28.3.2014

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- regarding the armor overhaul – when T-62A gets turned into HD, its armor will be reworked as well
- apparently there is no need to buff KV-5
- developers have not yet decided, what to do with the M6A2E1 (“Alien”), when it gets reworked to HD, they will collect all sources and will see what is to be done with it
- in the final version, T-54′s commander copula will be 130mm thick (SS: right now it is 160mm)
- the reason for HD armor rework is not as much increased amount of details, more like increased historical accuracy, based on sources
- Wargaming always tries to get the armor schematic as realistic as possible, regardless of balance: “Armor was never related to balancing, unless you mean the made-up vehicles, where we were free to put as much armor as we wanted”
- the size of the HD models is cca 60-100 megabytes per tank


- the Panther Schmalturm was actually resized in 9.0 “based on long study of documents”, it’s possible other Schmalturms will be resized as well (“we will look at each case separately”)
- MSAA (SS: whatever that is) will not return
- there will not be a choice to keep old hangars
- apparently, coated optics equipment is supposed to remove the green filter from sniper mode in 9.0, the fact it doesn’t happen is a bug
- Maus has no extra fuel tanks, because they are too big and to make them “transparent” (not a part of the hitbox) would not look pretty
- tensing of tracks by tanks with front drive sprocket will come, but not in 9.0
- some players report FPS losses in second 9.0 test (compared to the first one), Storm states they didn’t touch anything
- Centurion 7/1 HD model will appear in test 3, same goes for T-34/85
- buying modules for gold are not planned
- very smooth armor of HD Maus is historical, it is like that in real life as well
- the amount of polygons for open-topped arties will be high, but it won’t reach 100k
- the fact M10/Panther is missing from historical battles is a bug, it will be fixed in test 3
- “support” class (ARV for example) will not be introduced, very few people would play them
- failing of HE fuses does not exist in WoT (SS: duhhhhhhh……)

73 thoughts on “28.3.2014”

  1. Hey SS, I’ve been wanting to say this to like every post you’ve done this with, but…

    It’s “CUPOLA”, not “COPULA”. :(

  2. MSAA is anti aliasing. Multi Sample Anti Aliasing. An expensive, relatively high quality type of it. Not as HQ as SSAA, not as “smart” as AAA or FXAA or SMAA, but one damn good compromise between system stress and image quality.
    Some games use it on foliage to improve its appearance significantly.

    Meh, I like having options.

    • Actually MSAA doesn’t work by itself on things like foliage, since it detects polygon edges, adding an alpha test it also works on foliage, decals etc. Most games have this option, or atleast used to.. Seems like developers are slacking with anti-aliasing methods, mostly crappy FXAA SMAA or similar post process effects are used, though cheap usually blurs textures.

      But as you said, I like having options!

      • The new renderer uses defered rendering, its a special technique(Trades in bandwidth for compute) and it doesn’t play well with MSAA. Basically if you have MSAA during deffered rendering, you are looking at 30-70% drop in performance.

  6. - the reason for HD armor rework is not as much increased amount of details, more like increased historical accuracy, based on sources

    Regarding armor that might be true, but the HD rework as a whole is of course also caused by War Thunder.

    Either way I’m happy they’re doing it.

      • The timing of HD models and the havoc and realistic battles are a reaction to War Thunder because it is competition now. Simple as that.
        The Armor overhaul I believe is really because of historical accuracy.

        • Those things were in development before Ground Forces was even a thing.
          As in, after it was announced *because GF was ALWAYS announced, as soon as the planes were announced* but before there were even screens.
          I gotta be with WG on this one, this takes a lot of time and for them even more. I remember how we knew about physics and new renderer way back in 5.4? It came in 8.0

            • Most “fans” are baddies in WoT who can’t even do 1:1 damage ratio without endless respawns.

              They think Warthundurr will change and make them play better…
              It won’t.

              I can’t wait for the day when Warthundurr is available to them(cheap bastards who won’t play to get into game) and they cry about how they get one-shotted all the time.

              • I’m doing quite okay in WOT, and I like both games. But the time of the jump in technological development of WOT was no coincidence. I know those things were “planned” long ago, but the timing now is weird.
                And no, playing WT will not make you play WOT better or vice versa. Completely different gameplay. I’m not sure why saying “WG aknowledge their competitor and step up their game more rapidly now” is making me a baddie, WT-fanby or making me feel superior to anything.

  7. - the amount of polygons for open-topped arties will be high, but it won’t reach 100k
    Not sure if I will like this or not…

    - “support” class (ARV for example) will not be introduced, very few people would play them
    Somehow I think somebody forgot that SPGs, TD’s and Lights are technically support and people do play them…

    • As a former ARV driver, I know all to well the amount of time it takes to recover a stuck/immobilized tank. How can you fit something that can potentially take several hours and represent it somewhat decently in a match lasting minutes?

      • If SerB means “support class” as in armored recovery/repair vehicle then yes it is a bit pointless. But if he is referring to the tanks themselves such as the Churchill ARVE then there is a problem. And depending upon the tank in question there is a very very fine line between the two…

      • Ever played any FPS games in the last… let’s say… 20 years? How on earth did you not die from a billion bullet made wounds that would require hours of medical caretaking? “Medikits”.
        In other words: ARV would be the Medic of TF2.

      • The same way you can use repair kit to repair your track in 1 second, all that while sliding down the hill slope and firing at enemy.

    • There are lots of details inside the open cabin of open-topped SPGs, that’s what makes the count high. I think it will be fine, though, performance-wise. After all you have 10 arties in a battle tops (except troll CWs)

  8. “Apparently there is no need to buff KV-5″
    Its morally and physically outdated. Give back its limited MM (max. tier 8)!

      • KV-5 is a monster when played correctly. I have 1,5k games in it and even when I changed my veteran crew with a newbie one it still was one tough son of a bitch.

        Every now and then I see on FTR the *apparently KV-5 does not need a buff* answer and I wonder who does ask for this again and again and again when it is not needed.

        KV-5 is fine. Deal with it.

        • Lol. On that subject, I zoomed up to the side of a poor KV-4 in my KV-5, Slammed his side with regular AP, and bounced his much slower better penning gun, then my gun reloaded and I outmaneuvered him to slam another shot into his side. My KV-5 has superior gun depression and speed to KV-4.(with clutch braking it has better mobility) It was no contest. If It weren’t for their arty, a T32, and being suddenly flanked by… (I can’t remember what) I would have pwned the KV-4 lol. That KV-5 DPM….

  9. - regarding the armor overhaul – when T-62A gets turned into HD, its armor will be reworked as well.

    Guess that means no more troll bouncing 420mm HEAT shells from a JPE-100. Armor overhaul=nerf.

  10. I understand the hd rework. But so far the armor “reworks” have been nothing but nerfs, and bad nerfs, the t-54 didn’t need a turret nerf, it needed a heat pen nerf. And now it’s the t62a’s turn, if they’re gonna nerf the turret too – and it’s most probably gonna be the case- the tank will become obsolete, since there would be no reason to grind it over the 140. I just hope they know what they’re doing and not end up ruining the game, with all the gold rounds running around we need as much armor as we can get.

    • Or you can start playing better and rely less on armor when rolling in Mediums. Mediums should not be rolling around being expected to bounce Tier 10 Gold TD shells anyway. They should be flanking tanks and wolfpacking as a group.

  11. There comes havok – give that fuel tank on Maus and if he hits something with it or some shell hits is, it will fall off or, if they want to make it interesting, make some burning effect for it if ignited. And there is your solution. Not that I think it is really important feature to be put on Maus, but if players want it, it should not be that hard to find win-win solution.

    • Maus’ fuel tank, in the later stages of production, would have simply been to extend the vehicle’s range; it would be dismounted before entering battle.

      My opinion is that if the Maus is to get its fuel tanks in-battle in-game, it should get the flamethrowers that it was intended to feed back when the thing was being presented as a full-scale model to Hitler. The Maus, at that time, was intended to carry two 14mm flammenwerfers (the same ones used on the Flammpanzer III), attached to arms mounted on small turrets that were on either side of the rear of the Maus — the welding ports textured on the non-HD Maus model are precisely where they were going to go. In fact, they were welded over because Hitler rejected the idea! There was no sign of these welds on the V2 hull because by then word reached the manufacturers that the idea was scrapped, and that’s why the welds are not on the HD Maus. Had they seen the light of day, these flamethrowers would have received their fuel from the very fuel drum that you want to see on the Maus.

      Of course, as a Maus player, I would have no problem at all with giving my Maus flamethrowers; it would certainly resolve the sidehugging IS-7 problem! Sadly, however, flammpanzers won’t be coming to the game, if I recall one of the previous Q&As here correctly.

  12. - the Panther Schmalturm was actually resized in 9.0 “based on long study of documents”, it’s possible other Schmalturms will be resized as well (“we will look at each case separately”)
    _______________
    Took them only a couple of years to see it.

  13. NVIDIA SLI support in 9.0 test is broken… Now in 8.11 I have 40-50 fps, in 9.0 it’s no more then 20. After turning SLI off (using only 1 card) 9.0 is much smoother, fps goes to 25. I’ve posted this problem on the official forum.

    • Performance became worse in 9.0, I played 8.11 today and on most maps I jave 100-127 fps all time. In 9.0 the fps drops too much from 70-127, but mostly around 80. In 8.11 the min and average fps was higher and it felt more smooth looking around the tank etc. 9.0 feels stuttery and nmon smooth and i think some people with mid to high end systems also can relate to that.

      • Overall performance is other topic, I know that HD models, new shaders and stuff will consume more processing power. But is’s not related with my problem, SLI mode is not working in 9.0 test. Even worse, it slows down whole game, make it more laggy. Now in 8.11 everything is fine and smooth, WG mess up something with SLI support…

  15. I hope some day they look at the horrible cannons width, like:

    The T34 120mm cannon is thicker than the T30 155mm.

    The M60 is thinner than the M48, even tho they have the same caliber.

    • Other commenters chewed me out over the fact that WG has plans to standardise common parts, so that the guns will look the same.

  16. I thought they did very well on the Maus. The Maus itself was pressed steel, not cast or forged.

    - very smooth armor of HD Maus is historical, it is like that in real life as well

    http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/OASAAS/Kubinka%20Tank%20Museum/SAM_0753.jpg
    (along with a lovely shot of Vallter)

    http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/OASAAS/Kubinka%20Tank%20Museum/SAM_0750.jpg

    http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b391/OASAAS/Kubinka%20Tank%20Museum/SAM_0744.jpg

  17. - the Panther Schmalturm was actually resized in 9.0 “based on long study of documents”, it’s possible other Schmalturms will be resized as well (“we will look at each case separately”)

    Schmalturm change is nice(also looks much better IMO) but the hull is bloody HUGE now(bigger than Tiger II!)! Someone ask them about the hull?

    Edit. Hull clearance seems to be way too high. Bug?

  18. - the size of the HD models is cca 60-100 megabytes per tank

    GEEEZ!

    My hard drive!

    Also, WHY so friggin large.

    Or everyone mistakes Graphics for asthetics?

    • They already said the game may approach around 25 GB and as long as your hardrive isn’t a decade old or filled with loads and loads of porn you should have 25 GB free. Or just buy a small external and move some other files over to that. 25 GB really isn’t much.

  20. You know, the KV-5 is actually of alien origin, and when it was destroyed, an escape capsule using anti gravity technology was launched that is returning the crew to its mothership in orbit.