Once upon a time in War Thunder, we only had a handful of vehicles and an easy time grinding the limited nations available, fast forward to 2021 and there’s now tenfold the number of vehicles and ordnances available to research for each nation.  

It’s no surprise that grinding out research points in War Thunder is challenging when you’re also facing a forever changing economy, constant buffs / nerfs and compression that never makes sense… either way there’s always good tips that can help you grind to top tier vehicles at a faster rate than you normally would.

Tips for all Game Modes

  • Play whatever game mode you’re comfortable with, generally Realistic can produce more RP per in-game activity.
  • Use vehicle backups if in Realistic (purchase from WarBond Store)
  • Join Arcade Assault at least once a day (can use the same vehicle twice – stick to 3.7 or 5.0 – 6.0)
  • Use Premium Account for 100% Research Points per game if you can afford it.
  • Use a Premium Vehicle wherever possible for the bonuses to SL & RP.
  • Use Boosters where possible (purchase from WarBond Store)
  • Complete daily tasks/battle pass tasks to gain extra rewards.
  • Use Tier 2+ vehicle or premium with good reward rates.
  • As much as Event Vehicles (Free Premium Vehicles) take a lot of game-time to obtain if you’re a F2P player you should take every opportunity to get one. 

Tips on Getting Tank Arcade Research Points

  • Grind out modifications starting with Firepower and working through to armour and mobility.
  • Push with your team towards caps and achieve objects set within game modes.
  • Use main weapons and machine guns when possible to takeout and crit other player vehicles, whilst utilising the artillery strike for bigger groups of enemies for maximising hits. 
  • Similar to the point above take pot-luck shots you might not usually get with machine guns and main guns to get extra points, it’s not always about one-shotting enemies as the more damage dealt, the more game points/research points you’ll gain. 
  • Take a mixture of heavy armour (if available) and assault tanks with the addition of at least 1 AA vehicle. 

Tips on Getting Air Arcade Research Points

  • Mainly consists of ground strike / Domination.
  • Use Multi-Role Aircraft with anti-air and anti-ground ordnance.
  • If in a Domination match take a bomb load-out first spawn to take out light targets and then focus on dogfights and landing at the caps where possible.
  • Arcade is often used for SL grind over RP grind but helps along the way.

Tips on Getting Tank Realistic Research Points

  • Try to be more mobile during games and spend less time camping spots.
  • Scout targets and capture points as the main focus of your game.
  • Play with others in RB, this will help a lot with communication and covering more ground quickly, you can find a list of war thunder discords to join here.
  • Take aircraft that are built with close air support in mind.

 Tips on Getting Air Realistic Research Points

  • Play your match slowly by gaining altitude whilst scanning the areas where the enemies often fly to within that map.
  • Don’t use load-outs such as rockets unless you’re strictly going to ground pound or hunt bombers.
  • Don’t space climb and use this time to get light targets.
  • Use a talisman if you have one available (best to use on a favourite vehicle or premium).

Simulator Game Modes

Sadly, similar game modes have undergone significant changes over the past few months to prevent people from farming points with bombers, it’s one of the hardest game modes to play unless you’re using some fancy gear such as joysticks, track IR and/or VR headsets.

Bombers can be played well if you’re comfortable with a particular vehicle, the rewards have been nerfed so that once you’ve bombed a target you’ll only get half of the points until you land the aircraft and receive the full amount.

Objectives will define the game so try to help complete them as much as possible, this will also help provide a better chance at winning that match too – which will yield you a good amount RP/SL however, you can get a similar reward from realistic games but this would entirely depend on your skills, handling of the vehicle and the team you’re in.

Keep Note:

  • There are NO RP Orders nor Wagers.
  • Don’t grind PvE due to low rewards over PvP.
  • Watch out for expensive repair costs for each vehicle.
  • Don’t purchase boosted research points ( 1GE per 45RP )
  • Don’t fly bombers in Sim –high risk & not time efficient.
  • Don’t space camp – Not time efficient.

 If you’re a F2P Player

It might be a long road for free-2-play accounts on War Thunder especially since there are so many nations to choose from, one of the biggest faults any F2P player can do if they wish to get to the top tier quickly… is to try and research multiple nations all at once which is also known as spreading your butter too thin. It may take up to around 1 year for you to unlock a 10.7 vehicle if you were to grind the research tree normally, which can seem a long grind for some people.

Rank 5 Vehicles and giving up? Don’t cave in yet!

If you’re a F2P player with rank 5 vehicles and you’re almost scraping the barrel each game to gain enough SL and RP to sustain your grind comfortably… the tips above should help you get back into the swing of things but if you’re struggling whilst playing ground AB/RB then it might be worth switching to Air for a little while as the repair costs are somewhat less.

Don’t think about the grind, that will almost make you want to quit with any game so make sure to enjoy the game modes and vehicles that you play often, try to switch it up between Arcade, Realistic and Assault to keep it interesting if you need to.

Final thoughts on research points

As we mentioned at the start of this article, whatever you take away from here to help you in-game will apply differently for everyone else, we all have different play styles and enjoy different game modes so it's no surprise as to why there's no clear winner when it comes to the best singular method of grinding research points.

Just keep in mind that not only is the grind increasingly difficult as more vehicles and nations are added, but also that it's not impossible to get to the top tier - this just may take a fair bit longer if you're a F2P account. So take every opportunity to grab yourself a free premium, daily login reward and/or event vehicles and make sure to stick to one nation at a time if you want top tier quickly!

Best of luck!

If you need people to play with or help grinding your vehicles in War Thunder make sure to come and join our community discord found here: https://discord.gg/8aEVQSeSU5

Everything War Thunder
Published May 27, 2021

Leave Your Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.