War Thunder Chat, Without the Guesswork

Chat is easy to miss entirely and awkward to look up once you have, which is a common combination in War Thunder.

War Thunder models more of the vehicle than it tells you about, and the grind punishes guessing. The name is descriptive if you already know what it does, and opaque if you do not. The in-game description is technically accurate and practically useless.

How it connects to the rest of War Thunder

If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. The game introduces it quickly and assumes you picked it up, which is where the confusion starts. Community shorthand around it has drifted far enough from the original meaning to cause arguments. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

It is more consequential in the late game than the early one, which is why first impressions mislead. Its role has changed across updates, so older discussion describes something slightly different. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later.

Whether it is worth going out of your way for

Early impressions of it are usually wrong in the same specific way. Knowing this does not make you better at War Thunder, but it does make the rest of it legible. Where two approaches both work, the one with fewer moving parts is the one to keep.

• Ask what it is for before asking how to get it.
• Do not confuse it with the similarly named thing — that mix-up drives most bad advice.
• Prefer the in-game option over an external tool when both exist.
• Expect its role to have shifted at least once across updates.

Why people keep asking about it

Two similarly named things exist, and mixing them up explains a lot of contradictory advice. It appears in supplementary material in more detail than it does in the game itself. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. It became noticeably more relevant after a change the patch notes barely mentioned.

The wiki entry is thorough and buries the actually useful part six paragraphs down. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. If you only remember one thing about it, remember where it appears.

What it changes in practice

Its practical value is narrow and real, rather than broad and theoretical. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. Most guides mention it in passing and none of them stop to define it.

It shows up in more places than its introduction suggests, once you know to look. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. It is the kind of thing veterans forget they ever had to learn.

What it is

It rewards understanding rather than grinding, which is unusual for War Thunder. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Whether it is worth going out of your way for depends entirely on how you are playing.

Where people go wrong

• Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
• Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
• Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.

War Thunder FAQ

Has it changed recently?

Its role has shifted across updates more than once. Anything you read without a version attached may describe an older form of it.

Is this still accurate after the latest War Thunder update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

Why do other guides describe this differently?

Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.

Why do people disagree about it?

Usually because they are describing different versions, and occasionally because a similarly named thing exists alongside it.

Bookmark it if you like, but honestly, once you have done it once you will not need to come back.