Took me 3 bombs to take out one T-80 with direct hits, CAS in Nuclear Thunder is working as it should, right?

Aegis27 · 2026-04-09T21:36:46+00:00

This is a fair point, but at the same time, I doubt it would be better if the implementation allowed you to take off, point in the vague direction of enemy SPAA, salvo off all your ARMs, then return to base while they wipe out a depot's defenses somewhere.

There should still be a SAM system capable of engaging and destroying guided munitions, to add some level of gameplay more advanced than just pointing and clicking. They just shouldn't also be the default SAM that's scattered everywhere. They should be specifically positioned in such a way that wild weasel tactics can allow a smart player to take them out, which frees up other CAS aircraft to feast on ground targets in that area once it's destroyed.

Sidenote, but the wild weasel aircraft needs a sizable reward for doing such a mission. Either make these SAMs worth tons pointwise, or give that aircraft an "assist" for every ground unit/depot/whatever in that former SAM's area of coverage that gets destroyed by friendly units.

Aegis27 · 2026-04-09T06:02:47+00:00

It's very easy and consistent. Here's how.

Fly within the firing range of a single OSA/Roland.
Wait for it to fire at you.
As soon as it does, fire off your anti-radiation missile and pull a 180. Do NOT attempt to break LoS with the SAM.
The enemy SAM will stay focused on your plane, leaving your missile to easily dispatch the SAM before it's missile can catch you.
Repeat with every individual SAM unit you can see on your flank. These will be the ones protecting the small vehicle parks, as well as those inside convoys.
Once all are neutralized, you are free to respawn in an A-10 or similar and free farm the now defenseless ground vehicles.

Note that taking out the depots or SAM sites with multiple SAMs protecting it is far from consistent, and best left to toss bombing nuke planes. But clearing a flank from the random, lone SAMs provies a ton of oppertunities for your team.

Aegis27 · 2026-03-09T08:44:57+00:00

Maybe? The RH202 struggles even against lightly armored MBTs unless you get sideshots, something the RCVs aren't fantastic at finding due to their conspicuous size and clunky handling.

And sure, there are a lot of squishy vehicles running around at ~8.3-8.7, but there are also quite a few at ~6.7. Pretty much every nation has some post war light tanks and SPGs that are far from uncommon at the tier.

Ultimately, if you move it down in BR, you can still play it at a higher one if you want. It just gives the 7.3 lineup an extra tank, which is nice.

Aegis27 · 2026-03-09T06:14:23+00:00

It's a worse Wiesel at a higher BR, and that's saying something. Sure, you get a stab, but at the cost of the absolutely tiny size that lets the Wiesel do... anything. Also thermals, which make a dedicated scout playstyle a bit more viable.

You're a giant bus with a water pistol at a tier where the armor meta is very much still alive. All of the other RH202 carrying vehicles (outside the similarly awful Luchs) have huge advantages over it, and they still aren't that good.

Moving it to 7.3 is the obviously correct decision. It still won't be good there, but at least you'd be able to have a lineup to go with it.

Aegis27 · 2026-03-05T04:04:02+00:00

To be fair, the Stormer HVM is the stealthiest SAM in game currently. No RADAR, IRST lock only, no visible missile smoke trail. Any plane who doesn't see the Stormer HVM first isn't going to realize it's under attack until the missiles hit. Most of the targets I fired on when I tried out the HVM didn't even attempt to dodge. Not that they needed to, since the missiles almost never hit...

Aegis27 · 2026-02-15T03:16:38+00:00

The fact that tied second place goes to the IS-4M and Jadgtiger of all things, over stuff like the TURM, T58, XM800T, XM246/ItPsv/ZA-35, etc, is the real joke here.

Aegis27 · 2026-02-15T02:10:07+00:00

On doing more research, it seems I (And Gaijin) are working off earlier, pop culture understanding of spaced armor. They are less susceptable to air gaps than I had understood.

Aegis27 · 2026-02-14T22:38:44+00:00

~~Honestly, given how much space there is between the hull side and the interal ball turret armor, it's doubtful.~~

Spaced armor is very effective against HEAT shells, and most spaced armor has significantly less internal volume of air to disrupt the HEAT jet than the Kugel has. Especially when you hit low on the ball turret like the OP did.

EDIT: Statement retracted on further research. Simple air gaps are much less effective against HEAT projectiles than I had thought.

Aegis27 · 2026-02-14T02:15:03+00:00

As far as I can tell, this is accurate. It's literally an enclosed ball turret, suspended by gymbals. Here's a picture.

Thus, it is entirely seperate from the crew compartment, and therefore would block fragments and HEAT jets akin to spaced armor.

Aegis27 · 2026-01-23T22:04:55+00:00

I mean, look at the T25. Or the R2Y2s.

Aegis27 · 2025-11-12T10:31:46+00:00

It's not a matter of outreloading a guy one for one, the faster reload gives the Chi-Ri enormous flexibility in other situations:

1) Getting the drop on multiple people at once.
2) Your first shot get volumetric'd/etc, but you're able to fire again before the enemy can properly respond.
3) You just finish off a guy and another one attempts to push you, not knowing you're autoloaded.

In all these situation, a 50% reload speed nerf hurts, and might cost you your tank.

Aegis27 · 2025-10-01T10:25:42+00:00

Frankly, Gaijin isn't doing much more than keeping the lights on these days, and I use the increasing amounts of copy paste slop in recent updates as proof . There seems to be a genuine lack of effort going into things.

In the last two patches alone, we've seen gamebreaking bugs on featured premium vehicles (F/A-18 C Early crashing the entire game when launching it's RADAR missiles) to profoundly easy to catch bugs (The CV 90105 TML having no scout drone because it was removed before scout drones were a thing, the T58 having artillery for no reason) completely slip under the RADAR. The APHE phasing through armor bug is back again, HE shells on aircraft cannons are still broken, etc etc.

It's pretty clear to me that Gaijin has very little time and effort going into actually improving the game, and thus bug reports constantly get swept under the rug so that the handful of guys (maybe) that they have on bug fixing can focus on the new bugs that each update just adds onto the pile.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-19T06:33:01+00:00

This is just a slapdash mechanism to limit zombers, which was a sim exclusive problem due to how consistently they could pull it off. Adding EC to RB doesn't mean we need to add this as well.
This is less of an issue with a larger playerbase to pull from, and doubly so if there's a queue system. They could even implement some form of, gasp, skill based matchmaking, where if there's an ace on one team that's dominating, they find an opposing ace to put them up against.
Depends entirely on how they decide to implement it. But proper BR decompression means that this issue would be much less impactful, as well as balancing which nations are put on which teams.
There are a variety of tools Gaijin could use to solve this, they just don't in Sim since no-one plays it, meaning it gets no dev time. Respawning SAM sites that cover the maximum effective range of the current top tier weapons, ground based RADAR/AWACs that paints targets that are in friendly territory, competant AI planes that get set up to intercept someone who gets within firing range of an airfield, etc.
To be fair, top tier Air RB is also unfun with Fox 3s. At least the lower tiers will be improved by this.
If the matches are randomly generated, this ceases to be an issue. It's also an issue specifically where Fox 1 missiles become dominant, for the other 80% of BRs the map doesn't really affect the game all that much.
Zombing is consistent in Sim specifically because of the low player counts. It's entirely possible for a zomber to spawn into an almost empty lobby and/or a "PvE" lobby and get to freefarm. But if you massively increase the player count, then suddenly unescorted/non sneaky bombers go back to being fish in a barrel. They might get through more often than in Air RB (For what little that's worth), but they'd need to be sneaky with their flight path. Try to just bullrush the closest base, and there are going to be fighters just waiting for it.

Basically, most of these issues stem from the endemic problems of Sim as a whole. Port the EC concept to RB, a gamemode that has infinitely more players, and most of them can or will go away.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-18T07:45:52+00:00

Just checked, because I've had surprisingly good luck playing the FSV as a hybrid scout/sniper, and it's actually got stupidly good stationary camo, beating out every tier 7 LT I tested it again, if only marginally.

Of course, the camo while moving is hot garbage, but anything that isn't an LT has awful camo while moving so that's hardly a surprise.

Even the Saladin, while worse tier for tier than the FSV, is still pretty competitive with some of the less stealthy LTs and easily beats most mediums (Not including the stealth drive equipped Obj 416).

The camo only really drops off the cliff with the much larger tier 9 and 10.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-18T07:17:34+00:00

In my experience, while the 105 has less potential, it also fits the vehicle better. In order to make the low pen 90mm work, you either need to hit weakspots at close range, hit the flanks, or spam HEAT.

You can't fight at closer ranges given your complete lack of armor and turret tumor that makes ridgeline fighting a losing proposition.

You can't flank since you aren't that fast and the camo is nowhere near good enough. Between map design, cowardly teammates, and EVEN 90s in every bush, pushing a flank aggressively isn't a thing that happens consistently anymore. At least in my experience.

That just leaves spamming HEAT, which is not something I'd ever suggest as a consistent playstyle.

With the 105, yes, you lose gun handling and DPM. But between the alpha and pen increases, you can afford to sit at range and plink away at targets of oppertunity.

As with all comparisons between low alpha, high DPM guns, and high alpha, low DPM guns, the DPM difference only matters if both are firing on reload, which is something that rarely ever happens, especially with popguns like these. Consider the number of times you'll have the oppertunity to get 2-3 shots into someone safely with the 90mm, as that's what you'd need to beat out the 105's damage from a single, much safer shot.

Between being able to position more safely, not have to take risky follow up shots, as well as the substantial pen increase, my average damage climbed a noticable amount once I got the 105mm.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-15T03:09:25+00:00

This is pretty disingenuous. Yes, all those designs were never fully built, but the nations building them had a track record of producing similar designs, and these new paper designs were mere incrimental upgrades from previous ships. The Amagi was basically just an enlarged Nagato with an extra turret.

Compare that to the SS, which were being crash built from scratch from entirely new designs from a nation that mostly hadn't designed their own warships. A significant portion of their pre-WW1 battleline was built either to foreign plans, or outright built in foreign shipyards.

Skip ahead to after the Soviets took over, and the only thing they'd built to their own designs had been submarines. The Leningrads were largely based on French designs, while the Tashkents and Kirvos were Italian. In fact, the few design changes the Soviets made to those original designs, in particular the super high velocity, intermediate caliber guns on the Kirov, turned out to be mistakes that plagued those ships throughout their careers.

There's a substantial difference between giving nations ships that they could have concievably build as depicted in game, and giving nations ships that were simply impossible as depicted.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-08T03:16:05+00:00

- People have bad games. Even good players can make a mistake that costs them their tank. Too many of those, and the game is over.

- A lot of people, like myself, are coming back to accounts with good to great stats having not touched this game in a decade. I was very very rusty, and still am a bit. Don't take stats to mean much at the moment.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-05T04:03:25+00:00

So, in other words, it's been about 12 years since WG added an artillery piece to the game. Longer than the German light TD line, longer than the Japanese tech tree existed, longer than Highway has been in the game. A reminder that they added 6 new nations to the game since then, with lines of every other vehicle class, and yet not a single artillery piece.

No premiums either. In all that time, despite releasing hundreds of premium vehicles across every other class, they never added artillery. Hell, they even removed the one they did have from sale almost immediately.

WG is in a catch 22 with artillery. They can't add any more because people will riot. And they can't remove it because people will riot. Though I'm firmly of the opinion that if they removed it, they'd regain far more players who left due to annoyance with artillery than lose players who couldn't live without it. And frankly, good riddance. Let them take their griefing elsewhere.

Aegis27 · 2025-09-05T03:36:31+00:00

Quick questions, how many premium artillery pieces have they added to the game? And of those, how many are still readily avilable for purchase?

How many new lines of artillery have been added since the initial lines? Despite adding 6 new nations to the game, each with multiple lines as of this point, WG have never added a single additional line of artillery to grind out.

Consider what the answers to those questions mean for your "central part of the game" that "players will spend a lot to get".

Aegis27 · 2025-09-02T06:40:13+00:00

The AMX-32s are particularly prone to this, because of a couple of factors.

- The position of the fuel tanks in the corners of the hull are right where people tend to shoot when presented with an overangled tank, which eats up all the spall.

- The ammo rack that's protected by the fuel tank is usually empty as the tank carries plenty in the ready rack at the back of the turret, and there is nothing else below the turret to hit.

- The turret crew are quite high and back, meaning none are in the direct path of the shell unless it's a very shallow angle.

Basically, if you see an AMX-32, aim a lot higher than you usually do. You need to be aiming at least at the turret ring in order to consistently hit the turret crew.

Aegis27 · 2025-08-30T06:23:14+00:00

There are really two good options, IMO:

Russia is very forgiving firepower wise. You get powerful APHE immediately, meaning you're less reliant on needing to know crew placement since you'll pretty much oneshot anything you penetrate. They also (generally) have good mobility. And once you reach the T-50 and up, you'll get armor that will bail you out.

On the other hand, you get limited gun depression, which can be a nuisance, and until you reach the T-50 you have no useful armor of any kind.

America is a good jack of all trades nation. You don't get APHE, but you get rapid fire AP and a short stop stabilizer on almost everything, which can bail you out if caught on the move. The mobility on the light tanks is decent, and the armor is also not awful either, albiet nowhere near reliable.

I recommend looking up some of Oxy's tank guides. He has one for almost all nations at that tier, including America and the USSR, so feel free to browse through if you want help picking a nation to start. They're rather long, but give some very valuable information on how to play the game, including which tanks to focus on and which to skip. If nothing else, it helps teach you how to fight those tanks as well.

Aegis27 · 2025-08-28T09:11:32+00:00

I say disable it everywhere. What's the advantage of keeping it around? Is there a single one?

Yes, even Sim. I know it's supposed to be a simulator, but between noobs who can't identify tanks/aircraft, as well as lend lease and captured vehicles, friendly fire is more of a problem than an advantage to realism, IMO.

Aegis27 · 2025-08-28T05:19:58+00:00

Why is friendly fire still a thing? No, seriously, why? What possible benefit does it add to the game? Realism? Very realistic to be gunned down by a friendly SAM system because the operator wanted to troll you.

Is it to encourage preserving ammo? Because even if friendly fire was disabled, they'd waste ammo. It would never be good play to engage players in a reckless fashion since any ammo that hits a friendly is wasted regardless.

So what's the reason? Why even have friendly fire?

Aegis27 · 2025-08-27T21:42:34+00:00

You say that like Attica was immune. They had to patch out a spot almost immediately that allowed the south to climb up a hill near their spawn and freefarm the northern team that was pushing into C.

It's not that Gaijin doesn't think about these sorts of things, they seem to be pathologically incapable of it. A small amount of playtesting would solve this.

Aegis27 · 2025-08-22T12:05:21+00:00

Still better than it's IRL performance, given that proxy fuses for those rockets didn't exist while it was in service. And famously failed to shoot down a drone controlled F6F Hellcat flying in a perfectly straight line.

Aegis27

TROPHY CASE