But maybe it's still score after all?

[BaldEagl]

The other reason people think hitting strats is ineffective is that you have to take them to under 50% to have any of the effects Lusche described.  If you take one down to only 51% then you might as well have just stayed home.

When I do see people hitting strats they take them to 75 or 80%.  No effect whatsoever.

[SmokinLoon]

If HTC removed the entire scoring system for AH for just one month... just one month... stop and think just how differently the game would be played.  There would be far more historically accurate missions and use of aircraft, trust me.  

The strategic element is not fully understood by anyone outside of HTC, and the general mechanics are not understood by the overwhelming majority of the players.  I've seen multiple bomber missions to the industrial complex only hammer the ammo, radar, grunt, fuel, and AA factories and completely ignore the city.  Most people do not know that the city is the key to the longevity of the damage that is dealt to the factories.  

The key to the bombing score is an extreme of 1 of 2 things: high bombing percentage or high damage totals and it appears that a player can not have both, typically.  Just take a look at the higher ranked scores, they all have 2 things in common: they will have a base capture via C47 and a high(er) bombing %.  In some cases, instead of the 35+ % points, there will be massive amounts of damage.

  

[The Fugitive]

It increases the downtime of porked items. The factories resupply the fields, and the factories are resupplied by the City.

Porked items on a base stay down for 45 minutes with fully working auto resupply. It can be extended to up to 2 hours if you cut of the auto supply, either by taking out each & every convoy, or by killing the corresponding factories.
The factories in turn are subject to similar rules: Each factory building stays down for 45 minutes when the City is fully up. If the City is completely down, this increases to up to 2 hours.
The City blocks stay down for 6(!) hours, no matter what.

Hence, it's very important to kill the City first, then the factories. And it's much better to completely kill off a single factory than to damage several different.

Because it has no effect on rolling base after base.

Maybe  if the "white flag" was set at 95% unless you got the "city" down to 75% then the towns drop to what they are now for a white flag.

oh wait, then we are forcing people to play a certain way again. Oh well  

[Lusche]

If HTC removed the entire scoring system for AH for just one month... just one month... stop and think just how differently the game would be played.  There would be far more historically accurate missions and use of aircraft, trust me.  

No I do not trust you  

Because the main driving force behind MA actions would still be there: Capturing bases. Almost everything revolves around this. And that's hardly related to score, most players in most circumstances could do much 'better' in score if they'd not playing the basegrab game as much.  And planes are selected for 'efficiency' in that role. A NOE mix of 110's Lancs and N1K is not selected for score reasons.

Shutting down score might very will drive a lot of players away (me too), and in some areas the effects might even by opposite to the intention: No score, not any 'downside' to a virtual death = much more airquake, bomb'n'bail and so on.

[wil3ur]

I used to up lancs and go pork strats all the time under the old system.  Normally the troops or ammo strat, then follow up by porking those bases serviced by the strats.  I could take a factory down to under 10% with a single set of lancasters, and royally screw up an entire area for 3 hours because of the porking.  Now it takes at least that long to fly there and back, it becomes futile for the person doing it much like an HQ raid.  They are so out of the way now that for the person doing the bombing it's literally a waste of time and whatever damage is done is resupplied before the bomber is out of sector.

[shiv]

Or is it, because after ~2 years of "new" strats nobody even bothers to think about that option anymore, no matter what the situation really is? (This would worry me the most, as it reminds me of tanktown's fate  )

This, and that rolling bases seems to be more fun for most* players.



*Not to say it's just rolling bases; there's always a good number of fighters there to have fun picking the vastly outnumbered defenders.

[infowars]

I think your right Lusche...

We need someone to lead

[1sum41]

We need someone to lead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9f1TYyvEx8
 

[zack1234]

I should be in charge 

[Lusche]

Thanks to everyone who answered.

Many of you have stated the reasons for not attacking the strats in general, which range from very understandable reasons of personal preference "aka bombing is boring" to gameplay issues. Baumer summed it up best to me:

I think of myself as someone who's learned all the various aspects of playing Aces High, and I can offer a few reasons that come to mind for me. These are not complaints just my own personal reasons for not playing this part of Aces High much. They are listed in decreasing importance to me.

Reasons for not attacking the current strat system

However, the example I gave was different in as much as the strats were in easy reach, and crippling town and one or two factories would still have a profound impact on the enemy.
This fact, and many answers I have read here as well as I got from players in game, reinforce my belief that this is in huge part due to a change in player behaviour. (No, not another "xbox generation" rant):

Every new player who joined in the last two years, asking about bombing the strats has heard "not worth the effort". And that's how the strats completely moved off the player's radar (witty pun, eh?), resulting in the current situation. And that's the similarity to Tank Town. I'm afraid even if the role of the strats would been boosted somehow, they still would not been attacked without some further, highly visible incentive (to bring it back in the player's minds).

I think your right Lusche...

We need someone to lead

A single leader would change nothing. We would literally need dozens if not hundreds of them. Think how institutions like the 'MoM', or other similar efforts, rose and fell with the commitment of a single player.



------------------------------

I have to admit that this was maybe the first time in my long AH career that I was sorry not to have a squad at my disposal. While flying my first, high alt sortie I quickly devised a plan for a small but nice lil raid that could have smashed the strats without creating too much attention too early

I now have spend many hours during the last days, testing bomb loadouts and rebuild times in the "Gastropod Proving Ground" arena as well as flying actual sorties. Surprisingly, even on small maps with 163's next to the strats, the defenders reaction was rather limited.
And the B-29 turned out to be very survivable even against Kometen 

I came to the conclusion that on a large map it's even possible to effectively hurt the strats under normal circumstances, with a very small number (2-8) of experienced, disciplined and perk equipped players.
Large raids do often 'fail' (technically only, as they still generate lots of fun) due to the attention they generate (multi-sector darbar) and, most importantly, due to the 'n00b factor': A gaggle of bombers not able to keep formation, 90% wasted bombs due to a lack of clearly defined targets and  bombsight calibration issues, and escort fighters that are greedy for kills instead of doing their job.

If I just wouldn't hate so much being a leader... the sortie planning part is quite fun. And you bet I have some resources for that... 

[zack1234]

So everyone agree's that I am in charge then ?

[uptown]

So everyone agree's that I am in charge then ?

+1

[Daddkev]

  What the heck is a Baugmore?......oh bomber...lol

[shiv]

------------------------------

I have to admit that this was maybe the first time in my long AH career that I was sorry not to have a squad at my disposal. While flying my first, high alt sortie I quickly devised a plan for a small but nice lil raid that could have smashed the strats without creating too much attention too early

I now have spend many hours during the last days, testing bomb loadouts and rebuild times in the "Gastropod Proving Ground" arena as well as flying actual sorties. Surprisingly, even on small maps with 163's next to the strats, the defenders reaction was rather limited.
And the B-29 turned out to be very survivable even against Kometen 

I came to the conclusion that on a large map it's even possible to effectively hurt the strats under normal circumstances, with a very small number (2-8) of experienced, disciplined and perk equipped players.
Large raids do often 'fail' (technically only, as they still generate lots of fun) due to the attention they generate (multi-sector darbar) and, most importantly, due to the 'n00b factor': A gaggle of bombers not able to keep formation, 90% wasted bombs due to a lack of clearly defined targets and  bombsight calibration issues, and escort fighters that are greedy for kills instead of doing their job.

If I just wouldn't hate so much being a leader... the sortie planning part is quite fun. And you bet I have some resources for that... 

Care to elaborate on the plan? I assume you're talking about a B29 raid on one strat and the city.

Singles or formations for the B29s? And for the escort  - I'm guessing 152s?

[Volron]

I've mentioned this in other threads, and is known to most here...  The time + effort = reward is horridly out of balance when it comes to hitting the Capital.  My last sortie against the Captial, I took up B-24's and knocked the Industrial Center down by 24%.  I can easily do the same in the B-17.  I landed around 9k (8.8xx if I remember correctly) damage and received around 1-2 perks for it.  I can up the same planes and carpet bomb a port that nets me around 500-1.5k damage and come away with as much, if not more perks.  Hitting a town, I can land half the damage I do in a raid on a Capital and come away with double the perks.  A quick fix for this is to quadruple the rewards for hitting the Capital.  You are almost sure to see a few more strat raiders, even if they do it wrong...

Others have mentioned that the status of the Capital has zero effect for winning the war, so make it part of the win the war system.  A basic idea is; You have to have the entire Captial down below 10%, this includes Industry, Ords, Troops, Ack, Dar and Fuel, and have 20% of each sides bases to win.  Maybe not that low, so 25%.  Of course the Industrial Center will have to be below 10%.  Explained below.

Another thing to mention, that some are aware of, but most are not (especially in-game) is, you have to knock the Industry in a Capital down below 10% before the effects of hitting the other strats start to stick.  Some are saying that there are no planes that can make escort runs on these, but that isn't overly correct.  Taking off from a front line base a P-51B(?) or D with 100% fuel and drop tanks would be able to escort the bombers to and from target, especially if they use MAX CRUISE once in position.  Having escorts ready for the return trip, as the 1st escorts might be low on fuel/ammo, may be necessary though.

Dang it Lusche, I wish I knew you were actually doing something like this.  I would have happily joined you in a mission to rain destruction on an Enemy Capital.   Why don't you ask on country if someone would like to join you for a strat raid.  If I'm not in the middle of something and/or have the time, I'll join you right away.