Author Topic: Bomber Surprise (Read 1094 times)

Wotan · « **Reply #15 on:** July 18, 2002, 02:41:33 PM »

why bomb the airfield?

jabos can deal with it. Hit the strat targets. Twns, cities, factories, hq, etc.

Use bomber in a roll that they were designed for. Dont expect to snipe of individaul buildins on an airfield. Theres a reason why attack and fighter bomber aircraft were developed.

Karnak · « **Reply #16 on:** July 18, 2002, 03:00:54 PM »

Wotan,

There's no point to hitting the factories. They're too spread out to do any damage and they don't have any effect on the game.

I spent an hour in Lancs in order to destroy a single AA factory building. My bombs marched all the way across the middle of the AA factory complex, but the the complexes are almost completely empty space.

In order to get bombers to hit these targets the targets must play a significant part in the game and be able to be significantly impacted by a trio of bombers. Right now they do not affect the game in any significant fashion and are basically immune to anything short of a 15-30 bomber raid.

TracerX · « **Reply #17 on:** July 18, 2002, 03:06:19 PM »

I agree with Innominate about the bomber damage carryover stuff. I think that bug has been mentioned before, and has the attention of the AH staff. Hopefully we will get a resolution on that issue soon.

If I could change one thing with the calibration system however, it would be to have a way to control the speed of the bombers automatically. Not like the current auto speed setting, which uses altitude changes to match speed. I have noticed that the B-17 is one of the most accurate bombers for me because its speed "settles" relatively quickly. It takes a lot less time for the B-17 to come off climb speed and settle into the level bombing speed that I like, and setup for the second drop is also much shorter because of this.

With the Lancaster, it takes almost a full sector "settle" on a final bombing speed, and small changes in throttle will take much too long to settle on. It is almost like it is on skates. I have found that this acceleration issue is the primary reason for my inaccuracies, and if I take more time to allow for these speed changes, I am much more accurate. Allowing a speed setting that would automatically adjust throttle to maintain speed would significantly shorten this calibration process.

I am not sure how difficult this would be, but it is just an idea to help the calibration process. Wasn't the speed controlled by the bombardier on the bomb runs in real life anyway?

Innominate · « **Reply #18 on:** July 18, 2002, 04:48:45 PM »

Trying to bomb a factory is no different from trying to bomb a field. Both are virtually all empty space and require pinpoint drops to actually inflict any damage. On top of that, strat targets have little effect on the game, especially on akdesert. We can take three people, hit three seperate strat targets, and then any fields we attack within the next hour will take another 20-30mins to repair(Except hangars which are hardly affected).

Never mind that by the time an attack gets there the strat has started repairing, and that if you can GET a successfull attack on a field, you might as well just cap it and wait for a goon.

Strat bombing, leaving bombers out of field attacks, sounds good. But in the game, strat bombing is pointless without the ability to bomb fields.

Samiam · « **Reply #19 on:** July 19, 2002, 09:33:02 AM »

For bombing airfields to be more effective *and* realistic:

Bomb craters should behave like debris. That is, planes and vehicles shouldn't be able to drive over them w/o damage (or in the present case, blowing up).

A flight of three B17's with 500lb bombs could essentially shut down a small or medium field by trashing the runways. Scattering bombs around the VH would make it difficult to drive a vehicle out safely.

I also agree that the factories are a little too sparse for effective bombing with a single box of three. If flattening a factory had a more tangible/noticeable effect on gameplay, it would motivate larger missions of bombers to hit them, but as it is I don't think anybody really notices when one of their factories has been brought to 0%, so why bother. The only thing that is generally noticeable is when dar is brought down.

ET · « **Reply #20 on:** July 19, 2002, 11:03:00 AM »

The fun of bombing is gone. Even when I set up right I don't get a lot of hits. Bombing factorys is useless work at best. Bombing ordinance on fields is hit or miss. Kill a hanger and its back up before you land. Dropping 3 times the bombs and getting 1/3 the hits. Fighters don't get hit by ack so they jump you while your in bombsite. Jump to guns to protect your plane and you have to make a ten minute turn to get back on target. Turn too quick and bye bye drones.
Check the K/D ratio between last tour and this one.Kill ratio of B17, B26 and Lancs has doubled.

Shiva · « **Reply #21 on:** July 19, 2002, 12:24:58 PM »

Quote

Bomb craters should behave like debris. That is, planes and vehicles shouldn't be able to drive over them w/o damage (or in the present case, blowing up).

This is an excellent idea; with all the complaining about level bombing being ineffective against airfields. Have the craters appear on the ground where the bomb hits, and cause X amount of damage to the landing gear of a plane that tries to taxi across the crater. Past a certain point, though, the crater would be deep enough that dropping a gear into the crater would be enough to tumble the plane and destroy it.

A picture of a Stuka attack against a Polish armored train, dropping a single 550-lb bomb:

You can estimate the crater size from the track guage and the people standing to the left of the train.

From estimates used by the US Air Force for its dropped ordnance, a 250-lb GP bomb can be expected to make a crater about 10' in diameter, a 500-lb bomb a crater about 15' in diameter, a 1000-lb bomb a crater about 35' in diameter, and a 2000-lb bomb a crater about 50' in diameter. The depth of a crater is roughly half the crater diameter.

Of course, it would be necessary to add ground repair to the field rebuild process. It would be simplest to abstract it so that a crater of size X would be repaired in Y minutes, with each field size being able to repair a different number of craters at the same time (i.e., bigger fields have more people to work on repair). There should also be a drivable repair vehicle -- some sort of bulldozer would be perfect -- that could ignore the effects of driving across craters, and that would repair a crater by driving across it a number of times dependent on the crater size.

Samiam · « **Reply #22 on:** July 19, 2002, 12:35:51 PM »

Craters already appear and there does seem to be a "ground repair" process figured in, because craters dissappear as structure damage is repaired.

A quick and simple implementation would be for a crater to just be a piece of debris - run into it and *boom*.

Of course it would be better if there were an actual damage model associated with them, but the same is true for building debris.

Note that you couldn't necessarily completely disable an airfied with bomb craters, because folks could simply take off w/o using the runway (Spits and Zeros hardly require a runway). But it certainly would be a crippling effect and add some realism in the process.

It should also be possible to stop a train resupply by bombing the tracks.

BenDover · « **Reply #23 on:** July 19, 2002, 12:37:06 PM »

how about a 4000lb bomb,

or better yet,
12,000
22,000lb?

BenDover · « **Reply #24 on:** July 19, 2002, 12:52:59 PM »

oh yeah, pre-1.04 (i think) had crater damage

I think it was removed due to people whining about the laser guided bombs landing on spawn points

but we don't have that anymore, do we?

SKurj · « **Reply #25 on:** July 19, 2002, 01:28:07 PM »

closing down the runways with eggs... bad idea...

but .. hitting targets at a field or factory right now... pointless to even try

SKurj

Samiam · « **Reply #26 on:** July 19, 2002, 02:50:23 PM »

Skurj, why would having bomb damage to runways be a bad idea? It was certainly a valid tactic in WWII.

Admitedly, dirt runways are easily repaired (and thus arguably should have a shorter regeneration time), but I'll argue bombing improved runways, roads, and RR tracks is every bit as valid as bombing a hanger or factory and should be reflected in AH.

Innominate · « **Reply #27 on:** July 19, 2002, 02:57:37 PM »

Killing runways would be kind of pointless, since they arent actually needed. No point in bothering when there are other less drastic ways to make bombing worth it.

BGBMAW · « **Reply #28 on:** July 19, 2002, 03:19:52 PM »

yes please incorporate bom dameg to runways as the boming is reall whacked now........

I can carpet bom a cv from 11k and im 6 for 6 on killn them....

But an air field!!! im 4 for 10 on hittng a specific target..ARGHHHH

It is a bit frustrating now this whloe bomr thing...does any1 here have a 70% or higher hit rate on the targtes they meant to hit?? On an Airfield???

Love BiGB
xoxoxo

2Slow · « **Reply #29 on:** July 19, 2002, 03:20:46 PM »

"Bomb craters should behave like debris. That is, planes and vehicles shouldn't be able to drive over them w/o damage (or in the present case, blowing up). "

In AW craters were fatal. In Fighter Aces craters and crashed aircraft were fatal. I think this is a good idea. Crater out the spawn point, then the runway and hanger approaches.

Won't do you any good to spawn from the hanger if both ends are blocked with craters.