interesting, ill take a look at it later
To be honest, I didn’t use it in quite some time. This is new, will have to investigate.
a few clarifications
aam-3 received a smokeless engine, without any evidence and with a 90% certainty it was never even planned, since aam-5 is not smokeless.
And while I was delving into aim-9m, I noticed one feature.
this applies to the rocket flame, if it is more pronounced then it is a smokeless engine, and if not then it is smoky in any case.
launch aim-9m with mk36 mod 8 (smoky)
launch aim-9m with mk36 mod 11 (smokeless)
When launching aim-54c this is not noticeable and it’s smoky.
at least the smokiness itself is slightly reduced. like the early 9M compared to the 9L.
Has this been bug reported yet?
The Aim-54C is missing:
smokeless motor
higher impulse, shorter burn motor
(A and C) lofting
Mach 5 max speed
(A and C) 25g maneuvering
ability to go pitbull off the rails at shorter ranges
(A and C) ability to softlock and mid-course update more than one missile
Most of these are known issues. Gaijin’s loft logic is dogshit but unfortunately it’s impossible to report without technical sources on how loft logic works IRL on these weapons, which do not seem to exist in any public form.
@k_stepanovich any idea why there remains a consistant refusal on the part of the devs to fix the AIM-54C now that the Su-27/J-11 are ingame with 6 R-27ER’s?
The lofting still doesnt work properly, the missile is still missing its reduced smoke motor despite more and more missiles getting those low smoke motors the 54C was reported to be missing back on its dev server, and the pull remains limited at 17g, less than HALF that of the R-27ER, and 8g less than it should pull in general.
At this point, unless a new missile is added to the game, NATO teams literally have no competitive missile for BVR combat compared to the R-27ER. Not a single one. The balance is so skewed in the RU/CN favor with regards to BVR its not even funny anymore.
The AIM-54C wouldnt even match the R-27ER if some of these fixes were implemented, it would just close the gap a bit
Its not even like the F-14B is particularly good anymore either. The lack of proper TCS modelling impacts it negatively being the only HI PRF only radar 12.0+, its a massive and extremely fragile target, and has to rely on;
- Suboptimal SARH’s (AIM-7M) in an R-27ER world
- Suboptimal IR missiles (AIM-9L) in an AIM-9M/AAM-3/Magic II/R-73 world
- Completely broken and borderline useless ARH(AIM-54C)
The things a joke competitively at this point
This is anecdotal, but the 54 just seems…different…post gimbal update. Like, most of the time it’s still just a brick that misses. But I’ve watched some of them damn near pull 180 degrees to follow a target. It’s just strange.
I have videos of them doing such things prior to that update.
The gimbal update lets you do some… weird… stuff with them, but its mostly just a pointless cosmetic change.
You can launch them at like 45° for the “optimal” launch angle, but the hard coded and utterly terrible lofting code will pull the missile down pretty quickly anyways, so it really doesnt matter and you probably even waste more energy doing it tbh.
You can launch them in dogfights technically as long as you hols the lock the whole time, but with the terrivle 17g pull, its still pointless.
And if you launch it at a weird angle then lose the lock (since TWS sucks and can never hold a lock properly) your missile is trashed…
At best, i guess its a bit of a QoL upgrade in that you dont have to be looking directly at the target anymore to launch them, but thats about it…
Yeah, for the most part it feels the same, which is unfortunate.
God forbid they fix one of the bugs that would ACTUALLY imrpove the missile in any noriceable manner.
Not like the R-27ER is completely uncontested and literally downright oppressive atm or something right
Speaking of QoL and WVR combat with the 54, is the range gate they put on AWG-9 accurate?
The 5000m min range thing they just randomly changed?
I have no clue, quite frankly, i think its just gaijin pulling another “the russians couldnt do it, so that means the americans couldnt either!” Thing like their reason not to fix the stingers to their appropriate max pull, or their continued doubts about the AIM-54’s capabilities, etc…
dear gaijin, for Christmas I would like to ask that no new vehicles be added for the next two major updates, and instead, focus all resources on fixing bugs, and improving game mechanics.
-love, whale
To be honest with you, the biggest problem I have with the AIM-54 is not that the reports are unimplemented which would help, but that maps are still too small. If maps could be 2-3x larger than they currently are, I’d be able to sufficiently climb to altitude and gain enough range to reliably do proper BVR with the missiles. So while fixing the reports would help, actually making it so that the missiles can achieve insane range/acceleration would be vastly better.
But the community which has an addiction to short quick games would push back too hard against such an idea.
Theyd need to more than double the map sizes for that, and even then, I doubt it would actually work because the actual acceleration and top speed of thr AIM-54 ingame is so abysmall.
If a 12000m altitude, Mach 2.0 launch cant get the missile above M4.5, you never will regardless of the map sizes.
The issue is that even IF we could get the perfect launch conditions in WT, theres so many artificial nerfs holding the AIM-54 back that it will literally never be a competitive weapon, particularly when the R-27ER outperforms it in literally every way except max range and warhead size at all altitudes and under all launch conditions…
As it stands, its a skill check for bad players, and thats it
They added manual lofting, however that didn’t help at all, it is still limited to 34 km range in mach 1 head on when fired at 5000m if you want any chance of hit, also Aim-54 sometimes lock on random target when fired longer than 40km away. I think they are missing the drag reduction from base bleed, where drag coeficient of missile is lowered by roughly 33% when its motor is firing.
Apparently that is absent on all missiles in game, they just adjusted the thrust and motor burn time to simulate it/get performance close enough (for AIM-7F at least).
Friendly reminder that while gaijin keeps the AIM-54C in an unbelievably hard nerfed state, the R-27ER even outperforms it in MAWS avoidance due to being able to relock with inertial guidance as shown in this vid.
Erm that TGP stuff is new to me, 10/10 cheers. Will abuse.