Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Hans on September 11, 1999, 06:11:00 PM
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Question: How are the bombers being handled this time? No, not the actual aircraft flight performance figures or otto or such, but dropping the bombs.
Will dropping the entire load onto a single target be normal now? Will there be any inherant inaccuracies built into the bombsights to prevent too accurate bombing.
If I had to suggest anything, I would have several large targets that don't just prefer, but REQUIRE several tons of bombs to hit in the space of 10 seconds to destroy them.
The new mantra I want everyone to repeat 100 times: No WW2 bomber at 20k+ ever hit a single man with a single bomb. Please treat port/city/factory/refinery targets as a single, tough-as-nails target instead of a dozen smaller pieces to be bombed individually.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
This "clip board user interface" thingy? How is this going to work? I read between the lines on the webpage that we may (heavily on the "may") get the ability to walk around as a single pilot at the airfield. We will get from the tower to hangers by moving around as an unhorsed pilot (hangers do the plane arming), then walk to the flightline to mount up. This is very interesting. Not only is this extremely immersive (name on sim that has this first person interface), but may even solve the kamikaze base defenders (takeoff, shoot, die, takeoff, shoot die). Your repetative takeoff ability is slowed down and you may even get straffed as a scrambling pilot trying to get to the flighline.
...Or I am completely wrong?
Hans, former bomber commander of JG-51, CO of the Mercenaries.
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I think, and this is very general, that mookie was saying something along the lines of.
For example a post from Pyro along the lines of.
Pyro "Well our first crack at putting this sim/game together we came up with a list of 100 things to do. We have resolved 88 of them with 12 remaining, unfortunately one of them is a real squeak, and we just can't release the beta until it is solved.
We are working on this issue foremost, and need to get the other 11 in-line, but they should be easy once we crack this one tough nut. I'm not making any promises, and don't try to misquote, but the sarcastic two weeks, is just about right.
Sarcastic two weeks being greater that 14 days, but less than 21.
Honest guys were working on it. We want your money.
Something Wonderful is About to happen." would be nice.
Now if I was Pyro, or being paid to by Pyro to answer questions, like you have asked above, and I wanted to wet your appetite but not provide too much info, I would say.
Pyro or PRMan "The first person immersion of selecting load out and pre-flight information gathering will set this Sim/Game well above its contemporary peers. We are still writing the code, and Alpha testing, and can't provide you to much direct information, we ask for your patience, and understand your concerns."
Now I wouldn't deign myself as HTC's mouth piece.
And I really want a whole lot more specific information.
So I won't ask too many direct questions.
Yes, I have asked for a couple of Planes.
Yes, I really like the early war stuph.
And would be satisfied with the answer of.
Once we are through with the Beta Testing, and Release the Sim/Game to the general public, feeling that it has reached a plateau of Playability, we will begin to add new aircraft from the 1939 through Early 1942 era.
But alas, I haven't even heard that.
Sometime a while back, HTC announced how the Basic Strategy will work.
Buffers will have to be involved.
Hopefully Buffs will be added at a pace Equal too, or greater than the Sports Jobs.
If you have, Spit IX's, F190D, and P-51Ds, you are ready to hunt Buff.
So a post about what Bombers we have to have will be posted tonight.
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"I could feel the 20MM Cannon impacting behind me so I made myself small behind the pilot armor" Charlie Bond AVG
[This message has been edited by Downtown (edited 09-11-1999).]
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Hans:
Bomb sight.
Iv'e been writing the bomb sight this week. Ill be putting in a few item's that will make it harder to be accurate but we can't just go by real life accuracy. Simple fact that one or 2 plane buf raids never happend in real life but in the arena we must allow for this event. So the balancing of ordnance lethality v hardness and accuracy is done realitive to game play only.
The clip board interface.
It does move you around the world, between buildings and in and out of your plane in a First person type view. But you move at a very accelerated rate and your body is not seen in the arena.
Downtown;
The first beta will contain
P51d
109g10
spit9
b17g
Possibles on first beta or shortly after beta starts are
c47
la5.
Development of more planes will continue as fast as we can make them.
HiTech
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High Tech...
You're a stand up guy...
I felt bad after I made my last post on the other thread yesterday, and got up dejectedly from my computer and went into town to take my mind off of things...I left the computer logged on, and when I woke up this morning I was still logged on...I was pleasantly surprised when for the heck of it I refreshed the page and found all of this great new info on the board.
Thanks for understanding and making the effort to appease us, (or me anyway.)
Some of the info you've imparted here is even more informative than I was hoping for...I thought asking for specific beta aircraft was beyond the realm of possibility.
"Downtown" hit the nail on the head here...Updates such as ones he's hypothesied are just what seem to be missing from the board...and what would keep things popping around here and wanting folks logging on everyday to see what's new.
Right now you guys are prolly so focused on getting this thing out the door, it may be difficult to remember we are all sitting on the ramp here drooling for details....Any kind of details. Details that you guys might not even think are very informative to us.
If it were at all possible for someone at AH to post a new topic, (so the info doesn't get buried in a thread somewhere,) every week or so about ANYTHING...even what you've been having for lunch, if no other info is available, I'm sure you would find this a happy bubbling place....and I for one wouldn't care how long it takes you to release the beta...I think we all just want to make sure it's the best you can make it in the time you've alloted for yourselves.
A little info goes a long way in fortifying our patience.
Thanks too to Hans who was tending the fire in my absence
Salute Gentlemen...
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Mookie
"Reach Out and Touch Someone"
[This message has been edited by Mookie (edited 09-12-1999).]
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Something Wonderful is About to happen." would be nice.
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Please don't tell me that's the kind of stuff you want to hear. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations
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Pyro you crack me up (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
I have 2 thoughts on bombsight accuracy...
First, don't let the bombsight automagically set the target altitude. Require the player to get some intel on the ground level altitude of the target. In RL the height above target is just about the single most important calculation we make prior to dropping ordinance. WB bombsight automatically calculates this, making literal pinpoint bombing trivial to achieve.
Better yet, make the player input "height above target" instead of target altitude, requiring the player to also pick and hold a constant altitude. Of course, this would require you guys to code in an altitude-hold mode into the autopilot...
Oh yes, adding bomb drag would be cool too. In WB, the bombs have no drag so the bombs continue to travel at the same speed across the ground as when they were released. This isn't right of course, and dramatically increases the chance that low flying fighters and bombers will frag themselves after dropping bombs because the bombs always hit exactly under the fighter or bomber.
Second, if you want to introduce "randomness" into the bombing without it actually being random, add some light winds that vary a little at different altitudes. A knot or two would be enough to cause miss distances.
Of course, once you introduce realistic accuracy, realistic target hardness and bomb frag patterns would need to follow. In WB right now, if you miss the radar by 20 ft even with a 1000lb bomb, it stays up. That's not too realistic eh? Anyhow, it seems to me that adding in more realistic accuracy would require more realistic ground target damage handling. And of course, a bunker should still require a direct hit by a large weapon... This is realistic and is the reason we use LGB's and other PGM's in RL now. Dumb weapons simply suck at taking down bunkers and other hardened point targets unless you drop hundreds of them at a time.
That's more than 2 things, but thats why I use a computer to add and subtract stuff for me (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
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Eagle planes can bomb them selfs that is why the airforce had those paddle looking things added for low level bombing. Bombing is hard enough as it is so lets not mess with it. You will always see more fighter pilots then bomber pilots online. Plus we dont have any weather to deal with that would change all aspect of the game. I do believe yuo want to play it this yeay right.
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Tommy (INDIAN) Toon
http://www.geocities.com/~tltoon
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I guess adding complexity to the buffer's role has to be balanced against how much of a disincentive it would be for a pilot to be a one-plane-raid.
If bombs were to have a randomness attached to their accuracy then maybe if field damage wasn't just a case of taking out individual targets but also allowing for being able to just get a pre-determined amount of ordnance tonnage inside an airfield's perimeter.
That would also allow attacks from all points of the compass instead of just along the maximum-targets-in-one-pass bomblines.
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Glars
RNZAF
glarsmaps.warbirds.org]http://glarsmaps.warbirds.org]glarsmaps.warbirds.org (http://glarsmaps.warbirds.org)
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OK let me get this right; Eagl you want me
( as a bomber pilot, because i a crappy fighter pilot ) you want me to fly around
check winds, check alt, line up, constanly change variations, ( not you saying )no otto
so i have to fight off fighters, drop my load , and get home in one piece. hehe sounds like a great challendge. I guess i'll have to learn to fly a fighter (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
~nastee~
*Flying Aces* ( DoA )
<bomber attachment#
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I thought this was the realism crowd, didn't realize it applied only to fighters eh?
Seriously, bombing in RL is TOUGH. My line of thought is along these lines: Flying fighters is hard and dangerous, and it's not guaranteed that every time you pull the trigger you're gonna hit the other fighter, it's not guaranteed you're going to shoot anyone down, and it's not guaranteed that you're going to survive the sortie.
Why should bomber flying be any different? Why should it be "guaranteed" that you're going to hit your target every time? Why should flying a bomber be so unrealistically easy that the bomber guys get unheard of stats and, assuming they aren't shot down or jumped in the target area, always hit the target?
I'm in favor of adjusting the difficulty, bomb effects, and target types/hardness to balance gameplay, but in RL and historically, bombing was extremely difficult even for the crews that didn't get shot down.
Honestly, I'm suprised that people are afraid that a little skill might be required to accurately drop bombs. Flying a fighter doesn't necessarily come naturally, dropping bombs doesn't either. Or maybe I ought to say "shouldn't".
Hell, I've been dropping bombs for the USAF for over 4 years. It's still tough, and I still miss sometimes. There are guys in WB that have maintained over 100% accuracy ratings for several TOD's. Doesn't that strike some of you as odd?
Just my $.02 of course, because playability is probably more important than absolute historical accuracy and realism. HTC has a finite amount of coding resources and in the end they'll have to balance what they want to do with what they reasonably CAN do.
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
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Gotta go with Eagl here guys...on both high alt bombing aspects, and programming bomb drag. That would make adjusting these factors at a later date to fit game playability a possibility.
I try to take any of Eagl's suggestions seriously...What we do for fun here with our with our simulators...he does for a job in real life.
This IMO makes him a valuble resource...and something we can't have enough of.
Unless he's on your six...Then one's too many of him. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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Mookie
"Reach Out and Touch Someone"
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As an addendum to what HT notes, you also have to look at what motivates people to do things, i.e. what is worthwhile. In a game like this, there are multiple challenges available. Some challenges are related to interacting with the opposition as is the case with dogfighting or trying to defend yourself. Other challenges are based on your skills alone such as being able to do what it takes to hit targets on the ground.
As a bomber pilot, you have a lot of challenges to get through to get your payload to the target. Once you've arrived, there is a skillset that needs to be utilized to put those bombs on target. If you've gone through all that, done everything right, and completely miss your target because we've accurately modeled bombing precision, what's the point and who's going to do it? You're not going to be able put together a 1000 bomber raid to go bomb a factories.
The philosophy we take on the issue of bombing is that we do want to make it require skills that must be mastered. But the proper execution of those skills should result in positive results, not just a crap shoot.
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Doug "Pyro" Balmos
HiTech Creations
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I agree pyro, the proper application of a skills set should result in success... up to a point.
Maybe there can be something that isn't all-or-nothing to measure bombing by? For example, how about instead of an off/on damage set for ground targets, how about a series of states. Full up, light damage, heavy damage, destroyed?
I suppose I'm asking for something to make it so that 100% success isn't always 100% guaranteed by simply following a laundry list of procedures. Bombing just doesn't work that way in RL, the same way chanting "lead, lag, pure pursuit, in range, in plane, in lead deflection" during a dogfight doesn't always result in you shooting down your opponent (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
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eagl you must be someone who hates bombers, what you are asking for would require weather to be modeled. Do you want weather added to the sim. The way gunnery is modeled amy not be 100% accurate either. WWII was 15 years before my time some of those who flew combat could make their plane do things they wernt desinged to do. You probably want otto taken off the guns in all bombers also. In r/l as you say the bombers carried a navigator a bomberdier and two pilots not counting the gunners. Now you want one guy to fly a ungunned target drone to the target area and not beable to hit his target.
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Tommy (INDIAN) Toon
http://www.geocities.com/~tltoon
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Mookie, today for lunch I will be having a sandwich containing deli sliced chicken and hot pepper cheese with a Coke. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif)
Oh yes, I am also frantically modelling the C47A for the beta.
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John "SUPERFLY" Guytan - Art Director
HiTech Creations
"The Artist Formerly Known As MONKEY"
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Now we're getting somewhere.
Spicy or regular mustard? (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Cya up there,
Apeboy
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Yeah eagl, 'fess up, you hate bombers don't you? (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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-bmjk-
617 Squadron RAF
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The first beta will contain
P51d
109g10
spit9
b17g
No 190? Oh boy..tough times for the LW-junkies. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Sascha
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Yea, I harbor a secret grudge that I'm forced to actually act like a bomber pilot in real life, when everyone knows 1) The F-15 is really a fighter, and 2) Bombers are huge, slow, and regardless of their actual name they're pronounced "targets".
Gimme a break indian (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) I've spent hundreds of hours flying WB bombers, and I've spent hundreds of hours flying the modern day equivalent of the jabo fighter. Except that the F-15E also does the level precision bombing as well as dive bombing. Those experiences, both virtual and RL, lead me to the conclusion that bombing in some games is rather easy. In WB, I find the level bombing is probably too easy, because anyone can place a single bomb within a few feet of pinpoint targets. There is almost no skill required. Just have the bombing line centered and green, remember to open the bomb bay doors (the most difficult thing about WB level bombing IMHO is opening the doors), make sure the plane is on auto-level and not accelerating too much, and push the button when the crosshairs go over the target. None of those steps take much skill, it's mere checklist processing.
I'm 100% behind pyro's comments that where bombers are concerned, a player who follows the procedures and has mastered the required skill set should be able to achieve success, but I add on the idea that 100% success should not be guaranteed any more than a fighter should be guaranteed to get 100% rounds hits on another plane just because he is in range, in plane, and pulling lead. The more skilled a pilot is, the better chance of success he should have. If that required paying attention to the winds during climbout (that means no putting plane on autopilot for the climb and going to eat dinner AFK) and actually doing some research about your target prior to launching to get target altitude, then so be it. If HTC can come up with some other skill required, that would be great too. I just think it would be a shame if AH shared the same laser rangefinding precison bombsight that WB has, because once you understand how the WB bombsight works, you're just about guaranteed 100% hits.
Oh yea, almost forgot. WRT OTTO... At the height of my WB career, I maintained over 6 K/D with 13% gunnery, lately I'm around 2-3 K/D with 10%. The last bomber TOD I flew, otto maintained almost 15% gunnery all by himself. Hmmm. The average gunnery of all WB players hovers between 6 and 8%. Otto therefore gets up to double the gunnery percentage of the average WB player. Don't open up that particular can of worms, especially considering the popularity of ackstars in certain other games. There are almost no facts or historical basis to support OTTO's outstanding accuracy except for the nebulous arguments about GAMEPLAY. The game creators and producers hold the last word on gameplay issues, so any discussion about otto on our parts is merely pissing into the wind. The producers have the big picture about that, so while we players can make suggestions, gripe, praise, or whatever, it's up to the producer to make those decisions.
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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!
[This message has been edited by eagl (edited 09-13-1999).]
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HeHe..Superfly...
You are not only a gentleman...you are a gentleman with good taste...Your post made me so hungry I bolted for the galley and sliced the breast off a roasted lemon grass chicken the wife whipped up last nite...In lieu of hot pepper cheese, I crushed a couple of hot peppers on some provalone cheese and dolloped on a little Dijon mustard ...Washing it down right now with an ice cold coke.
Posts like this will have people checking in everyday to see what's new...and I for one really appreciate it...
I'm flattered that you took the time to post Soup...Thanks
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Apeboy, sorry to disappoint you, but I like real Mayo on my sandwiches. I only put (regular) mustard on hotdogs.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I'm having a side of potato salad. Mookie, I think your sandwich sounds tastier than mine. You can't beat home cookin. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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John "SUPERFLY" Guytan - Art Director
HiTech Creations
"The Artist Formerly Known As MONKEY"
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eagl sorry about the way it sounds. Without adding waether to the game bombs are going to drop like they are on a tightrope. no wind no drift maybe they can add a randomly selected dud or a bad fuse that blows in the air and take out what ever is near it. I would not mind weather being added it all add to game play. What you are asking for would require detailed maps with accurate coordinates to each object, altitude heading and etc.etc.. You as a bomber pilot in WB should know its not easy getting to target as is, I personally cant master the bomber yet. As for the F15 all but the E model were fighter the E is a very effective bomber although they all can bomb very well, I personally have seen a F15D with 18 500lb bombs attached to its wings.
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Tommy (INDIAN) Toon
http://www.geocities.com/~tltoon
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Definitely with Eagl on this one.
Success in a WB fighter requires something like fighter pilot skills: ACM, E management, and gunnery. Success in a WB bomber requires GAME skills, rather than bomber pilot skills.
Bomber missions should require skills like mission planning, navigation, and aircraft systems management. Let bomber pilots have the Laser Norden, just make it more realistically difficult to get the bombs over the target.
popeye
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Indian Sayeth
As for the F15 all but the E model were fighter the E is a very effective bomber although they all can bomb very well, I personally have seen a F15D with 18 500lb bombs attached to its wings.
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Um Indian,
I think you missed what eagl does for a living, Im pretty sure he knows that. Thats why his Callsign Eagl. HE FLIES them for a living, he flies the F-15E in the Air Force. Thats why I love talking to sean, when he speaks he knows from whence he is talking about.
As for bombers. Ditto what eagle says (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif).
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Rick "Firefox" Scott
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OK Fighter PUKES heheheeheheheh I just love saying that and hiding behind my otto......anyway.....
I would like to see these people that say Bomber pilots require GAME SKILLS. Yea right!!!!! Have you ever tried to fly in FORMATION (not this loose stuff....Im talking D 0.5) or have you ever tried to fly formation with 3 echelons????? If you have, you'd KNOW that it has nothing to do with GAME skills. Yea I agree anyone can come up in a bomber and fly.....but people can grab a fighter too and get very luckey also.
But to grab a bomber and use it like a TOOL for your uses.....that is a different story.
If you fighter jocks think that this is easy.....you just give me your name and a time that you would like to fly REAL formation on "that other game" and we'll see how good ya are
HEEEEEHHHH GAME SKILLS heheeheheh (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Sam
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450th BG(H)
"The Cottontails"
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Ill jump into this one.
The big problem I have with bombers (and I do like to fly em) is that we are replacing an entire crew with one man. (everyone knows this)
Currently, you are required to be a pilot. You can set an autopilot and jump to gunner or bombadier. But essentially you must be a pilot.
I like gunning! Unfortunately, I could not get a ride as a gunner often enough, so I quit. Also WB's disconnecting gunner bug made me stop too.
But what if we allowed the buffer to sign on as a gunner? and have an autopilot fly a prenavigated route? Make the navigation realistic too. Have the "user" plot the course for the autopilot. Screw up the nav and you miss, but you do get to fly the flight as gunner and bombadier.
The only job I can see not being done by otto would be the bombadier. as bombing is part of the whole strat.
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"Just Plane Nuts"
Gazoo
http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm (http://plaza.v-wave.com/SolarStorm/index.htm)
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--- HiTech: ---
Simple fact that one or 2 plane buf raids never happend in real life but in the arena we must allow for this event
--- End ---
Go check your history books. Just for laughs check out the number of planes in the PLeLvs in Finnish air force, you'll be surprised to see that a whole squadron might be 4 Ju 88s strong, and not all of them went out on every mission.
//fats
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But I want big Buff Raids.
I want us to have a reason for 10, or 15, or 20 of us to get together, and fly formation, and navigate to the target.
I would go for less accurate bombs for less hard targets.
WWII Bombing was Saturation Bombing.
Open the Bombay, and drop em all, and kick out any that stuck.
(And they missed all the time with the saturation bombing too.)
Figure out a way to get the majority, or even a third of the People in the arena in the Buffs.
I have to go with Eagl, less accurate bombs.
Less hard targets, saturation type bombing.
(How about Blast Effect?) should have an effect on surface targets.
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"I could feel the 20MM Cannon impacting behind me so I made myself small behind the pilot armor" Charlie Bond AVG
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Huh?
No Hawg or Butcherbird? I'm crushed...
-cybr-
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K...gotta put this into the bombsight acuracy debate (seeing that I started this thread).
Let me refrase:
I want to see inacurate bombsights, but tempered by very large targets that are hard to miss (aka a WHOLE city block = one target with one damage value). That way even having said crappy sight (no zoom function or something) you can still hit the target zone everytime.
In essence....its not inacurate at all, but just set to a different/larger scale than what Warbirds uses.
Truth be told, it is not the accuracy I am woried about. I want to make a single bomb run and drop a complete load as a single salvo. Thats the key for me. Its more important to me to have one tough, single, large target than several small, individual targets.
Better yet, have targets of increasing difficulty...by which I mean requiring multi plane formation drops to demolish. Regular "targets" need 2 planeloads of bombs in 5 seconds or less time to knock it down. Maybe have several targets that are tougher elsewhere untill you get to the king daddy of targets....the rearmost field "target" that needs an entire flight of 6 bombers to all drop in unison to take it out.
Thats all I want. Formations dropping in unison on large targets.
Hans.
P.s.
My idea of a map layout.
Individual airfields and their custer of buildings (all side by side and are in fact a lone entity i.e. the "target" for that airfield). Two B-17s are needed to take it out, and both need to drop within 5 seconds of each other.
The strat targets. Scattered in various locations not near airfields are the unique targets with the strat functions. These require 4 plane formations to knock out. Fuel refinery, ammo production plant, power station, navy yard, warehouse facility, ect.
And one final mother-of-all-targets....the capitol. Needs 6 B-17s to take it out and has a major effect on the defenders when knocked out...like, say....each feild has a 50% chance of being closed when the capitol is destroyed.
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I think that we need a small random variation in accuracy measured in degrees. This means that the higher you drop from the more chance you have of missing. If the odds are tuned to give a near zero variation 25% of the time then it will encourage people drop at least 4 bombs at a time (we must not forget that people fly bombers that only hold 4 bombs).
My angle is that sometimes I fly B17s and accept that they were not that accurate but sometimes I fly Mosquitos and expect to be able to do pinpoint bombing with it as in RL.
I also like the idea of large targets that need lots of ordinance to destroy but I would hope that we we would be able to do this in waves ie get a 10 minute window to get the required tonnage of bombs on the target. Perhaps the target could reflect in some way its level of damage ie grey smoke=lightly damaged, black smoke=heavily damaged, high flames=about to fall, wreckage=destroyed. If a target gets hit hard and is burning but the defenders manage to stop any more bombers from getting through for 5 minutes it will revert to black smoke then after a further 5 minutes to grey smoke etc. There would still need to be other targets that require precision bombing as well though.
Roblex 6th RAF
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You can still take out certain smaller targets, like ack or DAR antenna with JABOs with 500lbrs. But make the buildings and indurstrial/strategic targets require Buffs to salvo their entire bombload.
If there is a stable steady connection, I will fly in a BOMBER FOrmation, to saturation bomb a target.
Give us a reason to do it.
Of course 50 guys with 500lbrs on theirs Stangs could take out a factory too.
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"I could feel the 20MM Cannon impacting behind me so I made myself small behind the pilot armor" Charlie Bond AVG
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Since we're basically squeaking about a preceding project and trying to extrapolate that into something we haven't seen yet, I'll throw in my $.02 on buffing in said preceding project.
Yes, it isn't very realistic, and no, I don't think it can be a perfect simulation of level bombing giving the gameplay limitations we have.
It's not just formation flying that makes driving the heavies difficult.
And, no, it isn't as simple as "pick your target, green up, open bays and pickle."
Plenty of part-time or vacation buffers may think it is, but it isn't.
First, of all, the WB targets have been hardened in a way that pinpoint precision is necessary if level bombing is to have any effect. If you screw up the split-second lead necessary on the pickle, you'll end up putting a huge crater underneath the target which IRL woulda been destroyed.
Further, the rebuild clocks require either a significant number of bombers, or someone really good. By really good I mean somebody who is capable of closing (or deacking) a small field in one pass, and a mid field in two. Take a look at the field layout sometime: to do that in a single level bomber requires the pilot to know instinctively the flight characteristics of the a/c, and to be able to exploit these while staring down the "Nerden" bombsight.
WB-style level bombing is certainly ahistorical and way too precise, but it is an error to maintain that it's easy, or that it fosters more "game" skills than "pilot" skills. As a solution I find it quite elegant: those meatheads who just want to hop in a buff and bomb something can get mediocre results, while those who really learn the envelope are able to achieve a legendary outcome.
The argument that Otto's accuracy is superior to the average fighter pilot's accuracy is invalid: maneuvering a plane and firing at a hard-banking spitfire is considerable more difficult that sitting in the back of a relatively stable platform (most buffs I shoot down don't squirt around much), and plugging away at a spitfire climbing at near stall speed. If you want to compare Otto and human accuracy, the only way to do this is compare otto's numbers against human gunners' numbers.
That being said, I look forward to seeing what HTC has to offer. Sure, cut the accuracy, increase the number and variety of aspects to be mastered -- I'm all for that. And I have the confidence they won't make some aspects of level bombing so realistic that nobody bothers to do it.
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time to throw another 2cents in. I do have to agree with you eagl in warbirds it is too
easy to bomb alocation. It does need to be
alittle more on skill that on the sim. One
thing that has to be considerd that most fighters you have 1 person in the plane on a bomber you have up to 8 to 10. thats alot to keep up on when you are having fun flying a "target". this is for fun more than anything, remeber a gun is for fun, a weapon is for killing.
~nastee~