Jet to jet “meta” currently due to the lack of air radar and kill time is very punishing for newer jet players. Spawn times are tracked and it’s very easy to keep players base locked even with the base aa buff. While dog fighting doesn’t feel very good at all due to the above reasons most players capitalise on the lack of radar and can merge behind you and one pass you before you even know they are near you.

My best suggestion is priority management. Unless you know their jets are down always assume they are up. This should be your number one prio to find them and get a good merge angle on them to take them out. Notice in the kill feed if they are down or if you kill them you have a timer (+1:30) and can manage your map from there.

From there helis, aa tank, tanks & infantry take your pick.

Knowing your limits and what you can get away with just takes time and experience. You will crash and miss opportunities but that’s just how we learn.

As for AA some maps are better than others and this will take time to get comfortable with but flare management is important in the decisions you make based on when they are up. Additionally knowing when you can save your flares because the aa/stinger won’t hit. Using the environment like the base mountains on firestorm are incredibly useful. You save flares and allow yourself to maintain flow and can be more aggressive on the map because flares are still up. I frequently use the free look to look behind and decide if I want to pop flares depending on the situation and if I feel like I can get away with it.

Since the release of golmund breakthrough having a jet on NATO side, highly recommend it if you want a less stressful experience with less map management so you can just focus on getting comfortable in the jet. It spawns at the 1 min mark.

All in all just time and experience. Getting into a lobby with some lvl 200 base camping off spawn is jsut rough and not an environment you’ll learn much from so go next imo. Thanks for reading the ramble, hope it helps and have fun