Seems some want bombers to have an "historic role" in the MA, where nothing else is at all "historic".
Well, let's look at the way that AH was built. If HiTech had wanted to produce a sim for the fighter fanatics to furball endlessly, the technology exists to run drone buff groups around the arena; there would have been no reason to include bombers in the flyable planes.
Therefore HiTech must have had a reason for wanting player-flown bombers.
The pre-1.10 arena had ground targets unrealistically dispersed so that bombers, with their laser-guided bombs, wouldn't be able to sail over a field or installation and snipe enough targets to cripple the field or installation. If a buffer wanted to get more than two or three targets, they had to choose their approach carefully or make multiple passes.
1.10 changed bombing so that the bombs disperse realistically; it's no longer possible to sail a Lancaster over a field and snipe three hangars, two ammo bunkers, a barracks, and an AA emplacement in one pass -- and setting up a second pass can take long enough that targets struck on the first pass can be up again by the second pass. So there's nothing a bomber can do for tactical support that can't be done as well by jabo missions.
The implementation, in 1.10 as well, of a strategic supply system that appears to be fully nonfunctional, removes the
strategic mission for bombers, as well. What's the point for taking two hours to climb to altitude, run into enemy airspace (when the field ownership isn't so chaotic that you can't just make five-minute jabo runs to the nearby enemy strategic supply base), just to bomb a half-dozen structures at a strategic target when
flattening it doesn't affect the country that owns it?
The net effect is to create a powerful disincentive to fly bombers. But, since HiTech must want flyable bombers for some reason, there needs to be some
reason for the players to
fly bombers. Think about what the MA would be like if all the uberplanes were perk-free. If you don't give the bomber pilots any incentive to fly bombers, and give them a gruntload of drawbacks, pretty soon you aren't going to see anyone flying bombers. Which defeats the purpose of putting them in the game in the first place.
Maybe the answer is to triple or quadruple the number of AA emplacements at all ground installations, to make it clearing all the AA out enough harder that bringing in bomber strikes to cut swaths of damage across the field is more efficient. Maybe the answer is making strategic targets more important to field supply. If you change the game so that bombers make a difference to the gameplay, then you're going to have fighters going up to shoot down the incoming bombers before their fields get trashed or get their supply cut off. And because the fighters are coming up after the bombers, if a bomber formation hitting a target is more effective than the same time spend jaboing, then you're going to see fighters coming up
with the bombers to defend them -- which brings you right back to the fighter-vs-fighter combat, so you don't
lose anything except some of the 'get shot down, take off, fly for three minutes, rejoin the furball' perpetual meat grinder.
Or maybe what it's going to take is enough of the people who
did enjoy buffing to group together and make three- or four-group runs on the furball fields and trash the fighter hangars, ammo, and fuel; there have been a pile of suggestions thrown out for discussion about ways to allow bombing to affect gameplay without preventing fighters from taking off to furball, but all I hear from whiners like lasz2 is "
No, no, no -- if you let bombers have any effect on my precious furballs, it will destroy the game and all the fun I get from it!" -- nothing constructive, contributing nothing, just whining about how giving bombing
any effect on the rest of the game is going to ruin the game completely.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
