Tips for flying vulnerable planes

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Can anyone give me some tips on flying with planes that have lower stats? I usually use planes like the F-22, Su-57, X-02s, or some of the DLC planes. Ones that usually tend to have high speed and maneuverability, but I need some tips for flying planes like the regular, more basic planes like F-16, F-18, etc. but in more hectic levels (like the Ten Million Relief plan, when you have the 4 Alicorns VLSs firing at you, or with the Arsenal Bird's QAAMs)

I swear it's always the QAAMs that get me..... VLS should stand for "Very Locked, Sucker!" lol
I don't exactly suck, can maneuver and post-stall maneuver easily (even did the Post-stall challenge in that arena once), can decently use my flares, and only suck with machine guns, but those two particular examples are perfect for situations where I don't do well in the lower stat planes.

I usually put all parts that affect speed and maneuverability w/ some that affect stability, and my last two slots are for regular missile homing and reload time. Which of the maneuverability parts are best for these planes, I usually go with pitch/roll if I do select one of the parts that strictly affect maneuverability only.

Are these lower stat planes actually just not viable on harder levels, or am I stuck going into them with better planes? For the record I always play on Ace too.

[Lack of Stuff]

Don't get too focused on PSMs, they are only critical in PVP. If you wanna practice with MGs and weaker planes then do a MG only MiG-21 run in campaign, any difficulty is fine.

if you repeatedly get killed by missiles then you either aren't changing your angle sharply enough or are moving too slowly. Try to identify what you are doing when you get hit and change that behavior.

If you want a mid-range plane that can handle any campaign mission on ACE comfortably then the F-15 + PLSLs is a solid pick and the subweapon will force you to be less missile dependent.

[Dr. Professor Commander]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

If you wanna practice with MGs and weaker planes then do a MG only MiG-21 run in campaign, any difficulty is fine.

I do need practice, but less so against other aircraft. When I said I suck with MGs I meant particularly for the very agile aircraft of the game like Mihaly, Hugin, and Munin, as well as with ground targets. Occasionally I'll run into an F-22 or a drone that's in a persistent evasive mode where it just sits there changing angles or turning to avoid a missile last second no matter what I seem to do and feels like only an EML will take it out.

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

if you repeatedly get killed by missiles then you either aren't changing your angle sharply enough or are moving too slowly. Try to identify what you are doing when you get hit and change that behavior.

I'm honestly not exactly sure what it is in the instances where I struggle considering it's swarm QAAM type missiles I have a problem dealing with while using slower planes. In the particular instance that prompted this post I was using the standard, non-TGM F-18 from the Top Gun set w/HPAA (I think) against the Alicorn and struggled severely against its VLSs. Secondary choice doesn't usually make a difference here for me since I usually use the X-02s with the railgun for taking out the three railguns and non-drone opponents that require three missiles to destroy, or the F-22 w/QAAMs, so I usually use regular missiles against everything else onboard the Alicorn anyway. Sharply changing my pitch, or rolling to either side and then doing so didn't seem to help much like it does in my more agile aircraft choices, so I think it may be my speed? Is there a trick for those types of missiles? Should I wait until they're closer to my blip on the radar before attempting my missile evading?

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

If you want a mid-range plane that can handle any campaign mission on ACE comfortably then the F-15 + PLSLs is a solid pick and the subweapon will force you to be less missile dependent.

That's actually exactly what I used on my initial playthrough of the game until unlocking the Sukhoi variations and F-22 haha.

I also actually do utilize PSM quite a bit, but more for repositioning and angle adjusting purposes in contrast to using it strictly to get behind an enemy or during a tense dogfight. The X-02s w/EML is my go-to "lazy" easy win plane, and I use it to pull off PSM EML kills on stubborn enemies like I listed in the first section of my response. I have very quick reaction speed and timing when it comes to using that thing, which is where my struggle with MGs comes in, it's more of a struggle with sustained aim on agile targets, or maintaining a good angle (for ground targets) rather than a snapshot kill with the EML in the blink of an eye lol

[Lack of Stuff]

I wouldn't recommend practicing gun runs on the semi-scripted fights. Only reason I could see for doing that is youtube videos. Most of the time those fights are just memorizing the openings. As for F-22s it's probably just a frustrating random, they all use the same AI. Drones like the SLUAVs just suck to shoot down, that's entirely normal.

For incoming QAAMs/VLS it's a good idea to maintain some speed but otherwise you usually just need to evade for longer than regular missiles. Be wary of those if fired very close to you though as they track you immediately for a while.