Fixing bombers

[BnZs]

Yes, a bomber sortie is usually 1-2 hours, assuming you aren't a bomb 'n bailer.

Bad assumption on the bomb and bail part! Many don't care what happens after reaching the target. At the very least, after a CV is sunk or a base is shut down, whatever happens after is strategically irrelevant.
Besides, your estimates are wrong. If you only got a 1000fpm average climb rate out of a given set of buffs, then it would take only 10 minutes to get to 10K. Then, even if you only get 200mph TAS, that is only 15 minutes if you have to cover two entire sectors. That's 25 minutes used up so far. Call it an even 20 for turn around, RTB, and landing, and that is STILL less than an hour.

Now, a quick glance at the performance page says that the B-17G has an initial climb of about 1300 fpm, and climbs at over 1000fpm till above 15K, and does 230 MPH on the deck, about 250 at 10K.

If you're assuming a climb to 20+K, sure it takes longer, but guess what, 20K is clearly unnecessary. In point of fact, a buff formation can often bedevil fighters best by flying at 5K or less, thus taking away diving room beneath them that allows for the relatively safe guns pass from directly overhead.  

"And yes, having a 50% shot of success for that time investment whereas the fighter gets to have, by your desired change, a 50/50 chance of success if he is a drooling moron and climbs slowly up the bomber's six after his five to ten minute intercept."

Karnak! You mad bro?
"Drooling morons" in the Luftwaffe flew up to the six of unescorted bombers and blew them out of the sky more often than the other way around. Not so in AHII. There are many reasons for this, such as icons, and the fact that autolevel+no winds or turbulence in AHII greatly shift the odds in a shootout in favor of the mounted guns on the rock-steady autopiloted bombers over fighter guns that have to be flown onto target. Those things are unavoidable, but some allowances should be made in compensation.

Of course, if the drooling moron has a 50/50 shot at winning then somebody like Lusche, Icepac or myself is nigh guaranteed to win.

And why not? If one of you comes across the average individual flying a fighter plane, you are also nigh guaranteed to win. My analysis of the numbers reveals that an average MA pilot probably has a slightly BETTER chance of killing one of you Vets 1v1 by flying a buff formation than by flying a fighter. THAT little fact should go a long way towards demonstrating that the bomber setup in the MA verges on the ridiculous.

You seem to be asking for bombers to have a 50/50 shot at actually bombing their targets.  How can that result be reached?  Well, either bombers need to be far easier to intercept and kill or they need to be drastically less accurate with their bombs.  Either solution will lead to players abandoning bombers as attack platforms.  It boggles my mind that you think players would put up with that kind of nonsense.

More like a 50/50 shot of completing their mission when opposed by a similar number of players with a reasonable amount of warning. The buff that is inside the radar ring when you're rolling for takeoff will still be impossible to stop.

Correct. Bombers should be far easier to kill and drastically less accurate with their bombs. Currently in game one player in a buff formation is far more of a force both in the air and on the ground than 3 actual buffs that took 30 men to control generally were in R/L.

Either solution will lead to players abandoning bombers as attack platforms.  It boggles my mind that you think players would put up with that kind of nonsense.

It boggles my mind that you think players should continue to put up with buff formations controlled by a single players being able to fight just as well as fighters, not needing escorts, and being the single strategically decisive aircraft/vehicle choice on MA maps, as well as all the other concerns with them. Remember, I didn't start this thread, one of the most experienced MMO flightsim players period did that. You gonna call "drooling moron who doesn't know how to attack bombers" on everyone who has a concern, or do you finally concede that such accusations are a bit fatuous?

Bombers will never be abandoned simply because no other means can put that ordinance on target. If they have to be escorted, that might result in *GASP* fighter combat in a game named "Aces High".

You are really pushing to have more kamikaze fighter-bombers in AH.

If a heavy jabo gets bounced by a fighter before he reaches target, he is either an easy kill who dies, or he skins his ord. And probably still dies. Or maybe in some cases he kills his bouncer. Either way a **********ing DOGFIGHT (you remember those don't you?) just went down.  

If a heavy jabo does not get bounced, he maybe misses, because divebombing isn't quite as easy mode as level bombing is in AHII. Even if he doesn't miss, he's only got enough ord to take out one hangar. So a **********ing dogfight might still go down at that base!!!


(Hell maybe he brings two of his closest friends in jabos....if they're real heavies like P-47s, that means they can potentially put 9000 pounds of ord on target if they all make it....still HALF the bombload that ONE #!@$%@$#~@##$@ in B-17s could tote....MATH MOFO, it doesn't lie!)

[BnZs]

It looks to me that your numbers (even the ones you can't back up) are very close and so it looks pretty balanced. So why change it?

If a given fighter tooling around has about 1:1 k/d ratio against fighters, that is par and not worthy of note. If a tool that puts destructive map moving power like no other into the hands of a single player and which historically was brutalized by interceptors when not protected by escorts also has such a k/d, that unbalance is a matter of concern.

If there were a fighter bomber with a 1:1 K/D, 12+ .50s firepower, capable of delivery 6-18K ords on target that regularly shut down entire bases in the MA, likely everyone currently arguing with me would instead be calling for it to be perked in the MA. But when the single-player controlled unit known as the "buff formation" has these same attributes, the matter seems to elude their minds.

[Karnak]

Bad assumption on the bomb and bail part! Many don't care what happens after reaching the target. At the very least, after a CV is sunk or a base is shut down, whatever happens after is strategically irrelevant.

I never take off without the intention to return to base.  I am speaking for myself.  I know I am not the only one either as I see many "damage landed" messages in the buffer.

Besides, your estimates are wrong. If you only got a 1000fpm average climb rate out of a given set of buffs, then it would take only 10 minutes to get to 10K. Then, even if you only get 200mph TAS, that is only 15 minutes if you have to cover two entire sectors. That's 25 minutes used up so far. Call it an even 20 for turn around, RTB, and landing, and that is STILL less than an hour.

1) Many bombers not only don't average 1000fpm, they don't ever have a climb rate of 1000fpm.  The bombers that do climb at over 1000fpm are either perked (Mosquito Mk XVI) or have light bomb loads (Ki-67, G4M1 and Boston Mk III), or are slow (B-17G) though the Tu-2 will break that trend a bit.  Above 10,000ft, where bombers really have to go to be reasonably safe, climb rates quickly drop off.
2) Bombers at 10,000ft are free kills already.  I love finding bombers that low.  That changes the five to ten minute intercept I mentioned into a three to five minute intercept.  Even if your numbers were accurate the bomber player will still have committed five times as much of his evening to the sortie than the interceptor will have.

If you're assuming a climb to 20+K, sure it takes longer, but guess what, 20K is clearly unnecessary. In point of fact, a buff formation can often bedevil fighters best by flying at 5K or less, thus taking away diving room beneath them that allows for the relatively safe guns pass from directly overhead.

I fly B-29s and Mossie XVIs at 28,000ft, B-17s are 25,000ft, Lancasters and Ki-67s at 22,000ft, Bostons and G4M1s at 20,000ft and He111s and Ju88s at 16,000ft.  Bombers at 5k are like a bleeding cow in a school of piranha, not only do they not bedevil fighters, it is a frantic race to get a piece of them before the other fighters kill them all.

"Drooling morons" in the Luftwaffe flew up to the six of unescorted bombers and blew them out of the sky more often than the other way around. Not so in AHII. There are many reasons for this, such as icons, and the fact that autolevel+no winds or turbulence in AHII greatly shift the odds in a shootout in favor of the mounted guns on the rock-steady autopiloted bombers over fighter guns that have to be flown onto target. Those things are unavoidable, but some allowances should be made in compensation.

Nobody disputes that bombers are more lethal in AH than they were historically, but the Luftwaffe did not climb slowly up their six either.  They climbed above the bombers and attacked at speed, from the twelve and from the six.  I cannot tell you how many fighters I've killed in AH because they attacked my bombers by slowly climbing up my six. At least a third of intercepting fighters, probably more, do that in AH and they greatly contribute to your 2.5 to 1 B-17G vs P-51D ratio.  You are insisting that the overall K/D ratio must be much, much more in the P-51D's favor while still allowing a third of intercepts to be done absolutely wrong.

And why not? If one of you comes across the average individual flying a fighter plane, you are also nigh guaranteed to win.

Not me, no.  Fighter vs fighter I am a pale shadow of what I once was.

My analysis of the numbers reveals that an average MA pilot probably has a slightly BETTER chance of killing one of you Vets 1v1 by flying a buff formation than by flying a fighter.

Good!  Maybe that taste of success will help convert them into a paying customer and keep this game alive.

THAT little fact should go a long way towards demonstrating that the bomber setup in the MA verges on the ridiculous.

Sorry, but no.  I don't see how making new players completely helpless and unable to taste success is  a good thing.

More like a 50/50 shot of completing their mission when opposed by a similar number of players with a reasonable amount of warning. The buff that is inside the radar ring when you're rolling for takeoff will still be impossible to stop.

Ok, so now you're backtracking.  Now you want bombers to be even more lethal.  Oh, you didn't realize that currently intercepted bombers that are opposed by equal numbers of players have a far less than 50% chance of hitting their targets?

Correct. Bombers should be far easier to kill and drastically less accurate with their bombs. Currently in game one player in a buff formation is far more of a force both in the air and on the ground than 3 actual buffs that took 30 men to control generally were in R/L.

And you flip around again.  Make up your mind.  If bombers can't hit anything useful reasonably reliably and they are free kills, why would anybody use them?  You still haven't explained that.  Efficiency wise the players in bombers would already be far, far more effective in "win the AH war" terms if they just played the kamikaze P-38L game.  I have run the math, it is starkly in favor of suicide 38s as things stand now, with your proposed changes suicide Ki-43s would probably be a more efficient way to attack.

It boggles my mind that you think players should continue to put up with buff formations controlled by a single players being able to fight just as well as fighters, not needing escorts, and being the single strategically decisive aircraft/vehicle choice on MA maps, as well as all the other concerns with them.

I don't think that bombers should be able to do that stuff, and they can't as they are now.  Only your strawman fantasies give them those capabilities.  They are not nearly as good as you claim they are.

Remember, I didn't start this thread, one of the most experienced MMO flightsim players period did that. You gonna call "drooling moron who doesn't know how to attack bombers" on everyone who has a concern, or do you finally concede that such accusations are a bit fatuous?

You've never seen a rage post by an entitled player who thinks his "targets" ought to lay down and die for his amusement before?  Long time player or no, I have seen it here and on other game's forums.

If a heavy jabo gets bounced by a fighter before he reaches target, he is either an easy kill who dies, or he skins his ord. And probably still dies. Or maybe in some cases he kills his bouncer. Either way a **********ing DOGFIGHT (you remember those don't you?) just went down.  

Sorry, no dogfight.  You are forgetting why the Mossie was so successful, and is so successful in AH as well, despite having no guns.  Speed.  Speed means you don't have to fight.  Fighter-bombers have the speed to avoid being intercepted except with great difficulty or with blind luck.  You massively, catastrophically to your position, disregard that fact. And it is a fact.

If a heavy jabo does not get bounced, he maybe misses, because divebombing isn't quite as easy mode as level bombing is in AHII.

Yes, hence the suicide into the target, because if you do it that way it is about as accurate as the level bomber.

Even if he doesn't miss, he's only got enough ord to take out one hangar.

Yup, but he can fly four or more one way suicide sorties in the time it takes his B-17 to be making its first pass, if it lived to get there.

So a **********ing dogfight might still go down at that base at **********er!!!

Nope.  The guy is new, knows he has no chance, so best contribution is to bring in the ordnance as fast as possible, which means he kamikazes in each time.  Sure, some will stay and fight, but many will not.  And many more will think that kamikazing each sortie is stupid and being cannonfodder is stupid and won't subscribe at all.

You're also completely dismissing that some of us enjoy the combat style of killing bombers and that it is also a fight.

(Hell maybe he brings two of his closest friends in jabos....if they're real heavies like P-47s, that means they can potentially put 9000 pounds of ord on target if they all make it....still HALF the bombload that ONE #!@$%@$#~@##$@ in B-17s could tote....MATH MOFO, it doesn't lie!)

Except the P-47s can apply all of theirs (4157.5lbs of damage each, not counting the 3978lbs of damage their guns carry, BTW.  Math, it doesn't lie) in a few seconds, whereas the B-17 formation has to overfly the base, turn, recalibrate and come back for each drop.  It is very hard to line up on six worthwhile targets in a single pass. Two or three is more common.

And that is assuming that new guy has friends in the game yet.

[caldera]

In point of fact, a buff formation can often bedevil fighters best by flying at 5K or less, thus taking away diving room beneath them that allows for the relatively safe guns pass from directly overhead. 

So, you now admit that a proper attack from above makes bombers easy kills? 

[save]

But you DO get the chance of disabling / killing in-bounds at 1.5k while at the same time pull G.
I have been killed in a heavy armoured A8 ( at least it should be) from 1.5k out from all angles manoeuvring like a  bat.

Also doing your rudder kicking , in a formation of three, instead of causing collision with your drones ( which should happen) you are causing them to warp, colliding into high-speed attackers, causing fighter to go down and not the happy drone.
 You simply don't do any fast stick moves in a formation. in here I see  B17's with drones shooting at 400mph dives  in formation. result for me as attacker is :
1 abort.
2 colliding with warping drones
3 get killed before I get into effective range (600yards), takes quite some time at 400mph.
4 get lucky :that guy don't hit you because he is a newbie -B17 set is ded.

Also you can, in an A20 at least out-turn a A8 at 4G and at the same time, if you have a gunner, blast that poor SOB to pieces doing it.

I have to agree on the bomb-and bail,  every plane type can do it.

Some penalty should be imposed/ or reward for landing.


I say, don't do any fancy maneuvers, or lose drones in a set of buffs.

Bomber range from all but rear should be max 800 yards effective. 1k from rear 30 degree arc.

There is a reason B17s needed an escort IRL, here I see some guys land 6 kills in it.

my 2 öre

I bomb a lot, and I do agree with some of this.   4-engine bombers are not dive bombers, and their bombs should NOT release unless the autopilot is in level flight and the player is in the bombardier position.  Period.  The driving of lancstukas from the pilots position in F3 mode and carpetbombing the gvs is just playstation gamey.  That said, there are plenty of twin engine bombers (JU88s, A20s, B25s, B26s, etc) that did dive bombing and attack missions, and these should be gone thru on a case by case basis to see who should be allowed to bomb from the pilots seat.  (Somebody check me, but I don't think the Betty or the Ki-67 did dive bombing).

That said, the gunnery is just fine as it is.  You have told them what I DO get - let me tell you what I DO NOT get:
1.  I don't get 8 sets of eyes searching the skies for enemy fighters.
2.  I don't get gunners in multiple planes engaging multiple targets at once.
3.  I don't get the ability to have my gunners actually engage anything while I am in the bombsite over the target.

So if you are insane enough to try to crawl up by B-17s tail, I can step on the rudder and turn right & left, but I am not pulling some high-G split-S on you.   I may go ahead and nose up or down to make you have to climb up to catch me, or give you a longer tail chase, but that is about it.  

The "bomb and bail" problem is not limited to bombers - I see plenty of P-51 base porkers that do the same thing.  A quick suicidal bomb run, strafe a couple of strats until the ack gets you, then rinse & repeat.  The disappearing bombs solution you propose would do nothing to stop either one, as I could just wait until bomb impact then then fly into the dirt and crash instead of bailing out.  A lot of coding by HTC for no benefit at all.   The problem is that there is very little benefit to me flying home (in either a bomber or a fighter) unless I need perks, and I usually don't.  If there was some other benefit to actually bringing a ride home that might change (and there have been some other proposals in the forums about that).

$.02

[save]

If a bomber is attacked properly (and by properly I mean with at least one wingman and by experienced fighter pilots) then it is exactly as pointed out already very easy to kill any bomber. If you attack one alone at high altitude then the bomber can easily out turn any fighter. So either way you need to demonstrate great patience. If you lack the experience then go look for easier targets.

In a single plane, yes, in AH a whole group of tree can dance like a charm doing incredible things, still in a group, pull G and shooting at the same time, if they have a gunner onboard, making it effectively impossible to get them.

Unescorted buff groups where very vulnerable, in here a group of 12 buffs driven by 4 good bomber pilots in formation can be more deadly than anything else. imagine DaveyJ and 99000 and 2 other good gunners in formation ...

Im happy TWC have not discovered that 15 buff sets in a formation are close to invincible, whereas finding 15 heavy TWC P38s are just lunch 

[BnZs]

1) Many bombers not only don't average 1000fpm, they don't ever have a climb rate of 1000fpm.  The bombers that do climb at over 1000fpm are either perked (Mosquito Mk XVI) or have light bomb loads (Ki-67, G4M1 and Boston Mk III), or are slow (B-17G) though the Tu-2 will break that trend a bit.

The B-17 is not "slow". The B-17 formation is barely slower climbing and level than a P-47 burdened with maximum ords, carries 6 times the bombload, and can defend itself far better. The B-24 and Lanc have similar performance and carry heavier bomb loads.
Many other bombers are far less effective than these three, this is true. However, arguing that "bombers" in general, including the Big 3 should have special advantages to help out 2nd string members of the bomber team is like arguing that ALL 109s should get 2 drones because the Emil is difficult to fly and rarely ever seen in the MA.

2) Bombers at 10,000ft are free kills already.

This is absolutely false. I see bombers at 10K getting through over and over. (Most furballs I attend seem to be about 10K to a deck. Why flying a P-51D, I almost never climb it above that strong cruise speed peak it has at 12K, because 99.9% of the time doing so would be pointless.

Even if your numbers were accurate the bomber player will still have committed five times as much of his evening to the sortie than the interceptor will have.

So? Sounds like a good trade-off in exchange for a single player being able to potentially bomb someone's base into a parking lot. If you are broken-hearted about the time bomber pilots are potentially spending in flight, you should positively WEEP for poor GVer's drive time. Why don'tya lobby to give them two "drones" and F3 mode?

I fly B-29s and Mossie XVIs at 28,000ft, B-17s are 25,000ft, Lancasters and Ki-67s at 22,000ft, Bostons and G4M1s at 20,000ft and He111s and Ju88s at 16,000ft.

Sounds like you're wasting your own time there, no one else's fault. Also: Have you been tested for lack of a boredom gene?

 
Bombers at 5k are like a bleeding cow in a school of piranha, not only do they not bedevil fighters, it is a frantic race to get a piece of them before the other fighters kill them all.

Bombers at 5K or below offer NO safe approach for fighters, because the safe guns pass, the direct overhead, cannot be done when there is virtually no room beneath the bombers. Altitudes like this are probably where most bombers take out CVs. Sure if they fly into a swarm of red, bombers will get shot down. Anything will. But they'll probably take a few with them, along with the boat.

Nobody disputes that bombers are more lethal in AH than they were historically,

You and others disputed it until I proved otherwise with numbers.

but the Luftwaffe did not climb slowly up their six either.

They often sat ron their six and destroyed them because in actuality, multiple flexible guns mounted on a flying aircraft manned by multiple individuals>concentrated firepower mounted on a heavily armed fighter, and the gunners themselves are very vulnerable to bullets. In AHII this is not true. Hell, even in WWI arena an F2B on autolevel can be the very devil with ONE machine-gun. Again, this comes from the fact that auto-level essentially gives a flex gun in AHII a rock-steady platform to shoot from, like a wirblewind, and the fact that one individual is controlling multiple sets of guns. The only thing that last part accurately "simulates" are telepathic gunners with a preternatural ability to concentrate their fire.

 They climbed above the bombers and attacked at speed, from the twelve and from the six.

Any speed, any angle except the perfect approach from directly vertical, the bombers chew up the fighters in AHII.

Good!  Maybe that taste of success will help convert them into a paying customer and keep this game alive.
Sorry, but no.  I don't see how making new players completely helpless and unable to taste success is  a good thing.

The argument that "this will make things easier for new players" is fatuous and could be used to justify virtually anything, including unperked Tempests.

In point of fact, you delving far into the territory of unsubstantiated speculation. It is at least as possible that a new players in a fighter gets chewed up by the one thing that should offer him some easy kills, bombers, and is dissuaded for joining by that. It becomes even more likely if this new player is something of a "grognard" who realizes what a load of horsehockey that situation is.

Ok, so now you're backtracking.  Now you want bombers to be even more lethal.

If the labor of six players is tied up in a bomber formation, sure, I'm okay with it being six times more lethal than one manned by only one player. In reality it won't be of course, because the system that allows all the defensive guns to be controlled by 1 and brought to bear on a target is actually more lethal than 6 different individuals firing at will.

 Oh, you didn't realize that currently intercepted bombers that are opposed by equal numbers of players have a far less than 50% chance of hitting their targets?

My numbers reveal that one player in bombers has about an equal chance of shooting down one player in a fighter as the other way around. That is a fifty-fifty chance of survival in such a combat. That really says nothing about the chances of getting through to target, but my experience leans towards almost certainty of bombs on target in the MA.

 If bombers can't hit anything useful reasonably reliably and they are free kills, why would anybody use them?

Bombers in AHII can currently drop thousand pounders down your left nostril, if you happen to be looking upwards. That goes far beyond "hitting reasonably reliably" to the point of absurdity. People would use bombers because the potential payoff for getting them to target is so high. Also, people might potentially use bombers not to end air combat, but to tempt interceptors to come up and tangle with their (actually needed!) escorts. Wow, bombers being used to start fights instead of grief fights out of existence...what a concept!


 

 It is very hard to line up on six worthwhile targets in a single pass. Two or three is more common.

But pretty easy to take out the fighter hangars on one pass, and after that, who cares?

Hey look, put more fighter hangars dispersed around bases, say 25 or so   , and I'll withdraw any concerns with bombers.

And that is assuming that new guy has friends in the game yet.

My point here was that even 3 players in P-47s can't carry the bombload that one formation of buffs hands to ONE player.

You've never seen a rage post by an entitled player who thinks his "targets" ought to lay down and die for his amusement before?  Long time player or no, I have seen it here and on other game's forums.

The only one possibly angry here is you Karnak.

[BnZs]

So, you now admit that a proper attack from above makes bombers easy kills? 

And Rondar is perfectly safe killing other tanks in a Tiger from the next county. Equally relevant to general MA conditions.

Actually, if such an approach is not flown *perfectly*, the fighter still gets chewed up, a good gunner can still chew the fighter pilot up, and there is a good chance of actual collision if the approach is not flown perfectly, which is probably why this somewhat gamey approach was NOT used in R/L very often. Setting up such repeat passes can also be very time consuming, especially with fighters that aren't E monsters. If bombs hit their mark, what is the point of continuing the attack?

[save]

Unfortunately caldera , i've found some pilots have found a way to make the drones warp on demand , effectively ruining the attack from above without risking collision with them. Looks like the lead buff is doing some kind of roll as you dive in on them.

[Karnak]

You think I am angry?

 

You're ridiculous.

Have fun with your crusade as you are immune to actual reason and to seeing what actually happens in game.  You are too invested in seeing things through the filter of your desire to the point that the bomber at 10k that gets through because nobody bothered to intercept it is seen as proof that bombers at 10k are safe. Your cart is in front of your horse.

Ask yourself why such an easy intercept doesn't happen.  The reason it doesn't happen is because most of the fighter boys don't care because the damage bombers can do isn't significant enough to warrant intercepting them.  Yes, even though given a couple of passes they can shut down fighter ops at a given field.

You propose to fix fighter player laziness by removing bombers from the game.

Tootles.

[caldera]

And Rondar is perfectly safe killing other tanks in a Tiger from the next county. Equally relevant to general MA conditions.

Actually, if such an approach is not flown *perfectly*, the fighter still gets chewed up, a good gunner can still chew the fighter pilot up, and there is a good chance of actual collision if the approach is not flown perfectly, which is probably why this somewhat gamey approach was NOT used in R/L very often. Setting up such repeat passes can also be very time consuming, especially with fighters that aren't E monsters. If bombs hit their mark, what is the point of continuing the attack?

You seem to be basing your argument on stopping the bombers.  If they are shot down after hitting their targets, that's fine with me -  everybody wins.  There are other bases, other fights.  You are right about collisions, a large portion of my deaths to bombers are due to just that.  The reason being, is that I am not "leet" and make many mistakes.  Often the same ones, over and over again.  Right you are again, in regards to good gunners.  Those are few and far between, though.  Even still, I have killed 999000 more than he me.  Setting up a proper attack does take more time, as you said.  Taking a few more minutes and bagging a whole formation seems wiser than an impatient, desperation attack that gets you shot down.  

Lack of patience or ignorance of tactics is why your bomber numbers read the way they do.  Everyone is in such a hurry but fail to realize that instead of downing one bomber and getting torched, they could get all three in one sortie.  It isn't rocket science.  Speed is your best weapon against bombers.  Hit them fast and double-time it out, not wade up their 6 and slug it out.  

Unfortunately caldera , i've found some pilots have found a way to make the drones warp on demand , effectively ruining the attack from above without risking collision with them. Looks like the lead buff is doing some kind of roll as you dive in on them.

That happens sometimes and is frustrating.  Collisions are always a danger when using an attack with a high closure rate.  It would be nice if hard maneuvering would break the drone leash, requiring level flight and reduced speed to re-acquire them.  There are definitely some circus performers piloting buffs, but even those guys can still get beat.  Nothing is absolute.  You still may get shot down but against 95% of the bomber pilots, a top-down, high speed attack will favor the fighter pilot most of the time.  Even one like me, who still flies with the stall limiter on.  

[The Fugitive]

If a given fighter tooling around has about 1:1 k/d ratio against fighters, that is par and not worthy of note. If a tool that puts destructive map moving power like no other into the hands of a single player and which historically was brutalized by interceptors when not protected by escorts also has such a k/d, that unbalance is a matter of concern.

If there were a fighter bomber with a 1:1 K/D, 12+ .50s firepower, capable of delivery 6-18K ords on target that regularly shut down entire bases in the MA, likely everyone currently arguing with me would instead be calling for it to be perked in the MA. But when the single-player controlled unit known as the "buff formation" has these same attributes, the matter seems to elude their minds.

This is the part that is clouding your thought process here. This GAME has very little to do with what happened during the war. This game makes concessions for game play such as making buffs a bit tougher maybe, with a better ability to defend themselves so that PAYING players who wish to enjoy the fun of bombing crap can do so with a reasonable chance at success.

As I said, by your numbers it looks to be fairly even, and "fairly" is the key word in that statement. My suggestion to you is learn to shoot buffs with out getting shot yourself.

[kvuo75]

Some penalty should be imposed/ or reward for landing.

there already is reward for landing, the 1.25x perks bonus

http://www.hitechcreations.com/features/perk-points

and there are already penalties for not landing for your score/rank. the death multiplier. eg. you only get 25% if you die. 40% if you get captured 50% if you bail, etc.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/features/scoring

[kvuo75]

"bombers are too tough" sounds like "tanks kill me with main gun"

do it correctly, they are both sitting ducks.

[BnZs]

Lack of patience or ignorance of tactics is why your bomber numbers read the way they do.

If impatient ignoramuses are being shot down by experten, I'd call that the Darwinism and be content with that. Surely you're not claiming the numbers read like they do because the average buffer is relatively more experten than the average fighter pilot? If relative expertise is about the same, then the deciding factor must be inherent advantage in the setup.

That happens sometimes and is frustrating.  Collisions are always a danger when using an attack with a high closure rate.  

A speedy attack not from dead 6 was always prudent against bombers in R/L, this I grant you, though even a dead six approach still ended up doing more damage to the bombers. But conditions in AHII are so distorted that the historically rare straight vertical dive is the ONLY valid approach. And can you imagine doing it against an actual stacked formation of buffs, instead of 3 plane element? The chances of collision would go through the roof.