Is the MA strat working? Possible tweaks?

[Hap]

does not like green eggs and ham

[Pepe]

From my point of view, strat model is...hmmm....porked. I think mainly by 2 reasons: fluff guns are absolutely laughable (on the tough side, of course) and strat targets are too easy to destroy with jabos, let alone fluffs.

From my point of view, a strategic target ought to need a strategic hit to suffer any real damage. And by strategic hit I mean not less than 10 or so formations of hvy fluffs (B-17's or hvier).

Besides that, fluff guns should resemble, even by far, I mean, have some (even a light one) touch, aspect, to what they were in real life. I think everyone of us have seen that footage where german planes slowly approached allied bombers' 6, and mauled the buff very badly. Again the old dead horse: try to do it in AH.

If some resemblance to RL heavy bombers combat flying were implemented, bombers should overcome the risk of being anihilated by using hvy fighter escort. Should they let the interceptors pass and work comfortably (I mean they are able to gain buffs' 6) fluffs are toasted.

So, to make it short, make cities and manufacturing plants strategic targets, and the ones that allow a country to produce fuel, ord and even planes. Make them hard to destroy, requiring an awful lot of lbs. needed to lay them to rubble. Make fuel, ord, ack and hangar regeneration time much, and I say MUCH, shorter if strategic targets are intact. And, please, make AH fluff guns something that we can reckon when we see some WWII gun footage.

I don't engage buffs on a regular basis. And I attack them less and less. Makes no fun attacking a zillion guns magically convergingn on your plane, which fires up to absolutely aberrant ranges with incredibly unhistorical accuracy for what we pretend to be a "sim". While it looks like glass, gunner positions are not covered by glass, but for some alien-technology-armoured-transparent material, which basicly provides them with immunity against aircraft fire.

Only if fluff model is closer to what it was flying bombers in WWII I will find my respect for fluff drivers closer to the one I feel for hvy bomber crews in WWII. Currently I have zero respect for them. Well...maybe 0.5 in a 10 scale after the gunsight improvement. At the time being I see them only as annoying bugs in an otherwise...well, let's leave aside GV's ... very good game.


OK OK OK....I will wait for AH2  

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by lazs2
muck.. you and I have a different idea of what is a "good fight".

I do not consider climbing to 15K or so in late dee 9's or pee51's in order to attack escorted ack wagon fluffs a... fight... much less a furball.

I think that is the real problem... the real missunderstanding.  The furballers only have an hour or two to play and they want to fight other guys and they want to see a lot of planes but.. they want pretty even fights.

strat, by it's nature, is a steamroller or it is bad planning..  what you consider excieting (all the prep and anticipation) is boring to us..  Late war planes are pretty boring also.  Missuns well done are missuns that are boring.

I hope that the new missun area will work out well for the building battlers and that the MA can then get back to what it has allways been... air combat between players.

We don't like to come on to get our AH fix for our 1-2 hours only to see that you can't take off from this field or.. this field only has 25% fuel or this field has 20 vultures over it and no ack... or fly 2 sectors to see that the red bar is nothing but a useless field full of osties and m16's..   The "war" is meaningless to us except for the fact that your "war" has made it difficult to find any fun place to fly to or from for our allottec couple of hours.  

this does not endear you to us.   We do not admire you for it.
lazs

I'm not here to be endeared or admired. I'm here to have fun, same as you.

I was surprised to see you landing kills in a 109 last night. Obviously, you have no problem with that aircraft. Unusual to see you out of the FM2.

I only have 2 hours to play last night. I was able to plan and execute 1 mission, and fly a fighter sortie or 2. All in the mission had a great time. That's why we're here. Ans we're planning many more of these raids, as we are enjoying them immensly. Look for at least 3 tonight.

What you consider exciting...chasing each other's tails on the deck, live, die, land, repeat, is boring to me. I can only do it so much and then have to move on.

A mission that is planned and executed to the letter is the greatest achievement for a strategic player.

I'm sorry if "My war" is interferring with your fun. I sincerely am. But this is how AH was designed. If HT did not want us bombing airfields and strat targets..well, we would'nt have bombers.

The only thing I can tell you is to keep talking to HT about how you think the game should be played. If you're right, he'll listen.

Continue on with the "Move the fields closer" and "Harden the Fuel and Hangars" mantra. If HT thinks it's a good plan, we know he'll run with it.

Meanwhile, until there is a change in programming, I'm going to continue planning and executing missions as I and my kind enjoy, with no regard for your idea of fun. Sorry, but I'm sure you understand.

[muckmaw]

Pepe-

Can you produce some documentation as to the effective range of Heavy Bomber's defensive guns?

I mean, something more that what you've seen on TV?

I'm sure HTC would consider making changes to the defensive aramament if there was documentation produced.

And once again, I can live without the repect, admiration, or love of some guys I've never met, who don't share the same ideas of an enjoyable game, and have no bearing on my life aside from a video game.

Trust me, I'll survive.

[lazs2]

muck.. see the challenge thread..

I have no problem with you ruining my fun... other fighters do it all the time.  I just don't want you to do it to easily and without any skill or effort involved and I don't want to be forced to play your way..

Your "missun" meant nothing in the scheme of things..  For me... 2 hours to capture a meaningless field is silly.. for me... logging on onlyu to find that the arena is porked with no radar or no fuel or whatever is a waste of time.
lazs

[Pepe]

Originally posted by muckmaw
Pepe-

Can you produce some documentation as to the effective range of Heavy Bomber's defensive guns?

I mean, something more that what you've seen on TV?

I'm sure HTC would consider making changes to the defensive aramament if there was documentation produced.

Does the name Tony Williams ring a bell?  

And once again, I can live without the repect, admiration, or love of some guys I've never met, who don't share the same ideas of an enjoyable game, and have no bearing on my life aside from a video game.

Hopefully you will keep on like that. Otherwise would be insane.

Trust me, I'll survive.

I don't have any doubt about it...after all you fly fluffs  

[OIO]

methinks HTC just needs to model the gunner's themselves. Its really,really, really hard to kill a gunner, even a P38 shooting 4 50 cals and a 20mm into the very TAIL of a bomber from dead 6 wont kill the tail gunner unless you pour half your ammo into it....and even that is rare.

the turbolaser issue is another matter. Ive found that since HTC added the checks so the buffs didnt shoot guns through the plane's fuselage (aka top turret and ball turret shooting dead 6), the turbolaser lethality has gone down a bit.

If memory serves me right, buff guns use the same 50 cal as the M3 and M16.. but i've yet to be shot down by a single ping from an m16/m3 at d1.4, yet I can fully expect a bomber to ping me once and instantly whack me out of the sky, regardless of whether im flying above it,  under it, in front of it (and flying parallel)  or behind it. Heck a few nights ago i shot down a LANCASTER with my A20's top turret at d1.3 with my being in his very low 6.. fired a short burst and saw like 5 or 6 hit sprites spread through the left wing all the way to the tail section. Lancs 2 left engines smoked and it lost a piece of its tail. What fighter can claim to be able to do the same? Nuts I tell ya.

As Pepe, I rarely bother attacking buffs anymore unless im in a 262, which can hit a buff and smack it off the sky in 1 hit before it can track you with its guns.

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by Pepe
Does the name Tony Williams ring a bell?  

And once again, I can live without the repect, admiration, or love of some guys I've never met, who don't share the same ideas of an enjoyable game, and have no bearing on my life aside from a video game.

Hopefully you will keep on like that. Otherwise would be insane.

Trust me, I'll survive.

I don't have any doubt about it...after all you fly fluffs  

Actually, Tony Williams does not ring a bell.

Could you enlighten me, please?

[OIO]

Tony is some dweeb that trolls these forums. He reeks of gun oil, speaks proper english, has some sort of diploma and has written children's books on the subject of nerf weaponry.

[LePaul]

Well let me play devils advocate here a bit....and yes, my bias is that I do like the buffs.  I like fighters too but I like the bomber mission.

I'm hearing how potent the buff guns are.  I'm truly not seeing it.  The buff's Im flying are largely the Boston and Lancaster.  The Lanc has the tail gun, and the nose and top turrents are much smaller caliber.  The Boston just has the top turrent and as any good fighter guy knows, it cant fire dead six since its tail is its way.  So to kill a Boston, just line up on its 6.  Lancs, will, attack from directly underneath and hit a wingtip.  Poof.  Further, the gun convergence on the buffs seems to be very very short.  Spray from afar and you kill the buff.

We also have to be a better bomber now...sync'ing up the sight and such which is till quite a fine art.  I miss most of the time, thus the larger bombloads I take (Lancs and 18 500s).

I guess I'm not uderstanding is this...if we have a strat system, let's honor it.  If bombers are supposed to have an impact on cities, fuel, etc...then so be it.  But right now, a bombing raid, if it makes it through the hordes of Spits and La7s that dominate the arena, is quickly undone by a resupply.   I mean, why bother?

Surely the furballers are giddy right now, the bomber threat has pretty much been nixxed.  All the bombers I'm seeing are dweeby NOE things...just a lame effort to sneak as many eggs as possible onto a field.  A turbo Jabo.  

I haven't seen too many of the big missions people used to up, say the MAW, 332nd or others...I recall big missions of 10+ bombers to hit 1 or 2 fields or a strat target.  No one seems to do that stuff anymore

Muck, you have some good points.  I don't have the answers but do agree that bufsquealing is fun, if rewarding.  Knowing the base you dropped will be back up before you land makes it all seem like a waste of time.

[Pepe]

Originally posted by muckmaw
Actually, Tony Williams does not ring a bell.

Could you enlighten me, please?

Wow! .... Do you actually read the board?

Ok...just in the remote case you are not kidding, you can check his web page. You might also make a BBS search. Watchout, there is so much light it could make you blind!  

Cheers,

[muckmaw]

Thanks for the link.

I do recall trying to muddle through all that once before...a long time ago, but I did not know the authors name.

Perhaps we should forward that page over to HTC. Maybe they don't know about it either. Of course, I'd be pretty surprised if they did not. May be worth a shot to further your position.

[Pepe]

Muck,

I think this has been said, showed, thrown to, whined about, put, presented or whatever form of communication used more than a thousand times with all kind of proofs in order to have HT "fixing" (I'm using the quotation marks in order to relieve some of the stress the word "fix" seems to put in the system when talking about buff gunnery) buff guns, mainly the aspects relating to lethality and accuracy. Wich relates mainly to guns convergence and absence of "flexible mount" effects (recoil, vibration, lack of stability) modelled.

I firmly believe that we are talking about a straight gameplay concession here. Buffs were dead meat to interceptors in WWII. Both in the sense of being killed with ease and in the sense of Bombers not able to kill their aggressors.

IIRC, and very briefly, 8thAF daylight raids were just on the brisk of stopping just by the attrition rate, and it was only when long range escorts, mainly P-47's and P-51's were ready, their job was possible again.

Finally, and just as I think you felt offended about my "respect" commentary, you have to think of it as "game" respect. I wouldn't be so....stupid? as to judge someone else on such serious terms based only on an online game experience.  

If that's how you felt, I'm sorry, and please accept my appologies. Didn't mean any disrispect on a personal sense.

[muckmaw]

No disrespect taken, and no need to apologize, though I appreciate yor sensitivity. It is quite refreshing on any BBS.

You are probably quite right about it being a game concession.

Perhaps it was done to help simulate the escorts that should be in any mission, but for lackof organization, are not.

The only one who can answer this is Dale.

Do you recall what the loss rate was on the 8th during the peak of operations?

Is that rate similar to the loss rate on a properly, and historically run Buff mission here?

(Those are not rhetorical questions...I'm really asking.)

[Hap]

Originally posted by lazs2
muck.. see the challenge thread..

I have no problem with you ruining my fun

hmmm didn't think it was possible for furballers to have fun diminished since all they need "is a place."