Bay 12 Games Forum

I've given it a quick taste for myself. I have to say, the flight mechanics are notably easier than 2, since you don't have to learn how to hover for yourself, among other things.

Not that it's prevented me from being terrible.

One thing I do like about it is that you have multi-crewed vehicles. Single-crew tanks always felt a bit cheap to me.

The US works without the normal concept of 'teamwork', actually, which is why most people play them. The planes aren't the best at any one thing, but anyone with a basic understanding of energy can fly them well, because they're jack-of-all-trade planes with plenty of guns, plenty of ammo, a rugged airframe, really good energy retention and half-decent turn characteristics. The Germans can out-climb them, the British and Japanese can out-turn them, but only the Russians can usually out-fight them and not a single plane can outlast them.

Also, B-17s. They live up to their nicknames, even when bombers are in a nerf phase.

I think War Thunder, like World of Tanks, suffers somewhat from two things: the developers have a favorite faction, the Russians, and the fanbase is a bunch of whiny bitches.

The problem with favoritism is obvious, though to be fair, at least WT's better about it than WoT in that they let people bitch and fume and occasionally even go in and do some little bit about it. Their mistreatment of Germans really sucks, though.

The fanbase is a much more nasty problem. Gaijin goes out of their way to try and make everyone happy, and it doesn't work, makes the game worse in some cases, and removes time and effort from things that are more important, like, say, more accurate flight models.

They also seem to have a little issue with prioritizing, choosing getting new stuff that's unprepared out instead of making what's there work.

I think Americans hate the German P-47 because it starts (or started) in the air on quite a few maps. From what I've seen, the American's P-47s are very popular, but the German P-47 is almost always above you when you reach engagement range and it's almost impossible to kill a good pilot who's flying one.

Better yet, do Simulator tank battles if you can. The aircraft are still nigh-unflyable, and the mode is more 'difficult' due to more stringent projectile and armor rules (resulting in a number of cases where the Germans or Russians have massive advantages with certain tanks), but it's still fun and it's a lot easier to do things like flanking runs without getting spotted and shot.

Also, the poor Simulator people need all the love they can get, since Simulator plane-only battles have been outright taken off the roster because of their poor performance.

WinTrek.
http://www.joejaworski.com/wintrek/

It's not quite what you'd call a strategy game, and it's definitely not a 4x, but at the very least you might get a few good minutes out of it.

Tank sim is a lot more popular than plane sim. For one, it's actually playable for most people, and the fact you can only see enemies on the minimap means there's a lot more opportunity for sneaking around, which is extremely fun. It's also challenging, but not overwhelming, because you actually have to learn how to aim your gun yourself, which is thankfully not that hard. Just because you shoot first doesn't mean you hit first, and that goes both ways.