How to counter XP-50?

[SmørentheBustard]

The thing is fucking rediculous…

[T3ddy4]

Depends what plane you are in really. The main issue right now is the airspawn it gets so it will almost always be above you, it isn’t hard to energy trap if you come in with the advantage.

[Apollo_1641]

That’s the neat part, you don’t!

(You have to pray that the XP-50 pilot is sufficiently unskilled and commits enough mistakes for you to win)

[PercussionCap]

Really depends on what you’re flying. There are a couple ways to outfly them, but it is very aircraft-dependent.

[Br0der]

Play a turnfighter and bait him into dumping his energy and then outturn him works for me

[Uncle_J_Wick]

Regarding “how to counter XP-50s” - i use this tactic very effectively :

@Uncle_J_Wick

I play just for fun - and kills vs XP-50s became a kind of hobby for me - i always use the basic strategy:

1. Flying casually in their flight path and play scared pilot (180 turn)
2. Separating them from their team with a long shallow dive
3. When 1 vs 1 - doing a split-S and dive below them, but into them
4. If they dive on me: i pull up - they can’t bring guns on target
5. If they don’t dive: My energy picked up in the dive allows good shots

So even as the linked replay is not longer available (usually just 2 weeks) you can beat them more than often quite easy. Just look at their player cards upfront engagements - 95% of their pilots are rookies.

And even good pilots in XP-50s can’t fight the high compression - so in order to get kills they need to come close.

So you need a plane able to turn better (at least sustained) with a higher (or ot least not really slower) rip speed with less high speed compression - and, ofc, maxed crews / ace crews to avoid g-locks during these high g-load maneuvers.

I wrote this in the same thread:

@Uncle_J_Wick

Imho the XP-50 is only a menace for untrained pilots unable to exploit their main weakness: Their pilots.

• Everybody with some experience can use their high speed compression combined with the rather low rip speed to reverse them. I see them daily dying to Ki-44s and Yak-3s doing exactly this.
• From my pov only a handful of their pilots are able to maintain the energy advantage of their airspawn for a longer period. The average XP-50 pilot is limited to headons, goes for bombers and dives on the first markers they see.
• I would even claim that your chances to win a match increase the more XP-50s you face. To be fair: Things get difficult if you face the combination of rather good pilots on very small maps and your random team collapses very quick.
• But i can’t remember getting killed by one flying a SM 92 or a B7A2 - both outturn XP-50s if you are able to create an undisturbed 1 vs 1 and you managed to reduce their energy advantage with prolonged high speed dives upfront.
• Imho a good flown P-51 C-10 is a bigger threat on a lower BR - higher rip speed, very good dive performance, amazing high speed/initial turn, good turn and way faster at sea level.

[Nagib23_32]

Just force it to compress. You need to drag it down - it compresses very easily and, without altitude, it’s a very mediocre fighter.

[SmørentheBustard]

Thank you all for your, guys’ advice!