Hadwell

not till DCS 2.0... same with canopy icing, official templates, other things too.. 2.0 can't be too far away if their holding off on all this stuff till then, though I know a lot has to do with performance issues in the current engine.

The mig21 is more difficult to use in general compared to the f15 even just landing it, so a missile or two are a bit off, pfft... Get over it already. Anyway, I think... that you should try the mig-21 online against modern fighters, it's really intense. Don't diss it till you've gotten to the point where getting kills isn't dumb luck, but thought out plan, and you've figured out when to stay and fight or when to find someone that won't get you killed and make him rage quit instead. I really hate the aim-120 cause it makes flying the 21 hell, but I still fly the f-15 from time to time, and I fly pretty much everything else too, lots of su-25T... The mig-21 really gets my heart rate up when I get in a fight, that's why I spend so much time on the forums here, why I mostly fly the mig-21, why I mostly use IR missiles(strong advocate for the 2xR13M1 4xR-60M loadout), and why most, but not all, of my youtube videos are in the mig-21. No way to lose might be an exaggeration, but if you compare the f-15 survivability to the 21s, not a big one. If there's no way to lose, whats the sense in even playing? even killing attack planes, you can at least have a feeling of accomplishment that you saved ground units. It's not a real war, where it makes sense to want to have no way to lose, instead, for me anyway, the more difficult I can make it for myself, within reason, the more fun I have. one of the things that I'm constantly trying to do is get people to actually fight me, I reasoned that if I always take IR missiles, eventually someone will see me and try to shake me, that's when the fun starts... most just launch a missile at 20+ km and run away, so just getting wvr can be a big accomplishment, depending on who I'm up against. no superiority whatever, I just have more fun and feel like it's a lot more rewarding flying the mig-21...

I'd love to fly Rio whenever I get the chance, but as a pilot I'd like the option to remove or change or even lock closed the Rio position so I don't get some troll raining on my proverbial parade

Oh cmon can't we get past this... Let's discuss how things are in-game rather than fighting on the forums about how things aren't

I think movies like top gun and the final count down were more to promote the navy and the f-14, just propaganda... top gun is still a decent movie... days of thunder and top gun, another series like them is disney cars and planes, basically the same movie...

Here's why you don't leave ECM on.

my hud looks like the matrix.

F-86? http://i.imgur.com/MJnRBm2.webm

Well really, once you get the mig-21 started up, and all your switches set, it's just as many buttons as on the fc3 planes, but its easier to type fc3 planes than modern fighters or su-27/33 mig-29 and f-15.... im sorry if that keeps confusing people im trying to explain that... the fc3 planes are easier to get into, cause you don't have to learn start-up, but once you're in the air, it's pretty similar, most of my controls are the same for the su-27 as they are for the mig-21... I went for a more universal key config, i found all the things that all the planes had in common, and used the same buttons for all the planes in the game, grouped into systems... everything radar related is left thumb, etc... that way if one plane had a feature for the radar that another didn't, i could easily find it, cause i knew it would be in the radar section of my controller. that way, I only need to memorize one set of controls, and I can fly all the planes in the game. A-10C being the exception. the nice thing about the x-55, too many buttons, not enough things to map them to. though if someone doesn't like that i have a static set of controls, and unfortunately, their not in the same physical positions as they are in the mig-21, neither are they in fc3, so i might as well only have one config for all.

no I'm saying this thread is more about how dcs currently is, and not so much what people wish it were. it's fine to compare mig-21 weapons to modern fighter weapons, but to complain about how they should be doesn't help anyone learn how to use them as they are in DCS.

so true, the job of the rio is pretty redundant with today's tech. doesn't change the fact that it's a lot more of an experience to fly with a human rio, RO2 is a lot faster paced and tanks in it seem kinda secondary...

well i don't think there's any plane that the ecm still works on at 30km... i'll have to pay more attention next time i fly something with more than a 30km radar range... doesn't matter if it's how it works in real life, this is DCS.

and what nobody seems to understand is... every plane flies differently, doesn't matter the plane, one will be easier to use than the other, just based on what it is, not its technology, not what buttons you gotta press... until you actually go out and try it for yourself, I mean really put some effort in, you can't say. and the mig-21 only has a 30km max radar range, I'm sure that's why it can always bypass the ecm. in fact, if someone with ecm on is outside the 30km max range, in the radar cone, and i have the continues mode thing off, i get the vertical fuzzy line thing, so i can sorta pick up contacts more than 30km away, though i haven't figured out how much further.

Even if clickable cockpits weren't a thing... anyone who's got problems with the mig-21, try flying it a few weeks, JUST the mig-21 on the 104th server. then come back and say its anywhere near as easy as an fc3 plane to get kills with, with any missile. (other than against a-10s and su-25s.) if you're just gonna be a hypocrite, and say the mig-21 is too easy, without even giving it a good respectable try online, multiplayer on a populated server against randoms in non set-up and non staged situations, then that's all you are. maybe post some youtube videos or something to prove that you've actually gone out of your way to prove your point. and all this about fun or whatever, maybe it's emotional, whatever you want to take it as, this is just an internet airplanes game, no matter how emotional or serious we are, it's not really THAT big of a deal, and I find this kinda fun. also there are forum posts about modern fighters and posts specifically about the mig-21, but comparing mig-21 weapons to modern fighter weapons is, in my mind, appropriate for this thread.

I only say FC3 planes because all the other fighters with radar guided missiles are FC3 planes. nothing to do with switches or simplifications.

ahaha, after all the time I spend actually playing DCS, sometimes coming to resolutions on the forums here are a nice change of pace :D What you're saying is the point I'm trying to make too.

yeah the AA-2 missiles aren't supposed to go much faster than mach 2.5, their the same speed as R-27's, but in that tacview file it's going up past mach 3.5... and you're not supposed to launch them over 2Gs, though they can pull 4-10G (depending on the altitude) turns but i bet they'd run outta fuel or energy almost instantly after that. still, that head-on situation is super rare, as i've said, the R-27 has a much longer range, and the FC3 planes radar is much better, making it all a moot point, if someone is gonna be stupid enough to wait till their in R-3R range before they launch, they deserve to be shot down. it's not accurate, but it's not so far off to be unreasonable, and it's only overpowered compared to itself in real life, and maybe the r-60. I never denied the R-3 not being right, but it is NOT better than the R-27.

even in DCS the R-60 is more reliable, it's actually a pretty good missile, still the R-13M1 is better than them both, but the R-60M on the mig-29 is totally different, and WAAAY better than the R-60M on the mig-21 i have the impression you haven't looked at my youtube channel.

the R-3R is a far worse missile than the R-27R, and it's not as if someone can go out and fire a few thousand R-3Rs off in real life at targets pulling 3+ G's to see what the missiles can actually do, so they can accurately model them, I'm content with knowing two planes with equal situation, the R-27R will always beat an R-3R, if not because the R-27s range is twice that of the R-3R, then because the planes that can use the R-27s have a radar 100x better.

right, the launch platform being worse than an su-27/33 or mig-29 makes the R-3 even worse, and would make the R-27 a worse missile than it is if the mig-21 could use it, since the radar on the FC3 planes makes SAR missiles even easier to use. any advantages the R-3 missiles may have at extremely close ranges are negated by the facts that the mig-21 itself is more difficult to use, and they only work at extremely close ranges, unlike the r-27s.

The R-3 is nowhere near as good as the R-27R, mostly get kills at 8km or less with the R-3, rarely get kills more than 12km... the R-27R has a 20 some odd km range

can the cannon take out a T-90?

nice AAR, good read. yeah it took me a few months of playing on 104th and 77th, and practicing on the VA server before I started getting kills, but at that time there was pretty much nobody else out there even really trying, so I had to figure it out on my own, with nothing but the provided tutorials and trial and error, till some nice person (lucien) started this thread and gave me a place to converse :D I remember getting so frustrated, saying to myself "I'm only flying the mig-21 till I freaking get a kill!", and after the first one, it got so much easier. it's like... if something works once, you know it'll work again, so at least you now have a starting point. eventually you'll either get the hang of it and your kill/death ratio starts getting better, or not... to pull up the scoreboard in multiplayer is the ' key i believe, or if not that the ; but i think ' lol

Groms too, both have the same tracker, but this was discussed like... a week after the mig-21 came out.

when i first started flying the 21 on the 104th I used to be really cautious with the radar, but now I use my radar to search because (no AWACS)... don't you ever wonder how many times someones flown right past you and you had no idea, simply because you had your radar off? sure people can spot you, but all you gotta do is duck behind a mountain again and you're invisible again, with or without radar turned on... the key is, to act like a u-boat, put the parascope up, search, then drop it below the surface, that is... turn sideways with your pipper below the top of a mountain, or if you don't wanna go sideways, point the pipperbelow a mountain.... only shutting your radar off when your traveling to and from the target area. you'll get a lot more kills that way, risk vs. reward... but if you wanna fly around blind, hoping to find a contrail, or someones going to randomly show up within 10km of you, and in your line of sight, go ahead, kills are fewer and far between, also with the radar, even if something is in visual range, it'll likely pick it up before your eyes do. it's also about picking and choosing targets based on what they do, if someone goes offensive on you, put the closest mountain to you between you and him till your rwr shuts up, then once your rwr stops going off, do some drastic direction change that couldn't be obvious, so if he was following you, he'll have a tough time figuring out what direction you turned and re-acquiring you, assuming you stay in cover anyway. guess what I'm saying is... the radar lets you see pretty much at all, while it really doesn't let him see you that much better, except 30 km directly infront of you, and only if you're not in cover, or... the amount it helps you is far more than the amount it helps him, so it's worth it to have the radar on. again, if you don't want to use radar, no problems, but it feels like I can only see 3 feet in front of me with it off, and I'm sure there's a happy medium between using and not using radar, guess I just travel on the more agressive side.