This game is just so damn difficult. I've done all the tutorials more than once but I still don't stand a chance against any enemy fighter. What the hell does it take to even be remotely competent at this game?! I've tried campaigns and open missions but I get shot out of the sky within a few minutes, with 0 kills to my name. The enemy just seems to evade my missiles with ease whereas I dispense flares and try evasive maneuvers but always get hit no matter what I try.

I've downloaded 2 training tracks from flankertraining.com. The first one "STAYING ALIVE :: EVADING MISSILES" is weird because all that happens is the Su-27 crashes into the ground. And the ogg files that came with it don't play during the track.

The second ones (STRIKING EAGLES :: EXPLOITING THE DOPPLER EFFECT) ogg files also don't play during the track so I have no clue what's happening.

Is it just me or is this game extremely difficult? I'm not too sure if I can carry on with the frustration of being shot down over and over again. And I don't wanna quit because I love fighter planes and really wanna try and become at least half decent at this game.

Do you have DivX installed to watch these videos? Yes this game is extremely difficult, and Ironhand makes the best videos for tactics learning. If your trying to watch the tracks (and not the videos), make sure the track you are watching is compatible with 1.02 and not made with any other version, such as 1.1, 1.01, 1.12, etc...

Ive been trying to get good in fighters for the last 6 years, I stuck to a2g because of it. This game really sucks a2a wise for US aircraft, but find a squad to fly online with and they can train you the ins and outs of a2a combat. Id join one myself but I find I dont have the time to dedicate yet.

This is how i did it.

First i printed the manual and read it in my insomnia nights.

Choose ur favorite jet. F-15 / Su-27 whatever. And learn how its radar works, (download the videos from flankertraining.com, the ones that are actually video not the trackfiles) Once u learn how the radar works, learn about the RWS (radar warning system) its all the noises and beeps and icons on the radar that u hear and see when u're getting shot at (or just being looked apon).

After that i learned about the missiles (even though i forgot about them ofter) Some are Infra-red (heat seek) some are Radar based ones. There are several types of radar homing missiles. Active Radar / Semi-Active and whatever else. Basicly some are Fire-and-Forget (u can lose the target and the missile guides himself) others you need to keep the target locked.

After this you nede to start firing them. So lear about BVR Battles (Beyond Visual Range), learn how BVR works on your favorite plane. (on the Sukhois i think u have to press 5, and then "I" to turn radar on (however that will make u visible to them also) you can go stealth on them (if u are going low and sneaking for example) and press "O" that activates your Heat seeking something (im not that expert) basicly its a radar but it detects HEAT and its silent. So others wont know you're locking on them, and if the missile is IR (heat seeker) they wont get a beeping noise and flashing lights on the HUD cause IR missile are not trackable.

After you learn that and pratice some BVR, you need to learn about close combat. First with missles (Sukhois (SU-27 / SU-33) have that Helmet thing basicly u can target where you are looking at ("6" key i believe)). You need to know about Short Range missiles, they are much more agile and awesome to see in a close combat.

If you cant handle a fight you need to learn how to fly. How not to Stall, how to avoid losing speed on turns, how to turn as much as possible without losing speed, how to barrel roll, how to scissor (Evasion tactics) etc.

If you have trouble dodging missiles you need to learn some missle dodging techniques. When to use flares / chaffs etc. If the threat is coming from the ground wich kind of missile it is... Short range / short fuse or Long Range - Low Agility. Know what kind of missile is being fired at you so you know what to do. Remember you wont get any sound of flashing lights on the hud if you someone shoots a heat seeker at you.
Make sure you have your eyes open for flashes comming from the ground. usually Heat Seekers are short-range high-agility short-fuse, relatively easy to dodge.



I learned all this by myself (im not the brightest light in the shed anyway) using the manual and FlankerTraining.com videos.


I hope this helped. Remember I am a learning noob. Maybe I said something that is not 100% correct. Dont trust me =]


P.S: Excuse my english, sometimes I type really bad xD

Quick correction to what O'Neill said - 2 and I to switch on radar for BVR. 5 switches on the helmet mounted sight for MiG-29 and Su-27/33.

If you watch a Track, then you need to make sure you are watching it on the same patch level of Lockon that it was made on. Tracks are very fragile in this way. The plus side is that tracks are quite small and are quick to D/Load.

That is why IronHand (and others) nowadays make videos/movies of their stuff to be Lockon patch level independent. The down side of course is the size of movie you have to D/Load. Many folks like IronHand are slowly converting older tracks into movies on their websites.

Take heart - it took all of us a long time to get even vaguely proficient at dodging missiles. You are not the first to ask this question, check out some of the hints in this thread, link below....

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/38610606/m/2401097865

Thanks for your replies so far guys.

I don't think I'll be able to download any of those videos since my connection is was too slow and capped . What I do now is play for 5 mins, get shot down, get pissed off and wanna kill something and then quit. Rinse and repeat :P

I'll give that link a look Brit_Radar_Dude, thanks.

Just one more thing, the radar on my Su-27 doesn't wanna turn off! I press I and nothing happens

Wow...I just all this **** by myself. I learned stuff like: when evading a missile either go vertical, or go low, while deploying chaff and flare. (this usually works by simply going low the missile is dragged into the thicker air to where it decelerates). Also look up air-to-air manuevers online too. You'll be suprised how much the rudder does when you add it to a maneuver.

Make your own missions first if you get frustrated too much .

Lots of planes with no weapons , and just practice aquiring targets .

Or just click 'fly' in the begin screen ..

Also the A.I is a bit all knowing, they always know exactly when you fire a missile, even if it is infrared ...

Wont turn off? Do you think this because you can still see aircraft in your HDD display? (triangles for enemy and circles for friends). If you have a friendly AWACS or friendly EWR radar in the mission, then they are sending you that target data even when your radar is off.

Okay I read through the whole topic that you gave me Brit_Radar_Dude, and I read a lot about "3 to 9" and being perpendicular to the incoming missile. It's a bit too difficult to visualize what they are trying to explain so I'm gonna ask for a big favour . Could someone maybe record a track of this missile evading tactic so that I can understand what's going on? And another question. Is this 3 to 9 evasion tactic the best to use against incoming missiles or are there more superior methods of evasion?

quote:

Originally posted by Brit_Radar_Dude:
If they are fired from a long range, you can always turn tail and run (no shame - it's better than dying ), the missile will run out of steam and fall to the ground.

If that is not possible, executing a barrel roll whilst popping a few flares/chaff can help. Your aim is to exhaust the missiles energy once its rocket engine has burned out. At that point it is basically a dart and gravity is pulling it back to earth. By making it manouevre a lot, it increases its drag which slows it quicker exhausting its energy so it slows down and cannot follow you.

A couple of years ago, someone put up a movie of this (sadly I lost the link to it) and when it swapped to the F6 missile view you could see its nose moving around the sky to follow the evading aircraft. The speed was falling off real, real fast while it was doing this. Soon it was down to a few hundred miles an hour and fell out of the sky.

As for your last point, if you are being bracketed by bad guys and missiles on all sides, then ask yourself why? How have you got into this extreme danger situation? How might you do it different next time? In a real-life dogfight would a pilot go into a 1 v lots fight? Why aren't your wingmen helping? Are you using them efficiently?

Suppose I have a 2 v 2 fight.....
What I try to do is split up the bad guys and do unto them first! I issue a "pincer right" radio command to my wingie, and turn to the left myself to open up some space between us. I do this a long, long time before anyone is in firing range. The bandits should split up to follow us both. I turn back into the bandit who is going for my wingie and accelerate. As soon as I lock him up, I issue an "Attack my target" command to the wingie. I continue to bore in and launch on him myself. Now the 1st bandit has the "missiles from all sides" problem! I have a temporary 2 v 1 advantage. Most times the 2nd bandit cannot reach the fight in time to save his buddy. Now you turn on the 2nd guy and again, you have a 2 v 1 advantage.
If you have more bandits, then these types of manoeuvres can still help you to perhaps turn it into a couple of 2 v 2 fights rather than a 2 v 4 furball.

you can give other commands to your wingman then 'protect my rear' and 'attack my target'' ????

What is this 'pincher' thing, please explain.

And yeah, running is a very very good choice. The 180 turn alone makes the rocket grow tired quickly, then its off to the floor full burner while slowly zigzagging.

This at least works wonders in multiplay games, not sure how it fares in single play

I have a few more questions regarding missiles. I've noticed 2 different guidance types so far. SAR and IR. What is the different between the 2? I thought that my best bet would be to have heat seeking "fire-and-forget" (as you guys put it) missiles in my payload since most of the time I fire a missile but have to try and dodge the enemy's incoming ones as well. Would it be a good idea to have a payload of purely heat seekers? Or do radar tracking missiles have their advantages too?

im not very savi with missiles but...

heat seekers have alot less range... they also get easily distracted with Flares and if your enemy isnt using afterburner, thats a plus for him since theres alot less heat coming from them. However they are stealthier (no warning that u launched a missile at them) and u dont need ur radar on to shoot them (wich makes YOU stealthier)... im probably missing something else.


SAR (Semi-Autonamous Radar or Semi-active radar guided missiles) have alot more range ( depends on your radar range). They are more reliable to hit the target from that distance. I believe you have to keep your target locked or else they will go dumb. A bad thing about them... you need to have your radar on, and the enemy will get his RWS beeping everywhere.



Once again, do not trust what i say, im still learning =]

Im hoping I didnt forget anything or said something wrong.

a load of all IR's is not a good idea. you won't be able to fight BVR.

When someone refers to a clock position, like 3 o'clock, 9 o'clock, they are referring to a specific reference along the horizontal axis of your aircraft. Someone says you have a bandit at 6, you have someone at the 6 o'clock posit on your plane, aka your a$$. 3 and 9 posits are your right and left side respectively.

The thing about missile evasion especially in BVR combat is that the bandit has fired at you because he has a firing solution based on the current situation, ie. your course, height and speed. If you keep going in the same direction (toward the bandit), at the same height, at the same speed then the missile he fired has enough kinetic energy to reach you and kill you. Remember that a missile motor burns only for a few seconds to get the missile up to speed, then it is simply a dart. It will lose speed as it flies (against the pull of gravity) and everytime it makes a manouevre it will lose some more speed, just like you do in an aircraft when you turn unless you power up your engines to compensate.

If you change what you are doing, then you spoil the firing solution, hence tactics that try to exhaust the missiles energy such as.....

turning around and running away. Now the missile has to fly much further to reach you.

turning to fly perpendicular to the course you were flying before, either turning right (3 o'clock) or left (9 o'clock). Now the missile has to fly further to reach you.

climbing and descending, making the missile expend some of its energy doing the same.

quote:

Game__On asked: What is this 'pincher' thing, please explain.

The pincer command tells your wingman to fly away from you. I usually use pincer right and fly to the left myself to speed up the seperation between us. Imagine that me and my wingman are the tips of the pincer claw of a crab. As we get farther apart, it is like the claw opening. When I can see that the two bandits have split up, one coming after my wingman (bandit1) the other coming after me (bandit2). When there is a definite separation between them maybe 10-15 miles(?) then I turn back in toward bandit1, lock him up, tell my wingman to "Attack my target" and I attack him myself too. I aim my jet at a point well ahead of bandit1 and accelerate to full power. I want to be taking my shot at him while he is in my 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock position. Now the claw is closing on bandit1 and bandit2 is temporarily out of the fight.
I wish to keep as far as possible from the 2nd bandit who is now trailing behind his buddy and trying to catch up. He will attempt to get to me but I'm now flying across him and he (hopefully) will struggle to get a shot at me.
Bandit1 has to dodge both my wingmans missile and mine, usually our temporary 2 to 1 advantage gets him without losing my wingman. Then we engage bandit2 - again with a 2 to 1 advantage.

The key to making this work is to start the pincer well before you are in engagement range. Do it too late and the bandits will launch on you before you can complete the trap.

Hope this makes sense.

Well yes it does, i hate losing my wingman altough he seems quite useless most of the time.

Maybe now i can keep him alive, while making him at least a bit usefull .

:-) Time to experiment a bit thx

I've been practicing dodging missiles but still have had no success. I have no clue what the 3 to 9 maneuver is so all I do is try to gain or lose height but that doesn't seem to be working for me.

I think my main problem of not being able to kill any bandits so far is that I attempt evasive maneuvers whenever I see a missile coming for me, and just forget about the ones I've already fired at the bandit, so I lose radar tracking and they just fall out of the sky.

But the unfair thing is that the bandit doesn't give a **** about my missiles coming at him in the first place, and happily guides his radar missiles to me. And if 1 of mine does amazingly reach him he just does a cute little maneuver and dodges my missiles with ease.

What can I do in a situation like that, where both our missiles are heading for each other at the same time(which is pretty much what always happens)? Do you guys just ignore the incoming and concentrate on guiding your missile to hit the bandit. Or do you ditch the guiding and try dodge the incoming?

The barrel roll .

Not that easy though , but very effective. (or so i've seen in video's )

As i recall there used to be an 'execute barrel roll' key so it would automatically do the barrel roll, but i can't find it anymore .

Also when evading missiles, you have to keep your speed up so you really can't make exceptionally hard turns.
Keep your turns less sharper, but longer sustained.

Doing sharp turns with 200 kph isnt going to do squat since then you're as good as a stationairy target .

Also, don't forget: When the histerical bleep bleep sound is over, the enemy missile has lost it's lock on you.
No need to keep evading once that sound is gone.
Altough the enemy A.I does kind of spams a lot of missiles at you .

Well i'll be damned, the Barrel roll is in the training section of Lo-mac under 'top gun' .

Watch it and practice.

I've done all the Top Gun training and it isn't there. There's only:

1) Pursuit Geometry: Lead, Lag, Pure Pursuit
2) Lead Turns
3) Single Circle Fight
4) Two Circle Fight
5) Yo Yo

That's because you're flying V1.02. "Barrel roll" comes with V1.12 (Flaming Cliffs). You can download and watch them, though, in video format: LOMAC/FC Training in Video Format (TekaTeka).

Rich