From what I know, mig 29’s flight model has been nerfed and is now much worse than in real life, to justify it having r27 er. Especially the mig 29smt is a boat I’ve heard. I don’t know about su 27, but I’ve heard it’s also underperforming/has auto flaps. Now with the addition of fox 3s, r27 er is no longer a problem simply existing on any plane, so I propose the following changes:
-make flight models of all mig 29s and su 27s realistic
-remove r27 er and r27 et from the base model su 27 and move it down to 12.3
-remove r27 er and r27 et from every base model mig 29, give them r73s, and move them up to 12.3 if needed (depends on how good the r73 + hms would perform at 12.0)
-remove r27 er and r27 et from the German mig 29g and move it down to 12.3
Without the r27 er, base model mig 29s are no longer bvr monsters at their brs (assuming no uptiers) and can have their real flight models. Mig 29 was designed to have r73s from the start, so all mig 29s should get access to those. The realistic flight model would still be overall worse than f16’s, but r73s with hms are much better than aim 9ls without hms, so it would probably have to go up in br. Maybe it wouldn’t have to though, r73s are in general easy to flare from a distance like any other ir missile and impossible to flare if they get too close. F16a adf, F15a and F14a/b on the other hand would have the advantage in bvr, aim 7ms are better than r27 r if i remember correctly, so are aim54s.
The r27 er could still stay in the game, but as a kind of side grade to r77, having better kinematic performance, and having inertial guidance and data link like fox 3s, but still being a fox 1 missile. Like it was in real life.
Right now bvr at top tier is hopeless if you don’t have fox 3s, especially in sim where you have a constant 12.0-13.0 br bracket, so I imagine mig 29 9-12 players are suffering now with their bad flight models. They really should separate fox 3 capable planes from the rest, just like cold war tanks should be separated from ww2 tanks.
I have only played American top tier planes and haven’t played any other top tiers yet (I didn’t buy mig 21 s for nothing), so mig 29s having a bad flight model was a kind of karma for having the r27 er. However, I’ve always wanted just an accurate representation of real life, not bias to one or the other side. In my opinion, if things like flight models, missiles and time periods don’t accurately represent real life, all these efforts for balance become pretty meaningless. Russians dominating Americans in bvr is dumb and the reverse of real life, but so is mig 29 flying like a boat and not being a threat in a dogfight. Balance in this game shouldn’t be about misrepresenting history, but only skipping the parts of it that are hopelessly unbalanced.
Edit: I don’t know really what to do with the German mig 29g, it can’t fire r77s and the only reason Gaijin added it was so that Germany has 2 mig 29s, one with r60m and one with r73s (and so you have to grind more for r73). I guess it could be just a copy paste of the previous German mig 29 with tws.