Hello. Please don’t take this post as a rant, but rather a story or analysis. I really want to know what am I supposed to do/change/avoid doing.
Short briefing: I’ve started using Aim120 missiles recently, first on the German Phantom, then on the EuroFighter. And I have been greatly disappointed, to the point of searching for every possible answer as to why. I’ve analysed numerous server replays, and found myself baffled by the results of how my missiles perform, versus how the same (both A and B versions) missiles work for my enemies. But here goes:
I am firing my Missile. 12km alt, 1.2Ma, so not at all bad.
The missile keeps gliding and tracking the target until suddenly it loses the target and locks to the ground after traveling roughly 20km.
MEANWHILE, an enemy who ends up killing me does this:
He fires 3 missiles at 9km alt, turns away, and seconds later gets killed:
One of the missiles travels 50+km (!) and kills me while I try to run away, speeding away from the missile.
And this happens every single game, the pattern repeats over and over. My missiles don’t seem to even be able to glide, they drop energy fast and lock to the ground. I don’t feel like I’m doing less than that F16 who fired 3 missiles at 3 random locks on TWS, one being me.
Interestingly enough, my squad mate says he loves 120As on the F16, but is now grinding the EF and on the 13.0 Phantom he says these missiles perform completely different. My speed and alt are not an issue, neither should radar be, after missile goes hot.
Here’s what I typically do with the EuroFighter:
-climb to 9-11km
-stay around 1.2Ma and above
-sweep the area with TWS
-lock missile to a selected target while notching
-fire and wait until the missile goes hot
-bank away to minimize the chance of return fire
At this point I’m just a passenger to the RNGsus fate.
Differences between my shoots and enemy’s:
-the missile doesn’t initially travel up
-it doesnt glide, after several seconds it just points to the ground and stays there
-it wobbles a lot
-it takes much longer for my 120Bs to go pitbull than that F16’s
-occasionally they don’t go hot, no matter how long assisted with TWS
-the accuracy is very low
I would accept that as an occasional mistake, or just bad luck if not for the fact that it happens more than once, majority of the games. My missiles always prefer targeting the ground than enemies, and can’t compare to how their counterparts perform.
It seems the missile is underperforming in the German service (for some reason).
The most I get from the missile is always cqc, when enemy is closer than 10km, with hard lock.
TLDR- I’ve tried everything, analized, tried to adapt, but I’m out of options. Maybe I’m missing something, an air battle setting, a tip, an exploit, please help.