It seems like DCS 120’s are a bit weaker recently? I could be using them wrong, but wanted to do a quick experiment. If you have 10 mins then if others could do the same I’d be curious to see the results. Igor, prepare the experiment!
- Use DCS 2.7 latest.
- F/A-18C / Instant Action / Caucasus / BVR 8v8
- Arrive in the cockpit. Do a ‘Flight → Engage → Bandits’
- Just sit there and watch the F10 map, make it a 7 vs 8.
I’m finding Blue 120’s rarely get a kill. The AIM-7 and 9’s seem fine.
Is it an AI thing for the Hornet or has the 120 been tweaked?
Are others seeing the same thing?
I’ll give it a quick test…! I can follow easy instructions.
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Maybe it’s the distance they start from or something? There initial volley of 120B’s seem to be laughed at by the Su-27s and MiG-29’s. Seem like the AI can evade very easily.
Well, my first run at it resulted in 6 Red kills vs. 4 Blue kills. But that was after they got within heater range of each other (I just stayed out of it). Let me run it again and specifically look at the AMRAAM shots…
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At the end, or once it’s more or less over after 3 mins, then the Log Filter set to EVENT = hit. Curious if any AMRAAMs do anything. I’m not finding they do so far. It’s sort of fun to keep rerunning though. 
Looks like the first shot comes of a Blue F-18 at about 26 miles…
Yeah, the 120 gets the jump on the R-27ER’s but I’ve yet to see one hit…
Maybe the AI loses lock before pitbull and they are all wasted shots?
I think they AI is just shooting way too early. After all of their 120s are expended…for all that hardware in the air I only saw two kills with the AMRAAMs in the last run…
I’ve yet to see an AMRAAM kill 
The R-27ET’s seem all ok.
Perhaps the AI Su-27’s are doing a maneuver that is just really effective against it? They do seem to dive down and back?
I’m going to try joining the fight and see if I can get a good lock all the way through. Just to see if this is an AI thing or a missile thing.
Interesting in that when I changed my 7 wingmen to ACE level…they got zero AMRAAM kills. 
Guess we promoted the trash to the top of the heap in my squadron… 
Our guys are sort of starting a disadvantage as far as “throw energy”…sitting down there at Mach .61 or something at the start of the mission.
I locked one up just to see, and it did guide. It broke lock a couple of times but I reacquired. It actually went active and worked.
So it’s looking like the AI is especially weak at guiding them if they break lock.
That’s true. Hmm.
Well, even delaying about 20 seconds and going full burner…and letting the AI start shooting when they want to instead of ordering them, I still got zero kills with AMRAAMs out of the 7 of them firing all of them. I think that is pretty poor…
Agree. I suspect something has recently changed. I don’t remember them being this bad before?
They are 120 B’s, I could edit it and try C’s maybe.
Try putting R-77s on the Hornet…
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Tried the C’s. Not a single one of these hit. Is there some sort of missile refund?
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I tried 8 F-14s with AIM-54As and only 3 hits out of all their missiles…
There’s a number of issues currently.
- The AI immediately defends when you pull the trigger, even shooting in TWS.
- There’s a known bug that’s been in since last year where shooting in TWS will just send the missile into space.
- The loft seems questionable recently.
Bottom line is yes, they’ve messed with it for this update and it’s not for the better. Biggest help I’ve seen is to shoot from STT and reduce your shot ranges.
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I’m too far away for missiles…switching to guns…!
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Cool, first off I was just curious if just me or not, so good to know. If nothing else it was fun to watch the BVR play out.
I guess for AI vs AI it’s going to mean some single player missions will need a bit of Rambo factor from the player. I might brush up on my AIM-7 use as well.
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