Upped some lancs last night for knight HQ. Announced on 200 that I was gonna try to bomb a HQ. I was at 10K and showing a darbar for 5 sectors, even passing through some dar rings. Nobody came for me, what a surprise! Like almost always, and I rarely fly above 14K. As long as my lancasters face no opposition, I'll keep busting the HQ. Not for score (got 1.22 perks last night 
) but because it's fun, a legitimate target and helps my squad mates drop strats and come back alive.
I need no 150 octane fuel. Knight tears fuel my lancasters! 
Tracer gets the point of the thread. And I myself mentioned that during normal hours when the bulk of the people are on there is nothing wrong with bombing HQ.
The point is once the numbers drop to a certain point Killing HQ becomes detrimental to the game. Not only for the players already there. but anyone who comes in. Especially new folk.
As I mentioned in my OP This time of play (9:30 AM EST) is extremely rare for me anymore. But back in the days when I was checking out new games and just getting hooked on games like Airwarrior. I would typically do it on weekend mornings because 1 -I had the time to relax for a couple of hours before everyone got up so I could check new games out and learn without wife or child ack. 2 It allowed me to be involved in smaller fights so I could learn better without having to take on 10 at a time. Now we are talking about a time when I was impressing myself if I got more then 2 or 3 kills a day
As a newbie back then not knowing much of anything about anything in the game If I had logged in then and saw what I saw yesterday. I would have thought nobody was playing because it looks like an empty arena and there is little chatter going on to indicate otherwise and I would have logged and moved onto something else. And that was in the day ( almost 20 years ago) when there weren't a ton of other online games out there so there were far less choices. Now the choices for online gaming is vast by comparison. Not to mention the types of systems that they can be run on. Xbox etc.
First impressions are more important now then they ever were. And entering an arena that for all intents and purposes looks empty leaves a terrible first impression. And even a second or third. Because not only do you want to attract customers. But you want them to keep coming back.
As a player I must admit my reasons are selfish. I like this game. I want this game to succeed and stay around because I'd like to be able to keep on playing this game. I'm guessing Tracer probably feels about the same way. But how long can he stay around with people either not staying or logging off? How many new people in his timezone, or any of the others that dont match our US primetime have come. looked in and said. "Not any/many people here. Must not be fun" and left never to return?
Numbers are low enough as it is during our off hours. And even getting to that point during our prime hours the last thing we as players want is to see less people logging in and staying.
Folks want to play the part of greifer particularly during off hours. Go right ahead. Just remember these words when one day in the future you say "I remember how much fun I used to have playing that game" when its no longer there for you to enjoy.
BTW I like the idea of making HQ more difficult to drop. Make it more vast and expansive or something. But as someone mentioned . the one thing that has the greatest impact on an entire side should not be able to be destroyed by one player, one or even two sets of bombers one one mission and should be anything but a milkrun. Quadruple the amount of puffy ack
