Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25142096-20140902063932/@comment-9984046-20140913202434

After reading this post, there are two sides to the fence.

On one hand, most of the weapons mentioned are worthless or got toned down too much; the ECM and ESM are just there to take up space so jammer aircraft have at least two SP weapons, HCAAs, RKTLs and MGPs are pointless and useless weapons, and the SOD, FAEB and SFFS suffered a massive nerf so that they're no longer worth using.

On the other hand, some of those SP weapons are not seen on a lot of aircraft for a reason: game balance. For example, the LAGM is one of the, if not the, game breaker A2G SP weapons in the game; max the weapon out, give it the LAGM Warhead M, maybe damage or speed-based SP weapon upgrades, and watch clusters of targets go kaboom. It's why you see players on Weapons Base Assault downright demolishing anything on the ground outside of missile silos in an instant. Also, the 6AAM is also considered the best A2A SP weapon despite weak homing due to being able to take down six aircraft (hence the name) or at least three orange level aircraft from an unbelieveably long range. The HVAA has the luxury of a higher speed but doesn't even come close to the amount of targets it can take on at once.

In short, while I would like to see some of the more 'rare' SP weapons on later aircraft, this would also destroy what little game balance there is in the meta-game. It's enough that the F-4E Phantom II, the aircraft you start with and to a degree the Disc One Nuke of the game, has the LAGM; it's even worse when high-tier aircraft like the Su-34 and the F-15 SMTD carry it. If there were more aircraft with this SP weapon, you may as well kiss the balance of the game good-bye. That's why some SP weapons are rare with some aircraft: keeping game balance.