That solves nothing.
We've had the horde problem since the latter days of Aces High 1. AH1 bases had both porkable fuels and multiple barracks - two objects which some people treat as one of the factors behind the horde mentality, which in reality is only superficial.
We've asked HT for a lot of things.
People hated fuel porking. They hated it because it was a strat object which could slow down advance with its destruction by limiting field access. So they wanted something else that effects strat but not the ability to up and fight in planes.
So in turn, now we have the barracks. People can still up planes, but the barracks have become objects which could substantially halt all enemy advance at the entire front.
Now, we hate the barracks for what they are able to do when its destroyed, too.
So what's it gonna be next? After another few months we'll start hating the fact that a defensive side with local numbers disadvantage have no way to stop the enemy horde from taking fields at all. What then? Someone gonna start a new request to make ord bunkers tougher and more numerous? And then somebody else will come a year later and start asking the ord bunkers be returned to as it was.
It's the same vicious cycle again and again. Exactly the same thing which happened with the side balancing mechanism. One or two individual implementations cannot stop this.
Toying around individual objects have absolutely no effect in stopping the steamroller horde. The horde phenomenon is something that comes from a fault within the entire AH strat system itself. The current method of strat just cannot cope with player numbers as it is.
Back when we had only about 200 people in the arena, it was roughly 70 people for each three countries. Assuming equal fights at all fronts that's about 30~40 planes of each sides fighting at a front. In a 25 mile stretch of the 'border lines' there'd be roughly around 10 planes at best.
The simple, small-scale strat which revolves around individual fields and its objects were effective back then. When a certain side masses its players, it was about 10~15 planes at best.
The situation has totally collapsed since then. There are more than twice the average numbers of planes which used to be in the same 25 mile stretch of a border line. Base distances are the same while the total gamer numbers grew more than two-fold.
The fights are harder, since there's at least twice as much enemies around, as well as twice as much friendlies around, with twice as much faster enemy reinforcements arriving at the fight(the guys who got shot down reupping)... which means you have to be twice as faster in shooting down the enemy, if you want to stay alive. Often individual skills means nothing in such hectic environment.
Why do you think people create the 'horde' in the first place? It's because people figure that they'll actually get more enemy kills that way, despite the huge number of competition in the horde.
Fighting and tussling for scraps of leftovers, often yields better results for most people, since in a "fair fight" with equal amount of large numbers of people on both sides clashing they'd not even survive for 10 minutes.
Let's face it.
The horde is here because everybody is selfish.
In the old days the numbers weren't too large, so the 'grouping' of players on a certain spot meant nothing but a medium sized fight with good fighting opportunities.
Now, when people "group" at a front, it's like some 30~40 people at a 25 mile radius area, doing nothing but milk runs , hitting empty, deserted fields... and then ten guys chasing a single enemy plane when it passes by.
Let's face it.
The MA was a classic experiment of the Laissez-faire - the "invisible hand" - economics which is going miserably. No intervention, no restrictions, no rules, just leave the arena free and it will balance itself, right? Wrong.
Let's face it.
The only thing that will ever spread the numbers apart, dismantle the horde, make people try and practice flying/bombing/jabo skills, plan missions, learn cooperation, bring back individual fights and duels, and bring the fun back in the MA..
.. is a forced application of certain basic organizational structure, at least loosely based on military operations.
