Honestly for this, it’s already pushed the game engine so far, it had to make an adjustment so it can reach its Supercruise Speed at deck. The problem is only with the disparity. EFT also had a report for its historical Supercruise, and yet Gaijin just denied it straight away. It’s either Rafale shouldn’t had it for sake of equality between Rafale and EFT, or both should have it. The drag in this game already very simplified, like the Rafale itself even before the buff already can go super fast even in full bombs loadout which iirc, the existence of its drop tank itselves already making Rafale can’t go supersonic irl (since the drop tank we had is not meant for supersonic flight but to carry as much as fuel).
Basically every plane in game currently has subsonic fuel tanks and yet can easily reach near their max speed. Same applies for other pylons. I don’t know if gaijin is ever going to change the impact of drag caused by external stores.
But aside from this, it’s also known that Gaijin doesn’t simulate very well high altitude (above 10-15km) since they don’t model tropopause atmospheric changes. It is also the case that supersonic drag of delta wing designs diverges a lot from IRL performances, so gaijin has to tune down drag for delta planes to achieve their max speeds. All of that combine gives pretty insane values for the rafale to reach its different max speeds and supercruise capabilities. What baffles me however is why the EFT didn’t also benefit from similar changes since the supercruise capability was, imo, sufficiently sourced
Unfortunately this is the case in about every single airframe in game, for example if you find any Su-25 documentation you’ll find the moment you put bombs or rockets on it’s limited down to 800kph irl (ouch). There’s a couple reasons for this such as:
1 - as you mentioned, drag is very simplified in game, and any performance above about mach .8 is practically fictional
2 - as vizender mentioned, atmospheric conditions are also heavily simplified
3 - many of these limits are technically safety concerns and I have little doubt aircraft with such absurd thrust to drag ratios wouldn’t be able to push through it at the risk of damaging the airframe.
of course, that’s where the problem come, like the disparity between Rafale Supercruise and EFT Supercruise. I acknowledge that Rafale become so overpowered after that buff, because that buff gives Rafale capable of going Mach 2 easily due to how stupidly simplified the drag in the game.
But, because of this too, there’s no chance that this buff (not the supercruise, but the side effect of supercruise buff) will eventually get revoked unless Gaijin finally model complex drag system in modern jet. I just want to address regarding the question of how magical Rafale at altitude, something that only Rafale can do as of today (even EFT is very hard to reach Mach 2 in altitude unless you’re using unlimited fuel). It’s either Rafale shouldn’t have that, or both should have it. And I’m on the side that both should have it for sake of pushing the game so it can decompress the BR once again.
There really isn’t any disparity with the supercruise for both planes. Both planes got buffed in this regard and neither one of them can really reach the stated supercruise figures.
