Jets are very compressed at the moment. While some have suggested moving the top BR to 13.0 or 15.0, this would primarily only help decompress the top tier jets while also making any ground attack capabilities of the topmost aircraft rather useless assuming Ground isn’t completely restructured as well.
I would like to propose an alternative that would work better in tandem with a smaller increase in top BR: decompress downwards:
Most jets 7.3 or below would go down in BR by 1.0
Most jets 8.7-7.7 would go down by .7
Most jets 10.0-9.0 would go down by .3
Most jets 11.7-12.3 would go up by .3- top is now 12.7
By doing so, an extra 1.3 of BR would be added as breathing room for jet aircraft.
The conflict of course would come with the bottom group of WWII-era jets overlapping in BR with late/super props. However, this actually would be a good change for several reasons:
Most props are far more maneuverable and have greater climb rates than early jets. They would not be overpowered by jets.
Even early jets are faster than props. They would not be overpowered by props.
Integrated late-war prop and jet battles would be more dynamic and historically accurate.
WWII and immediate postwar jets would be able to fit in (match the BR of) lineups with ground vehicles of the same era, something that gets lost as the slow technological progression of props gives way to the faster technological progression of jets.
A 5.7 prop will struggle against a semi competent F-80 or F-84 player, and I don’t think moving stuff like the Su-11, F-84G, La-200, and the F-80C to 7.0 would be a good idea.
Exactly. Superprops ≥ early jets so we can solve the compression of a 5.3 BR range by “compressing”- really just diversifying- a 1.3 BR range.
It’s not like any competent, aware, and cautious pilot will really find themselves jumped by the other engine type for most situations.
And those very poor He 162 clones are slower and have even worse climb rates than the 7.0s. It’s difficult to say if a jet is better than a superprops since any superprops outclimbs any jet and any jet outruns any superprop. So, your Tempest IIs are not similar to but balanced with your 262s and late 109Gs can handle but not handily outclass a Yak-17.
And not all jets would go down by the suggested amount, of course spent would go .3 more or .3 less as necessary, potentially the same with the 6.7/7.0 props (which already demonstrate how props can be highly effective against jets).
I don’t agree. I’ve played the game more than 99% of people regarding air. I’m pretty confident in my assessment that early jets such as the F-80/Meteors/Su-11/F2H-2 etc smoke any prop. All of the advantages of the props are able to be worked around. None of the jet advantages can be worked around directly.
since any superprops outclimbs any jet
This is also untrue btw.
They’re not. A tempest can kill a 262 but the 262 has the advantage by a mile.
Because the game doesn’t require me to climb to space to engage you. I can do other things in the meantime. The prop however literally physically cannot catch the jet if the jet doesn’t want the prop to catch the jet.
And the jet literally cannot catch the prop if the prop doesn’t want the jet to catch it ;)
If your argument is that jets could be overpowered by strafing AI for ticket bleed then do I have news for you about something called bombers :P
In all seriousness that’s a fair point and would definitely need to be a consideration when deciding which jets to balance.
However, this might actually be even more beneficial, since some attackers coughcoughA-4Ecough are absolutely dominating GRB and cannot be put any higher due to compression and the fighter meta in ARB. However, this suggestion would increase their usefulness in ARB, decompress BRs, and make fighters relatively more capable in GRB which alleviates the CAS issue a bit (ofc with SPAA balances as well).
I’d certainly have concerns about the poor 5.3 props now facing jets. The only aircraft I really play at that BR is the Plagis Spit at 5.7 and it can barely keep up with the Ju-288C. how its meant to fight jets is beyond me. The far far simpler solution to creating an 1-1.3 extra room for decompressing Is just to move everything above about BR 7 or 8 up by 1 stop.