A-6 is a nice aircraft in most regards, but the guns are absolutely atrocious and ruin any fun I could possibly have in it.
It’s literally just an NR-23 with a shorter barrel… Nothing about it can possibly be described as “good”.
The J-7D’s 23-3 is far better though, given it wasn’t made objectively worse in any imaginable way to the GSh-23-2. I love it since you also get to use PL-5Bs alongside your PL-7s, so you get far better range at higher altitude and top-down shots. It’s still as sluggish as any other interim Fishbed, though.
IMO, the F-5 is quite possibly the best premium in the Chinese tree if you aren’t already accustomed to top tier. The Su-30MKK was only really great in AAB, but now that they effectively removed 12.0 you can’t get downtiered into full Phantom lobbies…
If you don’t mind its tier, grab the F-5. You only get a slight research drop when you move on to Rank 8, but it’s still more effective at researching Rank 8 aircraft than any Rank 7 aircraft without a talisman.
It’s the only “real” MiG-17F, given that the only other in-game is the Lim-5 with trashy weight and guns, and being the same BR as the TT MiG-17 gives it a huge upper hand. It’s what I used to grind the tree, and I don’t regret having it.
Still on my way to trying to get every premium on my main account though, 2000 gjn didn’t get me far.
In what way is it overpowered? The N001 is unequivocal dogshit, it has the far heavier airframe of the early Su-30s with the quite meh AL-31F.
The only saving grace is that 13.0-13.7 is so compressed that it shares the exact same BR as the J-11A. Either way, you’re guaranteed to fight 14.3s every match with no leg up.
Performance in ASB is horrendous given its radar, with its entire gameplay loop there being passive hunting like any other early Flanker or spamming missiles at nonexistent targets that haven’t updated on TWS for the last 20 seconds. It has good uptime so you can definitely play slow, but then you’re objectively worse than an F-15C or MiG-29SMT, and can even be outdone by a Tornado F.3 Late by virtue of its missiles and radar alone.
ARB is much of the same, you have a horrendous radar with x6 ARH missiles facing enemies like the F-15C (x8 120Bs), F-15C GE (x12 120Cs), Su-27SM (x8 R-77s), and even nuisances like the F-16A+ and AM still have better radars, FMs, and match your ARH count with better missiles.
Much like the F-16 as well, even the MiG-29SMT’s gimmicks push it over the Su-30MKK in capability. The N001 is so bad that any +/-140dg radar can grease the Su-30 while being just far out enough to notch.
Much like the J-11A and J-11B, there’s simply no reason to get it given its placement. It’s a second-rate Flanker that’s missing its extra fuel tanks, has pitiful engines, an even sadder radar, and only really fits in if you’ve already maxed the tank tree.
It has almost Su-27SM levels of performance (the literal best 13.7 plane) at 13.3
The radar may be bad, but it’s most definitely good enough to spot people and get kills
you’re using air RB loadouts to rate a vehicle’s performance in ground rb? what is this logic.
The Su-30MKK and MK2 have almost the exact same loadout as the Su-27SM for grb, with one less ARH and TWO more KH-29Ts. At a lower br, making it better than the Su-27SM for grb.
AIM-120 < R-77. I shouldn’t have to explain this by now, this topic is old.
MiG-29SMT’s gimmicks are literally just a better radar, it is far worse in every other aspect.
Ain’t no way you’re telling me that the F-16AM is better than the flanker lmao.
Worse defensive kit (only 45 countermeasures) and worse missile kit. (AIM-120s just aren’t that good, you only get six missiles anyways, 5 if you want more countermeasures)
The Su-30MKK specifically, has the best missile kit of 13.3. Mk2 has the second best one.
You have insane variety, 3 different IR missiles, the best Fox1, two good ARH missiles to pick from.
You have a great missile count, the highest at 13.3.
The FM may be mid, but it’s good enough to win missile jousts with ease. The radar is also mid, but considering the fact you’re fighting many aircraft that don’t even have a HMD it’s definitely good enough.
Both of these planes are great at their brs in air rb.
It “almost” performs like a plane that’s 1 step above it?
Who would’ve thunk it
That can be said about any plane in the game. I could even say it about the APG-63, which somehow manages to lose locks on targets flying directly at you.
Simply “spotting people” isn’t going to cut it when, as said previously, there are better radars at the exact same BR that have a better TWS and can even track you while notching.
Meant to type ARB, not GRB.
Please refer to:
Maybe it’ll do well in the comedy club, but not here.
Right, it definitely has a far worse ARH loadout, definitely doesn’t outaccelerate and outspeed the 30MKK <8km, definitely has a worse CM load, and TWS+ doesn’t matter at all, right?
The MiG-29SMT is simply inferior in every way!
Better missiles, better radar, better FM. What more do you have to say except for constant incredulity?
What are you going to use them on? All the myriads of 12.3 aircraft that you face each and every match? Or… All uh… All of these guys?
A single F/A-18C alone has +4 more ARH missiles, ignoring the x2 AIM-9Ms it also gets alongside that. There were 3 on the enemy team that match.
Funnily enough, the ones on my team always manage to die within 2 minutes.
What about that puts it over an F-5, which is categorically better than every fighter above its BR? It matches speed with almost all supersonic aircraft in the BR range (unlike the 30MKK, which has the most lethargic powerplant known to man), outturns anything that does pass its top end (unlike the 30MKK, which weighs 25 tonnes on a good day), and doesn’t deal with the major compression of everything above 12.7.
By no means is the MKK “good enough to win missile jousts with ease”, especially when the amount of time needed to get a TWS update on an enemy missile (let alone getting the N001 to track anything) is overran by… Yknow, the enemy missile.
The J-11A most certainly is, and it possesses the same A-A capability as the 30MKK without the extra handfuls of tonnes of irrelevance.
Since you’re having trouble comprehending this, I’ll dumb it down a bit for you.
If 13.7~14.3 gets “constant downtiers”, what BR will they be fighting?
Oh, right, 13.3!
If you’re in a 13.3 aircraft facing higher BR planes that get “constant downtiers”, what is the matchmaking going to be skewed towards?
Once again, you’re going to be eating 120C-5s from aircraft that near double your ARH count without having a radar from the early '70s.
Saying that its worse than its competition is a “dumb argument”? You even stated yourself in the same comment that aircraft above its BR face constant downtiers. It’s about as relevant of a point as it can possibly be.
What does that have to do with my statement? Once again, incredulity isn’t worthy of an argument.
Try not to sperg out next time, spamming doesn’t come across nicely.
It… It has the same total missile count as the J-11A, even sharing the exact same standard loadout, and has as many or less ARH missiles than aircraft surrounding it.
I wouldn’t at all say it’s sufficient for its BR, it’s a horrible radar even for 12.7 standards, but if it were to get PL-12As then I would definitely say that its missiles outweigh its radar. As of now, though, the missiles are mid as can be and its radar is abhorrent.
Slower than 12.7 airframes (which get the same count of ARH missiles at 13.0 and 13.3) in both acceleration and top speed, worse in pretty much every way I can think of than the J-11B.
Every match I play in the 30SM leads to me slaughtering them, and any match I play in the F-16A+ leads to me getting stomped by Typhoons and, of course, the 30SM.
The only outliers I seem to get are 1 out of every 4~5 matches, in which maybe there’s a small chance I can get above 5 kills due to the nature of 12.7 as a whole.
Missile capacity doesn’t mean much when there’s no world in which you’d be using R-73s to out-spam an aircraft that does its best at ~10km.
I’d rather take those extra AIM-120s, and their range.
In which its missile capacity still matches the Su-30MKK in BVR, allowing the MiG-29SMT to hold ground >10km any still be impervious to pretty much anything the MKK does.
Second time somebody has entirely ignored the argument of an aircraft from 1979 having a better radar than what is supposedly the “most overpowered” premium.
No 13.0 plane gets good 6 good ARHs, You’re also completely ignoring the fact that the flanker also gets 4 extra missiles along with the Fox-3s
OMG no way, it’s worse than what is practically the same vehicle, but better at a higher BR? (Also still one of the best 13.7s) tell us the obvious again please.
More missiles means you’re less restricted in what targets you can launch at, and can afford to waste more.
Also allows you to put out more pressure in engagements.
And once that’s over the SMT just falls apart because it has both a terrible flight model and worse missile count.
The tornado does not have HMD, already an incredible disadvantage in the jousting meta, worse and LESS missiles.
The tornado is also the literal definition of a shitbrick with that flight performance.
What about the ARH loadout of the MiG-29SMT is worse than that of the 30MKK?
Easily holds a 17dg/s rate with fuel and armament @M0.65, matching the F-16A+'s optimal rate at M0.67.
You have enough nose authority to put a Mirage to shame, and pairing that with the best WVR loadout and a radar allowing you to fire on people nearly behind you (can hold lock to 88dg) gives you a very fair hand above the 30MKK.
Everybody knows that the Su-27 is the best dogfighter in the world though, and seeing as the Su-30 isn’t an Su-27, it’ll lose.
I’m sorry, you must be confused as to what a BVR fight is.
If you do understand it and still manage to fire a missile that pulls 25Gs off the rail, you need to fix yourself.
BVR is not the meta, this is a very well-known thing from over a year ago.
what matters for missiles is close-medium range performance in ranges of up to 15km, not who can shoot further.
15km+ launches are extremely trivial to avoid, for a good player 10km launches are also not an issue.
So the better missiles end up being those that can hit at close range, with good acceleration.
MICA-EM is the perfect demonstration of that, it has comparable range to an R-77 but pulls harder and accelerates very well.
Yet it’s considered to be the best Fox-3 in the game.
AIM-120C-5 is complete garbage because it is the 2nd worst Fox-3 for pull (120D is slightly worse), has terrible acceleration with only one thing going for it, less range which lets it hit 40km targets better.
A benefit which is almost irrelevant
R-77s literally have the second best pull out of all Fox-3s in the game, with good acceleration (better than AIM-120). They are better than AIM-120 at 10km and below and good enough up to 15km. (you can also use R-27ER at longer ranges as substitute)
The flanker will mog every other plane at 13.3 in every engagement besides a dogfight, there’s a reason why flankers were meta in TSS until the new lineup. Dogfighting does not happen often enough for that to be a really serious concern
