New Run of Nuclear Escalation!

We're excited to present a new iteration of the Nuclear Escalation mode!

Nuclear Escalation depicts a large-scale conflict involving nuclear weapons, putting you in command of front-line aviation armed with nuclear bombs. The battlefield situation is constantly shifting. Break through enemy defensive lines and destroy enemy depots and convoys to cut off front-line supply routes and dramatically shift the course of the operation. Knock out airfields and destroy artillery, MLRS, and tactical ballistic missile systems that strike your forces' positions from a distance. Suppress anti-aircraft positions, both medium and long-range systems, and destroy the carrier fleet along with its escort. And, of course, fight for air superiority — all with unlimited respawns!

Since the last run in June, we've made a lot of changes. Here are the highlights:

• Two separate aircraft "eras" are now available at once, each with two Battle Rating brackets: 10.3–12.0 and 11.7–12.7 in the first era, and 13.0–14.0 and 13.7–14.7 in the second.

• Anti-aircraft behavior on land and at sea has been significantly reworked and rebalanced, particularly for short-range SAM systems. For example, they no longer fire while moving at full speed, and now activate their search radars earlier.

• Silver Lion rewards for destroying targets have been rebalanced, with rewards for ground vehicles doubled — resulting in an overall increase in rewards.

We've also fixed and improved a lot more. Here's the full rundown!

This time, two mission variants will be available simultaneously in the event, each corresponding to its own aircraft era. Aircraft with a Battle Rating of 10.3–12.0 and 11.7–12.7 fight in early-era battles, while those with a Battle Rating of 13.0–14.0 and 13.7–14.7 fight in late-era battles.

The new nuke carriers, which were recently added to the Ground Battles, are also available in the late-era Escalation battles.

As for the nation lineup, as one of our balancing decisions we've kept only two: USSR vs. everyone, and USSR + China vs. everyone.

Changes have also come to this mode's key force, anti-aircraft systems. Originally, to achieve acceptable server performance during battles on a huge map with hundreds of active units, we had to completely disable search radars on short-range SAM systems. However, this was frustrating and didn't give players the information they needed to make decisions in advance, even after search radars were set to activate on missile launch.

Now, following a series of additional optimizations, here's what's been implemented: short-range SAM systems will activate their radar once a player gets within a distance roughly 1.5 times the system's missile launch range. This should give players enough time to make decisions and strike the SAM sites with anti-radiation missiles before the system opens fire.

We've also fixed another important issue: SAMs in convoys no longer fire while moving at full speed. Instead, as intended, they slow down to launch and guide missiles onto their target, making them easier to fight.

That said, SAMs haven't become passive bystanders. Primarily to address the Kh-31, we've added new anti-radiation missile (ARM) countermeasure logic: if a SAM system detects an incoming munition fired at it from a sufficiently long distance, it can temporarily shut down its radar. When the radar comes back on, the missile will likely miss, since it will have already accumulated significant guidance error. As a result, both teams are now forced to launch ARMs from a closer range to their targets.

Additionally, we fixed a bug where small munitions like the GBU-39 and GBU-53 were being ignored by the HQ-11 and SPYDER. These weapons now also have a new mechanic: small (GBU-39, GBU-53, SPICE 250, 9M127 Vikhr, Brimstone) and stealth (AGM-154 JSOW) munitions now receive lower priority from SAM AI, as a temporary "pseudo-RCS" mechanic. Note that this is a temporary measure, a full implementation of radar cross-section mechanics is planned for later this year.

Long-range air defense systems no longer fire on low-flying targets beyond 20 kilometers, and assign lower priority to targets that are moving away from them, allowing them to better defend against genuinely important threats.

A small change has also been made to SAM markers: the detection range at which a SAM can be spotted now increases while it's firing. Additionally, markers now persist for 10 seconds after you or an ally stop detecting the target.

Overall, SAM systems should become more balanced overall, the ones that were too strong will be weaker, and the underperforming ones should now do their job better. We hope you enjoy the changes!

We've adjusted (mostly significantly increased) the ticket cost of destroyed vehicles for team scoring, and increased both the total ticket pool and the number of tickets required to trigger the next escalation stages. This should make the impact of destroying enemy ground vehicles more noticeable.

We've also rebalanced Silver Lion rewards for destroying enemy vehicles. Rewards for destroying aircraft have been reduced by 8%, while rewards for destroying ground vehicles have doubled, meaning that rewards overall have increased. Please note the mode is still under active development and the in-battle balance keeps evolving, so these values may not be final.

Both the fleet's SAM AI and armament, as well as the munitions used against them, have been reworked as well.

We've fine-tuned the targeting logic for ship-based air defenses and adjusted their engagement ranges, and fixed a bug that caused low-flying targets (anti-ship missiles in particular) to not be engaged by AI ships at all. Ships have also received new SM-2MR (RIM-66C) surface-to-air missiles. All of this has improved the effectiveness of their air defenses, which were previously inadequate.

An important change has been made to all weapons capable of striking ships too, anti-ship missiles, guided glide bombs, and guided bombs alike. Their seeker heads can now select crew compartments as targets, meaning hits will on average land on more critical parts of the ship. This will be especially noticeable when attacking aircraft carriers.

You can find more details in the changelog, give it a try, the event has already started! Jump in and share your feedback with us! Good luck, pilots!