These are probably just the consequences from that time they almost put most of ASEAN to China instead. With only Thailand they probably had to grab what they can get, which means a lot of C&P like the F-5A and weird choices like the “late” harrier to split one plane that was never modified and always carried the same weapons into two.
Now they either delay it and release a more interesting proper subtree, or release it as is in an underwhelming state with all other ASEAN founders besides Thailand limited to unlockable camos for the time being.
It’s true that was the given reason, but it’s also since been disproven. Even back then was only based on the technicality that it’s called an anti ship bomb and “it doesn’t explicitly state it can target tanks”, not any real evidence.
They’ve never responded to claims that GCS-1 has greater seeker performance past the linked post, so there 's no indication that they’ve moved from their position. So, there 's no reason to believe that the devs have, or will, change their stance and allow ground-attack use for it.
Plus, they added their " F-16AJ Blk 15 " on a special exemption in the time since, for the specific purpose of gapfilling the JPN techtree an FnF weapon carrier - they’re not unaware of what planes in the techtree can carry GCS-1, so that decision must have been borne of continued denial for it to attack ground targets.
Not saying the devs accepted it, just that they were wrong.
Then again, even if they’d know it targets ground vehicles, they’d also know it has no IFF and selects the target autonomously 4s after the drop. This basically makes it a teamkill gambling machine, even if you should be able to somewhat aim using CCIP at closer ranges.
But that 's necessary for understanding what happened up to this point, and that understanding is required to predict what can happen in future. It 's only when the devs decide to put things in the game that they actually make it to the game, after all. And the same in reverse.
Putting additional qualifiers on that only produces a distorted picture of the situation, which isn’t useful
for making valid inference. Like shay 's erroneous belief that subtrees require their own techtree lines.
Yeah, but seeing it constantly thrown around that GCS-1 somehow “can’t see tanks” also produces a distorted picture that many just accept and believe.
It’s far from a convenient anti tank weapon, but it still is an anti ship weapon that can target tanks, even if that brings its own issues. Sure, it wasn’t added because the devs believe it just can’t see tanks, but that is still untrue and shouldn’t just be said like it is.