Author Topic: The bombers are gone (Read 510 times)

Easyscor · « **Reply #15 on:** July 22, 2002, 04:06:21 AM »

Let me say right up front, I was recruited to my squad because I knew something about the bombers, at least before v1.10 came out, so I have something of an interest in mastering it, even resistance to change.

Turbot wrote:
Have you seen them? (the bombers)

Ans: We really don't want to write them off just yet.

Revvin says:
...but they can still be effective more so on strategic targets.

Ans: Humm, so that's the only thing they're good for now? Yes, I must agree.

and

"It was still fun for us even though..."

Ans: I wonder how long the squad will follow you on unsuccessful missions. Personally, I won't be risking it as one of the two bomber flight leaders in my squad.

Moose1 wrote:
"Actually, I see fewer of them than I used to, but people are still using them."

Ans: How long do you expect this to continue?

Puck said:

"Realistically the map is more of a JABO hunting ground. Maybe make the strategic targets more condisive to strategic bombing? Right now all we have are tactical targets, which are JABO territory."

Ans: Humm, if that was the intent then it certainly succeded.

Realalistically, I think bombers have been made impotent and are all but useless. The exception being when you carpet bomb an enemy City, not, and I repeat, not a field Town. You'll see me up as jabo until it's fixed.

I hate to end this on a negative note so I must say, I for one like the AK pizza map, but then, I'm a former bomber pilot. wtg AK.

Good hunting all.

Kweassa · « **Reply #16 on:** July 22, 2002, 04:20:31 AM »

having trouble in knocking off individual hangars, yes, I understand. But having trouble with targets in a concentrated area such as towns?

..

Some questions in turn:

1) what's your choice of bombs, salvo and delay for towns?
2) in what method do you do the 'mark' process?
3) your bomb run length?
4) frequency of flight path alterations?

Revvin · « **Reply #17 on:** July 22, 2002, 06:13:33 AM »

Quote

...but they can still be effective more so on strategic targets.

Ans: Humm, so that's the only thing they're good for now? Yes, I must agree.

and

"It was still fun for us even though..."

Ans: I wonder how long the squad will follow you on unsuccessful missions. Personally, I won't be risking it as one of the two bomber flight leaders in my squad.

There are plenty of strategic targets to hit, yes something must be done about the fields but to say you won't fly bombers until you have more than strategic targets to hit is rather childish, kinda along the lines of "well if you won't play my way I'll take my ball home"

Bragging? I was stating a fact, we did have fun and so did many others, only the other week someone from the Rook team (think it was you was'nt it Mipoikel?) who saluted us on a really fun mission even from his point of view as a defending fighter. Bombing does still work and work's well against strategic targets. Sounds to me like you'd prefer to milkrun against no opposition than join in a mission that crossed several enemy sector's and fields. Some weeks we are successful and others we are not depending on the numbers involved in both bombers and more importantly fighter escort. As CO I talk a lot about these sorties with my squad and not one of them has approached me to say they are fed up or dissapointed about these missions, infact every week they ask if we can do it again as have players outside the squad. Personally I'd prefer the intense combat of a long distance sortie flying in formation any day than a boring milkrun with no opposition.

Karnak> I think you perhaps think I want the town's toughened too much, what I want is buildings not falling to a few rounds of cannon shell but instead needing at least 100lb bomb to destroy it either that or have larger towns. If you want to encourage bombing then I think this is what's needed, co-ordinated attacks rather than what we have now, a fast capture setup where one heavy fighter and a goon can capture a field.

mipoikel · « **Reply #18 on:** July 22, 2002, 06:25:42 AM »

Yep. Big bombruns are fun. No matter what side you're in. Fun for bomberdrivers and fun for defenders. I'd rather loose my 262 for a huge buff formation than for a nikidweeb in a furball.

Easyscor · « **Reply #19 on:** July 22, 2002, 06:26:46 AM »

Kweassa,

We seem to be chasing each other through these threads

I re-read my post, and yes, Towns are relatively easy targets for the bombers if you know what your doing i.e. into or with the wind, drop early and spread out the eggs. It only takes 5 1K eggs from a Lancaster to kill a town so it's hard to miss. Paradoxically, the higher I am the better my bomb spread for those and the more likely I am to wipe out the whole Town, or achieve more damage on a City for that mater. Not exactly what was intended I think.

But in this thread I said I think the bombers have become all but useless and agreed with Puck that Jabo's are much more effective on the tactical air field targets including Towns.

It's hard for me to believe, but maybe I'm wrong, HT would intend to make the bombers this ineffective. Were it not for the game balance, the FHs would not require three 1K eggs while the town takes only five. While I think the old system was unrealistic and needed change, the new system went too far the other way. I'm all for requiring skill for a successfull bomb run. I just think the present model discourages players from using bombers.

steely07 · « **Reply #20 on:** July 22, 2002, 06:56:33 AM »

Ahem

Easyscor · « **Reply #21 on:** July 22, 2002, 07:06:22 AM »

Yup Revvin,

But I don't think I was advocating milkruns, that wasn't my my point. When we get to the target, the planned mission isn't successful unless the target is destroyed reguardless of what it is, can't say it any clearer. After that, dropping down to say hiyas is more fun than rtb but we don't need to spend 90 minuts fighting our way across sector lines to do that do we:) It's all linked together. Up a mission, fly with friends, blast the bandits, unload and fight off the horde you stired up. Never expect to land anymore and I'm supprised when it happens but if you can't hit the target, there's no since in crossing all those sector lines anymore. Thus, if you can't come close to killing a FH, there's no reason to cross the fence. Might as well fly into a fur ball at 10K which is much more fun by the way, just don't expect to land the kills.

Kweassa · « **Reply #22 on:** July 22, 2002, 07:42:31 AM »

Then your complaint is clearly misdirected.

The general rule of simulation games are "the realer the better", and the introduction of the Norden style calibration and formations is in many aspects definately for the better.

If one might notice a problem with the effectiveness in bombing, that is because the strategic aspect of AH was never in favor for large scale bombings in the first place, not because bombers were 'neutered' in anyway. In previous versions, bombers had some ability to contribute to overall strat factor because they were performing in an outrageously unrealistic manner.

Requests for reverting to any direction simular to what we had before is npthing much but simple retrogression. What needs to be changed is the overall strat system(which, despite frequent changes, never moved much from the original "kill ack - vulch - bring goon" aspect), not the bombers and bombing.

We need to find a way to incorporate the aspect of "attrition" without pissing off knee-jerk furball lovers, and at the same time have to place large scale targets with numerous ground objects that largely effects performance of military installations.. without adding more lag and performance deficiencies. Whatever solution HTC finds, I expect it won't be in anyway envolved with changing the bombers and bombing.

lazs2 · « **Reply #23 on:** July 22, 2002, 08:17:36 AM »

"if you can't close the FH what's the point"

Yep... If you can't spoil the game for dozens of people with your six year old child skills what's the point? If you can't scream "look at me Ha Ha I made you waste your time" with little or no skill... What's the point?

Mostly bombers in WWII didn't know if they did any damage or not. Fighters fighting other planes knew right away what had happened (mostly). So what's the point? You don't want WWII bombers you want a way for your lack of skill to still impact other playesrs so much that they have to notice you.
lazs

LePaul · « **Reply #24 on:** July 22, 2002, 08:39:59 AM »

I just find it amusing the buffs *had* to be made more realistic while the fighter guys wince at realism in their "backyard". For example, gasp, flying to a fight!

funny how it kinda strikes me as a gameplay concession to the whiney fighter guys since they simply didnt want to DEFEND from bombers in the past version, then whine about the damage they inflicted.

Once I nail down the bomber changes in this version offline, I'll be back to give it a whirl...once I get this G10 outta my system

T0J0 · « **Reply #25 on:** July 22, 2002, 12:09:22 PM »

lazs
You take posts way to personal... And then reply with personal attacks Like "6 year-old child like skills"... i understand your comments lazs about the Buff milk runs in the old versions only cause i have read your arguments over the last several months and agree on several of them regarding one lanc shutting down a base near a furball.
Imagine taking 30 buffs against an Airfield and leaving with 2 FH's down and some Misc damage... I think that is sort of what they are bringing up as an issue... maybe the 2 FH's is an ok result but a crattered airfield in WW2 could close a base for a day until the Bulldozers could clean up the damage.... We don't have the opportunity to damage runways....It also isn't the real war...
We have launched several 15-24 Buff raids that were basicaly a waste of our time... We have had arguments because of it, The frustration level among the Squad is very evident...At this point we just feel that Buffing is a waste of time and we wont participate in it anymore if this is the way it is going to be... obviously it is just "Our" opinion... Others seem to say they have no problems with the new system but as Easyscor pointed out, when you ask them for some pointers they clam up and can't produce evidence that they have been successful at it!!

~~T0J0~~

Revvin · « **Reply #26 on:** July 22, 2002, 12:27:02 PM »

Guys ignore Lazs, he has nothing to bring to the subject of bombers than childish insults.

Back on topic,

Easyscor> Last night I believe was the first time we did not accomplish our mission when running one of this type, the enemy last night was a large bank of cloud that obscurred the target and without a meteorogical report button on the clipboard it's unavoidable. By not being able to hit the HQ their radar stayed up and gave them easy vector to us. We do aim to RTB and take sufficient fuel to do so and consider it only a partial success if we don't make it home. You seem to want to return to the old level's of accuracy that were pure fantasy, personally I don't think bombing has ever been so much fun as it is now. FH's can still be killed with ease, sometimes two at a time, if you want to destroy more then you need to co-ordinate.

lazs2 · « **Reply #27 on:** July 22, 2002, 02:30:56 PM »

lepaul... fluffs and fighters allways have had to fly the exact same distance to the fight. Oh... it might not be so easy to go back to the fluffs once you've seen air combat and tested your skills against others.
lazs

LePaul · « **Reply #28 on:** July 22, 2002, 02:45:36 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by lazs2
lepaul... fluffs and fighters allways have had to fly the exact same distance to the fight. Oh... it might not be so easy to go back to the fluffs once you've seen air combat and tested your skills against others.
lazs

LOL....yea, maybe....suprisingly, at least for now....I have more Kills than Deaths in fighters. Who knew i had it in me. Course having better hardware seems to be making a big difference too! Ditched the P3 550/voodoo 5 for a AMD XP 2000 with a GeForce 4 4600. We likey, we likey 76 FPS!

Easyscor · « **Reply #29 on:** July 22, 2002, 06:04:01 PM »

Revvin wrote:

"You seem to want to return to the old level's of accuracy that were pure fantasy..."

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

As someone said, the old system was hoke.

The first time I flew bombers I was amazed it was modeled with the 'lazer' sights and Lancasters which could fly above their 24K ceiling. I've looked forward to the new system. I expected it to be complicated. I expected it to require skill, patience and practice. I didn't expect flights of 36 B-17s, including drowns and experenced bomber pilots, to be unable to close a puny air base for 15 minutes!

As I understand it, flights of far fewer aircraft closed enemy airfields on a regular basis durring WWII.

My requests?
1. Retain the bombsight calibration, I like it.
2. Make the results more dependent on skill and patience. If the fighters want to save their base, let them interupt the process.
3. Tweek the distribution of the bombs and or
4. Tweek the damage/splash damage of the bombs.
5. Throw out or severly limit bombsight accuracy above the published AC ceiling or above an arbitrary level of say 24K which is the Lancs published ceiling.

That's my wish list. Make of it what you will.