The ASA/M did not add any weapons capability, it was focused on reliability and service life upgrades. It has the same capabilities as the regular ASA.
IRCCM would be huge for the ASA, would help it a lot and make the bad FM worth it. Fly fast and sling missiles
Tbh, it kind works well enough already. As long stay fast, refrain from the initial furball and remain disciplined enough to not turn with anything you’re usually fine.
Last time I flew it I got a Mirage 2000 and an F-16, almost bagged an F/A-18 as well but someone else got the shot in first. It’s also really handy for dealing with MiG-25’s.
Next point is just a QoL thing, but the ASA in particular could be doing with a newer pilot model, the old 1950’s helmet just doesn’t look right in anything beyond the F-104A/C/G(early).
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Nah I love the ASA, it’s one of my most flown jets in the game! I just meant it would be really nice to have IRCCM missiles, especially in uptiers against 12.7
Would make it comparable to the Mirage F1, IRCCM missiles, fast, MTI with okay radar missiles. Just suffers from poor RWR and an inability to manoeuvre for extended periods of time. In a 1v1 though I do love surprising people with the starfighter
Bombing needs to be fully removed as a consideration for balance/BR placement in air RB. It has nothing to do with the gamemode and doesn’t impact winning or losing. It only has to do with players unlocking things and grinding SL and gaijin not wanting players to unlock anything.
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Was thinking about the RWR a while back but haven’t posted anything, from what I understand of it the real one was actually quite advanced, it just had a sub par display. It did however activate ECM gear that we simply don’t have in game (yet), as a stop gap it wouldn’t be that unreasonable to have it function as a CM slaved MAWS.
My only fear with giving it 9M’s, or similar, would be snail using it as an excuse to bump it up in BR.
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True, I do hope we get ECM soon as we see more IRCM added and ARMs coming this year. Good time to expand electronic warfare, especially before 5th gens come.
As for the BR increase, if the ASA had stayed at 12.0 but had 9L/i-1 I think it honestly would’ve been fine. 11.7 is necessary rn due to the regular 9Ls, but putting it as an equal to the Mirage F1 in BR would make sense with IRCCM missiles. Really only reason 12.0 suffers so much is because of the massive compression from 12.0-14.3, if they are able to separate such vehicles a bit better then 12.0 is a great bridge between early look-down SARH aircraft and the IRCCM ARH meta at the top. You would get vehicles like the Mirage F1, F-104S ASA, and Bison building that bridge with older 3rd gen airframes but R-73/Magic 2/Aim-9L/i
Right now it’s basically you go from non-IRCCM supersonics and a small handful of IRCCM subsonics and then launched straight into 4th gens with R-73 and 9M and very good radars with late SARH and early Fox-3 that just serves to make uptiers even more brutal than normal
I hope it gets this. Would be unique being a really low rating plane to have this.
nobody mentions the f104s speed because speed is obsolete in 2026 at this br, any uptier plane or missile will catch you, I constantly get matched against F18’s
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The F-104S being the 3rd or 4th fastest plane below 12.7 is quite notable and makes it significantly better than any 10.7 (except the J-7D), and so much better than the F-104Gs.
Having a high top speed should not be confused with being fast.
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The F-104S has a high top speed, while also having good accel, and people never mention it. It’s so much better than the F-104Gs.
I’m waiting for the day when Snail remembers the long-forgotten F-104 in its own game, but I’m starting to doubt more and more whether that day will ever come…
Not only is their BR too high relative to their combat capabilities, but they also lack the full capabilities they had in reality. Somehow, the F-8E at BR 10.7 has EEGS/IRST in the game, but the “pencils” don’t have it, and there’s still no sign of the iconic wing-tip fuel tanks, which would be very helpful in simulation mode.
Edit:
@Normandy_Corsair
Exactly—it’s a mistake on Gaijin’s part to even take this into account when determining a vehicle’s BR; it doesn’t make sense, since bombing bases has such a negligible impact on the final outcome of a battle.
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what’s insane to me is they recently updated the models of the starfighters. Meaning they haven’t forgot about it. They can see their performance and are choosing to do nothing about it
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You have just only scratched the surface of Italy’s military power.
Just wait until we get F-104S-ASA/M at 13.0 with AIM-9L/i-1, Aspide Mk.2, and such powerful ECM not even the most modern AESA radar can even know it is on earth
Wait what!? THEY CAN USE THE SARHs WITHOUT LOSING THE CANNON!?
these are some of my favorite jets and them being so hampered freaking sucks.
Don’t forget, this Dev team doesnt care about “fair”. Italy isnt a money making country regarding ARB for the company (hence the lack-luster premium options).
They don’t care to re-work the ASA because few people play it.
What they DO care about: OP premiums in countries with good end goal aircraft.
China for example has 2 of the most OP premiums ever added to game, all relating to artificially lowered BR’s to incentivize players into buying them: The J-7D at 10.7 (should be at least 11.0 or even 11.3 to compliment the J-7E) and the worst offender (IMO) The Su-30MKK at 13.3… that thing has needed to be 13.7 since the moment of it’s release but since it’s a cash cow they will never increase it’s br.
Same exact reason in the other direction why they wont bother changing the ASA, they do not care about it.
This is a company in the end of the day, they’re goal is not to supply us with a fair environment, it is to earn shareholders lots of money.
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It makes sense to be 11.0, it doesn’t make sense to share BR with the better J-7E
Viggens and Floggers will catch you pretty easily under most circumstances, even the Mig-21 Bis can keep pace for a while. Yes speed helps but when the speed race turns into a fight all of those other fast vehicles can then turn decently well (Mig-21) or even amazingly (Mig-23 and Viggen). Drakens can also usually pace you at any sort of altitude. Speed alone can be a virtue, but being the “3rd or 4th fastest” at its BR while having none of the redeeming factors of those other jets (awful radar, rear aspect only fox 2, terrible speed bleed and extremely poor turn rate) means it is not strong enough a virtue to lean on.
I have hundreds of battles in starfighter variants, I know them very thoroughly. You only perform when you capitalise on poor enemy decisions/lack of awareness and on lucky opportunism. Someone who knows you are there will be able to at the minimum evade all your attacks, and more than likely counter you.
Nothing for the F-104s in the recent battle rating change proposals. We lost
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