While the F-104A/F-104C example is due to BR compression but, for rocket aircraft (Me 163B-0/B-1/Ki-200), if it becomes useless, at some point the BR should go down. As a matter of fact, before the implementation of AF SAMs, Me 163B-0 and Ki-200 had lower BR(8.3/8.0 iirc).
However, when the AF SAMs were implemented, these aircraft were given “proper protection” when on the airfield, making them one of the easiest planes to play in Jet RB match, as long as fuel management was taken care of. Therefore, Me 163B-0 and Ki-200 were moved to 8.7BR (same as the MiG-15bis/F-86F-25 lmao) to face aircraft like Harriers, F-104A/F-104C, MiG-19, which should never face against rocket aircrafts.
The Me 163B-1 still remains at 8.0 BR, probably because the average player doesn’t know how to aim with the MK 108. If AF SAMs are further nerfed and rocket aircraft BRs are changed, the playstyle required to play them will just be back to what it used to be pre AF SAMs/SPAAs.
I have been playing Me 163B-0 and Ki-200 since before AF SAM was implemented and the play style of it was not that bad, there were frequent dogfights between jets due to non existent or only early AAMs, and many times you could carry your teammates in rocket aircraft even you gets full uptier games a lot and face against MiG-17, CL-13A Mk.5, F-2 Sabre.
Your logic is flawed.
I’m on the receiving end of AF AAA 99% of the time. I almost never use AF AAA myself. I keep fighting till the end.
And somehow I’m doing way, way, way better than any of AF AAA apologists in this topic. Why?
Because I play Air RB to have fun and I keep improving.
While AF AAA apologists basically want to avoid the PVP aspect that defines the mode as much as possible. Some are compulsive grindfest participators. And they do their best to kill all the things Air RB enjoyers love.
No pilot who hits the enemy a lot more often than the other way around is benefitting from AF AAA because his enemies will keep using AF AAA to deny him the advantage he worked for.
Any WW2 pilot would probably shoot himself rather than see his enemies dive into death-ray zone and be invulnerable every 2-3 encounters.
Real life pilots often flew a for a few hundred kilometers before actually getting into combat zome, planes like Fw 190 had range around 800km for a reason, don’t know if that’s counting drop tanks, but it’s clearly visible 200+km to the battlefield was probably pretty normal. With 200km to the AF in WW2 plane, you’re not getting away after being shot in the engine. In WT? Easy-peasy, because AF death zone is 10km away if you’re paying attention to your positioning, as most AF runners do.
AF AAA benefits bad and malicious players. Bad players who do not climb, who can’t go for reversals, who do not work for position, and malicious players who use AF AAA as one of the most important parts of their tactics.
Both groups do NOT deserve protection.
Bombers are not good for gaming and that’s why DCS is full of fighters. Why? Because flying a slow, hulking beast is not really enjoyable and in fighter-heavy environment, bombers IRL were toast.
Reality is, heavy bombers were never really making this game better in any way and I would rather see them as AI. However, Gaijin gave players a chance to fly them. AF AAA doesn’t help them anyway. It’s just an ability to choose a non-meta nad mostly useless planes - you should be thankful. Yet you keep somehow being disappointed that these bombers are not useful.
They are not meta, they are not useful, and almost every game has weapons and vehicles that are just bad/not meta/extremely situational but you can play them anyway if you like such gameplay, but any problems that arise are on you!
Bombers get next to nothing from AF AAA. 97% of AF campers are fighters and super-fast bombers with good armanent like B18B. I can usually slap a heavy bomber in a suicidial raid if needed.
If people would stop camping on AF I would gladly do so. When enemy is alone and circles around AF while you don’t have enough time and points to win only viable solution is to go on his AF and kill him.
Despite all this I still want missile AA buffed as now it’s easy to evade missiles.
Well, I don’t think there’s much complaining about missile AAA.
But god damn, the hitscan AF AAA is a living nightmare.
Also recently I’ve been running into M163 quite a lot in my Ta-152H, not very enjoyable, but at least it’s dodgeable to some extent, unlike AF AAA.
Well most of players on jet BR-s are wallet warriors that drop bomb on bases and continue to enemy AF to be shot down by AF AA. Hardly will they complain about it.
I don’t see how could you fight against M163 when he is 8.0 and TA is 6.0. You can fight in +1/-1 window but not above and below that.
Will look for the replay, because I have encountered M163 several times recently, if you really have problems believing me and think I make stuff up for some ridiculous reasons.
EDIT:
here you go, warning, includes some interesting chat and a drastic miss at the end (but I guess my plane being damaged and on fire may have something to do with not-perfect approach).
It wasn’t M163? Ok, I’ve seen M163 so maybe will try another match. I thought it was firing fast enough for M163 here. Anyway, once I prove I do meet M163, will you f.e. stop posting here forever, so my effort gets properly rewarded?
EDIT:
Here you have a screenshot from the match. it’s M163
EDIT2: Golan heights has M163 too, and they were able to nick my wing from 2km away, luckily I dodged the res.t
It took me out from 1800m away with 1 burst BTW.
It’s ridiculous, and makes dogfighting at a radius oof 4km from M163 a suicide - because it’s easy to get closer than 2000m while fighting and if you slow down which often happens in such circumstances, it’ll shred you to pieces at that distance.
My last battle - replay is quite boring (it has some quality chat) and I don’t recommend watching it,. but it’s a “proof of concept”, in case anyone needed it:
But you can see AF AAA used in a bit less obvious way.
First Ki-84 escapes by going into the AF AAA zone, thus negating the 2 v 1 advantage of Me-262s, both would have missed every shot, but that’s beside the point.
Then it turns out 1 Me-262 guy can’t land, and the other Me-262 decides to “energy trap” Ki-84 that has only a bit less energy than himself and of course stalls in his guns.
Then He-162 uses AF AAA to remove Ki-84 from his tail and fails to get any serious firing position anyway because he’s bad.
Lack of AF AAA would have made this game probably shorter and less painful to watch.
Just got ganked by a F-5 while landing, was already on the ground, rolling out as he hit me with a AIM-9E (??? on the ground?). Airfield AA did nothing. And as I watched the replay this guy got 3 kills with this and became top scorer.
I don’t know what Devs are like. But WT is sometimes so annoying and I know no other game where spawn killing and these base ganks are so frequent and so easy to pull off. Why can’t they plant adequate air defense, missiles and gun systems. Any why are airfields often placed on such bad spots and grant alot terrain cover to any airfield camper while hes going in for a gank.
I think your description was a little bit misleading as by definition you have just one spawn in Air RB, and your death at your airfield was technically no spawn kill - even if your single spawn is at your af.
This might explain the question from the fellow player regarding your experience…
