Against MiG-21

Hi,

I watched Top Gun last night and felt "the need for speed".. so I'm trying my luck guns only against AI MiG-21s and to be honest... I am amazed!

I have beaten Su-27s and MiG-29s but this thing is driving me nuts! Constant verticals, constant loops.. I'm either too slow to follow or to fast and have to ease on the stick not to blackout.. What is the right approach to beat the Fishbed? He's so small and keeping the visual is super hard. And this is only the second difficulty AI (Good I believe it's called)...

PS. I'm worried that the ultra realistic Tomcat nuances and flight characteristics that ALL the other "full reality" pro modules LACK will make the Tomcat imparior... :(

The problem with the MiG-21 and F-5--and in general any DCS AI aircraft--is that they have UFO-like physics and perfect energy management. Put a human player in that MiG-21 and you'd probably eat him for breakfast if your BFM skills are up to snuff.

I know what you're saying but I kill the same lvl AI in more modern and capable airframes...

I've beaten the MiG-21 several times guns only in the F-14 before. But it took ALOT of practice. What I found works the best is to take the F-14 into the vertical in the merge, with about 40,000 ft lateral separation, and into a one circle fight. Keep him tallied and watch your energy. You will have the climb advantage, and just before you roll onto your back, look up to keep him in VR and then unload onto him. you will more than likely end up within 1 to 1.5 nm behind him, which if you have a Sidewinder, is an excellent setup for the kill. If you don't, you are close to getting into guns range.

Keep him tallied and watch your energy. Depending on your energy and what he does, will determine if you want to turn inside him with lead pursuit, or pure pursuit, or if high on energy, turn outside of him in the vertical for a high yo-yo and "fly it to the elbow" (pull high and just when your energy reaches corner speed, turn back hard into him, and pull your nose on).

The moment I finally realized I cold kill him regularly was when I did the stock Lion and the Sun mission and I engaged him with my loadout of Sparrows and Sidewinders, so I was somewhat heavy and less maneuverable but I refused to launch any missile even if he was in the envelope. I still got him into guns range and killed him with a burst of 20mm. As his flaming wreckage was going down, then I launched off all my Sparrows and Sidewinders at his burning hulk...but that was just me being a butthole.

v6,

boNes

the Mig21 ai model is notoriously broken or should i say old, i say this because it uses the old fm that we used to have for the mig 21 which made it a rocket ship with good energy retention in turns.

if you tried to 1v1 an ai mig 21 in the mig 21 the air would always be able to pull away if you followed their manauvers to the T.

with about 40,000 ft lateral separation

You mean 4,000ft right? 40,000ft is almost 7nm.

Or maybe it's just that the mig 21 is the superior aircraft :megalol:

You mean 4,000ft right? 40,000ft is almost 7nm.

No I mean 40,000 ft. Sorry I should have been more specific...I mean to say that at about 10 miles, you should be at 40,000 ft separation.

v6,

boNes

The planes in FC3, IMO, has better AI FMs because these were used by players as well before PFM went out. That may explain why you found fighting these more modern jets are easier.

Layman's Explanation below

The Standard quick mission against the Mig - 21 with the ai set to excellent. I'm successful usually 90% of the time - unless I'm being lazy. I try to challenge myself and hold off on using missiles. While letting the Mig 21 maintain the extra munition advantage.

I find if you drive the Mig 21 low, it's a pretty easy win. Also try to remember that the Tomcat is pretty strong in a vertical climb and low speeds. The Ai constantly attempts to have you over shoot by burning it's energy, so keep that switch for the airbrake close and handy. Observe what the Ai is trying to do for speed. Also if you're not confident with the bird to counter stalls with rudder input - it can make BFM a lot more complicated and difficult. So hone that skill quickly.

Hope this helps as well. First and foremost, make sure you can spot him and keep an eye on him. No use in fighting what you can't see. So experiment with the graphics settings and make sure he doesn't flicker in and out of existence.

Second, as mentioned, he cheats. He can pull Flanker and Tomcat tight turns and never kill the engine or fall out of the sky (unlike you if you tried the same in the MiG-21). So be prepared for some out of nowhere 180's. Keep some spare energy up your sleeve and don't be shy to use it.

Keep trying and clear skies! :thumbup:

 

I have beaten Su-27s and MiG-29s but this thing is driving me nuts! Constant verticals, constant loops...:(

The AI seems, well, off. I've found the Mig23 to be more 'manageable' for routine missions, that is; it performs, to me, relatively speaking, more in line with something of that generation.

Wish they would expose the AI so people could tweak it. Just put a GUID in there or something for IC'g online. No way everyone would agree on the results, but at least you could refine what you get.

Check Six

The Lion and the Sun is rediculously hard - it seems that Fishbed flies with some sort of nuclear energy - you can't even run it out of fuel

Last time I tried it I ended up having it do a 180 flip right in front of me like something out of Stealth. It does not seem to loose energy.

Then again, I've only just started actually trying to Fight with the Tomcat - I took about 10 or 12 attempts to beat the 3-v-1 3rd Gen constant peg mission (I broke the Jet 4 times, ran out of fuel or ammo twice trying to swat the fishbed and got swarmed by the Floggers, tagged by a missile, or surprised by one doing a bat-turn when I tried to Blow through.

And then then replay of the succesful mission desynced about 5 seconds into the first dive to defeat the first missile