Rangoon 2008: +3
Philippine Phandango: +2
Maybe it was 'cause it was my first scenario, but I liked Rangoon a bit better, even with the debilitating problems when too many aircraft showed up at the same place and time. It had a good feel of an epic sized battle, the downwind did a good job of enforcing the alt cap that (artificially) evened the sides' aircraft for better balance and more fun.
If I were to be asked to improve PP (and many of these I wouldn't have said before the scenario, so I'm in no way complaining that these weren't done):
I'd either change the mission orders to use each aircraft at what they're best at. For example, no more KI-61s doing ground or ship attack while the Nikis are doing fighter cover... that just doesn't make sense as the Niki is Japan's best attack-fighter thanks to the cannons and large ammo load. The KI-61 is positively misused in that role when the NIKI is available. (If that means the Nikis never get to provide fighter cover, oh well... sign up for one of the KIs.) Alternatively I'd change the mission orders to give each commanders the same objectives but not the orders of which air groups to use to achieve them.
Unless its positively impossible due to it just not happening at all in the historical context (which I'm not sure of), I'd allow the possibility that that two fleets would meet at least twice during the frame. I was really disappointed when I realized there would be no (intentional) ship to ship broadsides going on.
I'd make four maps instead of one, one for each frame, each one altered only for which bases and strats each side owns that frame. That way bases could be "captured" as the Allies move forward, and there'd be no need to bomb your own strats.
I'd put in more bombers. I know its hard to get people to fly them, but its real tough to be given orders to shoot down the other side's bombers, look on the roster and see that they only have 8 formations surrounded by 48 fighters.
I'd plan on fewer numbers and expand if needed rather than plan on more numbers and reduce numbers when needed. Especially, as was the case in PP, that one side has much more Main-Arena-popular aircraft than the other. It'd be better to have people camping out for a slot in the scenario than to be begging people that don't really want to be there.
There's a problem that people running at low resolution can see bogies further away than people with a high res monitor (at least that's how it was explained to me that certain people repeatedly saw bogies that I didn't see until they were closer). Maybe people have figured out that and they deliberately run at a lower resolution, I don't know. But until this is fixed, I'd extend the enemy icon range to 4k and pull the dot range in by 1k.
Apparently we need to give the Japanese side an even greater numerical advantage than they already had in this scenario. I think the main problem is that the P-38 and F4U, and to a lesser extend the P-47, all enjoy a larger following in the main arenas than most of the Japanese aircraft (possibly excepting the NIKI). So the people flying for the Japanese side were largely inexperienced with their aircraft, while a greater percentage of the people flying the American aircraft were very familiar with theirs. Call it the Delirium effect, if you will (at least I didn't see Indiana around).
I'd keep all squadrons at a standard size, instead of seemingly random sizes (unless there's a real good reason), with for example one Niki group having 14 planes and a KI-61 group with 6 aircraft. All that serves is to do is divide and conquer the smaller groups (and its why I signed up for the 14 aircraft NIKI group).
I'd put a severe downwind at 27k in addition to the dot dar at 26k. There needs to be some hard limit, even if its a non-issue as it was in this scenario, I think it should be there.
I'd put it in the rules explicitly if "vulching" is allowed or not. Pre-emptive strike against whining. (It was my opinion in this scenario btw that it was allowed and a good idea to do it if you could, I'm not trying to slam on the Allies for using a legit strategy.)
