This has nothing to do with the Side-balancer mechanism. The real problem is the bugged situation concerning the HQ, and the lame-prettythang deck-bombing.
More people means more pilots that can pull away from the frontlines and devote themselves to resupply flights, or devote themselves into defensive interception.
If the pilots don't care enough to do what is really needed, then the blame is on themselves and none else. However, the reason why this "illusion" concerning HQ raids is created, is because the inherent bugs in the system fool the people into believing that the 163 is needed, and its limitation will deprive the people the ability to defend the HQ - which, is simply untrue, or at least only partially true. ...
What really needs to be fixed is the bug.
A fully destroyed HQ, is what should be very hard to resupply. Maybe people can cut down the downtime to half with resupplying, but it still should stay down.
A half destroyed/partially damaged HQ should be much easier to resupply and fully recover, in a short period time.
If this bug is fixed, being unavailable to use the 163 doesn't mean anything, as the HQ, if it is damaged, can be resupplied quickly.
However, while killing an HQ completely is not an easy task - in effectivity, partially killing the HQ is in fact much more preferred.
A lone bomber formation running on deck into deep penetration can hurt the dar and inflict far longer lasting damage to the defense, than a properly planned large-scale HQ raid.
This leads to a strange irony that people actually wish that the enemy completely knocks out the HQ, rather than just damage it.
So what happens is, with this bug in place, a few people can penetrate defenses and damage the HQ, making it impossible for the defense to repair it for hours. A large-scale raid to the HQ, or a properly planned high-alt approach, which can kill it completely, is usually detected early in its phases and can be intercepted by the defenses organizing proper interception.
In short, the 163 is not the only option. However, the only reason it seems like it because it is the only plane that is fast enough to intercept a stealthy, small-scale enemy HQ run, which is very hard to detect, that usually only damages the HQ lightly, which despite that fact hurts the defending country even more than the HQ being completely destroyed. Therefore, in this new regime of side-balancing mechanism in place,
we should not ask the 163 to be exempt from the rule, but we should rather ask that:
1) the HQ resupply system works properly and logically
* which, a damaged HQ can be fully repaired in a short time
* and a fully destroyed HQ, is what should be unrepairable for some length of time
2) the HQ be equipped with a long-range radar system that has further detection range than normal field-object radar.
* the radar has a detection radius of approximately 8~9 miles, a diameter of 16~17 miles. If an enemy buff approaches at 20k+ altitude it takes about 6~7 minutes for average late war machines to reach the bare minimum in optimum interception altitudes - which, makes it far too late for fighters to intercept it when they see a dot that is clearly heading to the HQ.
3) deck-running, suicidal, ordnance spraying buffs are brought to a halt, according to the terms and conditions suggested in this
thread.
