Mystere IV vs Mig-15 - Kadesh experience

[ZoltanTheHun 101]

There were a few posts around the AI shooting abilities and other areas where the AI lacks the expertise. And though I agree that the AI has its problems, to me it seems like it is not the gun handling that is lacking.

 

So, I played a Kadesh campaign in stock Israel, and after a few missions it gets really MiG heavy. In my experience the Mystere IV is great against the Meteors and Vampires, but once the MiGs appear, the game is a whole lot of different. They shoot like hell, and in the most unexpected ways.  

 

I play with only the radio helping me identifying targets, and once the MiGs appear, I basically lose all chance to turn-fight the Meteors or the Vampires, if I lose speed at one point a MiG appears from nothing and it just simply butchers me. And actually the best is that it happens in some very nice way: just before the moment I am able to put the reticle on the Meteor, I hear the bullets popping on my plane and there goes the mission. 

 

So my tactic nowadays is to never loose speed and to always look back, I do it boom and zooming and I disengage from the mission without completing it if necessary. I tried dogfighting the MiGs, and here is the question for you:

 

Mystere IV vs MiG-15?

 

To me the MiG-15 seems to turn faster and seem to have around the same speed and similar climb characteristics, and it is very hard to disengage when one is on my tail. Also I play with both the campaign and the AI on hard, so I guess  the AI gets some advantages)

 

What is your opinion in game and in real life? And was any of the early French fighters match to the MiG-15? 

 

[Do335 382]

I've found out myself that 50s jet dogfighting in campaigns, BnZ is pretty much necessary to survive indeed if the oppos are similar in performance.

 

...Even then it can get too hard for AI wingmen and it's pretty much wingmen shortage after 6 or 8 missions.

 

The best trick I've found is not to fight at/around the target waypoint (WP 5) as all reds converge to that point. If you do you are essentially facing a jet stream, old enemies disengage while new ones arrive with altitude/speed advantage to bounce on you at low energy states --> very bad. Instead I pick out an enemy flight that is likely at an isolated airspace and engage them there, rinse and repeat until most enemies are going home, then find out mission objective flight and pick them off so as to get mission success. It gets less exciting then huge enemy formations at target WP but it's much easier for wingies to survive.

[Do335 382]

and tried 2 test matchup/dact 1v1. Nothing fancy at all, just straight simple flat turning at 15,000ft. I generally use it to test aircraft effectiveness for embryonic AI "brains", and worst case scenarios for player when there're no options left except turning with the AI.
 
1st engagement I merged at ~mach .9 so got quite an energy advantage and wasn't difficult at all to get on AI Mig-15's six just by pulling on the stick.
 
2nd engagement used some speedbrakes to slow down to match the AI's speed, so same energy level at merge in this one, and should be more representative. The fight drags on longer and had to go into deep buffeting to get on him, but even post buffet the Mystere has a slight turn rate advantage. But surely, in a multi vs multi environment as in campaign mode, tis really not recommended i reckon, for it leaves you on low energy state. Also the tiny bit rate advantage means it is likely insufficient to shake off a mig on your six.
 
https://youtu.be/9V8sxoPDjmw
 
I later flew a 2 v 4 and the AI wingie got 2 kills in quick succession, the 2nd one a deflection shot, much to my surprise   Rough glances at aircraft config, Mystere is heavier with a higher fuel load (almost 50% heavier fuel!), has a more powerful engine, has a higher top speed, and a higher wing sweep, and also more effective armament. It is quite obvious that the Mystere is the energy fighter between the 2. So, BnZ away....
 
The only thing I dislike about it is not quite a stable gun platform or as nimble as the hunter or sabre. I also think it is a good guess that Mig-17 outclasses it a2a wise. But should still be a nice plane, especially as fighter bomber or against older foes!

Edited April 19, 2016 by Do335

[ZoltanTheHun 101]

Wow, those were beautiful shots. I waste a lot, lot more ammo. The demonstration was very thoughtful, I never considered that performance could be measured this way in game.  I really want to do this campaign dead-is-dead, but it is going to be difficult this way. The suggestion to engage the enemy further ahead is good, however probably it won't work in fighter sweep missions: my squadron will lose all ammo before engaging or finding the main target(I try to minimize the use of target identification to ground targets)

[Do335 382]

Speaking of.. I always think at the basic level, having a "mission objective" for a "Fighter Sweep" is weird.... Fighter sweep is to clear out a patch of sky or a flight route of bandits until you run outta fuel/ammo. It's not like you fly into enemy airspace to hunt a specific target asif it's General Yamamoto. But i reckon it's a realism vs game mechanism thing so digress....

And yea you certainly impose strict "ROE" on yourself. Ironman mode.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Do335

[Nicholas Bell 117]

Speaking of.. I always think at the basic level, having a "mission objective" for a "Fighter Sweep" is weird.... Fighter sweep is to clear out a patch of sky or a flight route of bandits until you run outta fuel/ammo. It's not like you fly into enemy airspace to hunt a specific target asif it's General Yamamoto. But i reckon it's a realism vs game mechanism thing so digress....

And yea you certainly impose strict "ROE" on yourself. Ironman mode.

 

With you on this.  I solve this issue with this edit in MISSIONCONTROL.INI:

 

[Kills]

AirKillsForSuccess=0

 

This way I can go hunting without worrying about the effects of "winning or losing".  I play with all visual aids off and off planned course (unless using the "ground controller" to guide me) - which leads to a lot of surprises. 

[jeanba 1,917]

Good, I did not know this

[Do335 382]

I usually change it from 2 to 1. Will try 0 and see what happens!

[+mue 709]

The best trick I've found is not to fight at/around the target waypoint (WP 5) as all reds converge to that point.

 

Is it possible to configure campaigns, so that not all action always takes place at the target waypoint (e.g. increasing the probability to encounter the enemy at my way to or from the target waypoint)?

[jeanba 1,917]

I think it can be good when you are in a CAP mission with a lot of ennemy flights and you have to shoot down one of them, for no particualr reason compared to the others

[Do335 382]

mue: i reckon it is likely a limitation of SF campaign engine's basic design, the target area is a black hole where everything get sucked into it and fights it out. The best one can have is secondary target areas but that's basically a smaller... black hole and i haven't found any variables that directly controls it.
 
The real time sortie generation like your old EECH, falcon4, bob2 is something on a different level there...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But if disliking the "jet stream", i think worth giving RandomCAP=False a try that Tk uses for Sf2V camps. It makes the missions less "target rich" but easier to survive if you fight at target areas.

Edited April 20, 2016 by Do335

[ZoltanTheHun 101]

But is there a real drawback if I lose a mission here and there? I think it is more interesting to survive not to make a kill every time. (though I have to admit the temptation to check the target is often hard to resist)

 

The only thing I don't know how it works is to identify ground targets, or to make difference between my tanks and the enemy tanks. Though I suppose the trick is to check on the mission mapping each time the direction of the units and decide my approach on that, and one can learn the building types after a while.

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

My two cents on the Mystère. 
Indeed, what a brick. Don't turn. It bleeds speed like hell and has a quite poor acceleration. Energy fighter definitely. 
As I do prefer nimble dancers, it's not a favorite of mine...

Regarding campaigns, I play with hud indications. I have to compensate for not being really in the cockpit where things are more clear than in front of a computer. Also, my priority is survival. If I am drawn in a fight against an ennemy that's not the primary target, well, let's fight it out. It only has consequences if you loose quite a number of missions. 

[Do335 382]

best Hud indication for me is: 1. Aircraft callsign -> so i can babysit my wingmen. 2. [Primary target] or not. The others are indeed "too much info". But i've looked and it doesn't seem able to be configured that way.

[+mue 709]

Regarding hud indications: I can't resist to advertise my dot label mod: http://combatace.com/topic/86215-showing-label-as-a-dot-mod/ . This mod overlays all enemy/friendly objects within a radius of 10 nm with a red/blue dot. The (negative) side effect is that most info boxes and the labels in the inflight map are gone. Only the afterburner message in the left box and the lower center info box that shows radio and system messages is shown.

[Do335 382]

^Yes. Video!:)

[Nicholas Bell 117]

But is there a real drawback if I lose a mission here and there? I think it is more interesting to survive not to make a kill every time. (though I have to admit the temptation to check the target is often hard to resist)

 

My experience is that losing missions even on "Normal" or "Easy" campaign difficulty settings can end a campaign real early.  Agree that not making kills every mission is a lot more realistic.  Thus my ignoring waypoints, ignoring the map and just headed in the general direction as I understood the mission, and using the "Request closest enemy" info from "Red Crown" (or whatever) as a pseudo-GCI (note I fly in Europe).  Never know what will happen using this method.

[ZoltanTheHun 101]

Of the hud: I need mostly the speed indicator, and maybe I would need an indicator that shows where is forward, without trackir sometimes it is difficult to figure out where can i turn my neck to. The only annoying part is the notification when someone is about to shoot at you, probably I should turn that off, even if I die sooner. 

 

Depending on the model, if the lod is setup correctly, the max visibility range combined with the radio operator is tolerable.

 

About cap and fighter sweep, I see the main targets as the ones that most influence the future of the campaign. Yeah, unfortunately that is not how it is implemented, but that is what I could accept as justification for the targets being dedicated.

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

The campaign engine will assign an attack squadron as target in any CAP. That being said, it often grants mission accomplished when enough ennemy planes, whoever they are, have been dealt with.
In sweep, the true target usually spawns above the target waypoint. Sometime, it pops up too soon and fly away (when a long flight is required to reach the area). The same "kill some stuff and we are done" usually applies. 

So you can keep a good amount of free flight and free will in those two types of missions. 

[Do335 382]

bwahahahaha!!!!!!!
to illustrate the point of not to go directly to WP5.....

 
blue side: only 3 flights including me, 1 of them ground attack. The other sweep flight is doomed to bits....

 

saying sayonara to all of that by way of climbing to 40000ft

Edited April 29, 2016 by Do335