Developer Diary: Russian Vehicle Changes

Commanders!

As you already know, the Tales from the Dark Battle Path contains some Russian-themed content. We took the opportunity to take a look at the balance of some Russian vehicles and we’d like to tell you today about the changes will be making to them.

Contrary to popular belief, Russian vehicles in Armored Warfare aren’t typically performing extremely well with most being average at best. However, there definitely are a couple of outliers that are, at the moment at least, very much underperforming. In some cases, it’s because they have always been sort of weak. In other cases, the vehicles started as average but the world around them moved on, so to say. Here’s how we’ll address their situation.

Let’s start with the easy stuff – the T-90 series. These tanks aren’t performing really well but don’t need truly massive buffs, which is why we thought we’d make them a bit interesting:

• T-90A will receive an additional module that significantly buffs the ERA by replacing its fillers with Relikt (the outer form remains the same) – the ERA will become significantly tougher
• T-90A will also receive a mobility buff with a new engine (1200hp V-99)
• T-90 will receive new 3VBM20 APFSDS (stock shells of T-90A)
• T-90 will also receive the Supercharged Soft Kill APS ability
• T-90M Proryv (new upcoming vehicle) will also receive a special hard-kill APS that can take down two missiles at once (very useful against those pesky double-launch ATGM enemies)

Object 640 (and its “Black Eagle” variant) also deserves a buff:

• It will receive a new 1800hp turbine engine (GTD-1800), increasing the maximum speed to 95 km/h and the reverse speed by 10 km/h
• The magazine will increase to 5 rounds (without reload nerfs, this is a damage per minute value buff)
• The vehicle will receive the Vakuum-1 APFSDS round from T-14 Armata
• Ammo carried will increase to 75 rounds
• Camouflage will increase to 18 percent (due to the vehicle’s low profile)

Speaking of the Armatas. The old T-14 and T-14 152 (as well as the Hades version) have for a long time been the “baseline” MBTs that other MBTs get compared to – a clear-cut case of some vehicles staying the same while everything around them moves on. Well, no more, because we’ll be giving them some buffs.

First, all vehicles will receive a side armor buff. Sadly we can’t simply turn the sides into ERA (it’s planned, but it’ll require a major model update) so we are buffing the side thickness to 735mm (or 1575mm versus HEAT).

Next, the engine. All T-14s will receive a new 2200hp engine called A-85-3AF with the following parameters:

• Maximum speed: 90 km/h
• Reverse speed: 42 km/h
• 0 to 32 km/h: 3.13s (3.26s for Armata 152)
• 0 to maximum speed: 25.27s (26.47s for Armata 152)
• Hull traverse rate: 44.61s

Next, all T-14s will receive a new passive ability called APS Radar. In real life, the radar controlling the APS is fairly powerful. In game terms, it’ll reduce the camouflage of every enemy target within 350 meters by 10% (that is, deduces 10% from the original value).

But we haven’t forgotten the firepower either:

• Armata: 125mm Vakuum-1 APFSDS damage increased to 700
• Armata: 125mm Vakuum-2 APFSDS damage increased to 750
• Armata 152: We are adding a new APFSDS round Grifel-2 with 900mm penetration and 1150 damage
• Armata 152: We are adding a new HEAT ATGM called Kornet-T (1150mm penetration, 1100 damage, 200 non-penetration damage)
• Armata 152: We are adding a new thermobaric ATGM called 9M133F-3 (80mm penetration, 1000 damage)

And, finally, we are also increasing the camouflage to 18% (as Armata is supposed to be quite stealthy).

Next, Kornet-EM. Here we are increasing its armor from 5mm to 20mm (it’ll make it more resistant to machineguns) and are giving it a new 420hp engine with the following parameters:

• 0 to 32 km/h: 1.13s
• 0 to maximum speed: 23.21s

In the end, Kornet-EM doesn’t that big of a buff, unlike its tracked version called Kornet-D1. This one’s getting two buffs:

• The ATGM Guidance System module also unlocks a thermobaric ATGM (80mm penetration, 1000 damage)
• We are adding a third mutually exclusive module to the previous two – this one will allow you to fire four missiles at once with 6 seconds between quad launches, followed by 43s of loading time

This is some pretty extreme firepower but we’ll hope you’ll like it. The Kornet-D1 needs a serious buff and this level of firepower is as serious as it gets.

We hope you’ll like all of these changes and, as always:

See you on the battlefield!