Wotan,
You're at level flight at 500 ft, and the bomb will arm if you drop it at 350 but not if you drop it at 150?
If this is true, then something is badly porked in the game physics. One of the first gravity experiment done in junior high science class is the one where you drop a marble at the same time you fling one horizontally from the same altitude, and they both hit the ground at the same time.
Bombs work the same way in real life, with only rather small variations depending on if the bomb is above or below it's terminal velocity. I'm pretty sure HT didn't code that in, since the last time I bothered flying a bomber in AH the bombs still hit directly below the bomber indicating that there is no drag whatsoever being applied to the bomb. This may have changed, but I haven't buffed in quite a while. About the only way a bomb should hit directly below the plane that releases it is if it's released in a vertical climb or dive, or if after bomb release the pilot decelerates rapidly. The distance behind the aircraft the bomb impacts is called "Bomb trail" in real life and it's an important consideration when planning a bombing pass without using a modern computing bombsight.
Which brings me back to my original point... There are plenty of realism enhancements that can be made to how bombs work in the game without messing with bomb effect timeouts.
In WB when similiar controversy surrounded lazer-like guns, we got more realistic ammo trajectories and impact energies instead. This had the unfortunate impact of initially pointing out some flaws in the damage model (insta-death pilot kills became the usual result of taking any hits) but the realism of the entire game system moved FORWARD, where the alternatives such as an altered "hit bubble" in the front quarter or making bullets disappear at some arbitrary range, would have had the desired gameplay effects immediately but at the cost of severe realism compromise.
Lets see some more weapons employment realism first, THEN fake things for gameplay if we can't get that to work.
Here are some suggestions that might give the desired results in the main arena without compromising the integrity of the game:
Make sure bombs have a terminal velocity and drag. If this means a flight model for each bomb or just a shortened trajectory after release, take the time to make the bombs act like real bombs. Add weapon release parameters that prevent abuse of the system, just like flap and gear limiting speeds prevent them being abused like they were in earlier game versions. Start with aircraft attitude, G, pitch/roll/yaw rate, and speed limits on bomb release. For example, rolling a heavy bomber as bombs exit the bomb bay may cause the bombs to impact the side of the bomb bay or bomb bay doors (happened to a B-1 in Desert Fox), and pulling excessive G's (or negative G's) during release may cause the bomb to hang up on the aircraft without releasing properly. DOCUMENT these parameters (approximates are fine), as they would be made available to a real pilot in the form of standard operating limits. Then make the consequences severe enough to discourage abuse. Make bombs hang or impact the aircraft causing minor damage if released improperly, just like the landing gear gets stuck down if oversped, but don't make the consequences severe enough to discourage bomber use of course.
How's that for productive suggestions? Guess what, most of them were made years ago by myself and others, and they were either discarded or put on the back burner. It's HT and Pyro's JOB to prioritize feature addition, and they see the results of those decisions far more clearly than ANY player can. This time however, I suggest upping the priority of some useful, realistic features instead of coding something goofy and fake.
flames > /dev/soma_percoset
productive_discussion > /dev/hot_tub_therapy_ahhhhh
