Before I begin, I have logged quite a few hours flying in v0.6 and enjoyed it tremendously, but I believe there is still a lot of room for improvement yet. I will break my suggestions down into 4 categories for clarity:
1.) Immediately Needed Changes
2.) Tweaks (hard code alert)
3.) Realism Issues
4.) "Would be nice" suggestions
Immediately needed changes
1.) Air to air missiles need some serious improvement. I know this is a well known issue but it is currently a major problem. As of now, they are nothing short of useless unless your objective is to get accidental teamkills and I personally, have never scored a kill with them. The guns however, are nothing short of perfect.
2.) CAS aircraft currently fly too fast and are too maneuverable for their role. The A10 tends to dominate other aircraft and so does the Frogfoot to a lesser extent. The cannon should remain just as effective rewarding any fighter that makes the mistake of flying in a predictable pattern with a tailpipe full of 30mm DU rounds.
3.) When fully zoomed in, the AAV cannons kick like mules and are horribly inaccurate. While I can live with the inaccuracy, the recoil in addition makes it ridiculously hard to hit a stagnant target let alone something moving at 1800KPH. I've never to my knowledge even been winged by one of those things never mind shot down.
Tweaks
1.) Increase gravities effects on jets ie. decrease in speed when going vertical and drastic increase in speed when diving. (Hard coded?)
2.) Increase range of radar guided missiles. Decrease accuracy to nil at close range. (Minimum locking distance?)
3.) Increase range of heat seeking missiles. Currently far too short at the speeds jets now fly at.
Reasoning: Currently there is very little distinction between RGMs, HSMs and the cannon. RGMs should only work at long ranges, HSMs at medium ranges, and the cannon only at the shortest possible range creating 3 separate spheres and would force the pilot to learn to distinguish between the three to be successful.
4.) Increase spread of fighter mounted auto cannons as they are too much like lasers right now.
5.) Decrease initial acceleration of fighters to prevent them from flying out of the hanger and hopping over the barrier, thus forcing them to taxi onto the runway.
6.) Afterburners should cause a steady increase in speed and should not immediately bleed away when deactivated. Turns should become much wider as a result. Rumble when in use is imperceptible and should be much louder.
7.) Activating the rudder (A and D keys) should cause the tail to slide a little more than it does already to make dogfighting a little more complex. (hardcoded?)
8.) Remove rear cam from CAS aircraft and replace it with a 2/4x zoom. My reasoning for this is that the frogfoot is a "razorback" aircraft meaning the pilot cannot simply turn around and look behind him. The A-10 pilots can do this but for the sake of simplicity in balance I would leave it as a zoom function for both aircraft.
Realism Issues
1.) Both the F-16 and Mig-29 only carry 6 missiles rather than 8 so if I would be so bold as to suggest mounting two heat seeking missiles on the wing tips and 2 radar guided missiles under each wing. This would help to make air to air combat at longer ranges (thus more realistic) and use their secondary armaments only in last resort.
F-16 specs
Note how there are only 6 missiles mounted as opposed to 8.
2.) A-10 can break 1500KPH in a dive in game but its maximum speed is 700-750KPH in reality. I personally think the faster speed feels better, but I'm just throwing that out there.
3.) USMC does not use M6 Linebacker but rather the Avenger. Just pointing that out.
The Wish List
1.) Two seater aircraft are something many of us would be glad to see make a comeback. Since they are multi-role fighter/bombers, there are many different directions you could go with them.
The Su-30MKK would also be right at home with the MEC as an air dominance fighter assuming a new skin is placed on it besides the "china white." (MKK is actually a China specific export version, but I doubt anybody would be able to tell the difference between it and the regular Su-30MK export version, this includes EA.)
2.) Although I'm not sure of the work involved in modifying the loadout of aircraft, the fighters and especially the two seater jets would benefit from having different abilities rather than the same old vanilla loadout. The PoE team already proved that TV guided bombs are possible so really the sky is the limit here.
Cluster bombs anyone?
3.) I'm not sure how possible this is but as far as I know, aircraft cannons are not filled entirely with just one type of round but are a mixture of HE-I and AP rounds, at least for the fighters anyway. Like I said, I have no idea how feasible this is.
4.) Tornado, Eurofighter, and Harrier. Yep. I don't need to say anything else.
If you read all this, you deserve a cookie. I mean it.
And feel free to post your own. Depending upon this threads popularity I will update it as I go along.
LeMazing.
