On a fun level – playing War Thunder

While I ain't had that much time recently heres how I describe War Thunder.

Pretty unknown? No, not any more thanks to WT. 

This is a He 112 in the B-1 variant, YAY

The first thing I had to do is buy me 500 Golden Eagles, a good invest in a bird called He 112 B-1. I really needed to have that plane because it was my main airplane while playing Hereos in the Sky (a more or less unkown MMORPG). AFAIK that other game offered the He 112 B-2 type but who cares (seems I do). This He 112 has a charming look and it's the perfect workhorse for leveling up, e.g. climbing the WT tech tree and spending 3 Euros wasn't that hard with the result of a plane with fast turn speed IMO. Too sad that it's only a Tier 1 plane. It is one of my absolute favorites.

While in World of Warplanes in the beginning you can start with Ar 65 and where WT begins with He 51 as the starter plane, in WOWplanes you can choose between Fw 56, Ar 68 and the He 51. Both games WOWarplanes and WT offer a different variaty of planes, you ain't gonna miss a single plane but this only counts when playing both games at a time. Both have great GFX and accurate modeled aircraft. However the real IL-2 player will miss the realness-factor since WOWarplanes and WT are no simulators. Here is where WT gets a plus point since it offers cockpits and major airplane controls like gears, flaps, elevator trim and what so ever. However, theres a possibility to setup lots things and it seems that since WT is from one of the former IL-2 series developer studios that indicates a masterplan of IL-2-ilizing the whole world on a it's multi plattform game. The all over summary would lead to a casual experience but who knew that this would feel like a dream becoming virtual reality. This ain't no simulation = who cares, it might end up beeing one, no doubt! This time things like camera positions and stuff are really made for the moment and lead to a epic ingame experience. What I really call epic is the OculusRift like feeling when playing WT with a gamepad and pressing the target focus button. Yeah, it's quite easy to handle WT, that's why it's the smarter IL-2 but never tell that to a IL-2 fan, please. Let's just not forget that WOWplanes offers other interesting aspects and that I would play it from time to time again if my PC would not suffer from it. Let's say it has great GFX and my PC not ;) My favorite waste of time will be WT because I really like how they push the game to certain directions, digging their Dev blog and reading patch notes are the first proofs of addiction.

What fascinated me most at WT was the following:
- awesome atmosphere, breathtaking action with lots of control
- the combination of air, ground and sea (sea will be adeed I guess, e.g. the WT logo)
- a contemplative implementation of at least a first bunch of dream planes
- steady development, new planes, tanks and maps all the time
- stunning level of model details (the movie GFX option is great for screenshots)
- your own skins and you can even upload meshes (awesome)
- even my badly half-broken cooler handles the FPS with even good looking results

I would say this has future. I expect modern times jet aircraft to come sooner or later but first more of those historic airplanes, please ;) My first impression of WT is really really good. You will miss all the expert skill and hardware leveling stuff. It's very comfortable to play with not much to do (R & D parts of game are boring but anyway usefull). Usually I would say no way I want to select different engines, hull platings and stuff. But I guess I'm not the only 'virtual collector', means the gameplay is built around the research tech tree and this is a great thing since I can have best equipped stuff without all the struggle that it ment when I was playing other tech tree and equip games. It's a race for the highest tech tree plane and the Tier system is very easy to understand (unlike other games). The dev blog shows that there a five more german planes in development. And those are impressive like the Fw 200 or the He 219 'Uhu'. I wonder if they ever can have the amount of a game called Heroes in the Sky or the legendary IL-2 '46 game. A US military historian once said a funny thing about aircraft developings of WWII, especially in terms of germans: 'Instead of building one plane and making it better and better the germans built dozens of planes'. So the biggest question will be (while even Wikipedia ain't got a full list of aircraft yet, neither I). Will there ever be a entire summary of all aircraft of that time? ...I'm not sure ;)

My two cents, actually three. No, I forgot one, uhm
- theres a big difference when playing with mouse-aiming or with a gamepad. Players tend to call gamepad users n00bs but actually they have a way trickier gameplay to handle. Theres also a difference when playing on a console and on a PC and that difference is clearly visible and within gameplay when comparing PC and console version. This is a call for more respect on us gamepad users, you keyboard-mousers, you ;)
- This game could have more features but they might be added some how, some way, who knows.
- uhm? << to be solved

I will definitively create skins for War Thunder, stay tuned. I have to finish a He 162 for IL-2 first. Today I finished the first He 112 test skin, this means I will offer it here for download when the word 'test' can be replaced. :D

And let me finish this post with this kinda saying comment: 'There are too many airplanes that you wanna fly around with but only a few games to jump inside'. Those would be IL-2, Wowplanes, War Thunder and HitS. At least four things less to worry about. It's depends on you to seek for your favorite planes, WOWplanes has lot's of fancy ones, too and remember, WOWplanes has some WT doesn't has and so on. But it could be that WT will get to be the only game needed in future. Now that will never happen since IL-2 stands alone on it's throne and similar to that WT will take it's time to reach almost perfect state and while good things take time I will continue the game switching even WT will be the first instance from now on.

Between Star X and Star Y – A true Fanboys Dilemma.

Spaceship Orion from the 60's:
Forgotten entry + hard to match + Low-Res only?

About mixing Space Sagas and their Spaceships
Sure, mixing Space Sagas is no good idea but sometimes it can't be avoided. All those fancy Ships known from movies and tv shows can be called real, at least within a games Mod. So, if you played with thousands of Spaceships in dozens of games, you soon start to realize that one thing might not fit coupled with another. This took years for me to understand. It's a technological and design specific fact that you can't combine for example Stargate with Star Trek, without calling it Steam- or Cyberpunk. If you ever had that feeling, it's a Dilemma! Let me give you another example: Just compare a Warp Drive or Subspace with some generic engines and while we are talking – where are the RCS trusters on most Sci-fi ships at (since most missed to include them)? And that's only talking on the surface of a very deep topic, mainly because for the designers theres a lot of goals when bulding a fictional spaceship. It could be the generic look of the time setting, the technology need or just a current design trend OR as in many cases only a fast solution. Imagine us living in a harsh industrial time. We would see angled minimalistic and sure footed non aesthetic designs. In the other example we would live in a super High-Tech century and our ships would be organic and feature whatever we can dream of. Let's make a note: Different Sci-fi Looks and different time frames produce inconsistency. My favorite way to compare such things is by looking a the cockpit or bridge design or by aerodynamical aspects of the hull. While I often find ugly canopies I also discover many non- or semi-aerodynamic shapes or something I would call "Comic-Look". One thing is for sure, all the stories around the Star Sagas are huge and epic, each as it's own. But what about the specific assets like Spaceships in the matter of the look of the Saga, are they even realistic? And when it comes to gaming, how about mixing them all up togheter?

"Creating a virtual mega Hangar full of different Ships – a long time goal".

Back to reality
Sci-fi is just Sci-fi, but not for us gamers. Lot's of famous Spaceships appear from game to game. Many games offer some simple Unit Management, a Map Editor or some scripting access. This way nerdy folks create fun scenarios containing multiple amounts of different Spaceships. It's just like doing what you ever dreamed of. Once you parked all those fancy Spaceships in one place, which I did over a thousand times, you will be creating a mess, just like me. Different Scalings, window sizes, engine types, hull platings, colours, Sci-fi Technologies and in the end even more important things like different Mesh and Texture detail levels. This was just a little set of things which might not fit. Even in a lone role, when not creating virtual empires, taking a simple ride into space depends on having something to fly with. Running different Sci-fi Mods I had to find a solution to such a complicated question and since it differs from day to day, how to choose my current most liked Sci-fi Universe Spaceship to role play with it? And will it satisfy?

"Help, I know hundreds of Spaceships".

So, what kind of Fanboy am I today?
Most of those Sci-Fi Universes are my favorites. It's a constant change. And there are those days where I don't even want to know a thing about Sci-fi. On such days I feel like a realist avoiding everything that's only theory. When not flying hypothetical stuff I enjoy state of the art ingame vehicles like Ships, U-Boats, Airplanes and almost real Spaceships. Back in time, I would have called myself a Trekkie (I've been playing STO a long time but the recent two movies hindered me from login-in again). Nowadays other Merchandisings play a bigger role to me, like Stargate or BSG (SG is fascinating but I don't really like the look, same with BSG). Andromeda is a too strange and ugly but a interessting story setting. I even was once into Babylon 5 when I was a teenager. Oh and Star Wars was something I called fantasy, even the assets part was nice enough to be liked. Firefly had to little spaceships for me to be recognized with proper attention, same as others (forgotten Sagas). Theres a easy way to determine the issue by simply looking at the fact that Star Trek Federation Ships are too futuristic to be placed near every other Sci-fi. It's sad but it differs entirely.

"Having all of my favorite Spaceships in one place was once very important to me".

No doubt, Steampunk!
Sometimes I can't relate to any of my once beloved Fan Sagas. I'm starting to fan-like independant open source Spaceships, since they offer a lot of the, to me very important "realism" and provide space for my own kind of Storylines. The fun fact is, that one could Mod such ships to however he wanna end-up with, be it a Star Drive or A Wormhole Drive, a cap of coffee on that cockpits texture or whatever. In this case we should have a good base, means a good detail quality (to avoid wasting time with Low-Res sources). Anyway, a Rendevouz Manuever of a BSG Ship with a Star Trek Ship is something fun to watch, in case the beam transporter is offline, which we, for fun, try to expect in such a scenario. This should explain why there are even more things that could play a main role in the confusion:

"Colonial One to Delta Glider NX-425. Wheres your docking port?".
"DG NX-425 to Colonial One. Nope, no such thing, uhm, ..."

Details, details, details:
Lot's of Mods have a great level of detail, others not. Mixing HiRes with Low-Res is always a bad thing to do in the name of immersion. Here comes another tricky problem, should one leave a mighty spaceship alone, even when his Star X/Y fleet is almost complete. Or should he add the Comic-Lookalikes, too? That's another question and the reason I stopped creating overfilled Fps-killing full scale scenarios because things did not even fit. I sure would love to have them all in one place, but all from the same source or with at least a min. on details, most importantly on the mesh and / or texture and besides that on the overall compability (see the Docking Port example above).

"It's like comparing apples and oranges".

A matter of taste OR quality
Well, most would say, why play with Low-Res stuff. I wish I could agree but I learned that many old games offer more assets or gameplay features than state of the art releases. A lot of HiRes Mods come from common games like BF3 and for non-commercial creators it's a matter of time consuming work to create HiRes Mods by themselves. Maybe that's the reason why we don't see them everyday.

"Size also matters a lot - choose your favorite vehicle wisely. Too big means no steering fun. Too small means it wont fit your dreams".

Diving for Pearls
I think a good summary on this complex nerd topic is picking the best and leaving out the rest. Some Sci-fi Spaceships are awesome and some Mods feature those Spaceships. But this topic is not only about spaceships. It's about the best Mods around and good things are like the saying hard to find. So I say no matter what it looks, if it's realistic and full of details it's worth a ride. This way we can create virtual parking lots with things that could be real one day or reflect the future instead of playing with the things we used to like when we were kids and which don't fit our adult needs for authenticity anymore.

"In the end, I only need one personal virtual ultra mega awesome super ride, right?
A Stargate should be enough anyway!".



This topic is not done yet. I will write a bit more on it asap.