Step 5 of 7 The seven-step path · Crest Space
Aircraft, ground vehicles or ships: choosing what to learn first
A title that contains all three vehicle types is really three games sharing an account. They reward different instincts, they are learned at different speeds, and trying to progress in all of them at once is the most common way to feel permanently stuck.
War Thunder is a useful example precisely because of that breadth — aircraft, helicopters, tanks and ships all appear in the one title. The material below describes what each line asks of a player in general terms, so that the choice of where to begin is a considered one rather than whatever the interface happened to show first.
The air line
Air combat is the fastest to start and the slowest to master. Getting an aircraft into the sky and pointed at an opponent takes a few minutes. Understanding why you keep losing turning fights takes considerably longer, because the underlying subject is energy: altitude and speed are a budget, manoeuvring spends it, and most air combat is a contest over who can spend less of it to arrive in a better position.
The first genuine skill is not aiming but situational awareness — knowing where the other aircraft are in three dimensions while you are busy with one of them. It is also the line where the difference between the assisted and unassisted modes is starkest. With a mouse-driven assisted mode, the aircraft largely flies itself and you direct it. Without that, you are handling the control surfaces directly, and the aircraft can be stalled, over-stressed or spun out of your control entirely.
Start here if
- You want to be doing something from the first thirty seconds of a match.
- Three-dimensional spatial thinking appeals to you.
- You are happy to lose repeatedly to a mechanic you cannot yet see.
Start elsewhere if
- You want early progress that feels like progress.
- You prefer deliberate decisions to continuous reaction.
- Fast-moving cameras are uncomfortable for you.
The ground line
Ground combat is slower and more positional, and for most players it is the easiest place to begin. The pace gives you time to think, the map is two-dimensional in practice, and the cause of your destruction is usually identifiable afterwards.
What makes it deep rather than simple is the armour model. Whether a shell defeats a vehicle depends on the shell type, the range it was fired from, the thickness of the plate it struck, and the angle of impact — and that last factor is under your control. Presenting your hull at an angle rather than square-on increases the effective thickness of your armour, sometimes decisively. A well-angled early tank can shrug off a shot that would go straight through it a few degrees flatter. This is the mechanic that most rewards being learned deliberately, and the one least visible to someone who has not been told about it.
Ground play also punishes impatience more than any other line. The player who drives into the open first is usually the player who is destroyed first, by somebody who was already watching that piece of ground. A great deal of early improvement is simply learning to arrive second.
Start here if
- You want the clearest relationship between decision and outcome.
- You like the idea of a mechanic you can study and apply.
- You want matches where positioning matters more than reflexes.
Start elsewhere if
- Waiting and watching sounds tedious rather than tense.
- You dislike being destroyed by something you never saw.
- You want continuous action for the whole match.
The naval line
Naval combat is the least like anything else. Engagements happen at long range, shells take meaningful time to travel, and a ship changes course in the way a very heavy object does. Aiming becomes an exercise in prediction: you are not firing at where a target is but at where it will be several seconds from now, having estimated its speed and course by eye.
It is also the line where a vessel is most obviously a collection of systems rather than a single object. Individual turrets, magazines, engine rooms and steering gear can each be knocked out, and a ship can remain afloat and fighting with a good part of itself disabled. Fires and flooding introduce a damage-control dimension that has no equivalent in the other lines.
Most players come to naval play third, and that is a reasonable order. It has the least in common with other genres, so there is little transferable instinct to lean on, and its rhythm — long stretches of manoeuvring punctuated by decisive exchanges — is an acquired taste.
Start here if
- Long-range gunnery and prediction appeal to you as a puzzle.
- You enjoy managing a complex machine under damage.
- You want something that feels unlike anything else you play.
Start elsewhere if
- You want to understand what you are doing within one session.
- Slow manoeuvring frustrates you.
- You prefer engagements where you can see the opponent clearly.
The three lines side by side
| Air | Ground | Naval | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to first understanding | Minutes to fly, months to fight well | Shortest overall | Longest overall |
| Pace | Continuous | Punctuated | Slow, with decisive moments |
| Core mechanic | Energy management | Armour angle and positioning | Range prediction and damage control |
| Cost of a mistake | Usually the vehicle | Usually the vehicle, often instantly | Often partial — a disabled system |
| Benefits from extra hardware | Most of the three | Little | Little |
| Transferable from other genres | Some, from flight games | Some, from shooters | Almost none |
Modes that mix them
Many titles offer combined modes in which aircraft, helicopters and ground vehicles operate on the same map. These are often the most interesting matches in the game and they are a poor place to begin, for the straightforward reason that you are exposed to threats from a line you have not yet learned. Being destroyed from the air while you are still working out ground tactics teaches you very little about either.
A reasonable approach is to learn one line to the point where you are making deliberate decisions rather than reacting, then add a second. The knowledge transfers in one direction better than the other: understanding what an aircraft can and cannot do makes you much harder to catch on the ground.
A note on progression across lines
Research and currency are usually tracked separately for each line and each nation. Splitting your play across three lines and several nations at once means each of them advances at a third or a fifth of the rate, which is the mechanical reason the genre’s standard advice is to concentrate. It is not about discipline; it is about how the systems are counted.
Next
Whichever line you choose, the same commercial structure sits underneath it, and at some point the game will offer you a way to progress faster for money. The next step covers what that offer usually looks like, what randomised purchases mean, and what your position is as a consumer in Australia.