In ASB right now, there’s a real epidemic of F1C-200s and Viggens—fighting them is pointless (especially the Viggen, it’s straight-up OP for 11.7). So lately, I’ve just been going full throttle, yeeting missiles at them, and then zooming away. And oh man, does it tilt them hard . One guy got so mad he started threatening me in DMs (and got banned, lol). But now we’ve got the F-5E with its awesome radar, and I’ve got high hopes for this plane
The center missiles are only good for AI attacker targets
you have two free kills with it, something that a hypothetical mig21 with ten r60m’s will never get. Mirage f1c and f1c200 are some of the most oppressive planes at 12.0.
The magic 2 is far from a free kill, easy to flare in the head on and if you know what you are doing easy to flare in any other aspect. And after launching the two magics you end up with a 10.7 plane at best in terms of flight performance, rwr and missiles
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@simsimkek @Boeing747Cultist Going forward lets keep conversations civil and avoid going after each others gameplay or using insulting phrases like saying someone has a skill issue. That type of behavior is not needed here.
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Playing this aircraft to learn jets has been genuinely putting me through the gauntlet. I now have to resist the urge to crash into the ground at the start of every match (I almost never get a match below 11.7, its only uptiers). If you feel so inclined as to read my “sob story” below, I’ve foldered it under “Detailed Rant” so this post isn’t humongous.
ALSO: Just for context to everything you’re about to read:
Context
No, this is not the only jet I’ve played. I have experience with the Su-25, and just recently got the Persian F-14 Tomcat from an explosive watermelon. After playing the Tomcat STOCK, I have to say that I am absolutely astonished at how easy it is to use compared to the F1C. Even the Aim-9 missile outshines anything the F1C has to offer, and I face aircraft that have some variant of it every match.
Here’s my “expert” opinion:
Detailed Rant
I have like 2000 hours on the game, and have spent the last year trying to learn everything there is to learn about high/top tier aircraft. In the last two months alone, I have sunk countless hours into this one jet. I have gone to my squadron members for advice. I have scoured the edges of the internet, from forum to forum, attempting to find an answer for what I’m doing wrong. I’ve practiced in custom battles with said squadmates, spending a lot of time learning how to properly notch, control altitude, turn, and roll out of the way from missiles.
After all of this trouble, after a couple hundred matches, what is my K/D with this aircraft? 150 deaths, 88 kills. That is a whopping .587 K/D ratio. Which means, for every two matches I play, I am predicted to get one kill. Now, tell this to purists who claim “ohhh, the magic 2’s are a guaranteed kill,” and they will just reply “skill issue” like the critical free-thinkers they are. The world is lucky that I don’t have enough storage space on my computer to record the 80 hours of gameplay I’ve had with this aircraft in the last two weeks alone. If I did, I could create a compilation of me shooting a missile (usually the Magic 2) at a jet that’s less than 3km away from me, them deploying one flare (sometimes none) and the missile going right past them, typically while they’re barely maneuvering or trying to dodge. Or alternatively, if I’m flying below 500 meters, the missiles just like to commit suicide and crash into the ground.
This plane, once you remove its only saving grace, the Magic 2, becomes a plane that could barely survive fighting 11.0 jets. Don’t believe me? I have replay footage of a F-5E, which is a 11.0 US jet, which only has a measly 30 countermeasures, flying in a straight line. I dive to get behind him, I’m only 2km away moving the same speed as him, perfect firing conditions. Get a quick lock, fire my Magic 2 missile, and it gets right next to him, goes past him a little, burns out, and he gets away. I got so infuriated I fired all of my missiles at him, but it was too late, he was already 6km away and counting. The best part? He didn’t fire a single countermeasure. That was my one rare full downtier for the day.
Meanwhile, when I get an uptier, I get killed from 31,764 meters away (can provide proof) by a Tomcat missile while I’m notched flying perpendicular to it only 50 meters off of the ground in a valley. Playing this jet has literally made me give up on trying to take Air RB seriously. It feels like there’s no skill involved, and that its just entirely luck. But from what others have told me, its just that this aircraft is overtiered and a huge underperformer in every aspect at its current BR. Maybe I’m just coping, but I can’t help but believe it. I have to sweat so hard to achieve even a chance of getting a kill. In the F-14, I just lock on from 20+ km away, fire, and move on. With this jet, you have to tail the person you fired at and stare at them, otherwise there’s a high probability your missile will just lose lock and shut off. Every match I spend minutes planning my route, flanking and trying to avoid being in the first engagement, because if I do I’ll end up being pelted by 8 missiles. And yet I always get spotted, and they just lock onto me from 10km away, fire, dodge my missile, and I die. Head-ons in this aircraft are almost always certain death, as aforementioned the missiles like to just fly past their targets without exploding, and every other plane at 11.0 - 13.0 seems to not have this issue, so no matter how many flares I fire or times I roll, the missile always readjusts and hits me. The F1C has like 200 countermeasures for a good reason, and its because your only hope of surviving any encounter is to just spam them and try to hide behind the terrain. Otherwise, good luck dodging any missiles, this thing is less maneuverable than almost everything you face in a full downtier. A-10’s and Harriers turn just as fast as you if you bring more than 2 missiles. Forget trying to dogfight with a F-4 Phantom.
TLDR: Moving it down to 11.7 probably wouldn’t solve the problem of this plane just being fundamentally worse than all of the fighters it will face, as it has the Magic 2’s for a reason. That reason being the same one that the Su-25 at 10.0 gets R-60MK’s. Without it, its too slow overall to compete, and has too little firepower to compensate. At the very least, lowering its BR would alleviate some of these issues, mainly having to face the Iranian F-14 and Su-33, or being almost guaranteed to face F/A-18C Early’s every match as well as the MiG-29.
Anyone saying that this jet would be gamebreaking at 11.7 clearly hasn’t played it much, or just must be a godsend at playing jets overall, and could make even the worst of top tier aircraft look overpowered. Because most of my deaths in this jet that aren’t to a 13.0 or 12.7 aircraft are to 11.7 MiG-23’s or 11.3 F-4 Phantom’s. Due to constant uptiers, almost everything I manage to kill is something I had to incredibly outplay and work hard for, patiently waiting for the perfect missile launching conditions, while also flaring and avoiding half a dozen missiles from their teammates.
I don’t claim to be an expert on any of this, I have no idea what the specifications of other aircraft’s armaments are, like I just learned what MTI was this last month. But what I do know is that my missiles live up to their name, and everyone else’s just obliterate me.
Also unrelated note, maybe if you got score and SL for dodging missiles I wouldn’t be complaining as much, because I’ve actually gotten pretty good at it, considering its my only option besides dying, you know, since the missiles rarely hit their target. Air RB for me has just turned into Missile Frogger.
I just watched this video an hour ago, and I genuinely think this will help you, I was thinking of getting it and this was super informative, I hope it will inform you as well :)
The Aim-9P a full BR step above your F1C is 10x worse than the Magic 2. This is not a discussion. That’s an objective truth.
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I seriously wonder how people spin such BS, the Magic 2 is one of if not the best non heavyweight IR AAM, yeah it lacks the range of the likes of the 9M, but it thrashes the 9M easily at it’s actual optimal range, under 1.8km you cannot defeat a Magic 2 rear aspect full stop unless you’ve had your engines off for a substantial amount of time or have no emissions like the F-5C, which is not most aircraft.
Saying the 9P is somehow even remotely comparable to the titan that is the Magic 2 is crazy. The 9P is statistically worse in every single metric to the Magic 2. The Magic 2 will outperform a 9P in every single situation it is in as it is flat out better, period.
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Only one of those planes is same br as it and everything else is higher br
Its almost like no matter how good a missile is on paper, its performance can vary significantly in action. I’m not saying the Magic 2’s are bad, my entire post was to emphasize that you can’t put an aircraft at 12.0 just because it has 2 good missiles when every other aspect of it would be a whole BR lower, if not more, without them.
And trust me, I’ve had plenty of playtime to understand that in practice, the Magic 2’s better range, speed, and G-force toleration are all only a small margin in the grand scheme of an engagement. Most people playing jets know how to dodge missiles, as many in this thread have already said, its pretty easy for a competent player to dodge Magic 2’s. The only issues you could point to are slight drawbacks of the aircraft facing Magic 2’s, like how little flares US aircraft have below 13.0, for example. And you have to use quite a few flares to trick Magic 2’s.
I’ve found in testing though, between playing the F-14 and the F1C, that the Aim-9P keeps a lock a whole lot better than the Magic 2, which is odd because the Aim-9’s aren’t IRCCM. I’m a layman, so I don’t expect to understand the fundamental differences. From what I understand though, the Aim-9L which I’ve been hit by a lot are better at ignoring flares than the Magic 2’s, particularly when targeting aircraft with hot engines (usually from using the afterburner). Which due to the horrible low-speed energy retention of the Mirage F1 aircrafts, its almost a requirement to use your afterburner in combat situations, or else you’ll bleed all of your speed and be left with no maneuverability. The Magic 2’s incredible launch speed is also kind of a drawback for it in head-ons, as the aforementioned Aim-9L’s outperform them often, having just enough time to arm before reaching their target, meanwhile the Magic 2 will frequently fly past their target in the 2 second arming phase.
The MiG-23’s R-60M missiles (which it can carry 6 of) perform almost adjacent to the Aim-9L and Magic 2 in most situations. Meanwhile, the jet itself has better acceleration, pretty comparable top speed maneuverability, and best of all, a more powerful radar with the ability to bring R-24R, which are vastly superior in raw performance to the 530’s the Mirage has as its backup missiles. They have better effective range, paired with a radar that maintains its lock better. And best of all? The R-24R has IOG, which means chaffing won’t always work, especially if the pilot is experienced and manages to maintain a lock on you before the missile gets too close.
All of that, and the MiG-23 variants with these missiles are 11.3 and 11.7 respectively. All I’m trying to say is that if you go .3 higher in BR with the F1C (which is common because there are more aircraft above 12.0 than there are at it or 11.7), it becomes completely outclassed by everything. Full uptiers are never expected to be fair, but how come a slight uptier of .3 puts me at a massive disadvantage? I get two missiles that can be flared and I’m going against faster, more maneuverable aircraft that have just enough flares to take on both of my missiles, but also have 4 to 6 missiles of their own that are of similar performance to the Magic 2, if not in some situations preferable performance, like at longer distances and head-ons.
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so no matter how many flares I fire or times I roll, the missile always readjusts and hits me
You should not kinematically dodge missiles at 12.0+, at best you can get a lucky sparrow roll, but you shouldn’t rely on that.
All radar missiles are very susceptible to multipathing, if you stay below 50m you are effectively immune to them. The only common exception to this being fakours and aim54 missiles. When you see those in the air or on your rwr just go cold, or at least turn away more than notching. The F14 radar is headon only, turning in a simple circle makes the missile lose track most (if not all) of the time. Other radar missile singers can of course fire from high, but they seldom do, since at 12.0 that’s a death sentence.
All IR missiles are susceptible to flares, especially in headons, and especially if you pre-flare. No IR missile in the game can get kills against good players (with flares) in a headon. If you’re having trouble in headons just flare before they usually shoot the misile.
With these strategies you should be effectively immune to missiles til your flares run out. With that in mind you can very often gamble with gun (or magic) kills in headons or get close enough (and right in the middle of the fight) to get good magic shots. The mirage isn’t great, but it’s certainly not as bad as you describe it to be.
I am not reading all of that, but from what I can scrape, you seem to be suffering from extreme placebo effect.
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only way to dodge a magic 2 is to min range it due to its proxy or out range it. you cannot out roll a magic 2 in its nez.
come on now
just lol no
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Bad platforms/FMs with amazing missiles are always a pain to balance. The F1C should lose its magic 2’s and drop to 11.0 with magic 1 instead
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Or they could give it decent radar missiles as backups. Like I said, in the F1C you always lose at range, and always lose in head-ons, unless if somehow you manage to get a full 11.0 downtier. I die to 12.3 jets every match with radar missiles that can lock onto me and keep a lock at 10+ km away. Meanwhile the 530’s can barely catch up to someone flying in your direction when launched from 4 km away
I think the RWR is too bad to handle 12.0 matchmaking, so 11.0 would suit it better, in my opinion.
The radar keeps a lock just fine, the problem is the missiles, they can’t reach their target quick enough even at short range, or lose their own lock due to chaffing.
In my experience the missiles start slow but then get to sparrow speeds. I have great success killing planes flying at altitude coming in my direction from over 10km with 530f or whatever is called. They are much better at medium ranges than short ranges, but they work just fine to kill planes not hugging the floor, pretty much like any other fox 1 in the game these days.
It should be given 530D or if that is not possible, taken away its magic 2 and drop to 11.3. Its SARH missiles are useless and seeker perfeormance is as good as 10.3 F-8E
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