DOGFIGHT Missile and Loadout Guide: When to Fire, How Missiles Miss, and What to Upgrade

Your missiles, side by side

Each missile has a lock cone around your aim point, a lock time and a range. If the target leaves the cone, its lock progress is lost, not paused, and switching missile type clears every lock. With no lock, a missile flies straight. The exception: an AIM-9X fired at a target more than half locked still goes after it. Weapons upgrades cut lock time by 6% a level.

• AIM-9X (infrared): 0.7 s lock, 2.6 km, cone about ±18°, 70 damage, one target.
• AIM-120 (radar): 1.4 s, 5.2 km, about ±13°, 80 damage, up to four targets.
• AIM-54 (radar, F-14 only): 1.8 s, 7.5 km, about ±11°, 110 damage, up to six targets.
• AGM-65 (TV, ground only): 1.0 s, 4.5 km, about ±17°, 200 damage, two targets.

Don't fire at the edge of range at a target running away

A missile boosts to its top speed and then flies until its time runs out: 7 s for the AIM-9X, 10 s for the AIM-120, 13 s for the AIM-54. Against a jet flying straight away at full afterburner, that sets a range well short of the lock range. Stepping the game's missile speed rule against fleeing targets, launched at 260 m/s, gives roughly:

• AIM-9X: about 2.5 km against a MiG-29, 2.2 km against a Su-35, under 2 km against a MiG-31 or Su-57.
• AIM-120: about 4.4 km against a MiG-29, 4.0 km against a Su-35, 3.7 km against a Su-57.
• AIM-54: about 6.8 km against a MiG-29, 5.9 km against a Su-57.
• Against a target turning toward you, or across your nose, the full lock range applies.

Campaign hits and online hits are not the same

In the campaign, a missile fuses as soon as it is within its proximity radius (14 m for the AIM-9X, 16 m for the AIM-120), and damage falls with distance to 45% at 1.4 times that radius. A typical fuse therefore does 61–100% of the listed damage. An AIM-9X usually leaves a 70-HP MiG-29 alive, and even a 45-HP MiG-21 can survive one that fuses at the edge, so plan to finish with the gun. Online, a missile that fuses does its full damage.

Enemy fire on you is also scaled in the campaign. Their gun rounds do 16–34% of normal and their missiles 45–75%, depending on the pilot's skill; SAM missiles do 60%. An R-73 from a Mission 1 MiG-21 does at most about 20 damage. Online there is no scaling: every hit lands in full.

Three ways an enemy missile misses you

Run it out of time. By the same calculation, an R-73 fired from beyond about 1.75 km cannot catch an F-16 flying away on full afterburner, and an R-77 from beyond about 3.1 km. The A-10, at 830 km/h, cannot outrun either missile inside its lock range. Running on afterburner also halves your flare chance against the infrared R-73, so pick one plan.

Get outside its seeker. A missile that loses sight of you flies straight and never reacquires. The R-73's seeker sees about 74° either side of its nose, the R-77's about 52°. Missiles turn slowly: at their top speed and turn limit, an R-73 turns about 26° a second and an R-77 about 18°, while your jet pitches at 60–86° a second near corner speed. A hard break across the missile's path when it is close swings the angle faster than it can follow.

Decoy it. Release flares once the missile is inside 1.5 km, and remember the missile has to see them: a flare only counts if it falls within about 52° of the missile's nose.

How enemy pilots decide

Campaign enemies and online bots share one pilot routine, and skill (0 to 1) sets most of its timing.

• Missiles: they need their lock time × (1.6 − 0.6 × skill), and never launch inside 400 m. Up close, only their gun can hurt you.
• Gun: they fire within 1.3 km when their lead point is within about 2.6–3.7° of the nose.
• Defence: when you sit behind them within 1.3–1.8 km, they break after 1.4 − skill seconds, reverse now and then, and after 4–9 s run on afterburner for a few seconds.
• Missile evasion: they turn to put your missile on their beam from 1.8–3.0 km (aces from 4.2 km), and drop flares inside 0.9–1.4 km. Pilots above 0.5 skill cut the afterburner first.
• Terrain: below 260 m above the ground, or headed below 200 m within 2 seconds, they drop everything and climb on full afterburner.
• The MiG-31 turns so poorly that after every head-on pass it extends for several seconds before coming back.

How many missiles come at once

In Missions 1 and 2, only one enemy missile can be in the air at you at a time; from Mission 3, two. The minimum gap between launches is 6.0, 5.4, 4.8, 4.2, 3.6 and 3.0 seconds across Missions 1 to 6. While the cap is full, other enemies hold their lock without firing, which is why the lock warning can sound with nothing on its way.

Choosing a jet

Top speeds below are on full afterburner in level flight; diving can add up to 12% more. Each jet carries the listed number of each of its two chosen missile types.

• F-16C: 105 HP, 1,378 km/h, 3 each, 10 flares; AIM-9X, AIM-120 or AGM-65.
• F-15C: 140 HP, 1,474 km/h, 4 each, 8 flares; AIM-9X and AIM-120.
• F-14D: 130 HP, 1,404 km/h, 4 each, 8 flares; AIM-9X, AIM-54 or AIM-120.
• A-10C (after Mission 1): 220 HP, 828 km/h, 6 each, 16 flares; AGM-65 and AIM-9X.
• F/A-18E (after Mission 2): 125 HP, 1,287 km/h, 4 each, 10 flares; AIM-9X, AIM-120 or AGM-65.
• F-22A (after Mission 5): 115 HP, 1,521 km/h, 3 each, 8 flares; AIM-9X and AIM-120.

What upgrades change, and what counts online

Each jet has three upgrade tracks of five levels, costing 400, 900, 1,600, 2,600 and 4,000 credits, so 9,500 per track. Engine adds 2.5% top speed and 5% acceleration a level. Airframe adds 6% HP and 2% pitch and roll rate. Weapons cuts lock time by 6% and adds one missile of each type every two levels.

Online only levels up to 2 count. The first 1,300 credits on a track buy all of its online value: +5% speed, +12% HP and 4% agility, or −12% lock time and one extra missile per type. Airframe level 1 alone lifts an F-16 from 105 to 111 HP, enough to survive one AIM-54 hit online.

Scoring a sortie

Kills are worth 100 for a MiG-21, 200 for a MiG-29, 220 for a MiG-31, 320 for a Su-27, 450 for a Su-35 and 1,500 for Felon. Ground targets are worth 80 for a fuel tank, 120 for a tank, 220 for a SAM and 260 for a radar, all multiplied by the combo. Clearing adds 10 points for each second under par (180, 240, 90, 240, 300 and 200 s for Missions 1–6), 1,000 × the HP you have left, 800 × your accuracy and 1,500 for taking no damage. Accuracy counts gun rounds only, so spraying the gun lowers it but missiles do not. Credits are a tenth of the score, plus 500 on a mission's first clear.

Alone or with friends

The campaign is single-player and forgiving: scaled enemy damage, weaker missile hits on both sides, missiles that regenerate and flares that do not. Online, the server runs the same flight and missile rules at full strength. Bots fly at skill 0.5, you respawn 3 seconds after being shot down with a fresh load, and missiles that lose their lock can still burst on any enemy jet that crosses their path. One AIM-120 takes 80 of an F-16's 105 HP online, so treat lock warnings as more urgent there.