See you’re making assumptions about weapons that specifically unbalance the thing, chances are when it gets added we’ll have the 120C already and it will get those, but they can add more advanced weapons to it as there are more updates, we can start off with 120Cs and 9X, same as the late F-15E, just more weapons overall, gives it a +0.3 - 0.7 BR increase over it which would be fine, then as there are more updates, give it the 120D, the 260, and later models of 9X. You can do similar things with the F-15C and F-16C in such a way to minimize gaps in the tree, like how the F-15A has 9Ms when the F-16A doesn’t, creating an artificial BR difference between them
This is where the upgraded F-15Cs come into play, they get the legion pod, and the same A2A weapons as the F-15E or EX, and again with strategic use of armament balancing you would prevent gaps from forming in the tree, again see F-16A/F-15A
I meant the 3, just a typo on my part.
It doesn’t need to come to the game, though ideally it would be under a Saudi subtree, if they ever do make improvements to the trees somehow, either more than 5 lines, or with sub nation tabs which would be better. Also, you have to be careful about adding nations to research trees, splitting nations up isn’t ideal, and Saudi could be a subtree, obviously nations like Qatar never could be, and so having them as premiums and such is the best alternative, but Saudi Arabia isn’t necessarily one of those nations, and so by jamming them into the US tree you may end up messing up future Saudi additions.
i dont see why a Saudi F-15 to US and then Saudi Tornado and EFT to UK would be an issue tbh.
F-15QA would make sense as a premium, i agree with that.
even the upgraded F-15C arent going to be nearly as good at BVR as an F-15EX since it does have the better radar and more powerful engines, and in WVR the FBW will make it better than a regular F-15E. for sim purposes, the F-15EX will have a much nicer cockpit than an F-15C and JHMCS II which has full color display. there is also EPAWSS which is not on any production F-15C, i tried looking for any evidence of even a testbed F-15C that had it but unfortunately couldnt find anything concrete. the F-15SA still works well as a filler between the two, and brings somewhat unique capabilities with a MAWS that afaik only the SR (which probably wont come tbh) and QA (premium) have
tbh I say they would props sell an F-16 at least an early one and slap another user as a pre order skin.
I mean I got the Su-25 because of the Shark lol
Not only would it be the first (and only) but also a nice unique CAS option between the F-5T and OCU, which is a quite large gap.
(Even though the OCU should not have AIM-120s or AN/APG-66S.)
I mean, the F-15E is the closest analogue to the EX, and the F-15E late will be quite close, assuming they start off with the same weapons, you have the same radar, F-15E does have EPAWSS, though that is EW which is not yet modeled, you have very similar engines too, sure there’s no IRST but that isn’t so significant.
Meanwhile the F-15C has weaker engines and an equivalent A2A radar and IRST, so likely a better WVR platform which at this BR is less important so probably 0.3 lower than the F-15E
It really is only as you start adding better weapons that the EX creates a gap between it and the E though, and that isn’t really an issue given that backfilling generally has more lax rules and allows for bigger gaps, as we can see in game right now.
Just as a thought, if you added the F-15EX right now, with AIM-120Bs and AIM-9Ms and all the same A2G weapons as the E, what BR would it actually be, given the new radar and IRST, and extra weapons? 14.3? 14.7? It can’t be any higher than that really. Weapons are the real balance issue, and also the easiest thing for Gaijin to control about it, so it really wouldn’t be an issue at all.
I feel gaijin will add premiums but the problem is most nations just dont have an option that isn’t vital to the TT. Look at the storm caused by the JA37DI when gaijin wanted to lock it behind a paywall. More so i feel they could just go down the route of adding exact copies from the TT but base them off a irl squadron and give it a unique tail decal or something.
Im gonna be honest, i haven’t read the past few posts and just saw yours so i have no idea what you mean, could be that i am having a stroke and i cant understand what you said lol.
it greatly improves RWR and makes CM count from 240 to 360 so even without EW the benefits would be noticeable.
a late F-15C would still have a worse radar than the EX, even if its not by a huge amount. FBW on the EX could reduce the edge the F-15C has.
i dont see why they would add such a new aircraft without what will be its main weapons in USAF service. the addition of stuff like F-15SA and SG would at least let them wait for a time to add the EX where it can come in its full capability without breaking the game.
and if they did add an EX, id say 15.0 with 9m and 120b due to all the overall improvements it has over ingame strike eagle
They added the Eurofighter with 9Ms and 120Bs, and the Rafale with Magic 2s, the missiles are usually the limiting factor as that is how they balance the game, why would the EX be any different?
I was against it because nothing like that should be locked behind a paywall after gaijin stating they had no interest in giving the D model its weapons it was made for. I was also against it because i knew it would be a worse ICE at the same BR because compression is horrible. In sim its alright but for ARB its essentially food.
Main point though was locking something that should’ve been TT behind a paywall. Even more of a Jok3 considering the AI decal and the price of the whole thing.
This is honestly why I kinda stopped playing Eurofighter, or Top Tier Air RB at that, hahah.
After a few matches, I realised that Eurofighter didn’t really feel any different than F-16C or F-15C when they are all carrying the exact same missiles.
In the current Top Tier meta, 80% of a plane’s effectiveness and “feel” is its missiles… so, as of now, Eurofighter doesn’t really actually feel like an Eurofighter; more like a different-looking F-15C.
I understand that it may be too early for Meteor… but maybe AIM-120C should have come for the new Top BR fighters to counter stuff like MICA-EM.
That being said, it’s already desperating that even most of the current FOX-3s don’t care about notching or chaff, so I don’t even know what can be done to make Air RB fun anymore, let alone with more capable missiles. It’s probably just a me-issue, but I don’t know. I feel like ARB is currently; take-off, you get 7 different missile warnings, try to evade/defend, can’t, die, repeat. So no idea.
I’ll better just stick to GRB, which is my thing xD
