TAW_Blaze

Yeah you can test simple scenarios which in this particular case might be sufficient but you can't test advanced things offline.

Nope, because AI doesn't know how to use avionics or properly maneuver to counter notches etc. Most cases they will just lose lock because they are stuck in high or ilv PRF that makes no sense in that scenario. You're either stuck with you shooting at dumb targets or failing nearly all your tests because the shooter is an idiot AI. Also their awful firing logic doesn't help either. They should implement LAN so you can test with multiple pilots offline. But I think we all know this is not happening.

I graduated in summer and I'm quite wrapped up at work. I'm not at home for the most part and my flight gear is there and I'm having a really tough time getting through this winter. Honestly I've been surfing on the border of being sick since the end of november, sometimes under the wave. Anyway, I want to apologize to both you and Frostie for being completely unreasonable. I tried my best not to offend or attack either of you but I know in the end I kind of just made an ass out of myself. I still believe what my experience tells me, but should've taken a different approach to the discussion. When I do get back to flying I'm gonna start testing loads of stuff though, I have soooo many ideas. :)

I could see a scenario where we run R vs 7, ER vs 7, and ER vs 120B in randomly rotating cycles to represent early 80s, late 80s, and mid 90s situations. Or maybe this is already happenning, I haven't paid attention to mission loadout limitations recently.

Seriously? Expect in my experience R does about the same as a 7 just a little bit slower and a little bit draggier. On the other hand ER flies circles around a 7. But really I'm done with this it's a completely pointless discussion again. We should create a russian AIM-7 and put it on both sides.

It might not be scientific but it is what it is in the game. You can get all kind of charts for a race car yet it's not gonna really tell you how it drives on the track. And since none of you have bothered to tell me the drag model was changed I assume it wasn't ( and I've been following things closely enough to be confident it wasn't). It doesn't really matter what kind of charts you show me because I've had ample experience to know how it worked a year or two back and since it did not seem to change it probably behaves just the same. In my opinion real tests between competent drivers is of much higher value than a bunch of charts. Of course pilot decisions affect it, but you act like I don't factor this in when I review acmis. You either agree with this or not, I don't really care. I'm neither surprised or offended since you also seemed to be so confident that an ER is the biggest dummy missile ever yet in my experience (both old and very recent) it is one of the bigger threats a flanker can put up. IR missiles on their own do nothing in a face to face fight, if the guy sees you you have to combine them with ERs else he'll just laugh at you. Obviously you can theorycraft how a weapon system should be used effectively against another based on comparing different charts but figuring out how that all translates into the real thing is another story. What do you think I'm arguing about? That's exactly what I'm saying, except in my experience R vs 7 is a much closer match than an ER vs 7. Not that it looks like we'll ever agree :P

Good then. I haven't followed blue flag lately. Except there are no numbers. I hope you are kidding with the 1 number flyout ranges. I'm not seeing any charts and I don't have the time to find them. Like I said, if there was no drag change in the past 1-2 years then my experience is still valid and I couldn't care less what you think about it or what your charts say. A flyout chart is one thing and how a missile performs in real combat is another. Do explain how if there were no changes to missile drag, how is it irrelevant that a guy who sucks at handling russian avionics can defeat competent 15 drivers in R vs T scenario in neutral face to face BVR fights? My argument is that there is far more room to equal the fight by using proper face to face BVR tactics in R vs 7 fight than when you're trying to fight an ER with your 7. 7 caps out around M3,3 and often less while ER can easily coast above M4 while accelerating substantially better, not to mention the range. Unless the other guy is a complete idiot you can't even attempt to take a face to face fight in this scenario in a duel because the odds are you'll always end up either dead or stuck in the wrong side of a tailchase.

As far as I'm aware 104th runs 80s missions every now and then still. But it's hard to sell to the community, people want their slammers. If you think I'll take your 1 number missile performance indicators over my years of experience than you don't know me at all. I'm not saying you don't have experience, because you probably have more than me. But I know damn well how those missiles stand up against each other. The only thing that would convince me if there was a significant change in missile drag factors in the past 1-2 years which as far as I'm aware there wasn't. I know they did something with the guidance around 1.5 but that's all. I can agree to 50/50 of that.

Yet I remember a dozen of acmis of inhouse training fights with R vs 7 being extremely close to the point where a slight mistake in the setup or the followup maneuvers could easily cost you the fight. ER not only is faster and longer range but also accelerates significantly better, even more than the slammer. When did that happen? Do you mean after FC2 days? 7 vs 530D - I've had no problems winning this match so far. I think I also found some specific weakness against Mirage avionics but I'd have to test that further to be sure. Don't really get your point, but looks like you still missed mine, I proposed a scenario that is most balanced according to all my of experience. It would also be historically accurate, for all those people who care about that.

I've done both R vs 7 (this from both sides) and ER vs 7 (only from 15 side, but here it's irrelevant) to know that in DCS R vs 7 is far closer to an equal fight than with an ER. Outside the usual rng dumb-off-the-rail effect and the occasional retarded opponent you really have zero chance of winning against an ER with a 7 in a neutral BVR fight. The only winner card here is element of surprise to buy a long enough margin of first shot advantage that by the time his missiels could be a threat he's dead already, or never even gets to launch.

Sure it puts emphasis on teamwork but it also completely destroys your ability to even remotely stand up in a straight fight. Read my new post and you'll understand what I mean, and you'll probably agree too.

Still missing the big picture. Not to mention I wasn't even talking about 120 vs ER, but don't mind that. Point is, we are the leaders of the community, we need to be ( and we are) bigger than this nonsense of feeling hurt over having an unequal playfield and trying to push it over to the other side. AIM-7M entered service around '82, R-27R entered service around '83, they are a reasonably fair opponent, or case in point, MUCH MORE FAIR than ER vs 120 or ER vs 7. Sure, there were some intervals of time where it could've been possible to have ER face 7s, and my memory of 90s conflicts is a bit foggy atm but I think ER did face AMRAAMs. Not that it really matters, again. My point is, we either leave it to ED or if we want to remove things to create fair circumstances then R/T vs 7 would be the ideal way to go. Why? 1) Historically they existed in the same era, quite closely 2) Currently in the game they represent similar capability to each other ( and will probably continue to do so, even if numerous missile issues are fixed). This is significantly more important than the historical background. Why? a) This gets rid of the never ending toxic atmosphere of one side having it better than the other. Seriously, if ever was something to cockblock community growth and individual progress, this is it. b) Creating a more fair environment will help the community grow and will also help them have more fun and become better pilots. The community achieving a higher quality in turn will catalyze further growth of both size and quality of the community. It will become more competitive, more entertaining and more accessible, accepted or generally known to other people. Think of a JW, Red Flag, Blue Flag or other similar event hosted on a scale of hundreds of highly competent, passionate and motivated good pilots. Sounds incredible, right? 3) We don't need all this modern gadgets to create an engaging, competitive, challenging and entertaining combat flight simulation. Hell, in my opinion SARH era of air combat was one of the most challenging times of air combat. Not saying that ARH combat and 21st century air combat takes less skill, but it evolved in a different direction and takes a lot of different kind of skill. Lots of things that are difficult to represent in our game, partly because of lack of information and partly because of other reasons. Eventually we will probably stick with what ED has but alternate options have nothing to hide either. Or what if we could involve ED with creating a vision that would take away all these things and land us in an environment like the 80s with only R/Ts and 7s for example.

Missed the point mate. 80s could be 80, 81, or 89.

And tell me again, where did the 27ER fight the AIM-7? Oh wait, it did not. R/T vs 7 is a reasonably fair fight and if we consider removing things to gain balance without major updates to the game this is the best solution. Anyone who thinks ER vs 7 is anything remotely close to fair with a straight face is completely clueless. Also interesting you throw in 80s when it comes to ER but < year accuray of service entry in case of american missiles. :) So when did exactly the ER enter service? The only source I was able to quickly find says '85 with a big ?. Considering the R entered service in '83 that seems rather early.

I could see 120, ER and ET removed alltogether. R+T vs 7 is fun, reasonably balanced and most important of all significantly more skill dependent than what we have now. Forcing SARH vs SARH fight would benefit the good pilots more and also (hopefully) educate the community to in general become a better pilot.

ER vs AIM-7 is about is badly balanced as AIM-120 vs ER is. In that scenario it's a complete 180 from the current playfield where 15s have to try and force merges because in a face to face fight you simply can't go against the ER, unless you're an idiot who will gamble on the ER going dumb all the time (which it doesn't). I'm not saying the current playfield is fair, but reversing it with a completely idiotic and historically nonexistant scenario is quite silly. Unless of course you want 15 drivers to suffer a bit. :D 27R+T vs AIM-7 is a fairly balanced fight. AIM-7 might be slightly better in kinematics but it's easily overcome by pilot skill.

Clickable cockpit is like 1% of the ASM. :) Making it clickable would be easy, on the other hand they will have to create the full avionics system from scratch basically. Only this time it'll be incomparably more difficult and complex.

Occasionally you do have to fight a guy called Frostie who makes you think he is flying under the mountains. :megalol:

Fantastic. I'm very eager to see this, if everything goes well it should be a HUGE milestone for the community. Not having to replay buggy and out of sync tracks to be able to review your flights (not to mention the time it took, only to find your aircraft stuck into grass 5 minutes into the track that you notice 2 hours later because you just left it on, lol) will enable a much broader audience to benefit from it thus widening and educating the community.

Does this mean that you will be able to get the acmis from your flights without having to run replays? I mean in case you've flown on a server that restricts real time.

In any outnumbered scenario you want to create small engagements by buying time before certain parts of an enemy force can fight you. This works against anything, be it AI or human opponents. How much time you can get is usually a matter of enemy displacement and coordination. The general concept is that you just offset to the more optimal direction (this takes experience and good awareness to judge). If you're still left with a close formation of enemies you need to think of something on top of this.

Careful what you wish for. Who knows when I come back. :megalol:

As a Warthog owner myself my advice is this: 1) if you want to do air to air refueling or hardcore formations you will need quite a bit of curve. I'm not at home so I can't tell how much though. 2) if you don't care about air to air refueling or precise formations then don't bother with curves. No curve has the best feel and handling in normal situations and in fighting scenarios. I flew this way for years and even after adding curves I consider the natural setup significantly better. Unfortunately I had to and I'll have to be able to do proper AAR and with the nonexistant boomer logic you just can't do it without curves unless you practice everyday (and even then it is unpleasantly sweaty, lol). +1 for the stick extension, if you can it's the way to go. Might add some extra strain on the stick which will probably wear it out faster (with the added weight, I imagine). Plenty extension users around though, bet you can discuss that with them.

Anything close to a 3/9 defense is overrated because people seriously underestimate the amount of energetical superiority you need to have to make it work. Especially with ARHs, but very often even against ERs/ETs in equal energy state fights it won't matter what kind of 3/9 you pull, if the guy wants you he's gonna get you. The amount of displacement you get from doing this usually isn't enough to save your ass, especially with DCS ranges. Flying sideways also exposes your heat signature significantly more and you obviously can't afford to be idling your engine when you're in that spot cause you gotta turn hard either way. Another thing is when you're going for a recommit here you're always going to be turning into the missile so you need to be very sure that it won't catch you else you just did the other guy a big favor. Then I haven't mentioned the part where notching/pushing someone may cause you to fly into other bandits that you're very likely unaware of. This is not uncommon at all in a server scenario. Bottom line is, dragging out missiles is the most reliable way of surviving them because there isn't much you can screw up about it. Provided you know about the launch early enough and you start defending it really has no way of catching you. Obviously this is not an offensive move but it works the best. When you feel more confident or have the advantage you can start playing. Obviously your plan will be a matter of the bigger picture, sometimes you have to push even if it doesn't make sense. My other advice is that you can make anything work, but only under the right circumstances. An experienced salesman can make anyone buy anything, and then make them eat it too.

There have been a million threads about this topic so I suggest reading them. Search -> advanced search -> select titles only below the search bar -> search for "BVR"