I'm pretty sure it has been discussed, but I'd like to revisit it to gather some opinions. This is directed towards aircraft.
To "land successfully" the requirement is to put your aircraft on the tarmac/runway/asphalt/concrete/(whatever you want to call it). In an overwhelming amount of cases this involves raising the gear, kissing the concrete with the belly and skidding to a screeching halt. I'm having trouble seeing how in certain cases this is a "successful landing." A lot of people use the argument of "any landing you walk away from is a good landing" and while this bears some truth to it in a primitive sense, I wouldn't say it always constitutes this as such. Although I believe accomplishing a "landing" in this fashion is an excellent feat when you've had a landing gear shot to pieces or had other challenging handicaps, I fail to see how it should be the norm. People land their aircraft gear up regularly and it seems to have become a more and more popular phenomenon over time. Not that I could ever blame anyone - I mean, it's much quicker and therefore typically safer depending on the situation. I even find myself doing it regularly when I'm feeling gamey [sic].
Now, I would never want this game to introduce features which only ruin gameplay and the experience for players. We're all paying costumers and should be able to pipe in an opinion for whatever issue has surfaced. Having said this, (and this is not in the form of a wish, it's just a general discussion) how would others feel if there was a reward for landing with the wheels on the tarmac as opposed to another section of the aircraft. My initial thought would be to add a penalty for NOT landing in this fashion, but that would of course "ruin gameplay" for some people. Instead of adding a punishment, how about an incentive? Although different people play for different reasons, I would put some money down that the majority of people who play AH are the sort who like immersion. Having aircraft land on the belly for no reason other than to expedite their next sortie is (obviously) not realistic.
How would the community react if a feature was added which added a 5% (initial number) perk bonus to your normal earnings for the sortie?
My whole point here is that people are not going to land gear down unless they have a reason to. One reason could be that they are afraid of the belly landing. Another could be that they actually feel guilty for destroying a perfectly good aircraft (even if it's represented by a bunch of zeroes and ones). I would think that the amount of people landing gear down for these reasons are scarcer than I'd like to admit to myself. If an incentive to land properly is added, perhaps we'd see more people landing this way. I'd love to see this. I hope a lot of others would like to see this. And even if others don't care to indulge themselves, the people who do favor a proper landing would be rewarded for their extra effort.
I'd love to hear thoughts and opinions on this.
