I think two fundamental issues need to be recognised.
bombers don’t work alone. They would fly in large formations where the defensive capabilities were greater than the sum of its parts.
One idea I’ve had for a while would be taking the mechanic from the mission editor test flight where you have NPC planes following you and adapting that to allow you to control half a dozen heavy bombers at once.
Damage models need more refinement. Smaller components, more components split into multiple separate parts. Yes, there is more to be damaged, but damage to any one component is less significant, except for a small number of very important (and usually small) ones.
Simply shooting a big enough hole in a rudder for example shouldn’t cause it to fall off. Hit the attachment points though… goodbye rudder!
Refining targets to be zones that eat tickets relative to (metric that measures importance of the site) and (payload weight dropped, independent of who dropped it) instead of pin point targets that people are fighting over would go some way to resolving it as well. Couple this with providing rewards to fighters that remain in proximity to bombers + a bonus percentage to engagement actions when defending bombers as an escort, there would be incentive for bombers to group up to strike targets, and incentive + reward for fighter escort and defensive actions.
Would also provide something for interceptors to actually be intercepting for.
Somewhat related, but can you ask the snail so we can have historical battles back like Norway and/or RB EC? Those are rare now with the 100 cookie cutter maps. Bombers felt more impactful there. Fighters had a reason to stop them.
Either way this new change is good. Might use bombers more now.
I know bombers have other problems and all (the height at which they actually spawn is one, since many times, even climbing perfectly, the enemy reaches you before you even get past the halfway point of the map, but that’s another issue that’s probably more due to the BR settings than spawns), but I wanted to ask. Regarding bomber survivability: will there be many differences between them? Because, we know that some were quite tough, but others like the Spaviero or Wellington depended more on where the hit was (not engines or fuel), will that be known or will it be something more generic?
You are encouraging the removal of objective markers in a pvp environment for bombers. As you are encouraging this, removal of objective markers for fighters is the only sensible approach. Because again, this isn’t a pve environment, and removing their marker for objectives makes them even worse off against the threats that hunt them.
“But bombers don’t do anything” is a nonsensical argument when you base it in mechanics and macro sense. Macro sense, bombers generally need to remain significantly more ahead of those that hunt them in order to achieve their objectives. Mechanically? Fending off fighters is significantly less straight forward than using a fighter to do so, as fighters are not facing fictionally bad dispersion (in most cases).
The “dropping the bomb is all they do” is a false understanding, boiling it down to a single instance where points increase. Following your logic I can say “Fighters do nothing but press 1 button and their points go up because they hit something”. Most people would see this as dishonest. This dishonesty is present when you highlight that “it’s a pve mechanism that has no complexity”, the complexity is not in the action but in approaching the position to achieve this action. Removing the marker that allows for planning this approach is inherently nonsense when bombers are in a pvp environment that requires significantly more awareness than fighters take (Bombers cannot evade, and have abysmal defensive means due to dispersion), whilst providing those intent on hunting them clear and present information on the bomber (an objective for fighters to destroy) that said bomber cannot react to. Couple this with the proposition “Well if you can’t see the target because clouds you shouldn’t drop a bomb on it” it is incredibly silly. Especially, again, when clouds are clientside.
Short and long of it, if you are going to remove objective markers from bombers in a contested pvp environment, it is only sensible to do the same for those that complicate the approach to bomb drop.
Did you feed my post to an AI to generate a response? The pompous language and the way it inflates the argument far beyond the original input…
To begin with, optional player interaction with the environment doesn’t affect PvP balance. Knowing where the base is or isn’t doesn’t reduce your PvP capabilities. Countless times I’ve skipped bombing or diverted from my route, and it meant nothing…
If clouds are client-side, then they should be removed immediately. They affect all aspects of the game
@Stona_WT does this damage model reflect the actual planes construction or is this a generic hit point style buff across the board reguardless of construction type?
The example that comes to mind is the lattice style construction of the wellingtons.
And? Perfect time to go ground pound in peace and getting the activity time up, which is actually often has a decent impact on rewards, more than having a match end fast with just a kill or two.
Excellent news! I hope this can overall lead to better, more realistic survivability. In the end I low-key hope this leads to an overall improvement to aircraft damage models for all types.
Two major issues in my eyes that still need to be address, esp. with bombers are:
The fixed convergence of gunners - Right now, all gunners converge at a distance that is fixed and not matching the distance of the enemy interceptor. In real, every gunner would of course not aim at an imaginary convergence point, but at the enemy. Worst example is the Bv 238 with the far outward wing turrets.
The excessive volatility of bombs - It is understandable that people think bombs would explode if hit by bullets, but the way it is in game is rather excessive and needs to be toned down for realism purposes, and for a more balanced survivability, as otherwise the damage model changes will be nullified for a portion of missions.
I already have it in front of my Minds eye. Ju 88 P-2 armored for the crew against Small caliber and possibly more, good overall survivability and 2x 3,7 cm Bk 37 with 90 rounds reserve. Will be awesome!
