Perk US bombers

[Krusty]

I suggested this a long time ago, and Bronk reminded me of it.

The Ar234 is all but useless as a bomber. As a perk bomber I don't want to fly it even if I do (on that rare occasion) have enough bomber perks for a formation.

So bomber perks are useless. Why not perk US bombers?

The B-24 is the most common bomber in the skies, by far. Its speed and bombload and defensive firepower make it the best general bomber in the game. So, why not perk it? Oh, quiet down! I'm not talking Ar234 perk prices.

Why not perk the B-24 to 10-14 perks per plane? That's low enough not to stop anybody, but enough to make folks pause for a moment before suicide-dive-bombing an airfield.

The B17 has the same defensive firepower, and possibly a stronger durability. It has a bombload close to that of the B-24 and is probably the second most common bomber I see in this game. It should be half of whatever the B-24 is perked at (single digits, 5-7 perks or so).

This leaves the more-than-worthy B-26, Lancaster, and Ju88, for earning bomber perks, and the A-20 and Ki67 for suicide-dive-bombers (and not much else).

This stems from a lack of purpose for the Ar234. It's a nice "gee... that's cool, what else do you have" bomber, but it's useless in all situations, wish the shortest range of any bomber there is. There's no good plane to use bomber perks on. This way we create an arbitrary perk system so that you pay (a very small fee) for the planes that are the most effective in this game.

Hell, with the way bombers are "enhanced" in AH with supernatural speeds, absurd gun control levels, and 3 lives, you've still got more than an even chance to make it back to base in your perk bombers. Heck, get a friend to fly as escort and you'll get back unscathed most likely.

[DREDger]

Ar-234 useless?  Well, not much firepower that is for sure, real pain to land formations in too.  Ask Lynx if he thinks they're useless, his plane of choice to sink CV's.  Good to run a quick dar kill and get back home quick though.

Perk US bombers, yeah probably.  Not that it matters much though, who uses all their bomber perks anyway.  I'd sell them if I could, maybe trade em in fighter perks 5:1 or something.

[Krusty]

Originally posted by DREDger
Perk US bombers, yeah probably.  Not that it matters much though, who uses all their bomber perks anyway.  I'd sell them if I could, maybe trade em in fighter perks 5:1 or something.

Exactly!!! There's nothing to use them on!!

So why not take the two best bombers (by a long shot) that are the most widely used bombers in the game and give them small perks? That way you USE those perks.

Hell I'm a bomber pilot at heart, as well. I'm all for this.

As for the Ar234, it might be able to sink cvs because it's so fast it can't be intercepted, but aside from that, B24s and B17s do a better job of it, with a sight more bombs per bomber as well, and a chitload of defensive armament. Very little comparison. If you want to kill dar at 20k, you can kill 3 fields' dar in an Ar234, or you can kill 24 fields' dar in a B17/B24, and be in the air a lot longer in order to do this as well.

[Lusche]

Originally posted by Krusty
If you want to kill dar at 20k, you can kill 3 fields' dar in an Ar234, or you can kill 24 fields' dar in a B17/B24, and be in the air a lot longer in order to do this as well.

He who takes his Arado to 20K wastes only his time and the capabilties of that plane.

[Saxman]

To be perfectly honest with you, I'd rather face a formation of B-24s or B-17s than one of B-26s.

They're faster, and while smaller with fewer guns, it seems that their fire coverage is a HUGE step superior due to concentration of firepower.

[Krusty]

B26s aren't faster. Especially not at 10k or higher. If you lose an engine at 15k you can't keep level, that's how slow they are. They also have a very short range, often requiring 100% fuel load for a regular sortie. They only carry 4k bombs, and their guns have problems with the arcs they can position. The tail cuts out most of the dorsal gun, and the left/right guns are useful for spooking lower cons but you'll never get kills with them. The nose gun is very weak, and you're better off using the fixed guns (and some guy was doing that, he was zooming around at 10k in a formation hoing fighters, turning around and hoing them again... actually rather silly)

B26s aren't as much a threat as the B17 or B24, despite the high number of 50cal installations.

EDIT: I just checked the AH charts for B26, B17, and B24. They're all about the same speed at 10k, but the B26 has a huuuuuuuuge power drop above 10k, and its top speed is below 15k, after which it drops off very sharply. The B17 and B24 have a steady drop-less speed chart that extends all the way to 25k

[Tilt]

Perk the bombs.......... Then perk formations

1 perk per 1000lb bomb
2 perks per 2000lb bomb
3 perks per 4000lb bomb

x 2 multiplier for formations

Then the std allied bomb of WWII (the 500lb) becomes the bomb of choice with more realistic loadouts.

The fact that I can routinely take out all the FH's at either a medium or small airfield in two passes cannot be right..............

[Kweassa]

I agree with Tilt.

[Krusty]

Going from 8 1k bomb in a B24 to 16 500lbs means you can only take out 5 hangars and wound another, instead of taking out 8 hangars. It's not that much a loss in productivity.

While I agree the 1,000lb bomb wasn't very common on fighters, I'm sure it was fairly common on big bombers. Keep in mind, though, that if the allies had to only bomb a few hardened structures to shut down the enemy's flight capabilities (as in Aces High) they'd have used nothing BUT big bombs. Instead they were carpet bombing for maximum effect. You can see the historical mission required a lot of smaller bombs, just to scatter the damage more. That was real life, this is Aces High. Totally different target profile, so using historic loads (while possible to do and still accomplish the mission) isn't necessarily a direct comparison to historic missions.

I'm sure in CT we'll use a lot of smaller bombs because the mission goal will be carpet bombing (destroy as much of a large city as possible, not just FH/VH). There you will most likely see 500lb, 250lb, and other smaller bomb loads.

[tedrbr]

So, we want to GIMP the existing bomber plane set that's in the game now?

That always goes over well with the players that actually use something in an online game .... yeah...... very popular.....

Okay, let's perk the La-7, the Spit-16, the Pony-D, and the Niki too while we are at it.....  since they are over played in the LW arenas compared to the rest of the plane set.  Take the Niki, only about 400 ever saw operational status in WWII, and we see more than that in any one LW arena in 1 night, right?  

That ought to go over like a lead balloon too.

How 'bout we reduce ord on fields to one strat, with a 3 hour down time, and no option for resup too, that help out any?  And add random engine fires to all buffs in flight.  Cut their ammo loads in half.   Add gun jams?   Get rid of drone catch up speed, and have engine overheat if over 1/2 MAN/RPM settings for more than 10 minutes time?  Dud bombs/UXO's?  Change the color or size of bombers in radar rings or dar bars to make detection and interception easier?  Add a strong jet stream at 20K so interceptors don't have to go too high after bombers?



Rarely do the people running the game choose to GIMP a portion of it, unless it is a serious play balance issue.  That is not the case here, IMO.

[Tilt]

or 6 perks per formation drone............

[Krusty]

First of all, I never said I'm against perking other fighters.

I said there's nothing to spend bomber perks on.

Forget adding perk-worthy bombers. At this rate we're not going to get any new aircraft (let alone unnecessary bombers) for several years to come.

We have nothing to use these perks on. The Ar234 is a non-entity, basically. It does jack, so it's not worth flying.

Keep that in mind: that is my premise. The B24 is the best bomber in this game hands down, based on performance, payload, and defensive armament (x3 for formations). It is the most-used bomber in the game, 80% of the time I see bombers it's a set of B24s.

So perk it.

If we *HAD* perk-worthy bombers (say we hypothetically already had the B-26 and the B-29, and the Ju-188/388), I wouldn't think of perking the B24. However, we're not going to get any of these anytime soon, so we need to "curve" the bombers in this game. The B24's at the top of the list so it gets the perk price. That's why I brought this up.

EDIT: By "curve" I mean grade on the curve, where the score is adjusted based on the best score out of the collection.

[VooWho]

This will solve the perk issues.

Gives us the B-29
Gives us the Grand Slam bomb or Tall boy bombs for lancs and put perks on them.

These would be good for perk points, but we won't see any of those in the game so you can just ignore my post.

[tedrbr]

Originally posted by Tilt
or 6 perks per formation drone............

Deal....so long as I can buy FIVE of them for my formation!  Three wide, two deep.

Good bye cities and strat factories.....

[tedrbr]

Originally posted by VooWho
This will solve the perk issues.

Gives us the B-29
Gives us the Grand Slam bomb or Tall boy bombs for lancs and put perks on them.

These would be good for perk points, but we won't see any of those in the game so you can just ignore my post.

The A-26B Invader has been listed many times (by me among others) as a perkable buff ride to include in the game, since B-29 is not an option (we keep being told).

Other things for perks would be:

Maximum bomb loads..... have default bomb load set at what the bombers typically carried on most missions in WWII, and the maximum loads purchased with perk points if wanted.  

Drones?  Sure, If I could buy up to Five drones, I'd accept a reasonable perk cost associated with drones.  Not great against field targets, but for HQ raids, strat factories, cities, towns..... could be worth going after strat targets with 3 or 4 pilots.

"Tallboy" and then "Grand Slam", etc.... been told 4,000 "Cookies" will be largest bomb seen in AHII.... okay, see above for max bomb loads ---- Lanc BIII Specials cabacity, B-17's with bomb bay fuel cells removed, Ki-67's had heavier ratings from some sources......  


As to the threads original premise:  
I agree bomber pilots need something for which to earn and spend perks on.  Ar234's I use to kill CV's in flights of 3..... and that's it.   Even then, I prefer the Ki-67 flights as a CV killer to the Arados.   Buff drivers need more incentive to land their buffs after a mission.  A reason to not bomb and bail or use them as buff-divers.

The A-26 would be a perk worthy med buff/attack plane.
I could see paying for drones, if we could get more drones as well.
I can see perking maximum bomb loads.
Some of the German special ord would make the He-177 perk worthy, but we aren't gonna see guided bombs and rockets in this game.
I can even see making it possible to convert bomber perks to other perks at some kind of exchange rate, or even up.

What I can't see is gimping the existing plane set of bombers without giving anything back in return to the buff drivers.  

Making bombers or drones cost perk points, just because the Ar-234 isn't enough reason to have perks for most pilots, is not a valid solution, IMHO.