed but the other's fine, you can manually clear the jam by manually reloading. Push R by default.
  184.  
  185. Qualifications tab:
  186.  
  187. Very important but kind of tough to understand for new players. You can qualify as an “expert” crew for any given plane that you've put in a crew slot, by spending silver lions. (You can also get “”ace” by spending real money).
  188.  
  189. Expert qualification gives +30 additional skill points across six different skills, in all three crew skill tabs. This is an absolutely enormous boost, and it's very very good to get.
  190.  
  191. A crew can get expert status in any plane you want, though you'll have to spend silver lions for each plane. For example, a single crew slot might be expert at a p-36, a p-26, and a PBY at tier 1, a P-38 and an F4F at tier 2, etc. If you really want to spend the money, a single crew can be expert qualified for all the planes across all the nations in the game.
  192.  
  193. In order to qualify for expert status, you need to have the requisite crew level. 100 crew level for tier 1 planes, 150 for tier 2, and so on.
  194.  
  195. A crew level is the number of times you've raised a crew skill, for any tab. A crew skill costs more experience points the higher it is. So your crew level increases very quickly at the beginning, and slows down a lot at higher levels.
  196.  
  197. You'll have to buy expertise for each plane, and it's very expensive, but imo, it's always worth the silver lions.
  198.  
  199. How should I distribute my crew points?
  200.  
  201. This is a matter of personal preference. You might find reloading speed so valuable you'll stick a lot of points there, or if your pilot's getting sniped to much, maybe in pilot vitality.
  202.  
  203. I'll tell you what I do, I find the expert qualification so valuable, that I'll distribute the points very equally, so that I can get the expert qualification as fast as possible. That even includes putting points into the gunner slots, even if the crew is currently servicing a fighter, and there aren't any extra gunners to use those points.
  204.  
  205. Most of the skills are very valuable, and don't write them off because it's not immediately obvious how effective they are.
  206.  
  207. Tank crew skills are another matter. Some of them, like machine gunner skills, aren't even implemented yet. Once it's all up and running though, it will no doubt be very important to get these skills maxed out, and it will probably be just as important to get that expert qualification.
  208.  
  209. I'm looking at the modifications screen, what's with the ammo selection?
  210.  
  211. Once you unlock new ammo for various guns, you can select ammunition that's different from the default ammo, there's a description of what each ammo belt contains when you mouse over. If you don't know anything about ammunition, a brief explanation is in order.
  212.  
  213. AP- armor piercing. A dense slug that might punch straight through a plane's armor, engine, and pilot. It can be very effective, but it's also possible to punch through the planes skin, and out through the other side, missing anything valuable inside.
  214.  
  215. HE- high explosive. These are shells, like the German minengeshoss, that are hollowed out and filled with explosives. They can be very effective against planes.
  216.  
  217. Incendiary- shells containing phosphorous compounds that burn very hot, and can set airplanes on fire, particularly planes made with wood and fabric.
  218.  
  219. Tracers- shells filled with compounds that burn very brightly. The point of these is to see where your rounds are flying, in order to help aim and hit the target better. They come in a lot of varieties, and hybrids. Their are armor piercing tracers, and high explosive tracers, etc. Because they're meant to be so visible, they do much less damage than the non-tracer counterpart. They're just a sort of tool to help you aim.
  220.  
  221. Which ammo should I use?
  222.  
  223. You'll definitely want to get out of the default ammunition. The other ammunition costs silver lions to use, but you shouldn't worry about the cost. It's trivial and always worth it to change. Since you're new and still learning how to aim, you'll probably want to still have tracers, and the omni ammunition will serve well. Once you get good at aiming, consider using the stealth ammunition. This swaps out the tracers for regular ammunition. You won't be able to see where your bullets are going, but you'll do more damage with it. Another bonus is that the enemy might not notice he's being shot at until it's too late. There were actual aces in WWII who were good enough shots that they did this.
  224.  
  225. Ammunition selection in tanks is a much bigger issue, subject to change, and there are probably much better explanations out there than I can give.
  226.  
  227. What about bombs?
  228.  
  229. Some planes have a variety of bombs to select. Which bombs to choose is going to depend on what target you plan on taking out. For large targets, like airfields and enemy bases, the bigger the bomb the better. A 2000 lb will be more destructive than 2 1,000 lb bombs, which is more destructive than 4 500 lb bombs. If you're planning on taking out much softer ground targets like light tanks and destroyers, pick the more numerous smaller bombs, so you can take out more of them. In arcade, bombs automatically reload. They reload much faster in proper bombers than they do with fighters.
  230.  
  231. Rockets are wildly in accurate. They're meant for ground targets, and you should fire a lot of them just to hit. You won't take out a lot of ground targets before you run out, though they are very powerful. Now while they're supposed to be for ground targets, you can use them against planes. It's very tricky. Sometimes you won't be able to avoid head-on attacks, in which case they can be used if you fire them all. Also if you get very close on the tail of a large plane like a bomber (always a danger if their tailgunner is still conscious). Killing a plane with rockets is one of the funnest things you can do in a game, and I always carry rockets if available.
  232.  
  233. Note: torpedoes can only take out ships. You can't drop them on ground targets.
  234.  
  235. What about the guns themselves?
  236.  
  237. Generally the higher caliber the gun is, the more damage they'll do. Typically, though, the larger the caliber, the slower the rate of fire,, the less ammunition you'll carry, and the longer the reload time. The big 75 mm cannons will take forever to reload, and it's difficult to aim single shots, but it's fun to take out a large bomber when you do land those single shots. There is also a lot of variation within a given caliber. Some nations 50 caliber machine guns are more effective than others, etc.
  238.  
  239. You can't change armament on a single plane, but many planes come in different variants with different armaments. For example, the He-112 comes with a variant with machine guns, another with cannons, and a third with both machine guns and cannons. If you want to see just how effective armaments can be, use the German reserve biplanes to unlock the bf-110. You'll go from tiny little peashooters to big cannons that can knock any other tier 1 plane clean out of the sky with just a short burst.
  240.  
  241. I've unlocked my first new plane, now I'm on new maps, and I'm flying in new maps, with new players in planes way more advanced with me. Am I out of my league? Am I a burden on the team?
  242.  
  243. Those first few matches in Stalingrad and Foggy Albion are practically just practice games. Now you're in proper tier 1 matches. You might feel outclassed in your biplanes at the moment, but don't worry you'll be unlocking new effective planes very fast.
  244.  
  245. A note on matchmaking: you'll see that you're flying tier 1 planes, but take a look at the statistics card. There's something else called Battle Rating. A Hawker Hurricane and a Nimrod are both tier 1 planes, but the Hurricane is a much more effective fighter, so it has a higher battle rating. Matchmaking is done by BRs. The game will look at the highest battle ratings in your line-up, usually the top three planes. If you've bought, say, a tier IV premium plane, it's only going to look at that BR. So if the only thing else in your line-up is biplanes, you're going to be in a lot of trouble when your tier IV plane gets shot down.
  246.  
  247. At the end of each match you can mouse over each player's names, both teammates and opposing teams, to see what their planes and battle ratings are. The teams themselves are pretty equally matched. If one team stomps another, it's probably because of player skill, not because one team's planes were better than the other.
  248.  
  249. At an individual level, there might be enemy planes fairly better than yours. This can frustrate a lot of new players. But that doesn't mean you're going to lose. You should receive some amount of satisfaction when you've shot down a plane one or two tiers higher than your own. You should also be alert for them, and not engage more powerful planes if you don't like the odds. Again it comes back to situational awareness. There's no shame in running from a fight if you're outclassed. There's somebody else on your team whose planes are as good as, or better than, that other guy. Let him deal with him, or better still, take on the guy together. Doesn't matter how good his plane is if it's two against one. And if you're shot down because the other guy's plane is better, there's no shame in that. Hop in another plane and try again. Better to be shot down by a superior plane, than by some biplane because you were piloting poorly.
  250.  
  251. There are a lot of people who complain about the matchmaking because they've been shot down by a superior plane. Often these are the same people who don't have a problem with the matchmaking every time they shoot down a plane weaker than them. Please don't be this guy either.
  252.  
  253. In these newer missions, I'm trying to take out the ground targets, but it's not working. What's going on?
  254.  
  255. In the early ground strike missions, you'll only have to take out soft targets. Things like artillery that you can take out with machine guns. In later missions, only the hard targets, like tanks, will count towards the victory, and those are things you need bombs for. You can still take out the soft targets with machine guns, but they will only count towards your individual score, and won't help you win the match. It would be a good idea to include some bomb equipped planes in your line up. Sometimes there will be matches where nobody can take out those last few ground targets because nobody's got any bombs.
  256.  
  257. I just want to play the game, but nobody else wants to win. Why are there so many assholes?
  258.  
  259. Because it's the internet.
  260.  
  261. A few notes on etiquette. I can't make you do these things, but it would be nice if more people tried.
  262.  
  263. Try to help win the battle. At least make some cursory effort. Try to take out a few ground targets. It is okay to be a fighter and only go after planes. Especially if you're doing the early japanese line and none of your planes have bombs. But if you haven't got any bombs, at least try to, for example, escort your bombers to the target. Or take out the bombers attacking your ground targets. There should always be a way to contribute.
  264.  
  265. On a domination map, go for the landing on that closer airfield. Even if you see somebody else trying to cap it, back them up. There are a lot of people who screw up the landing, usually because they're trying to land at high speed, so it's important that several people try to do it. Few things are more embarrassing than when nobody even bothers with capping on your team, and the whole match is over in a few minutes because the other team made the effort.
  266.  
  267. Mid-air collisions. They happen. They happened a lot in WWII. They're usually accidental, but they're still very preventable. Typically it happens when there are too many people right on the tail of the enemy fighter, and they're both going for the kill. Or when two opposing players go head on in a game of chicken, and neither bother to dodge.
  268.  
  269. The tendency for a player involved in a collision is to blame the other guy, but usually it's both of your faults. Sometimes there's diminished responsibility. Maybe your plane was much larger than the other guy's, maybe you were going too fast and your controls were stiffened and you couldn't maneuver fast, maybe you were blacking out. But still if two players run into each other, you've got yourselves to blame.
  270.  
  271. Intentional ramming- for fuck's sake, don't be the asshole who does this. There's absolutely no point. It requires no skill. Nobody profits. It's just bad gamesmanship. You won't be playing the game for very long before you understand why. You'll be on the tail of an enemy, maybe you'll be avenging an earlier death, maybe he'll be two tiers higher than you. And you'll be on his tail, it will be the greatest dogfight you've ever engaged in in your life. You'll be taking the fight all the way across the map. Using the terrain, flying under bridges, dodging AAA, you'll have nothing but respect for this guy, you'll want to salute him. He'll be on fire, control surfaces shot up. You'll have emptied multiple reloads ammunition into him. The fight is essentially over and it's seconds before he hits the ground... then some asshole in a perfectly good plane rams him, taking him and himself out, and you won't receive any credit for the kill. Because that asshole thought it would be funny.
  272.  
  273. There are people who take pride in ramming. Usually newbs. People who probably can't take out planes out properly with their guns. I will agree that if you're on fire, you're so damaged that you can't maneuver, you're seconds away from dying anyway... okay in that case if somebody wants to go head-to-head with you, than there's no harm in being a little slow to get out of his way. But yeah, don't be a rammer.
  274.  
  275. Team-killing. Friendly fire happens. It happened in war. In the game, like with collisions, both players usually bare some responsibility. It happens when players are both after the same target, and they get careless. Just try to watch your fire and hope the other guy does the same. There's a silver lion penalty when it does happen. There are automatic bans if it happens too often, but it's generous and unlikely you'll ever run into it accidentally.
  276.  
  277. Intentional team-killing? Right click on their name and report them in-game. If you see some teammate intentionally kill another, don't try to engage him and take revenge. That kind of thing is what he wants you to do. Just report it. Also, you might want to hop in the game's chat, and alert the rest of the team that you've got a team-killer in your midst, so they can stay away from him. I've seen a little public shaming do an awful lot to curtail the assholery.
  278.  
  279. I'm still having a lot of problems just hitting my targets, how do I get better?
  280.  
  281. Practice. That's it. The arcade has that convenient little lead indicator. But be aware that the lead indicator can and will lie to you. It doesn't take all of the factors into consideration. You'll notice this is especially true when you're very close to each other an maneuvering erratically. The key is to learn how it lies, and adjust accordingly.
  282.  
  283. Probably the best way to practice marksmanship is to play realistic, where you won't have that crutch of a lead indicator at all. If you don't want to fly in realistic matches, consider the single player and dynamic campaign modes. The only enemies are AI, but it's still a good way to practice your aim.
  284.  
  285.  
  286.  
  287. That's all I've got. There are many more tutorials out there. A lot of them are video tutorials. They can teach you all kinds of things, beginning, intermediate and advanced. Maybe you'll want to learn how to do a high yo-yo or split s or use a joystick and fly simulator mode. Remember the best way to learn is to just practice for yourself.
  288.  
  289. Hope this helped you out at least a little. Have fun, and don't forget to check your six.
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