Minor Updates for 1.7.3
- Daily battle Missions have been disabled
- Bugfix for players' insignias not being properly or fully displayed on teh Achievements profile page
- Bugfix for the quickchat commands "Attack" and "Taking the enemy"; giving them special indicators aboved the marked enemy plane
- Bugfix for a problem causing bullet hits to appear on aircraft even if the plane was not damaged
New Planes
German Ground Attack Planes
In contrast to the "flying tanks" of the USSR, these planes offer a variety of game styles. At lower tiers you will get classic ground attack planes; middle tiers focus on using the primary weapons, high tiers become speedy and "die hard" general-purpose planes, somewhat reminiscent of heavy fighters.
- Focke-Wulf Fw.189C Uhu -- tier IV
- Junkers Ju.87G Stuka -- tier V
- Henshel Hs.129B -- tier V
- Junkers Ju. 88P -- tier VI
- Messerschmitt Me. 265 -- tier VII
- Messerschmitt Me. 329 -- tier VIII
- Messerschmitt Me. P. 1099B-2 -- tier IX
- Messerschmitt Me. P. 1102B -- tier X
Gift planes (not obtainable for general public testers at this time)
- Arado Ar. 67 -- Germany, tier II fighter
- Fieseler Fi. 98 -- Germany, tier II ground attack plane
- Nakajima Ki-8 -- Japan, tier II fighter
- Messerschmitt Me. 109TL -- Germany, tier VIII multirole fighter
- Curtiss XF15C -- USA, tier VIII fighter
- Mitsubishi J8M Shusui -- Japan, tier VIII fighter
- Shenyang JL-1A-37 -- China, tier VIII fighter
- Lavochkin La-11 -- USSR, tier VIII fighter
- Seversky 2PA -- USA, tier IV fighter
Maps
2 new game locations were added. They will be available for battles of medium and high plane tiers:
- "Province" - available for tiers V - X -- Spring map, based on the theme of military confrontation in Italy. This map is composed of an extensive system of canyons and plateaus. You will also find several towns, connected with bridges
- "The Observatory" - available for tiers V - X -- Winter map, based on the European theatre of war. This map is composed of mountain ranges and a wide canyon in the center of the map
Changes for existing maps:
- Redesigned layout of AAA positions for "El Halluf" and "Winter War" maps
- Reworked layout of spawn points for "Fortress" map -- ground attack aircraft now spawn on both flanks
- AAA ships positions dispersed on "Port" map
- Re-worked layout of spawn points on "Pacific" maps
- Optimized map loading mechanism when entering the battle to reduce the load time
Gameplay
Flight Auto-Search
Button added to the Flight creation window. After pressing the button, a player can join a Flight with other players in a plane of the same or near tier and go for a random Flight. Only one player can be added automatically. The player who activated the Flight auto-search earliest becomes the Flight leader. After one auto-search Flightmate is added, the Flight commander can add one more player from his contact list (and bring the total number of players in Flight to 3).
Shooting
- Increased accuracy of the primary weapon when shooting at ground targets
Matchmaker
Balance algorithm has been improved to reduce the frequency of some issues:
- Battles with overwhelming amount of similar-class planes should become rarer
- Amount of planes who have different tier and class in a battle should become closer to the queue composition (e.g. in case the queue has 10% ground assault planes, then there should be approximately 10% of ground attack planes in the battle)
Daily Missions
Every day, players will be offered three missions to accomplish, for which they will get rewards (Credits/experience).
- Daily missions are divided into three difficulty levels. The second and third difficulty levels will be available only to those who have researched planes of tiers V and VIII respectively. Players will be able to accomplish such missions on aircraft of any tier though
- Unfinished daily missions will be available the next day as well, in case if they weren't accomplished, until player will accomplish them
- Accomplished missions are updated every day 00:00 UTC (16:00 PST / 19:00 EST)
Achievements
We've added special awards for Public Test participants. They have 10 ranks: Participant, Specialist (3 ranks, bronze), Expert (3 ranks, silver) and Master (3 ranks, gold).
Each rank is awarded for completing a minimum set of combat missions on the Public Test of any further update of World of Warplanes, starting with 1.7.0. Upon receipt of each subsequent ran,k the award in the profile will be replaced with a new one.
Plane & Tech Tree Changes
USSR
- Il-40 -- bugfix of the problem with nominal speed of AM-5F engine (mounted) which was higher than nominal speed of RD-9B engine (mounted)
Germany
- Fieseler Fi. 98 -- according to the testing results (in version 1.6.4) moved to Tier II, reduced HP, reduced altitude performance, reduced maneuverability
- Me.262 -- fixed the bug which caused reduced turn speed value shown in the Hangar when HWK 509 engine is mounted
Japan
- Nakajima Ki-8 -- according to the testing results (in version 1.6.4), efficiency of rear gunner was reduced, reduced HP
Sound
- Reworked firing sounds for primary weapons
- Reworked sounds for plane hits
- Fixed engine sounds
Interface
Markers
- Extended list of options in settings menu for fine tuning of planes and ground targets markers in 'Settings' -- 'Battle'.
- New possibilities of fine-tuning the external view and marker behavior for each plane class
- Marker settings for planes and ground targets were separated
- Available parameters of settings for new marker system -- the distance of display for particular marker elements, transparency, indication type. There's now a possibility to make particular changes in settings for anti-aircraft artillery and armored target parts (separately) for markers of ground targets
- New interactive window of marker appearance preview after configuring depending on the distance to them
Training Rooms
- We've implemented the possibility of plane changes for the player who has created a training room -- no need to re-create the room. All other players of this training room can take other plane without leaving the training room
- The possibility to change the plane configuration without leaving the training room was implemented
- The possibility to change maps and training room descriptions without leaving or re-creation of the room was implemented
- The possibility to hide the list of players in queue and teams from everybody, except for the room creator
- Extended list of battle length time selection
- The possibility to remove all bots from the training room with one button was implemented
Other
- New version of artificial horizon display with a fixed pitch scale and roll display using moving aircraft's silhouette (to bind the camera to the horizon) or semicircular scale of roll angle (to bind the camera to the aircraft)
- The number of weapon slots displayed in the battle interface was increased form 4 to 5 for correct display of the status for all weapon groups on some planes (e.g. Fw.190A-5)
- Tips were added to the battle loading screens with corresponding color considering "Enable alternate color mode"
- New images for the standby screen when entering the battle
- The settings item 'sound quality' was removed from "Settings" - "Sound" menu due to the migration to the new sound engine WWISE in Patch 1.6.0. Now the system always uses the max quality of sound because new engine consumes few resources and has no impact on performance
- Battle results messages, shown in the menu of system messages, now have a group of messages about skills study and proficiency progress
- The display of achievements earned by other players in the "Battle against bots" when checking the profile in the game client was added
Controls
- Plane's behavior will become more realistic for the period between really low altitude and when the altitude is enough to switch off the limit - when the 'Limit bank angles at low altitudes' option is enabled
- Fixed issue with sharp cursor movements in case the camera is bound to the plane at sufficient network lagging
Other Changes
- Legal information:
- New button was added to the login screen that opens a window with legal info: the list of inventions' authors (licensors), patents, technology, etc., used in the game client
- The file Licenses.txt, duplicating legal information can be found in the game folder
