The Iron dome meta

This issue can very well progress onto air RB as well, even if it occurs primarily in sim.

We are seeing it in RB esports too.

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Totally agree.

My reply to him was mainly concerning fox 2 shootdowns as typically you’ll be merging if that even occurs. Not a game ruining mechanic as it will produce 1v1 (in theory).

Fox 3 shootdowns are far worse as whoever has more missiles will win, and it promotes point and click defending rather than actually getting better at the game and defending properly.

I’d rather someone go cold and me have to chase them across the map (not fun but still) than defending via fox 3 spam.

I completely agree bro, it’s become very toxic that the planes with the most missiles no longer bother to dodge missiles, they just fly high and don’t move except to return to the airfield. The only way will be to team up with another player to try to attack in several places, but even then, if the Iron Dome player joins another, the option will be denied.

or they just J out before they die

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I know what you’re saying in regards to countering it, but i feel that doing the thing that is ruining high tier duels isn’t the right way to fix it.

I hate ratting, i dont think its a rewarding playstyle, nor is it as skillful as some others, however i think its the best way to counter those who do insist on spamming 12 r77s at you.

Back to the original point, idc if its realistic, this feature of the game is killing off the toptier pop in sim as it allows a braindead defence of what would otherwise be considered a reasonable threat.

Its simply not rewarding or fun :/

This.

You’re right, as Mustang says, this isn’t realistic. Like with CAS missions, I’ve always found the SPAAs’ ability to eliminate even 250 lb guided bombs to be highly exaggerated.

for grb, this mechanic is needed for SPAAs to stand a chance against some of the CAS vehicles we have in the game (literally any F&F heli)
for air however, this is completely unnecessary

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Most people here don’t even know what realism is to make that assessment. Most of the complaints have been vibe-based about gameplay and made-up physic statements while pulling opinions disguised as facts out the ass.

That said, the CORE issue, from actual realism and physics standpoint, which directly causes the meta-game issue, is the unrealistic ability of the defending aircraft radar to detect missiles from long range and/or in close proximity to the attacking aircraft, and to generate a track file which would allow targeting it, even if detected at all, and the reliability of the track file to be used.

At shorter ranges this could be completely viable, especially with ESA radars.

Not so much for MSA radars.

I ran some back-of-napkin math (take a boulder-sized grain of salt here) using only RCS without even going into finer details of resolution, gain, waveform, beamwidth etc, and a Su-27 N001 radar for example wouldn’t even detect an aim-120 until it was around 20km away. Tracking would only be feasible 13-16km.

That’s the 120 in a vacuum. If an acft was launching it, you wouldn’t see it right off the rail. You would need some time until enough separation happened for the launcher returns to not drown out the signal. Ballpark figure 600m-1km from launcher.

Flipping this around, with the f-15c an/apg-63 vs su-27 and r-77 gives about the same ballpark figures.

But this only solves the RCS question. Again this is not taking into account details like AGC, kalman filters, radar duty cycle, dwell time, track generation, sidelobe interference from the RETURNS, and the like.

Like I said this issue is wayyyyyyyy more in-depth than what most people here are even capable of understanding, let alone make a judgement call on realism or feasibility.

Try it, you’re not talking to animals. It’s obvious that if we’re talking about total realism (taking into account concepts of signals, radars, transmission and reception within radioelectronic parameters, even their applied physics), only professionals in this field would have a sufficient argument, but we’re talking about practical realism applied to a game where, if we base ourselves on real-life examples, I haven’t personally heard or read about an air-to-air missile being shot down by another aircraft; at the very least, it’s unusual.

GAIJIN! REMOVE IRON DOME META AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!

Fun on all sides in Top Tier has been significantly reduced because of this new meta and it’s a damn shame

Something has got to change, be it smaller RCS for missiles as some mentioned, or literally reducing the munition proxy as mustang said early on. Adding some form of “error” to firing missiles at missiles would be huge

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It being doctrinally unusual or not publicized doesn’t mean it’s impossible or unrealistic. It is very much possible and realistic from pure physics.

nobody cares
Realistic or not it should be either removed completely or changed to the point its a borderline unusable tactic that should only be applied if everything else fails.

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This is the key issue i think most are getting hung up on.

Its probably possible for systems we have in game but documentation is pretty limited for that in this topic. Some missiles are advertised as MCM capable but reliability is questionable, and ones like the IRIST arent even mounted yet in game for air.

I think this is mainly where the vibes based takes come from, just a lack usable reports or documentation.

My main hope is some sort of logical nerf can come out of this that only effects air. Some sort of small target track nerf along with a proxy nerf limiting the reliability of missile on missile detonation. I really think this would be the most simple way to go about it.

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I know a real fighter pilot, I can try and ask him, if the info is not classified, if it’s actually possible something like that in real life

You don’t care*

That’s a you problem.

For a game mode which is meant to be realistic, realism should prevail even if you don’t like it.

AB and RB exist. Maybe that’s more palatable for you.

.

As much as I would love to agree, the replies in this thread suggest nearly no one uses lack of data or physics as the core argument, but rather gameplay reasons and “this isn’t fun” or “this is no skill” reasons

They can go hand in hand. It can be both emotional and factual. There isn’t alot of documentation for any of this for the systems we have in game, and the majority of people here dislike it because they don’t find it fun. Both are valid and come to the same conclusion.

Discuss the possibility of change.

You dislike the meta, what would you suggest as a way for developers to mitigate, nerf, or remove it?

I mean, this is literally a game
The game being enjoyable should be more important than “realism” for most cases

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It should be nerfed for sure. According to what I’ve been told in theory it is possible, but not as it is in game.

For those ones talking about “realism” chances to hit a fox-3 with another fox-3 are way below 50% (at least), due to low rcs and missile speed. Whilst it’s possible for a modern radar to both detect and track a missile chances of a positive impact are too low.