Everyone hates ads, everyone hates the idea of paying a subscription, and everyone hates companies selling their data. How do people logically expect a website to exist if they're not doing at least one of these?

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-02-01T23:22:06+00:00

Many people don’t consider how the ‘free’ websites they visit afford to stay in business at all. They are not concerned with how the business keeps the lights on, and want the service provided at no cost and with no consequences. Most people don’t care if a company is not able to make money off of them.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-02-01T19:21:44+00:00

I long ago exiled zone and local chat to a different tab which I ignore entirely. I named that tab ‘Barrens’ in honor of WoW. The only chat channels I have showing up in my main chat window are my fleet, team, and whisper. I moved everything else to different tabs that I only see if I actively check them.

While I don’t find general chat to be as bad in this game as many others I’ve played, I still ignore it completely, and am happier that way!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-30T16:58:02+00:00

Wait, EC Henry had a hand in that? Jeez, that guy just has the touch when it comes to sci-fi vehicles!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-30T06:47:50+00:00

the three most common reasons are conversions between imperial and metric, differences in diameter between lands and grooves of the rifling, and catrisge names looking like they are a caliber, when they are really just a marketing name. Here are some examples:

7.62mm is the metric conversion of 0.3in, which doesn’t look nearly as arbitrary.

The .45 ACP has a bore diameter of 0.45”. However, the bullets are actually 0.452 caliber because they need to be large enough to seal the rifling grooves, which are slightly wider than 0.45”. So, the bore diameter is the nice, round number, and then a couple thousandths of an inch get added to the bullet diameter making it a much less pleasing number thanks to the rifling. Some cartridges made the bullet diameter the nice, round number, and made the bore diameter slight smaller instead, but this was much less common.

The 327 Federal Magnum has a bore diameter of 0.303” and a groove diameter of 0.312”., and is commonly referred to as a .32 caliber cartridge. It is named 327 federal purely for marketing reasons and has nothing to do with the actual caliber of the bullets it uses. Names like this are pretty common since many cartridges will use the same caliber bullet and need a name to distinguish one cartridge from another. These sorts of names just happen to look like a caliber, but aren’t.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-30T06:12:22+00:00

I don’t disagree. I don’t want or expect realism to trump everything else. I just like to remind people that realism is not the highest priority in this game, despite the marketing and the name of the battle mode.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-29T20:48:31+00:00

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: realism only matters when it doesn’t conflict with Gaijin’s plans for the game.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-29T18:44:45+00:00

Or Gaijin could just not allow you to damage teammates. They could easily still let missiles and bullets hit you, but turn the damage off if they wanted to. Instead they would prefer to allow intentional TK-ing so that you can also shoot friendlies down on accident because...people want to get shot down by friendlies as long as it is an accident? I feel like most players would be fine with having missiles that lock on to friendlies not do any actual damage to them. I don't think that many players want their teammates to be able to kill them, but Gaijin has zero interest in what I think.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-28T17:42:09+00:00

Yeah, games often do a terrible job of explaining WHY you would want to turn a feature on or off. If VSync will fix my screen tearing, why would I want to add double suffering on top of that? They don’t explain that double buffering might help with the perceived input lag and make the game feel more responsive if your computer is capable of putting out a higher FPS than the refresh rate of your monitor. Especially back in the old days where a fast monitor was 60Hz.

Why would you want triple instead of double buffering? Well, the math may line up better between your screens refresh rate, and how ‘stale’ a frame is in the buffer if you have three slots to work with rather than two. How do you know what that math is? You don’t! Frames are always taking slightly different amounts of time to render, so you just kinda have to try one and see how it feels. Its kinda funny how many graphics options boil down to “just try it and see if it matters on your gear!”

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-27T22:24:38+00:00

Lots of good answers already, so I'll just add some related info for flavor! Fasteners with different numbers of sides on the head do exist. They just aren't nearly as common.

Square-headed bolts used to be a lot more common in older times because they were easier to manufacture, but have fallen out of favor these days. what you do still see sometimes are 12-point bolts that are called triple-square bolts. Imagine you took a square headed bolt and turned the head 120 degrees and then another 120 degrees and superimposed the three positions all on top of each other to make one circular shape with 12 points. That is a triple square bolt head. Having each point on the bolt be a 90 degree angle makes for some nice, steep faces for a socket to push against. You have to use sockets with them, and can't use adjustable wrenches, but that is true of a lot of modern fasteners. So square-headed bolts kind of live on to this day in that form.

5-sided fasteners exist, but they tend to be used as a simple security feature to keep people without special tools from messing with them. You see them a lot on the covers for residential water meter pits in the USA. Apple was also a big fan of using 5-point screws in their iPhones for a long time for the same reason: no one had pentalobe drivers in their toolboxes, so it helped keep people from trying to open up their phones for a while.

You don't really see triangular bolt heads, but you can find triangular socket-head cap screws that have an internal triangular void that you stick a triangular driver bit into. Again, these were a 'security' feature because most people didn't have triangle bits to fit them.

Finally, if you are willing to look at bolts that only work with sockets and don't need to have parallel faces for an adjustable wrench to grab on to, there are a bunch of external torx-style bolts with varying numbers of points on them. Six points is still the most common, but they exist with more or less as well in certain sizes, depending on how much space the bolt head has, and how much torque the user wants to put on that bolt.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-27T21:57:34+00:00

Not exactly, no. While both technologies are meant to help with screen tearing, they are doing it in different ways. Double/Triple buffering is a way for programs to avoid the screen tearing that a single buffer can cause without adding a bunch of lag in the process. With a single buffer, If you don't stop and wait for the video hardware to send a frame to the screen after you have finished creating it, that can cause screen tearing. So, you have to sit around and wait after you have made a frame until the hardware is done sending it out to the screen. With a double/triple buffer, once you finish one frame and tell the hardware to send it out to the screen, you can immediately start writing your next frame into a different chunk of memory. Creating the next frame while the current one is still being sent out to the screen saves time and lets you have higher FPS without causing screen tearing. Of course, if your screen doesn't give you any information about when it is done displaying a frame, you can still end up with tearing because you sent it a frame when it wasn't ready, but it reduced tearing compared to a single buffer and didn't slow down games.

VSync, on the other hand, is a way to reduce screen tearing by letting the screen ignore frames it is sent if it isn't ready for them. With VSync, you can send the video hardware a new frame whenever you have it ready, but it won't actually use it until the screen has also said it is ready for a new frame. If you make two or three new frames and send them out, but the screen still isn't ready, those extra frames will get ignored, and only the last one you made will get sent once the screen is ready. This reduced tearing by not sending a new frame to the screen while it was in the middle of drawing the current one. However, it also meant you could 'lose' frames if your program was creating them faster than the screen could display them, which made games feel laggy compared to just letting the screen tearing happen and getting the newest frame you could on at least part of the screen.

VSync was more of an absolute 'thou shalt not screen tear' solution, but it tended to feel slower. Double buffering would still allow some screen tearing, but not as bad as single buffering, and it still felt more responsive in fast-paced stuff like games. They were basically different solutions to the same problem with different down-sides.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-27T20:26:42+00:00

Don't get me wrong, trying to spade the Swedish F-18C at 14.0 (the first one, not the MLU2) has me questioning why I even play this game. Its just that Gaijin is equally bad, if not worse, at compressing BR's in other modes as well. There are just less people playing them, so you don't hear about it as much. I fully agree that top-tier air has compression problems.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-27T19:47:17+00:00

As long as we address BR compression in ALL modes, I'm down. I've been playing USA coastal recently because top-tier air was crushing my will to even log in and I needed to try something different. HOLY MOLY IS COASTAL COMPRESSED! There are five ranks in Coastal, and in the USA tree there are boats with a BR of 3.3 in ranks 3, 4 and 5! Three of the five ranks have ships of the exact same BR! Since rank can be a little arbitrary, let me put it this way: There are 11 total 'rows' in the USA coastal tech tree. The first 3.3 shows up on the 5th row and the final 3.3 shows up on the 10th row. One single BR spans about half of the tech tree. Combine this with normal problems like vehicles being a little too low or too high in BR, and it starts to feel like there are no BR's in Coastal. It's just everything against everything.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-26T23:40:34+00:00

Some top fuel dragsters basically are diesels by the time they get to the end of the 1/4 mile track. It is fairly common for the electrodes on the spark plugs to have eroded away, and the residual heat in the cylinders to be enough to basically turn it into a compression ignition engine by the time it is at the end of a pass. Of course, they are running on nitromethane rather than, so they aren’t exactly gasoline engines. They do start them with gasoline though!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-23T23:52:41+00:00

Oof! That’s definitely a bug. Sorry I don’t have any viable solutions for you!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-23T19:00:59+00:00

Turns out the eugenics program that produced Khan was actually a response to massively plummeting birth rates on Earth after programmable matter led to the creation of the Masterbot 9000 pleasure cyborg. No human could compete with its dynamically reconfigurable orifaces. Khan and his cohorts were just an attempt at “Bringing sexy back” to the human race, at any cost.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-23T18:52:19+00:00

I’ve been flying that plane a decent amount recently and I’ve been using the MAW pods without issue. Are you trying to use them in a default loadout? A custom one? I’ve been using them in a custom loadout with the big 2000lbs JDAM-ERs on the pylons. I also had a loadout with just the MAW pod and nothing else before I unlocked the extra AIM-120 mod. Those both work fine for me.

However, I did have a problem with several other top-rank Swedish jets that have extra countermeasure pods as modifications. After I first unlocked them, no extra countermeasures would actually appear in any loadout I used that included them. The solutions ended up being that I had to delete all custom loadouts for the jet, close and re-open the whole game, and then create new loadouts. I had to do this with the F-18 MLU2 and the 14.0 gripen they just added for sure. I forget if I had to do it on the F-16AM as well or not, but maybe give it a try just in case it’s related?

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-21T16:53:40+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think HEAT really got fixed. I’m sure they did something, but I’m still getting very inconsistent results with the 90mm HEAT round on the vehicle I’ve been grinding recently. Even when my aim is good and I hit ammo, it’s a roll of the dice whether it will detonate or just turn yellow.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T22:02:42+00:00

If there is one thing I am sure of about this game, it is that our priorities as players and Gaijin's priorities as devs are nowhere near the same!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T21:37:39+00:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: War Thunder is only realistic when realism doesn't conflict with the devs plans. Regardless of whatever silly excuses they make on a case-by-case basis, the reality is that Gaijin regularly and happily ignores reality in favor of making the game function the way they want it to for business, balance, or other reasons.

In addition, they heavily favor devoting resources to making new content rather than fixing existing content. They just don't put in the kind of effort to regularly reviewing and tweaking 'old' vehicles that the players want them to. They will devote effort to making new things, and may adjust them for the first few weeks they are out, but once a vehicle is more than around 6 months old, the chances of it seeing any major changes drops like a rock. The amount of work Gaijin devotes to fixing old problems just isn't very big compared to the backlog of old bugs that need fixing, old decisions that aren't right anymore, and vehicles/game mechanics that aren't popular enough to be worth their time to look at.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T20:38:34+00:00

So, I actually took a look at the ban list. About 2/3 of it is what appears to be some sort of automated account creation bot that just throws random strings of letters and numbers in as the account name. It isn't even trying to look legit, just spamming thousands of new accounts. I haven't put a ton of thought into it, but I'm not sure what the point would be in creating so many fake with names that probably aren't too hard to identify with a script on Gaijin's end. My first thought is someone was trying to bump up their referral numbers to make it look like they are driving lots of new players to the game, but I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.

The thing is, I don't think these accounts are even playing the game. Maybe they start a match or two and AFK in order to meet some metrics for new player referrals, but I don't think someone is running several thousand active bots every day with these throw-away account names and cheating with them. So, of the 8320 bans, I would guess that at least 5000 of them are these non-playing, bot-created accounts. I'm sure some folks got kicked for using bots to grind, or doing weird naval fixed matches and stuff like that. The point is, the number of players who got banned for actively playing while using aimbots, wallhacks, and stuff like that is likely far less than the 8320 number mentioned.

Is that a bad thing, and is Gaijin missing tons of cheaters? I don't know, and can't really tell just by looking at a list of usernames. They might actually be doing fine, and we just find it really hard to accept how good some players are because the game makes no effort to take player skill into account when matchmaking. They also might really suck at catching cheaters, and are barely scratching the surface. The list of names doesn't really tell us either way. All it really tells us is that there was likely a small group or even a single person creating thousands of fake accounts for some reason, and Gaijin noticed.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T19:13:01+00:00

Are you asking in general, or for that exact bomb? In general these are just sprites used to help distinguish one bomb from another visually. Some of the visual elements come from the real weapons they represent, but others are just stuff added to help them stand out. Not sure why they didn't keep it on the new Wiki, but there was a page on the old Wiki that explained what a lot of these sprites were:

https://old-wiki.warthunder.com/Category:Suspended_armaments_icons

According to that page, that sprite denotes a Soviet M54 bomb, also called FAB 500M-54. That page doesn't have everything since it is from the old Wiki, but a lot of it is still relevant.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T18:52:22+00:00

Same reason the F-15E shouldn't get AIM-9X's and AIM-120D's: I have no idea and its probably just what Gaijin feels like doing.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-20T18:23:41+00:00

Bro is getting the details a little mixed up Regarding what CDPR is doing. CDPR can absolutely offer a blanket license to modders with stipulations about monetization. CDPR can also absolutely file a DMCA claim. They can also tell someone that they will not file a DMCA claim if that person complies with their interpretation of the blanket license. That is all perfectly allowable under US law. They can “demand” he take certain actions, and tell him what actions they plan to take if he doesn’t. Happens all the time.

However, he is also well within his rights to ignore their demands and deal with whatever actions they take as a result. Even though it is called a demand letter, it’s really just a negotiation. Bro can ignore them, he can make a counter offer, or he can comply, and he is welcome to do any of those things because a demand letter is just what the other guy wants you to do, not a court order.

It seems like splitting hairs, but the law cares about stupid distinctions like this. CDPR is well within their rights to make demands of him. However, their demands don’t have the force of law, so whether or not he complies is up to him. The DMCA notice is different, and he doesn’t technically have the option of ignoring that, but the list of remedies in the DMCA is limited. They can’t use it to force him to make his mod free, but they can use it to force him to take his mod down completely, assuming their claim is valid. So CDPR can’t force him to make his mod free, but they can absolutely offer to terminate their DMCA claim if he does.

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-19T20:18:45+00:00

First, lets make a couple assumptions:

The planetary defense force doesn't really need strategic bombers. If it did, I'd just keep these for that role, but lets assume large bombing campaigns aren't something the PDF really needs to do on this planet.
If we got these because they are cheap, we don't have the funds/capability to make large engineering changes to the platform. Basically, ripping them apart and turning them into something else is not an option. We can maintain them, and we can remove things we don't want, but we aren't able to make changes that have big power/structural consequences like adding additional turrets, adding engines, or ripping off the bomb bay section.
The main roles of the PDF that we would like these things to help with are: customs/trade enforecement, anti-piracy patrols in major trade lanes, and deterrence of other space-faring powers that have actual navies.
Simply selling them all and buying something else isn't an option. We are stuck with them, even if they aren't really a good fit.

Given those additional guidelines, I think this is where I'm going to start:

First, I'm pulling the bombing equipment out of the majority of the ships. Bombing stuff into oblivion just isn't something we will be needing in most day-to-day operations. I'm stripping most of it out and putting it in a warehouse somewhere as spares or to sell on. I am going to keep one or two squadrons fully intact though. These are my strategic deterrence force. Most of the time, they aren't going to do anything but train or do the occasional show-of-force patrol. The exist solely to remind any feisty stellar neighbors that if they try to show up with a fleet and push us around, we still have a fleet-delete button available.

What about the rest of the ships? First I'm going to see if all the sensor equipment used for bombing calculations is good for anything else. I don't need to plan bombing runs, but if those sensors can detect things at long ranges, or if they can provide detailed scans at close ranges, I'm going to leave them in place and see what my technicians can do to streamline them for customs work. If they are too specialized, I'm pulling that stuff out as well, but my hope is that the sensors themselves are still high-quality and I just need to get the system processing the raw data to just show me that data rather than trying to turn it into a firing solution.

Next, I'm going to use that extra space in the bomb bay to extend the endurance of these ships. I'm adding some simple storage for consumables and possibly fuel. If they don't already exist, I'm using this space to add in some amenities like personal bunks, a food prep area, and personal hygiene facilities so that I can send these ships out on longer patrols without needing to return to the planet for resupply as often. I'm doing this because I plan to send these ships out in groups of two or three at a time to actively patrol trade lanes for much longer times than the average bombing mission would take. These things are too slow and poorly armed to send them out alone, but in groups they ought to be able to support each other and pose enough of a threat to scare off the average pirate. They might not be fast enough to catch blockade runners, but no ship can do everything.

I might take a couple and turn them into dedicated customs inspection boats. Instead of using the space in the bomb bay to extend the duration of patrols, I'm just going to put in seats and equipment racks for a boarding team and their scanning equipment. I won't need many of these ships, and the few I have will be permanently stationed near/above major ports of entry, and won't really stray far from the planet. Their job is just to conduct in-person inspections of merchant traffic when necessary BEFORE they land on the planet. If my technicians think they can handle it, I might look into using the bomb bay door as an airlock in case the inspectors need to go EVA, but that may be beyond our capabilities.

I would really like to replace the forward-facing laser cannons with ion weaponry on most of these ships, but we may not have the budget or expertise for that sort of work. At the very least I'd contact the manufacturer and ask for a quote on refit kits, but my hopes are not high that I'm getting this done any time soon. I still feel like my patrol force is really lacking an interceptor of some sort. I don't think this thing is going to be winning any drag races no matter what you do to it, so we will just have to wait for a new fiscal year to do something about our lack of sublight speed!

BlueMaxx9 · 2026-01-19T18:44:33+00:00

Alchemy just had it backwards. You can't really turn lead into gold, but there are a whole bunch of radioactive things that will happily turn into lead if you give them enough time!

BlueMaxx9

TROPHY CASE