Laz> I like the fact that in AH you can hit the hangars and disable that vehicle, it adds a little more strat over other brands, but perhaps as a compromise how about staling an idea from the last WB map and have vehicles parked on the sides of runways as targets linked in with the existing strat. How about a group of buff needing to hit the hangars and (with some kind of "error diffusion" as suggested by Wulfe) harder to hit parked vehicles needing to be destroyed before that particular vehicle is disabled at a field? It would then require more ordnance to disable vehicles as we do now which keeps you fighter pukes (
) happy whilealso giving hte buff pilot a little more strat and more targets to drop on. It also places objects over alot more of the areas of the airfields which are otherwise empty which will make carpet bombing (with a little more splash damage) a viable tactic and also create a situation where as Dok suggests more organisation is required with a few jabo pilots...although I would like to see a little less emphasis on jabo pilots otherwise buff pilots could again find themselves not needed in the arena anymore.
Dok's made a good point about the norden settling, I would liek to see a norden that takes even longer to settle to force buffs to make realistic egress' from target before returning...if its any consolation I do this anyway now.
I would'nt like to see the AW scenario of unleasing half a payload at a time, if we get better splash damage then leave this up to buff pilots, with more 'drift' on the bombs when dropping them the pilot who learns to salvo and set his delays properly will be more succesful, another skill for buff drivers to learn.
Also perhaps we could increase the toughness of buffs while decreasing the strength of the guns, while the 'B29 slave system' is a crutch for gameplays sake for those who are not in a squad or liek to buff alone I also realise this just makes hitting a group of buffs impossible if all their guns are slaved on one con. This again would promote buff pilots to be a little more organised, even lone wolves would perhaps realise its time to jump into the criminaly under-used mission planner we have in AH.
One a final note Lazs I think you are maybe being a little paranoid in saying "so long as the entire (cough) "strat" of bombers is to punish fighters" as hitting bomber hangars stops buffs and hitting barracks hampers field capture and also hitting radar and fuel affects all planes.
I have found buffing in AH quite enjoyable and like I said above I try to fly in a historical manner even though the game allows me to take shortcuts, its down to personal taste if you take them but I relish the challenge a few small changes would offer us buff pilots as outlined in the various posts above.
