If you don't want to HO (a much used attack form in WWII, BTW), then
avoid the HO.
The problem with making the death penalty to high is this:
If dying means I can't fly my favorite aircraft anymore, I'll simply fly so conservatively that I will only engage when I am sure of victory. There is no "mission" that I have been assigned by my legal commanding officer, there is no penalty for me not doing a mission, or sof not inflicting harm on the enemy.
Read my thread in the Aces High General Discussion forum titled
Action #1: Operation Carthage". If the death penalty in a game is too high, nobody will do missions like that (low level raid into the teeth of enemy flak) because there is no reason to do so.
The real RAF aircrew mentioned in the thread I liked to were trying to win a war, something that they had to do for many reasons. The penalty they paid was the highest penalty of all, and yet the cause was great enough to make the risk that in order to try to bring victory closer.
In a game there is no way to make the cause that important. Its only a
game after all, I'm not going to scarifice my ability to play for your sense of realism, I'm not going to render my $30.00 less useful that your $30.00.
Your rules would also cause fast aircraft to utterly dominate the arena. Things like the Ki61, Il-2, Bf109F-4, Spitfire MkVb might as well not be in the game because their odds of making it home in an arena of La-7s, P-51s, Typoons and Fw190D-9s would be near 0%. And since you get penalized for being shot down, you'll rarely see an aircraft that cant do the "runstang" thing.
For what its worth, under your rules I would not fly conservatively because it is boring to me. Instead I would cancel my account because the game would no longer be enjoyable to me.
Oh yeah, I'm one of the guys that tries to live. I enjoy landing my aircraft after a mission. But I like to be able to take risks, knowing that what I am risking is that squeal of tires on tarmac, not my ability to enjoy the game in the future.
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We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother
Bring the Mosquito FB.MkVI Series 2 to Aces High!!!Sisu
-Karnak