Ngl lowkey forgot my flag knowledge mb
no it doesn’t
yes it does
The fact is decompression, you’re comparing different airplanes for different purposes, is Gaijin fault to make air battles work the same way and every player having to adapt to the environment their airplanes weren’t made for. Use the F/A-18C as a opportunistic vehicle, don’t go head-on. Also, you should/shouldn’t be greatful that it’s at battle rating 12.7 for realistic battles when compared to stuff like F-2A and F-2A ADTW that is forced in higher battle rating with worse flight performance, missiles but the radar. Fact is you have Aim-7P and you might be using the entire plane wrong to perform poorly not considering the waves and waves of Su-30MK2 AMV and Su-30MKK contesting the airspace with ease.
F-18C at 12.7 is already one of the better 12.7s in the game.
good FM sure. but R-Darters are so absolute trash that you really cant take advantage of it at all.
They make more money from us players that have been here for years than noob #42824298 buying a tomcat and instantly being eaten alive and uninstalling.
The game is balanced by the average, which is dragged down violently by how crap the average player is, average kill per spawn is 0.75, you are in the elite of this game with a positive K/D its sad.
and thats why certain vehicles (we all know which) are still undertiered as all hell
AKA its a skill issue.
this is the problem, people dont have the skill to play these BRs with adequate vehicles. Things stay undertiered from it.
The BR balancing reflects it rather than looking at the raw capability of the vehicle, or filtering performance to ignore newer and therefore inherently underperforming players.
thats why the hornet is SU30 food in uptiers but sit just above the F-4J which really is well over a BR worse in performance if the game wasnt compressed harder than that one submarine
Nuclear escalation does get rid of a lot of the air battles problems, but they will still exist in one form or the other, I for one wont play “classic” mode in any aircraft over 8.7 ever again
you can’t play opportunistically when the meta forces you into 13.7 Fox-3 uptiers where your team melts in three minutes. Bringing up the F-2A is just whataboutism that proves the matchmaker is broken; one bad BR placement doesn’t justify another. Telling me “don’t go head-on” makes zero mechanical sense when the F-18 is stuck with Fox-1 SARH missiles (like the AIM-7P, which has the exact same kinematic limits as the 7M), forcing you to maintain a hard, continuous nose-on radar lock all the way to impact. You literally cannot guide your missile without exposing yourself to a head-on counter-launch, and doing so with only 60 countermeasures and a high-AoA airframe that completely bleeds energy on defensive breaks is a death sentence.
yes you can, its actually far easier to when everyone focuses on radar and RWR than it is at my preferred ARB jet BR of 11.3
turn your radar off, fly low and to the side of the map.
only have your radar on to lock the dude and sling a missile into them.
profit
Flanking with your radar off 11.3 tactic that doesn’t work against 13.7 radars with massive TWS detection cones. The second you turn your radar on to lock someone, you light up their RWR. Because you only have Fox-1s, you are forced to fly straight at them to guide your missile. A Fox-3 slinger will just launch back and immediately turn away to defend, while you’re stuck flying nose-on into a death sentence just to keep your lock.
I disagree, the more time people spend in this game the more skilled they become, the less interesting premium vehicles or account becomes to them. There are exceptions obviously, but in general, new player is more likely to but a premium vehicle and a premium time on top of it
I do agree with that, the fact that statshark considers me a good player Is wild, but at the end of the day if majority of people are worse than you it’s not average being crap, it’s you being better than average and you have to remember that when looking at gaijin balancing decisions
its not foolproof, but people still fixate on whats dead in front and the easier shot.
*fly within the angles of your radar, not head on. you still have a lot of leeway.
you bought your way to top tier with the prem hornet so you have sparrow-Ps, they can fire 10km without much concen, you can keep distance perfectly fine.
Kick rocks I guess. I brought F-2A and F-2A ADTW as examples of worse vehicle (overall considering) and as a proof of compression, not simply whataboutism, Aim-7P has vastly superior seeker when compared to an Aim-7M which has both Data-Link and In-Ordnance Guidance as listed in the ordinances’ card.
Telling you “Don’t go head-on” makes sense but doesn’t show the full picture because I’m not ready to go down explaining how to properly use a plane;
But there’s a difference between this 
And this:
With the F/A-18C having a missile with IOG and DL, you’re in much better position than the F-2A with a missile limited only to radar guidance without these tools I just mentioned.
Good positioning would’ve minimized arh exposure.
They still cap out at mach 1 and die if they don’t notch properly. Their offensive kit is also identical.
Getting good squadmates would help.
why taking 30/30? 15/45 is way better. just try to avoid dogfights.
dude never played j15t
This. I personally run 14/46 (iirc wt has them in increments of 2), and this is my personal in the CF-188A (worst of the 3 prem hornets)
Unsure on that, us veteran players understand the value of prem account more, and its worth more to us as we know we stick around to use it.
dunno about that one mate
Statshark shows me as one of the best performing players of WT, i wouldnt count myself as an incredible player, just competent. the bar is just stupid low.
I mean that is how averages work, but it takes a little more nuance to realise that the game is incredibly bottom heavy, the average for a PVP game should be a K/D of around 1, war thunder hasnt got even close to expected
This game is the top couple on the leaderboard doing everything and the rest being free kills. Its very unusual how the minority absolutely dominates without question
yeah i don’t know exactly how much we can take but i run this with f18a (yeah its a 12.3 but still) and i really don’t need 30/30. if u play well and dodge radar missile, its an ez win
told ya, exceptions. I haven’t bought a premium or premium time in quite a while simply because i play the game, not grind the vehicles.
average pvp game has way less technical complexity and options available for a player. That’s why there are so many bottom feeders. And this becomes even worse when you take into consideration that bunch of players simply skip lower tier vehicles that technically teach you the basics before you get to play with more complex toys and mechanics by buying top tier premium. Bro doesn’t know what energy is but already tries to figure out Fox-3s, notching, flaring, chaffing, digital avionics and such
mmh yes, it’s a airplane game. If you don’t implement real-world strategies, you’re going to struggle against players who know what they’re doing.