Clearly you haven’t been playing the game mode if you start off by saying you don’t want to nerf air defenses. THAT is the biggest issue in the mode. Look at from this perspective, if air defenses were as effective as they are in this game mode, then there would be no air forces in the world. SAM’s should have a probability factor that they detect players and a separate smaller value for munitions. IDK if you model radar cross sections, but that would be a good first step and have the detection code as a function of cross section, decreasing as cross section decreases. Then, you need to add instability to SACLOS tracking; they are far too accurate. Then, you need to make the short range SPAA/SAM’s have their radar on. It makes no sense how they can detect you perfectly with their radars off.
No matter how you look at it, air defense in the mode is horribly over performing compared to any realistic measure. I would be fine with having them decently accurate, but a short reload time, really dude? Even if you and teammates drain a BUK of all it’s missiles, within 30s it is reloaded again. That is insanity.
A lot of the modes problems with air defense and balancing stem from the fact that the premise of the mode is flawed. You have created a map and mode and just stuck targets randomly about. This is the equivalent of trying to read a book and skipping the setting and character development. And thusly, we see cracks in the gamemode. Ask yourselves this, what is the premise of the conflict happening? Why are the ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’ fighting? Why here? What targets are there? Would the Commanders in the military actually decide on staking a battle here? See what I am getting at? You do not have a premise, a mission, a real target.
The community has given you plenty of concepts in the past of a gamemode should be done. A simple example would be an attack on a port. You have sea targets, clustered air defenses, factories, railyards, etc. Why is their an attack on the port? To secure it and prevent the enemies from receiving supplies. You could make the mission dynamic over the course of the battle, like you did many years ago. Have a carrier fleet off in the distance with lot’s of AA defense. Red team has to do considerable damage to the fleet to dissuade the sea deployed forces in a pincer move with their ground units. Or if the ground units take too heavy losses, the sea assault is called off, or maybe even relocated further back. Do you understand the vision I am painting here? THIS is what players want and enjoy. Something with a purpose, difficulty baked into the concept, not from overperforming mechanics.
My recommendation is to take a look at Ace Combat missions. While the game is arcade-y, their dev team put thought behind map design, battle layout, targets, etc. You need to replicate that here.
