Not sure what you exactly mean here. I don’t remember “hyping” it anywhere, to anyone. I think I already made it clear (here and on the CBR) that the ~ 24 °/s was most likely due to unconventional testing conditions (fuel load) + a lighter airframe than what we have in game + probably the number being rounded up (hence the ~ in the document, which means "about/around 24 °/s)
The Rafale’s initial FM was basically made up by the devs because they had no performance data points.
All this report does is providing the devs with actual data points from decent sources to make the Rafale at least somewhat accurate.
I agree that the MMRCA is a decent source that concurs with the Idea of a slight STR buff. I didn’t add it initially because the testing loads aren’t given, but also don’t seem to be the usual 50% fuel light configuration. It also gives the EFT only a .2 °/s edge over the Rafale and perform worse than a late F16, which can make it hard to trust. I’ll add it regardless, thank you for reminding me about it.
I’m not going to bother with the idea that “X was op therefore we deserve to be op” regardless of how long France hasn’t been allowed at the meta-table. I’m going to go straight off of how things are.
The idea MICA’s (and by extension r73s and SRAAMS) suddenly not suffering from their wobble and poor range would be in bad taste for balance, is frankly nonsense. This goes against so many things but ill start with the best case in your favor.
If for whatever reason the MICA were artificially given higher range (by adding more burn time for example) to counteract the known energy drain from wobble, instead of the bug being fixed, then what would we have? An OP doom stick? No, the crazy pull MICA benefits from like the r73 is limited to when thrust vectoring is on. What we would have is a slightly longer reach, it would perform at range the same way other missiles currently do at best. Something that hardly matters anyway given essentially every missile added after a sparrow is not something your dodging kinematically in a headon when your not on the edge of range. What about short range? An increased burn time means nothing here. Medium range? Slightly faster missile with higher G pull when it already can pull in without the thrust vectoring at range.
This all ignores the actual issue which is this is related to the wobble and drag bug that is known by the devs, and effects all missiles, with TVC and high G missiles in particular suffering the most practically from it. If this were fixed, it would be a buff to all missiles across the board, and would bring TVC controlled ones to be consistent regardless of server performance. When people refer to the poor range of the MICA they are referring how because of this bug, the missile will quite literally fall out of the air at absurdly short ranges, and inconsistently at different ranges. The MICA having its near 120 range would not suddenly make it better than 120 slingers in the meta either, as total range and count is again what matters. This bug being fixed would just lead to the rafale actually being capable of BVR in a 1v1.
And onto that topic. There are two ways of looking at balancing, only one of which the snail really cares about, statistics. The idea that you balance around an equal playing field, what two planes in a 1v1 at equal skill can achieve. And the idea that in a general sense, how to keep one plane from being statistically more performant in a game (16v16) vs another. The MICA is impotent at range, a 1v1 between anything with 8 MICAS and 8 120s is a game where the 120 beholder needs to make many, many more mistakes than the MICA user has to in order to win. Someone using MICAs can’t even counterfire at the same range someone with 120s can force them to go defensive, let alone the bare range they can be engaged at. If both dodge each others missiles, well then you’re going into guns then? And as it stand the rafale is beat by the typhoon so that point is also moot.
Well what about 16v16 Funzone where we don’t get to play the equal stands game? As far as that goes, don’t kid yourself. F15s and typhoons are still climbing to orbit, ripping off all 8, getting 1-2 kills each then eating another 120. Statistically they’re doing just fine meanwhile anything with r77s, derbys, MICA are relegated to the lawnmower experience, of which the MICA and derby have the least ability to counter anyone in orbit. If anyone manages to stay in orbit after the initial wave of 120s and still has some missiles themself, they control the field. If you don’t have a 120 you can’t leave the deck before you’re in line to catch one. This puts incredible pressure on you as you can’t counter launch due to not only your range, but the face you don’t have the ability early game to even try to be high altitude to be in a position. It puts you in a handicap that you have to play around while the other player can decide if he wants to put himself on the equal playing field or not.
What about MICAs shredding lobbies all of a sudden? This has been gone over but I’ll go into it more, the MICA as it is right now, is perfect for getting anyone whos not in a notch, multipathing, or at range/alt. Its the perfect platform for punishing anyone doing something they shouldn’t be doing. Anything with HMD aimed radar can capitalize on this but having MICA simply allows you to have a wider cone to do so. Combine this with the average French player being more experienced and it’s hardly a surprise to see sudden bursts of kills. Catching a furball of players unaware will always be free kills as well, its been this way since we had r60s. This isn’t some magical notion that the MICA is incredibly powerful, the same can be done with 120s and r77. And argueably the MICA can only do this at short range while the r77 and 120 can do this at medium range as well. Derby’s in a sad spot and can’t do really anything at short range or long range, stuck at medium.
Also wrong, the typhoon is, FM wise, the radar is a toaster but for some reason the snail is allergic to putting finished radars in the game as of late. The rafale and kfir still don’t have the functions AESAs should have. Many other examples exist every recent patch.
You missed his point, which is absurd because anyone who remembers this era knows how awful it was. For several patches f14s were the only planes with ARH, that meant no one but another f14 could climb, they absolutely obliterated any new players en masse, and given they could see players fresh off their f5cs who had zero experience using radar missiles just to get slapped by one they couldn’t see. They were a menace that wiped entire teams of players who had no concept of notching given the iircm lawnmower meta, and given their huge warhead gave people little leeway so would, and still do, catch people who are multipathing by their splash damage alone. I don’t know if you either were not playing the game at this time, or were only playing an f14, but it is absurd to ignore this entire sequence of events. Especially considering ER’s were half as oppressive given the majority of their time in the sun was also when the meta was multipath and never leave the deck, giving way to the irccm meta.
This has been talked to death but, it was possible to put on the plane, it may not have served with the french but to the snail, much much more questionable additions have set much worse precedents. Even disregarding the yak41, the more recent f14-iraf features r27s that the radar was tested and known to be unable to function with. The idea that 2 pylons featured on an export model that are real and function don’t fit is another laughable point. Especially considering all it takes to make any idea that its ahistorical, to simply change the f3r to be the Indian variant in name.
The HMD IFF is next to useless in air RB and the snail pretends sim does not exist in terms of balancing.
f15e has 120s, typhoon has 120s and a better FM. Current Russian top tier is a joke and everyone knows this. The poor gripen only gets 4. The rafale getting 8 means that if the jet not only makes it within MICA range, then it has the chance to then joust 8v8 in terms of missiles.
If your idea that the rafale is dominating is because of sim, and you fundamentally don’t understand why, it leads me to believe that the reason for this opinions is that you’ve been a blue teamer in sim facing 0 pushback from red. Because if you’re a blue team player suddenly seeing any pressure from a team that for the last couple patches has been getting shafted so hard that less than 4 players worldwide are usually playing red team, you’re fundamentally going to lack the experience red teamers have built just to have a chance to fight on equal terms. Whether this is true or not for you, it is for the majority of sim right now.
The best way to play sim remains climb with 120s spam, and return before anyone without 120s can even enter range to fire back. This has only been alleviated recently because red team that has been dealing with braindead blue team players so long that a massive gap in game knowledge has developed, this was inevitable, and combine this with red team finally getting planes with a fraction of the electronic suite blue team gets, and you’re going to see things flip. But if were talking sim, smokeless 9ms are still the best IR missile, anything without 120s is automatically playing with their hands behind their back, and trying to argue that because people leave the safety of orbit and longer range to dogfight planes that were designed to fill a dogfight niche just to loose despite comparable fms, that it makes the MICA undeserving of a fix to a bug? You fail to understand the position not only French players are in, not only red team players are in, but what blue team is in.
You spit nonsense and people will be flustered and spit nonsense back at you, this is the internet.
But to connect this all together, no French players are claiming the MICA is unusable garbage. But in the context of the meta and any even fight, it essentially ties one hand behind our backs and forces us to play with a handicap. The missiles niche is close in performance, wherein there it performs well, but is still a buggy mess like the r73, but it was also designed to function at much better ranges at a reduced performance. It cannot reach those ranges, not even close, and to add salt to the wound the performance is inconsistently poor. To say that French players shouldn’t get this fixed because bugs that the MICA has suffered since they were added to the m2k, have simply gone away because we got a slightly better FM to launch them from seems like a ignoring a long term sore point because someone got a shiny new toy.
And pressing on a sore point and then being surprised when the community is very unhappy with you when you don’t even understand how they got this way seems at best ill-informed, at worst malicious mocking.
And the most annoying regarding this is how you parade around the idea that you’re somehow above this, that you don’t demand realism when its unfavorable, rounds back to show you fundamentally do not see the larger picture. Especially when your claiming this to the French playerbase, who are historically the nation people do not play first, ergo, a player base consistent of players who have almost all experienced things from more than the French side. No one here is saying the typhoons microwave strapped to the front should stay on low settings, nor that the jas39 and Sweden aren’t in a terrible place after being the top dogs, or that everyone else that is lacking tools shouldn’t get them. But this is the French thread, talking about getting the french things fixed, which also historically, takes more and combined effort to achieve than other nations. The fact that recently were getting fast tracked is a boon that is new and already waning.
TL;DR, This is all to say you fundamentally do not understand how the MICA is under performing, and you don’t understand the position you or other players are in in regards to your advantage you have over them. Sweden is pretty low if not the lowest in the totem poll, the French got a competitive plane, the US goes one patch without a new toy but still maintains its competitive edge at 2nd place to the 1st that is the Typhoon*. The MICA receiving a buff to range would not break it past the typhoon.
As for failing to mention china, a I’m sure a local Chinese main could fill in, I have zero experience regarding their place, especially considering how I don’t even face them often on the enemy team.
I hope this awful word dump fills a better job explaining the discontent others have voiced about some saying the MICA doesn’t deserve to be fixed.
MICA is also currently hard-coded to self-destruct automatically after travelling 50 km. Afaik it’s the only Fox-3 in this case and it could be interpreted as a balance decision by the devs.
The Rafale is good in sim, the HMD is excellent to have, making the plane easy to use. But it it is not OP, and the lack of range of the MICA is easy for an F-15 or Eurofighter to go to 9,000m and zooming around safely, the MICA having more range won’t even make too much of a difference besides making these players think about using their Aim-120’s further range.
I would say Rafale is easiest top tier plane in sim to play, but not the best.
Most Nato aircraft have Aim-9Ms which are still the scariest and most reliable missile to kill with, especially head on. MICA and other Fox 3s can be easily be multipathed, Magic 2s are decent but 9Ms and R73 are generally better in most use cases.
While the Eurofighter lacks IFF on its HMD and has worse radar than the Rafale. It has better flight performance and should win dogfights against the Rafale in sim and carries the better 9M and Aim-120.
the current MICA-EM range is Gimped my boy,… the in game files says it can’t go farther than 50km, which is not even close to what the Contructor (MBDA) said commercially about the missile (80km).
I would agree with you for balance reason, however, i play sim somtimes and having usa planes spamming you at 40 to 60km you have to defend all the time. Its not verry fun gameplay and it allow them to get clother and get you.
I would understand the range nerf but the aim 120 and even the newest Derby where given respectivly 80% and 100% theorical max range. The mica em should be 50 to 80km not 25 as it is actually, in combat situation.
Its a verry good short to medium range missile so i can wait.
Not saying it isn’t gimped file wise, but I still think the bug is the main source of its range issues (right now). If it falls back to earth after 20km theres not much exploding after 50km does to make it worse. Either way, it still fails to reach half of its advertised range, in a range meta :/
