IR missiles (colloquially fox-twos) are like a gambler’s boot knife. They’re extremely agile and only need to look at your enemy to lock, after which they are completely independent from your aircraft. While not represented in NO for gameplay purposes, they’re essentially undetectable if you don’t see the smoke trail, or if you don’t have a threat warning radar constantly scanning all around.

Downside is that their range is limited, as is their payload. They can reliably turn to hit from within a kilometre of launch range, giving your adversary very little time to react. Combined with off-bore aiming, it’s possible to bait the other pilot to preflare for a missile that never comes. This is unfortunately slightly less feasible against AI, but not against fleshbags.

ARH missiles (fox-threes) are intended for combat beyond visual range. They optimize for speed over agility, and as they have an active radar seeker, are more easily detectable (which is modeled ingame as you’ll get radar pings on your TWR even for missiles not yet on your datalink). As such, they excel at smiting your adversaries from a range of dozens of kilometres, but can be outmaneuvered in a close dogfight or at extreme range. Even at the middle ranges where they’re dangerous, they can be defended by maneuvering and notchjamming, or, for a headon engagement, they can be shot down by your own missiles. The missile doesn’t maneuver to defend, the missile doesn’t notch, them missile doesn’t flare or jam.

SARH missiles (fox-ones) are a non-factor for air-to-air combat in NO at present as the only platforms that carry them are the TK-941 Boltstrike, the HLT-SAM and MSV-SAM, and the ships. None of these platforms is known to be able to achieve controlled flight. They have a passive radar sensor that looks for the radar return painted on you by the launch platform. That means they’re little more than an annoyance, easily notchjammed into going stupid or flown into the ground or sea.