What is WRONG with so many of you - even some experienced ones - that you don't seem to want night in the game? Half of WW2 was fought at night, on land sea and in the air!
OK, so this is a game. Isn't variety GOOD in a game? keeps things interesting? Gives you more things to do, and so everyone more chance of finding something they are good at - which is fun, is it not?
OK, so maybe you, out of personal preference, don't like night flying. Then don't! Simple as that. Either grab a GV, field or ship gun, or logoff and log back when night is over. That's all you have to do. Is that so difficult?
Maybe you thnk flying at night is hard? Not in the kind of nighttime Aces High has, it isn't. It's exactly the same as flying by day, it's just that the sky is black. The ground is actually easier to see in full night in AH than when the sun is low on the horizon.
Fighting at night is hard? Not at all! Again, due to the lighting, it's much the same. What IS more difficult is finding enemy aircraft when you don't know which altitude they are at, but that's it. You can still see other planes before they come into icon range (which IMO is ridiculously far out for night time, but thats the way things are right now). Last night (UK time) in the CT arena, where the Sicily terrain was for most of the time stuck on night-time, a few dozen folk had a rip-roaring time fighting by night. It's atmospheric, and the visibility being DIFFERENT keeps things interesting. You really notice fires more, for one thing.
Now going back to historicity, it has been the case in most WW2 flight sims until fairly recently that one has to fly in bright blue skies with few if any clouds. At first, that was due to the limitatios of home computers, but now? Oddly enough, which air force operated most by clear blue daylight? The US air force. Which sim pilots collectively seem to be most against night flying? US ones.
Why did the LW and RAF operate mostly by night after the start of the war? Because that was what worked best for them with the equipment they had, at the time. So when people start saying "what the LW needs is the He177" the reason I scream "No!" - despite being a specialist LW bomber pilot - is that calls for the He177 stem from the kind of thinking that would turn the LW into an ersatz 8th Air Force, running massed 4-engine escorted bomber raids by daylight.
Well, that may be fun once or twice (variety, remember?) but ultimately it is a case of trying to force everyone to play it the good old USAF way, ie diminishing the variety in the game as a whole. Give me a Do217, and give me clouds and night to work with... yes, give Allied night-fighters some form of Airborne Intercept radar (if the dots on the clipboard arent enough) too, by all means!
But please do NOT keep mindlessly saying "night sux" (sic). All that shows is that you personally do not like it, for whatever reason, whether it be because you are scared you'll find night-flying too hard (certainly isnt so at the moment), or because you are a kill dweeb that cant bear not being able to find a fight within 5 minutes, or because you want to kill the fun of peple who DO want to experience night combat.
The only halfway valid complaint against night I've seen thus far was by Odee (!) who said that he was unhappy with the CT being stuck on night as it kept numbers down in the CT. Well, if that IS the case, then shame on the rest of you who use the CT; it is SUPPOSED to be more realistic than the MA. And if you're telling me that you cant cope with conditions that a middle-aged housewife of uncertain health finds laughably easy, then what does that tell you? That maybe you need to do a LITTLE more practice at whatever skill or skills it is that you are lacking!
The hardest skill in AH is learning to fly in the first place. No,cancel that; it's the second, landing planes is the hardest. If you can handle that by daylight, you can handle it by night as it currently exists in AH.
And if you just dont want to fly by night, then just don't! I won't criticise you for it, just as I won't (and don't) whine that "day sux" either - even though from my point of view daylight is a far harder environment to survive in. And yes, I fly both day and night, fighters and bombers both, GVs when I feel so inclined.
Just PLEASE quit whining about the sky going black every now and then. It isnt really dark enough (as is) to affect much at all, and if you stopped whining and LOOKED around you more, you'd see that. And if you truly don't like night in the MA, be glad that even I wouldnt campaign for the kind of night I'd like to see (in the CT) in the MA - very dark, often little or no moon and sometimes VERY cloudy too - othertimes clear and brightly moonlit. And awash with radar-equipped nightfighters!
Esme
CO, Kampfgeschwader 2 "Holzhammer"
