A solution to the bombing crisis

[AWkrull]

I just thought of something else that the smoke pots would be good for. Frame rates. With all that smoke it would have to interfere with any frame rate around it, ie the dive bombing buff jerky boys. Now I do realize that would also hinder ALL pilots in the area but might be worth it.

[Arcades057]

Good point about the smoke pots.  Let's also not forget that in real life there would not be a few puffy-acks firing at you, there would be dozens or hundreds, depending on your target, and dozens of fighters screaming in at you from all levels, cutting through your formation, mixing with your escorts.  I've heard it said that fighter escorts spent more time avoiding pieces of bombers and fighters than they did other fighters, but that's another post entirely...

The dive-bombing buff thing would not work in real life, at all.  Look at the inner bombays on those things; the bombs are not attached to the aircraft as with dive bombers.  They are nestled within.  Any attempt at dive and release would cause the ordance to impact the inside the bay, rather than the ground. Then there's gravity to contend with, as already stated...  It'd be a mess, in which the tiny shreds of humanity left over from 733tBuff! would be scooped into doggie bags and sent home.

I love bombing here, when I get to the targets.  I remember spending hours during Air Warrior flying from A-land to C-land capital to come back with 100k points for milkruns... only to up just as soon as I land to do it again without the threat of fighters.  Used to take the whole squad sometimes in two or three B-17s, just in case, and to pad all of our scores!  Can't really do that here for many reasons, not the least of all is that there is currently no target WORTH upping an all-night and into the morning raid.  Those who do anyway, God speed...

Because of the lack of targets, even though I would rather be in the air for an hour or two bombing the crap out of the Bishops or Knights rather than getting the "You Died, Dweeb" message every five minutes, I stick to fighters.  Unless I get spawn-camped a lot.  Then I join the fun police and toolshed!:D

[Falcon]

Originally posted by Krusty
Karnak, I've noticed a slight... issue... with bombers recently. The lower your fps while attacking one, the more potent any hits become from the bomber. That is, if you have 10 fps or less when attacking you are more likely to be seriously damaged by a bomber. I got a single ping from a single B24 and because I had such bad fps at the time that single ping blew my oil, killed my engine, gave me a PW, and disabled my nose guns all at once. Had I any better fps, I think that single ping would not have done as much damage. (call it a hunch)

Considering that AH is going the way of fps-guzzling games, more people are going to have worse and worse fps, so there might be a side-effect whereby bombers have MORE of a punch than they did even in AH1.

On the other hand, later the same day I had better FPS ni a different part of the map and took out a B26 in a few pings (and then fired 90% of a 190D's ammo into the drone (now flown by hte pilot) to no effect anywhere save for a little smoke in one engine).

So I don't buy that bombers would be too easy to kill. Bad FPS coupled with super tough damage coad in ALL areas except the cockpit make them 90% impossible to kill unless you have a front-angle attack. Which, when you're chasing one, isn't easy to find!!

Youre right Krusty. When your FPS go very low, the game doesn't draw hit sprites, tracer smoke and explosion animations. I have seen it myself off-line and on-line on my FE.

Falcon

[DREDIOCK]

The only "crisis" I see with the bombing is the dive bombing heavies.
Other then that I dont see the bombers as being a problem.
the only problem I see is people unwilling to defend their base well enough to kill the bombers before they trash a  feild.
In which case they are helping to create the very problem they complain about.

Yea maybe the FH's should be spread out more. But how long are the FH's down? 15 min?

If 15 min is long enough to "ruin" your fun you really dont have time to play and should be off folding laundry or whatever other chore it is you wife wants you to do.

[Simaril]

I dont buy that there is a crisis.


Lets be honest -- 90% of the people complaining about buff "lasers" (present company excluded) havent figured out that the slow approach from dead 6 o'clock is a mite... dangerous.

I'm far from a vet, especially in fighter v fighter, but I can kill buff formations almost at will when I remain disciplined and use the historical scissor-style attack profile. Usually, though, by the third plane I get impatient and hang ...just...a...little...too... long in the 6 position. There are some gunners who are dangerous at laser ranges, but they are by far in the minority. When smart, I leave them alone.



If changes were to come, I'd suggest 2 simple things.

1) Make bombs droppable only in the bombsight position. I cant think of ANY reason why it should be different for historically level bombers. This restriction should have NO impact on newbies and shouldnt touch HTC's bottom line. I'd wager most dive bombing buff drivers are opportunistic, not new, anyway.
2) If necessary, SLIGHTLY widen the 50 cal dispersion cone to simulate the buff's vibrating gun platform. 50's shouldnt fire the same from a turret as from a fixed position anyway.




However, if buff survivability drops too much, the loss of in-air buffs may impact the newbs in an unexpected way: when I first started, I liked shooting at buffs because I could hit those large, slow, unmaneuverable targets. I'd bet HTC doesnt want to take that hook away...

[Charon]

As pointed out here and at various times by many over the years, myself included -- Strategic targets that make a difference.

One idea. A central zone factory(ies). if its at 100 percent, airfields are virtually undamagable in that zone. Once damaged, ordinance used at non-factory targets has the same level of strength as the damage level of the factory. Factory damaged 20 percent, bombs and rockets have 20 percent of their effectiveness in that zone. Factory damaged 100 percent, ordinance has 100 percent.

Adjust factory defenses to discourage low and medium altitude attack, but make it easy to attack if above 15K or so using carrier-like direct fire and puffy ack. Adjust rebuild times and damage requirements to fine tune gameplay issues.

Results, IMO:

1. Realistic strategic bombing profiles.
2. A realistic opportunity for "historical" interceptions (you know there will be some action since there has to be some action for the landgrab)
3. A more dispersed battlefield/less hordes. Gameplay beyond numbers, calling for cooperation and coordination.
4. No ultimate loss in any existing type of gameplay, from jabo to furball.


Charon

[IownU]

come on now its not like bish and rooks dont go around porkin troops for more then 5 sectors like thats not stopin us from havin fun and its not just troops there is ords as well. i dont care what yall want to do about bombers i can bomb both ways but to me this sounds like a bunch of yall cryin over some stupid stuff not to affend any of you gents but let it go HTC is not going to change the way bombin is done

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Charon
As pointed out here and at various times by many over the years, myself included -- Strategic targets that make a difference.

Here is the idea I came up with and posted in the "Wishlist" section

The only problem with Heavier strat targets is the same problem with Strat Targets now. They need to have a greater effect on gameplay to make them worthwhile to bomb.

As it stands now alot of people for the most part only bomb the strats to milkrun and improve their Bomber ranking.

The problem if they make them have a greater effect on gameplay is you will then have people using the age old whine of "you ruined my fun" (God forbid they ever try to protect their fun by defending)

But here is an idea.

Since we have reduced price for some of the perked planes Lets have factories for perked planes which can be directly effected by bombing.

Something along the lines of what Air Warrior had for spits only there woould be several different kinds.

Completely destroy the Tank Factory and Tigers become unavailable. Same thing with 262's Tempests etc etc.

Take it a step further
We can tie them into the ENY system so that the less numbers a player has the more it has to be destroyed to make perked planes unavailable.

Lets say with somewhat even sides a factory would only have to be 50% destroyed to deny that particular perked item. As numbers become more imbalanced the side with the least numbers would have to have more of its factory destroyed to loose access to perked items upto and including 100%

Doing it this way would help counter some of the horde as more of the hording sides resources (players) would be needed to completely destroy these facilities.

Having a seperate factory for each perked item would help assure that not all items would be denied at the same time. And even farther drain the hording sides resources

Keep the rebuild time at say 20 min so as to keep from having any particular item supressed for an unreasonable amount of time.

This would give buff drivers something useful to bomb and something for the fighters might want to try to defend.

In AW if someone was going after the Spt factory peopel would try to defend it cause they wanted the spits.

Here if someone goes after the oil refinery people most dont really care. And only slightly more people care if they are going after HQ


Another idea might be to have factories for these items by zone.

that is each country having several facories spread out over the map. Obliterate that factory and no perked item will be available in that zone.

Again. gives buff pilots somethign usefull to do and give the fighter jocks something important to defend

[Grimm]

interesting thread.

The best answer I heard was filths.    

1)  Make it so the bombers have to drop then entire bomb load upon release.  


2)  Next best answer would be F6 release only.

This would probably take very little on HTC part to implment these, but that is only my guess.   and if both were done would not impact a bomber pilots enjoyment signifigantly and would probably not drive the fighter only guys so crazy.

Dropping the entire load, would force carpet bombing and in its self would seem more realistic.   Perhaps a compromise could be Half Load drops.  Yes, Furballs are still going to be made when a dozen B17s arrive overhead and flatten the place.

F6 only release does hinder the gamey divebombing of Heavies.   Of course something like JU88 was used as a Jabo and should still have that option.

Building a new strat system would be a down the road thing.   It probably would take a bit to do and would probably require total rebuilds of terain and such.

[999000]

I got a solution ..........fly your fighters as well as we fly our bombers!
 then the guy who shoots you down ..fighter or bomber pilot!
a little more class is always refreshing!
Cheriooo..... friends and foes!
999000

[tatertot]

After reading only half of this thread i would ike to put in my 1 cent since my 2 cents isnt worTH it. I see a couple of sides to all of this.Porking fhs is Know different as porking ords in which many nights there isnt ords for sectors,taking them down is in no way shape of Or form any different than vulching i guess.As to dive bombing many o thread about this suggest arming bombs only level and at a certain altitude.But dumping formation i do not like imo and it is only my opinion kinda takes a buff to the waste basket everyone plays for diff reasons but the game is a base takeing to win reset format so buffs will be needed i do not think fighters would all like to take heavys to base to take base. Hub doesnt have bad ideas but niether does half the games  paying players.perk the bombs move the hangers arm level add more ack this is always going to be a issue  o and by the way i have never jumped from buff to buff to gun maybe i need to try it lol
            i think the real solution is denying 1 guy disabling a base but then we need to discuss denying 1 guy the ability to pork ords and cap the base!!!!  ok im done rambling now you can critisize my typing  =]