This will be short. This topic is centered around prop planes, as for jets the dynamics are completely different.
Currently we have a few types of airspawn - strike, attacker, bomber and maybe something else. Then we have normal planes that have to take off (I’ll refer to 1st group as airspawning planes and to the 2nd as non-airspawning planes).
OK, makes sense.
Except on many maps everybody gets an airspawn with no adjustments for airspawning planes.
So, if air spawn is a way to balance the game, because by some logic certain planes need airspawn to fix their performance inadequacies, then we run into the following problem.
Lets imagine an airspawning plane is PERFECTLY balanced. 50% WR etc. and there are only 2 maps - one where everybody airspawns and one where airspawn works “as intended”.
Such plane will always have lower WR on all-airspawn map and high WR on non-all-airspawn map.
This means, that our “perfectly balanced plane” is in fact NEVER balanced. It basically constantly fluctuates between UP and OP depending on the random factor of the map.
There are some possible fixes.
But I don’t have the time, so the simple one is: if everybody airspawns on certain map, make non-airspawning planes airspawn low and slow, and add proper alt and speed separation between airspawning and non-airspawning planes, so airspawning planes always retain their “advantage” - then if some airspawning plane turns out to be OP, just adjust the BR. Simple as this.
There’s a twist to it: instead of adjusting BR, we can also balance airspawning planes by adjusting their initial energy advantage.
But that would be a next step.
Reasonable 1st step would be to stop with this absolute map-based randomness, where f.e. Germany 6.0 either has a good fighter with horrible armanent (Ta-152H) or basically a worse-turning and worse high-speed handling, slightly faster G.55 S0 at 6.0 (on all-airspawn map Ta-152H gets outclimbed by like 1500m by 5.3-5.7 planes by the time we merge, GL trying to win vs Re.2005, Lf Mk IX or Mk XVIII or Yak-3U or J2M2 or J2M3 or even F4U4B with energy advantage (out of these F4U4B is kinda winnable if he really botches his BnZ pass). You are at energy disadvantage, too slow to escape and you lose every head-on nowadays.
Air spawn is there to spread people apart instead of all in one place.
The airfield spawn was the #1 cause of teams going one direction and decimating teams that didn’t do the same tactic.
Air spawn is honestly an improvement in this regard, as it brings mixed tactics and less predictable games.
And no, air spawn spawn in this context should be all fighters or no fighters.
And I much prefer all fighters… at least for jets, cause it makes games less predictable and increases the amount of tactics used.
Whilst i agree with all you wrote - a short reminder:
This “randomness” is just the result of gaijin’s inability to identify wrong coding. I wrote in October 2025:
So whilst you described the resulting issues properly it looks for me that you try to work just on the current effects and not on the root cause.
Gaijin was unable to identify the underlying reason as they don’t care about props. So it seems highly unlikely that they are willing to adjust every affected plane class (and the connected air spawn) in order to compensate the negative effects for specific aircraft.
I mean, this is a problem that’s like as old as airspawn itself.
Unless there was time where all-airspawn was not a thing, but I honestly do not remember that well…
Anyway, current situation is just so absolutely annoying, as playing airspawn aircraft is constant emotional rollercoaster, from “I’m the king of the world, baby” to “oh my god, 3rd match in a row feels like full uptier, despite being full downtier” :D
This is nonsense - you missed the point made in the OP in its entirety.
Air spawns or Airfield spawn for fighters are there to balance aircraft vs their opponents in order to make aircraft competitive.
Next fairy tale. Certain aircraft are balanced (their BRs) with considering the air spawn.
Example:
A 190 F-8 or A-8 has a BR of 5.0 as the initial altitude advantage vs an enemy with an Airfield spawn is basically the sole justification for the BR as the flight performance of the 190s is objectively seen worse vs basically all opponents in case they have the same spawn (doesn’t matter if Air or Airfield spawn) altitude.
This is nonsense.
Air spawn for all fighters makes certain aircraft useless as they are balanced around an initial “fighting capability” advantage due to this initial altitude advantage.
For bombers the job got harder - their chances to drop and to rtb decreased significantly as the Air spawn for all fighters multiplied the number of enemies able to intercept them in their initial bomb run. They faced usually just classic interceptors like P-38s but now on these “Air spawn for all” maps fighters like MB 157s, Ki-44s or Yak-3s are able to catch them.
We had years ago similar issues on a few selected maps.
You might remember the “France 1944” (out of rotation) map. All fighters had air spawn and slow climbers like 190s with Interceptor/Strike aircraft spawn were totally outclimbed if they reached the center of the map.