22.2.2013

- Storm considers the delays between RU and EU patches "very small"
- Q: "Is the Object 907 a fake?" (SS: as in "false news", not "made up tank") A: "It's a tank project"
- the 0.4.0 WoWp render improvement won't be applied on WoT, as the tanks are developed differently
- it's possible the premium tanks will be somehow developed, for example by adding special tanks that farm only XP, others that farm only money. Storm won't disclose details, but options for premium tank development are being considered
- developers like the tutorial map a lot (SS: which means we can expect such style)
- Storm plays games on PC, he doesn't use consoles. He was also disappointed a bit by the PS-4, as it doesn't seem to be the nextgen console he expected
- platoon infestation is not considered a problem by Storm

Japanese time! (as requested, I will try to translate this part as precisely as possible):

Q: Were there many variants of the O-I tank? I found some mentions that for both the early and the late variants, more variants of turret placement were considered. Was there an O-I on Hara suspension? Were there any other suspensions? Is it true that the late variant was heavier than 130 tons? When did the Japanese start working on them - 1937? 1938? If the info on the 75mm cannon is confirmed, will it be possible to stretch the O-I from tier 5 to tier 8, like it happened with the Tortoise prototype in the British TD branch? Or is this not really needed?
A: We know of 3 variants of turret placement and of 4 variants of suspension, including the one with "40 roadwheels". The "Hara" suspension is one of the variants. Maximum weight reached is 140 tons. The work started as really difficult this year, as very few documents arrived. As for the tier spread, there are still unresolved questions. We can clearly cover tiers 7 to 9, Iwakuro tank goes to T6 normally with its 150mm (much like the 152mm KV-2), but we have problems with tier 4 and 5

Q: What are those 4 variants of suspension?
A: Hara, Bugatti, Interwoven single torsion bar, Interwoven double torsion bar

Q: Did the Japanese 80-wheeled supertank have torsion bar suspension? Was it multiturreted? Were more main gun caliber variants considered?
A: We assume, that the "40-wheeler" had both multiturret and singleturret variants. Tier 10 will be singleturreted. The guns will most likely be one 140mm gun, but if necessery, we can consider also 127mm and 150mm.

Q: Will the T10 TD based on the Chi-Ri?
A: Not yet decided. Known vehicles based on Chi-Ri (Ho-Ri 1 and Ho-Ri 2) would normally go on tier 8, since they are almost fully comparable to the Ferdinand. High tiers were not yet decided.

Q: Were the Ho-Ri I and II open-topped?
A: On canonical drawings they are shown as closed

Q: And what about Type 95, wouldn't it fit the role of Tier 4 heavy?
A: Type 91 and 95 both would normally go to tier 3, they are weak for tier 4. In the end it is possible to push Type 95 to tier 4 (and we'll probably do that anyway), but it would be better to find something else

- US H.L.Yoh tanks are being considered, but the tree won't yet be disclosed
- new unique crew abilities? "We haven't found any suitable ones yet, when we do, we will make"
- the devs want to focus on winter maps now, there will be fewer sand maps for now
- Q: "All tier 10 heavies lost their meaning!" A: "Checked your stats, shrugged, didn't read further"
- SerB considers armor-relying heavies (Maus etc.) still useful, the armor has its role
- devs prefer to remove overpowered premium tank from the shop rather than rebalancing it, because that way, if they put it back for special events, only people who really want it buy it and the battles won't get swamped by a huge number of them
- Chinese top TDs will be based on one of the current Chinese heavies, arties were not determined yet

To be continued

On supertest leaks

Hello everyone,

to clarify a few things regarding the supertest leaks (aka the VK7201 faiLowe, the Object 907 and others):

- This info does not come from some random source. A supertester decided to share the info with me directly. This is not a privilege I take lightly, I appreciate it greatly.

- No screenshots for now. It's as simple as that: you can never be sure that WG doesn't implement some kind of crap to track the leak into the supertest client. Yes, it does mean that I have no proof for my claims.

- I am not making anyone trust me - you don't have to, I won't convince you otherwise. I trust the source a lot and I will pass any interesting info he/she approves, but it's all on faith, as internal leaks usually are. As far as I am concerned, it could still be an elaborate fake or a lie.

- I will not share everything, simply because the leaks should not reach the level where it is a REAL problem for Wargaming. Noone wants WG to take drastic measures. Just some really interesting stuff, like the faiLowe.

- even if all I post is true, it does NOT mean the vehicle has to appear in the game. This is the supertest - it's all still very rough, there have been cases where designs didn't pass the supertest stage. We might not get the VK7201 faiLowe at all, if it's bad. You might ask yourselves: what are supertest leaks good for then? One thing only - they show the direction Wargaming is going and some general thought patterns. Nothing else, vehicles usually seriously change from supertest to public test, so it's pointless to post any kind of data.

I hope this is comprehensive.
-SS

Leaks, more leaks, oh my god!

You'll like this:

Straight outta supertest (not confirmed obviously but I trust the guy):

Current tanks being supertested?
T-60, T-70 light tanks, the aforementioned Object 907 and.... *drumroll please*

New Tier 10 German heavy tank, the 150mm VK7201. Apparently, the devs decided to use the "Leichter Lowe" model for some reason and strapped unhistorically thick armor on it. Looks about like this:

Leaked: Object 907 will be implemented

Object 907 will be apparently implemented as the alternative Soviet tier X medium tank. A screenshot was leaked by a supertester and Storm - when confronted with it - replied simply "when it's done, it's done".

History:

On 20.5.1952, Ministry of Defense industry of USSR organized a meeting with tank constructors and with the marshal of tank forces, I.S.Bogdanov, to discuss the future of armored forces development. The result of this meeting was a set of tank requirements from 18.6.1952. The resulting tank was to be better than T-54 - that was however no easy tasks and several teams (notably from plants no. 75, 174, 183 and research institute no.100) were tasked to make a preliminary study. The design, produced by the research institute was designated "Object 907" and - as requested - its armor was significantly better than the one of the T-54. From 1954 to 1956 the metal prototypes of the hull and turret were manufactured in order to conduct armor tests and to find ways to improve the protection even more.
There two variants of the hull. The first hull was cast as whole, the second was welded from cast components. After the tests, the protection levels of the vehicle were found to be significantly higher than the ones of the T-54 (by as much as 30 percent). The turret was (thanks to its angles) as well protected as the one of the T-10 heavy tank.
The vehicle was to be equipped with the 100mm D-10T gun, but there was a plan to install even the 122mm M-62 gun. It was to be propelled by the 700hp B12-5 diesel engine with two transmission types: hydrodynamic (like in T-54) and mechanical (like in T-34).
The vehicle stayed in the semi-prototype phase, apparently because by the time it was introduced, the production of T-54 tanks was already underway.

Characteristics:

Armor - frontal hull plate (upper part): cca 162mm
             frontal hull plate (middle part): cca 150mm
             frontal hull plate (lower part): cca 30mm
             hull sides: 60-124mm
             rear hull: 45mm
             turret sides: cca 144mm
Gun - D-10T or 122mm M-62
Engine - B12-5, 700hp
Speed - 55 km/h (45 in terrain)

Other pictures:

Armor scheme (thanks to coolathlon, EU server)

8.4 MM table

This was posted by Panzergert (EU), thanks :) Red are the ones that got changed.

21.2.2013

- only amount of platoons in battle is balanced specifically, not their MM weight
- British T8 prem won't come in 8.5
- Q: "Is it worth collecting XP on Chaffee and T-50-2 for when they are moved to T6 and the branch is prolonged?" A: "Always better to wait for announcements" (SS: in other words, another confirmation the fate of VK2801 awaits them too)
- Kampfpanzer M47 (germanised M47) will NOT be a T8 German premium medium vehicle, Storm says it's more like T9,5 material
- 0 module damage bug: Storm claims it's an old bug, around from 7.4, it will be fixed in 8.5 or 8.6
- the issue whether Leopard-1 will get a Bundeswehr cross will be solved later
- SerB on War Thunder: "Release will show what is what"
- no tier 10 premium tanks will be implemented, ever
- sub-caliber rounds do not ricochet more than AP ones in WoT
- on 7/42 companies and statistics: "If your statistics are precious to you, don't play 7/42 companies"
- SU-122-44, Panther M10 and AT-15A are doing fine statistically
- not all trees will have T8 LT's
- T-34-100 back into the game? "We rarely bury tanks for good. The tank is interesting but for now we can't tell anything about its fate"
- SerB considers IS-7 to be overnerfed
- T-64 early prototype in WoT? "We won't comment on that"
- for an ammoracked vehicle to be forced to buy all the ammo (that was destroyed during the explosion) would be too hardcore, won't be implemented
- it's not clear whether the barrel of a destroyed tank counts as "solid", it has been changed several times in the past
- SerB states that the duty to enforce the 12+ policy is on the parents, Wargaming doesn't have a way to control the player age
- those who trade their accounts are banned if the evidence is clear
- there might be a tree bridges between UK and Chinese regular vehicles and arties - SerB won't tell details, because there would be too much whine if this was changed
- SerB is happy with current Batchat155 performance
- in the Brit tree, AT8 is before AT7 due to their performance characteristics
- according to SerB, Chinese tanks are played by a normal amount of people, the most popular branch is the USSR
- it's not yet decided whether the Italians will be a part of the EU tree, or will have their own
- Japanese "O-Ni" superheavy project is unknown to Serb, he knows of other names
- SerB does not yet know, whether the Japanese light tank "57mm gun Type 5 Ke-Ho" will be implemented
- tier 2 Japanese arty was already decided, but won't be published for now
- regarding the Iwakuro tank, the only option for it was the 150mm gun, early O-I (and some others) might have a long-barreled 75mm gun (of unknown type) and a 105mm howitzer
- the bug where on minimum settings you don't see the objects properly and it can happen that you aim into a rock while you don't see anything there cannot be fixed, because in order to improve performance, the surface grid is too sparse and there might be a difference between the object picture on the server and on the client. Minimum settings should be used on really bad machines only.

And some answers from Storm (I'll just copy here the ones I did for the 8.4T2 patchnotes first, some were modified)

- Tortoise won't get the nerf, not even in 8.5
- the new Nvidia drivers contain the same bug as the old ones
- AT7 research test cost (9647 XP) is a bug, will be fixed
- the E-100 fix concerned frontal plate, (SS: not sure how it looks on the schematics but from what I understand come parts of the armor were improperly aligned (angles), causing the parts to be easy to penetrate), devs won't disclose what exactly they did, only the fact the bug was fixed
- Churchill I price confirmed to be cca 49000 (SS: 49050 stated earlier)
- on IS-6 "some little crap on the model" was fixed

0.8.4 Test 2 patchnotes

0.8.4 Test 2 patchnotes (as they differ from Test 1)

Warning: according to WG, even 314.07 Nvidia driver series don't work properly

- 0.8.4 MM and vehicle MM weights have been finalized
- fixed (finalized) the armor of Brit TDs: AT8, Alecto, FV215b, Tortoise
- finalized the XP and credit prices of new Brit TDs and German light tanks
- fixed minor model bugs on 110, WZ-131, Pz38tNa, Hetzer
- fixed model bugs on IS-6, Churchill, M6A2E1 (incorrect proportions)
- fixed the firing effect of Valentine AT
- fixed the lower frontal plate thickness of Panther, Pz V/IV, Panther M10, Jagdpanther
- fixed the correct thickness of the weld between lower and upper frontal hull place on Conqueror and Caernarvon
- fixed the tech tree location of the British premium TD AT-15A
- fixed the E-100 frontal armor bug
- returned the old depression to E-50 and E-50M
- Churchill GC is now unlocked from Churchill I
- 183mm HESH for FV215b now costs 20g
- fixed the bug where multiple critical hit sounds are incorrectly used when the player switches between tanks in post-mortem mode
- fixed some tutorial texts
- fixed the bug where there are missing cases of reports of damage when the vehicle gets detracked
- fixed some tutorial bugs
- fixed some environmental model bugs
- fixed some menu issues with accounts that are not in clans
- fixed the bug where the trees don't load, if the client is minimized during the battle loading screen
- fixed FPS drops on some configuration when explosions and fires are rendered in sniper mode
- fixed the bug where the HE damage is not randomized when the shell lands near the tank and not on it
- fixed the client crash when alt-tabbing during the battle being loaded in some cases
- fixed the incorrect display of battle data in post-battle statistics
- fixed the bug where some accounts crash when loading the garage (desynchronisation of one part of the garage)
- fixed the appearance of mouse cursor when pressing right ctrl
- fixed some problems with screen refresh rate (frequency)

Additional changes, that were forgotten in Test 1 patchnotes:

- added the option where you can select the shell type during pre-battle countdown
- changed the tracers visually
- on some configurations that use higher graphics settings, performance improves by 5-10 percent

Additional info from the discussion:

- Tortoise won't get the nerf, not even in 8.5
- the new Nvidia drivers contain the same bug as the old ones
- AT7 research test cost (9647 XP) is a bug, will be fixed
- the E-100 fix concerned frontal plate, (SS: not sure how it looks on the schematics but from what I understand come parts of the armor were improperly aligned (angles), causing the parts to be easy to penetrate)
- Churchill I price confirmed to be cca 49000 (SS: 49050 stated earlier)