Update 1.7 Public Test

World of Warplanes Update 1.7.0 has some new features aimed to make the game not only diverse, but also much more comfortable for our players.

We've implemented a new branch of German ground attack planes. These planes have a really original appearance and are markedly different from ground attack planes of USSR tree in their flight characteristics and armament, making ground target attacks more interesting.

We've also added a new fine-tuning feature for in-battle markers of planes and ground targets. Now a player can choose how they will look for planes of different classes (more visible markers for ground targets for ground attack planes, or more visible markers of aerial targets for fighters).

We've also implemented a quick Flight auto-search for players who prefer team play.

New Planes

German Ground Attack Planes

A new branch of German ground attack planes will be introduced in this update. In contrast to the "flying tanks" of USSR, these planes offer a variety of game styles. At lower tiers you will get classic ground attack planes, middle tiers begin to focus on using the primary weapons, and high tiers become speedy and "die hard" general purpose planes, somewhat reminiscent of heavy fighters.

New Regular Planes:

• Focke-Wulf Fw.189C Uhu — Tier IV ground attack plane;
• Junkers Ju.87G Stuka — Tier V ground attack plane;
• Henshel Hs.129B — Tier V ground attack plane;
• Junkers Ju. 88P — Tier VI ground attack plane;
• Messerschmitt Me. 265 — Tier VII ground attack plane;
• Messerschmitt Me. 329 — Tier VIII ground attack plane;
• Messerschmitt Me. P. 1099B-2 — Tier IX ground attack plane;
• Messerschmitt Me. P. 1102B — Tier X ground attack plane.

New Gift Planes:

• Arado Ar. 67 — Germany, Tier II fighter;
• Fieseler Fi. 98 — Germany, Tier II ground attack plane;
• Nakajima Ki-8 — Japan, Tier II fighter.

Flight Auto-Search

The flight auto-search button was added to the flight creation window. Our players will be able to play in a flight, even if all friends are offline. After pressing the button, a player can join a flight with other players who have taken a plane of the same or close tier, and have also applied for a random flight. Only one player can be added automatically. The player who applied for the flight auto-search earlier becomes the flight leader. After this flight mate 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).

Physics and Matchmaker

Shooting

Increased accuracy of the primary weapon when shooting at ground targets.

Planes Balance

USSR

• Il-40 — bug fix 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, and reduced manoeuvrability.
• 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.

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 markers behaviour for each plane class.
• Marker settings for planes and ground targets were separated.
• Available parameters of stings for new marker system — the distance of display for particular marker elements, transparency, indication type. Possibility to make particular changes in settings for anti-aircraft artillery and armoured target parts (separately) for markers of ground targets.
• New interactive window of marker appearance preview after configuring depending on the distance to them.

Training Room

• The player who has created the training room can now change plane without needing to recreate the room. All other players of this training room can change 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 recreating of the room was implemented.
• The possibility to hide the list of players' planes in queue and teams from everybody, except for the room creator was implemented.
• Extended the list for 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 semi-circular scale of roll angle (to bind the camera to the aircraft).
• The number of weapon slots displayed in the battle interface was increased from 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 colour showing "Enable alternate colour mode".
• 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 the 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.

Maps

2 new game locations were added. They will be available for battles of medium and high plane tiers:

Spring map, based on the theme of military confrontation in Italy. This map is composed of an extensive system of canyons and plateaus, and you will also find several towns, connected with bridges.

Winter map, based on the European theatre of war. This map is composed of mountain ranges and a wide canyon in the centre of the map.

A lot of changes for the 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 map.

Daily Missions

• Added sets of Daily Missions. Every day players will be offered three missions to accomplish, for which they will get rewards, e.g. credits or experience.
• Daily Missions are divided into three difficulty levels. They will have different conditions and rewards. Second and third difficulty levels will be available only to those who have researched planes of Tier V and VIII respectively. However, players will be able to complete such missions on aircraft of any tier.
• Unfinished Daily Missions will be available the next day as well, so if they weren’t accomplished, the player can still complete them.
• Accomplished missions are replaced with new ones every day at 06:00 CET (UTC +1).

Sound

• Reworked firing sounds for primary weapons.
• Reworked sounds for plane hits.
• Fixed engine sounds.

Matchmaker - General Improvements

Balancer’s 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 which have different tier and class in a battle should become closer to the queue composition (e.g. in case if queue has 10% of ground attack planes, then it should be approximately 10% of ground attack planes in the battle).

New Achievements for Participants of the Public Test

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). A new rank is awarded for completing a minimum set of combat missions during the public tests of any further update of World of Warplanes, starting with 1.7.0. Upon receipt of each subsequent rank, the award in the profile will be replaced with a new one.

Other

The display of achievements earned by other players in the Battle Against Bots when checking the profile in the game client was added.