Rabidrabbit,
How is making troops and ammo harder to kill making things more gamey?
I don't like HT's idea, but I do support making porking more difficult, at least to the point that one or two fighters can't do it.
The biggest drawback we have in terms of "realism" is that we don't really die and we are limited by the number of people on each team. In reality, each and every base had people stationed there. In this game, you have to jump around. If everyone responds to a flashing base, then your manpower at the front drops and you get overwhelmed.
The only way to realistically "man" all the bases would be to limit the fields to a maximum of 8-10 fields per team....total. That would be a bloody mess of a map....one gigantic furball (I'm sure that would make some folks happy). Admittedly, if such a map were in the rotation, it would be fun once in a while.
Making AI ack more accurate at fields that are unmanned would make porking more difficult. Decrease AI ack accuracy proportionately to the number of friendlies in the area (down to the level that it currently is at max capacity).
I think take some AAA guns ala the 5" found on fleets and put them at airfields (and make them mannable) would help too.
Make troops and ammo harder to kill.
I don't know if it is possible, but make the base layouts different, even within the same size category. Add more indestructables, but make them look like "regular" hangars and such. That would make things like, communication, more tactics, etc come into play to really knock a base down. As it is now, two flights of buffs can take an antire base down (with the exception of large fields), in a single pass no less.