From a gameplay PoV the manned guns really hurt gameplay.
While I respect your opinion as a long-time AH player, I'm curious what your reasoning behind this statement is.
Here's my reasoning on ack and what I'd like to see in AHIII:Anything that keeps fights further from airfields is good, IMO.How many times have you engaged a co-alt con who does a split-S down to his airfield/town ack at the first merge? Annoying? Yes. But maybe he was slow/heavy or whatever when you found him (since you found him close to his field) so down to the ack he goes. But you don't have to hunt the low/slow/heavy to get kills (they aren't really "fights" after all). If you are circling an enemy base, you aren't looking for a fight, you're looking for an easy kill. Instead fly
between bases (or on the
edge of their radar) and look for good fights, that's where you'll find them.
The best furballs happen between fields, not over them. We've all experienced those great, evenly matched furballs that seem to go on for a while. Ever notice they seem to be out in a no-man's land between fields? Being away from the fields tends to result in people fighting and also tends to keep the fights more evenly matched. However, when the furball starts moving (due to increasing numbers on one side, a fresh squad coming in and dominating the fight, players on one side getting bored, or whatever the reason) the furball then moves closer to the enemy base, and this generally turns into a vulch fest (that auto ack does little to dissuade).
Vulching is horrible for game play. Yes, it happened in reality during WWII; it was how most 262s were shot down – but that doesn’t make it good for the game. I've seen a squad spend hours at the same base deacking and vulching with no intent on taking the base -- just for the purpose of racking up easy, meaningless kills. In fact, witnessing this as a regular occurrence is the main reason I started practicing with manned guns. The real downside of organized vulch-fests, I think, is that it takes a disproportionate tole on newer players who don’t know better, don't know the "don't up from a capped field" mantra, and are just looking to get into a fight. They are often the ones who wind up repeatedly killed on the runway or just off it. I don't see how that is good for gameplay or player retention.
The auto-ack at small fields, ports and v-bases is practically harmless. Deacking one of these is ridiculously easy and can be done by a single player using a small number of cannon rounds. Look at all the full-time base-porkers we have in the game (something that while strategically valid does not exactly promote good combat gameplay). How many times have you seen someone swoop down, strafe down radar, loop around in the ack, strafe down an ord bunker, loop around in the ack again and strafe down the 2nd ord bunker and then fly away unscathed? There are players who do this and only this, and seem to have never bothered to learn a single defensive ACM.
For the reasons above, I believe more/better ack at bases would actually raise the bar and improve gameplay in AH.Since manned guns make ack somewhat more effective and less predictable, I also think they are good for gameplay.
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