Hi,
When looking at the various nations and their aircraft, the unfair battle rating of the Italian/German F-104s really stands out; these planes are flying turbo pencils with very poor flight models (they’ve been nerfed regularly) and are no match for many significantly better aircraft at their BR, such as the F-104S/TAF — at BR 11.3, there are aircraft like the JA37C, F-4E, or even the J-8B; they are far superior fighters compared to the poor turbo pencil, which has either a Vulcan cannon and 6x AIM-9P or 2x AIM-7E, no cannon and 4x AIM-9P.
The first option with the Vulcan: given its maneuverability, using this cannon isn’t easy, and the AIM-9P also requires sufficient range to reach the target, plus they’re only rear-aspect missiles.
The second option: the AIM-7E doesn’t start tracking the target until 1.8 seconds after launch, meaning the missile flies without guidance for 2/3 of the time burner (the AIM-7E’s afterburner lasts 2.8 seconds), which is highly questionable given the ACM’s 4 km range.
My point is that the BR of these aircraft is too high, and I’m surprised it still hasn’t been adjusted, user @kumiko_senpai noticed that too and pointed out what was wrong.
The speed of the Starfighters means that they have the ability to dictate nearly all engagements. Unfortunately if someone is paying attention they’re very easy to counter.
I agree they should be lowered 0.3br
Yep, many 10.7-11.0 aircraft are a much more dangerous opponent than the F-104S/TAF pencil. I’ve made a suggestion for the dev’s to reconsider his BR. If anyone agrees, they can add a reaction to the post; it will have a greater chance of being noticed among the ~2,800 other posts.
The F-104’s unusually high battle rating stems from its exceptional speed and bomb-carrying capability—two attributes that enable it to efficiently and reliably farm research points through bombing with minimal interference. Gaijin, however, has no intention of letting players unlock other vehicles too easily; consequently, they have inflated the battle ratings of numerous aircraft capable of carrying incendiary ordnance, such as the Q-5, Su-24, Tornado, and others.
The F-104A’s battle rating is strikingly low, while the F-104G/S variants sit conspicuously high—a disparity so glaring it strongly suggests these ratings were assigned with little more thought than if someone had just kicked them in with their feet. Originally positioned at BR 10.0, the F-104A was later downgraded to 9.3, a change that placed it in a tier where most aircraft lack high overload missiles, allowing the F-104A to operate with near impunity and rarely face meaningful threats. In an attempt to rebalance the F-104A, Gaijin significantly nerfed the high-speed maneuverability across the entire F-104 series—yet opted not to raise the F-104A’s battle rating accordingly. As a result, already over-battled and comparatively underperforming variants like the F-104G and F-104S have become even more weak. This chain of decisions makes it abundantly clear that the balancing adjustments, too, appear to have been carried out with the same level of care as if done with feet.
I’d be fine with this if there wasn’t an an entire system Gaijin could use to balance said grinding however they want.
The Rewards multiplier. If they wanted to stop people grinding fast with them, just give them bad multipliers.
The fact this system exists I think means it’s just unfair / nonsensical to ruin the viability of an aircraft purely because it can bomb bases fast in ARB
Really good at bombing so its rating is unfortunately increased because of that. All 104 need a lower rating besides 9.3 ones which are fine where they’re at
The difference between a 8.3 and a 9.0 aircraft, not considering the clearly outlier SU-7 types at 9.0, is less than the difference between the F-104A and the F-104S.
