Originally posted by tedrbr
* First, all you might end up doing is eventually cut the bomber population to almost nothing; while the text buffer would be filled with people requesting OTHER people to bring ord to pork fields, deack towns and fields, kill hangars, kill towns, kill GV's, and kill the CV..... worse even than calls for goon suicide runs. Eveyone would want someone else to do it for them.
Whines don't factor into the equation of game balance. The primary balance issue is a human resource one, if you bomb and immediately bail you're skipping the time it takes to RTB safely. If someone requests additional assistance to continue bombing this is fine because it's using another resource which could be allocated somewhere else, be it a fighter or a bomber on another target etc.
*Bombers rarely return to base safely. So it would almost always cost points.... eventually the bank runs out.
That's really the fault of the pilot in most cases. If theres no pentalty to death bombers really only need to concern themselves with survival to the point they drop their bombs. If you take more time to setup an escort, get more alt, use diversionary tactics or simply milkrun the odds of survival would increase dramatically. And if the perk system is balanced properly, then getting ords on target and surviving would mean you get +perks whereas bombing & bailing would lead to a degree of -perks. Very similar to what we have in fighters, vehicles etc now except it applies to heavy ordinance use.
* Part of that is bomb and bail, since perks mean nothing to most buff drivers, Arado not a great ride for much, and it's quicker to get back into the air.
By adding a risk/reward system to this it would require bomber pilots to care.
* Bombers in game often operate at mid to low level and get shot up and shot down much of the time. Many buff drivers do not have the patience to climb to typical operating altitudes any more that most fighter pilots in game do.
Thats really their choice of tactics. You'll find that most fighter pilots when in perk rides are far more patient and paranoid about losing their rides since there is a risk involved. Same thing would apply to the perk ord system.
* will this perk ord system cover ALL planes, or just level bombers? If only bombers, you will just see suicidal JABO runs replacing bomb and bail. P-38 and P-47 "buzzbombs".
Can't speak for HTC but I think it'd probably be for certain load sizes that'd be dependant on the aircraft. For example I would expect an SBD with a full loadout to have a cost. Whereas a set of lancs with cookies and 2 drones would have a cost associated. Not that I'm suggesting that bomber pilots be screwed entirely, I'd think we'd need to be able to support a free setup for bombers. Maybe a full load with no drones is free? Or 1/2 load with drones is free. Really a balance issue that would have to be reviewed & tweaked as part of an implementation phase I would think.
I'm mostly looking at this from the perspective of not having any sort of strategic logistics in place to limit the amount of ords available at any particular base. Since there isn't any logic in place to say A29 for example has 250 1000lb bombs remaining, everything is based on human and time resources. So unless HTC has in mind to implement a system such as supplying actual logistics across zones I'd think using the perk system is probably the best fit for providing risk/reward to help prevent gaming the strat system.
