War Thunder 2.59.0.54 Reworks Bomber Damage and Southeastern City

War Thunder Update 2.59.0.54 adjusts bomber damage, rebuilds Southeastern City, and fixes problems with missiles and Nuclear Escalation convoys. Gaijin published the Update 2.59.0.54 announcement on October 7.

The bomber changes revisit the damage model revised in the Sky Odyssey update. Gaijin says bombers were taking too little damage after that overhaul. High-explosive shell fragments and small-caliber machine-gun fire can now penetrate aircraft skins more effectively and damage internal modules. Aircraft collisions also deal more damage to wings and tails, addressing collisions that previously failed to cause enough damage for those parts to separate.

The update also corrects missile behavior. Air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles could detonate just before reaching rapidly approaching enemy missiles, while a separate explosion bug could prevent air-to-air missile hits and blasts from damaging aircraft. The changes follow an earlier, separate missile fix in Update 2.59.0.43, which addressed a problem with fragments from other munitions hitting incoming missiles.

Nuclear Escalation ground vehicles can now recover from damage after running gear repairs or crew replacement, then continue toward their destination. Convoys will no longer block each other and get stuck, and a convoy waiting at a garrison will no longer prevent another from leaving its depot. Gaijin also plans to test Nuclear Escalation on the rebuilt Southeastern City map.

Southeastern City now uses height-map technology for more detailed terrain. Its sandy and rocky shores have been revised, mountain surfaces have more texture, and forests and villages fill the northern area that previously had open fields. New vegetation and denser ground cover add trees to mountain slopes, while water color and weather settings have also been adjusted.

Other fixes move tactical-map weapon icons below player markers, stop wheeled vehicles from shaking after losing all wheels on one side, and have aircraft carriers travel from the edge of the map toward its center on Air Battles maps where they appear. VR view jitter when launching the game with DirectX 11 has also been fixed.

War Thunder Update 2.59.0.54 Patch Notes

Aircraft

• Bomber Damage Model: Collision damage between aircraft has been increased. Previously collisions resulted in insufficient damage of wings and tail and didn’t lead to their separation. HE shell fragments and small-caliber machine-gun fire now penetrate the skin of the aircraft better and deal damage to the internal modules.
• F-4E AUP Phantom II — the targeting pod camera settings and AGM-65D/G missiles seekers camera settings have been corrected. (Report).

Locations and Missions

• Southeastern City — the location has been reworked. It has been switched to height-map technology, allowing for greater overall landscape detail. Specific landscape elements have also been updated, detailed sandy and rocky shores have been added, mountains have more textured surfaces, there are now forests and villages on the northern part of the location, which used to only have fields. Vegetation assets have been replaced with new ones, ground cover is more dense, with trees appearing on mountain slopes. Water color has been reworked, some weather settings have been adjusted.

Graphics

• An issue where stones would fly out of the ground upon running over a crashed UAV has been fixed.
• An issue where shadows on aircraft could appear jittery has been fixed.

Interface

• In the weapon comparison window, short names are now displayed in the selection list and in the list of compared munitions so that the weapons can be quickly distinguished from one another.
• An issue where locked avatars and avatar frames in the player profile window could only be clicked on their upper sections has been fixed.
• An issue in the vehicle preset editing window where moving the cursor away from the name input field caused text input to stop has been fixed. (Report).
• An issue where a text key was displayed in the kill log and battle log when a vehicle was destroyed for leaving the battle area has been fixed. (Report).
• Pantsir SM-SV — an issue where the 270-degree line was missing from the radar display in third-person view has been fixed. (Report).
• An issue where the shell armor penetration graph displayed incorrectly when opened from the vehicle stat card has been fixed. (Report).
• An issue where certain shells were missing from the shell list in the protection analysis, for example the BR-281SP shell for the WZ305 has been fixed. (Report).
• H145M — an issue where the tooltip for the LWR system was missing from the vehicle stat card has been fixed.
• Pantsir-S1 — an issue where radar information was duplicated in the vehicle stat card has been fixed.
• AH-64D — an issue where selecting a weapon loadout without the AMASE MAWS blocks installed would still indicate the presence of the MAWS in the X-ray view has been fixed.

Have you run into any of the bomber or convoy problems this update addresses? Follow the planned Nuclear Escalation map test and War Thunder fixes on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

War Thunder

Developed by Gaijin Entertainment

War Thunder is a free-to-play vehicular combat MMO featuring aircraft, ground vehicles, and naval craft spanning from the early 20th century to the modern era. Players progress through technology trees across multiple nations, unlocking increasingly advanced military vehicles. The game offers three realism tiers for each vehicle type: arcade, realistic, and simulator modes. Originally developed as a flight simulator under the name "World of Planes," the game expanded to include tanks in 2014 and naval forces later, becoming a combined-arms experience. A mobile version was released in 2023.

• Genre Shooter, Simulator, Tactical
• Platforms Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac, Xbox One
• Perspective First person, Third person, Virtual Reality
• Modes Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
• Release January 28, 2013
• Publisher Gaijin Entertainment
• Age Rating

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