What really got me to join (on the 3rd day of my 2week I may add) Aces High was the ability to go and hit strategic targets that would not only damage the enemies war effort, but also be quite rewarding. This was when we had the old zone/strat system. In fact, I had 1600 bomber perks within those 2 weeks (yep, I did a LOT of runs). Now, I will admit that I found it a little easy to do this at first. I would hit strats that were closer to the front (as did many). Because of this, the strats close to front lines were almost always below 10% while the ones deeper behind lines were fairly untouched. That's when I decided to go after the strats deeper in enemy territory. I found myself being intercepted more often, more so the farther I had to fly. That's when I started to get some regulars together to do some runs on the deeper strats. The rewards were excellet, perk and war wise, and we would almost always get intercepted. It was very hard to get any escorts (usually ended up being one of the bomber guys who didn't feel like bombing at that time), but we managed.
When we got the new strat system implemented, with a shiney new Capital, oh the excitement.
But here is an example of a major problem; Just yesterday, I hit an enemy capital with B-24's. I knocked out 24% of their Industrial Center for a grand total of (at 1.10 modifier), 1.14 perks with 8.8xx damage. I can score half that damage (4.4xx) in the same plane on a town and come away with DOUBLE the perks. The rewards for hitting them are complete phooey. For me, I still do strat raids regardless, but many won't bother with them because the reward is so horrible. I still remember when I could get 3-6 squadies and/or random greenies together and go hit the strats (especially when we first got the Capital's). Once it was realized that the pay off for hitting the Capital was complete phooey, they stopped joining me for these little runs. I lost half of my "regulars" right off as they were in it for the perks, then slowly lost the rest as the effort vs gain was too broad. Now, it only seems that new guys, someone who's bored enough or people like me (a strategic bomber pilot, in-game of course
), will even bother flying in the general direction of them. You get Jack and spit, and Jack left town...
Making it much more rewarding to hit the Capital vs hitting a bunch of towns is a very solid idea. As is, you can still inflict damage to the war effort, the problem is the effort you have to put into it.
What MOST people don't seem to realize is that you have to bring the Industrial Center of an Enemy Capital, down below 10% before ANY damage to the outlying strats (dar/ords/troops/ack/fuel) will stick. Those outlying strats WILL stay down for a VERY long time, as long as the Industrial Center if I remember correctly,
but only if the Industrial Center is below 10%. But in order to inflict that kind of damage, you need the numbers to do it and because the reward is completely phooey, "why bother?".
Lusche is dead on about boosting the rewards for hitting the strats. Maybe lowering the rewards for hitting towns too, both damage and perks awarded. Adding more strategic targets is a solid idea as well, ones that affect town down times (HiTech's idea was a concrete factory that did this) and railyards that would affect how often convoys would spawn. Skyguns MkII's idea of adding more variety of supply vehicles that have to do more traveling (meaning you actually stand a chance of interdicting them) brings back interdiction runs.
