Strat perks

[HawkerMKII]

If bomber perks don't matter, why asking for more of them?


This is a game of combat. There should be incentives to wage combat over avoiding combat. Before the perk cap, players were actually waiting for someone to drop the strats or towns instead of engaging them. I made plenty of sorties to the strats to bomb defend and resupply them and had always film running. Near the end of that high-perk period, the very moment  the strats went down big time you could  see numerous goons upping for resupply runs. Obviously those pilots chose to harvest the strats instead of fighting the attackers. The ratio of suppliers vs fighterswas very 'unhealthy'. Interestingly, with exception of HQ there was little complaints about "it only restores 4 minutes", because that meant you could harvest perks for extended times. A 50% factory would have given you about 10 perks, I did several runs which netted me more than 20 - for just 6-8 minutes of flight time.

Non combat activities have to be less attractive for the player of average skill and above, because this game lives from combat. And even with the current setting, resupplying the strats is still a great perk generator. If you fly to the strats and ditch, you get 3 perks for a flight. That's 23-30 perks an hour for a totally safe, non-interacting mission. Getting that many perks in one hour in regular bomber sorties, one would need plenty of luck and skill.

And let's not forget that the current setup has brought back a purpose for the bombers beyond simple short range tactical support missions "flatten the base" and finally given the B-29 a purpose.

The focus should be on attack and defense, not waiting for something to go down to fly transports on the deck.

No perks, no score, no rank, after all it's all about the combat that would be a problem solver

[guncrasher]

If bomber perks don't matter, why asking for more of them?




Non combat activities have to be less attractive for the player of average skill and above, because this game lives from combat.

on the other hand you can say that dropping bombs from 30 or 40k is avoiding combat and since this game lives from combat....



semp

[Lusche]

No perks, no score, no rank, after all it's all about the combat that would be a problem solver

Yes it would. No game = no problems

[Chalenge]

If bomber perks don't matter, why asking for more of them?

This is a game of combat. . .

Obviously if this is a game of combat then you must incentivise activities that do not involve combat or no one will do them which is exactly my point here. Or the resupply could be completely automated which would make maps easier to reset. Once no one is resupplying the strats then it would be a simple matter to keep radar down for long periods and the same for towns and so on.

And like gun crasher points out that since the game is intended to promote combat then perhaps the bomb sights should be made less accurate to keep the bombers at a lower altitude.

You see? The argument can continue circuitously until you finally realize that in order to keep bombers in the game completely this resupply objective needs to be considered more completely and refined. If not then we are looking at strats eventually falling by the wayside again and the endless furball taking front and center stage.

[Tank-Ace]

I've always supported manual calibration in the MA's.


Honestly, what I think would improve the bomber game, and the whole "war" thing in general is, in no particular order:

1) manual calibration

2) max limit on resupply of strats (say, like 60% max, at which point it has to self-repair)

3) more limitations imposed on 163's. That being fewer bases (like, maybe 2), with those being further from the strats and HQ to end last-minute defenders, and an increased perk cost.

4) more realistic auto puffy, with an actuall shell being launched from the gun, with a historically correct flight time and accuracy. Target location, speed, and vector would be updated every 3 seconds, as opposed to instantaneously.

This would make evasive manuvers far more effective, but conversely the final approach much more dangerous.

5) AAA would concentrate on bombers above fighters, not the first to enter the FlaK belt (so as to prevent a fighter from coming in first, and drawing/distracting most of the flack).

6) increased impact of strats on the war. If fuel is dropped to zero, fuel is limited to 25% regardless of field size, location, and aircraft used. Facilities must be repaired to 50% before 50% fuel becomes available, to 75% before 75% fuel becomes available, to 90% before 100% fuel is available, and to 100% before DT's are available.

For ammo (depending on aircraft's options), it would either restrict the carrying of external ordnance and gunpods, or force the selection of a lighter ammunition/gun load (at 0%, a P-47 would have to fly with the 6-gun option with the lightest ammunition load, no external ordnance. A P-51 would take the 4-gun option with lightest ammo, a C.202 would only be able to take the 12.7's. C.205 would be able to take either, as 4 weapons are always carried. 109G-14 could still mount the 30mm, but not the 200rd 20mm option)

For radar, bases would have radar repaired based on their proximity to the strat/supply depot (see next item). At 50%, the 1/2 of affected bases closest to the relevent depot/strat have radar repaired.


7) tiered strat system: Main Strats (affects entire country)

which supplys Theater Ordnance Center (affects the half of the bases origionally owned, line clean down the middle when possible, Theater beaing Knight Theater of Operations, or Bishop Theater of Operations

Theater center supplys the Army Group Depot, which is divided into, for example, North, South, and Center on a large map, or would be East and West on a small map (either a 1/3rd or 1/2 split of the Theater bases).

AG depot suppys Army Central Depot (responsible for 1/2 the bases of eacy Army Group).

And if the map is large enough, we could include Corps-level depots, which would supply 1/2 of the Army's bases. Effects and rules of hitting a supply depot are the same as those of the central strats, but just affect a smaller area.


The more time and planning you invest in hitting the targets, the larger impact you will have. Defense of a base will become near impossible if strats are completely knocked out

[bustr]

Tank-Ace

And we will all be getting new accounts at some other fast action short attention span twitch and shoot WW2 fighter plane game out on the internet after the 3rd time several squads shut down the map by hitting all the strategic choke hold points in your highly complex over weight design.

After 13 years, if your complex monstrocity was the answer to our game play woes. We would all be waiting in line in each country for our mission GO call just like with SEA arena events as missions launched hourly to counter other countries missions to counter complex war winning strategies and win the STRATEGO WW2 game designed by you. The reality is, over the long term of player driven evolution, we play Air Quake and metal pillbox camping in the MA with a weekly dose of structured WW2 in the SEA.

I hear Stratego is very popular online now with a new Space oriented version soon to be released: http://www.stratego.com/

In the structure vacume created by no one wanting to follow or be issued orders. You have to bribe players to follow anything outside of their own self interest. The MA is like herding cats. How do you get a herd of cats to go directly from point A to point B some of the time? Put out cream at point B. They still have to get past the guard dogs as a price to drink the free cream. And it generates Combat.

Your average human plays games to get away from the complexity of real life for a few moments. They don't play online action games to live through their daily complexities and frustrations strategoed times 10. Hitech is one of the better cat herders I've watched in this regard.

[Scherf]

Game developers should print that ^ out and tape it to their screens.

[icepac]

HQ/radar currently takes 10 minutes to resupply with 4 or 5 guys making 2 trips or less (6 minutes by m3 with spawn near).

HQ/radar takes about 2 hours to destroy and RTB for less perks than one makes in the 10 minutes it takes to resupply it.

I'm not so sure more than 1% of aces high pilots have successfully downed HQ and landed the sortie but I'll venture a guess that more than 20 times that have gained the same or more perks by resupplying hq.

[Chalenge]

It makes no sense to complain about goons avoiding combat. Unarmed planes should always avoid combat. Some of the most ridiculous arguments get presented as clever contributions but just dont cut the mustard!

[Chalenge]

 I made plenty of sorties to the strats to bomb defend and resupply them and had always film running. Near the end of that high-perk period, the very moment  the strats went down big time you could  see numerous goons upping for resupply runs. . .

It strikes me as odd that the one person I intercept regularly that is very often above 30k and very often turns away from any chance of interception can somehow record events occuring more than 10k range (beyond 30,000 feet) which is the films maximum recording distance.

You and Fester both very much stretched the truth in order to have perks limited when in fact you both took advantage of it for years and said nothing. So now that the strats are suddenly working again the two of you both want the perks neutered to eliminate any chance of a competitor one day rising to your level.

Hilarious!

[Lusche]

You and Fester both very much stretched the truth in order to have perks limited when in fact you both took advantage of it for years and said nothing.

This is a plain lie.

But that's not exactly an surprise to me.

[Chalenge]

How is it a lie? Fester said you could get 200 perks for one flight. Lie. Unless you can show that you came below 30k to record your 'ready and waiting goons' then I say you stretched the truth. I AM surprised that you think you have to go that far but since you just said what you did. . . now I know your character is beneath comment. You lied.

[RTHolmes]

I made plenty of sorties to the strats to bomb defend and resupply them and had always film running.

challenge maybe you should read more carefully before spouting your bile. or, even better, just dont.

[coombz]

Personally I enjoy the irony of someone who flys a pony at 20k+ searching for nice easy buff kills accusing someone else of avoiding combat

However I do kind of see Chalenge's point about the perks. On the one hand I am very much against rewarding people for no risk activities like resupplying or sitting in a manned gun, but on the other hand you have to give incentives for players to do things like resupply or hardly anyone will bother  

a happy medium needs to be found and it will probably just take a bit of time and tweaking to arrive at the right amount

[Lusche]

How is it a lie?

It's a lie becasue it's completely and utterly untrue.

You and Fester both very much stretched the truth in order to have perks limited when in fact you both took advantage of it for years and said nothing.

I have never ever resupplied the strats by a C-47 until just very recently in my attempt to find the bugs with the strat setup and help HTC to find a new, improved one. In fact, it was HT who told me just about 2 months ago that a bug that I thought to be in the rebuild times was probably just being caused by player resupply flights. Only since the most recent strat changes I have done a number of goon resupply runs. As soon as I noted the big discrepancy between effort and reward I was posting and messaging about it.
I also never keep any bugs or glitches I do find as a "secret", particularly not to give me an 'advantage' in any kind.

The statement you made about me is completely fabricated. But I gotta thank you for that, as your attempt to discredit me and to hurt my integrity as an AH player shows your own intentions, agenda and lack of proper arguments. It saves me a lot of times to rebuke some other 'arguments' of yours in this thread, in which you apparently had not very much faith yourself.