Pro tips

[Reaperkiller]

Hello, just download this game and about to play. What are your pro tips? From mechanical gameplay to the mental approach to it. Further I plan to use a HOTAS for this game. Finally does this require vast amounts of ?
Thanks

[Jaes]

First Rule of War Thunder: Don't throw money at it right away. Play the game for a bit and see if you enjoy its gameplay loop before deciding if it's right for you.

Buying one of the starter packs isn't a bad idea and they have some pretty good value to get you started, but ultimately not necessary.

Second Rule: Money saves you time in grinding progress, but it's not going to give you a notable advantage, or any advantage in most cases.

Wait until you've played the game for a bit before considering investing. At most, Premium Account is an easy buy, especially when it goes on sale which happens a few times throughout the year.

HOTAS Tips:

HOTAS is not ideal for War Thunder's more arcadey game modes, which are Arcade Battles and Realistic Battles. These are primarily dominated by Mouse and Keyboard inputs. You can get away with HOTAS in Realistic Battles, but you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in precision with aiming. You will have more relative control over your aircraft though so you can more easily pull off some pretty cheeky maneuvers.

Though you're much more likely to stall and require a lot more knowledge on managing engines and trim (if available for a given aircraft) compared to a mouse and keyboard user.

Sim Battles are where HOTAS shine and gives you a pretty decent immersive experience as the view is restricted to Cockpit only. It's not DCS levels of immersive, but it's good enough. Highly recommend some sort of Headtracker in Sim or VR headset if available.


Gameplay Tips:

War Thunder has a very steep learning curve. You're probably going to suck. I wouldn't even consider someone out of the "training" phase until they've put in at least 100 hours into each vehicle category (Air, Ground Forces, Naval).

I'm not sure who would be the best sources for Ground and Naval tips, but YouTube channels to check out for Air would be:

Tim's Variety

Defyn

Tim's Variety does great technical videos on aircraft, weapon systems, etc. and is a good source to check out when you start getting into more advanced vehicles.

Defyn is probably one of the best air-to-air combatants in the game and does great demonstration videos for various aircraft and has a guide for BFM/Combat maneuvers. If there's a vehicle you're currently using, check out Defyn's YouTube channel to see if he has a video on it. I especially recommend his videos because whenever he's playing said vehicle, he explains what he's doing, why he's doing it, and how to best win in a given combat situation. His videos in general will just make you a better air-to-air combatant and help build up healthy habits like maintaining situational awareness.


Mindset:

As previously noted, War Thunder can be frustrating because you're probably going to suck. If you have experience with other flight/vehicle based games, you'll probably be on a better starting point than most, but it's important to keep in mind: Death is an opportunity to learn from mistakes you made. You can potentially face a Day 1 Newbie or a 10 Year veteran in your matches when you play. If you run into someone that knows what they're doing and die, pay attention to them.

Knowledge is 90% of the battle in War Thunder. What can your vehicle do? What can't your vehicle do? What can your opponent's vehicle do? How should you exploit the weaknesses of your opponent while maintaining your advantages? Did you maintain situational awareness through this whole thought process because there's someone creeping up behind you while you're tunnel vision'd in on the potential target you're currently looking at to engage?

If you don't know something, wiki.warthunder.com it. There's tons of information there. If you're having trouble, make a forum post. Lots of folks around here love providing tips and guidance if you're struggling with something and you open up to wanting to learn to be better. There will be the occasional "git gud" troll post naturally, but lots of WT vets here that will lend a hand.



And most importantly: Have fun. If you play to grind War Thunder, you will burn out of the game very quickly. Gaijin's primary economic scheme to incentivize you to pay is to slow down your grinding progress. You will not progress quickly if you do not pay. Does that mean you can't get anywhere without throwing boatloads of money at the game? No, but that F2P grind will grind you into dust if you try to race through it. Once you get out of Rank IV in a given tech tree, the grind becomes progressively harsher. Air battles are much easier to grind than Ground and Naval, but it can still be unfun at times.

[mrunuick]

Originally posted by Jaes:

First Rule of War Thunder: Don't throw money at it right away. Play the game for a bit and see if you enjoy its gameplay loop before deciding if it's right for you.

Buying one of the starter packs isn't a bad idea and they have some pretty good value to get you started, but ultimately not necessary.

This is good, but I would like add that, from a ground player's perspective, please do not buy into top tier without progressing to it first or wait until the update that's planned in the future that will make newly purchased premiums come with limited backups (i still wouldn't recommend it after this anyway). Buying into top tier makes you a detriment to your team while potentially making the game feel more frustrating to you and your teammates. Buying into top tier if you play exclusively air realistic isn't as much of an issue in ground AB/RB or air AB.

Originally posted by Jaes:

Knowledge is 90% of the battle in War Thunder. What can your vehicle do? What can't your vehicle do? What can your opponent's vehicle do? How should you exploit the weaknesses of your opponent while maintaining your advantages? Did you maintain situational awareness through this whole thought process because there's someone creeping up behind you while you're tunnel vision'd in on the potential target you're currently looking at to engage?

And this is by far the best tip you can possibly get for this kind of game regardless of what game mode. Learn your opponent's vehicles and their capabilities. Knowledge is your best gateway to getting good.

[Dave]

Great tips so far... I just want to say HOTAS is good for nimble planes and sucks at strafing ground targets. I had a keybind to switch from HOTAS to mouse when I was dong ground runs I think... but I finally just switched to mouse aim... I get my as kicked in dogfights though now. Focus on what you like to play and get good at it. Then move to something new when you get bored. WT offers so much.... Just dont complain. GL~HF

[Pec]

If you want to play modern stuff its better to slowly make your way up to it rather then buying a premium as typically people become more experienced as the br increases so taking the shortcut will just throw you into the deep end where you will be stomped.

[Reaperkiller]

Originally posted by Jaes:

First Rule of War Thunder: Don't throw money at it right away. Play the game for a bit and see if you enjoy its gameplay loop before deciding if it's right for you.

Woaw man, thanks for the detailed reply, super useful info here. I grant you a Super Star lol

[Mephisto]

learn to accept losses.
if your team is gone don't respawn - if the tickets are about to run out don't kamikaze and save yout vehicle if possible

[Fifty Fathoms]

The best tips have already been given, so just a few general points: Don't rely on your teammates. Even level 100 players screw up sometimes. Don't be too nice and helpful. Unlucky ones might take you with them too. Learn to accept losses. Even with an outstanding performance, you can still lose if your teammates are bad.

edit: The replays are also a good source for learning the game. Pick a good player and see how he did it.

[Ragnar Da Shrimpi]

Pro tip, buy premium make life easy

[Akagi]

Aside from already mentioned tips:

Try finding people who'd like to squad up with. Maybe you can learn from some veterans.

Try learning from your mistakes. Where did the enemy kill me from? Is this a good spot I can use myself in a later match or did I simply drive a way too vulnerable way?

If you ever struggle to kill a tank, look it up in the tech tree (or though the War Thunder wiki and "show in game" if it's currently hidden like rare event or premium vehicles), then go preview -> armor -> protection analysis to simulate how a shot from your tank would impact it. For your owned vehicles "preview" gets replaced with "customisation". You can also go on X ray through this to figure out where enemy's weakpoints like ammo magazines or the gunner is located.

Try figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of your and the enemy's tanks and planes.
For planes for example, try sorting out if your plane is more of an energy boom and zoom fighter or a turn fighter and pick your fights wisely (don't attack a fighter from below, don't fly straight into a furball if you aren't sure if you can shake them off.

Understand how shell types work. Don't always go fo for shell with most penetration if it has no explosive filler. Be aware that HEAT and HE won't shoot through fences or bushes and explode on contact.

Almost never bring full ammo. Only bring enough as you actually need to prevent your tanks from turning into a driving firework warehouse. Also make sure to always carry 2 or 3 rounds of HE, even on small caliber cannons to quickly deal with lightly armored SPAAs, trucks and SPGs. Also be aware how this changes the enemy's weakspots. Also don't waste your time shooting the same spot 3 times if you don't have explosive filler and try aiming for another weakskpot or aim for barrel and tracks instead.

For beginners choosing either US, Germany or Russia is recommended as they are most beginner friendly.

Try having a solid line up for tanks (and planes if arcade). The vehicles you'll meet is always according to your highest vehicle so you don't want to drag weaker vehicles into those br ranges unless for few exceptions like SPAAs or maybe strong light tanks like the Sd. Kfz. 234/2.

Don't solely rush caps the entire time, try outflanking the enemy if possible and maybe just quickly tap an enemy cap zone for it to uncap if you feel like it is to dangerous to stay in the zone till it's fully capped.

For ground realistic battles you can look at the spawn costs at the start of the match to figure out the br range of vehicles you are facing.
Example: You have a 5.7 line up and your 5.7 medium tank's spawn costs are
150 -> you are the highest br in the match ("downtier")
130 -> you face some tanks that are .3 br higher, here 6.0
110 -> you face some tanks that are .6/.7 br higher, here 6.3
100 -> you face some tanks that are 1 br higher, here 6.7 ("full uptier")
Use this to choose your tanks accordingly, heavy tanks tend to have a harder time in uptiers than light vehicles that don't require that now barely usefull armor and in a downtier a heavily armored tank can fend of an entire cap or sector by itself and eat hits without dying

For controls tips and tricks:
You can hold C and move your mouse to look around without moving your turret or plane.
Use your binoculars with B, your commander usually has a higher position with binos than the gunner in sniper mode.

Adjust your settings that you can scroll up and down the scope with your mouse wheel.

Go into settings and disable grass in sniper mode and binoculars. Gives you an advantage while peeking over a small hill.

Set up a button for range finding. It can help you figuring out the distances to certain hot spots on the map, even if without more modern upgrades it will only wirk till around 900 meters.



Mentality wse, don't play for the grind, just play for fun and what you enjoy. No one forces you to play those shiny modern tanks and jets.

Oh and before I forget, most of my gameplay tips come from experience in realistic battles, I suck in arcade :P