The Leviathans update is currently bringing two new targeting pods to the game that many already existing aircraft could carry in real life, these being:
Some of these aircraft use Sniper but not by the nations we have in-game, however a nation doesn’t have to have them in their inventory or use them on their own aircraft as a bug reporting manager confirmed as much over a report about the Swiss F/A-18C having armament that the Swiss never had by saying:
"As long as a vehicle is able to fire and use a weapon (that is, it is technically compatible), then the weapon is open to consideration for the aircraft. Being in a given nations ownership/ stockpile is not a requirement."
So, therefore both ATFLIR and Sniper ATP should also be given to the aircraft that are capable of carrying and using them, even if not used by their host nations in-game.
Depending on how its modeled. Sniper for something like the Typhoon probably isnt necessarily needed as Litening III is very good. But would be a MASSIVE upgrade for the Gr7. Though I fear they will keep it as an “upgrade” for the Gr9A
Gotta love the unfairness towards US planes this patch, no Sniper for any of their planes despite the US literally making the pod, no BOL pods for F-18 despite Finnish one getting them making it objectively better, no BOL pods for F-15s which were reported like a year ago…it’s so fkcn annoying
What impact tpod performance has on BR is a debate to be had, but probably not much. In a lot of cases there are either already equal tpods at the same BR. Like for example F-15E getting Sniper vs the Typhoons Litening III or they are already suffeciently high that they probably wouldn’t change.
Usually its going from none or having one that has no thermals or tracking to having one or having one that does have those things is the biggest boost and thus maybe the biggest impact on BR
The biggest buffs would be for the A-10C which it would unlock the ability to run 6x AGM-65 + Tpod which imo would probably justify the 12.0 BR it already has and the Gr7 which currently only has TIALD. Whether its BR increases or not would be a debate, but I doubt it as its limited to 4x AGM-65 currently anyway.
Well, It could provide IRST-esque capability (passive A2A search & track capability) to many of those airframes. which provides a significant leg up to them as most of the prospective airframes that it could be added to lack said capability especially in comparison to their counterparts which do.
It could, but id argue that would have more of an impact in terms of ARB/ASB BR rather than GRB BR.
And for the most part, same holds true.
Typhoon and Rafale and Su-30? already have IRST at 14.0. So F-15E getting it (at the cost of the drag of a tpod) isnt that big of a deal.
the GR7 is already at 12.3 in ARB/ASB with no radar at all. It getting IRST isnt going to suddenly change things (Though im not sure if it actually ever used that ability or even could use that ability IRL due to the lack of proper intergration) (would also have to give up a canon for the tpod too)
Maybe some of the F-16s? But again, probably wouldnt be that signficant. Especially with how badly modeled IRST is at the moment
