This frame was a blast.
At least, for the Allies. I'm not sure about the Ju-88 guys.
My opinion is that it was fun because of a lot of planes in a small space over Malta. The action was quite intense.
I was lucky enough to be assigned a Spit V. The action was like a scene from the movie, Battle of Brittan. At least twice, I dove through a formation of bombers close enough to see the blue eyes.
Good job on this scenario design. Maybe future FSOs can include bottlenecks, or smaller spaces.
I hate to post what might be seen as a "complaint", because I enjoy FSO and I know the FSO team tries to balance things as best they can. But, I feel I need to reply with regard to the promotion of "bottleneck" setups in FSO.
You're right that the Ju-88 guys can't be having much fun when few (if any) get to RTB. With Malta specifically, cannon-armed planes just waiting over a single target area for low Ju-88s to pounce on should (and did) result in a turkey-shoot. Of course this should be very fun for the Allies. It may have looked a little like Battle of Britain to you, but from our perspective when you are escorting low and slow bombers and run into a CAP of 2 to 3 times your number, there is very little you can do. It creates a brief furball, but one in which one side has a clear advantage and the other side is "trying to survive". These "bottleneck" setups almost ensure that one side has lots of fun and the other side plays the targets in the shooting gallery.
Therefore, I couldn't disagree more with your idea of "bottleneck" setups being good. Personally, I'd rather see setups that strive for balanced
combats rather than trying to balance things through
scoring (which I feel is the case in Malta setups). In my experience, fewer people care about the final score than care about how fun their Friday night is. Personally, I salute the guys who know they are flying a suicide mission so others can shoot at them and have fun. That's the amazing part of the people committed to FSO. But, I wouldn't wear that too thin by having too many of these "bottleneck" scenarios.
Since I try to offer positive solutions in the few cases I do gripe, I'll offer one suggestion: Perhaps no flashing base "dar" over Malta? This might force squads to either fan out to cover different approaches or send out scouting elements. When the base flashes, it is too easy for all fighters to simply turn back to the base, converging on and bouncing the bombers, often before they can even get over target. This is precisely what I saw in Frame 1, at least 3 elements (squads?) all converging over the bombers virtually at once, which created a way over-balanced situation. The bombers are probably going to get bounced and killed at some point anyway, so why not give them half a chance to reach the island first?
My two cents on the topic.
<S>
Ryno
