Economy & Research Tutorial: Everything you wanted to know about silvery lions and research - and maybe more.

[Horrifior 1,373]

0. My perspective & motivation

I will try to summarize my findings and understandings of the WarThunder economy from a player perspective in a couple of chapters. These might be helpful for everyone, but I mostly cover aspects of the game which I like and play most, which is RB for tanks & some planes, and SB for tanks. Nevertheless, I will also point out some differences in earnings & rewards in the different modes which might be interesting for AB-players, too.

 

It will be appreciated if others add more information to the puzzle, I would be happy to integrate this into this guide, too. Maybe it would make sense to add this to the Wiki, too.

 

Final remark: I start with a lot of things & definitions most people in this forum typically know. The juicy part for all you experts starts in 1.4 and 1.5!             

 

1. Rewards after a single battle

From any battle in WT, you will earn the following rewards:

• Silver lions (SL)
• Research Points (RP)
• Crew experience points (CEP)
• Modification research points (MRP, unless the vehicle is spaded)
• Convertible research points (CRP)
• Vehicle research points (VRP, unless you have researched everything in the tree of the nation you are playing)

 

SL and RP generate CEP, MRP, CRP and VRP, so lets discuss these first:

 

1.1. Crew Experience Points:
The Crew Experience Points are directly connected to RP: In AB you get 3% of the RP as crew XP points, in RB and SB you only get 1% of the RP. So play a game with 1000 RPs gained in AB, and you get 30 points. The same in RB or SB only grants you 10 points.

 

1.2. Modification Research Points (or Module Research Points):
Basically, you gain as many MRP as RP, unless your vehicle is spaded. Unfortunately, RP are never directly stated, but this brings us to

 

1.3. Convertible Research Points (CRP)
These are additional research points somebody who does not care about money could convert using lots of golden eagles into VRP. But they have a secondary use: Even if your vehicle is spaded, you gain as many CRP as RP, so I treat them as an indicator of the raw RP gained in a battle.

 

1.4. Vehicle Research Points
The amount of Vehicle Research Points gained also relates to the RPs, but depends on several aspects:

• Game mode:
  • In AB, the base VRP are 100% of the RP. (at least to my knowledge, for both tanks and planes)
  • In RB tanks the base VRP are 129% of the RP.
  • In RB planes the base VRP are 142% of the RP.
  • In SB tanks the base VRP are 160% of the RP.
  • In SB air - to be tested, but it is safe to assume also a bonus to VRP here.        
• Efficient progress:
  • If you research the vehicle directly following the vehicle you play, you gain an additionally multiplicator of  *130% of the RP to the VRP in AB, and *110% in RB / SB. Example:
    • You get 176% for example if you research the following vehicle in SB (160%*110% RP = 176%).
• Penalty for strong difference in rank:
  • Typically, for the "effective ranks" no further modifier is applied (typically up to +-1 rank for normal vehicles, so rank 3-5 for a T-44 for example, or down to rank 1 up to +1 rank for a premium, e.g. the premium Cobra King M4A3E2 Jumbo can research anything between rank 1 and 4 effectively, since it is rank 3).
  • For researching a vehicle 1 ranks below your vehicle, a modifier of *90% is applied
  • For researching a vehicle in the same rank or 1 rank above your vehicle, you get full *100% research.
  • For researching a vehicle 2 ranks above your vehicle, a modifier of *40% is applied
  • For researching a vehicle 3 ranks above your vehicle, a modifier of *30% is applied (if no other modifiers apply, you will only get 30% of the RP as VRP!)

    
Optimizing your vehicle research:
==> So assuming you gain the same amount of modification research in the same time, you will gain VRP much faster in SB and RB than in AB. (But you will not gain so much CEP!)
==> Due to the spawning mechanism in SB you can actually funnel most of your RP into a certain VRP, and gain a lot from the "Efficient Progress" bonus.
==> You might want to research lower-ranked vehicles with a higher ranked vehicle, but the vehicles you play should never be lower than 1 rank under the vehicles you research IF you want to research efficiently. Researching Rank V with Rank IV is fine, but not with Rank III...

 

1.5. Silver Lions and Modification Research Points:
So basically, a battle provides us with Silver Lions, and Research Points, and the other rewards are generated from these. It is time now to look into what generates SL and RP!

First of all, there are several modifiers which HEAVILY influence the SL and RP-rewards for any battle you play:

 

• The reward stats of the vehicles you are using, examples:
  • 120% SL rewards / 135% RP rewards for the french Rank III AMX-13 (FLI),
  • 150% SL / 166% RP for the german Rank IV Waffenträger
  • 410% SL / 184 RP for the american Rank IV B-29 bomber
• Whether or not you have a premium account
  • WT says: Gives +100% RP in all game modes; +50% Silver Lions for active actions in Random Battles; +100% Silver Lions reward for battle time in Random Battles; +50% Silver Lions reward in other game modes;
• Whether or not you have any boosters active, either for RP or SL.

 

Understanding of boosters and premium:
For a proper understanding of booster and/or premium best consult the stat card of the vehicle to see their effects. Typically, a 100% RP-booster will double your RP generation if you DO NOT have premium or other boosters running. The effect is actually netto the same for premium and non-premium users, but the felt increase is smaller for the premium-users, because the already get a bonus, and this is not additionally boosted.
IMHO, premium can best be understood as a permanent almost 100% SL booster and a permanent 100% RP booster.

 

How to make the most out of your booster:
In order to compare earnings from different vehicles one has to take into account the vehicle rewards. Since boosters actually multiply with the vehicle rewards, they are best used with vehicles and in game modes with the highest total earnings. I for example did grind 50% of the US jets with only flying out the B-29, typically with a +300% RP and +300% SL booster as you can get them from the Arcade events. The B-29 has a 410% SL reward and 184% RP reward. Multiply this by 4... you can easily get more than 20k RP and 200kSL for a won battle.

 

Taking into account rewards:
In order to compare what a certain action yields I took into account the rewards of each vehicle. So when I say from now on "This action will give you this or that" it refers to UNMODIFIED SL and RP - depending on your total rewards, you will receive much more.

 

1.5.1. Sources of SL and RP income from a battle
The post-battle screens shows you a couple of different sources of your income, as there are from top to bottom:

 

• Actions:
  • Kills, Kill Assists, Critical Hits, Hits, Scouting, Base Capturing, Base Damage, Base Destruction
    ==> All these will generate silver lions, very few RP, and will also increase your Score, Spawn Points and most probably your Activity
  • Some examples:
    • Killing a heavy of your rank will typically yield a little more than 1000 unmodified SL, and around 60 unmodified RP.
    • A TD is around 80% of the reward for a heavy, a medium 70%, an SPAA 50%
    • There seems to be a small bonus for RP if you kill a vehicle of significantly higher BR/rank than yours.
    • Kill-Assists are worth less than 50% of a kill.
    • Critical hits are worth 10% of a kill
    • Hits, which cause some damage to at least tracks, optics etc. give ~ 5% of a kill.
  • These values have to be added together, so a one-shot kill due to crew knockout of a heavy will give you a Hit plus a Crit plus a Kill. A Kill-Assist is typically at least a Hit and a Crit, followed later by the Kill Assist-reward.
  • Base values for a complete base cap seem to be 2680 SL + 120 RP
  • Getting shot at, taking damage, staying in a Cap ==> These will typically only increase your Score and Activity, maybe even Spawn Points, but not grant SL or RP directly.
  • The biggest contributions will be Base Captures / Base Damage + Destruction, followed by Kills and Kill-Assists. Forget about hitting and scouting to increase your rewards.

• Battle-time-Reward:
  • Hover you mouse above the battle time reward, and you will see a break down of how much battle time (being in direct contact with the enemy) you have had in certain vehicles, and much the reward is for each vehicle
  • The SL-reward for battle time is capped, the cap seems to be always below the repair cost of the vehicle. For example, for the Waffenträger this is 1700 SL in total, and the repair costs are above 2000 SL.
  • Basically, this is welfare for people who were fighting, kind of off-setting most of the repair cost if you stayed alive long enough in contact with the enemy.
  • This is a vehicle stat not showing on the stat-card, but it can be e.g. derived from the data mine of people like Mike10d for each vehicle.
• Participation-Reward.
  • In the case of losing a battle you only get some RP, in the case of a win, you get a quite quite a lump of SL and RP
  • As it has been stated in the video by WarThunder about parts / FPE and RP gain the RP reward should be proportional to your activity, time in battle and time overall spent in the session.
  • I have analyzed both won and lost games, both before 1.83 and afterwards. The RP-gain is constant if you normalize by activity and lifetime:
    • In Ground SB and RB, you get approximately 320 unmodified RP in a loss, and ~ 700 RP (=2.2 * 320 RP, due to the +120% RP bonus) in the case of a win
    • In Air RB (and presumably SB) you get 480 RP in a loss, and ~ 1000 RP in the case of a win. Unmodified - the quite high RP-rewards of airplanes still come on top of this!
  • In any case, the RP mission reward is the major contribution to your total RP gain.
    • This is the reason why a lot of people are complaining about an RP-cap - if you win with 2 kills, your might earn almost the same as if winning with 4 kills, in particular regarding RP. You might even have fewer RP if you lose the battle, despite more kills!
• Achievements:
  • For completeness: You might get some achievements. These typically grant you SL, very few grant also tiny amounts of RP. Apart from few achievements ("Skill matters!" ), they are only the cherry on the SL+RP-cake...

 

Optimizing your income:

• Earnings, in particular RP, are dominated by your Participation-Reward ==> Win! More than doubles RP and also improves SL earned!
• Try to be active (engage in battle, or at least stick around in the vicinity of opponents. In particular, cap things, or kill 'em.) ==> this will drive up your activity.
• Win. Can not be emphasized enough. Winning is by for more important than cranking up your activity from 80% to 90%!
• Try to survive or respawn, in order to drive up your life time. Survival can also mean to respawn and manage your spawnpoints so you actually CAN respawn.
• Do not hesitate to flank around one side without enemy contact, if you will then be able to potentially kill 3 or 4 enemies and drive up your activity. You can have very high activity without being in contact with the opponents all the time...

2. Making most out of your SL

 

Again, my perspective is as follows:

• I do not have high tier premium vehicles / do not have a premium account
• I enjoy the playing the game, so I do not mind spending time in-game actually...

 

Currently I have like close to 30 Million SL, and am researching in rank V for all nations. In order to get along, I use a couple of strategies in order to save some SLs:

• Repair in hangar:
  • Each crew-slot can repair a tank in a couple of days. But in order to utilize this, first you have to turn off auto-repair, of course.
    • My B-29 costs close to 60k SL. It will take 1 week to repair... just that one crew slot can generate 8k SL per day.
  • It requires a decent repair rank of the crew involved. B-29 e.g. requires rank IV.
  • Only if your repair rank is high enough, the actual repair skill comes into effect.
  • To maximize your earnings, try to find a couple of crews / with decent aircraft in rank III, which have high reward and you like to fly, and need just under a day to repair.
    • The first Me 410 A
    • Any IL-2 variant
    • Any rank III single-engine bomber with forward facing cannons / MGs...
    • Any decent premium plane
• Careful / delayed Vehicle purchasing:
  • There are several discounts offered by Gaijin, also regarding vehicle-purchases in SL
    • Beginning of November: WarThunder Birthday: Typically all vehicles of all nations are discounted
    • Christmas / End of the Year: Typically all vehicles of all nations are discounted
    • V-Day: Typically vehicles of the allied sides are discounted
    • This November, I spend close to 10 Millions in SL only for vehicles which I bought, not including crew training. This was a 50% discout... so you can easily save a couple of million SLs
  • Of course, this requires you to NOT buy every vehicle you research immediatly.
  • Still, I buy vehicles which I really like / want, or which are required to allow me to continue to do my research (e.g. the 6th vehicle to unlock the research in the next rank).
• Selected crew training:
  • While you need to BUY quite some vehicles in order to be able to buy the next vehicle, this does not mean you also have to train a crew for it! Crew training is quite expensive in the long run, and you might not be interested in flying every Bf109 / Spitfire variant...
• Selected use of ammo:
  • In tank battles, in lower to mid-tiers, often the stock (=free) ammunition is a decent if not the best shell for general purpose, e.g. german PzGr.39 APHE
    • I only bring <10 APCRs, and almost never use them, because there are only very few cases in which you need to.
  • Even in highest tiers, you might at least utilize not only the shell with the highest penetration, which might cost ~1kSL per shot.
    • Also bring some secondary full caliber APHE / APCBC / HESH / flavour-of-the-day-shells with you in order to engage enemies into their sides.
  • Air battles: The same applies to ordonance: There is no law against dropping all you bombs AFTER you have been shot down. I just want to mention this can cost you in higher tiers several 1000 SL just for creating a spectacular firework with little to no chance of killing an enemy...

 

But on the other hand, there are also some strategies in order to make some SLs:

• Get Boosters:
  • I do the daily login.
  • I play both Arcade Battle Events each day, because
    • They boost my crew experience
    • I can easily research FPE / Parts etc. because these do not matter as much as in a "proper" battle.
    • We tend to win, which will provide me with a 300% RP or 300% SL booster, plus a Universal Backup.
    • Together with the daily login you get three free boosters...
  • I do daily tasks, using the aircraft mentioned above under "repair in hangar", because
    • I got all camouflage bushes without paying a single GE for them
    • I can buy more boosters for 10 warbonds for each stage
    • I can buy even more premium boosters (they can be stored forever)
  • I do special tasks, because
    • they do not expire, and at the end you get some SL or a booster.
• Utilize SL boosters with Air RB:
  • Air-RB seems to provide the highest SL reward
    • Utilize high-payload high-reward bombers like the B-29, He 177 etc.
    • Also works even better with premium vehicles + premium account, compare video from Napalmratte
  • Remember to use Anti-Air / Antimech-Orders / Be the best! orders to further utilize your booster!

 

 

What did I forget? Message me, or simply reply!

Edited November 15, 2018 by Horrifior

[magazine2 7,957]

Very good tutorial, thanks for taking the time to make it 

[Horrifior 1,373]

Thanks. Looking forward to constructive criticism, and some more information, maybe from the Arcade Battles- / Air Battles experts?

[magazine2 7,957]

6 minutes ago, Horrifior said:

Thanks. Looking forward to constructive criticism, and some more information, maybe from the Arcade Battles- / Air Battles experts?

 

When Special Tasks that are purchased from the war bond shop are completed, they give a crate that gives SL boosters / RP boosters - which is almost 100% guaranteed. 

[Horrifior 1,373]

4 minutes ago, magazine2 said:

 

When Special Tasks that are purchased from the war bond shop are completed, they give a crate that gives SL boosters / RP boosters - which is almost 100% guaranteed. 

 

Thanks, I added a part regarding special tasks!

[gienek26 175]

4 hours ago, Horrifior said:

If you research the vehicle directly following the vehicle you play, you gain additionally *130% of the RP

i think its additional 30%

[Horrifior 1,373]

3 minutes ago, gienek26 said:

i think its additional 30%

 

Well, its an additional *130%, or +30%.

[crimfobic 270]

Excellent post that'll help a great deal of players. Well done Horrifier. 

[Horrifior 1,373]

40 minutes ago, crimfobic said:

Excellent post that'll help a great deal of players. Well done Horrifier. 

 

Thanks. If this is in general well received, and somebody knows how to do it, maybe one could put this into the Wiki? The part about economy and RPs in the Wiki is ... brief.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Horrifior

[crimfobic 270]

Frankly, this is the perfect place for it. It is readily available for all to see and make comments on. After all, it is a post to help players. And what a better place for it to be seen.

[Guest Silberstich]

Thank you!

 

What do "RB", "SB" and "AB" mean?

[crimfobic 270]

RB= Realistic battles, SB= Simulation Battles, AB= Arcade Battles

@ Thoma_Hochweg

Edited November 17, 2018 by crimfobic

[ROKIVULOVIC 22]

.

Edited September 22, 2022 by ROKIVULOVIC

[BDS_Gaming 15]

I love how Gaijin cant give us clear cut answers to anything. Everything is a guessing game, gotta figure it out on our own. Good work.

 

[ImPeRaToR 47]

I rarely play air RB and it has been about six years since I last played full real: can somebody tell me, how much (AI) ground targets are worth respectively? So far it seems, they only serve to drive up activity and potentially help win via tickets but by themselves they don't seem worth the effort.

Edited January 11, 2019 by ImPeRaToR

[Horrifior 1,373]

48 minutes ago, ImPeRaToR said:

I rarely play air RB and it has been about six years since I last played full real: can somebody tell me, how much (AI) ground targets are worth respectively? So far it seems, they only serve to drive up activity and potentially help win via tickets but by themselves they don't seem worth the effort.

 

If you are referring to AI in ground forces, I doubt there are any remaining. Apart maybe from AA at the airfields.

 

P.S.: Gruß aus Hamburg

[ImPeRaToR 47]

Sorry, I mean in Air RB. thats why I mentioned that I don't play it much, consequently I don't know what is worth going for other than for activity and tickets

so far, taking bombs or special ammo/aircraft just to hunt down tanks seems relatively meagre in payoff

[Horrifior 1,373]

IMHO, killing ground forces, in particular tanks does actually yield quite some benefits, but you have to kill quite some of them. E.g. if I fly in any of the 3.3 BR IL-2s, there are a couple of maps on which I am able to achieve like 10-20 ground kills, including a few medium tanks, the rest being SPAA and light tanks.

 

This also provides a LOT of score points, hence activity, and you will in addition get a large reward for winning the battle.

[enrico7113 4]

Hi all

Honestly the crew research points should be more for RB and SB than AB from 1% to at least 3% or more

I hope this can be changed in future patches

[Useless_pixels 32]

On 15/11/2018 at 14:35, Horrifior said:

0

• • • I got all camouflage bushes without paying a single GE for them

 

What did I forget? Message me, or simply reply!

HOW??????????

[NukeDispenser 14]

21 hours ago, Ne_Dam_Pare said:

HOW??????????

Warbonds.

[Der_Lieber 1]

What does 'spaded' mean?

[Wummele1 206]

2 hours ago, Der_Lieber said:

What does 'spaded' mean?

It means that you have researched all the modifications for that vehicle, which puts that ace of spades emblem over the vehicles avatar. I am not sure if you have to purchase the modification to have it unlocked or just have had to have it fully researched to achieve the spaded symbol.

[Uchinanchuu 39]

I've been trying to figure out how the SL mechanics work for various bombers in the game, but I'm having trouble.

The B-57B in SB EC6, 300% multiplier, no boosters, gets about 1000 SL per ton of damage on the bomb targets, about 1923 SL per successful run (plus landing bonus if you RTB).
The Wyvern in SB EC4, 580% multiplier, no boosters, gets about 2600 SL per ton of damage on the bomb targets, about 2263 SL per run.
Haven't tested either on airfields, but I assume it's the same value for both.

The problem is that 580% is not 2.6x 300%.  It's only 1.933x, so the numbers aren't adding up.

Edit: Got some more data
SB EC4, bomb bases only
Typhoon Mk Ib/L: BR 5.0, 340%, 1692 SL/ton
Wyvern S4: BR 4.7, 580%, 2595 SL/ton

Lancaster B Mk I: BR 5.7, 420%, 2733 SL/ton
Halifax B Mk IIIa: BR 4.3, 240%, 3832 SL/ton

If you divide by the multiplier to get some sort of raw value, you get
Typhoon Mk Ib/L: 498 SL/ton
Wyvern S4: 447 SL/ton
Lancaster B Mk I: 650 SL/ton
Halifax B Mk IIIa: 1597 SL/ton

Still makes no sense to me.  BR couldn't be a factor since the Lancaster with a higher BR than the Halifax gets way less money, while the Typhoon with a higher BR than the Wyvern gets more money.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Uchinanchuu

[Horrifior 1,373]

@Uchinanchuu the rewards for bombing a base depend actually on the bomber a lot. Long gone are the times when one was able to farm incredible amounts of SL using the massive bomb loads of e.g. the B-29 or Tu-4. So the same bomb on a plane with the same SL modifier on the same BR will give you different SL rewards, certainly, since this was changed:

 

https://warthunder.com/en/news/6387-news-bomber-repair-costs-and-bombing-reward-adjustment-en

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSbFiF5W2YMiJ2v4RaTWmSyDtPIbojj__bzwpQXXPuEyn4Bf-BORZqEHNr6E4t5wMXGFapfqwku8Imb/pubhtml