Giving more perks for bombers according to time to altitude?

[artik]

Yesterday at MA I logged in and found no "major" dogfight areas but I have seen a red sector near flashing refinery. Also I'm not a good bomber hunter at all I grabbed Ta-152 and started climb to the refinery. I had found there nothing, it stopped flashing and I moved to some closer base were I had seen dots on the radar traveling at around 22K.

Getting to the base I had found a formation of Lancasters flying at 20K I had good speed and altitude advantage  diving from above and than popping up from below while shooting at it I got first one in 1 short pass. Being lazy I didn't repeat the same tactics, the player wasn't shooting for the 2nd pass and I was tempted to 600 yards at dead 6... huge mistake. In any case I got one of Lancasters.

This day seemed to be bombers day as I saw more coming on the radar.

I took off in 152 again and climbed to 20k and found a formation of B-24, I didn't managed to get to them before their first bomb run. Not repeating same mistake I took two of the drones till he got my engine - and I glided safely to the base seeing the single B-24 dropping his load on the base.

Next time I had seen more "problems" near radar factory and once again managed to shut down a single Lancaster at the altitude of around 20K before he killed my engine (once again - don't stay on anybody's 6 for more than 1 second) - and I glided back to the base (just to die in bad landing)

It was fun... Ta-152's gun package just kills anything it touches, great climb and speed - almost infinite WEP, great rang - I have never had so fun hunting bombers (usually my K/D ratio against bombers is way lower)

However...

I felt somehow sorrow for those guys... I spend maybe 5 min of climbing to the target and maybe 1-2 min of acceleration and getting to good position to kill a bomber and usually succeed. If I was little bit more patient and let myself to grab some speed altitude for each pass (1 min) I'd be much more successful (Ta-152 is just killer)

However as a bomber you probably need to spend 45min (especially in Lancaster) to get to the altitude and than travel a long distance when everybody sees you on the sector counters. Then you lineup to the target and some impatient folk kills you and you are lucky if you managed to drop your ordinance.

Maybe we need to provide some "time-to-climb" factor for such a guys...

Time to climb to atitude / factor

2min -> 0.5
5min -> 0.75
10min -> 1.0
20min -> 1.5
30min -> 2.0
45min -> 3.0

So at least if you spend more time on getting to target you get payed...

What do you think?

[Lusche]

Climbing to altitude in a bomber is a tradeoff. You trade time for increased security. If you want to increase the perks/hour, you can take a greater 'risk' and stay lower. There's no need to compensate for this, because it's a deliberate choice.
While I personally love to engage bombers at high and very high altitude and am flying bombers at that altitudes myself, I think it's a bad idea gameplay wise to automatically reward higher altitudes with more perks

[dirtdart]

A B29 that makes it to 35k is really only in fear of one or two airplanes in the set. 262s are horrible and slow if you get them that high, 163s compress as soon as you accelerate, leaving the 152 as your main threat. Empty at that altitude, the B29 flies right at 400 MPH. No much can intercept that flight unless they really plan ahead, and your egress is obvious (go in a straight line to the nearest friendly base = you die before you land).

Snailman and I have had many discussions about how to reward bombers better. IMHO it is all tied to the strats. If you damage the enemies ability to make war by xx%, that should be your perk MULTIPLIER. Imagine how little industry there would be if you could make 100-150 perks killing a refinery, which in then would limit every airfields ability to provide fuel.

HOWEVER..... this is an action game, and as soon as you cripple the ability of the Xboxrs to up and fight, they would log (think of the old AW spitfire factory). So, what you have now is a pretty good system. If you want perkies, up Boston IIIs, put 500 lbs on town centers, land 20-30 perkies for each mission. (If you are willing to switch sides and fly on the low ENY side, 30-40 is possible depending on the bonus) If you want score, up a single B29, 4k bombs, hit town centers, run 4-5 sorties per airplane. Bombers is probably the easiest category to receive "1st."

Dirtdart

 

[lunatic1]

Nobody forces a player to fly bombers. It's personal choice....so bad idea

[artik]

Climbing to altitude in a bomber is a tradeoff. You trade time for increased security.

Good point...

@Skuzzy - actually I didn't want to put this on the wishlist forum - because it wasn't even a wish.  I expected to be a general discussion of bomber reward vs time spend in bomber (that's why I started a big story at the beginning of the thread).

Probably need to state this more clear in the thread.

[Coalcat1]

 The longest bomber mission I have done was a 2 and 3/4 hour B29 mission with over an hour of climbing with full fuel and bombs. I landed a total of 37k damage and a grand total of 2 perks for my 1 and 3/4 hours at 35k. I have absolutely no problem with this. 

[-ammo-]

A B29 that makes it to 35k is really only in fear of one or two airplanes in the set. 262s are horrible and slow if you get them that high, 163s compress as soon as you accelerate, leaving the 152 as your main threat. Empty at that altitude, the B29 flies right at 400 MPH. No much can intercept that flight unless they really plan ahead, and your egress is obvious (go in a straight line to the nearest friendly base = you die before you land).

Dirtdart

Still a difficult task with any of the fast high alt fighters, but a P-47M is one of those that can run down a superfort at that alt.

[dirtdart]

My best lance runs for a flight of 3 were around 50k. Best single mission 3 plane in a 29 was closer to 70k. Of course you kill everyone on the coasts ability to take a town because you cut the heart out of all of them to score.

[Lusche]

My best lance runs for a flight of 3 were around 50k.e.

I suppose you mean the "landed damage message". My best B-17 mission had 54k landed damage.


By the way it's interesting to see how many players are going for the biggest "landed damage message" which doesn't even remotely translate into score at all 

[Randy1]

I think your heart was in the right place but that was about it.

[Coalcat1]

 The best I've seen is over 111k of damage that a squadie acquired after a 2+ hour flight bombing all the towns on the fronts. 

[Coalcat1]

I was only running on half fuel because it was a small map, therefore, I could not land anymore damage due to the fact the other towns where in 163 range.

[muzik]

Good idea.

Anyone who spends time doing the tedious work that ADDS a missing dimension to this game, deserves a little something extra for their effort.

It encourages high alt flying by bombers as opposed to lanc-stuka gaminess. It won't fix anything, but it couldnt hurt. It should have a cut off altitude though, maybe 20 to 25k. After that it's little excessive.