Ok, what's your take on the other side of that. For every 1 player who now breaks cap, how many more will be willing to join in the attempt if they are given the edge of no concequences if they fail in the first 30 seconds?
I'm glad you flip-sided this. I spend a lot of time watching base captures, defenders and vulchers. I'll often spend entire afternoons going from one milk-horded base to another popping vulchers as fast as I can with 37mm to aid my brave defenders. So, I have a pretty solidly objective idea of how this plays out now and we can extrapolate from there...
1-The bar shows up in a vacant base's sector.
2-Depending on the size of the attacking force, the current state of the map and the time of day a few defenders come to the field.
3-There's usually 2-3 people who happened to be in the tower looking at the map when this happens, they get up to defend.
4-Once they get some visual or dot dar intel, they ask for help.
5-Depending on how thinly spread the war effort is, another 3-5 show up along with a couple of AA gv's and field gunners.
6-The attackers arrive, most ordnance goes to ack, VH, AA GV's and radar in that order, followed closely by FH's and town.
7-Those not heavy engage the 2-3 defenders that got up first.
8-Those that just dropped engage the 3-5 that just got up so are E poor.
9-Depending on how many attackers there are the initial 5-8 defenders either kill the attackers who evaporate to appear 15 sectors away after finding another vacant field to victimize; or the defenders now without benefit of field ack, AA or AA GV or radar support attempt to re-up.
10-The attackers don't establish air tight CAP immediately, as some are helping strafe town buildings or GV's heading toward town.
11-The 5-8 recently towered defenders come up piecemeal after they got killed the first time, but now they are energy bankrupt and don't last as long and draw the attackers close to the field.
12-Now the attackers develop suffocating air tight cap, the 5-8 defenders are now reduced to 3-5, they try to up a few more times only to get popped right on the takeoff spot by pendulum pass vulchers.
13-The defenders stop upping, the attackers take the field, land their vulches, get their arses kissed for their text buffer puff piece before deciding the next vacant base to victimize..
This is a very accurate "typical" scenario repeated 100 times a day in the MA, especially on the HUGE maps. Strafings system will have some pre-effects on how things will setup before engagement, then directly effect stages 9-13 of the engagement. The pre-effects take numerical form. It won't likely change the 2-3 initial uppers that happened to be sitting in the tower when the attack was identified, but it will affect the number that come to help once the initial defenders issue a call to arms. Instead of the 3-5 that may come for what they realise is an almost certainly futile effort, you may get twice to three times that number depending on the arena population at the time and the size of the attack.
So, now instead of having only 5-8 airborne defenders prior to engagement we will now have more like 11-18 defenders due to the reduced overall futility factor of defending against milk-hordes. Only the initial 2-3 will likely be in a good E/Alt position once the attack arrives the rest will still be alting. But, a lot of our better sticks love the idea of base defense as a challenge, so we'll have a high percentage of skilled players helping who have no problems fighting at a disadvantage if necessary.
Now the attack arrives, we are at stage 9. This is where everything changes. Now there is a much greater chance there will be a pitched battle once the jabo's dive and drop. The attack will have a good chance to fail depending on the success of the now light jabo's relative to the 11-18 established defenders. If the attack is not repelled initially it will take longer, in proportion to the numerical odds, for the attackers to tower the defenders. But, the defenders will be re-upping as they die. So, this is where it gets great. In order for the attackers to completely suppress the field like they used to do at stage 11, they must use their E advantage and skills to push back the persistent defenders to the point of the 30 second grace period. The defenders will likely be able to maintain a few with some E capable of possibly intercepting low buffs near the field. The option to intercept low heavies was never really an option after stage 9 before.
As you can see, assuming my prognostications are reasonably accurate, this will return us to how it used to be. It will mean successfully taking a base will much more often result from winning an exciting fight, not just being a sneaky and/or an overwhelming force. Progressing through stages 9-13 of a capture based attack will rely a lot more heavily on fighting than vulching, raising the skill level over time of your average milk-hording mission guys. Conversely, defending bases from these attacks will result in a lot more fights and a lot less getting insta-vulched, making close base defense gain popularity. The defenders will always be at an E and initiative disadvantage, but they will have to be beaten in the air decisively for a capture attempt to be likely to succeed. Even if the attackers choose to drop FH's from alt there will be a fair number of airborne defenders more able to forestall the attackers long enough for support to arrive from a proximate field. As it is today, there is rarely ever time to get air support from a proximate field before the base is completely suppressed and capture is completed...
