I had an internet outage.
(in no particular order) Mars, 999000 & al. why don't you PM yourselves instead?
Originally posted by hubsonfire
To take the opposite tack, moot, why do we even have formations?
Hub, like I said before and like it has been proven in the past (hence Hitech's decision to add formations in the first place), bombers are too easy to kill when flying single-ship.
Bombers flew in formations in reality. This is not a "that's how it was" two-bit excuse, it's refering to the simple fact that bomber design for the B17, 24 etc (not the Il2 and others, duh) was intended for formation flying and bomb dropping. Not dive bombing, not single-plane (which you advocate) laser-accurate drops, but large formations to ensure target hit, and survival.
Target hit is a given in AH, since the calibration and dispersion is easy (easier than in reality), so in that sense we would need less bombers to compensate for that plus the fact that there aren't that many targets to match such mass carpet bombing; except for a second major factor: surviving fighters.
Mass bombing raids had to deal with interception by fighters and flak as you know, and in AH this largely offsets the damage bombers can reciprocate, almost single-handedly because of the number of fighters available to simply swarm them when they deem it interesting..
We need formations because bombers would simply be too easy to kill. Because without them, bomber accuracy would have to go up in compensation for the reduced volume of bombs dropped.
And because, hubs, (probably) the whole point of this game is trigger time. You are asking for less trigger time, rather than an accomodation of not-unrealistic bomber modeling (formations, higher dispersion, more difficult calibration (btw where the heck went storm fronts?), more shaking from the gunner positions, less perfectly smooth ride in flight).
You're asking for nerfing rather than more fun, more instagib rather than longer actual fighting leading up to the fragging conclusion.
As for single players being able to ruin a VH.. well that's the same as dying repeatedly to a good gunner, or Lev in dogfights.. would you nerf the spit5 or admit you've simply met your match?
You meet your match in hangar(etc)-killing bombers when you fail to adapt beyond simply furballing, and just refuse to account for the few minutes it takes to set up a foolproof attack on them. All it takes is two wingmen with the right, simple tactics to wrap it up in a few minutes... there are easily at least two fighter planes willing to fry a big lumbering target for every bomber formation in the MA.
Bombers need these: more dispersion, a slightly more difficult calibration that doesnt give new players too hard a time (btw fighter flying is tougher to learn than bombers), but rewards perfect handling, less perfectly smooth gunner aim and ride in the air, and to offset all these, two more drones, if the netcode etc can take it.
