Medusa Changes and Refinements...

[brazen scarab]

I love the medusa,
You love the medusa...

But what if it was even better?

New Equipment
Scythes - two internally and one on the inner pylon for a max of 4 - this change reflects the fact that modern electronic warfare aircraft carry Fox-3s for both self defence and intercepting enemy missiles. ||(This is assuming scythes get buffed in the future to be worth taking)||

Auxiliary Power Units - Of similar size to jamming pods, APUs can be carried in the same places for a max of 5. When "fired" they consume fuel to allow the capacitors to charge quicker and discharge slower. ||(Wanted to avoid a dedicated keybind by making it controlled by firing it like most weapons)||

Targeting Pod - https://discord.com/channels/909034158205059082/1266580219813302313 After Searching the forums I realised there's already a suggestion, so please check it out. Note that irl the USMC EA-6 Prowler could use the Litening Targeting pod.

Current Ordnance Changes
(please see attached image for full details)
ARAD-116 - 8 to 10 (Using the on top pylon)
MMR-S3 - 4 to 8
Jamming Pods - 4 to 5
ALM-C450 - 1 to 3 (Just a single missile is very weak, increasing to three helps make CM somewhat viable but still not nearly as good as the darkreach)

Economy Changes
There is little reason to use the radome since there is no way to actually make any money just flying around like irl AWACs do. While it is nice to have, it needs to be more viable to play especially if players were able to take weapons in place of it.

1. Kill assists if enemy planes or missiles are shot down when being detected by the medusa, and within 20km. This should however be quite small since it is completely passive.

2. https://discord.com/channels/909034158205059082/1276942509779718217 yea check it out

In summary, this suggestion hopes to increase load-out diversity and number of viable play styles, to show Ifrit players for an extra 20, they can get a lot more.
Thanks for reading.

[noble garden]

Where FInd place for 2 ALM C450???

[brazen scarab]

wing pylons (inner ones)

[noble garden]

Not sure is it reallistic...]

[vestal river]

i think the medusa is good enough as is

[brazen scarab]

hmm why not?

[noble garden]

little big... Is it not broke a wing?

[vestal river]

one weighs about 900kg, the wing could easily hold that.

[noble garden]

8 ARADs is OK, but more... More could be OP or little OP

[brazen scarab]

since the bay can snuggly fit two arads or one ALM they are about the same size

[brazen scarab]

yea but if you were to take 12 you would have no self defence, no jamming, etc... I think at least 10 should be allowed since I'm not sure why the inner wing pylon can only carry one not two.

[vestal river]

thing is you could carry 10 and still jam stuff, with skill and target cycling you could still get through 3 sams at once

which is a little OP

and IIRC the inner ones would clip the landing gear if it was x2

[azure ivy]

i personally avoid the medusa (i just dislike not having a gun), however from the times i have played it, its really in a good spot right now, i do agree on the Alm C450 change tho, a single one is kinda bad lol, however you could jam anything that may try and intercept it?
so conclusion: is good as is

[brazen scarab]

ohh thats why thanks
(have edited the suggestion)

[brazen scarab]

ye true, but you cant jam SPAA and IR SAMs which are pretty dangerous to CMs

[azure ivy]

well thats kinda balancing?
if you can jam everything then its just, why bother producing other aircraft? this one does it all, nobody can fight it

[vestal river]

you can lase IR missiles

[azure ivy]

laser has a pretty bad range imo
(trying not to favor one side and just provide some information that may help)

[vestal river]

about 12km effective range against S1s

[azure ivy]

jesus, thats alot further then i tought, i always avoid using it at a range >6km, the damage gets pretty low at that range so its barely usefull

[brazen scarab]

yeah no it is, just saying that a sinlgle ALM is not very viable even with jammers and laser

[azure ivy]

i agree on that, a single Alm-c450 is weak, like 4 is good, 1 is uh.... yeah

[serene lodge]

tbh cruise missile should probably just be taken off as a weapon instead of buffed, if it were to be changed. 3 cruise missiles is still going to do f-all like one does now
i agree with battery that i generally dont see a need to buff the medusa

[brazen scarab]

maybe, but I would prefer to still have the option than for it to be just removed, just for those very niche situations

[native kayak]

It's got an effective range of ~10km

[glad delta]

ok besides the radome mount mounted missiles i fw this

noone uses cruise missiles, lets be totally honest, it literally doesnt carry enough to be useful.
the APUs are a cool idea thatd make the laser a lot more commonly useful if you wanted to use it specifically, right now i barely ever need it because jamming is just better.
carrying more S3s... meh, maybe not, but i wouldnt complain. the addition of Sythes makes more sense to me

more arads, more jammers, and more S3s would be a bad addition in general because its already very strong at DEAD and flying defensive, adding more for the sake of having more isnt good

more cruise missiles and APUs are the main thing I like here
Sythes are neat but might be a little meh
more S3s would make them even harder to intercept, more jammers would make them even more powerful against SAMs, and more ARADs is also super op

i suppose giving the spinal pylon something better to do wouldnt hurt though

[serene lodge]

adding more cruise missiles is meh to me cus the darkreach is for that, and if you add enough to the medusa for them to not be useless (4+) then another one of the remaining few reasons to use a reach is threatened
i'm strongly for not changing up the medusa, its good where it is

[glad delta]

the darkreach is in a very very sad position overall

[serene lodge]

keep the roles seperate is the point, imo
medusa is for EW, dakreach is for true A2G standoff attacks

[glad delta]

the difference is the Medusa would be much more precise with it and only have enough for like one good strike, the darkreach carries what like 24 CMs?!

Darkreach CM is spam, overwhelming wave attacks, Medusa CM would be a specific target, now the whole damn airbase

[rocky zodiac]

16 but yea, I see the point

[brazen scarab]

The roles are still very different, since the amount of cms the dark can carry is much much more than the Medusa

Medusa cms are to increase load out diversity for very niche situations

[brazen scarab]

Yea just keep in mind it’s only one more jammer and only two more arads, obviously I understand if it was too op, I just thought using the upper radome hardpoint would make sense and look rlly cool

[glad delta]

perhaps, depends on how its combined

[brazen scarab]

For example adding just one more jammer on top allows players to use pablos, arads and s3s for self defence while maintaining a limited jamming ability

Tldr It adds load out diversity without buffing the Medusa very much

Extra two arads, ye it is a straight up buff, but keep in mind the ifrit can carry 12 pablos plus self defence.

[rigid gazelle]

Im all for additional options for the Radome hardpoint

[cloud nexus]

Scythes - Nah,let it stay in it's specialised role
APUs - Capacitors would be preferable,but that could work
Optic pod - Maybe,could go on top in the radome slot and have a narrow field of view

[cinder junco]

Ehh, a couple of scythes in the bay would be fine. ARADs on the radome mount, forget it. The only weapons I could see realistically going up there are a pair of S3s.

[vestal river]

i dont see any weapons going up there since it is a radome mount not a weapon mount, and the mount would likely be very special and incompatible with other equipment.

[cinder junco]

You do have a point there

However given that the radome is likely something that would come attached from the factory, and we just have it as an option in NO so people don't have to carry extra weight around unnecessarily, aircraft that don't come with the radome attached could have an adapter there for something else.

[brazen scarab]

Considering the mount is designed for a very heavy radome, and that the twin vertical stabilisers allow for large draggy payloads there, it's definitely not unreasonable to put weapons there.

also the fact that the radome mount would already have wiring channels that could be just adapted into a pylon

[serene lodge]

always remember, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should

[azure ivy]

nah it should
anyways brb gonna light my pc on fire

[scarlet stag]

bigger laser on the top pylon would be fun

[vestal river]

again this is like putting HARMs on a MiG, you can do it but you wont get the full functionality. the pylon is just made for the radome and nothing else by the looks of it

[brazen scarab]

The jaguar wasn’t designed with its distinctive over wing pylons,(they were added in later models) but when the engineers realised they could, they did

[brazen scarab]

But the Medusa already has all the equipment it needs for anti-rad, so it would be as simple as rewiring the radome pylon bus to the same wiring used for the wing pylons.

Structurally and aerodynamically it‘a already fine

So in the analogy it’s more like putting a harm on say the centre pylon of an f-16

[vestal river]

which doesnt have any of the required cabling, it would require extensive modifications to get them to work properly there. or you could just use the dumb mode of search for X target radar after launch. either way would not be used since its just not worth it, same goes for medusa, 6 arads+2 jammers is plenty, why modify it when there is real reason to when its good enough already

[serene lodge]

that is cursed

[brazen scarab]

Extra cabling is not that large of a modification, although fox 2s aren’t as complicated to wire as arads, the jaguars I mentioned received their overwing missiles half way through their lives.

I think ultimately not having arads/s3s on the top mount is a gameplay reason not a practical reason

[vestal river]

https://tenor.com/view/the-road-to-el-dorado-both-both-is-good-gif-8304204

[vapid kiln]

Oh btw a jammer on the dorsal mount is pointless, it cant aim down as theres.. a medusa there..

I mean if it automatically jams ARHs from the side or above then yes, but otherwise no

[final spruce]

capacitor pod on the top pylon. Maybe that's a good idea?

IRST pod? basically a super optical scanner.

[azure ivy]

Just mount a miniature rocket at that point, satalites are better at spying then aircraft, cant see a 1 meter object if its 130km away

[brazen scarab]

ye but we don't have satellites in NO atm

[azure ivy]

Isnt that what suggestions are about

[brazen scarab]

tbf
a. Its still on top of the pylon, so it still has descent depression to meet the jamming "cone"
b. iirc its not modelled in game

[brazen scarab]

yea they are, satellites would definately be interesting for gameplay though if they just removed the fog of war

[cloud nexus]

in a hypothetical full scale conflict satellites would probably all get shot down
they're difficult to replace and hard to defend

[glad delta]

At the same time destroying satellites is equivalent to a nuclear attack
Theyre absolutely critical to civilian and military infrastructure and destroying the enemy sats is more than likely to destroy all of them

[native kayak]

Yours included

[cinder junco]

Not really. Nuclear attack generally kills people, shooting down satellites generally does not. It may well make life harder, but that's still an apples-to-oranges comparison.

[wicked fog]

until you kessler syndrome yourself but thats neither here nor there

[brazen scarab]

tbf kessler syndrome is a little harder up in geostationary

[glad delta]

Your still attacking massive infrastructure thats necessary for normal life

[brazen scarab]

yea but tomorrows weather forecast getting obliterated is a little less annoying than my cranium getting obliterated

[cinder junco]

Since 99% of modern wireless communication does not rely on satellites, I don't follow that. It's not like we can't do without that last 1%. Sure there will be an effect, but the effects of something like a nuclear attack would be far more significant.

Anyway we're super off topic, TBH Medusa might could use a couple of dedicated pylons for self defense AAMs but other than that I don't see any issue with it as is.

[vestal river]

just use the bay for the x2 S3s, its a very fair trade for the 2 arads

[cinder junco]

Was really hoping for something more like a pair of Scythes, similar to how USN Growlers carry a pair of AMRAAMs for self-protection. Of course then you'd have to make Scythes actually usable again for that to be worthwhile. If your S3s get decoyed by an incoming fighter then you're basically out of options. You're too slow to run away, too heavy to effectively maneuver, and you don't have a gun or anything to fight back with. Having some more reliable missiles that can hit from farther away so if they do get spoofed you have a bit more of a head start on the attacking fighter would be nice, even if it's just a couple of them

[vestal river]

you can maneuver if you lower your fuel to 40% before takeoff and dont take the radome, got into a gun-laser fight with a revoker but still managed to get away after i lased his engine a little bit, only fight i got in though. (was like down to 25% at that time)

actually managed to drag him into friendly sam cover lol

[cinder junco]

Sounds kinda sketch to me, especially given that targeting the engine isn't exactly an easy task in itself with the laser's auto aim

[azure ivy]

i'd love to be able to offset the laser targeting position
instead of center of mass, you could target heat/engines

[brazen scarab]

Still though triple a, using the centre bay for s3s gives you 6 arads (4 with jammers)

Compared to the ifrit, with double that in pablos plus triple the s3s and better flight performance. The pablos can also target any unit, not just radar sources

Only thing the Medusa has going for it is the laser and jammers, which sacrifice two arads putting the Medusa at a third of the Ifrit

Tldr extra two Arads/s3s is not that major of a balance issue imo

[timid elbow]

this one 4 real 4 real

[sly wedge]

I think an interesting buff to the medusas A2A would be a buff to the lasers damage at really close range against air targets. I've already managed to snag some laser only kills on unsuspecting Ifrit bots with some fighting spirit and liberating use of thrust vectoring. This however takes quite a bit of time and dedication. I think a total of 15-20 seconds on target should be a kill within half a mile.