Aha, so i was doing something correctly.
I was just to stupid to not constantly watch my back, since most of the times i died like this was to IR missiles which i could have easily avoided.
I’ve been playing with your and CmdrVince’s advice in mind and it did help certainly, thank you on that.
I have a few tactics I use with the 12.0 F-4s.
AIM-7E-2/AIM-7F I use exclusively for head-ons.
ACM fighting is a tactic, and probably my primary.
Pretty much anywhere from 3 - 12km shots at low altitude, with leading of course.
You’re welcome; happy holidays, and happy flying.
Stop cooking him 😭
In head ons, my sparrow misses the enemy plane, slamdunks into the ground,
All radar missiles in the game are affected by a mechanic called multipathing (there are good youtube videos on this). The basics of it is: if you are below 60m radar altitude the missiles will aim more towards the ground, you might sometimes see the green radar box being below a plane, that’s multipathing in action. Basically don’t shoot at people going low if you are also low to the ground.
but my phantom is just so bulky that dodging missiles is insanely hard
In top tier you do not really kinematically dodge missiles, you position yourself correctly and use countermeasures to defeat missiles. To defeat radar missiles you should either be 30m in radar altitude (called multipathing) or moving perpendicular to the missiles and chaffing (called notching). I recommend staying at 30m and multipathing til you get better at top tier, notching can be quite difficult.
To defeat IR missiles you pretty much just need to flare, the earlier you flare the better. For some IIRCM missiles you will need to maneuver too, so don’t go in a straight line when getting shot at. In a head-on I would recommend pre-flaring before they shoot their missiles to guarantee you won’t die to an IR missile.
when should i shoot my sparrows?, i do not remember a single sparrow kill that wasnt me being “under” the enemy at 4km distance.
Sparrows have a surprisingly long range, and you can even hit targets 20km away if you shoot from up high. However, long shots give enemies a lot of time to move to cover or turn away. I would recommend shooting at 3-8km, but only really if they are going towards you. The phantom radar is very bad at targeting anything else.
How is the F4-S phantom considered the best 12.0 when there is the premium mirage with magic 2’s, constant uptiers fighting hornets, etc.
The grass is always greener on the other side. Stop thinking about other planes or uptiers, all planes have upsides and downsides and everyone gets uptiers. For example the premium mirage gets terrible flight performance and useless radar missiles. You plane is simply more difficult to fly, so it feels worse to start off with.
and 2 napalm bombs for when its deserted and i am free to get a base in, should i just stop doing this alltogether?
Your thinking makes sense, but it has a real impact on your performance and mentality. Taking bombs distracts you from going for kills, makes a small extra overhead to switch missiles and slows your plane. When I even take two bombs on a jet fighter I notice a significant drop in my performance, simply because I change the way I play. Just go full missiles to learn the most, have the best performance and have the most fun.
Stat shaming is lame bro. Yes, he got a premium, yes he skipped. So what? Now he is here asking for help but people are mocking him. Lame. Premium sales keep the servers running and the game online for all of us to play. No money = no game.
So many players buy premiums but NEVER ask for help on how to get better. Would you prefer that he never asks and stays “bad” forever? Common guys. Help the new player out. All of us didn’t know what the heck we were doing at one point too. I have been playing for 10+ years now and I still ask for help/tips/and advice.
What are you talking about? He stopped playing for a while, and logged back into his account again. He said his computer, NOT account. You should already know that accusing someone of rule breaking in public chats/forums is against the rules, contact a Game Master if you think there is an issue.
Did you even look at his profile page? 2018. Your post is wildly inappropriate. You should delete it.
NOTE: If anyone sees any errors that I might have made, if anything needs to be corrected/added to, please let me know and I will fix ASAP. Thanks!
This 100% this 👆 The effectiveness of the F-4S’s AIM-7F’s vary WILDLY depending on which radar mode you are using. Pulse Doppler is pretty much the only effective option to use with your AIM-7F’s, 90%+ of the time. (I will RARELY use normal/non Pulse Doppler when I am behind an enemy plane.)
Link to the “Radar Lock” chapter for the YouTube video. You only need to consider the “BVR” (Beyond Visual Range) and “Cyclic Targeting” information and keybinds for now. “Manual Target Cueing” is far too much to worry about for now, or ever lol: https://youtu.be/Weghk_2DpfA?t=906
This is the mode that I personally use when spawning in. SRC PDV HDN. This mode should give you the most consistent results with the AIM-7F missiles. And will probably be the easiest to use until you have learned all the ins and outs of your F-4S’s radar.
You can set this to be your default mode by using the drop downs, before you spawn into a real match. Or by setting it in test drive menu, again before loading/spawning in:
Contacts are displayed by velocity, NOT by distance. The higher a contact is on the radar’s vertical axis, the faster the target is moving towards you. Usually, because of how Pulse Doppler works, the faster a target is moving towards you, the better the radar lock will be. (And Pulse Doppler does not like to lock onto targets moving away from you, especially if they are moving at nearly the same speed as you.)
Pulse Doppler radars pretty much “only” look at velocity differences to maintain their lock. Thus, very low or 0 velocity difference targets are effectively invisible to the Pulse Doppler. However, this is also why Pulse Doppler can see a target low to the ground, through the ground clutter reflections. Because, the target is the only thing that is traveling at a different velocity.
The higher a target’s closing velocity on the radar screen, the better the resulting lock will be. Targets moving to your right or left are nearly impossible for your Pulse Doppler radar to lock onto, and will have a much lower displayed velocity (and why this is the normal evasive maneuver to try and lose a radar/missile lock from a Pulse Doppler threat.)
ACM PD HDN (Air Combat Maneuvering, Pulse Doppler, Head-On)
Direct link to the YouTube video’s chapter on this mode: https://youtu.be/Weghk_2DpfA?t=1520
I also sometimes like to turn the radar OFF until I am close, then use Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM PD HDN) mode (the one that automatically locks on as soon as it sees an enemy) to speed up the process and give the enemy less time to react. All depends on the situation.
HMS PD HDN (Helmet Mounted Sight, Pulse Doppler, Head-On)
Direct link to the YouTube video’s chapter on this mode: https://youtu.be/Weghk_2DpfA?t=1163
You ALSO have an HMS lock on mode, but this is also not very fast and I don’t use it unless I am turning hard and trying to lock a plane that is far off my nose. This mode will not lock on automatically like ACM mode, and you must use the keybind to lock a target after you have moved the targeting square onto a target. NOTE: You can use the “camera free look” to move the targeting square around your field of view, so that you do not have to actually turn your aircraft.
Most/all of these radar modes can be switched between PD (Pulse Doppler) and SRC (Search). There is an extra keybind to accomplish this, but you do not need to worry about that extra step right away. The video below goes into full detail about these differences, and the appropriate keybinds for each. Better to keep it simple to start with, and only add on more keybinds as you get comfortable 👍
I would highly recommend watching through this entire video, even though not all of the information will apply to your F-4S. Take your time. Go into a test drive and play with the keybinds he mentions in the video one by one. Ask more questions in your thread here. It will take hours, probably days, even weeks to fully grasp and become comfortable with everything that your F-4S can do. But it will be well worth all the time and effort to go through the entire process.
Happy hunting brother o7
a note on this - F-4S can slave its IR missiles to the HMS, so you can launch your sidewinders off bore sigh
how do you “learn” basics, if there is no tutorial in the game?
Researched an early jet aircraft - welcome to YouTube/Discord/communities for guides, researched a plane with radar and air-to-air missiles - welcome to YouTube/Discord/communitiesfor guides, researched a plane with radars with new modes, FOX-1/FOX-3 - welcome to YouTube/Discord/communities for guides
you cant learn stuff from the game, so how do grinding through the TT and all props will help?
This!
I’m not the best player, I mean, as he said my stats are pretty cataclysmic.
But this was since I’m not the best dogfighter, which is THE reason I got the F4-S, not just because i didnt find props fun.
With this said, im currently averaging 1-2 kills atleast by taking account what everybody has said here.
By actually understanding how plane combat works, like from other games if you ever played IL-2 Sturmovik lets say, or watching documents about WWII and the fights there,etc. And then by playing with better people.
At what lvl did u buy it?
ok? I will learn that altitude is important, the stuff about potential and kinetic energy, I’ll learn BnZ, I’ll remember which enemies I shouldn’t engage in rate fights with, and so on and so forth regarding piston-engine aircraft. And?
How will prop’s tactics help me in BVR? How learning to fly a prop will help me with a completely different aircraft with different flight characteristics on different altitudes and speeds, which relies on missile armament rather than dogfighting or BnZ? You can understand the concepts of energy in combat and positioning on a jet (which differs from a prop), but at the same time, a person will get used to the aircraft on which he will research the TT, get used to the enemies he may encounter, instead of memorizing the characteristics of dozens of props that he will never meet again
The community: “Why don’t players ask for help, and just jump right into the game, they are all bad and not wanting to get better”
The community when someone asks for help: “You are bad and should not be playing”
Also grinding props doesn’t help with jet combat that much. The average prop player isn’t good enough for you to meaningfully increase your skills in jets by the time you reach 11.0+ either.
To tackle one of your complaints:
To avoid this: Fly above the enemy and time the firing of the missile so it’s as close to 90° or perpendicular to the ground as possible when it reaches the target. This prevents the multipath effect by sandwiching the target between the missile and the ground. Of course, you also have to be more aware of incoming threats while doing this.
Assuming you are also close to the ground, due to various circumstances, pitch upwards as you fire the missile so it arcs, rather than flying straight then into the ground. This won’t always work, but it drastically reduces the effects of multipathing.
Have been doing this since a bit ago and it has been helping, thank you
I’ve still got a question regarding flares/chaff.
Should i have both keybinded on 1 key, meaning both chaff and flares would be sent out once I press said key
Or,
Should i have them keyed seperately as some planes tend to have limited countermeasures, so to not waste any.
For now I’ve got both of them keybinded on the same key, as im not too familiar with all the missiles, (i can tell apart which ones are IR and radar judging by my RWR, but what if the enemy fires both IR and radar missiles?
Use 2 keys. Personally I use Q for flares, and one of my mouses side buttons for chaff, but use whatever works best.
You’ll have to guess based on what your RWR is telling you, and the launch characteristics of the missile. A plane like the F-4S won’t be using IR missiles in a headon, but almost all Russian planes will.
Yes, you should have them on separate keybinds. I use both of my side mouse buttons for an example.
The main reason you want to have them on different keys, is that a lot of aircraft don’t have enough capacity to be wasteful.
Another reason is that flares will give away your position to players who may not have seen you, if you only needed to pop chaff.
As a side note: you should watch Defyn’s and MiGan Fox-3’s guides on YT for learning how to deal with IRCCM and radar missiles.