Suicide Field Porker Solution?

[muckmaw]

Perhaps this has been put forth already. If so, I apologize.

The main gripe these days for the furball group is the Suicide Jabo porking fuel.

Believe it or not, many Strat guys are on the same side of the fence with the Furballers.

Here's a thought. Not sure if it will work or how hard it would be to impliment.

Why not double the number of AA batteries at all fields? Perhaps tweak their accuracy s a game concession?

It would keep the low level Jabos off the fields, and make it almost impossible for one fighter to take out the entire fuel supply.

Also, double the number of fuel dumps at every field, but leave their hardness alone.

The way I see it, the porking of a fields fuel will require more planes and more effort. They will have to bomber from a higher altitude, to survive the ack. If they do not care to survive, chances are the ack guns will wipe them out before they make their bomb run. It will certainly take them out before they make the second pass.

This may also lead to a resurgence in Level Bombing on a tactical scale.

[najdorf]

I'm not sure about increasing the number of ack guns, but I'm with you on either increasing the number of fuel dumps or making them more difficult to destroy.

I think something else that would encourage people to take level bombers at realistic altitudes is to make some kind of adjustment to the difficulty of hitting anything with a 20K bomber.  It's so much easier to hit something by doing a suicide jabo or a suicide low level b17 run.  So, in this situation, you have a gameplay aspect{level bombing accuracy} that encourages dweebish behavior.

[lazs2]

I have no problem with strengthened ack.

I would prefer that bombs over 100lbs be perked for jabo.  the amount could be easily adjusted to end suicide dweebs.   If they have no effect they will stop.  When they can't get their attention fix esily they find another way.  
lazs

[muckmaw]

I'd rather not touch the toughness of the fuel dump. I mean, after all, it's supposed to be high octane aciation fuel!

Perking all bombs for JABO's ONLY would work but think about how many perks we're got stored up.

We've done this one before too.

Surive, keep the perks and earn more for the tgts you hit.

Die and lose the perks.

The only problem lies in those that die when they get shot down during the furball that may ensue, after the bomb drop. You'd need some kind of timer, like HT said way back. Die within 30 seconds of ord. drop, lose the perks. Survive the 30 seconds, keep em.

If you're trying to live and you don't and lose the perks, TS. You should not ave made the mistake that got you killed.

[Dead Man Flying]

I don't like the idea of extra or more powerful ack, as this merely rewards running and hiding in ack rather than fighting.  However, I think the idea of greatly increasing the number of fuel dumps at each field is an excellent one.  Doing so probably would not eliminate suicide bombing, but it would reduce the ease with which a single dedicated suicide attacker could dictate field conditions.  It might also make other targets such as fighter hangars more attractive.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[rshubert]

You fellows will have the game fine tuned to eliminate strat play before this is over.  That may be some posters' entire purpose.  "For the good of the AH community."

I keep hearing "Strat play is ok BUT", and I think of politicians trying to take away my gun rights "for the good of society".  No, thanks.  I like it the way it is.

[SlapShot]

I would not like to see more AI ack added, but more mannable acks added and spread out all over the place.

That would put the responsibilty in the hands of the people at the base to man the guns and defend it, but it at least give them the ability to defend against a surprise-vulch-NOE mission or a large JABO mission. When we bring in an NOE mission, my Blacksheep squad can deack a large field in less than 20 seconds, if not quicker.

I would also like to see more fuel depots and the hardness of the fuel depots jacked up a bit too. Muck ... yes its aviation fuel, but if I were running a WWII airfield operation, they wouldn't left out in the open as we see it now.

If you want to take out ALL of a fields fuel, it should be at least as hard as it is to take out all the Fighter Hangers.

[muckmaw]

You guys can say what you want about Lazs, but at least he comes to the table with an idea. If he does not like what a person comes up with, he says so, and then gives his idea.

I appreciate the criticism, but the "eyerolling" thing is getting old.

Whats your idea, TW9?

Strat guys are missing the point here. You fail to see that Suicide Fuel porkers are runing the game for both Furballers AND Strat.

What the hell do we need B-17's for when a JABO can do the job faster and more accurately?

Strat is about realism to some extent. Would a lone JABO incapacitate an entire field in WWII?

Right now there are 2 roles for a pilot in AH. You can fly Fighters and Dogfight, or you can fly Jabos and move mud. Both are fun, but what I'm trying to do is put heavy bombing back in the equation.

We could and will bomb strat targets, but that's all but useless if these targets are so easily repaired, which they are.

What I want to do is make the JABO role a challenge for those seeking to survive, and a waste of time for those looking to suicide.

In a perfect world, in my view, the Jabo runs would be a tactical raid, used at the airfield level to help with field capture. The raid would need to be executed by a group. The mission would be planned out, and the task would be a challenge. The Medium bombers would be used in this regard as well, and the heavies would be for Strategic bombing that served a purpose.

We've got all these damn planes in the game and I can count the ones that get the most use on 2 hands.

Remember how bad some people wanted the Stuka? How many organized Stuka raids have you seen on a field? I've yet to see one.

If I hear the air raid siren go off, I can predict what planes are coming in....because it's always the same 5 types!

Look, all I want is a little variety, a little realism, and a little strategic planning. Am I asking too much?

[muckmaw]

Originally posted by rshubert
You fellows will have the game fine tuned to eliminate strat play before this is over.  That may be some posters' entire purpose.  "For the good of the AH community."

I keep hearing "Strat play is ok BUT", and I think of politicians trying to take away my gun rights "for the good of society".  No, thanks.  I like it the way it is.

Shub-

I'm not trying to eliminate strat. You obviously don't know my play style, but I'm one of the most ardent supports of strategic play.

What I'm trying to do is put more strat into the game, not less.

Read  my above post.

[najdorf]

Muck, I agree with what you're saying, but until the difficulty of hitting anything in the heavy bombers is reduced, your going to see primarily suicide jabo's.  No one wants to take the time to up a group of slow moving heavies, get them to the appropriate alt and then have it all for naught because of the difficulty calibrating.

Most will give it a try a few times and then say screw it and up a P-47 with rochets and bombs.

[humble]

I think the real problem is simply lack of a quality defensive effort. All but the best JABO guys are pretty easy to kill before they get to the field if you have a CAP up. As for a single Jabo, it takes at least 2 if not 3 passes on a small field and more on the larger ones. What you could do is alter the ratio of loss...make it harder to lose more than 50% fuel load...or make regeneration faster if you only lose 1/4 or 1/2 of the cells. The only way a single attacker can "stem the tide" is to damage the fuel cells...sounds to me like you want to tilt the table more toward the gangbanger (guy with the most #'s) wins. Biggest issue I have is some kind of a restrictedplane set if you start to lose fighter and/or bomber hangers...ex no la-7, nikki, spitIX if you lose a fighter hanger. For now it's all or nothing. So I'll go pork a fuel cell since I cant make a diff taking out anything else...as for the suicide runs...i hate those guys but dont know how you can stop it.

[Shane]

i think all bombers should be perked 500 points (with a lump sum of perk points, no categorized) and all jabo eggs at 10-25-50-100-150 perkies progressively by size until a person gets 2,500 fighter kills, at which point costs revert to as they are now.

[captg]

I am a big strat player...nothing better than flying over a field with my squaddie and taking out all the fighter hangers in one pass...downside...they are repaired before we land.  Makes it pretty useless.  We stopped bombing fhs long ago...we only hit fuel, ammo, and barracks now.  That takes longer to repair and seems to make a difference.

CaptG
"Goodfellow Boys"

[MWHUN]

With the object of the game being field captures and “resets” the jabo pilot will continue to thrive.  

When AW went to the filed capture mode we had the exact same problems—how do you stop the porker?

The only solution that I have actually seen work was when (in AW) there was a small set of “capturable” neutral bases while the vast majority of the bases were not capturable and in some cases un-porkable.

With the emphasis not on land grab the game provided great furballs and fringe fights.  The strat guys could on the other hand concentrate on capturing the neutral bases that were constantly changing hands.  So everyone got to play his or her own version of the game…

AH has already eliminated the auto-rotation of maps-so a map with limited Neutral filed could be implemented and rotated on a weekly basis.  Also if there is a giant up-roar about reset perks you could change the system where every week you are awarded “perk” points for lets say 6 hours of flight time…

My 2 cents.

[lazs2]

muck... maybe if we had a bunch of quad fifty mounts that were all mannable... high alt fluffs would be unaffected but guys would get good at the quads and actually look forward to a raid of suicide tiffies, 38's or 51d's.

Make it suicide for planes to get too low around  intact fields.   I sorta agree with leviathn that it would allow guys to hide in the ack but... so what?   we don't have to go in after em.   Fluffs dropping bombs from high alt would take out a lot of random targets... some of em would be the mannable aa..   You would allmost need fluffs to "soften up" a field.
lazs