Radar Testing

[ccvi]

Maybe we found something for the tower flowers to do

That's why they are included in the calculation of the ENY-limit.

[ccvi]

That would be awesome, its information that a pilot would relay in real life to higher headquarters.  It would simulate that reporting for people like me that hate talking on vox,

"XXXX, contacts 5 miles south... uh southwest of my location... maybe 7 miles?"
"XXXX, say position"
"Xxxx, south of Abcd, overhead some river"

Now let's try to paint a map with that information.

[molybdenum]

No, it only takes out the "lone" buff runs. Join in the game, get a mission together, Get some cover to chase off the attackers.

Strat missions with multiple sets of buffs are paradoxically less effective than the lone wolf strat runs in achieving persistent downtimes: someone--often many someones--always resups after a major strat run, and (except for the city strat, which is hit much less frequently nowadays) a c47 or m3's sup drop generally covers all the damaged areas. So what does it matter if you get the strat to 30% or 90%? The same guy or guys can bring it to 100% in the same amount of time if they want to. And the lower the strat %, the greater incentive to resup.

If people want to do bomber missions to strats because of the historicity of it, or because they think they're fun, good for them. But if (like me) they actually want to help their team gain a strategic advantage, the missions, by absorbing a number of players on a timely mission that likely won't have any lasting effect, probably actually would hurt more than they would help.
Didn't someone mention in a post recently that the strat his mission took down from 100% to 19% or whatever was 100% again before he landed his buffs?

[scott66]

Used to be able bring strats up myself before bomber could land when resup was at 30 min less downtime each run.. Now unless it involves multiple runners at same time it isn't really possible unless bomber gets lost and can't find a base to land at... The strat runner puts his quarter in and wants to earn bomber perks that's his quarter... My quarter might be spent earning gv perk points or bomber perks bringing them back up

[popeye]

As I have said over and over, flight school are what is needed and not just a training area. I am sure you have been to other flight sims and seen how their flight schools are set up with an AI instructor

Yep.

I've seen lots of newbies leave after 10 minutes of sitting in the hangar, or four or five 30 second "sorties" where the only enemy they encounter are trees.

[TWCAxew]

Yep.

I've seen lots of newbies leave after 10 minutes of sitting in the hangar, or four or five 30 second "sorties" where the only enemy they encounter are trees.

I need some sort of allert and I will spend all day with them.

DutchVII

[Electroman]

Two things:

1) That sounds to me like "gameplay".
2) How is that different from people seeing your bardar under the old system and coming after your mission?

Wiley.

It's different because before you had to search the grid for the bombers (assuming they were not in a radar ring that was active). There was at least some time / a more sporting / fighting chance. Now with the all seeing dar they fly direct to you, usually coming in high and then dropping right down on you. It has made long distance strat runs much less appealing to buffs especially now. Even with short range buff runs, you can usually tell when a buff has lifted off heading for a nearby base and can easily calculate the altitude and go on a direct intercept course.

Sure, it's fine if you can get escorts but that is not always possible so many bombers do solo flights. Our squad used to do this but with the change many have simply stopped logging into the game since the change as they are frustrated with the direction it has taken. So tell me how this has "improved" gameplay? It has for 1 select group - fighter jocks.

[Lusche]

2) How is that different from people seeing your bardar under the old system and coming after your mission?

Not having an account anymore,I assumed the current "all seeing" dar setting is showing enemy bombers all over the map now as a dot or plane icon?

If so, that would make bomber hunting, especially long range strat raiding / long range mission ones much easier, by an order of a magnitude or so.
As said before, with the old darbar you still had some amount of uncertainty: Bombers of fighter? How many? And where is he going exactly? To determine a vector, you had to follow the darbar and make your guesses, also a change of direction wasn't visible imminently.
Watching the map and figuring out the vector, estimating altitude and possibly raid composition was actually a very central part of the fun for me. Seeing enemy dots all the way would have reduced bomber hunting to a mere bomber harvesting, I could have simply taken a 262 and chased them deep in their territory when they were still climbing.

As a bomber pilot myself I'd say the only proper reaction would have been to take off behind even further, taking only bombers with ample firepower and climb, climb, climb, climb...
(No, you can't simply "get escorts" for long range runs most of the time.)

[Wiley]

It's different because before you had to search the grid for the bombers (assuming they were not in a radar ring that was active). There was at least some time / a more sporting / fighting chance.

Which was generally a trivial matter.  The ONLY time it got tricky was when you had two lone bombers operating independently it could occasionally be difficult to figure out how they were moving through bardar.  Most maps, if you were watching you generally knew its target, which gave you its heading, and where a bomber was at least within a keypad.

Now with the all seeing dar they fly direct to you, usually coming in high and then dropping right down on you. It has made long distance strat runs much less appealing to buffs especially now. Even with short range buff runs, you can usually tell when a buff has lifted off heading for a nearby base and can easily calculate the altitude and go on a direct intercept course.

Sure, it's fine if you can get escorts but that is not always possible so many bombers do solo flights. Our squad used to do this but with the change many have simply stopped logging into the game since the change as they are frustrated with the direction it has taken. So tell me how this has "improved" gameplay? It has for 1 select group - fighter jocks.

So... it's your opinion that a singleton aircraft should have more or less a free shot at the strats to affect the entire other side as long as they can take off a sector or two back and climb a bit.

Singleton bombers were not at all difficult to find and estimate alt on before.  The only thing that is materially different is seemingly more people actually notice you now.  Most likely due to the pearl clutching that has been going on about "THEY CAN SEE MY DOT!"

I am guessing a couple weeks after the radar settings settle down, people will go back to seeing another bandit at ludicrous alt and go back to doing something that entertains them as opposed to climbing for the bomber.  It's new and shiny now, but very few people will go after them habitually.

I do agree with the Snail though, going after a singleton bomber has been reduced to "harvesting" rather than hunting.  It is also possible to bumrush a guy that's just taken off, which you couldn't do before although that runs the risk of interception if they're so inclined.

Wiley.

[Lazerr]

I didnt think killing planes with bombers counted as a kill in the score category? Been awhile since I bombed or looked at score though.

[Lusche]

I didnt think killing planes with bombers counted as a kill in the score category? Been awhile since I bombed or looked at score though.

It doesn't count for the rank calculation.

[Lusche]

Which was generally a trivial matter.  The ONLY time it got tricky was when you had two lone bombers operating independently it could occasionally be difficult to figure out how they were moving through bardar.  Most maps, if you were watching you generally knew its target, which gave you its heading, and where a bomber was at least within a keypad.

Yet, a surprising number of players failed at it

[Wiley]

Yet, a surprising number of players failed at it

I didn't see much failure, I saw a metric buttload of not bothering to do it though.

Wiley.

[715]

Yep.

I've seen lots of newbies leave after 10 minutes of sitting in the hangar, or four or five 30 second "sorties" where the only enemy they encounter are trees.

Maybe it would help if the default fuel level, for bombers at least, was 25% instead of 100%.

[Lusche]

I didn't see much failure,

I saw a lot, constantly

The interceptors taking off behind the bombers, instead of in front of them. Tail chases instead of intercept courses. Arriving at the wrong altitudes. Rolling wirbels on a base for bomber raids that just traverse the edge of the dar at 25K. BBS complaints about "uncatchable" bombers. And last but not least a myriad of "CHEAT!" complains by buff pilots themselves, which I was never supposed to find because they "skipped all base dars"...