The problem of not being able to get away when they re-up in an La-7 isn't that I cant deal with the La-7, because sometimes I can / sometimes I cant, depends on who it is, just like any other air combat.
The problem is that they do it over and over and over until you run out of gas. You can try to work the fight a little further away each time, and if there are other people on, usually it gets interrupted by others. However, I play a lot late at night, and there aren't many people on, so it often happens that I will watch for people doing porking runs (commonly in a Dora or P-51). I up to chase them, and of course it seems that the general trend is that they run for home despite their alt advantage and the 1v1 odds. I chase, and even though I am sometimes able to catch them, it seems like it always takes most of the distance to their base to do so (I fly F-4U4's, P-51s, and Yak-9U for this duty, the first 2 of which can potentially catch almost anything, the last of which sometimes can). Sometimes even when I don't catch them they are willing to fight with the safety of their airfield just behind them. I have killed a number of airplanes this way, and you can count on the next thing you see is a Spitfire XVI, N1k, or La-7 taking off. The first two arent a big deal, because once I am bingo fuel, they are easy to leave behind since they are slow. The La-7 is the problem if they use that.
Anyhow, I concede this is kind of a personal beef based on situations that have happened recently. That is not the primary reason I want to see this change. Forget that I even mentioned that part. The main reason is the overall shift of the balance of power towards defense.
I play defense sometimes too, and it is childishly easy to stop almost all base take attempts unless they completely close the field down or get a good vulch going, and even then all you have to do is stay alive for 15 minutes while watching for the goon (not hard to do given the right plane (Yak9U!). If its a big horde, they will do one of those two things (drop all hangars or vulch), but I'm talking the smaller attempts you see, such as at night.
Lets take an example of 6 people or so (a flight of bombers, a goon, and four fighters for instance) trying to NOE a base. I guarantee any pilot in the game worth his salt can stop this attack, no matter how they go about doing it, even if he doesn't realize they are there until the base flashes when they hit the dar ring. If you think bases should only be able to be captured by a large horde, then OK, we disagree. Saying I don't want people to be allowed to defend is silly, they would still be able to do so. An ace pilot like yourself can take off in defense and just shoot us all down. I just think if we shoot you down instead, you can't take off again for a few minutes from that base. Feel free to up from a nearby base and come back with alt (which is what most people do anyhow, as that would be the smart move if outnumbered).
As to hangar downtimes, I am quite certain that a long long time ago it was 30 minutes (like in 2001/2002). Can anyone else confirm or deny this?
And, I have taken bases with 3 people that were defended as well. Just recently Zacherof, Google, and myself took a whole string of bases with just the three of us. There were 2 defenders, and we still were able to take the bases due to good timing, maybe a little skill, and undoubtedly some luck as well. In general though, the defender has a huge advantage, which is that he can re-spawn and be back in the fight almost instantly. That makes one person worth an infinite amount of defenders unless you kill the hangars. If attackers die, they face a flight back to the target area of 4-10 minutes (or more in some cases), which essentially takes them out of the immediate fight. Defenders are in it until the hangars go down or until they get tired of dying, or the base gets taken. You even have cases where a guy ups so many times the attackers run out of ammunition just from killing him over and over. He may stink as a fighter pilot, but makes a great target. Anyone can kill a goon though, and after he runs everybody out of ammunition, it is now obviously unsafe to bring the goon in. For bases that are M-3 capturable, its not as much of a factor, but half the time you don't have that option.
Anyhow, I know not everybody is going to like this idea, I like it though. I don't want it to become basketball where there is a score (base capture) every few seconds and it becomes not a challenge and meaningless; but it shouldn't be soccer either where it is almost impossible to take a base. The offense and defense should be somewhat balanced. Like I said, I would like to see it where it takes roughly about a 3:1 attack:defense ratio to overcome if we are talking about all average pilots. With an expert or a noob, that would be out the window of course.
