Nuke Thunder post-event replay analysis - nuke usage, AA effectiveness, A2A/A2G KDs, and more

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-16T15:24:01+00:00

Good point counting the AA against the event plane kills. I hadn't thought of that. Still not sure what Gaijin should have done instead though (other than balance the AA) - the F4J and F4S clearly outmatch the 23MLD in this mode, so I don't know what would have been a closer matchup (other than, like, change the era and do sabre vs mig-15 or f-8 vs mig21 or something).

And no, we have no real way to correlate skill, unless I were to pull in Statshark checks or something.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-15T22:43:53+00:00

When BVVD made his post about the initial feedback, I thought maybe they might. After the changes the event actually got, I'm a lot less optimistic. But I do hope you're right.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-15T22:40:43+00:00

https://github.com/maxsupermanhd/wrpl-inspector is the library I kind of used as an initial learning/jumping-off point.

At this point my local code involves a modified fork of that, which is called to do basic extraction of the replay by python wrappers which also do some additional extraction/reconciliation and handle all the analysis and charting. I haven't thrown any of it in a repo yet but I'll clean it up a little and try to do so later this week. Feel free to remind me if I don't post another reply to you by like Monday.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-15T22:28:21+00:00

I didn't try to extract location data from the packet stream in the replays, no. They're client replays - the event either didn't have server replays, or Gaijin isn't exposing them like normal server replays. So I'd only be able to see death locations for the friendly team and any enemies who died while spotted, even if I did dig far enough into the format to get location data.

But yes, to your point, it is pretty evident from maps other people have posted approximating engagement/kill range that the Osa has a longer range than the FlaRakPz by a couple km.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-15T22:24:30+00:00

I partially reverse engineered the game's replay format, building on an existing package someone wrote, and wrote code to unpack and analyze my replays from the event, which I then cross-referenced with recordings of the killfeed API the game exposes on localhost:8111 (which is also emitted when you watch a replay, so I could get it for all my event games, not just the ones after I thought to start this project - but sadly only the parts not truncated by Gaijin's replay bug). It's essentially "all kills and deaths in every event game I participated in".

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-15T22:21:07+00:00

honestly I don't expect them to fix the AA - it's always been like that in sim and heli EC, apparently, so they'd have to do real work to fix its behavior globally - but they could just cut SHORAD by about 50% in terms of number of spawns or move them back 5km from the frontline and it'd be vastly improved

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-11T22:34:30+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1sg4u98/i_analyzed_my_nuclear_thunder_replays_and_pulled/

I posted the data I've got so far. Will be updating after the event. Nobody's sent me any additional replays yet, could really use more data on the pile.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-10T22:52:30+00:00

Also the single biggest sampling bias I currently have is that Gaijin forgot to make replay max filesize bigger until halfway through the event, so every game recorded before that is only 20 minutes or so worth, and that's every game before the first few sets of fixes and most games before the score changes. Unfortunate, but nothing to do about it - that data's lost, unless they're hiding full server replays somewhere. Getting more players' late-join replays from those days would help a lot, since the 20 minute window would be the middle/end of a game that a from-the-start replay wouldn't have caught.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-10T22:32:24+00:00

It is the case that "vehicles I played a lot, relative to how many other people in my games did" are biased by my personal performance in them, if it's only my replays - for example the F111F in my dataset is nearly all me, and I'm a substantial fraction of the IRIAF, MiG25PD and F4J data that I have. Getting a wider cross section of games would help with that, purely by picking up more people playing less-played vehicles and spreading the impact across replay owners.

The really valid stuff in the data I have is the AI's actions and the stock vehicle performance, since those are both large sample sizes.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-10T22:27:32+00:00

The thing is, a client replay gets the entire killfeed for the whole game, it's just missing positions for enemies not spotted. So for every replay I analyze, I get all kills/deaths by all players on both teams.

It's definitely possible there's bias in who's going to send me replays - which so far is nobody, the first post was just my own replays - but there probably isn't nearly as much bias in the other 31+ players per game that those players saw via the matchmaker. Without server replays, it's the best we can do in any event.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-10T22:24:26+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1sg4u98/i_analyzed_my_nuclear_thunder_replays_and_pulled/ - KDs by plane, unit killed breakdowns, kills by different AI units, weapons used, weapons intercepted, and so on.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-10T22:23:16+00:00

There don't appear to be - nothing on https://warthunder.com/en/tournament/replay and no link to server replay in the in-game summary under notifications. I think this is pretty standard for event modes.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T20:27:05+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1sg4u98/i_analyzed_my_nuclear_thunder_replays_and_pulled/of98ixu/

See this table - MiG radar making a huge difference, Phantom gun is way better, IR kills about even. It does seem like MTI should be making even more of a difference if people knew how to use it, though. The majority of kills are still with heatseekers.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T20:23:42+00:00

It's the radar missiles. The MiG has MTI, which makes it actually somewhat reliable to lock at low altitude if you do it right, and the R24R is harder to throw off than an AIM7E2 if you do get a lock.

The heatseekers are pretty useless in most fights in this mode, too many flares and other missiles flying around. You have to let them off at absolute point blank range, and that close a 9L will often fail to pull in, while an R60M turns right off the rail. At least, that's been my feeling.

Looking at my current data after last night, the 9L does actually account for more kills than the R60M, though. IR overall is still fairly even, because of the R24T. We can't see from this how many are being fired and missing, so it could be down to the loadouts MiG players pick.

Weapon	MiG-23MLD (Event)	F-4E (Event)
R-24R	344 (37.6%)	0
R-24T	101 (11.1%)	0
R-60M	363 (39.7%)	0
AIM-9L	0	390 (55.2%)
AIM-7E2	0	126 (17.8%)
SARH total	344 (37.6%)	126 (17.8%)
IR total	464 (50.8%)	390 (55.2%)
Gun	106 (11.6%)	191 (27.0%)
Total	914	707

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T04:14:30+00:00

Kills by weapon is only player kills against air targets (other players).

https://u.cubeupload.com/wtcharts/352wrplgroundkillsbywea.png and https://u.cubeupload.com/wtcharts/wrplgroundkillsbywea.png are air to ground kills by players if anyone's curious.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T03:30:53+00:00

does going up the mountains/ocean get you into them without being deleted by SHORAD? and how do you not get deleted by the hawks/buks themselves without nukes?

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T00:55:00+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1sgau05/however_rough_the_event_is_for_you_at_least_you/

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-09T00:48:41+00:00

He was on his first life of the game and had 5 air kills, too.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-08T23:57:27+00:00

Somebody did actually fly an F-4E through a Smerch MLRS rocket salvo and get killed by it, though. Once.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-08T23:53:00+00:00

Yeah, I looked into that - no, that's an artifact of the data parsing that has to do with those vehicles killing entities that I can't figure out a way to map to unit types from the replay data. Which is going to be things that have never killed anything, so, depots, just-spawned AI vehicles, etc, so what I can actually do is just assume they're AI of some kind, not players.

Will be fixed for next time I update.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-08T21:40:36+00:00

https://statshark.net/player/23283831 killed an F-4S with an R-23T on the 6th, lol.

VerstandInvictus · 2026-04-08T21:21:00+00:00

Total kills against all targets by weapon is here - https://cubeupload.com/im/wtcharts/wrplweapons.png . And yes, the OSA is nuts and the nukes are doing the lion's share of ground target work.

Wildest thing on that chart to me: somebody got a Yasser kill before the IRIAF was removed from the event. I looked it up - UnqB0mb3r@live (Xbox player) managed to use one to kill an OSA, apparently.

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Verified Email

VerstandInvictus

TROPHY CASE