Version 1.3
New Aircraft
New branch of American heavy fighters:
- Lockheed P-38F Lightning (Tier V)
- Lockheed P-38J Lightning (Tier VI)
- Grumman F7F Tigercat (Tier VII)
- Chance-Vought XF5U Pancake (Tier VIII)
- McDonnell F2H Banshee (Tier IX)
- Lockheed XF-90 (Tier X)
Improvements and fixes
- Added gift camouflages for Alpha, Closed and Open Beta testing members for the following planes: Arado Ar 80, Brewster F2A Buffalo, Brewster F2A-1 Buffalo Messerschmitt Me 209 A, Mitsubishi A7M Reppu, Tomashevich Pegasus, Messerschmitt Me 210, Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, Chance-Vought F4U-1 Corsair, Miles M.20, Lockheed P-38F Lightning, Lockheed P-38J Lightning, Chance-Vought XF5U Pancake, Lockheed XF-90 and McDonnell F2H Banshee.
- Improved the textures for the Arado Ar 68, AGO Ao 192 Kurier, Kochyerigin TSh-2, Curtiss P-23, Grumman F2F, Bristol Bulldog, Hawker Demon and Nakajima A4N to make them more realistic.
- Bombs for the Curtiss Hawk III were changed from American to Chinese bombs.
- Fixed a lot of minor bugs in the planes’ damage model.
Physics and Balance Changes
General
- The chance of catching fire increased for all planes.
- The impact on aircraft performance of carrying bombs and rockets as outboard weaponry was reduced.
Visibility system
- New mechanics for enemy camouflage bonus elimination and fast detection when shooting were added. Now the plane will be 100% uncovered/detected within a certain radius when opening fire.
- Guaranteed detection upon opening fire - only triggers when a straight line of sight exists and terrain or obstacles don’t obscure either aircraft.
- The radius of guaranteed detection when opening fire depends on aircraft tier and approximately corresponds to the effective firing range of aircraft of this level.
Weapons
- 12,7-mm BS — increased damage;
- 12,7-mm UBS — increased damage;
- 20-mm MG-213/20 — reduced accuracy;
- 30-mm MK-103 —reduced accuracy;
- 12,7-mm M3 — reduced accuracy;
- 20-mm Mk.12 — reduced accuracy;
- 30-mm ADEN — increased accuracy;
- 40-mm Vickers S — increased accuracy.
Planes
- USSR:
- Polikarpov I-5 — increased manoeuvrability for the modification with stock airframe.
- Polikarpov I-16 (late mod.) — reduced impact of 20-mm ShVAK cannons on plane performance.
- Lavochkin La-5 — increased HP for all modifications, increased weapons’ accuracy, increased boost power and duration.
- Yakovlev Yak-1М — increased HP.
- Yakovlev Yak-9 — increased HP.
- Lavochkin La-7 — increased HP for all modifications, increased weapons’ accuracy, increased boost power and duration.
- Yakovlev Yak-3 — increased HP, increased weapons’ accuracy.
- Yakovlev Yak-9U — increased HP.
- Ilyushin Il-8 — increased accuracy for 7,62-mm ShKAS (1941) machine guns and 23-mm VYa-23 cannons.
- Ilyushin Il-10 — increased accuracy for 7,62-mm ShKAS (1941) machine guns and 23-mm VYa-23 cannons, reduced accuracy for 23-mm NS-23 cannons, reduced roll rate.
- Lavochkin La-9 — increased HP for all modifications, increased weapon accuracy, increased boost power and duration, increased optimum altitude.
- Yakovlev Yak-15 — increased HP, increased manoeuvrability.
- Yakovlev Yak-19 — increased optimum altitude, increased HP for all modifications, increased manoeuvrability for modification with stock airframe, the impact of weapons on the aircraft performance characteristics was reduced.
- Lavochkin La-15 — increased HP, increased optimum altitude.
- Yakovlev Yak-30 — increased HP, increased optimum altitude.
- Germany:
- Arado Ar.65 — increased manoeuvrability for modification with stock airframe.
- AGO Ao.192 Kurier — increased speed for modification with stock engine, optimum speed shifted to a lower range, increased loss of speed when turning without flaps, reduced weapons’ accuracy, the impact of carrying bombs on aircraft performance was reduced.
- USA:
- Boeing P-12 — Increased HP for the modification with stock airframe.
- Japan:
- Mitsubishi A5M — increased HP for all modifications.
- Mitsubishi Ki-33 — increased HP.
- Mitsubishi A6M1 Zero — increased HP for all modifications.
- Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero — increased HP for all modifications.
- Mitsubishi A6M5 Zero — increased HP for all modifications.
- Mitsubishi A7M Reppu — increased HP for all modifications, increased manoeuvrability for modification with stock airframe.
- Kyushu J7W1 Shinden — increased HP.
- Kyushu J7W2 Shinden-Kai — increased HP.
- Kyushu J7W3 — increased HP.
- United Kingdom:
- Gloster Goldfinch — Increased HP for the modification with stock airframe.
- Bristol Blenheim F — increased weapons’ accuracy.
- De Havilland 98 Mosquito — increased HP for all modifications.
- De Havill 103 Hornet — increased HP for all modifications.
- Spitfire XIV — increased weapons’ accuracy and time before overheating.
- Gloster P.228 — increased accuracy and time before overheating for 20-mm Hispano Mk.V* cannon.
Shooting
- R4M rockets are now being launched in a salvo - 6 units launch at the same time when pressing the “Launch Rocket” button.
Equipment
- "Self-Sealing Fuel Tank" equipment description fixed to correctly state its effect as "+30% to firefighting speed.
Consumables
- Premium consumable "First Aid Kit" now gives a short period (5 sec) of invulnerability to the crew after using it.
- Power boost for "100-octane Gasoline", "120-octane Gasoline" and "Purified Kerosene" was reduced. Players will be compensated for the lost value.
Achievements
The conditions for being awarded with the following achievements were changed:
- "Sky Scourge" – now awarded for destroying at least 3 enemy planes or more (was 10 before).
- "Ground Pounder" – now awarded to players who win at least 10 points for destroying enemy ground targets in a battle. (was 30 before).
- "Furious" – now awarded for winning 3 or more battles in a row. (was 10 before).
- "Die Hard" – now awarded for winning and surviving 2 battles in a row. (was 5 before).
The number on the award ribbon/medal will still show the highest score that you managed to get up to for that particular achievement. The count stops if your aircraft is destroyed.
The display of achievements that have multiple levels has been changed. Now only the medal of the highest rank of a multi-levelled achievement will show up in your overview (i.e. if you have the Galland Medal 3rd class for achieving 3 "Ace" Medals and Galland Medal 2nd class for achieving 30 "Асe" medals, then only Galland Medal 2nd class will be displayed).
Graphics
Automatic determination of the graphics settings:
- Improved the algorithm for the detection of graphics settings.
- Now graphics settings are set automatically when you launch the game for the first time (previously - “medium” graphics settings were set as default).
- Automatic graphics settings determination will be launched each time you change the computer configuration and the graphics settings may then be changed depending on the test result (this feature can be disabled in the settings menu).
Improvements and bug fixes
- Updated and improved the lighting on all game maps.
- Improved explosion effects and new, big explosions were added.
- Some effects were optimised to improve performance and fix some visual bugs.
- Clouds resources optimisation performed on the following maps: Harbor, Adriatic, Fortress.
- Map details overlay scheme reworked for all maps to optimise and improve the quality of rendering.
- New post-effect called "Dirty Lens" (which slightly obscures your vision in certain situations) was added on “Very high" and "High" graphics settings.
- New camera effects based on the speed of the plane were added (which trigger in situations like dives, for example)
- Bug fixes for the camera: boost effects and up-close explosions of anti-aircraft artillery shells at high altitude.
- Option to disable the camera effects in the settings menu was added.
- FOV (field of view) settings for the game camera were changed. You can change them back to the way they were set in Version 1.2 in the game settings.
- Render optimisation performed for planes and moving ground targets.
Training missions
- New stage added to the final part of the training mission "Gunnery practice", where you need to destroy a manoeuvring enemy plane.
- Terms of the "Dogfight training" mission were changed: Now a player needs a plane of Tier IV or higher to be able to take this lesson.
- The first stage of the "Dogfight training" mission was removed.
Interface
Replays
- Added the option to have the replay perform the exact same camera movements as they happened during the game of the replay that you’re watching
- Help screen with instructions was added for replays with a detailed description of all functions
- The video player now gives you more options on what to do once the playback has finished
- The playback control features were extended
- You can now rewind through the replay with a progress bar at the bottom of the video player interface
Battle Results Window
- Improved "Personal score" tab and “Missions” section
- Colour marker for destroyed enemy planes (frags) was changed
Battle Missions
- Improved battle missions window – filters were replaced with tabs and the way a mission description looks when you unfold it into detailed view was reworked
- New types of battle missions were added: primary and sub-missions
Other changes and improvements
- Modules characteristics in the tech tree now also display their rating in corresponding tooltips
- Tooltips and info windows of many modules (i.e. several guns) now correctly display the modules’ characteristics. For example, the game now displays the firepower and number of gun barrels for your (forward-oriented) guns as well as eventual rear-mounted turrets
In-game chat
- Added a loading animation when entering a channel
- Added a small indicator, showing a chat participant’s status (available, busy, afk, offline, etc.) in the header of your private chat with players or other people from your contact list
- Adjusted the order of chat windows so that they’re sorted by newest -> top, older -> below. Now chat windows won’t be on top of every other hangar element anymore by default
- Unified chat interface elements
- Fixed several bugs in the chat interface:
- Fixed an error that occurs when the window is resized or detached from the bottom panel
- Fixed a bug that caused the disappearance of posts in the official channel after exiting a battle
- Updated profanity-filter
