I dunno. If it deserves 15.0 then it should be 15.0. I don’t see how it’s relevant if it would be the only plane there. This “we a lot of variety at every BR” has lead us to this insane compression.
If only Gaijin used the BR system properly and wanted a balanced game.
I take this quote to mean until the under-performing missile are buffed to what they should be, then the MICA’s can maybe be buffed(which I still don’t think they need to be at all), not to mean the moment 1 other missle gets slightly buffed the MICA’s needs to be buffed ASAP even though its doing just fine if not extremely well.
Oh no, the travesty, you don’t have the best plane anymore and cant wipe teams anymore, the shame. Who cares? the Rafale was(and still is) undeservedly the best plane for so long i don’t care if the MICA’s never get buffed, they are good enough as is anyway. Hardest missile to notch, best HOBS performance(why does it have half the notch angle compared to every other FOX-3?), not to mention it was mounted on the best platform.
If you french mains had to deal with AIM-120’s maybe ya’ll would realize the MICA is more then enough for the current meta. the fact that it has a small range does not mean it needs a buff. BVR kills are so rare these days, only AFK people die in BVR. Try using the AIM-120C with its current “buff”, then let me know if you think the MICA still needs a buff. (to which you will say yes most likely anyway)
Yeah that’s a problematic statement since mica and Rafale are likely to go up in br while the “underperforming missiles” such as aim-120a and aim-120c are likely to be replaced with better missiles in the future and the aim-120a and aim-120c will still be underperforming while the mica is facing its replacement/upgrades.
The truth finally comes out.
And MICA is the most underperforming missile in the game :)
That would probably belong to Aster-30 if you consider all missiles in-game.
This is the killer. This discussion collapses the moment any buff becomes a criteria for MICAs to get a major change on its range, which would turn it into the best missile at all circumstances.
Even if such buff criteria meant that Gaijin changed decimals on a stat which in-game turned out to be a very subtle change, to be completely honest.
Why not just wait for the Meteor.
Keep the MICA as-is as the best WVR/decent medium range missile (though an increase in battery time wouldn’t hurt) and simply wait a couple months for the Meteor which’ll likely be the best at medium range or capable at long range (compared to competition, mostly just the R-37M), with a similar seeker to MICA anyway.
I say this as practically a Rafale main. Games are harder, yes, but the airframe and missile can still compete if you know what you’re doing against these new jets.
I’m sure Rafale will get the Meteor whenever the US gets AIM-174/260 or whatever
instead of just quoting one part of my sentence, why don’t you read the while thing?
While it would sound nice to have the Meteor as the long-range counterpart for MICA as a substitute for the lack of MICA’s range performance the sad news is that unfortunately the future performance of MICA IR, MICA NG EM, and MICA NG IR are dependent on the proper modeling of MICA EM.
Public datapoints for MICA NGs for example, are dependent on Gaijin correctly modeling the MICA EM as datapoints are often in comparison to the original MICAs. 40% extra range on a gimped MICA-EM just leads to a gimped MICA NG.
So there’s multitudes of reasons why it is imperative that the MICA is correctly modeled as otherwise it may lead to long-lasting consequences that would plague the French tech tree, so it is best to just nip it in the bud now than to deal with it for years later afterwards.
The community at large may see these threads as completely unnecessary but perhaps they can sympathize with us if they see it from the point of view of trying to avoid what has been occurring to the AIM-120 series for example. Gimped AIM-120A leads to gimped AIM-120C-5 which leads to gimped AIM-120D, just long series of unfortunate consequences that we could learn from by being pro-active rather than reactive.
I don’t see why this is such a big issue for you, the AIM-120 has been gimped for years yet you don’t see constant threads asking for a buff every time a different missile gets buffed. I do understand your point, I just think right now the MICA is in such a good spot a buff would only make the Rafale even more oppressive.
Maybe when the MICA-NG is added, then Gaijin might model it properly(or they won’t, just like they haven’t with every new generation of AIM-120)
Even then, I don’t understand why the MICA even needs a range increase. With Multipathing being as strong as it is its not hard to evade the initial volley of missiles then go and use the MICA-EM close up
This is the argument US mains have used for the longest time for the AIM-120’s, yet there has been zero improvement to them.
I think it’s more important to fix all underperforming missiles before the MICA. I think one problem you are not seeing is that the MICA isn’t only on the Rafale, but on other planes such as the Mirage 2000-5F at 14.0. Buffing the MICA would only make it worse for other aircraft at 13.0 when facing the Mirage 2000-5F. I personally think the MICA is a perfect spot right now. You’ll just have to hope Gaijin model’s the next generation MICA’s correctly(which they have not, in-fact every generation of AIM-120 has gotten worse)
Overall, I understand your point but the MICA right now is too strong too need buff.
I would only support it in the current enviroment if the Rafale gets moved to 16.0 in the process.
Rafale gets it’s missiles fixed, but at the cost of possibly double digit minute queue times, small lobbies, only fighting themselfs or possibly bot lobbies.
You must not spend lots of tier in the RR&D or any EFT/US/any top tier jet using AIM120 thread. A lot of the discussions revolve around the AIM120 being gimped ans asking for outstanding bug reports to be fixed.
If multipath is that strong (ie, long range missiles are not worth it), why are you so against the MICA getting such a “minor” buff.
Annnd you missed his point. It’s precisely because the AMRAAM get shafted so much, with people making reactive reports to try and improve the entire family of missiles, that this thread is made to act proactively towards the future introduction of the MICA NG, and even in a shorter term as more missiles are added to other countries.
These reports would also impact the IR variants for that matter as well
MICA being among one of the least realistically performing missile as well, missing around 50% of its range (meanwhile outstanding report on the AMRAAM state around less than 10%).
While I agree somewhat with this point :
Except threads like this have been made every single time and always represent the position as-if the Rafale is just on the cusp of becoming irrelevant if the missile isn’t buffed to the point where it is better than everything else in the game in every possible performance metric.
It did not happen with the introduction of R-77-1.
It did not happen with introduction of Aim-120C.
It did not happen with introduction of Eurofighter AESA.
It did not happen with introduction of Su-30SM2.
It’s not going to happen with Aim-120D.
Nah I would like to clap ahistorical SM2 with my Rafale.
I don’t think this thread has the goal of rendering the rafale as almost irrelevant. Nor does it say that all the proposed buffs should be added at the same time.
In the main post itself, @Macron-Spokesman clearly states that the MICA is still a very strong missile, and I also agree with it.
On the other hand, you treat this thread as if the other nations were still leagues behind the Rafale + MICA combo as they were a year ago. While the rafale hasn’t had many changes in the duration (aside from the HMD change), other nations have had much better airframes, with the EFT AESA being the overall best platform in game, new missiles and also count of missiles, making the fields much more even. Since the Rafale is unlikely to get much changes anytime soon (FM being basically as good as it can get), and missiles are also not going to change for a while (MICA EM and meteor being denied), while other nations still have other options (AIM120D3 + potential fixes, leaked R27EA…), talking about the incorrect modelling of the MICA is absolutely fair game.
But I don’t think you care any of that. After all, you’ve been pretty clear several time that you just don’t think European vehicles (be it the Rafale but also the EFT) should perform better than the main nations. So obviously you are going to be against any MICA fixes ever, even in a situation where other nations get superior kits and performances.
Where have I said this?
European nations have had superior kit or performance for the better part of a year. Two years if you want to count Gripen meta.
The point of this thread is to ask for the performance of the MICA to be buffed far beyond anything else that is currently in the game and currently anything that is even planned to be added to the game. And this is the same set of improvements that French mains have been asking for since at least R-77-1 was added to the game.
This thread has had the goal of sharing outstanding reports on the missile. And basically everyone that agreed on buffing the MICA mainly considered the range of the missile being an issue. This would not buff it beyond anything else currently in game. It would make the shortest range fox 3 still the shortest range fox 3. Funny how, on one hand, the HOBS buff of there AIM120 making it the least manoeuvrable missile to still the least manoeuvrable missile but a bit less is considered basically useless but doing the same for the MICA would make it “beyond anything else in game”.
Have you read the bug reports or even attempted to model the missile so it has a combination of the following;
Both are required in order to meet the 30G performance metric at 12km.
The most likely outcome is that time to impact at 50km range is reduced by 20-25% before lofting is even considered. The time to impact difference between MICA + R-77-1 currently is around 6 seconds and the difference between Aim-120C is around 3 seconds. This new version of the MICA would have a time to impact advantage of 6 seconds over the R-77-1.
This time to impact difference would be even more greatly magnified at closer ranges. This is also not counting the 100 degrees per second turn rate improvement. There is no missile in the game that has anywhere near this capability either by way of G-limit, or from immediate pivoting action via thrust vectoring. “Fixing” this would result in the MICA-EM having a weapon employment zone that is much smaller than the R-73 while also having a 90 degree off-boresight capability and having a much shorter time to impact.
So no…the “bug fixes” are not just a small increase to maximum range; they are a substantial buff to every single aspect of the missiles performance. This is all in order to compensate for the fact that European nations and Russia finally have vehicle and weapon combinations that finally have parity with France has enjoyed for an entire year. And in order to compensate for the possibility that American planes could narrow that gap via Aim-120D implementation.
Once again; no one here has been arguing for all of those major buffs to be implemented right here and right now. The main issue of the missile as of now is simply its maximum range. Removing the 50km hard limit, adding loft, and adding the logic to reduce hard manoeuvres at long range are 3 simple things that would not impact its close range performances while improving the long range capabilities - probably not to the full range that is proposed in the bug report, but make it closer.
The other reports are currently not needed, but might be able to come as new generation fox 2 comes however.
But, it seems that you can’t start to fathom that bug reports can be implemented sequentially as the game progress and are persuaded that all bug reports should simultaneously be implemented.
There are 4 bug reports that are linked and the poll asks “Should the MICA-EM have its reports resolved?” The question being asked is not for Gaijin to resolve just a single report but rather all of them.
Even if we are being charitable to your position and not the position of OP…this is your claim early thread.
This appears to be in reference to the 30G at 12km bug report. This would require the substantial drag reduction and substantial lift increase that I just spoke of.
And here you are arguing in favor of the other buffs as well but saying they are not neccesary.
So the bone that you are throwing the community is basically that the MICA would only receive time-to-impact reduction at all ranges via the substantial drag reduction and lift increase that is already mentioned. Or at best it remains the same at medium and close ranges while also having the best long-range performance of any missile in the game and the best seeker.
