AI aircraft loaded with weapons they're not supposed to have?

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

This is something I recently noticed which had never happened before the latest set of patches: I was flying around in a single mission, 1990s era, and got bounced by a group of MiG-23s. Stock, completely unmodified MiG-23s, mind you. I expected to take them to school like usual, but I unexpectedly got shot down. The debriefing screen showed that they hit me with an AA-11 Archer. How and why did the game do that?

 

Since then, I've been noticing more stock Floggers and Fishbeds flying around with AA-11s. But it's not just default aircraft-- The other day I saw a BAE Hawk armed with ASRAAMs. Weird.

 

Up until now, as far as I'm aware, the game doesn't equip aircraft out with any weapon more advanced than what's entered in the loadout.ini. Like if the loadout default for an F-4 is AIM-9L, the game will assign earlier Sidewinders for earlier dates, but at least in previous versions of the game it would never assign AIM-9M and certainly not AIM-9X regardless of the date.

 

Has anyone else experienced this?

[+Gocad]

Not really new, I have noticed this several times now, the game has been doing this for awhile really.

[+Fubar512]

In real life, variants of both the MiG-21 and MiG-23 started carrying the R-73 (AA-11) during the 1980s and 1990s...so that's not unrealistic.

 

In as far why some aircraft seem to get a upgraded loadout, well, that has to do with the availability dates of the aircraft's default weapon-set. as defined in the loadout.ini. In the aforementioned case regarding the F-4 and the '9L, the 9L is defined as being available well into the 2000s. If it were not, the next oldest weapon that meets the loadout criteria for that aircraft and (weapons station) would be loaded in its place.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Fubar512

[+WhiteBoySamurai]

Ah, I get it now. The weapons were past their "expiration dates" so the game picked a newer one. That's actually pretty neat!