Bomber Scoring

[earl1937]

  I know that I brough this subject up months ago, but I think it is worth repeating again! Bombers were designed to do one thing and one thing only: "To force one countries will on another country"! They were and are designed to do only one specific thing, destroy objects on the ground
I have never understood the reasoning behind requiring a bomber pilot to capture bases, deliever supplies and gosh knows what else in order to score a low ranking in Aces High! I have been rewarded with a base capture 2 times in 3 years, because I spend all my time posting and leading missions, so the guys in my squad can enjoy the game more, without having to do all the mission planning requirements: What type of bomber, what support a/c, fighters and such, how much fuel needed, bomb load out, what altitude to attack target and and which angle to approach target to achieve the maximum damage in one pass, not to mention knowing which pilot can hit a hangar and which can't.
Bomber ranking ought to be based on damage inflicted on enemy!
I realize then you would have a horde of bombers flying around, trying to score maximum points per tour, but think of all those big fat bombers to shoot at! LOL

[APDrone]

Well, being a bomber jock myself, I suspect one of the resons the necessity for field captures as vital to a low score is to motivate people to fly goons. 

I don't think it would be a good idea to reward the 30K+ bombers the best bomber rank if they never have to get down and dirty.  The best fighter or GV scores can't be obtained without ever being within range of the enemy's guns.  Well, ok, I suppose if you were fortunate enough to kill all your prey from their unprotected 6.. but you still have to get close enough to shoot them.

Besides, seems that, as CO, I was flying the goon an awful lot..

[Lusche]

I won't comment at the OP wish at the moment, but this

I don't think it would be a good idea to reward the 30K+ bombers the best bomber rank if they never have to get down and dirty. 

...is already the case. Apart from the goon base capture, the key to a supreme bomber score is to milk towns exclusively , which is frequently done from the safety of a very high altitude. And unlike strat missions, enemy fighters come rarely after you during a 30k town milk run and you encounter no flak.

[RotBaron]

Maybe make a base taker category, instead of having captures dominate who has high gv and bomber scores.

There are ppl who do a lot of waiting to capture the base rather than doing anything toward the capture, idk what to do about that, but it can be irritating.

I can't even begin to count the amount of times someone jumps over and gets the base flashing by upping an LVT before the town is WF and thus ruins the possibility for capture all because they wanted to be first in...

[APDrone]

I won't comment at the OP wish at the moment, but this



...is already the case. Apart from the goon base capture, the key to a supreme bomber score is to milk towns exclusively , which is frequently done from the safety of a very high altitude. And unlike strat missions, enemy fighters come rarely after you during a 30k town milk run and you encounter no flak.

Yeah, I know what you mean, although it is fun to bag 20,000 points on a bomber mission.

I used to think that you should get more points if you landed your bomber after it suffered combat damage.  It would reward those who 'got dirty'.  However, the drawback with that is if you did run a mission where you were low ( say, 10k or below ) and your escorts were particularly adept at keeping the red guys off of you, you'd be virtually penalized.

[RotBaron]

Yeah, I know what you mean, although it is fun to bag 20,000 points on a bomber mission.

I used to think that you should get more points if you landed your bomber after it suffered combat damage.  It would reward those who 'got dirty'.  However, the drawback with that is if you did run a mission where you were low ( say, 10k or below ) and your escorts were particularly adept at keeping the red guys off of you, you'd be virtually penalized.

   you get escorts?  I wonder what that's like.

[Chalenge]

I realize then you would have a horde of bombers flying around, trying to score maximum points per tour, but think of all those big fat bombers to shoot at! LOL

When I first started that's exactly how it was. Factories were spread out over the map instead of in one strategic position. One "genius" in particular suggested that he had worked closely with Hitech to come up with the latest style of play, which is bombing towns. Instead of making factories the primary target for points the towns became more important. In fact, the factories seem to be designed to make it impossible to get good bomb strikes, and so towns are also the easiest for bombers to score well.

I was against the change then, and nothing has changed since. However, if you want to improve your score you have no choice but to bomb undefended towns. If you feel bad about that you can call ahead and tell them you're coming I guess.

[APDrone]

If you feel bad about that you can call ahead and tell them you're coming I guess.

Pamphlet loadouts!!  Yes!!   

[earl1937]

Maybe make a base taker category, instead of having captures dominate who has high gv and bomber scores.

There are ppl who do a lot of waiting to capture the base rather than doing anything toward the capture, idk what to do about that, but it can be irritating.

I can't even begin to count the amount of times someone jumps over and gets the base flashing by upping an LVT before the town is WF and thus ruins the possibility for capture all because they wanted to be first in...

Amen!

[caldera]

How about adding a Damage/Hour score category?   That would penalize the high alt fraidy cats somewhat.

[Lusche]

How about adding a Damage/Time score category?   That would penalize the high alt fraidy cats somewhat.

Anyone doing proper long range bombing runs ont he strats would be even more penalized with that change, while 1/2 sector NOE bomb'n'bail will gets some might boost, score wise.

[caldera]

Anyone doing proper long range bombing runs ont he strats would be even more penalized with that change, while 1/2 sector NOE bomb'n'bail will gets some might boost, score wise.

Penalized perhaps, if all you do is Strat runs.   The NOE bomber's score will be hurt in the damage/death category.  The score system should not just reward players who bomb towns from the stratosphere.  Maybe make Strat buildings have a much higher point value than town buildings.

Edited the rest, due to not really knowing what I'm talking about.  Maybe I should retroactively remove all my posts.

[Lusche]

The NOE bomber's score will be hurt in the damage/death category.  The score system should not just reward players who bomb towns from the stratosphere.  

Yes, the damage/category will hurt their scores, but it already did before so that doesn't change. While with the introduction of damage/time they will get a big boost, so for them it's nothing but an overall boost to their scores.

Penalized perhaps, if all you do is Strat runs.  

Not even if it's all you do. Strat runs already put quite some toll on your score by giving you less overall score points and in particular much less damage hit% compared to town busting. I don't think it would be good to penalize that sort of sorties even more compared to short ranged town smashing missions.
And by the way, high alt town milkruns are still quicker to do than most regular high alt strat runs.

I think if the Damage/Death category was replaced with Damage/Hour, there would be much less timidity involved in bombing.

Hooray for bomb'n'bail ! Who cares for returning to base, planning your mission or fight your way back home! Just bail, get a new plane, boost your score!

[bustr]

Is this about late night bombing or prime time bombing?

Making the town the bombing score focus would go along with Hitech trying to make capture objects the combat generators and primary sources of reward in the game. Our game by definition has no mechanism to use strategic bombing as a force multiplier to strategically bring one of the other countries to it's knees and loose the war as a result. The amount of effort to bring the strat to 0% by design helps to preclude that other than as a rare community event.

So do you want more score for milk runs, or the game changed to include true strategic force multiplier war win objects so you don't have to be tied to attacking capture objects designed to create combat as a result?

Bomber fans have been trying to argue with Hitech for years that this game's combat for combat's sake format should be changed. So ultimately bombers can decide the outcome of the war win with the push of a button, if the fighter community ignores them at their peril because that was the kind of strategic tool bombers were in WW2. It's also why these kinds of wishes and subsequent conversations get murky trying to tiptoe around that concept.

Hitech,

Please change the game so strategic bombing is a force to contend with, and elevated to it's proper function as a force multiplier to arbitrate the end of each map win by the press of a button.

[Chalenge]

You might as well ask for what you really want, yes? Current map win percentages as they are, plus a requirement for all factories and the city to be down by at least ##%, and the final button push would be the bombing of HQ.

That would very nicely reproduce the events of real war, force people to defend the factories and HQ both, and perhaps the furballers would be the ones that log off rather than the tank drivers.

Forcing people to do things, anything, is never good for business.