First, the AA is VERY deadly now. If you get locked, you are pretty much dead 90% of the time. Like other vehicles and even soldiers in-game and in real life, get the first shot and you will be in a big advantage.
The missiles are very good at tracking the aircrafts and will detonate when they get close to them without the need to actually hit them.Second, there is no more track tone, only lock tone. While the enemy is trying to lock on your aircraft, you wont hear a thing, only when you get truly locked the alarm will go off. This was a change requested by our military advisers as most aircrafts have a "warning upon missile release" system that will only give a warning tone in the pilot HUD when the missile is fired. By the way, no need to post all kinds of other warning systems that these jets have irl as we got to a compromise of reality, balance and engine limitations.
So, by joining these two changes you basically have: don't get locked or you will die, and you don't know when you are getting locked until it's too late.
To counter this issue, the flares system was updated. As a pilot, you can fire any number of flares you want in sequence by pressing and holding the flares key (default X). If you click once, you will fire one flare. If you click and hold for a second you will launch a few flares in sequence. No more delay after firing flares.
BUT we all know that flares are limited in these aircrafts irl. Because of engine limitations there wasn't really a way to do it (they can only be unlimited), so the option was to give their usual loadout, but give a long "reload time" after that loadout is depleted.
The loadout number we got from our mil. advisers is 30 flares, and after these flares are used, you will have a 30s reload time. It's better to be out of danger during that time, so it's a good idea to land to reload your other weapons.
The helicopters have a slightly different system than the jets. Helicopters deploy flares in groups of six, so this means, you have five deployments before you need to wait the 30s reload time. Be careful, and get in and out the fastest as you can. Another helicopter update that wasn't mentioned before will help on this task. Helicopters can drop altitude as fast as they can gain it.
No more taking 10s to drop 20m All these changes mean that CAS aircrafts need to stay away of enemy AA infested areas, and only engage pre-determined targets, in and out the fastest that they can, instead of flying around looking for targets. Also, they need to assume enemy AA could be in the objective area and deploy flares during attack runs to avoid getting locked.
These updates will hopefully bring a new level of teamwork between ground troops and aircraft as well as a more realistic behavior of these war machines
)
, as you wont find me waiting in an empty hanger.)