Bombers Who Bail

[Bino]

There is scuttlebutt going around that "bailers" are becoming more common.  That is, players who drop their ordnance and then immediately hit the silk.  While the full range of the effects of this behavior may be debatable, one thing is certain: it neither encourages nor prolongs combat.  In fact, the result is just the opposite: combat abruptly stops.  And so I present herewith a modest proposal d'encourager les combats:

If a player bails out within <variable> seconds of having released ordnance, that player will subsequently be required to wait in the tower for

  ( <variable> * ( 1 + <undamaged_planes> ) )  =  <launch_delay>

seconds before he will be able to launch another sortie.  

The <undamaged_planes> value will be initialized to zero and incremented by one for each of the player's aircraft (or drones) that is completely untouched by enemy fire at the time of the bail-out.

A reasonable value for <variable> might be something like "60".

[Lusche]

Bomb'n'Bailer response: Don't bail, just push nose down. Disintegrating plane will send you to tower almost as fast as bailing.

[earl1937]

Bomb'n'Bailer response: Don't bail, just push nose down. Disintegrating plane will send you to tower almost as fast as bailing.

In either case, the player should receive ZERO for his mission!

[Bruv119]

bombers that bail, should have their accounts locked and thrown away.   

[Butcher]

I quit my account again over this, I saw a dar which told me two sets of aircraft were flying toward Rook strats - I climbed to 28k in a Ta-152 to get within 6k of the buffs, and they bailed on me. It took over an hour to climb up and get into position and poof gone.

[Lusche]

I quit my account again over this, I saw a dar which told me two sets of aircraft were flying toward Rook strats - I climbed to 28k in a Ta-152 to get within 6k of the buffs, and they bailed on me. It took over an hour to climb up and get into position and poof gone.

It took you an hour to climb up to 28k and get into position in a Ta 152? 

[Arlo]

I'm sorry but, this is a behavioral situation that is not practically enforceable without negative consequence. As long as there exists a reasonable situation for bailing from an aircraft (it has been damaged beyond repair and is no longer airworthy) then the only possible programming (and it may not be practically possible) is to prevent a player from bailing, entirely, until the aircraft takes terminal damage. That could be the loss of a wing, catching fire, engine out, tail shot off, loss of one or more control surfaces in whole (ailerons - both, elevators - both, rudder the exception) .... and ..... pilot wound. Bomber formations can suffer fatal damage to one of three craft, turning the 'bail switch' on with two fully functional planes in the air.

Now, some of you may be looking at the above as a logical solution. Once again, the 'drive it into the ground' option exists for such intentional behavior. Also, what about the 'bail/auger to join' situation that some if not all of us have probably done. You're flying around looking for a fight and the two or three you headed toward dried up. A squadie or friend texts or voxes you that a big furball just formed at location such and such and he just took off from a nearby CV. There's no telling how long this opportunity will last. To get to the fun on time with a friendly base being more than 5 minutes flight time away you may have to bail or auger. Intentionally. Granted, the auger works. I don't see how the system could tell if it was intentional or not. And, heck, you may not have even noticed the high alt picker that just nosed in to get you. The one that will start a thread later to see if restrictions to your fun can be programmed into the game due to your dweebish ways.

 

[Butcher]

It took you an hour to climb up to 28k and get into position in a Ta 152? 

Yeah, I'm sorry I should of used the airspawn option to be 5k above him and in front of him, however taking off then chasing down buffs at full speed (B24s) took a little while especially when he turned around on me, I had to fly 2 sectors to catch him again (he was flying on the sector line).

It happens every now and then.

[guncrasher]

I dont even remember the last time i saw somebody bomb and bail. 



semp

[HawkerMKII]

bombers that bail, should have their accounts locked and thrown away.   

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaa

[Blinder]

Interesting ..... Anyone who has seen me in my Lancasters knows that I usually explode in a large ball of fire, aluminum, glass, rubber and Merlin engines long before I even remember I'm sitting on a parachute. 

[Karnak]

I think that players who bail from bombers the moment a fighter shows up have low moral fiber.  I don't even really understand the reasoning for it. Even an He111 has guns and thus at least a prayer of winning a fight with a fighter.

That said, I am at a loss as to what can be done about it.  Every solution I've ever seen proposed either has easily exploited loopholes or would have significantly negative effects elsewhere in the game.

[guncrasher]

I think that players who bail from bombers the moment a fighter shows up have low moral fiber.  I don't even really understand the reasoning for it. Even an He111 has guns and thus at least a prayer of winning a fight with a fighter.

That said, I am at a loss as to what can be done about it.  Every solution I've ever seen proposed either has easily exploited loopholes or would have significantly negative effects elsewhere in the game.

see the problem is that it's a one sided opinion.  why is it any different let's say than a fighter who disengages when he's getting  .  isnt it the same thing?  why should fighters be allowed to run away and thus stop bombers from a kill?

I see lots of times fighters who will not engage when I am in a bomber.  and that is a problem because I really want to fight.  what can you do about the fighter that refuses to engage the bombers?  or that makes one pass gets hurt pretty bad and dives to go either ditch or land.


semp

[Blinder]

see the problem is that it's a one sided opinion.  why is it any different let's say than a fighter who disengages when he's getting  .  isnt it the same thing?  why should fighters be allowed to run away and thus stop bombers from a kill?

I see lots of times fighters who will not engage when I am in a bomber.  and that is a problem because I really want to fight.  what can you do about the fighter that refuses to engage the bombers?  or that makes one pass gets hurt pretty bad and dives to go either ditch or land.


semp

I've seen that too. Just the other day I lit someone up in a Spitfire from the tail of my Lanc. I saw pieces fly off him and he dove away smoking. Honestly, I was just tickled pink I was able to make him disengage so I could land successfully.

[Karnak]

see the problem is that it's a one sided opinion.  why is it any different let's say than a fighter who disengages when he's getting   .  isnt it the same thing?  why should fighters be allowed to run away and thus stop bombers from a kill?

I see lots of times fighters who will not engage when I am in a bomber.  and that is a problem because I really want to fight.  what can you do about the fighter that refuses to engage the bombers?  or that makes one pass gets hurt pretty bad and dives to go either ditch or land.


semp

I've seen that too. Just the other day I lit someone up in a Spitfire from the tail of my Lanc. I saw pieces fly off him and he dove away smoking. Honestly, I was just tickled pink I was able to make him disengage so I could land successfully.

Um, yeah.  I am going to have to side with Blinder on this one.  While I love getting a kill on a fighter when in a bomber, if I manage to make a fighter turn tail and run from my bomber I gladly take it as I recognize that the bomber vs fighter fight heavily favors the guy in the fighter.  It even feels like a victory to me because I survived and surviving is victory for a bomber.  Bombers have very different victory criteria for air-to-air combat than do fighters.

Fighters running from a fighter vs fighter fight are annoying of course, hence the "Runstang", "Run90" and other such derogatory nicknames for fast, not terribly maneuverable, fighters that often disengage when the E advantage they entered the fight with starts to slip away from them.  The difference is that such engagements don't usually take the better part of half an hour to reach the prospective battlefield and the battlefield usually offers other potential combats if the fast fighter chooses to run.  When a bomber player at 28k chooses to bail immediately upon a fighter nearing engagement range he utterly wastes that fighter player's time (not to mention the hour or so it took his own bomber to reach that position) and for many of us that would pretty much be a waste of all of the entertainment time we had available for that evening.  It is very frustrating, extremely more so than when a Fw190D-9 runs from me.