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.
@InverseBits
I’ve been using your tactic of flying high, and I’m surprised it works, didnt think that firing from 20KM out will actually work 90% of the time, giving me 1-3 kills before the game ends most of the time.
Allthough, I decided to keep having bombs on my aircraft as, my intended purpose isnt just to play for kills, im also trying to grind out the US air tree and whatever helps me in that is worthwhile taking for me.
Spacebombing after getting a kill on the merge is working really well.
Or i just bomb whenever im done with launching on someone under me (the scenarios where I’d have to point my nose down to keep radar lock)
Thanks on going out of your way to check my replays tho.
I really need to make this a proper seperate guide post, but this post explains what I mean
The F-4S doesnt have LSZ information for the Aim-7F and the post is written in regard to AMRAAM so ignore that too, but the ranging explanation still stands, if you operate as if the LSZ is roughly the bottom half or third of the range and you should do fine, at a bare minimum it gives you an indicator of when an Aim-7F might be worth firing and when its a waste.
