The state of air vehicles
Vehicles, especially air vehicles, feel really off right now.
They do a ton of damage, but at the same time they get deleted just as fast. That whole glass cannon approach might sound fine in theory, but in practice it just isn’t enjoyable. Not for experienced players, and definitely not for people trying to learn.
I’m just going to be honest here. The current balance, especially for air, is in a bad spot and it’s creating a really frustrating meta.
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The main issue: low skill gap
The biggest problem right now is the lack of a real skill gap in dogfighting.
- Time to kill is extremely fast
- Air radar either doesn’t work properly or just isn’t there when you need it
- Mobility hits kick in way too early and basically end fights on the spot
If someone gets behind you and they’re even halfway decent, you’re just dead. There’s almost no room to recover or outplay anymore.
That’s also why spawn camping has become so common. Even really good players end up doing it, not because they enjoy it, but because it’s the only consistent way to stay alive and keep control of the air.
In older games you could actually win fights through better flying and positioning. Now it’s mostly about who gets the first angle.
What would already help:
- Increase jet vs jet TTK
- Add or properly fix air radar
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Jets
Jets currently have a mix of balance problems and straight up mechanical issues.
Flight model & V-tapping
The flight model doesn’t feel right and is very easy to abuse.
- In stealth jets, you can trigger thrust vectoring repeatedly by holding afterburner, pitching up, and tapping throttle down (V-tapping)
- This gives you an artificially tight turn radius
- Attack jets have a similar issue where the same kind of inputs give near-perfect speed control while turning
This isn’t skill expression, it’s just exploiting inputs.
Needed changes:
- Remove or fix V-tapping / thrust vectoring abuse
- Rework the flight model so there’s a clear optimal turning speed (the attack jets added in the road to bf6 battlepass in 2042 were arguably perfect - use that flight model)
- Improve baseline turning so jets don’t feel sluggish without exploits
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Mobility hits
Mobility damage is way too punishing right now.
- It happens too early in fights
- Once it happens, the fight is basically over
Suggested fix:
- Only trigger mobility hits at very low HP (around 10–20%)
- Remove the randomness
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General jet balance
- Jet vs jet TTK is too fast
- Stealth jet air-to-air missiles are too strong - 1 hit for a mobility hit and 2 hits for a kill is a bit too oppressive
- Radar doesn’t work, rear cam doesn’t exist (don’t add the ability to have complete control when free looking, just add a proper rear cam like in bf4), and loadout options do not exist.
- When switching from third into first person and vice versa, the animation is very delayed and slow. This is frustrating and should be fixed to be in line with other games like bf4 and 2042
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Jet vs helicopter balance
This matchup is completely off.
- Jet cannons vs helis got nerfed a while back
- Heli damage vs jets didn’t
Current result:
- Heavy rockets can kill jets extremely fast
- Gunner seats deal very high damage
- Helis can sit high up with lock-ons and pressure jets constantly
This shouldn’t happen. Jets are supposed to counter helicopters.
Fixes:
- Heavy rockets should require more hits against jets 3-4 instead of 2 would be good, with 2 hits inducing a mobility hit instead of 1
- Reduce gunner damage vs jets
- Re-establish jets as the clear counter
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Helicopters (Little Bird)
General issue
- Little Bird vs air TTK is too high - you can beam any air vehicle easily in the LB.
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Pilot sniping
This is one of the biggest problems in LB fights.
- You can kill the pilot extremely fast, especially with the .50 cal
- A lot of the time it feels random rather than skill-based
Fights often end within seconds because of this.
Possible fixes:
- Increase cockpit protection
- Make pilot hit registration less forgiving
- Reduce randomness and reward accuracy instead - a good start would be reducing the spread of the miniguns, make them far more accurate similar to the bf4 little bird miniguns. This would reward precise aiming and skill, instead of luck.
Right now worse players can beat better players just through lucky hits, aim at the heli and shoot for one second, boom the pilot is dead.
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Passenger seat
- Removing RPGs from the LB passenger seat feels unnecessary
- It was a fun mechanic
Lock-ons shouldn’t be allowed, but dumb-fire rockets were fine.
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Flares & lock-ons
This system feels inconsistent and unclear.
- Missiles sometimes ignore flares, the IGLA will blatantly go through flares about 60% of the time
- It’s hard to tell when you’re actually safe
What it should be:
- Strong flare effect, then fade out
- Immunity ends exactly when the visual effect ends
- Again take a note from 2042, flares were done right in that game
Right now both pilots are just guessing when their flares are active and infantry is guessing when their stinger will hit.
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Laser painting
This is overtuned.
- Very fast to apply
- Lasts too long
- Allows lock-ons even below radar
That removes one of the few survivability tools pilots have.
Fixes:
- Require continuous tracking
- Lose lock instantly if tracking stops
- Fix visibility of where the laser is coming from
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Ground vs air
There are several issues here.
Current problems:
- TOW missiles (especially from base) are too easy
- M136 AT is extremely strong, it can one-shot attack helis, while being very easy to use
Possible fixes:
- Make TOWs more skill-based
- For the m136, either leave Heli’s at critical HP or make hits harder to land
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LMG / HMG vs air
- Infantry LMGs are mostly fine
- Tank HMGs are too strong
Gunners can just sit there and track helicopters constantly.
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Lock-ons (ground to air)
- Lock-ons have infinite vertical tracking
- You can be very high and still get hit
This makes vertical play almost useless, and leaves 0 breathing room for any dogfights as you will be locked instantly when trying to dogfight, no matter how high up you are.
Fix:
- Add a vertical lock limit, but only against jets in order to prevent helis sky-box camping and shooting infantry
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C-RAM, base camping & TOW spam
This whole area is messy.
Problems:
- Tanks sit in spawn and spam TOWs
- C-RAM removes counterplay
- Bombs get destroyed mid-air
The recent CRAM buff worsened this issue, instead of preventing spawn camping all the CRAM buff did is make it even easier for MAA/Tanks to camp in their base and spam munitions at jets and helis, all while being invincible.
Possible fixes:
- Limit effectiveness of base TOWs
- Encourage vehicles to leave spawn
- Adjust how C-RAM works
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Air resupply
- Currently shared across the whole team
This leads to situations where one vehicle uses it and another is left with nothing.
Fix:
- Individual cooldown per vehicle
or
- Separate cooldowns for jets and helicopters
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Maps
Some map’s flight boundaries are simply too small for jets.
- Blackwell Fields is the worst example
- Mirak Valley is also very tight
There’s barely any room to maneuver. And you can get locked on from the enemy base into your own base, this is worst when it’s an MAA camping in his base since it’s impossible to counter as his CRAM will shoot all your projectiles if you do try and counter him
Maps need more air space so jets can actually function properly.
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Final thoughts
This isn’t about making air vehicles overpowered.
Everything should have counters.
But right now:
- There are too many counters
- They cover too much of the map
- Many of them don’t require much skill
- Fights end way too fast
That’s frustrating for experienced players and even worse for new players.
It shouldn’t feel like:
- You spawn in a heli and instantly die to a TOW from across the map
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What would improve things
- Increase the skill gap
- Make systems more consistent and readable
- Let fights last long enough for skill to matter
Most importantly:
Air vehicles should mainly be countered by other air vehicles.
That’s what creates actual dogfights instead of just farming or spawn camping.
Most people just want:
- A real skill gap
- A high skill ceiling
- Fair and consistent mechanics
That’s what keeps a game fun long-term.
