Revisiting The Forgotten Game Mode - War Thunder Air Sim

[@Enigma89]

This is an impartial take on the game mode that everyone is sleeping on. It seems like by accident but this game mode flourishes with cold war planes and it offers something unique that the other games simply are unable to provide. As always, I don't advocate to play only one game because not one game is able to satisfy everything, so with that said, I think there is a compelling reason to include this game mode in your rotation. LMK what you think

[@shize9ine]

As far as favorite WT child, its probably Ground RB, Air RB, Air AB, Naval AB, Naval RB, Air Assault, Heli (A?RB), then Air SB. I play sim whenever there are weird challenges that i know i can exploit with some sneaky SIM techniques because WT dev gives SB no love.

[@ballistix1117]

Lack of tuto, poor default controls. It took me so much time to learn mouse & keyboard (all the controls and getting use to them, which I never could at the end :/ ) just to be shot down like a bot, it felt like a bad investement. You need other (better) air sim experience to get in the bath or you just set yourself to loose.

[@RogueBeatsARG]

Sim is fun, and for a "Grind" perspective is way better than RB, but many people miss it cause they feel like they need a HOTAS and Track IR to play

[@mangosuppe8706]

What's your setup? I only have an entry level flight stick.

[@williamgunter4268]

​@RogueBeatsARG please share how you play sim without a HOTAS. I want to play sim but feel like I need one.

[@Montwix]

Using the "Follow me" interaction in airsim is very useful for situational awareness. It ping your position on the map and usually, if someone near you uses it, you should use it too so that they know you're not a threat.

[@ThePandabearzzz]

Both follow me and need cover give your exact position on the map but also puts your altitude in chat

[@Chaos6-1]

Exactly. It always cracks me up when people are like “STOP telling me to follow you, I’m not going to!” I wish the snail would update these a bit, it doesn’t seem that hard “Here’s my pos” doesn’t seem that hard lol

[@jakobc.2558]

@@ThePandabearzzz yeah but only use "need cover" if you are being attacked.

[@shize9ine]

@@Chaos6-1 Its like we can figure out position by using the cover/follow chat so why not just give us fake datalink and let us see friendlies on the map? SB is not shown love by the devs ever.

[@Chaos6-1]

@@shize9ine I fly WWII and Korean era and don’t use radar much..and like E mentioned, WWII mixed maps is a mess so I only fly in more Axis v. Allies scenarios when I can find them

[@ThePandabearzzz]

Lmao I'm an avid sim lover and that introduction to the the convoy attacks is perfectly accurate you attempt to approach those convoys with anything that can't lock on or target them beyond 3km and you get smacked out of the sky by the AI AA tanks that don't even have radar turned on. Even ostwinds and wriblewinds at lower brs are lasers

[@JSDFEnthusiast]

The gepard single handedly making me cower in fear at the sound of rwr tone

[@ThePlatinumsquirrel]

Wirblewinds will slap you down from like 5kms in my experience. Tried to do a AD4 run on one and it was horrible.

[@roebuckpayne]

Simulator isn’t a game mode - Enduring Confrontation is the game mode and it’s a travesty that arcade AND realistic aren’t also operating this way. 1,000,000% improved game mode over the regular team deathmatches.

[@sakyuz6080]

simulator is a gamemode you dummy, air realistic whole thing is the fact that you have a instructor which helps you fly with M&K, and markers. and air arcade whole thing is that its war thunder's take on world of warplanes (the two are really similar ngl.). In sim you have neither instructor or markers > 800m and those are only for allies. you are also stuck to first person view from inside the cockpit. EC, Operations, air battles etc. aren't gamemodes, those are missions, you can check it by yourself, just when you are in hangar, click on the spot where you choose the gamemode, and in top left of the "air arcade, air realistic, etc" it will say "GAMEMODE", and guess what? sim is in there.

[@SumRussianJew]

Don’t “erm actually” enigma, hes trying his best to

[@hybrid_grizzly]

@@SumRussianJewRBEC is peak tho, it used to be an event occasionally and they stopped because we wouldn’t shut up about how it should be the default gamemode

[@D_Azera]

@@hybrid_grizzly nice to know there are stupid people working for gaijin

[@D_Azera]

it would still need some adjustment but for sure that would be nice to have

[@foo-foocuddlypoops5694]

Love flying the Buccaneer in Sim the way our lord and saviour Blackburn intended; Sea-skimming at 700mph to smack carriers with a full 16,000lbs bomb load.

[@Arnechk]

Got WT just for the Lancaster, and since the Buccaneer dopped, I knew what it does, but I was far away from jets... Now it's becoming my next target to grind for.

[@petrkdn8224]

Yep!

[@Shino_bro]

Good points on what most of us have been griping about. It's an easy game mode to pop in and out of and can be played alone. More realistic sims I feel like I need to set aside a timeline and schedule with friends in order to have a good time. The bomber problem is actually why the sim reward system is structured the way it is. Some problems you missed which may become more acute as you play more; AI: Ground target AI is widely different between matches. Certain AAA systems (m42s in convoys) will delete you at ridiculous ranges. But a radar guided ZSU will struggle to stop you on a low approach. Carriers on Denmark, the one to the north will delete you at 4000m going mach 1.20. the southern carrier will let you land on it. The lack of variety in targets to attack. It's bomb a base, bomb a convoy(completely ignored unless standoff AGMs are in play). Bomb a carrier. There are no mobile Sam sites, battles only spawn after an area is secured. The bombing of bases also truly makes this game mode favor NATO forces to win nearly every match in the cold war era. The effect of bombing targets is widely disproportionate compared to intercepting those targets and destroying enemy ground forces and seizing territory. The mode is a great start and easy to pop in and out of but it lacks so much and at this point is primarily used as a bomber grindfest and we haven't seen a major update to the game mode in almost 2 years!

[@eb3yr]

0:15 "the last one" meanwhile Air Arcade is tied to a chair on the seabed.

[@Idkwhattoput151]

Naval is tied to an icbm that is being launched

[@solastrr]

We don't even consider its existence

[@gungriffen]

One perk of war thunder sim is itll run VR maxed out on a Toaster, compared to DCS that has to compromise with a 4090. Its my preferred vr experience.

[@jimlthor]

Yep. Had it maxed on a 3070ti and it never dipped below 90fps. Super smooth performance

[@anarchopupgirl]

I can even pull off the VR on a RTX2060 & i7-3770 lmao. Just barely.

[@kimbonzky]

Im at the stage of WT where I only play airsim EC, very relaxing

[@cdeAB-tb9bm]

While i’m playing it cuz it’s the only mode where i can get serious profit there

[@rampageTG]

@@cdeAB-tb9bmif your just looking to grind SL and don’t mind spending 20-40 USD I’d highly suggest getting the USS Davis and Moffet. Those two DDs are ridiculously good SL grinders. Had 2 %500 SL boosters and ended up earning 2.3 mil in 2 17min games. If you don’t want to spend money the Davis is on the market for 22 GJN so all you really need is to sell one or two coupon vehicles to get it.

[@Besieiro]

same, after playing sim the other air game modes just became too shallow, most planes feel the same unlike in sim

[@guenthersteiner8163]

@@cdeAB-tb9bmthe air sim rewards are dogshit nowadays

[@iggy377]

Even though war thunder has no end as a game you can say that you've completed it in some way when start playing only for fun

[@KekusMagnus]

I still remember when gaijin marketted sim as the "definitive" way to play warthunder. almost 10 years ago... rip

[@ragingmenace1984]

The irony is, it’s true. Even tank battles are more fun when you have to identify the target first and range your shot.

[@MoleUK1]

It's interesting revisiting Sim EC. When I left Sim EC for DCS some three? years ago, the korean era and beyond were much less populated than they are now. Though part of that was due to repair costs in sim EC being absurd at the time. It's a game mode that has tremendous potential, but unfortunately I suspect it will always remain so.

[@IndianArma]

I play dcs a lot. Almost enjoy wt sim more to my shame 😂

[@House_of_Schmidt]

I wish we had Air RB EC.

[@KeepZeeZ]

What's stopping you from playing sim? (Let's talk through it lol)

[@House_of_Schmidt]

@KeepZeeZ I've played Sim. It's fun. It's just I like the RB 3rd person view and controls better. So I just wish RB's gamemode wasn't so gimped and we could have EC with RB controls

[@lasse4416]

100% agreed. I play lots of sim but arb when i know i cant play uninterrupted for long. Arb is more relaxing and id love to see EC mode on it. Preferably without enemy markers so positioning, bombing and flanking would be easier.

[@ZigaZagu]

Sure, but no markers. Like in ground rb

[@Pouzdraken]

@@ZigaZaguas an rb player, I wouldn’t mind this, in lower brs of top tier like 11.0 I like to say just below the point where I get contrails since most people are at the deck and im still as invisible as possible. The name tag usually gives me away and my poor viggen doesn’t do too well against aim7fs, especially when notching is a little hard with massive blind spots in the rwr lol. Still, if im unspotted then it’s 2 easy kills with the radar missiles.

[@dmmino]

I made the switch to Air Sim when the Air RB timer was dropped to what it currently is. I had an IR tracker and it just made sense. Then I got VR and now it’s the only mode I’ll play. I honestly haven’t looked back. I enjoy the fact that if you have half of a brain, you can use tactics to win your fights. Also, I like the fact that you aren’t spotted like you are in Air RB. You can fly into low cloud coverage and ambush people not paying attention. It’s great. It does need some attention these days though. And don’t get me started on those spawned convoys. They’re insanely OP.

[@Hadgerz]

Air Sim jets up until 11.7 feel super evenly balanced (aside from France getting premiums with all-aspect IRCCMs at 11.0) even. And now with the recent decompression plans (and stock ARH missiles) it's likely about to get less frustrating at the higher levels too. "This is a game to enjoy not a labour camp to grind" is the perfect counter to those people who think they can just say "PVE" and hurl abuse at anyone with a kill on the scoreboard.

[@popmordiscos]

Yesterday I was playing Heli PvE and realized how relaxing it is in compariason to the grind, and I realized how they could just add heli PvE to Air SB and higher some reaserch on the helis and we would have a even cooler gamemode. Because helis are better against convoys because they get AGMs earlier and the Fighters could play air defence

[@michawongar]

Like this idea, but Heli SB very hard to manage. Maybe I need way more practise. There is no need ATM , because you can use it in test flight.

[@lasse4416]

Magic2 is super easy to flare all aspect and at that br there are also r73’s so i think its ok. I consider sparrows much bigger threat

[@eaglemach9992]

Lets say i want to fly a f-16 in sim, i am a new account, why would i not advocate for a peaceful pve grind in a lobby ? i feel a lot veteran players have kind of lost the plot on why this is a thing.

[@Egg-2]

​@@eaglemach9992Warthunder is a PVP primary game. Just because one of the gamemodes focuses more on PVE doesn't mean that you should expect everyone to stop doing the main focus of the game. It's a PVP game first and foremost so expect other people to try and shoot you down

[@kryperdev]

I completetly left Air RB behind and even got myself IR head tracker to play Air Sim. It is fantastic game mode. I also support the idea of adding helicopters to the mix. It would not only give better way to grind helicopters but also spice up Vietnam/Modern BRs.

[@palpedersen2804]

I started dabbling in air Sim and it’s become my go to mode. The lack of huge fur balls with missiles flying everywhere is definitely worth it. I fly exclusively 10.0 to 11.7 for a few reasons. I use a gaming laptop so my screen is relatively small and visual spotting is an issue. Radar allows me to spot and identify enemies. Winter maps with contrails everywhere does mitigate the need for radar, though. However, jets do let you skip the torque issues on prop planes and are easier to fly. I don’t fly higher than 11.7 because higher than that constantly forces you into a top tier and fox 3 hell which I don’t have the situational awareness to deal with. Dumb and hampering my growth and skills? Probably. But the 10.0-11.7 range allows me to have fun and being useful to the team. And that’s been a long time since I have had in this game. Actual fun. So what if the BR range is restricted. I no longer have to grind. No stress about RP or SL. Just fly out. Master your plane of preference. Try to shoot down more planes than the times you get shot down. Once in a while try to finally figger out how many bombs and where to take out USS Forrestal. Do the sacrilegious act of using War Thunder as a means to decompress, relax and have fun at the end of the day. Did i mention that i like Sim?

[@Enigma89]

A reasonable take, thanks for sharing

[@sultan4d169]

Fell in love with Air Sim when I bought myself a VR headset. Stomping "Aardvark lobbies" on event days to see them throwing tantrums in chat is the most fun I ever had in WarThunder

[@skyhager5953]

The only thing I play War Thunder for anymore is air sim lmaooo

[@shitpost4204]

same. I almost only play sim these days

[@TheDougsSB]

if you have tried to play it at top tier, dont, its the worst experience ive ever had in a game period and you will just end up not liking sim at all because of that 1 bracket

[@skyhager5953]

@TheDougsSB Yeah, I only go up to 11.3 really. Have a ton of fun there.

[@AlexanderK9519]

​@@skyhager5953is it me or since the SEEK and DESTROY update modern tech became even more complex, it's one of the reason i started playing WW2 era again lately

[@LucaTheGuide]

Yey c= nice to see Enigma covering War Thunder Air Sim more x3 the more attention put towards it the better, I'm sure many other Air Sim players and content creators feel the same and see the much untapped potential in Air Sim too

[@Warriorcat49]

I haven’t player WT in months, and my friends and I started playing Air and Ground Sim again as of a couple weeks ago. We are having so much more fun with it. Partially because we stopped caring about the grind, but also the players and matches are just more enjoyable overall imo than RB.

[@Enigma89]

Well said

[@GeneralLee2000]

Speaking of the grind, sim used to be much better for grinding vehicles and modifications out than it it is now, but those same farmers you mentioned ruined that too. They would find ways to exploit the earnings system, and Gaijin imposed the current 15 minute cap on rewards because of it 🤒. Really enjoyed the video though!

[@tu7765]

Gayjin hate sim players

[@elkrumb9159]

Oh man, I mainly play Air RB but sim is super fun and sometimes it’s just better than ARB, I have vivid memories of getting my first sim kills and taking off in 109s when me and my buddy got into WT Sim, not to mention you can actually dogfight people, the community has been wanting Air RB EC for a long time ever since they made an event for it in realistic the game would’ve so much better

[@ItzCPU_]

Convoys still have aimbot

[@M3D1C1]

You’re right… the AAA and sams are strictly visual assets that can be damaged. The shooting effect is modeled completely seperate from the vehicle… you damaged their vehicle? They still shoot. Kill the gunner? They still shoot. Damage the gun barrels? They still shoot. Shoot off their radar? They still shoot…. It’s extremely dissatisfying to the point where I only fight ground targets with modern standoff weapons.

[@polsatinter5400]

Fuck them bots (no robo)

[@hammerofdavey]

WT Air Sim was actually what i got started in, around 2017. I had a ps4 but didn't have enough money for a PC to play dcs. I can't remember when i first saw the Ki-44, but I think it was probably War Thunder. Well i grinded until i got the 44, then decided to teach myself how to dogfight with that plane, which I basically flew nothing but for 2 years in Air Sim until I got a PC.

[@croma81]

Spotting is perfect in WT Sim. I can not dogfight properly in DCS bcoz of still bad spotting-rendering whatever but in WT im enjoying merge a lot. WT has a lot of potential wasted by arcade and arcade++ modes + monetization.

[@michaelc9155]

It's far from perfect. Contacts are hard to see against ground, at medium distances they have weird elongated shape. And currently there is a bug with planes being visible at any distance as light blue dots. But it's still playable ofc

[@yono367]

its a simcade by design, its meant for a more casual audience

[@Aphexion]

@@michaelc9155 What I cannot stand is the fact that it is extremely difficult to determine if an aircraft is friendly or foe. And I know some people say "Of course, if you identify the shape of the aircraft, you can guess what country it is from". Once I was playing a Sim game where Sweden was on the opposite team and I saw a Draken. I wrote "any friendly there?" and marked a point on the map. No one answered. My radar couldn't tell if it was friendly or not, but it did tell it was a Draken. I said "sweden is enemy, I'll shoot". I fired a missile, hit him and, for my surprise, it was a friendly player flying a "captured Draken". How the hell am I supposed to know, if there's lack of communication and every top tier plane exists in pretty much each nation?

[@michaelc9155]

@@Aphexion it must have been a gripen, as drakens are only in the Swedish tech tree. Also if your radar has iff it should identify friendlies as two lines (not in ACM mode). In lower br brackets it's more difficult of course. Also rwr now shows only foes

[@orangek4t]

@@michaelc9155 RWR only show foes if your RWR can detect which plane is nailing you, the ones who only show direction will still show friendlies

[@alvarovillatoro5187]

I played this mode with the A10A using a 150% RP booster, I got 100k RP. I'm about to finish researching all rank7 planes Just playing sim battles, it took me a little over 3 hours to fully learn to fly my plane and adapt to the controls. Since I started playing sim battles I have gotten the most satisfaction and fun playing war thunder in a while.

[@joshuapurdy7065]

i played air sim for the first time yesterday, ive always just played air rb cause im insane, its not like i didnt have the ability too because ive had a hotas and vr for a while now but i just never thought to, after finally trying it it was eye opening. i wish more people played it

[@israeluzcategui]

Great video Enigma, i recently got into War Thunder and was very intimidated by Sim, but decided to give it a shot with Hotas and VR, and im glad i did, i really like it, i jumped straight from Arcade to Sim and i think its very fun and agree that it could be taken to the next level if only the Snail would give it much deserved love. o7

[@masterman3178]

It’s not forgotten, it was abandoned by snail. It used to be great. 2 teams, cockpit view only, fight till the last team stands. Repeat. Now it’s enduring battles. You get a crap start spawn plane, grind to better stuff even though you grinded to get it, now you gotta grind again to be allowed to fly it. I bailed on war thunder, got a pc and went to DCS. Or for WWII IL2. I didn’t spend 600 hours grinding to get jets only to be told I now need to score 10 kills in a prop plane to get to use the thing.

[@ArchOfficial]

"Full Real Battles" over a decade ago was fun. Unfortunately the grind was too much.

[@atatoraman9257]

About the grind… To play planes like the F15 and F16. A new WT player with experience in DCS who bought an F4S may be mad about the grind they’re put through. The F4S now is in a bracket that it has to face AMRAAMs with a limited set of strategies to counter it. I’m a 10 year WT player, very fond of Sim battles and I happily bought an F4 premium to grind my tech tree. It took me about 100+ hours to reach from the last P51, the H variant, to the F15C. Using Talismen to speed up the RP gains everytime I found a good plane to fly. I’m assuming this delayed gratification, the modification unlock tree for every plane is not ideal. I would love to see bigger Air Sim battles and stronger players. Great video!

[@sebastianmanay]

While playing a single game mode can burn you out, I do definitely think that air sim E.C. is the best example of both how much fun this game can be and the wasted potential. Still, it is my go to game mode, I barely touch realistic battles from time to time to research planes but once I have them, I only play sim. Also, what is the website you're using around 3:55? Great video btw!

[@LuizBarros99]

You touched on the subject of helicopters in Air SIM. This actually kind of happened at some point, and they had to remove them. Basically IIRC what happened was that the AI had zero clue how to fly helicopters, so they would spawn on the airfields and immediately crash after taking off. I'm actually curious to know if Gaijin has managed to teach the AI how to fly helicopters, but part of me is not too hopeful.

[@NekoTaisen]

I steped on the simulation mode two days ago first to earn more RP and SL, and then I discovered what I was looking for DCS. Immersion without sacrificing too many hours learning each planes systems. This mode is so satisfying when you earned your first kills. And bonuses, there are pleinty of planes I want to see in DCS which are in War Thunder (I "just" need to unlock them).

[@M00n_TV]

I don't play WT, but from the outside looking in it makes no sense that the snail has not capitalized more on what they have. A lobby of all out war with players controlling ships, tanks, and aircraft would be fantastic. I guess it may be difficult to get everyone on board since as you mentioned many players just shut their brains off to grind. Would be super cool to see though, it's what I've always wanted in a sim.

[@Enigma89]

I don't fault for what the Snail has done but rather what it hasn't. They are sitting on a gold mine but the issue is that, the gold mine seems to already be printing. I guess they are nervous of changing things up.

[@IdahoBookworm]

@@Enigma89 Honestly, the sim community is such a tiny, tiny fraction of their player base that I don't blame them. But it is sad.

[@M00n_TV]

@@Enigma89 I think you hit the nail on the head, they could capture so much more of the market but they seemingly don't put in the effort to. We see it time and time again with the industry. It's very much "if it ain't broke" aspect, why invest in new avenues when they already have a cash cow. My question is, when it comes to RB and they run out of new vehicles to develop then what? The F-15 and F-16 are about as modern as they can be, the next gen of fighters is pretty limited numbers wise. Not to mention the specs they need to somewhat simulate the aircraft are nonexistent to the public. If I were them, I'd be thinking of ways to expand the gameplay since they've added just about every vehicle since WW1 at this point. But that's just my borderline uninformed opinion! Love the vids by the way, I'm waiting on hotas mounts to come in and then I'm heading straight to your DCS cold war server.

[@Matias-dr3ys]

years ago they were experimenting with a "world war" mode but i guess it didnt work out since they scrapped it.

[@alarminglyfastmovingskelet7289]

You are probably new to War Thunder then. The majority of War Thunder players don't even want to get attacked by planes.

[@bvsveera]

Glad to see you're enjoying it! We here in the War Thunder air sim community share the same views as you. Gaijin is sitting on a gold mine, it's a damn shame they haven't seized the opportunity to help air sim reach its full potential.

[@kimjanek646]

It's amazing how Gaijin put so much effort into making Jet missiles and systems very realistic but they have like the most pathetic modeling of aircraft ammunition. We have custom loadouts but are forced to choose between a few premade belts that often times don't contain the ammunition that you want to use, so you always have to compromise. If your gun fires explosive ammo, doesn't matter which caliber, you only want to use those because somehow a plane loses it's wing from 3 12.7mm HE rounds but a pilot can also take 2-3 htis, making rounds that don't deal high structural damage completely obsolete.

[@BLTsandwichDJ]

Seeing a DCS cc talk about War Thunder sim in a good light is so awesome, thank you!

[@MrViggie37]

Air sim is the only gamemode I can keep up with. I get dunked on in realistic most of the times but if I know what I am doing then I can be dangerous.

[@Adrella_Highwing]

I have several dcs modules, IL-2 GB and have Falcon bms, but I often come back to war thunder. I find it much more accessible, being easy to jump in, have a match, and jump out. With the others, especially dcs, you spend ages trying to learn the plane, just to forget everything a few weeks later if you don't play. That being said, air sim needs a lot of work. Just a few tweaks here and there would make it fantastic. I really hope this vid does well, and the snail sees it and puts stone more love into this mode

[@TheOneWayDown]

Part of me likes the grind, in that there's always something new to work towards. But when I started to realize my favorite planes to fly were those early/mid cold war jets, I started to realize air RB starts to really fall apart there. These days I mostly play WT for tanks because as few options as there are for pvp lite sims for planes, there's basically none for tanks But maybe you want to level up a plane for CAS in your tanks, well playing an attacker in ARB is genuinely painful. I just want to unlock some ordnance for the thing, but now I'm faced with turbo sweats who see me as an RP piñata. That's what's so attractive to me about sim, the ability to hop in really any of the planes in the bracket and have something to do rather than a chaotic air deathmatch. I always loved ground pounding but by doing that in RB you're just making yourself a free kill. Hoping I get to fly out my squadron A-4E in a sim match soon. And hopefully shooting some people down in a mig 15bis

[@MrRobschnieder]

War Thunder sim solves one of my biggest gripes with RB and AB. Getting uptiered sucks, the higher the BR the greater the jump in technology you have to fight. Air sim you can see exactly what BR you are in and know what you’re going to face at most and you always get options to pick from. Bad day for your jets? Go enjoy some props or Korean War area jets.

[@erice.9514]

I have no problem with the Grinders, I am doing it myself in between fights or hunt enemies when my Bombs are spent. Its okay, and its what makes it so great for me as a more casual Sim player (due to my job and work times). You can choose your kind of egagements and objectives you wanna do, and also Grinding bombers contribute to the tickets in mixed teams. But the furball is not for everyone and I like to approach my fights on my terretory not the other way around, if I can.

[@Jajalaatmaar]

Yeah and it's fun to have some people doing boring bombing as targets.

[@TheDAWinz]

Check out the pantsir in the replay's sensor view, that PESA is crazy.

[@orka5352]

Every single time people talk about Air sim in war thunder I bring up what it used to be. EC is fantastic and should continue to be up 24/7 as it is. Sim used to be just like Air RB but with sim controls and the queue times were long BUT they also had historical EVENTS. I miss them so much, once a day or week (I forgot cause it was like 10 years ago) they would host events based off of historical ones. So you would be fighting in the Battle of Britian, or Midway, or Pearl Harbor, and all the planes in the event were strictly what was used in the real battle. Those events were always packed and had near instant queue times. I wish they would bring those back, they were the most immersive WT has ever been and ever will be unless they come back. They could do it like one day per week have a historical event (that way it wouldn't be 24/7 and over saturate) and it would probably have short queues and great gameplay. Think about that most recent B-17 escort event that occurred the other month for you newer players.

[@Hurin170]

it's cool to see you playing sim in war thunder. i've enjoyed playing air sim but the biggest negative for me is the useful actions systems. the fact that you get less RP for playing sim than playing air RB is just soul crushing if you want to grind any tech trees. for helicopters, it would be cool to add them into sim EC like they are in your DCS server but some changes would be needed. Like the Chinese helicopters and their TY-90 missiles being basically win buttons because of how flare resistant they are. they already cause a lot of issues even in ground RB.

[@Enigma89]

Do not grind, just play 🙏

[@lexiz37]

I've been saying that for years, removal of Enduring Confrontation from Air RB was the WORST decision gaijin ever pulled off. It solves most of current 16vs16 deathmatch issues and doesn't even require adding anything new into the game, just turn the damn mode on for realistic flight model as well.

[@dratewka3192]

You not even mentioning naval truly shows which one is the forgotten gamemode

[@AlexanderK9519]

Bro i'm one of ten naval players it's not forgotten 🥲

[@dratewka3192]

@@AlexanderK9519 me too

[@edd1682]

"If you play to grind you've already lost" ..... I understand the message but AirSim forces some grind due to the high cost of spawning planes.

[@DingoTactical]

I've been playing Air Sim almost exclusively for almost two years and can honestly say it's the most fun way to play top tier.

[@stevehenderson3432]

We’ve been asking for anything you can possibly think of for YEARS. If anything gets done it’ll be an absolute miracle

[@Judge_OnYouTube]

Been playing war thunder since 2016 and only just started air Sim this week. It's been insanely fun.

[@MichaelCMaxwell]

Concur with all your points. Especially with small player counts in most lobbies and potential for incorporating helos into SB EC. But I think it can be taken a step further to fix/improve by using 124x124 Air SB maps to spawn 1-4 of the normal ground sim battles (limited by number of players the server can support). Servers would look somewhat like this: 124x124km Air EC: 10-20 air players to include jets and helos. 12x12km Ground SB inside the 124-124km Air EC: 10-20 ground players. These 30 minute ground battles would spawn throughout the 3 hour EC and be located relative to the frontline based on objectives achieved both on the ground and air. The assumption being air and ground SB players can interact with each other on this EC shared map. However, the increased ranges and alternate objectives would relieve CAS pressure on the ground players while simultaneously enriching the overall battle space.

[@play_dude192]

I can't take RB seriously after trying sim mode about 2.5 years ago. Haven't played air rb for any other reason but grinding modules since then. Every aspect of air battle now makes sense - from hiding in the clouds to using the landscape. And all those R-27ET feel too sweet in sim to ignore this game mode. Have been watching your videos since starting to play Naval Action. But I got tired with NA and it's a good time to get all those FOX-3 planes. Seeing you making videos about WT sim makes me feel I'm doing right thing playing this. Enigma approval is a good thing to have.

[@AdmV0rl0n]

This is a great video. Easy to miss some parts of warthunder that are good!

[@AdmV0rl0n]

Having said that, they block mouse mode and make this 'difficult'. Having spun it up, the only way I could do this is by ploughing through masses of controls/getting a flight stick. The game mode needs to offer sim controls, but equally allow normal players in on their controls..

[@janova9939]

Coming back to WT in these days too, and initially get very confused with the IFF especially without EWR o CGI at all and the pointed out mess with mixed Airframe over tech trees, found Radio command very usefull to report my position and checking if ally in area, not totally accurate but actually seem really the only way if not playing in team. The Sim mode look pretty cool, but a little underpopulated with rooms always Half empty. The good thing is that I also noticed that a Uniformed development of airframe reduce the risk of having inconsistent flight or damage model (still present with many other little bugs) resulting in a more consistent overall experience even with the low fidelity model that it offer.

[@brexxes]

Been playing air sim for a couple of weeks now and I really enjoy it. Air RB is too overwhelming as it feels like a big moshpit or thunder dome. Actually never touched bombers before, but in sim you have the advantage of gunner view so you actually are competitive. Managed to survive a 1v4 and killing 3 of them in a 264. Now I am getting more and more into flying fighters. Maybe need to hook up my TrackIR for a better experience.

[@npatrcevic]

I learned to dogfight in ww2 sim in WT. It's still the most fun for a VR user like me, because of the vision (dots rendered). IL2 multiplayer ist zoom'n'boom heaven most of the time. Your server on DCS is bluefor paradise... You don't need to do a manual start of a plane to have fun dogfighting. As you said, itches/scratches...

[@bsdude010]

4:20 Oh?? Big surprise. Enigma's favorite era to play in War Thunder is cold war.. :P Good vid bro.

[@airadve]

i wish they would add sead to air sim, with proper SAMs, that would be a really fun thing to do

[@Chaos6-1]

I’ve been doing this for a little while now (revisiting WT)..I had played Air Sim for years and then jumped over to DCS. But going back these past few months, I really remember now that is just fun. Variety is the spice with WT and the little things are what make it enjoyable. I don’t need full fidelity to just have a little fun.

[@popmordiscos]

I agree that the biggest advantage with warthunder is the variety of the vehicles, in all gamemodes, the br brackets with the most fun are those that have multiple different aircraft and tanks that have small or big advantages over one another

[@Lorian667]

This seems like a game mode I would love to have in DCS.... I think I will check it out, I'm sort of tired of the DCS flaws.

[@theeflea03]

You're a G for covering this topic.

[@opieumprime]

I started with sim few weeks ago and its great and fun. But in top tier my su-27sm gets bullied its just not enjoyable. Great video dude.

[@vasilis23456]

I used to play War Thunder air sim a lot, but got tired of the grind years ago and stopped 2 and a half years ago. I just got Il-2 Battle of Moscow and having a blast with it, but I agree that the multiplayer is either really congested, or really empty. That also might have to do with the fact that in War Thunder you can see enemies across the map though. (All airplanes appear as black dots on the screen and they don't get smaller in size after a certain distance away, I have no idea if that is realistic or not. I've just noticed that in Il-2 you have a limited view distance of airplanes.) I've also never gotten as far as cold war planes in War Thunder, you have to grind in Realistic mode to get silver lions, but research points seem easy to come by in Sim mode. If you don't have a very high K/D you always lose in game currency in Sim mode. I've only gone positive in Silver Lions in Sim mode getting a K/D of about 2.5-3, and if you accidentally shoot down a friendly, you can lose up to 50,000 silver lions, getting a kill only nets you about 1000. Edit: Also just remembered my biggest pet peeve. Someone will sometimes get into a German premium P-47 and net a massive K/D on the server because people are too afraid to accidentally friendly fire. Basically the consequence of accidentally killing a friendly is more severe than going near a friendly-enemy plane in Sim.

[@carlosmd27]

I would like them to add tanks and ships used by players to the SB mode, like there is a war at sea, another on land and another in the air, THAT would give the supreme finishing touch to the SB mode.

[@ray-ray_jackson2k5]

My buddy tried to get me to play it with him, but dang... I was not prepared for how many people shred at low tier.

[@DJRaffa1000]

i really need to take a look at air sim. Mirage 2000C-s4 is my go-to plane at the moment. I just need to actually set up all my gear for it. Stick and throttle and by the looks of it headtracking as well

[@r6sm043]

I specifically asked my family to get me a flight stick for Christmas last year so I could play sim, since controller is doable but very frustrating, first game I played with the stick was in the mig-29smt going 50-15 and earned roughly 2mil sl and 200k rp. I haven't played sim since Feb this year due to the new jets, but now that I'm trying to spade the su-27 and other top teirs I think I might pic it up again

[@IlINeptuneIlI]

Haven't played RB since buying a Vr headset and stick 3 years ago. Its addictive!

[@georgewhitworth9742]

Totally agree EC is where it's at. In one playthrough of a mission, I got 48 air to air kills in my P-38 lineup. Mostly bots probably, but coming from RB where I'd be lucky to score a single kill, I was on cloud nine, lol

[@_TheUpsetGerman]

My experience has always been positive with air sim. I have a friend who usually flys formation with me, and we patrol the border looking to intercept. Best match we had was in the MiG-21bis, where I was his wingman, we each scored 7 kills and were never shot down. I highly recommend Cold War.

[@brianward9844]

I used to fly Air sim, Im with you with on the inconsistent lineups with captured aircraft. It bothers me to no end. In my opinion the way to fix it, would be to introduce a mechanic where captured/lend lease vehicles cannot be used against their nation of origin. IE if Germany is on the opposite team and you are Sweden you cannot use the Bf-109 in the match, or if you are Italy fly against USA you cannot fly the P-47.

[@sealboyy6584]

I do play sim a lot more ever since Air RB has been absolutely grim, and on most things I do agree with, but there are many workarounds. Not being able to see your enemy sometimes is a problem but, you can use the team callouts to pin yourself on the map, and let others know and they'll follow up, also for an experienced war thunder player its not that hard to ID planes at like 2 km, tho the nations being mismatched is quite frustrating. One last thing that I wanna say is that yes this gamemode is surprisingly fun and enjoyable, you have to remember that this is WT and they don't really care about you, they like to do stupid changes and unbalance things or add useless features, vehicles and so on, and the grind while less arduous than before it is still long and not easy to get to high BR planes, especially if you start with sim, so you have to start with like arcade if you're really inexperienced, or realistic to get the hand of the game.

[@rickharper938]

Yes!! More air sim please snail!! Or bring that same structure to air RB! 🙌😁❤

[@bewell4467]

I started my whole PC gaming experience with WT. Checked it out because of Arcade Mode and hated it, but then found Sim Mode and loved it. The grind, sometimes toxic player base and lack of attention to the mode from Gaijin drove me away, but it was fun. People seem to try to compare its "realism" to other platforms, but it is a universe unto itself, and if you think of it that way, and don't get pulled into the BS it can be a lot of fun.

[@philohan95]

Ive tried Sim several times in WW2 scene with VR and its been a pain every time. Impossible to spot people and the people playing are much much better than me and completely destroying me leading to a miserable time.

[@Jajalaatmaar]

If you adjust your settings it becomes much better. Set VR sharpness to high and put the in-game postfx colour settings to contrast for much easier time spotting. I have fun with a Pico 4 and it feels easier to spot than in IL2.

[@darkofthearmy]

I live in New Zealand and there are only 2-3 servers with 10 people each when I’m awake.

[@ymroo8299]

the lack of modern ships on 11.0 matches in sim is bit sad when we have alot of 1960s onward ships on Naval and Coastal techtree, it wouldve been nice if they add those as AI and atleast B57 & tu95 for AI bombers

[@JuanitosGG]

I want Cold War planes but it takes too long, I don't know what to do, grind in Air RB all day long?

[@jayziac]

Air sim EC is the only mode I play too. One of the biggest barriers to people is most serious players will recommend a HOTAS joystick hardware. Well that takes money & space, and maintenance (HW failures, stick drift, worn out springs, etc). This video does a concise setup guide on how to fly air sim with mouse & keyboard. kzbin.info/www/bejne/il7FXmOjpraUgqcsi=Krqx2_EsUMEDe7Wz One of the subtle benefits of this system over other M&K setups is one can still look and fly at the same time, which is critical in dogfights. It does take some practice, but worth mastering.

[@popeye_r_fr099]

Send this to the snail dude! I love and hate Air sim at the same time for all the reason you described here. This game mod need some love!

[@WIKUS70]

The majority of my time in WT I have spent in air sim and yes it gets dull eventually. Sure it will always be go from A to B, find and hit the target, return home and that is it but they could add much more depth relatively simple as outlined so many times.

[@TboloT-gd5os]

I never thought of putting helicopters into Air Sim but I gave it a little time in my brain and I realised how god damn cool would that be. Instead of wasting tons of time on turning around while doing CAS you could just hover, also... you get to see/use something else than an A-10 or Su-25

[@thegenericguy8309]

War thunder air sim with a cheap logitech joystick (using thumbstick for look) and keyboard is a great cheap intro setup for combat flight sims. Very, very fun and great to learn with

[@glowyy606]

Love it honestly and felt kinda upset when you said it’s dead

[@drplays7978]

Long rant about air sim qualities that i wish gaijin didn't remove from air rb. Best part about air sim is that it's total match time was never touched by the snail. Matches go on longer than 20 min and the map/objectives keep flowing. Too bad air rb was pretty much completely destroyed by that change. Ground rb not so much since usually ran out of tickets around 30 min in anyways. But air rb was completely changed just from something as simple as changing a 1 hour timer to a 20 minute (25 but it takes 5 min to actually do something) timer. Originally all the maps had various ground objective for cas and the like to hit which could influence major power shifts on the map itself, if you want a example that still works check out norway, its really hard to get in an actual match but its still there, but either defending the landing craft or destroying it would change who could then land on the middle island for R&R and this could change hands twice which was insanely cool. Most maps had stuff like this and when gajin changed the timer... every and I do mean every single map and its ground objectives were now pointless and could not do anything since most of the time the ground stuff wouldn't change until around the 20 minute mark. when enough people pointed this new problem out to gaijin.... they did what gaijin always does and so they just removed the problem altogether... by making every map just be a row of tanks vs another row of tanks, or tanks vs pillboxes, ect, ect. Some maps had some very unique objectives, for instance on spain around early jets br you could try to intercept a small group of bombers.... that had a few FULLY FUNCTIONAL ESCORTS that could shoot you down. I had a match where one of the ai escorts broke away from the bombers and flew all the way across the map and clutch a 5 vs 2 by shooting down 4 ( yes 4) enemies for us. The first 2 didn't see the ai coming, the 3rd lost the dogfight, and the 4th began running away but was eventually chased down. I was gonna record the replay the day after but a patch had broken the replays. This change also led a lot more people to bring their cas into ground rb instead because how un rewarding air rb cas became, so if you wanna be mad at cas players in ground rb, be mad at gaijin instead cause they took cas' habitat away. This also led to air rb not really having any tactics involved anymore, people just kinda fly straight in and thats it now. This made airfield campers (people who after around 15-20 min go back and just fly circles around their friendly base) more common and you won't usually have much time to swap loadouts to hit ground targets before you lose because of having a couple less tickets when the match timer ends. Also i wish Ground sim had the same lobby making as air sim, the 2 a week very limited brackets is very annoying.

[@Duvstep910]

😅 don't think it's forgotten; just that it takes too long to get to and most people don't love realism like we in our niche do

[@KeepZeeZ]

The problem with adding helis to sim would be all AGMs: you couldn't take off--or at least I wouldn't let you take off--without an AGM coming your way.

[@commandergeokam2868]

I feel the air sim is the best wt gamemode for everything your can fight other players you can do cas without triggering anyone you cna do base bombing anti naval warfare air interceptions my only problem is that i dont have always the time to olay 3 hours straight Also i think that the best aircraft to start the air sim is the b25 mitchell cause it has a gunner it manuvers well for bomber it is in low enough br it has forward mgs so you can fight the other fighters and bombers also it has a bomb sight After the Mitchell the best air sim early jet is the F3D1 cause you can learn how the jets arre working and ithe basic radar functions so you can choose and learn in your favourite era easily I hope i helped get more into the air sim

[@Frosty_43]

I want to play sim, but I just can’t get the hang of the flight models and propeller backspin and keep getting into flat spins. Any tips?

[@commandergeokam2868]

@@Frosty_43 at first start playing with 2 engine fighter/interceptors that have low stall speeds(also the il2 is easy) , after you learn the main controls try turning with the combination of mouse and the pitch(stabilizer) and yaw(rudder) learn to play with the propeller like some aircraft need more time to get to proper rpm to have full thrust finally try the basic flight manuvers and not only just turn in a circle not every fighter is good at turning an easier play style is boom and zoom just climb check your surroundings and your low find a target dive on him and then pull up if you miss repeat the first step if you are under attack try the rolling scissors or high yo yo etc Listen to me i know everything looks difficult but its just needs time and practice and its ok to get shot or make a mistake just learn from it

[@Frosty_43]

@@commandergeokam2868 appreciate it

[@commandergeokam2868]

@@Frosty_43 no problems im always happy to help

[@tigerwolf721]

i like your take on this game mode. its also my favorite mode. i agree its not for the grind, its after you grind....you enjoy the game in sim because it imho offers so much more over AAB/ARB

[@SovietCharlie]

Disparity between planes is also to be noticed... its frustrating how badly ther BRs are work out that a plane with no flares is often matched against AIM-9L which are virtually unavoidable without CM

[@Old_Shakes]

Its always more fun when you're not worried about the grind

[@Old_Shakes]

Its to the point that i purchased the premium saber with good silver bonus so i can grind silver but chill and hone my dogfight skills. The grind will turn people away that are big into grindy games lol

[@christianmarthinsen1588]

Spot on. Air Sim has so much potential. Went from RB to sim at 9.7. Feels a lot less arbitrary and rewarding than RB. But as you point out, Gajin could give sim a lot more love.

[@masterrTOM]

my one issue with Air SIM, and i already know this is more a skill issue on my part, is the camera controls, bcos my options are either VR, full control over the camera to track other planes, but i cant see my keyboard to operate some parts of the plane, or use the mouse to look, i can see my keyboard but looking around and flying the plane bcoms a bit awkward (that and trackIR isnt rlly an option for me at the moment). But i rlly wish i played more sim, i've been wanting to get some experience on the F4E J, but learning to use a the flying brick in airRB is not very fun

[@tmo_117]

Never tried air sim but after unlocking the mig-15bis I think I should, no ones ever explained it so well and now I’m interested. Don’t know why I never tried it when I’ve played DCS and Il-2 a lot

[@mathiasvemcaputinho7627]

I think that they could creat a mode of mix battles like the air sim, With big maps, a good br balance and a more realistc battle. Like think one of those online games with a biggass map, like "ARMA" or "squad". I think it would be really fun, boats, helis, tanks and planes in the same sim match

[@Jajalaatmaar]

They can't keep the skinner box that sells tanks and premium for that.

[@justinjohnson7157]

I love air sim war thunder with my vr. I totally agree on the downsides, but I do enjoy it

[@-OnionTerror-]

cant say ive ever found the captured WWII planes to be an issue in sim, you kinda get used to it after a while and know what to expect

[@nick4754]

Air arcade not getting mentioned is the funniest thing, the real forgotten mode

[@angelnunez6476]

Meanwhile all naval modes…

[@nick4754]

@@angelnunez6476 to be fair naval isn't real, it's a phyop from the snail

[@angelnunez6476]

@@nick4754 true