Why is the Su-27 not going down to 13.0 but the F-15A/J can to 12.7?

Game Discussion Simulator Battle
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Title.

Alongside other questionable BR changes in general but for SB specifically, I am puzzled by the lack of a BR reduction for the Su-27 in particular. By and large the only “good” thing(s) about it is its weapons kit and somewhat manageable CM count.

It does not get a detailed HMD.
It does not have a digital RWR (although the in-cockpit RWR is wonderful).
The radar it uses is… well, not painful but compared to the F-15A/J’s it’s not quite up there.

Adding to the fact that the USSR doesn’t have a single 13.0 (on the dot; not 13.3 or 13.7) SB jet I struggle to see how the Su-27 of all jets is forced to remain at 13.3 in SB.

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why

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This point is quite semantics. early flankers/fulcrums/Yak-141 have definitely a worse radar than its peers, in compensation, they get a missile series capable to reacquire mid-flight to any illuminated target due to IOG+DL.

Blufor jet does not have such luxury to carry IOG+DL missiles, unless we’re talking about the premium Early F/A-18Cs, or the 14.0 hornets with the AIM-7Ps, which by that BR they become quite useless compared to an ARH anyways.

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How about we buff the MiG-29 and give it the R-73, which will make it more powerful like the F-15? Putting the Su-27 down may be very OP with its R-27ER; it might work if we only give it R-27R.

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I don’t play top tier sim but it would seem to me the 9M’s inability to be seen is more impactful than the R-73s ability to do funny things in a stallfight

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im dumb as bricks i didnt see this is sim.
i retract all previous statements relating to br

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I have a better chance of walking into RAF Coningsby and walking out with a Eurofighter wheel. This has been brought up many times, it’s always been shot down.

Meanwhile the literally identical MiG-29G:

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i agree, them being the same br as the flankers with fox 3s is super dumb.
literal premium bias

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Yes, Soviet missiles have IOG+DL…which would be useful in RB as you can see your target’s name and all.

In Sim it’s very different. You could have someone locked, the lock drop for any reason (e.g., they’re notching) and then you try to reacquire and- oh no, they’ve vanished. For all your fibbling with your radar, they could still be in the notch and thus completely invisible to you or they’ve changed altitude and are not where you are looking.

Suffice to say, situational awareness is the biggest of things in Sim. I promise you the “advantage” Soviet missiles have on paper doesn’t mean much when your radar doesn’t work the way you want it to while being shot at.

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I would not include yak 141 in there. IMO n010/n010m are some of the best mech scan radars

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Yeah Yak-141 and MiG-29SMT is “fine” in Sim, never had a major problem with those

(Unless firing R-77 in TWS, then the rate of updates are atrocious lol)

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I’m quite over the “Russia suffers” narrative or any innuendo about it like at all.

Some call it “asymmetrical balancing” when people claim some US vehicles are (validly claimed as) undertiered albeit being strong. But when Russia carries a strong feature, such “asymmetrical balancing” fades through the wind and the F-15s suddently deserve to be named an equal to a vehicle that carries not only more but better missiles, has comparable flight performance through its latest buffs and it has better BVR capabilities than the Eagle by the R-27ERs performance, at least on paper.

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f-15a actually has better bvr capabilities in sim compared to base su-27s due to its rwr.
GL trying to bvr in the su-27 without knowing if a fox 3 or fox 1 has been fired at you (you’re just gonna eat a fox 3)
Though su-33 solves this issue.

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Problem is, a harsh truthpill to swallow is that Gaijin has left sim to rot for a long time now.
How much time since they’ve dropped a map for the mode? a year and a half now? Says a lot.

And sure, fight for the F-15A/J/Baz to be kept at 13.0 on sim, shouldn’t change the fact it could be perfectly placed at 12.7 in ARB and AAB.

The key advantage many claim the F-15A has on ASB is straightup useless by how the game works on the main gamemode.

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Damn, left for a coffee and already the straws are out.

Anyway, I was hoping to genuinely hear you out despite your entire arguments being centred around RB and not SB which you’ve basically never touched. To reply to your post:

The fact that you say ‘at least on paper’ proves my point. On paper, the R-27ER is king. In SB, where you have no name tags and a primitive RWR/Radar combo, that ‘paper advantage’ disappears the moment an F-15 or whatever notches or uses its superior SA (+ nearly invisible 9M) to dictate the engagement.

Asymmetric balance does exist… weirdly enough. Or do you want to question why the Yak-141 with better radar and pretty much the same missiles bar the R-73 is at 12.7? You can argue “well ackshually, the Su-27 gets 10 missiles and 6 of those can be R-27ER” and to counter that… in SB, literally most of the time the only maps available are Denmark, Sinai or Tunisia–prime multipath maps for those who just wants to fly low and bomb or fire nearly invisible 9M in a head-on. At that point, the 4-6 R-27E’s you’re carrying aren’t going to do much for you when the entire enemy team multipaths by default.

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Lmao, how is it perfectly placed at 12.7? It’s strictly better than every 12.7 outright (go ahead and try to disprove that claim) and better than plenty of 13.0s as well.

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agreeable on ASB, highly debatable on any other mode.

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Aim-7M arent that good. and near enough direct equivalents are found all the way down to 12.0 in the form of Aim-7F on the F-4s or Skyflash SuperTEMPs on the F3. As stupid a decision as it is for the F-15As to move down in their current state (with IRCCM) its not entirely the end of the world.

The Su-27/Su-33 have R-27ER, quite frankly, I dont even think the Mig-29s should be allowed ot Keep R-27ERs at 12.7s because they are that strong, but tolerable due to only having 2. With their 4+8 or 4+6 weapons fit respectively, having that many R-27ER at such a stupidly low BR is unacceptable. if it wasnt for the compression.

13.0 is possible for them, but id rather see the Su-30 premiums move up to 13.7 and generally decompress 13.0 to be better balanced

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I was talking about ARB, go ahead and explain how say, a Sea Harrier FA.2 even with amraams is better, or how a MiG-29G is better. Or how a mirage 4K is better

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There are two simple reasons that the F-15A is moving down in Air Sim and why the Su-27s will remain at 13.3. And it really has to do with overall game balance and natural tendencies of experienced sim players to gravitate towards whatever plane is the most over-powered for the given day and what side of a match is more saturated with experienced players.

Due to the state of the game 2 years ago with the addition of ARH missiles and subsequent struggle that “red” side players have…the idea that red side players are more skilled than blue has cemented itself pretty well into the game. At the same time, the addition of more competitive or meta defining planes that play on red side has caused former blue players to migrate over as well.

12.0 - 13.0 is especially bad for this with the addition of the F2A ADTW and the fact that essentially nobody that is even halfway decent has played or done well in the F-15A in recent months. Taking F2A and German F/A-18 against teams of inexperienced US players is one of the easiest ways to farm kills. In fact a lot of former top tier players have migrated to playing 13.0 tier.

I will use my friend SimplySinful as a baseline. The premium F2A is going to be his most played plane at this 13.0 tier and pretty much all of those games are against blue side players. If you look at any of the guys that I commonly play with then you will see that the majority of the time at this tier we are on red side.

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This is the scoreboard from his last stream. Note the team composition is mainly F2A and German F-18.
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Let’s check another fairly well known and experienced top tier player…Alex137_rzt and see what he plays at this tier.

German F/A-18C

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His squad mate DERREISE115 that you will see with him most of the time.

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100 games in the F2A vs 8 in the F-15A.

Now let’s look at some older players. How about Starsss2_TV? He is an older sim player, one of the highest ranked TSS players in sim, and has been around for a long time. He is the guy that I showcased F2A matchups in one of my videos.

Once again a very similar story.

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Let’s look at another former highly ranked WT TSS player and DCS player…his name is perts.

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And would you look at that…the F2A is at the top of the list.

Where’s @kizvy is a question we commonly ask ourselves.

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If it’s a 13.0 day…he’s gonna be in the F2A ADTW.

Back when I started playing the game, the REEPRs fancied themselves as the best top tier sim squadron. They renamed to NSFS. Guess what the guy who I would argue is their best player has been playing?

SpitFyreLegend_1

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The F2A is the most played 13.0 in Air Sim.
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The F-15A is the 4th most played plane in the BR.
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It should be noted that the kill statistics for the planes are relatively similar but the rewards for the F2A are far higher on average. The F-15A actually rates the worst in monthly average rewards of any of the 13.0 aircraft.

Average rewards are most likely the primary factor in deciding whether or not to move a plane in the game. If there is a kill / death type component to it, there probably is also more in depth tracking of the highs and lows of kill counts and isn’t just based on a rote average.

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