The community around this game is large and spread across places that are each good at one thing.

Short answer

For anything time-sensitive, the Discord will answer in minutes where a forum takes days.

  • Report bugs officially — nowhere else reaches the developers.
  • Use the wiki for mechanics, the subreddit for whether something is fun.
  • Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.

War Thunder models more of the vehicle than it tells you about, and the grind punishes guessing. Official forums are read by developers rarely but consistently, which is why bug reports belong there. The most useful community members are the ones who cite the patch they are describing.

How current the information is

Everything below is framed around the current state of War Thunder rather than a launch-week impression. Third-party trackers and log sites are excellent for numbers and useless for context. Wikis carry a patch version; forum posts usually do not, and that difference explains most contradictions. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice.

Discord answers fast and disappears fast — nothing there is searchable a month later. Anything with an advertising incentive will overstate how urgent a change is. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you.

Contributing back

Subreddits reward strong opinions, which makes them good for taste and poor for facts. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

  • Check the patch date on anything you are about to act on.
  • Distrust any guide that does not say which version it is for.
  • Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
  • Search before asking; almost everything has been asked already.

Official channels

Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over.

It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over. Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts.

Reading community advice critically

The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. War Thunder is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look. The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time.

Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters.

Which place answers which question

There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.

Where people go wrong

  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
  • Ignoring the platform-specific note and then wondering why the steps do not line up.
  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.

War Thunder FAQ

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.

Which source is most reliable?

The wiki, by a distance, because entries carry a version and get corrected. Everything else ages silently.

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

Anything that shifts with the next War Thunder update will show up as a changed number, not a changed approach.