The Rooikat 105: Probably the most regrettable purchase I've made

[Berry]

Everything about the Rooikat 105 looked promising to me. It was marketed as fast and nimble with a decent cannon, and a very good flanker. I purchased it, and I regret it immensely.

It is advertised with a top speed of 74mph. It might achieve this, going downhill on a road with the wind gods blessing. I've been doing testing, and this thing realistically achieves 39mph on the roads of Berlin. 39mph, on a flat road. It also requires an extremely long distance to accelerate, which reduces that maximum speed further. I've got WW2 half tracks that put this thing to shame, considering they both share about the same armor ratings.

It becomes even worse when off-roading. Maximum speed on a flat surface (a farm, for instance) gets you to about 27-29 MPH before the engine calls it quits. This is just absurd for a vehicle with "extremely good mobility" (courtesy of the War Thunder Wiki) at the 8.7 BR. I mean for gods sake, this thing gets outrun by the Cromwell V, the medium tank for the British tree at RANK 3! The tank that is just about 50 years older than the Rooikat, and that weighs the same.

This armored car cannot climb hills with a 45 degree incline or higher, especially offroad. This was surprising, considering that this thing comes equipped with eight offroading tires and it's weight of only 28 tons. Imagine me thinking I could pull a flanking maneuver across a river and finding out that I can't because a short, light incline has stopped me dead on my tires.

There's also the matter of camouflage. This thing only has desert camo, and tricolor camo. You won't find forest camouflage, which is a huge problem when you're painted bright yellow on a map of dark greens. There are several maps that I straight up can't play because I stick out like a sore thumb, while the enemy and my allies blend in like actual plants.

Literally the only redeeming quality about this tank is it's 105mm gun and it's thermal cameras, but even the thermal camera gives me a headache as it turns the world into a black and white 8-bit mesh of pixels that makes it just as difficult to see through the camera as it would if I put a bucket over my head.

Arcade mode is literally mandatory to have fun with this tank, as every other game mode makes me feel like I've committed to a horrendous waste of money.

[B.D.Godde]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Crusader01:

You remember when the Rooikat was on its own research line (meaning, you do not have to research the previous vehicle before purchasing this one)? Well, I had put in something like 250,000 RP into it, then Gaijin, in all their brilliance, shoved it underneath the two useless ATGM carriers that I don't have. Now I can't buy the Rooikat, and I've wasted my time grinding.

I was planning on going for it too
such a pity. They are not in any way related. Hopefully we will see a British light tank line soon that will solve this issue. For now I'm just annoyed.

[Doctor Eggman]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Alien Alien:

Change the thermals into "green thermals" in the options. You have options for negative (B&W), green and red. Take a look in there every so often, new stuff is added all the time and its USEFUL.

Also Arcade mode is where its weakest, in RB these tanks can be monsters.
The Centauro is slower than the Rooikat and I can massacre in that thing with the stock apds (not apfsds)... haven't even unlocked heat yet.

The thing is, inexperienced players shouldn't buy premiums or into top tier in general, they have no idea of the gameplay and the changed mechanics compared to lower tier and they suffer... they also cause the teams to suffer because of their inexperience, which altogether makes the entire game worse. :*

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

Good to see you glazed over the important parts to nitpick and deliver me a complicated version of the "get good" speech.

You want an actual response huh? Okay mate.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

Important facts: the listed maximum speed is literally half of the practical maximum speed.

The wheeled car has just shy of 20hp per tonne. Vehicles in War Thunder's are based to a weight to power ratio for acceleration. (or inverse)
The maximum speed is actually based on the maximum speed allowable by the transmission (not by maximum acceleration), so whilst the Rooikat is absolutely fine reaching its maximum speed at certain circustances, this does NOT mean it can do it all the time.

The vehicle modelling is fine. Cars like the Radkampfwagon 90 have a hp/tonne ratio of 24 but they're limited by transmission, so these will accelerate faster but be limited by the limits of the vehicle itself.
The tech tree Rooikat is better off in this regard as its Power to Weight Ratio is almost 22.
The AMX-RC10 in the French Tech Tree only has 17hp per tonne, I guess that vehicle would be completely unusable to you lol.
You fail to mention the obvious pros of the Rooikat, like its ability to turn without losing hardly any speed and its extremely high reverse speed.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

The tank gets shredded by 12.7mm from 200+ meters

Not true, unless someone manages to specifically sideswipe you, the angles are too much for that and if you let someone get to your side in a Rooikat you're just bad lol.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

It literally can't climb a hill inclined at more than 40 degrees. I've checked and double checked on multiple maps under multiple conditions. It just can't be used as an effective flanker this way.

Wheeled vehicles have a lower maximum inclination than tracked vehicles. Probably because they have wheels. Wheels don't have the traction that tanks do.

Asking a 500hp engine to drag 28 tonnes up a 40 degree slope on a grassy / sandy hill is your problem mate, not the vehicle.

Its not Colin McRae Rally where you're driving a small 1 tonne vehicle with 600hp, this is literally an armored fighting vehicle.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

Thermals in any color degrade the resolution of the game until it's a blob of pixels, hence I don't use it unless I absolutely need to.

Those same "blob of pixels" thermals are used all the way up to 10.3. The T-80U has the same quality of thermals, as does the M1a2 and the Leopard 2a5.
You've literally got top tier tech handed to you, if you can't use it that's your problem. Many people can use low resolution thermals to amazing effect.

The only tanks that have higher quality thermals are very specific, and only in certain cases are such thermals put onto MBT-like combat vehicles.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

It has no green camouflage despite being advertised as having it, meaning it can't be disguised effectively on any maps that are primarily forest/jungle/grasslands (14/38 maps).

Relying on camoflauge at a tier that already uses thermals is already a daft idea. You're gonna be spotted from 2km away regardless of whether you can see the enemy or not.
The vast majority of maps are small anyway and if you have camo or not doesn't matter because you're gonna be seen as instantly as any other camo.

Camo is pretty much just for looking cool in War Thunder, if you think it provides any other nuanced difference other than that then you're clearly mistaken.

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

Unless you'd like to contribute any meaningful information, perhaps reasons for it's underperformance in RBs, I really don't need you to give me the "get good noob" speech again. I have 450+ hours on this game and if that isn't enough to qualify me for an opinion, no one is qualified.

I don't mean to gatekeep, but that's really not enough hours, no. xD

450 hours is literally nothing, split that into tiers of a single tech tree, say, tanks and that's around 60 hours per tier.
Add all the tech trees (aviation, heli, naval) to the mix and you have around 20 hours of experience or less at each tier.
Split that into time spent learning the differences of individual vehicles and you have even less!

And that's only accounting for a single nation, not every nation with their 7 tiers of vehicles.
I've just broken 4000 hours lately and I'm still learning new things about the vehicles I play, to say you know enough at 400 is just showing a lack of modesty lol.

I'm thinking you saw the 125mph transmission capability and thought you could sealclub other tanks at the BR and that real world physical properties would not apply to the vehicle you was driving.

At the very least admit it, we've ALL done that before. ;P

[Shard]

I don't see how it could be as bad as you make it out to be. It's still far faster than most other tanks at the same BR, the only ones who are actually faster around it are the Radkampfwagen at 9.0 and KPz-70 at 9.3. I'm saying that using my regular Rooikat which doesn't even have all the upgrades to hp unlocked.

What I think sucks about it is that you have zero other 8.7 vehicles and are forced to drag your entire 8.3 line-up up to 8.7 (spoiler: tanks like the Chieftains which rely on armour are worse when you artificially uptier them). You could also drag it up to 9.0 for the Chieftain Mk.10, but at that point you'd face way more later MBT's which will have a far easier time keeping up with your Rooikat. It's honestly a good vehicle, but it has a very unfortunate BR placement. I'd have much rather haver bought the Sho't Kal Dalet in your place if I wanted to grind top tier.

Ursprungligen skrivet av theGoddes:

Ursprungligen skrivet av Crusader01:

You remember when the Rooikat was on its own research line (meaning, you do not have to research the previous vehicle before purchasing this one)? Well, I had put in something like 250,000 RP into it, then Gaijin, in all their brilliance, shoved it underneath the two useless ATGM carriers that I don't have. Now I can't buy the Rooikat, and I've wasted my time grinding.

I was planning on going for it too
such a pity. They are not in any way related. Hopefully we will see a British light tank line soon that will solve this issue. For now I'm just annoyed.

I grinded through the missile carriers. Only the Swingfire was truly garbage. The Striker can't do a lot on the frontlines, but if you get it in a good position you'll get tons of kills. You also get Thermals and a great reverse gear.

Btw. we also have the Warrior; an IFV; placed inbetween a late Heavy Tank and an MBT. Wut? Germany also has this issue, for some reason Gaijin would rather slap Light Tanks all over the place instead of making it a proper independent research tree. There is even a completely empty fifth column in the British

[Acidic__Thought]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Berry:

PhlyDaily did not play the Rooikat yesterday. I think you got the wrong tank.

Edit: just double-checked because I also watch Phly, he was testing the new American HSTV-L. The Rooikat is a Tier VI British armored car.

Sorry, for some reason I remembered this part https://youtu.be/2kLNtjY3O84?t=662 more than the actual vehicle being driven. If it starts at the beginning, it's 11:02.