Originally posted by Krusty
Last thing bombers need is MORE guns all laser-slaved to the same gunner....
** The more I think about it, the more that additional drones won't work. Not because of the guns so much as the effect on CV's and TT. CV's too vulnerable now since no one flies CAP and they have no early earning picket destroyers. Larger flights of buffs carpet bombing TT is just an additional grief. Then there is the fact towns become that much easier to drop for capture.
Being able to buy a 3rd, 4th, or 5th drone would add to the ability of buff drivers to attack strat factories for strategic side of the war to greater effect, as well as be a buff perk point sink, but the other game play and grief issues make it a bad path to follow. Heavy bombers without drones are very easy targets for enemy fighters to kill, so I can't see adding a perk cost to drones #1 and #2.
(I'll grant that the drone catch up speed should be limited to max, not the speeds they do attain now, to force pilots to take care of their formations, and I'd love to see a lightly perked German 88mm FlaK36 added to the game as well to provide manned puffy ack). ** Perked ord is just a nerf to the existing bombers. 4,000 lb cookie cutter is the largest we'll see, according to HTC mantra, so no larger bombs to spend perks on.
** I don't like the idea of transferable perks. Would lead to buff perk farming in EW and MW to spend on LW perk rides by players that are not much good in them.
** That leaves additional perk rides.
A-26B and A-26C Invader, the
Mosquito B.Mk XVI, and (maybe) the
He-177.
But even with additional perk rides, the perk sink won't be a very large one. Only bombers that could be added that
would be big perk point sinks would be the
B-29 and the
He-177 with Henschel Hs 293 or Fritz X munitions..... neither of which we will see.
A rough work of the numbers in the Scores for this month (total kills plus total deaths per plane shown against the total for the entire class) shows bomber
use to be approximately:
Comparative bomber useB24 20.2%
Lanc 19.2%
IL2 13.0%
B-17 11.7%
B26 9.6%
JU88 8.3%
A20 5.0%
TBM 3.9%
Ki-67 2.1%
Boston 1.6%
SBD 1.4%
Stuka 1.3%
B5N2 0.7%
D3A1 0.7%
Arado 0.5%
This is just working with the numbers available. I only sampled one month, since without the actual number of spawns, I only have kill and death numbers to work with, so it will be +/- a few tenths anyways.And by contrast, bombers accounted for 14% of the planes used when comparing kill and death totals across the board. 86% were fighters and attack planes.
Originally posted by Krusty
You underestimate the Mitchell! Many will fly it because we like it better than the B-26, not because it's better than it 
<-- would use the B-25 for a bomber a LOT more than the B-26.
No doubt that there are a number of pilots that will fly it, but I very much doubt "many" will. As it won a popular vote, and based on it's performance numbers, I still believe many pilots will not fly it past the second or third tour on release. The players in general seem to put a premium on total bomb carry capacity. And I'm betting missions like those posted by ghi are inflating (skewing) the B-26 numbers relative to the rest. 4 planes account for approximately 64% of the bombers, and one of them primarily does anti-GV work.
So I believe the players (in general) will shun the Mitchell. A 75mm equipped one may draw some interest, but I doubt that it would be very effective vs GVs or towns. There will be some skins done for the Mitchell, probably more skins than most planes see. It will see some SEA use and possibly EW/MW use, depending on the version. But overall I expect a resounding "thud" after initial novelty wears off. My guess is around 5% by it's fourth tour and helped by EW use.
And this is from a player that flew mostly B-17's vs field strats before the MA split, and flies mostly A-20's, IL2's, and Ki-67's in LW now, when driving buffs.
Even the A-26B and A-26C combo I pushed for would not break into the percentages of the heavies, although it's performance, gun package, and loadout would have helped it's relative use a lot as compared to most, and would have provided an additional perk sink to the Arado.
