Pilots!
Meet Update 2.0.5 for World of Warplanes.
Update 2.0.5 will add a new opportunity to significantly improve aircraft characteristics as well as emphasize strengths of aircraft, and adapt them to a playstyle of every player. Now an aircraft development will not end with researching all top modules and proceeding to the next aircraft in the Tech Tree. You can make your aircraft more specialized by mounting the most powerful equipment on it, enhance and calibrate equipment and thus get effects that suit you best.
Besides this, we have restored the option to record and replay battles and significantly reworked andexpanded the aircraft characteristics panel in the Hangar.
The aircraft progression system was significantly expanded. It now consists of two stages: aircraft configuration improvement and equipment development.
Aircraft that can be researched and purchased in the Tech Tree as well as Premium aircraft are now provided to players as aircraft in the Stock configuration.
Once all modules of an aircraft are researched, it acquires Elite status. It is no longer needed to research next aircraft in the Tech Tree to acquire Elite status. Premium aircraft still have Elite status by default.
Once Elite status is acquired, a player can complete special missions and receive an aircraft in the "Specialist" configuration. This configuration allows mounting more equipment and consumables and thus significantly improves certain features of an aircraft, emphasizes its character, and further adapts the machine to a personal playstyle of a player. However, it is not possible to change the set of modules mounted on an aircraft in the "Specialist" configuration: modules of the "Specialist" configuration are always the same as top modules of this aircraft in the upgrade Tree of the Stock configuration. Players can freely switch between the configurations in the Hangar choosing what they prefer more—the number of slots for equipment and consumables or the opportunity to change the set of modules
Now equipment and consumables can be mounted only in slots that correspond to certain aircraft modules. The slots are no longer universal. For example, equipment changing parameters of an engine can be mounted only in an engine slot.
The number and combination of slots for equipment and consumables depend on the aircraft Tier, type, and characteristics, whose improvement is relevant for this type.
The number of slots on low- and mid-tier aircraft in the Stock configuration was reduced. High-tier aircraft can still be equipped with 3 equipment pieces, but the number of slots for consumables on such aircraft was increased to 4.
Many more equipment and consumables can be mounted on aircraft in the "Specialist" configuration compared to the Stock configuration—up to 5 pieces.
All aircraft, equipment and consumables, including ammunition belts, are now clearly divided into three historic periods depending on when they were developed and how technically advanced they were:
Ammunition for forward-firing weapon is now considered as consumables as well and is mounted in a consumable slot for forward-firing weapon.
more on consumables and their effects
Equipment and consumables mounted in slots of an aircraft with different configurations are remembered and automatically mounted when a players switches between configurations. If a player prefers to use the same equipment or consumable piece on two configurations, such piece should be mounted manually when switching between configurations. The same equipment piece will be removed from one configuration and mounted in another configuration of the same aircraft for free.
Parameters of all equipment in the game were changed. Now they will have a significantly positive effect and a slightly negative one. For example, equipment increasing the durability of an airframe will slightly reduce the maneuverability of an aircraft. Equipment can now be mounted only in a corresponding slot of an aircraft of the corresponding historic period (tier).
more on equipment and their effects
The opportunity to improve the quality of equipment was added. Equipment has one of four quality levels: Stock, Improved, Advanced, or Ultimate. All equipment available for purchase and equipment that players will have on their accounts when update is released comes in the Stock configuration. Increasing equipment quality level to the next one adds a special characteristic in addition to the basic ones. For example, aside from the increased accuracy of forward-firing armament as a basic characteristic, Improved Optical Sight can additionally get a chance of setting a target on fire, a chance of inflicting critical damage, or an increased range of fire. When enhancing equipment, an additional characteristic is randomly selected from the list of available ones. When enhancing equipment further, the selected random characteristic can coincide with the additional random characteristic of the preceding quality level. In this case, their effects will be cumulative. Besides this, enhancing equipment can also improve its basic characteristics.
Special additional characteristics of the Advanced and Ultimate equipment will be active only on aircraft in the "Specialist" configuration.
The opportunity to calibrate equipment was added. It allows improving the values of both positive and negative basic characteristics to their respectively maximum and minimum possible values for equipment of any quality level. The increase or decrease value can be different: calibration can slightly improve both characteristics or significantly increase the positive one and at the same time reduce the negative one, or, more rarely, significantly improve one of the characteristics without changing the other one.
All quality levels have their own ranges of minimum and maximum values for basic characteristics which overlap at their minimum and maximum limits. When enhancing a well-calibrated equipment to the next quality level, basic characteristics may remain unchanged. However, a slightly calibrated equipment when enhanced to the next quality level can get not only a new special characteristic, but also an increase in basic characteristics.
Enhancing and calibrating equipment requires special Materials that can be obtained in victorious battles. Materials will "drop" from aerial and ground targets destroyed by a player, with a certain probability. Besides this, each calibration or enhancement of equipment will cost a certain amount of credits.
Each equipment available on a player's account can be tested on any aircraft of the corresponding historic period and with slots of the necessary types, no matter whether the equipment is available in the Depot or mounted on another aircraft. However, nothing is charged for demounting equipment from other aircraft or replacing equipment on a tested aircraft until a player finally applies all changes in configurations of all affected aircraft. A test flight takes place in a regular Standard battle, but with some restrictions. Players cannot change their aircraft if their team control the Airbase sector, and their credit and experience income per battle will be reduced by 90%.
All equipment available on players' accounts and mounted on aircraft was demounted for free and sent to the Depot. All equipment was replaced with new Stock-quality equivalents producing similar effects. Similarly, all consumables were demounted, replaced with new ones, and sent to the Depot.
All ammunition belts available for purchase were converted into the new corresponding ammunition sets divided by historic periods. The number of ammunition sets added to a player's account is calculated by dividing the total cost of all purchased ammunition belts by the total cost of new ammunition sets of the corresponding historic period and rounding the result up. It should be noted that the type of ammunition and its cost will not depend on the set of forward-firing armament and the number of barrels—the same ammunition mounted in one slot for consumables can be used for all autocannons.
All Elite aircraft retain their Elite status and automatically unlock access to a mission for reaching the "Specialist" configuration. Elite status will be granted to aircraft, whose all modules were researched, but the next aircraft in the Tech Tree were not researched. All aircraft with Elite status will get a special emblem and the corresponding achievement.
Some old equipment and consumables do not have equivalents in the new system. They were replaced with other equipment and consumables:
The option to record and replay battles was restored.
To enable battle recording, go to Game Menu → Settings → General and enable the checkbox next to Save battle replays.
A replay can be started in the following ways:
When watching a replay, the following options are available:
Fixed bugs that reduced performance of bombers controlled by bots when bombing targets.
Implemented the visual effect for aircraft acceleration and deceleration. Now when the airspeed of an aircraft is increasing (for example, when boosting or diving), the camera will be moving away; when the airspeed is decreasing, the camera will be getting closer to the aircraft.
Rapid-firing, long-range, and high-power large-caliber autocannons are now displayed with different icons.
Added the option to change languages of the game client to any of the supported ones.
Reset control settings for all control schemes due to changes in the number of slots for consumables and the increase in the number of active consumables.