To be frank with you, some of these reports would make the missile quite broken, especially if all the reports are implemented at once when MRAAMs haven’t even arrived yet. To implement a missile with far better acceleration, loft, smokeless motor and much better manueverability would mean a missile that would dominate the games. I don’t see why there’s any particular urgency to implement these until MRAAMs have arrived.
That points already been discussed. The R-27ER already currently outperforms it at any range and in almost every way in-game. The high kinetic energy, low drag and datalink ability to re-acquire a lock also makes the 27ER a better quasi-ARH compared to the 54C, so arguing that it would be unbalanced seems rather silly an argument in the first place.
Secondly, not all need to be fixed right away, but the fact that NONE have been fixed is quite bad. The first fix we’ve had in months, is just a fin AOA buff, because “oops, the AIM-54 couldn’t even really pull its max G-load because it didn’t have enough control authority, teehee, what klutzes we are”. The only fix i can think of off the top of my head was the increase in gimbal limit (they somehow had it locked at 15 deg instead of the 60 deg of gimbal it actually has???) and the introduction (or was it slight increase ?) of its loft code, but its so minor it still has almost no effect.
Gaijin has shown a consistent and continued outright hatred for the F-14 and AIM-54 as a whole, and as I mentioned, continue to spread lies about it to this day, despite being provided the info to correct their statements/views.
This isnt really the thread to discuss gaijns hatred for the AIM-54 though, or if it would be balanced if fixed, even only partially. I just thought it was cool that somebody else made a bug report for directional warheads so they might actually become a thing in-game with the MICA. I can promise you that even if a bug report was made for the american missiles that pioneered the tech was made though, they would not get the directional warhead, and the MICA would.
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The other fix they did was the proximity fuze radius, this made it harder to escape since even if you did “dodge” it, you could still get hit with the large explosive warhead.
I won’t disagree with you that R-27ER is far better suited for the current gameplay but there’s no incremental buff they could make right now without making it broken and better than R-27ER.
Smokeless motor is a problem given that we could very easily misjudge how close the missile is on the RWR without seeing its smoke trail at launch the first time.
Lofting would increase its performance significantly while also making it likely that airframe’s RWRs won’t pick up the notification as it could arrive above the RWR coverage.
25G mixed with the large warhead proxy radius would make this missile near impossible to dodge.
So there isn’t really an incremental step they can take until the arrival of MRAAMs.
Why would they hate on a specific airframe? This is the first gen 4 they added to the game and completely gave it its own trailer.
Oh yeah, that was a really early fix, since iirc it originally had the trigger radius of the AIM-7 at 7.5m…
You get quite a bit of warning from RWR lock on from a AIM-54 due to how slow it is in-game, and even then, if it was within 10km of you when its motor was still burning, you’d still get a missile diamond. Reduced smoke motor would just help it be less obvious at range and would allow people to fire it from a bit closer, since atm you have to optimize launch range for the motor to have cut out sufficiently far away for the enemy to hopefully not see the giant smoke trail coming for them while being not so far that the missile gets to the target with no more energy.
Even with much higher loft profiles, the MRAAM’s could be picked up on RWR, and due to the recent fin AOA change, the 54 is now apparently unable to hit ranged targets properly since the missile doesnt have a time to gain code to optimize energy use for long range shots. It was previously purely relying on the fact that it wasn’t “maneuverable” enough to “waste” energy at long ranges, so the most recent fix may have actually made it worse in its “intended” role ironically.
Missiles don’t seem to proxy if notched in the first place, and most of the time, raw maneuverability is not the preferred method of defeat against AAM’s, both IRL or in-game. The fact you can just outpull an AIM-54 with relatively simple maneuvers without even having to properly defend currently is pretty terrible, granted the control authority increase should help that a bit.
They could improve its seekers performance, seeing as the 54C currently uses the exact same seeker as the 54A from 20 years prior, making it equal to or worse in effectively every way in-game (imagine that, 20 years of progress only for the missile to be inferior)
They gave it its own trailer because it coincided with top gun and was good for marketing. That aside, the F-14 and AIM-54 have pretty consistently been on “gaijins most hated” list imo, and its easy for them to get away with it since the community loves to hate the F-14 as well simply for being popular.
Like i said though, this isnt the thread for this, this is the MICA thread.
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What does this do ?
The radar will basically change the modes for you automatically so it can try to keep the target locked while they’re notching you or doing manuevers. It should also switch modes automatically depending on how far away a target is.
Pretty much it attempts to automate a lot of your task so you can just focus on flying, keeping your situational awareness up, focus on RWR, fire your missiles, use countermeasures, and etc.
Oh btw, about that PRF management, they have it set to prioritize the wrong lock types, idk if anyone bug reported it, but I did comment on it on their post.
The current auto priority setup they have is
- MPRF PD
- HPRF PD
- Pulse/CW
- OLS
HPRF and MPRF are flipped and need to be unflipped. HPRF is your long range and highest energy on target lock type. MPRF is a worse quality lock but has better notch angles (hence why HPRF should fall to MPRF if its about to lose a lock), after that its regular pulse/CW as they have no notch but are sensitive to clutter, and finally OLS (if its what we think it is) is a short range lock using another sensor to slave the radar in the event the radar cannot keep the lock.
What is OLS?
Thought to be Optical Line of Sight, so stuff like TCS on the F-14B, maybe some IRST’s. Could be wrong though but thats what myself and others seem to agree it has to be
What’s wrong with the current implementation? Cause currently on the M2K when I lock a target at long range, itll use HPRF, then it’ll switch over to MPRF as soon as a target is within 60km (range of MPRF). It’ll use the MPRF if it’s within range, otherwise will use HPRF.
OLS commonly used in russian. Optical location station. =IRST
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HPRF is the most solid lock, hence why it has the most range. It should prioritize lock quality unless its about to lose the lock. By prioritizing MPRF, the system gives you an inferior lock even when unecessary.
To explain how it should be:
- Strongest lock/worst notch
- Second best lock/better notch
- Inferior lock/no notch but succeptible to clutter
- No radar lock/impossible to chaff or clutter but minimum range and can be blocked by clouds
Isn’t MPRF most reliable? Not sure why you would want HPRF if target is within MPRF range.
HPRF has different blind zones, generally MPRF is most optimal.
More energy on target. The whole point of having an auto adjusting radar makes the idea of sticking in the “most reliable” lock mode silly. Its supposed to maximize lock quality while maintaining lock, so why not use HPRF if HPRF can hold the lock? It can always switch if its gonna lose the lock
My understanding is that HPRF is used to detect targets and it has more range for that purpose, and once targets are in range for missile guidance, the radars would be switching over to MPRF to provide more reliable tracking within those ranges. But if outside of the range of MPRF, HPRF and LPRF would provide that guidance. Correct me if I’m wrong.
What benefit is there of “maximizing lock quality while maintaining lock” between the HPRF and MPRF?
Yeah I would have thought that the reason the US went with MPRF on the APG-66 is because MPRF is more optimal. F-14 and its HPRF radar was necessary for intercepting Soviet bombers at ranges that MPRF couldn’t reach
This was heavily discussed in the past and essentially HPRF is more optimal for high alt and longer ranges when higher speeds are involved. MPRF has more use-case in short ranges and a wider variety of closure rates and such.
Yeah so I looked into it some more, looks like I was wrong, MPRF would in fact take over when the radar is in range. As for why exactly, I’m still not 100% sure. MPRF obviously has more use cases when in range, but it still seems most logical to stick to HPRF unless required to do otherwise. It might be because MPRF can vary its PRF to adjust its velocity or range ambiguity to get more accurate information for both at when required.
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Yeah my understanding was HPRF is able to detect Mach 4+ objects such as hypersonic missiles, AAMs, and ballistic missiles that MPRF can’t.