"Would they add anything to playability?" Thats the hat pin that pops the balloon. I don't know, in pembquist's fantasy land barrage balloons wouldn't be at every vbase or port. Where they were deployed they would not all be in the same locations (like base ack is) but would be random and at random altitudes. The cables would be invisible, (why they put orange balls on power lines,) and would shred foe or friend. They would not disolve with one or two rounds of cannon fire but would be a little hard to shoot down so they wouldn't be arcade targets (ack that doesnt' shoot back.) When shot down they would slowly reappear in a different place, same base, slowly winching up to some new altitude. When shot down they would slowly descend in a ball of fire with their cable festooning the ground and decapitating unlucky troops in m3s or parachutes (ok thats' too much.) They could also be deployed by an M3 for someone that wants to geek out. These player deployed balloons would not come back automatically. The best part is if a gv blasts the anchor point of a balloon it goes adrift climbing to its equilibrium altitude and floating around with a 1000 yard invisible cable like crude aerial landmine.
I'm guessing most players would be unimpressed by all this but thats kind of where my thinking goes. I'd like to see some difference between the bases and towns but still keep them common enough that the game is very playable (not 5 different maps for vbases for example.) I have a bunch of other impractical ideas to make bases different from each other (2nd off base vh for example,) but I'll keep them to myself as I don't want to make more stupid threads that will irritate readers who like things the way they are.
