I totally agree, whenever I get down tier to fight F-14, I can consistently fire new ARH at 50km range, at Mach 1.4 + 8000m + 45 degree manual loft, and lands a consistent hit even if F-14 pulls as hard as it can (~10G) when missile is ~6km away. Where as Aim-54 struggles to hit, when firing at similar condition, even if target is flying at a small aspect angle (say 10 degrees) and not maneuvering. Since Phoenix will immediately try to nose down and refuse to climb higher, then loses a lot of energy from drag. Resulting Aim-54 has way less effective range than Aim-120.
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You can’t manually loft aim 54s. They correct themselves 17.5° either way.
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Based on what?
Aim-120 has even lower loftElevation at 7.5, but Aim-54 don’t have timeToHitToGain3, so Aim-120 nose down slower.
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Drag is oversimplified in warthunder because it is simulating everything as if it was in the troposphere.
In the stratosphere, anything not traveling at hypersonic speeds experiences practically no drag, but the aim54 which would be in a ballistic trajectory in these altitudes - where it cannot even effectively manuver due to a lack of air, should not be affected by drag at all, its would be so close to 0 that it may as well be 0.
In warthunder, drag above 12,000m is linear, when IRL it should be expoentially reduced. The game was not designed with anything going higher than this. The Aim54 still experiences a signficant amount of drag when it shouldn’t.
After reaching it’s apoapis, the aim54 should start to accelerate under gravity until it returns to the tropopause, in warthunder, its speed still reduces due to drag.
So at the time of Impact for the longest range shots, the missile might be traveling 300-400m/s slower than what it should be.
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Okay, thanks for clarifying. I’ll now inform you that when conducting the maximum range test the loft elevation is nearly correct and the missile still (even with the additional drag you mentioned) meets the target at the correct range and time. Correcting the atmospheric conditions would only cause overperformance, and it currently is not underperforming in max launch range conditions.
The time to target is correct, but the speed on impact and the speed throughout the flight duration is not correct.
Even after 3 minuites of flight time the misisle should be going between mach 1.5-2.0 and the missile should glide at mach 2.0 to 2.5 for more than 50% of the flight duration.
At shots more than 80km the misisle should be falling at almost a 70 degree angle to impact the target.
The trajectory shape will often barely affect the time to target, but massively affect the speed on impact. All High lofted missiles in the game don’t perform anywhere near as they should and run out of energy far too soon.
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Based on what
Idk bout that, based on the current poor loft trajectory? I’ve already been saying the top speed is less than expected (so are most missiles, and especially the R-27ER)…
Physics.
If the missile goes ballistic and has an apoapsis of 100,000 feet or 30,000 meters, the drag in this reigon is nonexistant for the speed the missile is traveling at, the loft trajectory will actually result in the missile accelerating slightly untill it reaches 12,000m again.
Top speed is not the primary issue, the issue is specifically the drag profile and loft profiles.
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The missile currently accelerates short of its’ top speed and the drag is far too LOW currently. This is why it meets the expected charts in spite of the additional drag from higher altitudes that aren’t properly modeled as you said.
Currently, drag doesn’t decrease exponentially to almost zero as you’re stating - therefore the in-game model must account for that in the long range scenario (the one it is modeled after). The result is a missile with an absurdly low drag coefficient for what it is - and heavily overperforming at lower altitudes.
If they amend this issue and correct the missile, the best you’ll see is a nerf at lower altitudes and a slight increase in velocity by the time it reaches the target at altitudes well above what is ever encountered in the game due to map sizing.
TL;DR
Drag at high altitudes is too high, so the missiles’ drag has been adjusted far too low to account for this in the scenario it is modeled after. Fixing the atmospheric drag coefficients and the missile at the same time would result in nothing but nerfs for any practical use-case of the missile in the game. It would benefit only in scenarios above 45,000 feet and at very very long range launch conditions.
The biggest factor impacting loft performance is a proper loftTargetOmegaMax, which impacts how long the missile lofts and to some degree how steep it drops onto the target. The AIM-54’s were given a terrible loftTargetOmegaMax of 0.25, which is the lowest ingame. You can see substantial improvements in performance by just increasing the loftTargetOmegaMax on most missiles that loft.
To note regarding lofTargetOmegaMax, higher does not automatically mean better. Too high along with a very high loftAngle and the missile has an overly exaggerated loft, which is what the issue with the Derby/R-Darter is (they have a loftElevation of 30 deg and a loftTargetOmegaMax of 2.5)
Heres an example of the impact:
OM had its OmegaMax doubled
LE had its loftElevation doubled
TE had its targetElevation doubled
As can be seen, LE/TE barely have any impact on TTI/IV over the current in-game loft, while OM arrives sooner and at a higher velocity.
Also of note, we KNOW the 54C uses more optimized trajectory shaping than the 54A:
Any numbers discussed using the AIM-54A’s test shot numbers for AIM-54C performance are inherently wrong.
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Yes, this is because the AIM-54 is configured to match a specific long range scenario. Interestingly, it still heavily overperforms at low altitude without needing such a optimized loft trajectory. Even with no loft trajectory, the missile still overperforms by as much as 20-25% ASL last I recall.
Thanks for showing us what the improved lofting code could do for the AIM-54… but adjusting it would throw off the performance by making it climb far too much for the long range scenario. It would result in a nerf in regards to drag or other metrics to maintain the correct performance in the current known scenario. You can’t see that because all you want to do is cry for buffs. You don’t even realize that what you are asking for would result in a net-nerf all around.
It is reasonable to ask that the AIM-54C have the improved lofting guidance in comparison to the AIM-54A. I do think that missile deserves some kind of buff at this point. At the very least they could add a low smoke motor.
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I personally think they should do the DCS thing with AIM-54C. One with the Mk 47 Mod 0/1 motor and one with the Mk 60 motor. Two different versions of the missile for players to choose between long-range but high visibility or shorter range but low visibility. They could also do the same thing with the AIM-54A, and even throw in that AIM-54C+ version if they wanted to.
That being said, its a Phoenix, “shorter range” is still very long range.
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The Mk47 mod 0 and Mk60 are practically identical in use and performance, there were very few Mk60 motors produced. They just wanted two sources capable of producing the motors.
DCS corrected this at some point, the motor performance is similar.
Ah. Maybe I’m thinking of the Mk47 Mod 1 then. I’m pretty sure that one is different.
We have no data on any possible propellant performance gains of the Mod 1. We do know 100% that it should be reduced smoke which hasn’t been fixed yet. Any update on reduced smoke motors for FOX-3s? @Gunjob
Faster traveling Phoenix can better utilize AoA of its fins and at closer ranges increases Pk, enemy will have less time to react.
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Nothing yet.
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That is the issue, it will not be faster at closer ranges.
I just watched a replay using my Phoenixes, from mach 3.5 in just 4.5 seconds it slowed down to Mach 2.2. This doesn’t seem right at all. It was at around 23k ft
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