Then don’t get yourself in a position where you have enough people with firing solutions on you to launch that many missiles? You’re fighting A-6s, A-10s and Su-25s with all aspects at worst, they are all subsonic. You messed your positioning up tremendously and probably YOLOd into the line of subsonics without any care for positioning or strategy.
Quickly translates to “My tunnel vision and lack of battlefield awareness got me killed” which doesn’t sound like a flaw of the aircraft to me.
Again, awareness problem. Your own description of this is describing flaws with your gameplay, not with the aircraft. You don’t just get hit out of nowhere by an all aspect carried by a plane that tops out at half your speed and with a sixth of your climb rate.
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Nothing can even see the F-104 in matchmaking that has all aspects that isnt subsonic.
The F-104 is the bane of my existence from 8.7-9.7. There’s literally nothing a subsonic can do against a semi competent player.
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The F-104 is still absolutely competitive in an uptier. It’s not difficult to decide who to fight, nor is it too harshly countered by AIM-9Ls and especially R-60Ms.
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It is harshly countered easily by 9Ls but you have to be flying the transonic aircraft that fire them (A-6, AMX). The A-10 isn’t fast enough to be a real threat and the Su-25 has R-60s and also doesn’t go that fast.
Eh, the AIM-9Ls aren’t too difficult to counter as long as they’ve burned out by the time they reach you.
The problem is jets like AMX or A-6 can intercept you while you’re doing normal BnZ behaivor.
I 100% disagree.
The AMX might have a shot at catching you if you decide to make a bad move and dogfight in the 104A. The A-6E absolutely cannot catch your whatsoever.
The key to the F-104A/C is to play them as an aggressive support fighter making minimal turns and staying firm to hit and run. If you miss you don’t turn around to fight the guy, you keep moving along.
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I’m speaking from both sides of this equation. Lately I’ve been playing the AMX and it’s super duper easy to get a missile solution on an F-104 if I’m playing conservative with my speed (it is transonic, can hold 1080kph+) I can easily get a 9L to reach out and touch any F-104 that is trying to BnZ my teammates. My sheer presence is enough to deter or kill 2 F-104s that show up. (I fly near the bulk of my teammates and do exactly this)
9Ls can lock the F-104 frontally at absurd ranges and have the kinetic performance to catch it.
If you didn’t catch it… I can do this while the F-104 player is playing 100% correctly and there’s nothing he can really do about it
late 2024, all 10.3’s moved to 10.7 and the f-104a is kinger than it already was. The issue with it is that it is the only 104 that can dogfight. And trust me, it is very VERY good at it, especially slow speed.