The missiles are not OP, they are long-range faster AIM-54s. There is no maneuverability buff, it’s the same maneuverability, just faster.
It’s not an AIM-120.
F-14B has better IR missiles, better countermeasures, infinitely better RWR, and far better engines that make the F-14B equivalent to F-15A/C while F-14A is equivalent to Mig-23MLD and F-111F in airframe performance. There’s no reason for me to play either F-14A when there’s a better F-14A at 11.7 and it’s an Aardvark.
People don’t play the F-14B cause it’s the same BR as the F-15A, and no one plays the F-14A Iran either beyond trying to spade it, they play the superior F-16A instead.
G overload is not maneuverability, that’s how many Gs the missile pulls in a turn, which the faster a missile goes the more Gs is pulls doing the same turn.
AIM-7Fs are a meta radar missile, just like Fakour, R-27, etc.
All have similar weaknesses.
That may be the case, but the simple fact of the matter is, Tomcats have been in the game long enough now for everyone with a brain to know how to avoid getting smacked by them.
You’re going to have games where you smack oblivious / afk people. You’re going to have games where you hit nothing.
That’s not unique to Tomcat’s either. Even in F-15E, current king of BVR, you can have matches where all your AMRAAM’s get notched / multipathed etc. Less frequently sure, but can happen if the enemy team is good enough.
Firing things like Phoenix / Fk is a skill lottery. Sometimes you win, sometimes you strike out. We can’t lower battle ratings just because the enemy used the means of self defence available to them.
Of course, the F-14A fuselage can be considered ‘meh’ compared to superior counterparts with better RWR or radar.
but Fakour itself has much potential thanks to the insane level of thrust from Hawk SAM. which makes fly lot much faster than AIM-54 or other ARH missiles.
(Of course, it is not much more manoeuvrable than the rest of ARH which are mounted on better jets. Still good enough to punish 3rd-gen fighters)
and thanks to lower BR(before) which makes lots of F-14A IRIAF exploit the compression, F-14A IRIAF were ruining the BR Bracket worse than the original F-14A did.
Then Fakour-90 armed F-14A IRIAF finally made the first non-decompressing BR nerf of F-14A families since the introduction of F-14A which was more than two years ago in a “danger zone”.
IMO, if BR were more decompressed than now, F-14A IRIAF might be higher than the original F-14A.
and I think the original poster is just crying for nothing but his favourite toy is broken.
The primary factor that affects a missile’s performance in game is speed/velocity, just look at the best IR missiles in game, the Magic 2 and Pl-5EII are the fastest in their class (besides the ET which i will adress next), with the best Fox-1 is the R-27ER and it’s IR brother, the R-27ET, both hypersonic missiles with the ability to outreach every single on of their contemporaries, and finally, the best fox 3 is still the AMRAAM because of it’s insane velocity.
To bring this back on point, the Fakour is insane due to it’s wild velocity
Right now I am doing kinda okay, had multiple 15k RP games. But only really when I get an Airspawn that allows me to build up both speed and altitude. I am having the most success at around 1400kph at 3000-4000 meters of altitude.
On another note, beware of hackers. I have already filed reports and am confident that my concerns are justified. In one match yesterday we all had a normal runway start, except for one guy in an F-14 with kanji name who spawned in the air at full speed. I need to point out again that it was a match WITHOUT airspawns.
And today I get TWS locks from odd angles only 30km away from our runway, mainly on the spain map, and my whole team gets shredded by AMRAAM.
How could this be if not for a hacker with an odd airspawn?
Be aware everyone. This match I got atleast two before they annihilated us.