News for wot

- it’s completely possible that the combined Firefly/TD branch will come this year
- Q: “Were there any artillery SPG’s based on the Churchill?” A: “Better ask Pasholok.”
- the idea of burning the bushes (firing from a bush would make it catch fire and be destroyed after a few shots) was judged as “average crap” (won’t be implemented)
- dynamic tank names? “Low priority for now”
- the “gold ammo nerf by reducing its alpha” idea was scrapped
- Israelie (captured Egyptian) IS-3 was not researched yet
- T-34-85M will not be a premium tank, but a “special” (reward/event) one
- Storm and SerB recently agreed on new modes (PvP and PvE), no details for now
- complete new French medium tank line will not be implemented, because the projects in it would be illogical, project only or artificially buffed. Last such tank was the WT E-100, that was the line, in the future, tanks in the game will be more realistic.
- T95E2 will be awarded to clans
- according to Storm, the only nations capable of having any tier 10 in the EU tree are the Swedes and Italians (SS: I mean… seriously?)
- Sweden will not have a separate tree, as it would apparently compromise the integrity of the EU tree

- render change from rectangle to circle will not come this year
- the server-side vehicle “swaying” (rocking) will come along with new motion physics
- the two new modes mentioned by Storm to be implemented into the game are neither the PVE historical battles, nor the national battles

IT-45 and SU-76BM again…
Posted on October 7, 2014 by Silentstalker — 7 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

on some Russian portals (FTA, Wotleaks), an information came up, that Wargaming is preparing two new lowtier Soviet tank destroyers – the SU-76BM and the IT-45. The names might sound familiar to you? Yup, that’s very, very old stuff. The information about IT-45 and SU-76BM came out first in May 2013 – they were supposed to be a part of a Soviet lowtier alternative tank destroyer minibranch.

The whole line was effectively scrapped ages ago, but the vehicles themselves remained on the supertest server (within the client) along with other various relics. WG doesn’t simply throw these tanks out, but there is no need to make any conclusion about their occasional appearance in WG videos.

- Storm confirms that the Sixth Sense rework (its transfer to the radioman, activated when radioman training hits 100 percent) will happen in medium future (SS: that usually means cca 6 months)
- developers considered removing Sixth Sense completely, but decided not to do it, because it would break current gameplay too much
- there are no specific statistics of the lifetime effect of Sixth Sense perk, as it was introduced very long time ago
- the desired result of the Sixth Sense rework, according to Storm: “So everyone has it”
- perks will be reworked completely
- after the rework, if the radioman gets killed, the Sixth Sense will stop working
- the “reasoning” of Sixth Sense being a radioman ability: “Radioman intercepts the enemy transmissions about the discovery of his tank”
- the perk rework will come with crew skill reset
- Storm admits that the Chinese branch is full of clones, but: “without Chinese branch, we wouldn’t be able to enter the Chinese market at all” (SS: so basically, since WG is already estabilished at EU, it’s “fuck you” to the Euroserver countries)
- new French tanks? “No comment”
- mod-like minimap (with tank descriptions)? “when it’s done it’s done”
- Storm admits he is not knowledgeable in special aspects of WoT development: “It would be a mistake to assume that I understand tank history and characteristics as a history consultant, programming as a lead programmer, game design as a lead game designer etc. I have knowledge, but the specialists know much more in their respective fields than me.”
- Storm claims that WG Japanese medium branch was made possible by a WG employee and not 3rd party (SS: Storm is either a liar, or he doesn’t know what’s going on, because the data for Japanese branch were given to WG by two US server players: Soukoudragon and Daigensui)

Hello everyone,

it is common knowledge, that there are no cheats for World of Tanks. Well, at least that’s what they would lead us to believe – and, for the most part, it’s actually true. The key element of the absence of cheats such as a wallhack is the fact that the game (thanks to its spotting system) does not transfer all the data to your client. Your client only knows the position of the tanks based on what the server calculates, so you can’t create a cheat for your client telling you where everyone is, simply because the server does not tell you the data you need for such a program.

There is another cheat however, plaguing especially the online shooters, that works in World of tanks – an aimbot.

What is an aimbot?

As the name suggests, an aimbot is a cheating program, that allows you – even without any knowledge of the tanks – to target tank weakspots. It works essentially as a normal auto-aim, only using different reference points for each tank. Basically, you can select to target specifical armor weakspots, such as commander’s cupola, or for example the driver’s hatch on frontal armor. Alternatively, you can make the aimbot target specific modules, such as ammo rack, engine, fuel tanks and such. This selection happens (or can happen) using a single button, that “cycles” the target modules/areas.

Why is it dangerous?

Well, for one, it’s an obvious cheat. With such a program (which is relatively easy to access and to install), even a total noob can achieve some great results, since he doesn’t have to care at all, where he is aiming: the program will do it even for him. In this sense, it’s even more dangerous than malicious mods (such as object destruction detector). Ever seen such things as an enemy targetting unerringly your pixel-sized weakspot all across the El-Halluf multiple times in a row? Well, could have been luck… or, it could have been an aimbot.

Second huge issue with an aimbot is that it is practically impossible to prove, unless you make a video, showcase it and scream LOOK THIS IS AN AIMBOT while using it. The use of an aimbot cannot be detected or proven by a regular third party and even IF you are stupid enough to actually make a video of you using an aimbot and post it online, it will still be inconclusive to most viewers.

Check this out. This gem I found on Czech forums. There were two videos by the same player (“asdfbrom”), called “Epic platoons”. Immediately after they were posted, accusations of aimbotting appeared. This caught my attention (thanks to whoever linked it to me, I practically never watch player videos myself), so I downloaded one of the videos from Youtube, just in case. After the accusations, the video thread of that guy was junked and in the night, the videos were removed from Youtube (the one I will post is a re-upload). Ignore the “80′s porn” music please (was present in original video).

Now, Asdfbrom is not an extremely good player, but some of the shots in the video were spectacular. Don’t mind the aim reticle sliding away, that’s simply a freecam effect (video was done from replay). Notice instead (you have to watch the video closely to catch it):

- several pretty great weak spoint snapshots
- notice the “cycling” between several weakspots, the reticle “sticks”

There was a second video, but unfortunately I didn’t get to download that one. I have shown both videos yesterday to several people active in WG e-sports, the results were as such: 4 think it’s an aimbot, 1 thinks it’s not an aimbot, 6 cannot decide (inconclusive). I am sorry I didn’t get the download the second video before it was pulled down, it was clearer.

The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that the aimbot is not something active all the time (like a bot for example), it’s more like a “press a button to help you aim” type of thing. In addition: a player, who uses an aimbot does not really evolve – he learns nothing of the tank weakspots, he simply just presses a button and the bot does everything for him. If he was to suddenly play without the aimbot, he’d be utterly hopeless.

Where do you get it? Will you get punished?

Well, obviously, that I am not going to tell you, but it’s easy. Personally, I know of two aimbots, one is for free and one is paid.

- I do believe the infamous Warpack cheat collection contains an aimbot. Warpack is not for free, but it has many users. Cheats are pretty good business.
- another one (for free) is Lportii’s aimbot. Yesterday, one player tested that particular one in a training room, it works.

Naturally, there is always a danger of getting malware from such shady things, but it seems it’s a risk players are willing to take.

Both come from RU server of course, so I assume they are more widespread there than on EU and US clusters. The exact extent of their use is unknown. The fact they are so hard to prove makes them difficult to track. And will you get punished for using it? No. I personally know one player who uses it for three months already, nothing happened. Hell, he was never even accused of cheating. By the way – his main account is around 50 percent winrate. His “cheat” account? Over 60. So much for “u need teh skillz to pwn”.

What can be done?

Nothing. Or rather – I have absolutely no idea. In fast-paced action games, aimbot is not that hard to prove, since it allows the player to make tiny split second shots, that can be pretty obvious. In WoT, where everything is slow-paced and the gun repositioning time is artificially limited by turret traverse and elevation per second rates, an aimbot will not stand out that much. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but perhaps we have a completely different plague on our hands – the aimbot menace – and we don’t even know it. Personally, I don’t think this is as widespread as botting, but sooner or later, WG will have to have a look at it.

This  came from F.T.R web pages here is the web page http://ftr.wot-news.com/

Insider Talks: Aimbot, Fury
Posted on October 8, 2014 by Silentstalker — 8 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

after yesterday’s FTR post about the Aimbot cheat, the Insider decided to investigate, what the developers think and know of this cheat. He found actually, that the developers know about it.

On the internal WG server, there is a file repository and one of the files, contained within, is the aimbot. The developers investigated it recently, but basically, what they think about it (a footnote in the file) is: “bannable, but almost useless”. The reasons cited for this mod being useless are the chaotic aiming. They actually tested the mod in real battles and the testing report mentions that the aimbot is capable of targetting even obscured targets, it is inaccurate (doesn’t always aim for the weakspots), on higher speeds it won’t hit anything and generally is no better than the autoaim (sometimes it aims at wrong places).

Oh, and the Fury Sherman will be actually SOLD to players, at least on Xbox 360 WoT. Here are the details of the upcoming bundle:

Includes:

- USA Tier VI Sherman Fury Medium Tank
- 100% Crew
- Medium-Caliber Tank Gun Rammer
- Vertical Stabilizer Mk 1
- Improved Ventilation Class 2
- 71 AP M62 Shells
- 15 HVAP M93 Shells
- 1 Garage Slot
- 7 Days of Premium Account

Fury hits theaters this fall, and for a limited time you can add the M4A3E8 “Fury” from the movie to your World of Tanks garage and experience it for yourself! This Tier VI premium tank features a unique appearance and comes with a 100% trained crew, a full set of equipment, and 7 days of Premium time to make sure you’re maximizing your Silver and experience earnings while showing off this flashy medium tank. Please note that this bundle is only purchasable one time per account.

The Insider thinks that the appearance of this bundle for Xbox means it’s likely such a bundle will appear for WoT PC as well, but is not sure. Oh and one last things – it looks like Wargaming will donate a portion of the money they get for the abovementioned bundle to fix the Sherman, damaged during the Fury filming

Fury Coming to World of Tanks
Posted on October 8, 2014 by Silentstalker — 3 Comments ↓
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/61756435/world-of-tanks-game-finds-ally-in-fury-film.html

Thanks to Applesaucebandit (US) for this one.

Hello everyone,

the movie Fury is hitting the cinemas in a week or so, while the Fury tank is going to hit the game.
The article, linked above, describes the movie and the cooperation between Wargaming and the movie producers:

“It made sense,” said Victor Kislyi, CEO of World of Tanks developer Wargaming. “Both audiences are interested in historical accuracy, so why don’t we do something together? We didn’t want to overdo it. We appreciate the opportunity, but our audience wants appropriateness. It’s show business. You never know how it’s going to turn out before the premiere.”The article basically tells nothing really new, just a description of the Fury story (behind enemy lines bla bla bla OHSHITATIGEWSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS) and what World of Tanks actually is. Big Boss Kislyi makes an interesting point however at the end: before, whenever there was a game/movie cooperation, it has always been considered as beneficial mostly for the game, not for the movie. But the tide is turning and big game titles (with budgets larger than many movies) are now considered to be on top.

“I believe that this movie could have a significant extra audience because of the millions and millions of World of Tanks gamers,” he said. “The movie is the movie. The game is the game. However, how can you not want to go and watch this movie if you play this game, if you are someone who is hooked on German and American tank combat? You’ll have to see it.”

Hello everyone,

just to let you know, it’s confirmed. According to this article, players will be able to purchase the Fury tank bundle in World of Tanks (PC), World of Tanks Blitz and World of Tanks for Xbox.

The “Fury Sherman” will be a premium M4A3E8 with “unique looks”:
The PC and Xbox bundles will cost 30 USD (EU price is not set yet), the Blitz bundle will cost 15 USD. The Xbox version bundle consists of:

- USA Tier VI Sherman Fury Medium Tank
- 100% Crew
- Medium-Caliber Tank Gun Rammer
- Vertical Stabilizer Mk 1
- Improved Ventilation Class 2
- 71 AP M62 Shells
- 15 HVAP M93 Shells
- 1 Garage Slot
- 7 Days of Premium Account

Igromir Team Battle/Tournament Q&A
Posted on October 8, 2014 by Silentstalker — 29 Comments ↓
Source: FTA VK community

Hello everyone,

a couple of answers by Aleksei Kuznetsov from Igromir 2014

- the “WoT Formula” tournament (the racing one) has 350 thousand people participating (SS: on RU server). It’s a MMORPG tournament record and it will appear in the Guiness book of records
- in 9.4, team battles will be changed. Attack/Defense mode will appear in them.
- there will be 10 TB maps for the Attack/Defense mode
- the specifics of the Attack/Defense mode will be that there will be two bases, that will be possible to capture either both at the same time or separately, but capturing of the bases will not add up
- 7/42 TB mode will be replaced by 7/54. In connection with this, two setups will appear: 5 tier 8 tanks and 2 tier 7′s, or 6 tier 8′s and one tier 6. In cybersports, the first setup is more popular.
- 9.4 will come in October
- in 9.4, Stronghold players will be able to attack other clans’ strongholds
- when Havok comes, it will apparently be possible to drive into a destroyed building rubble and “hide” in it, the rubble will reduce the penetration of incoming shells (SS: that’s a pretty stupid idea, I would take this answer with a grain of salt)

Insider Talks: New Achievements
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 4 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

more info from the Insider. This time, it’s a set of various odd achievements (awards), that is prepared (or possibly considered) for World of Tanks. No further details are known, but some of the things are pretty odd:

- apparently, the “Lumberjack” is back, it will be awarded to a player, who destroys at least 3 enemy vehicles and brings down 30 trees in battle
- same goes for the “Alaric” achievement, that will require to destroy 2 tanks and a “monument”
- an achievement for “burying enemy tank in debris”, which is connected to Havok and the fact that buildings will be destructable, plus an achievement for “bringing down a structure on enemy light tank”
- an achievement for flipping enemy tank on its roof

The above requires an explanation – in new motion physics, it will be possible to flip a tank on its roof. To it, the Insider adds that being flipped will destroy the tank quickly (basically the way a tank is destroyed now when another tank drives over it). It will not be possible to simply flip a tank back. The official reasoning for this is that flipping a tank on its roof not only destroys its internal equipment, but also crushes the turret ring and the thin turret roof armor. The developers want to make it really hard to flip the tanks, they want to specifically avoid the War Thunder situation, where (and I quote the developers) “the vehicles behave like they have West Coast custom hydraulics”

- an achievement “Bring the Barn” related to something like a 15vs15 TOG battle
- an achievement for surviving the destruction of the house you are hiding in without taking damage
- an achievement for pushing around a car (object, that will be movable in Havok) without destroying it while damaging at least 3 enemy tanks
- an achievement for “luring the enemy to drown” (as in, standing on the edge of the water, a fast-driving enemy approaches trying to ram you into water, you quickly evade and he drives into water and drowns)
- something related to “Raisenai”, involves KV-2 surviving extreme odds against German attack, not sure what this is

These achievements are tied to the Havok patch, which apparently is 9.5

Igromir Q&A
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 34 Comments ↓
Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3537548.html

Hello everyone,

somewhat lengthy Q&A from yet another meeting of players with developers (or, in this case, community people).

- developers are collecting and analyzing shell accuracy and damage statistics (SS: related to accuracy nerf apparently)
- LTTB is in some ways similiar to the old T-50-2, gameplay is different however
- no new info on FV4202 fate
- future plans for Stronghold mode: special shop, consumables. A part of the consumables will be also usable in random battles (no ETA for now)
- British LT, Japanese TD branch? No comment.
- the reactions on new large amount of obtained medals is mixed, some get many, some can’t get even the simpliest ones
- your low winrate vehicles do not have higher chance of appearing on the top of the team (SS: reacting on such a conspiracy)
- hiding your statistics is not planned
- gold ammo for credits: “statistics are being collected and analyzed. Apparently there are some plans to nerf their damage and/or a hardcap (SS: this is most likely wrong, Storm specifically said this variant was scrapped)
- developers are “reviewing the role of armor in battle and the penetration inflation”
- Super Pershing is fine statistically, won’t be buffed
- there will be new perks and the old ones will be rebalanced, Sixth Sense will be tied to the radioman and everyone, who has it on their commander as a perk will get a free skill reset- SU-5 shell amount will not be buffed
- the new anti-bot system is working effectively: on RU forums, 10k people were already banned “and that’s just a start”. Some developers really hate botters, the punishments will get only stiffer and the bot detection will improve
- insults in WoT? “Use the profanity filter”
- statistics of camouflage and spotting are being collected, there will be changes to LT’s and TD’s in this respect (“when it’s done it’s done”)
- no more strict arty hardcap will be implemented
- there are plans to make the game more newbie-friendly (accessible), at the same time the system of education (tutorial) will improve
- T57 Heavy nerf was justified
- roaming was basically shelved, as during its development, it was discovered that it puts a lot of strain on main internet lines. It would cause high latency for all the players and some players would really be hurt by that.
- NPC’s (bots) will appear in the game, they will have a functional AI, “when it’s done it’s done”
- “many are fed up with Clanwars”, developers are working in improving the mode
- soon, there will be a CW event where tier 10 medium tanks are needed
- regarding optimization, the developers are working in two directions: building the HD client and optimizing the SD one. The main problem with optimization is that the computers the players have are extremely diverse, from “calculators” with Windows XP to cutting edge gaming PC’s
- 9.3 or 9.4 brought/will bring the removal of the last remnants of the original Bigworld code. From now on, the engine counts as Wargaming’s own engine (and not a Bigworld version).
- you can get an automatic ban (apparently for unsportsmanlike behavior), if you “randomly” shoot other teammate’s tracks a lot
- new gift tanks are not planned for now
- BL-10 shells being eaten by tracks too much? “They work normally. If you don’t like it and want realism, go play War Thunder or join the army.”
- WoT 2.0? “There will be no modern tanks”
- there will NEVER be transfers of credits between accounts, this includes credit transfers within a clan
- it’s possible there will be a Wargaming version of “noobmeter”, but “the current one demotivates some people a lot.” Currently, developers are considering the XVM noobmeter to be more of a problem than a good thing
- XVM-style minimap will be added to the game
- regarding premium tanks: IS-6 use doesn’t depend much on skill, FCM does
- developers are planning new “historical maps”, based on real life places, they will not be totally accurate, they have to be balanced by map designers for gameplay purposes
- old premium tanks’ (Matilda, Ram) rebalance? “If needed”
- the developers are aware of the bug, where MM puts you over and over again on the same map. It’s being fixed.
- in the game, the shell is modelled as a single point, everything else is graphics
- apparently, economy of WoT is working correctly
- Dragon Ridge is apparently doing fine, but only on Chinese server. If it ever returns, it will be after an overhaul
- regarding the removal of the gold shells altogether – won’t happen: “Some of the tanks are unplayable without gold shells, for example T69 in tier 10 battles”
- loading gold shells has no effect on your matchmaking
- team battles for tier 6 and 10? “When it’s done it’s done”
- the bug where you can’t invite people in your friendlist for a platoon is known, it will be fixed
- historical battles: “when it’s done it’s done”

Jealous of TOG Event? No Need.
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — No Comments ↓
Thanks to Joshua H. for noticing this bit.

Hello everyone,

a quick announcement for American players. There have been some complaints about the TOGtober and the ease, with which the EU players can obtain a free TOG (hell, even I can do that mission). Well, apparently, there is no need to. According to KMaus, an American community manager, the Americans will get a “secret” event as well and it will be “even more awesome” than the TOG mission.

Well, TOG’s going to be hard to beat, but good luck

Straight Outta Supertest: T28 Concept
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 84 Comments ↓
Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3539484.html (and VK Wotleaks community)

Behold the tier 7 American premium/special tank destroyer. Because, you know, Storm said “no more fakes”, so here’s another oneThese are garage stats, not 100 percent crew stats

Tier 7 premium TD
Hitpoints: 900
Engine: 960 hp
Weight: 70 tons
Power-to-weight: 13,71 hp/t
Maximum speed: 29 km/h
Hull traverse: 18 deg/s
Armor: 203/101/50
Gun: 105mm T5
Damage: 320/320/420
Penetration: 181/224/53
ROF: 6,74
Accuracy: 0,4
Aimtime: 2,1s
Viewrange: 370
Radiorange: 570

Straight Outta Supertest: T-55A Stats
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 35 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

you already know that we have an upcoming tier 9 reward tank (East German T-55). Here are its stats from the supertest (unmodified, just like you would see them in the garage). I am comparing it with elite T-54 (with D-10T2S) stats.

T-55A NVA DDR
Tier 9 German MT
Cost: 17500g (this is a temporary thing)

Hitpoints: 1700 (1650)
Hull armor: 100/80/45 (120/80/45)
Turret armor: 200/160/65 (200/160/65)

Engine: W-55W
Power: 580 hp (700)
Fire starting chance: 12% (12)
Power-to-weight: 15.59 hp/t (20.18)
Max speed: 50/20 (56/20)Radio: R113
Radio range: 730 m (730)

Suspension: T-55A NVA DDR
Traverse: 50 deg/s (48)
Terrain resistance: 0.7/0.8/1.4 (1/1.2/2.2)

Turret: T-55A NVA DDR
View range: 395 m (390)
Traverse: 46 deg/s (44)

Gun: 100 mm Panzerkanone D-10T2S L/56
Damage: 320/320/420 (320/320/420)
Penetration: 201/330/50 (201/330/50)
Module damage: 135 (135)
Reload time: 7.6 (7.
Accuracy: 0.33 (0.35)
Aiming time: 2.1 (2.3)
Ammo: 43 (50)
Elevation: -4.25/+14.25 (-5/+20)

M4A3E8 “Fury” Model and Statistics
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 60 Comments ↓
Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3539165.html

Hello everyone,

just a couple of screenies of the M4A3E8 “Fury” in the garage.Tier 6 US Medium tank (premium)
Hitpoints: 750
Weight: 34,237 tons

Engine: 520hp
Power to weight: 14,6 hp/t
Maximum speed: 41,8/18
Terrain resistance: 0,9/1,1/1,5
Traverse: 44 deg/s
Viewrange: 370
Radiorange: 570

Hull armor: 64/38/38
Turret armor: 64/64/64
Hull armor: 64/38/38
Turret armor: 64/64/64


Gun: 76mm M1A2
Penetration 128/177/38
Damage 115/115/185
DPM: 2090
Reload time: 3,3с
Rate of fire: 18,18
Accuracy: 0,4
Aimtime: 2,3с
Depression: -10/+25
Ammo: 71 shells

9.10.2014
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 28 Comments ↓
I open the WoT portal, Fury is staring at me. I open the Russian forums, Fury is staring at me. I open the WoT FB page, Fury is staring at me. I am afraid to open my tuna can.

Also, 9.4 supertest starts tomorrow. 9.4 will mostly be a technical patch, so don’t expect miracles. The patch itself should thus (if everything goes okay) come until the end of the month, allowing the huge 9.5 to come until the end of the year.

- shells for one gun can be of different design based on the year they were introduced in (SS: SerB, justifying why APCR shells for certain guns are much more expensive than the regular shells, I think he just misunderstood the question)
- new perks will arrive at the same time the old perks are reworked
- the T28 Concept does not mean the Scorpion will not arrive
- Havok will be used in the beginning only to render the destruction of buildings and objects. After that will come the realistic destruction of tank equipment (boxes etc.), but not soon.
- realistic track behavior and new movement physics is not related in any way to Havok
- IS-3 in HD will not come in 9.4
- apparently, the QA answer about last elements of Bigworld being removed from World of Tanks soon was false according to Storm
- M6A2E1 will not be reworked to HD this year

Individual Missions are Coming?
Posted on October 9, 2014 by Silentstalker — 14 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

an interesting thing appeared on Russian server. Apparently, some players (oddly enough, banned ones, which might mean that the system is being tested on those, who got banned) got an e-mail by Wargaming on their account mails, where they are offered the opportunity to fulfill their own, individual missions between 10th and 20th of October. The conditions of these missions are unknown, but the reward is up to 5 days of premium time, 20 percent bonus to XP and credit gain and a premium T-127 tank.

Not so long ago, it was announced that individual missions (missions with different parameters for each player) are to come soon, so perhaps this is a test of the system.

Object 260 Errata
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Silentstalker — 24 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

about the last post with the statitics of the IS-7 prototype, Object 260. As you might have figured out, the pictures are not leaks, they come straight from Wargaming. Unfortunately, Wargaming released that wrong, the Object 260 characteristics are placeholders.

The vehicle characteristics were changed as such:

Penetration from 225/265/68 to 260/340/68

The frontal turret plate is 350mm (as the post says), but that’s just a really small part. The mantlet is 250mm thick. And so, the vehicle has following characteristics:

Tier 10 HT
Hitpoints: 2100
Engine: 1200 hp
Weight: 61,3 tons
Power-to-weight: 19,57 hp/t
Maximum speed: 60 km/h
Hull traverse: 28 deg/s

Hull armor: 150/150/70
Turret armor: 350/240/100

Gun: 122mm BL-13-1
Damage: 390/390/465
Penetration: 260/340/68
DPM: 1903
ROF: 4,88
Accuracy: 0,37
Aimtime: 2,8s
Turret traverse: 26 deg/s

Viewrange: 400
Radiorange: 720

New Premium/Reward/Gift Vehicle Characteristics
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Silentstalker — 45 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

this one comes direct from Wargaming, the new vehicle characteristics, as they appear in 9.4 supertest. Statistics are unmodified, “garage” ones.

Object 260 Model 1945

Tier 10 HT
Hitpoints: 2100
Engine: 1200 hp
Weight: 61,3 tons
Power-to-weight: 19,57 hp/t
Maximum speed: 60 km/h
Hull traverse: 28 deg/sHull armor: 150/150/70
Turret armor: 350/240/100

Gun: 122mm BL-13-1
Damage: 390/390/465
Penetration: 225/265/68
DPM: 1903
ROF: 4,88
Accuracy: 0,37
Aimtime: 2,8s
Turret traverse: 26 deg/s

Viewrange: 400
Radiorange: 720

Panther mit 88mm

Tier 8 MT
Hitpoints: 1500
Engine: 600 hp
Weight: 46,5 tons
Power-to-weight: 12,9 hp/t
Maximum speed: 46 km/h
Hull traverse: 38 deg/s

Hull armor: 80/50/40
Turret armor: 120/60/60

Gun: 8,8cm Kw.K. 43 L/71
Damage: 240/240/295
Penetration: 203/237/44
DPM: 2088
ROF: 8,7
Accuracy: 0,32
Aimtime: 2,5s
Turret traverse: 32 deg/s

Viewrange: 390
Radiorange: 550

T 55A (renamed from T-55A NVA DDR)

Tier 9 MT
Hitpoints: 1700
Engine: 580 hp
Weight: 37,5 tons
Power-to-weight: 15,46 hp/t
Maximum speed: 50 km/h
Hull traverse: 50 deg/s

Hull armor: 100/80/45
Turret armor: 200/160/65

Gun: 100mm Panzerkanone D-10T2S L/56
Damage: 320/320/420
Penetration: 201/330/50
DPM: 2524
ROF: 7,89
Accuracy: 0,33
Aimtime: 2,1s
Turret traverse: 46 deg/s

Viewrange: 395
Radiorange: 730

Panzer II Ausf.D

Tier 2 LT
Hitpoints: 210
Engine: 140 hp
Weight: 11 tons
Power-to-weight: 12,72 hp/t
Maximum speed: 55 km/h
Hull traverse: 45 deg/s

Hull armor: 30/14/14
Turret armor: 14/14/14

Gun: 2cm KwK 30
Damage: 11/11
Penetration: 23/46
Clip: 10 rounds
Cycling time: 0,21s
Reload time: 4,2s
Accuracy: 0,57
Aimtime: 1,4s
Turret traverse: 44 deg/s

Viewrange: 320
Radiorange: 345

M56 Scorpion

Tier 8 TD
Hitpoints: 1050
Engine: 200 hp
Weight: 7,14 tons
Power-to-weight: 28,01 hp/t
Maximum speed: 40 km/h
Hull traverse: 45 deg/s

Hull armor: 1/1/1

Gun: 90mm M54
Damage: 240/240/320
Penetration: 219/275/45
Rate of fire: 7,69
DPM: 1845,6
Accuracy: 0,3
Aimtime: 2
Gun traverse rate: 12 deg/s

Viewrange: 400
Radiorange: 500

StuG IV

Tier 5 TD
Hitpoints: 360
Engine: 300 hp
Weight: 11,58 tons
Power-to-weight: 28,01 hp/t
Maximum speed: 38 km/h
Hull traverse: 44 deg/s

Hull armor: 80/30/20

Gun: 75mm StuK 40 L/48
Damage: 110/110/175
Penetration: 110/158/38
Rate of fire: 16,22
DPM: 1784,2
Accuracy: 0,35
Aimtime: 1,6
Gun traverse rate: 44 deg/s

Viewrange: 310
Radiorange: 620

T28 Concept

Tier 7 TD
Hitpoints: 900
Engine: 960 hp
Weight: 70 tons
Power-to-weight: 13,71 hp/t
Maximum speed: 29 km/h
Hull traverse: 18 deg/s

Hull armor: 203/101/50

Gun: 105mm T5
Damage: 320/320/420
Penetration: 181/224/53
Rate of fire: 6,74
DPM: 2156,8
Accuracy: 0,4
Aimtime: 2,1
Gun traverse rate: 18 deg/s

Viewrange: 370
Radiorange: 570

10.10.2014
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Silentstalker — 16 Comments ↓
- Veider on some of the comments regarding supertest vehicle stats: “stats of unfinished leaked tanks can be very different from their release version. It’s pointless to discuss those stats. Discuss only the look of the vehicle. Although it too can change in the final version.”
- apparently, the Object 260 will not be a CW/SH reward tank
- Storm states that the “1mm” armor of the Scorpion is historical, it was just a metal sheet on the frame to protect the crew from the elements, like a car
- Storm states that this picture, showing the Object 260, is incorrect. Developers used this drawing as reference instead.
- Q: “If Object 260 will be available for random players, I’ll sell my kidney to get it and then I’ll wank over it” A: “You don’t have to sell your kindey to wank ”
- details about how to get Object 260 will come later but it will NOT be a CW vehicle
- German T55A? Storm: “It’s more like trolling of germanlovers than oppressing the sovietlovers.”
- Evilly on FV4202 switch: “If there is a mission to get the FV4202, it will be activated by the presence of FV4202 in the hangar”
- new sounds will come very soon

Fury Heads and Names in WoT
Posted on October 11, 2014 by Silentstalker — 10 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

the micropatch today (apart from the Fury garage) brought us new faces for the “Fury” crew, along with the names from the movie (these are marked as “unavailable” for now). So now you can stare at wannabe Shia LeBoeuf and Brad Pitt in your garage as well. Although… is it just me, or do these faces look nothing like the actors?

usa-37

9.4 Supertest Patchnotes
Posted on October 10, 2014 by Silentstalker — 40 Comments ↓
As usual, these are only preliminary and possibly partial. No HD models.

Vehicles:
- M56 Scorpion, Panzer II Ausf.D, Object 260, T-55A, Panther 88, T28 Concept, StuG IV added for supertesters only
- T-34-3 and AT-15A recieved a buff (unspecified)
- camo coefficient of T-54 Light fixed
- fixed bugs in visual models of SU-100, IS-7, Jagdpanther, M24 Chaffee
- fixed bugs in collision models of M-24 Chaffee, KV-85
- fixed the names of the T67 turretsMaps:
- changes in maps Komarin, Malinovka, Airport, Arctic
- improved the performance (FPS) on Windstorm map
- some maps recieved the effect of artillery fire barrage during the 30 second countdown

Bug fixes
- fixed the bug where the render of some HD tank models reduced the performance of the game
- changed the damage model of the damage done by a turret ripped off by ammo rack explosion
- improved the quality and optimized the performance of shadow render
- optimized the performance of some UI elements
- more surnames added to the crew name list
- returned the option to disable or enable triple buffering to graphic settings
- removed the “Historical battles” option from the battle selection menu
- reworked some effects of shells hitting surfaces
- fixed the inconsistencies between visual and collision models of some evnironmental objects
- fixed some cases of tanks being “catapulted” by driving over certain evinronmental objects
- fixed some UI and game bugs in Strongholds mode
- fixed the conditions to recieve certain medals
- fixed the marker scaling on the minimap to be proportional to minimap size
- fixed the issue of platoon channel being blocked when the platoon is created
- fixed the bug where you get the “desertion” window when you quit a replay early
- fixed the bug where artefacts appear on your screen after you change the display mode
- fixed the company chat channel
- fixed the “freezing” of the company search window during the creation of a platoon
- fixed the bug where you got stuck on “reloading tank crew status” wheel in the hangar when exiting the battle
- fixed the fifth perk icon display
- fixed some “freezes” and crashes of the game client
- fixed the conditions of the “Hunter” medal
- fixed the bug where the server selection is resetted during an unsuccessful attempt to log in (for example by entering wrong password)
- fixed some replay recording issues
- fixed the clan logo appearance in hangar on resolutions of 1280 (horizontal) and higher

Straight Outta Supertest: Object 260 and T28 Armor
Posted on October 11, 2014 by Silentstalker — 15 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

you asked about the Object 260 and T28 Concept armor layout, so here it is. Notice several things:

- the mantlet of Object 260 is only 250mm thick, unsloped and there is nothing behind it
- Object 260 roof is extremely thin
- the T28 Concept miniturrets on each side are only 101mm thick

(note that the T28 Concept gun traverse is 30 degrees on each side with cca 4,5 degrees of gun depression)

Fury Heads Comparison
Posted on October 11, 2014 by Silentstalker — 4 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

thanks to Flyingd for the picture. In the previous post today, I have posted the new micropatch “Fury” face. You guys kinda thought that these heads were in the game before and I posted nothing new. Well… you were partially right, but so was I. The Fury heads are “new”, as in they came in the micropatch. You see, they took the old faces and recycled changed them slightly to resemble the Fury actors a bit. Check this out.

New “Fury” face is on the left, the “old” one (as to patch 9.1) is on the right:http://ftr.wot-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/fac4.jpg

Storm’s Microdigest
Posted on October 11, 2014 by Silentstalker — 35 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

Storm posted another of his “microdigests”. It’s really small – in it, he publishes two things:

- today, he was appointed the chief strategist (lit. “visionary”) for game balance and game mechanics
- developers are working on “smoothing” the maps, getting rid of “microrelief”, by which he means “fixing the existing issues” with small hills or something (it’s not very clear, what I understood under that is making the small hill edges less “jagged”). It will begin in 9.5 and will be done with the speed of 2-3 maps per patch. Storm however states that large map features will remain, the “microrelief” adjustment concerns small height increases and decreases. The goal is to allow tanks with bad depression to fight without suddenly aiming their gun above the enemy tank’s turret and to make fast tanks not lose their speed too much on such spots. It does however NOT concern like one meter hills/obstacles, that allow tanks to use depression.

From the discussion:

- arty will not be removed from the game.
- one player’s reaction on that statement above: “FUUUUUU”, Marschig (another developer): “Oh yes and someone has to make sure the artyphobes suffer ”
- very small surface irregularities will be compensated by new motion physics
- the 70 Mb micropatch broke XVM because of the new tank introduction
- new terrain render was not yet introduced
- “Fury” Sherman does not have limited MM
- Storm’s occupation for near future? “I will think about balancing problems”
- currently, developers are solving the following issues (those come first): camo + spotting, accuracy spread- accuracy on the move won’t be nerfed – Storm: “fucking around with accuracy on the move leads to camping” (SS: lit. “masturbating in bushes”)
- new WoT sounds will come very soon
- Fury Sherman weight is correct, it’s caused by “the equipment on the vehicle”
- the “War Thunder” type hangar (where you can inspect armor, modules, crew layout) will come “when it’s done”, according to Storm this feature is not THAT important. It will apparently include only the armor schematics, not the module layout.
- Malinovka will be reworked in 9.4
- Batchat was not nerfed recently
- some maps will be completely removed from the game. Currently, developers are discussing which ones.
- Storms state that 44 maps in the game is too much, it’s very hard to work with such number
- Japanese will get a “Patton-like” premium medium tank (SS: ST-A2B)
- premium tier 8 medium Soviet tank will come in 2015, the T-54 Model 1945
- Storm wants to nerf the accuracy a bit (to return it partially to the old one, but not totally)
- penetration as a whole is going to be studied as well
- when the new batch of statistics arrive, developers will also decide if there’s too much gold rounds for credits flying around and whether it’s a problem or not
- the issue, where driving to the foot of the hill slows your tank too much will also be fixed with new physics
- Panzer IV Schmalturm will get the side armor plates to act as spaced armor, when it is reworked to HD
- all tanks will be reworked to HD, including the rare ones like A-32
- the original plan for HD tanks was to rework to HD first those tanks, that fought and are very well known

I suppose everyone knows about the exploit where when you put a less-than-50 percent driver into your racing Chaffee (for example by using a driver re-trained to American artillery), you will not accelerate any slower (or only by a little), but the vehicle will not drift at all, right? If anyone used this exploit during the tournament, they had a HUGE advantage. Oh well, Wargaming as usual.

In any case, here’s the translation today.

- there will apparently be a poll by Storm (not binding) to find out which maps the players want to remove
- Evilly confirms that the individual missions are currently in test mode
- apparently, the ISP’s of Ukraine were causing serious lags and crashes for WoT players lately
- Storm states that 7/42 battles (TB) are played more than WG expected
- there will be no HD model reworks in 9.4
- there is unfortunately “a lot of various problems” with HD model rework (SS: what I could piece together from various sources is that basically, WG outsourced the entire model re-work, which caused quite a lot of problems, the outsourcing companies (from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine) could not provide sufficient quality of the models and there were issues with communication. WG in tried several and at this point, WG’s own artists are creating the HD model themselves)

Straight Outta Supertest: Malinovka, Stalingrad and Stickers
Posted on October 11, 2014 by Silentstalker — 25 Comments ↓
Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3543801.html

Hello everyone,

a couple of smaller things from the supertest. First, the new upcoming Stalingrad map (hopefuly in 9.5), 900x900m city mapThe changes to Malinovka are apparently small ones. Or rather one small change – the rest of the map is unchanged.And, last but not least, these “clan stickers” were found in the patch game files. No idea what they are for.http://ftr.wot-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/clan.png

Havok? 9.6
Posted on October 12, 2014 by Silentstalker — 25 Comments ↓
Thanks to André (and one other reader) for his info.

Hello everyone,

during the recent community meeting in the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil, a Wargaming community manager I know only as “Steve” specifically confirmed the following:

- Havok will come in patch 9.6
- patch 9.6 is scheduled for January at this moment

So, thanks, Steve!

12.10.2014
Posted on October 12, 2014 by Silentstalker — No Comments ↓
- developers are considering a separate server for South America
- Q: “Why, when I am moving and I see a target and I stop and switch to sniper mode, the aim circle doesn’t get smaller for a second or two?” A (SerB): “If you were able to read (and understand what you are reading), you would find the answer to this (many times asked) question (it was answered numerous times).” (SS: it’s because the circle is bigger than the sniper mode view and doesn’t fit the screen)
- arty and HE rebalance coming? Storm: “Most likely not.”
- Q: “Arty should be buffed, it sucks” A: “On the other hand, statistically arty is doing fine and to buff it would be a mistake. Unless you mean rebalance it completely (buff something, nerf something else). But for now, we have more pressing issues to deal with.”
- Storm states that reworking (smoothing) the maps is worth doing even though new motion physics will make the vehicles ignore really small terrain features and not lose speed on small objects- the general accuracy nerf will involve reducing the chance of hitting the dead center of your aim circle, shots are hitting there too much
- Storm states that in WoT garage, you will not be able to see internal module setup: “We didn’t removedthe modules from the client only to show them later to everyone. So only armor.”
- the problem with T-44-85 was that for one, it was tier 7 premium and secondly, even for such a tier the penetration was not very good. According to Storm, statistics have shown that noone wants low penetration premiums in general. Therefore, there’s no reason to implement it.
- Russians are moaning about EU TOG mission. Evilly counters: “And in China, they are selling Type 59 ”
- individual missions will be further developed
- A-32 buff? “If we find out it’s unplayable.”
- HD model of M4A3E8 will not come in 9.4, despite the fact that Fury is in HD already, as the model is different from the Fury one
- Storm states that the whine about noone using the Maus is exaggerated, a “completely acceptable” amount of people are using it
- a new map for lowtier tanks will come, but not in 9.4
- Type 62 crew will be fixed in 9.4
- HD IS-3 will come “at some point”, not in 9.4
- regarding the Sixth Sense rework, developers decided to do it the way they decided (to give it to everyone) because they have found a number of cases and examples, where Sixth Sense improves battle dynamics
- it’s possible other elements of UI will be reworked as well in the future
- first HD premium tanks will be tested in 9.4 (SS: the Panther 88, Scorpion and others)
- the HD vehicle images that were published some time ago belong to “testing vehicles”, which do not meet the current HD standards. They will be reworked.
- the current issues with T-54 (SS: not sure what Storm is referring to) will be fixed in first half of 2015
- gold ammo statistics will be investigated
- developers have considered for a long time, whether to give the Soviet tanks their historical gun depression (SS: in some cases, it was worse than it is in the game, WoT has it buffed), but decided not to do it, as the depression for the Soviets is not good in general, but not as bad as in real life.
- 9.4 will bring mostly fixes
- WG is trying to save as much traffic as possible, for example by having icons on minimap “jump” and not move fluently. This is important for “data center”, according to Storm, because its “outbound channels” might not otherwise handle the traffic. For the same reason tanks, that are very far, are moving by “jumping” as well
- there is a heated debate raging during the implementation of new parks, developers are working on it
- “drawing on minimap” is not planned for now
- Q: “Remove sixth sense, it was better without it.” A: “Sixth sense is already more than three years old and it’s fine.”
- Storm confirms that the strange T55A armor preview was caused by bad viewer.

Interview with Evilly (9.4+ Plans Etc.)
Posted on October 13, 2014 by Silentstalker — 5 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

one more interview with Evilly video popped up. Here are its contents.

- Strongholds mode was made to create a clan “eco system” for clan players
- CW map is getting reworked to “CW 2.0″, it’s a “redesign” with changed content and architecture, the design will be more flexible in order for WG to make various events on the map quicker
- attack and encounter will appear on CW map
- 9.4 is still planned for October, it will have “Strongholds 1.1″ (SS: oddly enough, 9.4 supertest does not include this)
- in current Stronghold, a shop will appear, where clans will be able to buy special vehicles and camos for SH resources
- this shop will also feature some of the already existing CW reward tanks
- Evilly mentions “clan consumables” (aerial recon, air raid, artillery fire support, mines, bunkers)
- these consumables will be useable in Stronghold mode and under certain conditions also in Clanwars
- in the video (linked above), from 4:55 onwards, you can see the artillery support consumable working (as said before, player will be able to select strength, area, elevation and other stuff), commander will open “tactical pad” and will select a square on which the artillery support will be applied- there will also be “counter-consumables” and there will be a definite number of how many you can use in battle
- these consumables will NOT be usable in random battles, only in clan modes
- two more patches will come in 2014 (9.4, 9.5)
- 9.4 will be a technical patch and cybersports mode will be changed in it (from 7/42 to 7/54)
- 9.5 will be big and will have a lot of content, it will bring a British TD branch, which will start from medium tanks, tier 6 will be Sherman Firefly
- WG is slowly bringing clan functions (management) into the client
- 9.5 will also bring individual missions system – those are big and complicated missions only the player gets individually, these will last for long time and the rewards are unique
- the first version of individual missions will bring 4 unique reward tanks of tiers 7-10 (SS: now you know what the Object 260, T55A, T28 Concept are for), depending on how much complicated mission you complete is
- the first map with Havok will be Stalingrad, it will not come in 9.4
- client physics will be added in first quarter of 2015 (SS: 9.6)
- new motion physics will bring improved interaction with various surfaces, handbrake etc.
- the tank races do NOT use new motion physics (tanks won’t drift like that)
- developers are working on “mini stronghold” for every player (without clans), with bonuses and consumables, this is only in discussion stage
- developers are considering introducing the SH interface to mobile devices
- developers are currently working on PvE, historical battles will be a PvE mode: a “team of people against bots will fulfill historical scenarios” and they will be ranked by score (how fast they fulfill it for example), there will also be unique historical map
- another mode WG is working on is “PvE survival mode”, they are also working on modes for endgame players with one or more tier 10 tanks
- there will NOT be skill MM, Evilly explains why (basically “if you are skilled, you have the right to pwn”, if you want teams of equally skilled opponents, play team battles or CW), but the developers are looking into some sort of ladder/league system.
- Evilly states that despite some deep analysis attempts (and involvement of “analytical center”, whatever that is), “noone can prove that skill MM would improve the gameplay”. Developers are considering making some sort of “fun” event to test something like that (like previous races or football), but it will definitely not be released just so as random skill MM.
- third CW campaign is planned for the end of this year, the reward for it will be Object 907, or you can pick one of three tanks (907, M60 or VK7201). Third campaign was delayed by the release od Strongholds mode.

13.10.2014
Posted on October 13, 2014 by Silentstalker — 116 Comments ↓
- developers confirm that this T 55A armor model is correct
- T 55A armor is “almost full copy of elite T-54″, with the differences being in the rear hull and the fact it is missing second the second cupola on the roof
- T-44-85 150mm penetration sufficient for tier 7 premium? “That was with the introduction of fake shells.” (SS: heh I was wondering whether the 150mm magical Soviet shells are fake – and yea, seems so)
- T-44-85 will not be introduced as a light tank (SS: yes, someone is actually asking that)
- KV-5 is doing just fine statistically, it won’t be buffed (Storm adds: “we checked it several times”)
- Storm, reacting on the “Fury underpowered” whine: “It’s generally only a little different from the regular M4A3E8. And M4A3E8 is doing very well statistically.”
- Esc key will not be used to quit the MM queue, because it already opens the menu and the developers don’t want to screw around with existing bindings
- Sixth Sense rework will come neither in 9.4 nor in 9.5
- Storm admits that after the Sixth Sense rework, KV-5 (with its radioman) will have a problem, developers will investigate whether this has to be compensated somehow
- Storm considers Sixth Sense beneficial to game dynamics for example during active scouting and in cases when you peek out from a rock and if the bulb doesn’t light up, you are free to go
- Chinese gun depression buff? “I will not promise anything”
- +/-1 MM will not be introduced (“Definitely not for many reasons”)
- Q: “Can you introduce a mode where only vehicles of the same tier would fight 15vs15?” A: “What would be the point of sucha mode?”
- it’s not possible to “smoothen” the “microrelief” of the map only in physics and to leave it visually the same

Object 777
Posted on October 13, 2014 by Silentstalker — 76 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

in Russian archives, several new vehicles were discovered some time ago. This is one of them – the mighty Object 777 heavy tank. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, nothing was published of this monster other than it’s a heavy tank prototype from after the war and that it was to be armed with the 122mm M62 gun (ingame IS-8 top gun).http://ftr.wot-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/777.pngWargaming has a complete set of data about this vehicle (unfortunately, they haven’t published anything yet) and unless it’s too OP, it’s possible we will see this tank in the game – almost certianly not as a regular vehicle, but possibly as a tier 10 reward or something. It would be a shame to leave it out, as it’s certainly one of the prettiest Soviet tanks I have ever seen.

The armor looks massive and well-sloped though, so who knows, maybe it’s too powerful for WoT. In that case – AW, here’s your tier 1

13.10.2014
Posted on October 13, 2014 by Silentstalker — 116 Comments ↓
- developers confirm that this T 55A armor model is correct
- T 55A armor is “almost full copy of elite T-54″, with the differences being in the rear hull and the fact it is missing second the second cupola on the roof
- T-44-85 150mm penetration sufficient for tier 7 premium? “That was with the introduction of fake shells.” (SS: heh I was wondering whether the 150mm magical Soviet shells are fake – and yea, seems so)
- T-44-85 will not be introduced as a light tank (SS: yes, someone is actually asking that)
- KV-5 is doing just fine statistically, it won’t be buffed (Storm adds: “we checked it several times”)
- Storm, reacting on the “Fury underpowered” whine: “It’s generally only a little different from the regular M4A3E8. And M4A3E8 is doing very well statistically.”
- Esc key will not be used to quit the MM queue, because it already opens the menu and the developers don’t want to screw around with existing bindings
- Sixth Sense rework will come neither in 9.4 nor in 9.5
- Storm admits that after the Sixth Sense rework, KV-5 (with its radioman) will have a problem, developers will investigate whether this has to be compensated somehow
- Storm considers Sixth Sense beneficial to game dynamics for example during active scouting and in cases when you peek out from a rock and if the bulb doesn’t light up, you are free to go
- Chinese gun depression buff? “I will not promise anything”
- +/-1 MM will not be introduced (“Definitely not for many reasons”)
- Q: “Can you introduce a mode where only vehicles of the same tier would fight 15vs15?” A: “What would be the point of sucha mode?”
- it’s not possible to “smoothen” the “microrelief” of the map only in physics and to leave it visually the same

Insider Talks: Vehicle Rentals and Recruitment
Posted on October 13, 2014 by Silentstalker — 30 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

today, the Insider brings two interesting tidbits of information. First, you know how a lot of people wanted the “tank rental” (hiring a premium tank for a limited time)? Apparently, developers are considering it. Recently, certain references were implemented in the upcoming WoT patch (0.9.4), pointing at the option to rent vehicles (unspecified what type) for a limited time either for credits, or for gold. Whether at all or when exactly this option will appear is not known.

Second interesting fact is that Wargaming is planning an invite program, called “Recruitment”. Basically, if you invite a player (friend or whatever) to play World of Tanks and you platoon with him/her, you will not only get bonuses in the game (bonus XP), you might also recieve unique tank as a reward, IF the recruit you brought in purchases a tier 10 vehicle. This too is in the 0.9.4 files, but there is no ETA on this feature either.

14.10.2014
Posted on October 14, 2014 by Silentstalker — 63 Comments ↓
- Storm states that when it comes to Chinese, French and Japanese tank and their rework to HD, “they are of secondary concern”
- M4A3E8 in HD will not come either in 9.4 or in 9.5
- apparently, the M4A3E8 will be “made from scratch” by some new outsourcer and will not be based on the “Fury” HD model
- “there is no info” on the KV-5 variant, that allegedly had more armor on the infamous radioman miniturret
- Panzer V/IV will not be transferred to tier 5 (it is on Xbox)
- there are no plans to allow you to re-buy a premium tank you once already had and sold back for credits
- regarding the “microrelief” rework Storm announced – it concerns various terrain irregularities up to the height of half a meter (eg. the ones within the usual clearance)
- LTTB is two times lighter than AFK Panther “due to its dimensions”
- T49 will not get a second alternative 90mm gun- Havok will work mostly on your CPU, not your videocard
- equal teams in random battles? “If you want equal teams, you can play team battles.”
- for now, there are no plans for more camo patterns
- Storm states that lags during peak times are normal, especially in the evening, the ISP channels are clogged
- gold shells will be investigated, but according to Storm, the chance of changes in gold shells is “20 percent at most”
- developers currently don’t see any issue with the amount of arties in battles
- Storm doesn’t consider a certain part of a map being occupied by unpasseble terrain to be a problem
- the upcoming accuracy nerf will happen in order to “reduce the combat distance and increase the role of armor in battle”
- 1,2 or 3 old perks will be removed during the great perk overhaul, according to Storm, these changes will not change the gameplay much, only a bit
- there is still a lot of time until Panzer IV Schmalturm gets reworked to HD
- Storm is aware of the bug where in sniper mode, a transluescent (near) bush starts to “blink”. It will be fixed.

Evilly, regarding the ingame missions and their ability to teach players to play properly (a player was complaining that they do not fulfill this function): “Yes, it’s like that. Missions do not fulfill the educational purpose, not all of them have it like that definitely …… we do attempt to reward skillful gameplay, but keep in mind that ‘skill’ is a loose idea. Winrate does not work, in two battles a player can lose one badly with 0 damage while carrying the team in the second one. There aren’t that many success criteria out there. In various missions, there are basic public or hidden anti-bot conditions. We are trying to put it like that together.”

- Evilly confirms that developers are trying to hand out less credits in missions than before
- Wargaming apparently cannot afford (in terms of their ingame economy) to let players choose a reward they want for missions, plus the ingame mechanism is not implemented yet. If it appears, WG will run experiments.
- there will be more “IS-6″ and “Super Pershing” missions in the future, without the tough conditions like “complete a quest 27 days out of 30″
- unique missions for random players will come in 9.5, they will be complicated. These will be rewarded by premium tanks.
- there is no plan to make missions for experienced players (by winrate) harder, developers will do something like that “using other means”

Evilly also mentions future plans of Wargaming:

- individual missions with unique tanks as rewards (unique emblems and crews will come later). These will be complicated, different from regular missions.
- targetted missions – missions targetted at various groups, such as newbies, people who left WoT to make them return
- events (SS: as in weekly, weekend “specials” and such) concept will be reworked: the ones with too many rewards will be reduced in order to return value to these events
- interface of missions will be fixed/reworked
- tokens: “get a token, pick a mission, buy a premium, get a token, activate mission” (SS: no idea what this is)

Going further:

- Evilly confirms the existence of the Recruitment project. In the eyes of WG, there is however no difference between a newbie and a twink in this sense, will work for both apparently
- the amount of events (weekly, weekends etc.) will not be reduced, but their content will be handled (as written above)
- apparently, Object 260, T55A and other tanks (SS: T28 Concept as well apparently) will be obtainable by individual players through the “individual missions”
- individual inscriptions (players writing whatever they want on their tank) will not be implemented

The discussion was pretty long actually, I’d have to translate everything literally to make sense and even I don’t understand some of the sland used in there, so I’ll just leave it as it is. To sum it up: individual missions are coming, they will be complicated. Plus, newbies will be more educated by mission system in the future, for example by being told to do as much damage as they have hitpoints of their tanks.

Storm Asks About Class Balance
Posted on October 17, 2014 by Silentstalker — 194 Comments ↓
Source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/304930.html

Hello everyone,

Storm once again made a post, in which he asks players about their opinion, this time about the “balance”, specifically what they think about:

- balance of classes as a whole
- balance of various tiers and issues in it
- balance of individual vehicles
- system issues of balance, for example “too much viewrange” or “too much penetration”
- system issues of game mechanics, for example camo, or penetration mechanism

He also notes that this topic is NOT about MM.

From the discussion:

- the 25 percent RNG in the game (for example damage, penetration) does NOT use even spread (SS: there is a higher chance to get the average damage than one of the extremes), therefore it won’t be reduced, Storm think it’s just fine
- there is a general idea for WoT to reduce everyone’s viewrange apart from LT’s
- the change above is not the “big spotting system change” promised earlier, it’s just a small part of it
- the rule where both teams have to have the same amount of scouts (with tolerance) will not be removed
- if ALL the premium tanks were to get limited MM, it would come with a nerf, because otherwise some would be too OP (“pwning without end is cool for only one side”)
- +/-2 MM will not be reduced as a whole
- Bulldog model (regarding proper depression) will be fixed in 9.4
- Storm considers the majority of the maps to be fine (apart from some individual map issues)
- Storm on artillery DPM buff proposal: “If the damage output of artillery will be the same as the one of other classes, artillery will dominate. We had that already.”

And what do YOU think about balance of various vehicles? Will link the discussion to Storm later (if it’s not full of profanities and such crap, so if you want your feedback to be linked to Storm, please be polite).

9.4 Feedback – Sounds And All That
Posted on October 18, 2014 by Silentstalker — 53 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

I downloaded the 9.4 test server today to test… well, nothing. There is not a single thing to test, because the patch is kinda full of fixes. There were some minor changes to maps and I just ran Arctic to see if I would spot them, but I didn’t, so I guess it’s the “we added a bush here” and “we moved this rock a bit to the left” level. If anyone has a list of map changes or something, I’d be grateful.

The patch comes with two things:

- first, the shadow render is supposed to be optimized and there are supposed to be more optimizations as well. Hm… I don’t know. I tested the patch on two computers actually (specifically because of the performance) – my old PC (with shadows disabled): no real FPS increase, but no noticeable drop. The new PC, that can run shadows – the shadows look the same (not sure what exactly got “optimized”) and there seems to be a tiny FPS increase, but it might be a placebo. On the other hand, other players report FPS increases, so there’s that at least, hopefully the patch helps you as well.- second, MANY players report a nasty bug, where shells disappear or fly through tanks. Again, hard to say, I haven’t noticed it, but as I said, more players report it. Either way, it’s just the first iteration, I guess they’ll get any such nasty bugs fixed.

Oh yea and then thery’s the new gun sound. I made a video of the sounds – you be the judge, but personally, the high caliber “pop” is… not so cool. I don’t know how the hell they recorded it and where from, but there’s no way a high caliber cannon, capable of blasting buildings to bits, sounds like an airgun. See separate post for that.

Anyway… no HD models, no new tanks, no Stalingrad (what happened to it anyway, if you don’t want to release it, why put it in ASAP video?)… nothing to really write about. At least the FPS didn’t drop.

WG EU Events in November
Posted on October 19, 2014 by Silentstalker — 1 Comment ↓
Hello everyone,

again, thanks to the Insider, a list of missions and events for EU server for November. Enjoy!

By the way, notice the amount of missions (specifically the monthlies), that lead to increased XP on “dead end” vehicles (tier 10′s, premiums) – it’s a nice attempt to make people convert XP.

Top of the Tree (1.11.-15.11.) – Object 140
Top of the Tree (15.11.-1.12.) – Object 261

1.11.-1.12. Monthly Missions
- play tier 10 vehicle in random/SH, be in top 10 in XP, get double XP
- play 10 battles in a tier 5+ vehicle once per day, be in top 10 XP, get 5 gold repair kits
- repeat the mission above 20 times, get 500k credits (once per account)

3.11.-8.11. “Fury weekly missions”

- get 3000XP on tier 4-8 US tank (while being in top 10 in XP, maximum 3x per day), get 2 gold repair kits
- get 3000XP on tier 4-8 German tank (while being in top 10 in XP, maximum 3x per day), get 2 gold repair kits
- win 5 battles using the M4A3E8 “Fury” special tank while being in top 10 XP, get x5 XP

8.11.-11.11. “Fury weekend”

At the end of this weekend event, Fury hangar disappears.

- triple crew XP
- equipment discount 25 percent
- consumables discount 50 percent
- premium account discount (3 days for 350, 7 days for 680)
- free 2 days of premium for everyone upon login

- destroy at least 2 US tanks in one battle while being in top 10 XP (in a tier 4+ tank, must survive the battle), get 25 percent XP bonus
- destroy at least 2 German tanks in one battle while being in top 10 XP (in a tier 4+ tank, must survive the battle), get 25 percent XP bonus
- earn 75000 XP during this event on a tier 4+ tank, get 5 gold extinguishers, 5 gold repair kits, 5 gold medkits and 500000 credits
- win 5 battles using the M4A3E8 “Fury” special tank while being in top 10 XP, get x5 XP11.11.-17.11. “Veteran’s Day” event

Oddly enough, this week-long event also has discounts and such.

- 5x XP for first victory
- tier 8 regular vehicles: 15 percent discount
- 50 percent discount on camo, emblems, inscriptions

- destroy 11 vehicles once per day in tier 7+ vehicle, get 25 percent credit bonus for that one battle
- win 11 battles once per day in tier 7+ vehicle, get 50 percent credit bonus for that one battle
- earn 111.111 (yes, 111k) XP while being in top 11 in XP in a tier 7+ vehicle once per account, get 11 gold repair kits and coated optics (there are elevens everywhere because of the number 11 symbolism related to WW1)
- complete the three missions above at least once each, get 3 days of premium
- win a battle in tier 9 and 10 tank while being in top 10 XP, get 50 percent crew XP bonus

(between 17.11. and 22.11. there is nothing special, only the monthly missions)

22.11.-25.11. “Brothers in Arms”

- double crew XP for every battle
- win a battle in platoon while recieving the Brothers in Arms medal in a tier 4+ tank, get triple XP
- win 30 battles in platoon, every platoon member has to do at least 750 damage in a tier 4+ vehicle, get coated optics equipment (once per account)
- earn 60000 XP in random battles on tier 4+ vehicle (once per account, must not be in platoon), get coated optics equipment

29.11.-3.12. “Winter is Coming”

Discounts:
- triple XP for first victory
- 50 percent credit/gold discount on tier 2-5 regular premium and regular vehicles
- 50 percent discount on crew training, crew reset,
- 50 percent discount on consumables
- 50 percent discount on barracks slots, garage slots

Missions:
- get 20000 XP (must be in top 10 in XP) on tier 4+ vehicle, get 10 gold fire extinguishers
- complete mission above 2 times, get 1 day of prem

Insider Info – Short
Posted on October 19, 2014 by Silentstalker — 14 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

just a really short info from the Insider about what’s going on in Wargaming:

- Insider mentions that there have been MANY at WG reports of one bug (apparently on live server, this info comes from the day before the test started): HEAT is apparently broken, the mechanism of spaced armor triggering HEAT is allegedly not working and HEAT works thus as a regular AP shell. It was allegedly tested on E100 spaced armor (mantlet) and T110E3 mantlet and confirmed. I personally was not able to reproduce the results, so it’s possible it was hotfixed server-side.

- developers are now strongly discouraged from mentioning War Thunder and comparing it to WoT and encouraged to focus on their own game design instead.

- some developers (including apparently, Richard “Challenger” Cutland) found an interesting info about British ships for WoWs, they are asked to scan it over immediately, as the WoWs team wants to have the Royal Navy tree concept ready before the end of the year

ASIA Plans for Clanwars
Posted on October 19, 2014 by Silentstalker — 7 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

an interesting info found its way to me. I have absolutely no idea whether this is official or a leak, so I’ll just keep the person who sent it to me out of it. The message includes ASIA server plans from now to mid-2015. There are some parts of the message that made no sense to me, I ommitted them not to cause confusion. According to the info:

- the cca 400 province clanwars map on ASIA is going to be removed and replaced by a 160 province one at the end of October
- gold income is going to be reworked (cca “800 gold a province per timezone average”)
- the map change will be accompanied by a wipe
- 3rd campaign will come through Christmas
- after Christmas, it’s possible that the ASIA map will be split into two versions: one “sandbox” for experienced players, one “newbie” version for new players with tier 8 max, no tank locking, but only 25 percent of gold compared to the “full one”
- the above mentioned changes are temporary, in mid-2015, new full CW global map (“CW 2.0″) will go up, this map will be a full world map. If I understand it correctly, the entire world will not be used at the same time, but campaigns will take place in one part of the world at one time.

Interesting I guess.

9.4 Model Changes
Posted on October 19, 2014 by Silentstalker — 11 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

in this post, you can find 9.4 model changes. Most are quite subtle. The patchnotes tell us that visuals of some models were fixed (you know, SU-100 and others). Well… not exactly. From what I could gather, what WG basically did is they fucked up the texture resolution in 9.3 and introduced some HD models with lowres textures. In 9.4, this is getting fixed.

You can see it really nice on the SU-100 example, watch the mudguards (rightclick-view image for higher pic resolution – the pictures are big, so be careful):https://i.imgur.com/uRjOEoL.gifJagdpanther gets a new track color and a brace for the gun:https://i.imgur.com/BeAuYW9.gifKV-85 – top turret gets these purple… thingies, that detonate HE shells. Kinda important if you don’t want HE shells flying inside the space of your cupola, but nothing gamebreaking. Nevermind the missing mantlet, I removed it in the viewer when I was checking the space behind it for changes (gotta be thorough, you never know when WG fucks up)
https://i.imgur.com/cZ2VXM9.gifM24 Chaffee – apart from slight recoloring of top turret, I haven’t found any changes in visual or collision model.https://i.imgur.com/zVk0Ca7.gifRU251 – it’s widely known that in 9.3, the collision model is wrong, the turret doesn’t correspond to the visual model. In 9.3 common test, there was a bug where they moved the turret too low (it “sank” into the hull). In 9.3 release, they corrected the visual model but not the collision model, which remained “sunk”, now they are correcting it again.https://i.imgur.com/k0pTuIB.gifand finally, T-34 – the tracks got a bit thicker and the turret got the periscope on top removed (collision model did anyway).https://i.imgur.com/Clymhqc.gifApart from these changes, there was a bug with the tracks of several vehicles (specifically Jagdpanther and Panther), where they acted weird, when it came to seeing them highlighted as silhouettes in WoT, I suspect this got fixed.

Oh and M41 Walker Bulldog got a depression buff actually – in 9.3, the vehicle has limited elevation (worse by 2 degrees) in the sectors between 70 and 169 degrees on each side (from the axis of the vehicle, facing front). This was corrected and now M41 has the same gun depression it has when facing the turret to the front all around. It’s not really a buff, it’s a bug fix – the worse depression was there before because the early model had some visual elements that caused clipping, which were removed when it came out

19.10.2014
Posted on October 19, 2014 by Silentstalker — 32 Comments ↓
- Stalingrad will come “soon”, it will be in the next test round (9.4 test 2)
- apparently, the IS-7 gun model is still SD (developers didn’t manage to get a proper model for 9.4)
- developers are currently collecting statistics in order to implement the XP for tanking
- Storm is aware of the bug on 9.4, where shells fly through tanks, he will investigate
- the feedback on the new gun sounds is “contradictory”, according to Storm – half of players really likes it, half hates it
- the fact that some tanks were paper only or prototypes does not mean they will automatically be reworked to HD after existing vehicles
- in patch 9.6 or 9.7, WoT will transfer to new Bigworld version. Storm states that it should mean a small performance boost for the game.
- Storm confirms that after M4A3E8 is reworked to HD quality, it will get the same armor as the current Fury
- artillery won’t be buffed
- not having enough time to manage your Stronghold? “That means you are not the target audience for that mode”
- Storm states that the sounds of the high caliber guns in 9.4 are “realistic” and historical

Chaffee Sport Crew Retrain (again)
Posted on October 20, 2014 by Silentstalker — 10 Comments ↓
Thanks to Nicolafaraone92 for this one.

Hello everyone,

WG EU support (specifically, Mr. Jorge Castro) confirmed that on EU server, the M24 Chaffee Sport crew, left over from the Chaffee races, will be retrained automatically to regular M24 Chaffee crew in patch 9.4.

Other servers’ status on this issue is unknown (and different), although according to another support ticket, on ASIA server, the crew will allegedly not be retrained automatically at all

Insider Talks: Fate of T95E2
Posted on October 20, 2014 by Silentstalker — 29 Comments ↓
Hello everyone,

remember, how the Insider mentioned the recruitment program? It was confirmed later by Evilly as well. The basic idea is to get some friend of yours to play WoT and be rewarded for it by bonus XP and – in extreme cases – a special reward tank (which gets awarded after the person you recruited accumulates some amount of XP and/or reaches tier 10).

Yup, you guessed right, the special reward tank is the T95E2. I guess it’s pity on one hand, but on the other hand… well, it’s not exactly the most desireable vehicle out there.

Buff My Tank: Chi-To
Posted on October 20, 2014 by Silentstalker — 18 Comments ↓
Author: Daigensui

A problem with Japanese armor research is that most of the records have either been destroyed by firebombing, burned up after the surrender to hide involvement, carried off to the United States where they became lost (along with perhaps problematic translations made), or kept sleeping in private collections. That is why there is relatively little material to work on, leading to endless copying of the same old research (and the accompanying spreading of myths, like a 88 mm gun for Chi-Ri). However, not all is lost, since even now there are new discoveries happening.

I’ve been looking through the archives recently at the National Institute for Defense Studies (when going to Tokyo on business), and came across two files which might be used to buff Chi-To, and by extension Chi-Ri, in the future. While I cannot guarantee anything, given that these are historical records, WG might include them for accuracy in later updates. We’ll see.

For your convenience, I’ve reverse-searched the digital versions of the files at the Japan Center for Asian Historical Record, so look there if you want to do research for yourself.7.5 cm Tank Gun Type 5 Penetration

The current penetration for 7.5 cm Tank Gun Type 5 is based on two test records from late 1944:

1) Imperial Guards 3rd Division: 100 mm penetration at 1,000 meters
2) Research Team of Army College: 118 mm at 300 meters, 115 mm at 400 meters, 112 mm at 500 meters.

Using these as the basis, WG came to 124 mm for penetration at 100 meters. While it would be nice if I was able to see the documents myself, they are currently held by the JGSDF, making research very difficult. Thus, we relied on the writing of Japanese authors for these two.

Anyway, I came upon this document, which had the following chart:

GCMCBtO

Test plate: steel plate (not RHA) at 90 degrees.
Test Gun: 7.5 cm Tank Gun Type 5
Test Ammo: 7.5 cm Armor-Piercing Type 1

100 m: 200 mm
400 m: 180 mm
650 m: 160 mm
1,000 m: 140 mm
1,600 m: 100 mm
2,500 m: 60 mm

According to Japanese records, apparently steel plates had 20~25% less protection than RHA, although I frankly think it goes up even more for decent RHA. Supposing we use 30% less protection, it gives us something like the following:

100 m: 140 mm
400 m: 126 mm
650 m: 112 mm
1,000 m: 98 mm
1,600 m: 70 mm
2,500 m: 42 mm

Now, why did this happen? Frankly, I’m not sure, since the report is pretty straightforward, going immediately to “practical” applications of at what distance a Sherman, Churchill, and “M1″ Heavy (T1 for us) would be penetrate. In addition, the use of “steel plate” is troublesome, since it throws off our preception of what we’re dealing with. While it is true that steel plate was considered 20~25% weaker than RHA, this is quite off when the Soviets general used 50% off as their standard. All in all, what we can say is that the round had become more penetrating, as can bee seen at the 1,000 meter penetration (98 mm), which is similar to the Imperial Guards 3rd Division test.

If I am pressed to propose a theory, I would say that the downfall of the IJN was the leading factor in this. Despite IJA having received more funds, it was IJN that was technologically superior, with better propellent, better explosives, better access to good material (although not on an absolute scale amount). With IJN basically disappearing as a force from the face of the earth with continuous disasters, IJA could have a virtual monopoly. In addition to this, the loosening of IJA headquarters’ hold on research was lessened. Originally, IJA heaquarters had the tendency to interfere with the research of the engineers, which was why Japanese tank development was so retarded. Be it forcing the production of “hard” steel (leading to brittle plates that was easily destroyed by higher velocity rounds and problems with welding), delaying tank gun development on the grounds of unnecessity and rate of fire (apparently HQ demanded that guns be shoulder-supported, to ensure faster aiming and rate of fire, never mind limitations to caliber), or not keeping up with the times (asking for small upgrades when the engineers were already sure of greater ones). By 1945, much of the HQ interference was either lowered or ignored, with the example of Mitsubishi going its own way with armor plates to finally make RHA of world standard.

Of course, this is just speculation on my part, and frankly I’m not sure myself. What is known, is that by 1945 ammo quality had gone up, with even the US military noticing it. Thus, so far in WoT, we’re using 1944 results when by mid-1945 things have gone further.

Reference online: 『対戦車戦闘の参考（戦車関係）補遺』、アジア歴史資料センター。 C14060869100。

Chi-To Combat Weight

Sometimes you find unsuspected things while looking for something else. In this case, I came across the following while researching landing-crafts for my own personal reason of material for fiction writing:

34T3baF

This is the testing layout of the Experimental Large-Sized landing craft, basically a bigger and upgraded version of the Toku Daihatsu-class landing craft. It was 25 meters long, 4 meters wide, and 2 meters deep, with a fully loaded displacement pf 62.27 tons. It would have been able to go at a crusing speed of 8.9 knots for 2 days.

For our purposes, what is important in that drawing is the loaded tank. You can see that it is labeled “Chi-To”, along with the note “Fully Equipped Weight 29.5 Tons”. What is the importance of this? This is the first primary source I have seen of Chi-To’s combat weight. So far all we had were secondary information from researchers who were either involved in development (Hara) or related to them (Mitsubishi), and those measurements were of the prototype Chi-To at 30 tons. This primary source, which was written in 1945 when the production Chi-To was to come out, means that we have data that matches things closer to what the production Chi-To would have been like. Ultimately, this means we need to reduce the weight of Chi-To in the game.

As a side note, I have a theory on why this Experimental Large-Sized landing craft was supposed to be able to carry Chi-To. It was likely to be used to ferry Chi-To across straits to reinforce defending troops. Basically, since logistics was messed up anyway, IJA probably figured they might as well take chances individually instead of risking losing everything by sending in one boat. IJA had lost thousands of men and tons of supplies when a few transports were suck while being sent to reinforce New Guinea.

Reference online: 『設計／大型発動艇 一般配置図』、アジア歴史資料センター。 C12122163300

In conclusion, I have shown that the penetration of 7.5 cm Tank Gun Type 5 could be buffed, and combat weight of Chi-To could be reduced. While I doubt the former would be implemented for Chi-To (we already have a well-balanced gun), it can certainly be used to help buff Chi-Ri, with an estimated 175 mm penetrating gun using Toku Kou. In addition, the weight fo Chi-To points to a reduction of Chi-Ri weight, which has various sources contradicting each other. Of course, I’ll need to look into Chi-RI more, but something of a 2 ton reduction is not out of question.

I’ll be continuing my Japanese research as I can, to ensure that a distinctively historically accurate and well-balanced Japanese tree can come out. It has been my goal since I started this, and I will certainly work to keep it going.http://ftr.wot-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/34T3baF.png