1000 hour GRB main meets ARB, what could go wrong…
I bought the SU-30MKK for China to supplement my top tier lineup, now I actually want to grind the air tree, however the suffering is great.
I would appreciate any tips tremendously, such as for notching, what missiles to use and when, how to play the different heights, basically everything.
Please help :)
Notching and Defensive flying:
Defyn - https://youtu.be/l80IHJPOh9w?si=cwJWfJzfv6Pu7CSV
Migan - https://youtu.be/LmVO-hBJSWQ?si=g4uIly6ydTWsLMsr
Astro- https://youtu.be/3f_W6ygS9es?si=tIEF1NBEwNNSVNeo
llamaso12 - https://youtu.be/RhIWP53rMuM?si=aNg8FJQhPVPZsi63
64Mustang - https://youtu.be/_SS7IL8-LOA?si=-tDz3qmm8-MxvpGR ← (its a sim video it can be applied to rb)
catwerfer - https://youtu.be/FGTDjbj2m8I?si=DG1FH0X9Za9LHiUL ← Its can get confusing for a beginner though
TIms Variety Guides:
rwr: https://youtu.be/DOGazUgUdsQ?si=RaHuB-17mzAb1ctX
radar: https://youtu.be/Weghk_2DpfA?si=O75t1TZJzmve4P-U
Air to Air Missiles: https://youtu.be/_tQ6JzPWEFU?si=dSmdxibyvPzRB3Bk
Apart from tutorials, you can watch creators like bad karma, N1c WT, etc to learn how they play and position in toptier jets
Go back and learn the craft of air fighting from Tier 1!
Good news: You have one of the most undertiered jets currently, bad news: top tier is A LOT to learn.
I will go through some basics in no particular order so you know where to start.
You are spoiled for choice here, many good options. However, I would personally recommend going for a simple loadout to begin with.
People could argue for R-27ER1, R-27ET1, or even RRV-AE missiles instead of PL-12, and they could be right for some people. However, PL-12 are all around simply great missiles for all occasions and easy to use. Good to get started with. If you are curious about expanding your missile kit I would first recommend testing the R-27ET1, they can allow for some long range snipes on unaware players.
As for outer pylon IR missiles, it is a hard choice. R-73E turn insanely well, and they have good overall performance, but they are slow. PL-8B turn less, but are super fast. Feel free to switch between these without worry.
This is a surprisingly deep topic, however there are some GREAT videos describing the subject online. I would particularly recommend MiGan Fox-3. Well worth your time: https://youtu.be/LmVO-hBJSWQ (Same video as other poster)
What does not get said much explicitly, but is deadly important is that you NEED to have your lookaround-key (c by default) bound to something good and USE it. This also means you NEED to have keybindings to control your plane while looking around. Your gameplay, notching included will improve a lot if you can manage to look around while piloting.
You essentially have two choices here, play high and orbital strike people, or play low and dodge missiles. I like to view these choices as high risk, high reward and low risk, low reward, respectively.
Playing high (~5-8km) can net you a lot of kills from unsuspecting targets, but you NEED to be able to notch to survive, because that is the only way to dodge radar missiles.
Playing low (20-50m RALT) can make you basically immune to radar missiles, due to the multipath effect in warthunder. This is a bit easier for new players compared to notching, but you simply get less opportunities for kills while low. I would overall recommend this playstyle while you get used to flying, your radar, your RWR, how to use missiles and looking around. Fly high once you are more confident in flying your plane and notching.
Flying anywhere between 150m and ~4km is generally not recommended as it gives you all the downsides of flying high (harder to dodge missiles) while granting you less of the upsides (you cannot orbital strike people as easily). People will also spot you easier if you play somewhat high as opposed to really high.
You should prioritize Stamina and G-tolerance primarily. These are essential to fully use your flight performance. Keen vision is also very important, for spotting missiles and enemies. The rest are not as important.
I would rank the crew skills in the following order:
You cannot play 13.3 without fully learning to use your radar, RWR and missiles. This is quite complicated, with many keybinds, but it is well worth it.
The gold standard videos for this are the Tim’s variety guides as mentioned by Kingskofi:
Play through the tech tree to learn how to fly properly.
Theres tons of YT videos but none of them can replace experience.