Community Update No.8: Responses and What’s Coming!

Hey everyone, we’re back with another Community Update. Today we wanted to respond to the recent announcement we made here, go over some of the additions to the upcoming major update and the next vehicle event.

Following up on our recent nations announcement

We recently spoke about how we implement subtrees into War Thunder. After carefully reading your responses we decided to go back to the drawing board and discussed it thoroughly within the team. Firstly, we wanted to thank everyone for their feedback and detailed discussion with regards to the topic at hand. We appreciate the passion and involvement of our entire community and will always be following along with all major subjects discussed here. 

We had considered adding Singaporean vehicles to the Chinese tree to provide it with greater variety and gameplay diversity with some vehicles that were not previously possible there. As mentioned in the previous post, this was a consideration and that all our current ideas will not necessarily be implemented. Ultimately these plans were and are not set in stone. We’ve now gone over your feedback and considered it within our plans. We’ll be looking to place Singaporean vehicles in a number of trees, most likely with their vehicles going to whatever tree is most applicable and relevant on a case by case basis and best suits each specific vehicle.

We also saw your comments about suggestions for the Israeli tree. We currently plan to expand the Israeli tree to include Greece and Cyprus to increase its gameplay diversity. We’re also considering including some of these Singaporean vehicles to Israel as well. This will include many interesting vehicles to play and strengthen line-ups within the Israeli tree, as well as include a potential number of future aircraft that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. The Japanese tree will welcome more Indonesian vehicles, and shortly after, we also plan to introduce some aircraft from Malaysia to strengthen the aviation tree more too.

For China, our current priority will be to add domestic vehicles to help bolster the existing, available roster. We can share that we’re working on a new SAM system for China as well as new top jet aircraft, among various other vehicle developments that you’ll see in the short term. We’ll also be expanding upon options provided by Pakistani vehicles to help expand the tree alongside the planned domestic vehicles. Plus, a popular US made main battle tank to also bolster the ranks.

We also have plans to implement a standalone Korean research tree nation with vehicles from South Korea and North Korea.

We would like to once again thank you for your comments. Your feedback is valuable, and we discuss it and incorporate much of it into our plans very regularly. We’ll keep you updated with any developments as and when they happen in future news articles!

A Preview of the Major Update

We’re now in the final three months of the year, with two major updates planned before 2026 on the horizon. Today we wanted to go over what’s planned for the upcoming major update.

Vehicles

We’ve got some unique vehicles planned for the upcoming major update. Here, we picked out a few that have either been known or spoken about for a while. There’s more, so be sure to keep an eye on our upcoming dev blogs.

There will be a vehicle coming with a name relating to Native American tribes, it is also the capital of a large American state. Can you guess what it is?

Next up, with the addition of several Mosquito variants in the previous major update, today we’re happy to announce that a highly anticipated variant, the modified Mosquito B Mk XVI that can carry a 4,000 lb bomb is coming for Great Britain as a squadron vehicle! We’re excited to see players use this in battle, especially as it has been requested for many years now. 

Back in April of this year, we briefly mentioned a T-34-85 with a stabilizer in the Legend of Victory news post, and ever since we know many of you have been wondering where on earth it is. So today we’re finally able to confirm that it’ll finally be coming to the game in the upcoming  major update!

In the previous major update, we updated the Tiger II (Nr.1-50)’s visual model and mentioned that the Tiger II would also receive one in the future. We’re happy to announce that the regular Tiger II will also get a newly updated model, making it look more beautiful than ever. We saw the reaction to the updated Tiger II names and refined model, and we know many of you will appreciate this newly updated model, now coming for the legendary Tiger II.

And lastly, we’re happy to be finally bringing in Italy’s first squadron vehicle, something that has been requested for quite a while now. Meet the С13 TUA!

The Damage Control Window for Naval

Without a doubt if you play naval battles, trying to survive after being hit by salvos can be a struggle. You’re constantly trying to activate fire extinguishing systems, pump out water and perform repairs as efficiently as possible. Adding to the fact that the damage model (especially fires and critical magazine fires) has also changed in recent months, reacting quickly is essential to save your ship from being quickly destroyed.

All of the above in mind makes the current damage system quite difficult to manage, as you’re generally distracted from the core gameplay, which is to shoot at targets and take them out. Next to this, it’s not always as balanced as it could be, and as we would like it to be. This is because a player who does everything correctly still might not, for example prioritize the repair system in time because of the need to hold down the hotkey for a few seconds, leading to their ship still being destroyed, which can be frustrating.

So today, we’re announcing the new Damage Control System for Naval, giving players the opportunity to introduce automation elements. Players can plan their priorities in advance, choosing what’s most important at a given moment: be it firefighting, repairs or water pumping and can then quickly switch between them.

Let’s take a quick look at how it will work. While in the hangar, you can access the damage control menu through the modifications window by clicking on the “Damage control” button at the bottom right:

In this window, you’ll be able to put together a “Damage Control” build from available options and assign each one to one of the three buttons on the action bar, which were previously responsible for firefighting, repairs and water pumping.

Note: this window and text is heavily work-in-progress and the names, explanations and numbers will likely change.

Each damage control build has a primary process, a secondary process and an additional process.

Any of the three types of damage control options operate at full speed if only one is running. In addition, you no longer need to press buttons to begin the process, as it starts automatically as soon as the ship takes damage. You can switch between three presets, changing the priority process based on the tactical situation you find yourself in.

We’re currently working on the values for each and fine tuning it, and you’ll be able to test it for yourself on the dev server in the near future and leave your feedback there.

Extended information about the parameters of weapons and vehicles inside the game

The game features highly complex vehicles, sensors and weapons, and we know that most of their parameters are currently hidden from players. This isn’t because we don’t want to disclose this data however, but because it’s a major challenge to figure out how to display it conveniently and clearly, especially for new players. We’re currently working on a mechanism that allows us to display complex features in the game interface, as well as developing a design for displaying certain parameters.

We’ll start with the easiest to implement, and then gradually add similar features for other areas. First up will be more detailed data on armor penetration and shell ballistics. Next, we’ll likely try to implement useful information on the properties of guided missiles and aircraft flight models. However, this will take quite some time as we work on designing and implementing a mechanism (as mentioned above), so please don’t expect it in the near future.

Here are some mock-up windows of a design for what we have planned, which are heavily work in progress:

Free Daily Backups

In Ground, Naval and Air Arcade Battles, War Thunder is a game that requires a lineup for you to reach your full potential in the battle. However, some players may not have a full line-up — one way to help with this is by using backups, however they themselves can only be received as a random reward or have to be purchased. Because of this we want to make them more widespread and easier to use in order to introduce and teach more players about this useful (for both the player and their team) mechanic. So, soon we’ll be adding a few backups that players can use for free in battle. This will just be one shared number of backups that can be used across all nations, all ranks and all modes. These free backups are not added to your inventory, instead they will simply be something you can use while in a battle. Once you’ve used them up, you’ll need to wait until the next day, where they will then reset and be replenished.

We plan to add this in the near future, perhaps not in the upcoming major. But it is in development and when it’s ready for release, we will announce it, so keep an eye out!

Upcoming Events

We’ve now reached the final three months of the year, which is typically War Thunder’s busiest time with major updates, events and the game’s anniversary. After the EFV event, we’ll be having our typical Dreams Come True event, this time for an aircraft.

That’s it for now! 

We have more information coming out regarding the next major soon via dev blogs and announcements.

Haven’t purchased the Community Update pack yet? Check it out!

The War Thunder Team