Buffing: Why bother?

[Wanker]

After spending over two hours last night to earn one lousy bomber perk point, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worthwhile to even attempt to buff in the MA anymore.

It takes 60 bomber perks to get to fly the lowest perked bomber, the AR-234. I currently have 9.62 bomber perks. I've been buffing for over 6 years in WB and AH combined, so while I'm not the best buffer by far, I at least know my way around them and am fairly competent. But when you consider the amount of time an average bomber sortie takes compared to a fighter sortie, accruing bomber perks take a much longer time compared to fighter perks.

And when you consider that a buff is easy meat for all but the most inexperienced of fighter pilots, once a buff pilot encounters an enemy fighter, he/she has about an 80% chance of dying shortly thereafter.  

HTC, IMO, caved in to the "Anti-buff" crowd like Lazs and his ilk by moving the strat targets 40 miles behind the front lines, and changing the configuration of the airfields so that buffers have to spend an inordinate amount of time over a field, increasing the exposure time for buffers.

Fine. I can live with that. But at the very least, I would like to ask HTC to bump up the ENY values for all buffs to something more equitable, that would allow the buffers to accrue points at relatively the same rate at which fighter points accrue. Either that or how about reducing the AR234's perk value to 20, or something more fair. At the rate I'm going, it'll take me another 6 months to get 60 bomber perks. If I were to go for just fighter perks in that same time, I know I could get three times that many points in the same amount of time.

How about throwing the bomber fans a bone or two?

[Mickey1992]

Bomber perkies are easy to get, especially if you shoot down an aircraft.  Any sortie in a bomber where you shoot down a couple and bomb at least something should get you 5-6 perkies.  If you take up a TBM with bombs and rockets, getting 3 or 4 perkies should be easy without shooting anything down.

Unless it's part of a mission or some large organized effort, I don't take the 40-50 minutes to get to 20K.  Why bother when a hanger pops in 15 minutes?  Just grab a B26 or a Ki-67 and climb out of ack range.

Tour 27 I had 103 kills in bombers and got killed 47 times.

[BigGun]

If really want perk points for 234, grab a goon. I think you get 12.5 perks for successfully dropping & then landing troops. 5 trips of that & you have the perks.

[zipity]

Resupplying fields also gets you a bunch o perkies.  When bombing try to get multiple targets with 1 bomb, that is a 4k bomb will get you a bunch of city buildings and some perks.

[Wanker]

Thanks for the tips, guys. How many perkies for dropping re-supply for a field?

I don't like the idea of having to use a C-47 to get all my buff perkies. Why can't I get 12 perkies for spending 90 mins on a long range Lanc mission to bomb a country's infratructure? Isn't that helping the war effort as much as dropping troops? And considering how much time you spend in enemy airspace when on one of those missions, you'd think the perk awards would be higher.

How about an increase perk award for time spent in enemy airspace, or the length of the flight? Seems to me that the award should be in alignment with the amount of exposure to hostile airspace.

[pimpjoe]

you cant be giving perks out just for flying in enemy air-space. if that were the case people would just grab a tbm or somethin and go fly around untill they had enough perks to do something.

 i like the bomber perk system as it is

[Wotan]

you can just not in a b17 or lanc. up a ju88 and bomb something.

HT didnt cave into anything. Where was hq prior to the strat?or the factories? they werent frontline. Buffs are less likely to live now because of all the fighters. The current fronts are small and it makes tactical fluffing tough.

You need to kill as much stuff as possible per bomb. Killing 3 fhs in a lanc aint gonna earn many perks. Thats a good thing. It encourages perk farmers to go after true strat targets. If you up within 25 miles of your bomb target chances are you will get killed anyway. Buffing in every game takes patience. I think its boring as you obviously do. Its not very hard either. Every give a thought to the 28k lanc that has flown over 300 miles to get shot down before he drops?

Try the ki67 its fast and with the 20m tail gun you are more likely to get a kill then in any other. I have over 1000 buff perks. I would gladly give them all to you. I fly buffs no more then 3 hours per tour but usually get 2 or 3 field captures. Try droping on the twns you will kill more stuff that way.

[Wanker]

you cant be giving perks out just for flying in enemy air-space. if that were the case people would just grab a tbm or somethin and go fly around untill they had enough perks to do something.

That's not what I meant, pimpjoe. I don't think anyone should get perkies for simply flying into enemy airspace. But I do think that if I took a JU-88 40 miles behind enemy lines, hit a bunch of strat targets and managed to rtb safely, that I should be awarded more points than for flying 5 miles in a C47, dropping resupply at a friendly base then then going back home.  

. I have over 1000 buff perks. I would gladly give them all to you.

And I would gladly accept them. I have no pride!

[SKurj]

you can earn up to about 6 perks for flying resupply.  The number of perks is based on how many damaged objects u supply.


SKurj

[Sabre]

And I would gladly accept them. I have no pride!

That's absolutely true!  You should have seen banana's behavior at the Con last year:eek:  Thankfully, the nightmares have finally tapered off and I no longer hear the voices that used to...what? Oh yeah, okay.  The little voice told me to shut up and get to the point.  I agree that bomber perks are too hard to earn by bombing, or that the Ar234 is too expensive.  As for the strat target issue, I think that implementation of the bomber enhancements HiTech has eluded to should make their effectiveness against strat targets much higher, as well as their survivability.  At the same time, the addition of dispersion will make them less of a direct threat to bases (though not the towns at bases).

[AKSWulfe]

Model accurate bombsights, then up the OBJ value to 100 or something... atleast the perk points will be earned then.
-SW

[Nifty]

yeah, what wulfe said.  Get rid of one sight fits all altitude/speed laser sights.  

[muckmaw]

I would love a bombsight that accurately (As much as possible) models the real thing. Anything that adds realism to the game is a huge plus in my opinion.

Although, I must admit, I fear the adjustments that would be needed on a real bombsight, while trying to fend off enemy interceptors. If and when such a bombsight is implimented, I think you will see many more Bombers taking gunners up with them on their missions. I know I'd be one of them.

I'm all for it!

[popeye]

Just adding the WB style "green light" that requires some seconds of straight and level flight for the bomb sight to stabilize would help.  At least it would make the "Jink-n-Plink" a bit more difficult.

I'd also like to see more weather to make buffing less of a sure thing.

And require some kind of navigation -- without the NAVSTAR "You Are Here" GPS map.

And maybe add engine management for buff drivers.  They have plenty of time and tend to be the anal engineering type anyway.

OTOH, I am not in favor of reducing buffing to carpet bombing for strat points.  I think we play a multiplayer sim to directly affect other players.  If I am not going to evoke a "WTG!", or "DAMNIT!", in some corner of the planet, I'm not going to bother.

But, I digress....

[CavemanJ]

Originally posted by AKSWulfe
Model accurate bombsights, then up the OBJ value to 100 or something... atleast the perk points will be earned then.
-SW

Yep yep

fluff drivers have already been given too many bones