Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Turbot on July 20, 2002, 11:31:40 PM
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Have you seen them?
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.....it's a path of least resistance thing.
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Donno but I shot down 10 last night , from 10 to 12 pm eastern .
I don't see many flying in or near a furball anymore though . Seems the three ship formation isn't any harder to kill than the one ship IMO .
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Just seen 3 b26s turn and run from my mighty 109g2. Decided for some vulching and lettig off the chase.
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No.9 is still here :) The new bomber systems are great and we've had not problems adapting to the new bombsight its not that difficult after some practice. You still need to salvo up and this means more bombers over the target needed but they can still be effective more so on strategic targets. I've managed to take out two hangars in reasonable proximity by using the right combination of speed/delay and salvo so it can be done it'sjust another learning curve which some seem to want to avoid. Of course the other problem is one we've had here since Aces High ever started and it's a problem that effects Warbirds as well and that is the arena is set up for fast capture so as long as you throw up enough heavy fighters with a goon in tow the field is yours. One thing that might help is an increase of targets per airfield (things like larger fuel dumps, planes on the infields, office blocks) and to also toughen up the town buildings that can be totally destroyed by a few cannon rounds.
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Oh, I still see 'em quite a bit. Mostly over my fields. I'm a rook. :)
Actually, I see fewer of them than I used to, but people are still using them. And, people are starting to use them on fields again, not just towns and strat. The difference is, they're using a formation of three 17s or Lancs to kill maybe two FHs or similar targets, instead of using one heavy and its pre-1.10 load of GBU-16s to pinpoint all the fuel from 20k.
I definitely agree we need more heavy-friendly targets, though. Fields and current strats are way too spread out for them. The towns are perfect targets (I like taking fast bombers, Ki-67s or B-26s, and hitting towns from 10k) but it's still faster to swarm the town with fighter-bombers. I like Revvin's idea of toughening up the town a bit, that makes the level bombers a lot more useful.
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Haven't flown a buff since 1.10, as I haven't had a chance to learn the new sight, etc. Do I like it...dunno...thought the whines over it were rather silly. Buffs dont like furballers, furballers dont like buffs...2 parties that wont ever agree on what strat is all about. Most of the folks I've flown buffs with are flying JABO now.
At some point, I'd like to try it out once I've rehearsed how its all supposed to function. In the meantime, I'm having a pretty good time in the 109G10 and the 190A8 :D
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All I saw yesterday were 15 Ju 88s, 20 B-26s, 20 110s, 15 B-17s and 3 lancs. But I only played for 2 hours.
AKDejaVu
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Ive started a new Bomber squadron,so you WILL be seeing a LOT more bombers comin yer way,especially if youre named Saw.....hehehehe :p
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whatever happen to the DickWeed heavy bomber group?
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Wellp, I shot down two and two thirds formations of JU88s in an FM2, and saw another three or five formations go down elsewhere in the area. I'm still learning the bombsight offline, but I'm also learning carrier ops, so it's not something I expect to be able to bring back into the arena anytime in the immediate future.
Basic tactics are going to change; one lanc at 30,000 feet won't be able to close down a field anymore. For that matter a formation of Lancs will probably not be able to close it. Going to need more *GASP* cooperative logistics *gasp* for heavy bombers to be the threat they were before.
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.
Be intersting to see the "factories" turn into huge complexes with monster buildings and *tons* of AAA (more than the impressive golden BB effect of the CVBGs). Something the new area bombing model can really sink its teeth into, and somewhere the JABOS would fear to tread (the non-suicide JABOs).
Don't know the answer. This is still a game, and if it gets slowed down too much that would be a bad thing. The Pizza slowed things down, and the whining, moaning, and gnashing of teeth reached biblical proportions. Personally I just turned off ALL the labeling and had a map with nothing but radar coverage. Want to find a fight, go look for red dots and bars. No thought required.
JMHO. HTH. HAND.
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No.9 Squadron RAF led a mission of 30 B17's tonight so the bombers are far from gone and we're very much enjoying the new changes to the bombsight system in v1.10. Maybe casual bombers have given up bombing but I don't see why as the bombsight is easy enough to use after a bit of practice as we have done as a squad and got it down to a pretty fine art now. Judging from the mails I get as well there are still plenty of pilots wanting to fly bombers or be taught to fly bombers and we had two new guys online tonight with us. The only problem affecting bombers right now is the way the arena's are set up more for fast capture with fields easier to capture with a swarm of heavy fighters rather than co-ordinate with some bombers, as CO of No.9 I have never been asked if we could help because of the fast capture arena setup.
Things that would help would be:
- The introduction of craters damaging undercarriage
- More targets at airfields
- Capture conditions being changed so that more targets needto be destroyed before capture is possible
- Being able to spread drones by a .spread command
- Town object's being tougher to destroy, at the moment they are killed by only a few cannon rounds
Not all of those suggestions would be hard to implement and would certainly give more options open to bombers. Strategic bombing can be fun as we showed tonight in the MA, we crossed several enemy sectors and passed by many enemy held airfields and the only real enemy that stopped our goal of destroying the HQ was a large bank of cloud which forced us to our secondary target and gave the enemy chance to up fighters. It was still fun for us even though we sucuumbed to enemy numbers in the end and I hope fun for the enemy engaging us, certainly realistic to see 30 B17's being attacked by swarms of 109's 190's and 262's.
(http://www.101squadron.co.uk/images/ahsquad/ah210702-1.jpg)
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I shot down 2 of those with 262. Revvin and Keez. :D
Pilot wounded and engine smoking but landed succesfully. :p
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Revvin,
I can't say how strongly I disagree with you about toughening the town. Right now the town is the only thing that the Ki-67, Boston Mk III and TBM can have any effect on. If it gets toughened they won't have any use at all.
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Hi!
Revvin write:
"Town object's being tougher to destroy, at the moment they are killed by only a few cannon rounds"
Before airport town capturing (v1.08?) we need kill (JABO) all airfield acks untill goons could drop to airport map room. Small-Medium-Large airports have different number of akcs ie. workload.
Why we have now only one size of airport towns? Size of the airport should bring less or more workload to attacking side, so:
Small airport have town (village) size like now days
Small NOE JABO team could still destroy small airport town and capture the airport like now days.
Medium have two times bigger town
Medium airport town needs much more destruction power, so do you use bigger jabo team or buffs or even both for the job?
Large have three times bigger town
Large airport capturing is real war. There is way too much of defence power, buildings etc for jabo team alone. Buffs are now very much needed. NOE jabo attack teams could first take out acks flaks, GVs & radas just before buffs arrive...
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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.
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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?
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...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.
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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. :D
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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.
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Ahem :)
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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.
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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.
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"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
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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.
:rolleyes:
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 :D
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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
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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.
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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
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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!
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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.
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I agree Easyscor, some of the suggestions you've made I asked for in the past, we're getting there slowly. I think you've slightly exagerated the ammount of buff's needed to close a small field though ;) Increasing rebuild time is a start and they have increased it for strat targets according to the latest help file, quite a lot higher it seems unless my memory misleads me.
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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
This is completly not true now.
For a bomber to have any accuracy in its drop, it needs to reach drop altitute(about 14000feet minimum), and then needs at least another 25 miles to reach it's target. Throw in the low climb rate, and speed, and you're going to be spending a long time to kill a couple of buildings.
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My take is this:
IMO it is the target structure, not the new bomb model that is kind of goofy.
What is a VH? It is a tent.
What is a FH or a BH? It is a wooden building.
What is a city building? It is a wooden building.
I think the only hardened targets in the game are the Shore Batteries
So lets say:
- To kill a tent is 3k bombs
- To kill a FH or a BH is 3k bombs
- To kill a city building is one 100 pound bomb or a couple passes with 50 cals
- To kill a SB is 3k bombs
This wacky system is how AH progresses as a strategy game. This worked very well with the old LGB bombing model. IMO it does not work very well the new bombing model.
The new bombing model is just one of the coolest things to hit AH. I just feel that to make it reach its full potential, the target damage model also needs to be changed.
IE: More targets!
There just needs to be many more ground targets that make buff raids a neccessity. For example; a small field would have 12 FH's, 12 BH's, 4 VH's etc....
Build the structure damage model so that 100 or 500 pound bombs will destroy these buildings. Make it so that an accurate bomb run leaves destruction in its path, but does not destroy the field. To destroy the field you will need multiple bomber flights, then JABO to finish it off.
Be cool! :)
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fluffers want to have more effect on the fighter war... they want to force people to play with them.
truth is... given a choice the vast majority would like nothing better than to ignore thje fluffs. The more you can ignor the building battlers the better I say.
lazs
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Done correctly level bombing through bombsight is challenging and fun. Its great to have this and other things to do besides fly around in circles.
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Originally posted by lazs2
given a choice the vast majority would like nothing better than to ignore thje fluffs. The more you can ignor the building battlers the better I say.
lazs
Lazs you pretending you have friends again? :D If what you say is true that would mean the majority of ALL players would like to, as you say "ignore the fluffs".
Do you honestly believe this?
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Borrowed from another thread:
US Airforce approximations for crater size
Bomb Weight Crater Diameter
250-lb GP 10 feet
500-lb GP 15 feet
1000-lb GP 35 feet
2000-lb GP 50 feet
A hit from a 550lb bomb
(http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/pol/PolishArmoredTrain.jpg)
That kind of damage if it were to hit the side of a hangar would certainly cause it to collapse and if it were to go through the top then just about everything inside would be destroyed not to mention the hangar also being damaged enough for it to have to be pulled down if it did'nt fall down on it's own from structual damage. I'm not advocating that hangars should be destroyed by smaller loads but a concession to gameplay has to be made. If the ord needed to kill a hangar was lowered we would also see bombers used less and less and a heavy fighter would take down a hangar with ease.
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I just wanted to add something to Easycor's eloquently expressed wish list: cratering runways.
A cratered runway should be unusable for some period of time, say 30 minutes. That wouldn't keep fighters from upping from the grass (unless it too were cratered outside hangars, etc.)...but it would make cratering more meaningful than it is now.
- Dave
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Agreed StracCop you might want to voice your opinion in this (http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59606) thread which was started on the topic of cratering runways. I could never understand why we don't have it here when they do in the 'other' sim that HTC created especially as AH does not suffer from the single spawn point problem 'that' sim had.
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Lazs,
You're sadly mistaken.
Bomber fliers want to have more effect on the war.
They couldn't give a damn about having more effect on on the fighters.
It is distinctly not the same thing.
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I don't think so karnak... but... even if that were true.. When they (fluffers)are talking about more ability to stop the ability of fighters to use an airfield or to force people to play with them.....then it is simply a matter of semantics. They are kidding themselves if they think differently.
lazs
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karnak I must read different posts then you because most of the ones I read say the same thing as StracCop.
That wouldn't keep fighters from upping from the grass (unless it too were cratered outside hangars, etc.)...but it would make cratering more meaningful than it is now.
I understand you may not want that but it seems to me most of others do.
I agree with revvin that weakening the fhs (as with your suggestion in the other thread) will only make it easier and more attractive to jabos.
Also jabos have always been used and have always been more effective in the support of field capture. After all thats what they were designed for.
Bombers need strategic targets that matter. I made a suggestion in that other thread. Lazs made a similar one about bombing cities to the ground to trigger a reset.
Some how it always gets back to "how can bombers stop fighters". Which was never their roll.
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Bombers were used as strategic and tactical weapons,you can't ignore the facts that airfields were bombed to push the enemy back further. This is not about spoiling some furballers fun it's about being part of a co-ordinated field capture and an arena setup where buffs have this historical role. Right now the MA is awash with swarms of gangbanging heavy fighters, it is they who tend to milkrun-gangbang a deserted field.
The large city suggestion will only drive bombers away out of boredom with only one viable target to destroy instead of the various roles they had in WW2.