Proposal for the implimentation of meaningful strategic bombing in Aces High

[DemonFox]

You probably saw me in a fire ball with like 6 spit 16 and P-51 chasing me 

[DERK13]

wow that is the best idea i have ever heard for more strategic bombing in aceshigh. All bombers have to bomb now is bases and strats and such but only bases are effected by the bombing. I say get rid of HQ and have multiple radar stations within the ones side country and if the more radar stations are destroyed then there could be a radar lag or something. Just a thought ,+1  to the idea. The game needs more stragic bomb and goals to win the war. Furballs over a base are getting old.

[gyrene81]

Gyrene currently I bomb in the Ju-88 and B-25C most commonly. I fight in P-39Q and 109 E4
And I do like the idea +1
And still +1 for PBY 

ok, so you don't fly anything with a max speed below 200mph...what are you going to do with an aircraft that can't go any higher than 15,000 feet with a speed of 196mph max??? especially in a late war arena...a d-3a1 could catch that thing and shoot it down.

[DemonFox]

Yes it's slow but so? If I want to take the risk what's wrong? Plus it's primary role will be a torpedo bomber die to the 2 torps it can carry and they have to be below 200mph anyway. I don't fly above 15K on a bomb run most the time so that isn't that bad. And it does have some defensive guns so no a D3A couldn't kill it. Plus it more then meets the requirements to be in game as far as history goes. For senerio it would be very nice because it was wispy used in pacific and we have many pacific senerio.
+1 for now bomb system
+1 PBY-5A

[EagleDNY]

Karnak,

I like where you are going with this - having the strategic bombing of city strat affect the respawn time of the cities near bases (either globally, or in that zone if they get back to zone strats) seems like a great idea.  Yes, I think the numbers can be tweaked (it is a matter of opinion of course).  The algorithm is a simple one as far as most programming problems go and that you can leave to HTC (it seems as if they program in seconds, so it is probably easier if they have a minspawntime of x seconds and add y seconds to it for every % of a strat that is down when the building is destroyed).

[hitech]

I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?

HiTech

[Karnak]

I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?

HiTech

That is possible.  When I was initially doing my time concepts I had the initial value set at one minute . I changed that to ten minutes after considering people bombing the town for points, turning around and having it back up to be bombed again by the time they were in position.  I don't know if a one or five minute initial respawn rate would change your point though.

Nonetheless you do present a valid point.  I still think that bombing the city would happen more often than it does now by a significant margin, though an increase in the numbers people felt are needed to take a base is a definite undesireable outcome.

[grizz441]

100%: 10 minutes
095%: 10 minutes
090%: 11 minutes
085%: 12 minutes
080%: 13 minutes
075%: 15 minutes
070%: 17 minutes
065%: 20 minutes
060%: 23 minutes
055%: 26 minutes
050%: 30 minutes
045%: 34 minutes
040%: 39 minutes
035%: 43 minutes
030%: 48 minutes
025%: 51 minutes
020%: 54 minutes
015%: 56 minutes
010%: 57 minutes
005%: 58 minutes
000%: 60 minutes

I like the idea Karnak, but I think your times are significantly askew.  Currently and traditionally, towns stay down for 45 minutes IIRC.  So in conjunction with this additional strategic system which would cater most to those that are concerned with strategic elements of the game, you are essentially making it that much more difficult for them to capture a base.  0% down = 10 minute town?   That's impossible.  You are essentially making it a necessity to attack a strategic target to have a chance at taking a base without the use of an overwhelming horde.  And in other words, to put things in perspective based on your numbers, you must take down 70% of the connecting city/factory/whatever to even meet the current town down times.  This system is giving the strategic guys a cookie and a kick in the nads at the same time.  

If your numbers reflected better on the current town downtime I might see it having some merit.

[Jayhawk]

I think the net outcome would simply be bigger lighting raids on the towns. How many times is a town now taking within 10 mins?

HiTech

Though I know you don't usually release much info on future development, but is the strategic aspect of the game going to get a review/update/change anytime soon?

Or, do you believe the strat is working well as is? 

[Karnak]

Grizz,

As I said, the numbers were for representational purposes only.    I also want the damage to cities to last a lot longer than it does now and to not be resuppliable.

With a different number stream, do you think the idea has merit?  Say, if it started at 20 or 30 minutes and ran to 90 or 120 minutes?

[grizz441]

Grizz,

As I said, the numbers were for representational purposes only.    I also want the damage to cities to last a lot longer than it does now and to not be resuppliable.

With a different number stream, do you think the idea has merit?  Say, if it started at 20 or 30 minutes and ran to 90 or 120 minutes?

I think if it started at 30 minutes and ran up to 120 minutes, yes that would be a much closer range to being in the ball park.  Like Hitech said though it has to encourage strategic involvement much more than it involves excess hording to offset.  It would also make sense to have multiple bases attached to one given strat target.  In addition to maybe calling them "Regional Strats" which could be graphically represented by cities, I think there should also be Global Strats scattered across the map, deep to semi deep behind enemy lines, yet reachable with a reasonable amount of effort, that when bombed, would further affect the down times of fighter hangars, vehicle hangars, bomber hangars, ords, ack, etc.  

One caveat to this whole thing though which I feel is important and a pretty radical change to the game, would be dealing with squads simply going on suicide missions to kill a factory with significant war value and then simply upping to reap the benefits of their suicide mission.  Imo with these strat targets, they should be high value.  Significantly high valued.  With that, I would call that a player who records damage to a strat must land his aircraft safely back at base before his damage takes effect.  If he does not land, the targets that he bombed immediately revert back to undestroyed.  This would have a two pronged effect.  One, players could simply not suicide a target and crippling a side and then playing whackamole and disappearing, after many players on the other side upped to defend and stop them.  This is bad gameplay.  What would happen is the attackers would have to formulate both offensive and escape strategy.  It would be fun for the defenders, and I also think it would be fun for the attackers, as they have purpose to land.  If they make it back to base the reward is high.  Maybe global fighter hangers down an additional 5% for 2 hours per XX amount of damage done.  Something significant.  You could incorporate this strat "bomb and land" for various targets.  It would create a very interesting and immersive environment IMO.  

I would be interested to see if the Devil's Brigade, as I see them as a very good cross section of the win the war crowd, would be interested by the prospect of a landing requirement for strat targets to yield greater reward in the war effort.

[shotgunneeley]

Theoretically, if a fighter hanger is up, every member of a country could up from one single field. I propose a more "limited" supply set-up.

For example:

Small Airfield- 3 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 15 available fighters maximum
Medium- 4 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 20 available fighters maximum
Large- 8 FH's * 5 planes per FH = 40 available fighters maximum

The maximum number of available fighters is a function of the number of operational FH's. A fighter that ups from a particular field and does not return to land the sortie at that field is considered "lost", which subtracts from the remaining number of available fighters. An immigrating fighter from another field that lands its sortie at a different field from the one it began at will contribute to the number of available fighters at its final destination (and effectively, detract from the number of available fighters at its starting base).

On the supply side of things, the rate at which the strats replenish the amount of available fighters at any given field is a function of its health percentage. I propose three new strat areas: fighters, bombers and vehicles (vehicles could possibly be merged with the AA strat) to supply this new system. It is quite possible that a field could have all of its FH's operational, but only have 4 available fighters because the strat has been weakened to a point where it cannot keep up with demand.

This more gradual system compared to the current "all or nothing" system could be applied to vehicles, bombers, fuel and ordinance. I believe that this system will put a fresh twist on the supply/tactical side of AH. This can be shown in the tower on the table at any given field:

Fighters: 12/15 (means that 12 fighter sorties out of a max of 15 are available to be upped)
bombers: 4/10 (means that 4 bomber sorties out of a max of 10 are available to be upped)
vehicles: 16/16 (means that all 16 available vehicle sorties can be upped)

[Tupac]

Very good idea. However I agree with Grizz in that 10 minutes is a little bit short. 20 minutes would be best to start at IMO, running up to 100 minutes.

[Chilli]

snip

I would be interested to see if the Devil's Brigade, as I see them as a very good cross section of the win the war crowd, would be interested by the prospect of a landing requirement for strat targets to yield greater reward in the war effort.

I like to think of ideas like this one in terms of real world equivalents.  Certain tactical recon information, would be gained from de briefing pilots returning from enemy territory.  The same is immediately evident with the use of communications while in flight, sighting enemy fleets and direction, enemy formations NOE, etc.  Assigning more importance to actually landing after a mission strike may have a two prong result.  First, bomb and bail gamers will loose some important details for country intelligence on strategic targets.  (pilot doesn't return home, clipboard status loses the damage report, while actual damage remains but unknown until another strike on that target)  Second, escorting bombers would have added benefits to country  intelligence reporting.

Possibly how this would look:  Field stats on clipboard will be reflect the current damage of that field done by that bomber / attacker (including ground vehicle) unless that vehicle / aircraft has been destroyed or pilot has been "captured".  A ditch in "friendly" territory would still report the current damage done as a result of that pilot's actions.

As long as the above landing and "friendly" ditch occurs, the morale of the country will be boosted and the enemy morale will be lessened.  This will be shown in terms of additional downtime, and  message will report "SYSTEM: FH1 A14 Rooks downtime increased 3 mins. downtime remaining 6 mins".

This additional message in conjuntion with the recent damage message for bombers will now identify a bomber pilot with specific targets.  A sort of AH2 flash news reel, more bomber cool points.

Sorry Grizz, I ran with it 

[Gaidin]

I like the idea, but not the implimentation.  I would love to see something put in place that makes the strat worth protecting/attacking besides the whole name in lights thing, but I don't think it should be made to where its mandatory either. 

Just my .02