It gets outmatched by just about anything.
There are planes that can beat it to a pulp at lower battle ratings. I’ve noticed everytime I get paired with a vampire, the vampire is always the first to die and usually only skilled players (over 500 battles on the plane, from my rudimentary research) manage to get a SINGLE kill and even them get blown up at the first 5 mins.
Is it because of the turn time? Even if so, the Meteor at 7.0 turns better. I don’t understand.
You are downplaying how good the Vampire is at turning, it will win any turnfight at the BR generally speaking or at the worst match something like a meteor. That said, it’s still bad because this is all it can do and if somebody just doesn’t turn with you, you will not do well
You are downplaying that the Aim-9b does not care about turnfighting, at all
maneuverability tax
aim 9b requires rear aspect, so yeah, it does. Its not even a very good missile and you can easily double move and cause it to miss in any maneuverable plane.
Vampires aren’t good because they are slow and require players to slow down to make use of their only strength. If the enemy don’t slow down they don’t have any tool to play.
The Aim-9b is only rear aspect at launch. The seeker head will calculate a straight line while accounting for the target’s speed, and the vampire’s lack of speed easens it for the trajectory.
The maneuverability needed to avoid the missile is lacking as the stabilizers are all too often stiff, and the long wingspan makes the roll rate abysmal.
While it’s true that it’s a bit overtiered, it’s not as overtiered as I first thought. Really, the trouble is it’s binary flight model. It’s either completely helpless, or it’s an uncounterable monster that you’ll never win against. And which it is is entirely dependant on if it can find any planes that have cashed in their energy to fight.
Against them, it wins everytime (Barring exceptions like the rocket planes and maybe the Yak-23). But against targets that have some energy in the bank and are smart enough to go vertical against a Vampire, it has no chance.
Of course, the third option, and the reason it’s so high to begin with, is against players who aren’t smart enough to play energy against a Vampire. The Vampire’s bread and butter are the horde of mindless players (often in premiums) who will attempt to turnfight anything in anything.
So long as that horde exists, the Vampire will never be balanced properly.
This is incorrect. A rear aspect missile that loses track of the engine (Because the target turned too much and hid the engine from the seeker) will stop tracking entirely. This means that even at speeds where you don’t have the energy to beat the missile kinematically, just turning towards the missile is often enough to cause it to lose track of you. Then you just need to dodge the now dumbfire rocket and you’re safe.
This would only be the case when you’re compressing by going too fast. And I’m willing to bet you don’t have the new boosters modification either?
A Vampire that’s going just slow enough not to compress is one of the most AIM-9B resistant planes in the game. You have so much agility that it’s easy to either pull enough to bleed the missile of speed and beat it missile kinematically, straight up outpull it, or pull hard enough that it loses track of your engine.
AIM-9B is easily dodged
It’s… always rear aspect
It’s not hard for vampire to dodge aim9b
literally doesnt matter when its the slowest plane in the battle at a BnZ BR
plenty of people haven’t got the memo that jets aren’t supposed to hold S
theres faster almost as good turning jets at 7.0. Vampire needs to go down in BR by a lot
Plenty of jets that outturn it around that BR, and it won’t match the 7.3 and even the heavier 7.7 meteors, only the ones with smaller straight wings.
The vampire sucks, lacks acceleration and it doesn’t turn that well to justify being 8.0, at that BR the sea hawk is a better option imho.
to 7.7
I also noticed that Italy gets a slightly better Vampire with the upgraded De Havilland Goblin Mk. III engine vs Mk. II for Great Britain at the same BR at 8.0
But I agree that they should both at least go down to 7.7 minimum, like the French M.D. 450B Ouragan/Barougan (which are also terrible early jets as well).
That’s impossible because it takes 30 minutes for it to reach the battlefield