I’m not sure on how to play this aircraft, never been actually.
I dont fly low because unless someone is above me (which is INSANELY rare for someone to fly high on this br), I cant do anything because sparrows are just horrible, and the F-4S lacks good IR missiles to the point where Ive just started taking 5 sparrows and 0 sidewinders.
I try fly high, but its impossible to do anything if youre launched on because your plane is just a brick.
(Running away from the F4S is also a great choice because if you run away the F4S cant do anything)
I dont understand how to play this plane, it feels so horrible compared to everything else I face (Which is also 70% uptiers)
How is the F/A-18A only .3 higher when its practically better in every single way?
I would much rather use the F1C200 with the eh flight model and radar missiles, because of the magic 2’s.
i want to say, im not a good air player, but there is NO way after so much time, trying every possible thing, almost nothing has changed.
Removed this message here, i missread yours, my fault.
Are you left unnattended by the enemy team?, how do you play it out if a single plane decides to shift their focus on you?
Your radar struggles to lock onto people being top down, i doubt it works for you so well because youre never gonna have more than 1 player get into a head on with you at altitude, i actually wish to fight the F4S while grinding out the US air tree just because of how easy it is to counter it.
I could get kills quite consistently with the worse FGR.2, you can do it with the F-4S, Multipathing does not work like it used to and isn’t going to completely deny your Sparrows
Depends what you’re fighting, You can Pre-chaff MiG-23s and MiG-25s (though they are scary), and your missile (AIM-7F) is quite good long range
BR compression
Radar Missiles are the Meta, The 530F and that MTI radar don’t do that, though yes the Magic 2s are very strong on that airframe
they aren’t the best, but they can certainly get a great number of kills
kinda true, but the AIM-9Hs will get you far enough
I dont understand, what can I do to someone who knows that you dont need to engage everybody you see?
I have yet to kill someone keeping their distance from me without the direct help of a teammate.
Low altitude headons dont work, your sparrow will miss 9/10 times.
High altitude headons are rare, and a lot riskier because if you get launched on by 1 plane that isnt in a head on with you, youre forced to notch it, loose a lot of your speed (might die in the process), and stuck in the defensive until you die or be left alone (Which is the only time i can do something with the F4S, when im left alone).
just did this, got launched on by a mig23ml and i couldnt do anything because i couldnt turn in time, its either i die trying to notch it, or i try to kill the one launching on me before i die
Depending on the distance you’re at notching doesn’t work especially on the R24R. Multipathing+terrain are more reliable methods of defeating a Fox-1 sub 10km.
1 step ahead already, the couple times i did actually fly down the centre desperate for new playstyles there wasnt much difference because i still face the same issues.
I either have to go on the defensive as soon as someone shifts their focus to me, essentially making me not able to get any kills because i have to hope and pray the enemy isnt flying perpendicular or away from me, or find a enemy who did not launch their missile at me within 3-4 of me launching at them, because again, i have to go on the defensive, ultimately making me useless every time im in a headon.
I have to multipath, not be able to engage, finally be free from the defensive, just to go back into the same siutation because the person i tried to chal in a headon fired within 3-4 seconds of when i fired my missile.
its either die, trade or stalemate whenever i play this plane.
The F-4S is actually quite a good plane when you nail down the playstyle of it. The radar missiles are slow and do not pull very much, but they have an excellent range. You can certainly farm kills using them.
I looked at some of your replays and some things stand out. I understand that you were trying different strategies, so my tips may not be 100% accurate, but they may help.
Do not use bombs ever. They may seem like a good deal in theory, some minor flight performance loss in return for extra score. However, what I noticed in my own gameplay is that I played worse with bombs, simply because I was spending time deciding on when to bomb and when to shoot targets. Or simply diverting towards a base when I would probably pick up a kill otherwise.
Either multipath or go high, no in-between. You will only benefit from multipath at 0-60m RALT, going 400m-4km RALT will not give you any benefits, and you will be easily spotted. I recommend you start the match at ~7km altitude to get the best range from your missiles while remaining unspotted. You can also kill multipathers at such a high altitude.
Try to get kills before the merge. You have long range missiles, use them when encountering the enemy team. You can get kills on targets up to 30km away, I recommend shooting the missiles at ~20km in the merge, high up.