Should napalm be removed from any plane classified as a fighter?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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140

Anyway, I really don’t think removing napalm from any plane classified as a fighter
will help the ‘napalm-fighters’ problems in ARB.

It really sounds like another makeshift idea just like ‘buff F-86 because it suffers from F-104 and MiG-19’ when we need decompression.

I am dead-tired to strap ‘Anti-Air’ only loadout into my attackers
(6x AIM-9L only at F-111C, or 2x AIM-9L on Tornado GR.1 can be example)
and fight against superior enemies solely armed with A2A loadout
(Either F-4S or MiG-23ML does way, way better at A2A compared to F-111C or Tornado GR.1)
While those mindless prem-bombers strap only two napalm and rush to the base.

  • Attacker main dislikes them because they steal the base.
  • Fighter mains dislike them because they free ride the team
    (well, some of them which called as ‘fighter jocks’ also hate the attacker either though)
  • Tomcat maniacs dislike them because they made F-14 overrated, which ended up with a nerf that shouldn’t have been done.
    (not my Idea, saw some of them claimed before.)

When everyone suffers from those guys. removing napalm sounds convincing.
We already removed ‘small size rocket exploiting’ before. right?

Some devil’s whisper like
“it will be okay because we had done this thing before, and no one but some Chinese exploiter with J35XS cried. right guys?” passes our ear, and tempting us.

But Things are a bit different than the Rocket case.
Rocket case was caused by an unintended bug which Rocket dealt too much of damage to the base and multiplied rewards too.
[Gaijin also has faults which kept that bug for months.which makes it looks like intended change.]

Even though rockets are used for striking some targets, the amount of rockets which was needed to destroy the base was significantly lower than it should. That was one of the reasons why Rocketting became dead. It was a bit ahistorical than it should have been compared to irl.


But napalms are different.
Unlike ‘ridiculously low amount of rocket’ does, napalm can be used for a strike specific location and burn them down to ashes.
And, current modeling of bases is perfectly suited for burning them down.
Also, they are historical loadouts, and many multiroles which designated as fighter can carry those bombs.

So, removing napalm from fighters. or drastically nerfing damage of napalm to base is not convincing enough to apply the change in historical side.

Also, as I claimed earlier in this topic, even if we remove napalm bombs from every fighter, those guys will not gonna stop.

They will find a way somehow.

Use conventional bombs and kill the competitor at the airfield.
or buying attacker prem jets, which can use napalm (Su-22M4 WTD61 as example)
They will switch their plane very quickly to another.
No big changes will follow compared to what we will lose when we remove napalm from it.

Also I am worrying about removing napalm can give those ‘fighter jocks’ a reason to get rid of non-A2A players from ARB.
Especially, they can use the same reasons to Tornado/Aadvark enjoyers
Which we used to those napalm-bombers.

IMHO, complete reworks of ARB is the only perfect option for get rid of this problem.
(Which gaijin will never do.)

Maybe there will be some other makeshift ideas too, but removing napalm from a fighter will be one of the easiest and worst.

This is why I am refusing your idea of removing napalm from the fighter.
Even though that I hate MiG-23ML which is armed with two ZB-500 only.

Ah, Forgot to say, thanks for created this discussion with concern.

141

Well I agree your point about switching planes. I would definitely use conventional bombs or switch planes if they removed napalm from fighters, except.for select few planes (mirage f1c) that couldn’t bomb on time anyway

142


Uh… Erm… Okaay…

I think ‘you’ might need to try a2a combat more than now…
(I am a bomber main but I also enjoy fighting against enemies when I play fighters, they are also fun!)
but further arguing about this in here might be off-topic.

So… uh… thank you for reinforcing my theory via ‘providing yourself as one of examples’?

2 Likes
143

I have never shyed away from A2A. Pure bot-like bombing would be inefficient and slower to grind with.

144

If you are the player who likes explosions, likes to wipe out bases and win by airfield destruction while the fighters in your team go pew pew, who likes to have excellent aced crews and planes, then you should seriously consider air arcade.
In arcade, no Mig21 will “steal” a base. If you want to win a match with bombs, you have a fair chance. Bombs matter in most maps. You don’t want to interact with fighters anyway. So play arcade while RB degenerates to a tank players CAS grinding ground.

145

The rewards for bombing in a fighter vs being pure A2A is completely unbalanced. A2A rewards must be increased significantly.

Here’s an example from in-game: I have played pure A2A my entire time in air RB. I have 231 battles in the J-7D and a decent K/D of 3.6. I also have a friend who bombs in the MiG-23ML. He has 276 games in it and a KD of 1.77 - Not great, not terrible. Yet he has earned 1,215,584 RP. A million RP! Meanwhile I’ve earned only 396,484 RP. that’s fucking ridiculous! No wonder why people bomb bases in MiG-23MLs all the time.

Or another example: I have 874 kills for 339 deaths, over 552 games in the F-5C, and yet I still haven’t even earned as much as my friend did in literally half the amount of games.

Why would I play A2A at that point?

2 Likes
146

I made some suggestions further up:

I just had an idea for a fourth option:

  1. When you spawn a plane with bombs, the game assigns you a personal base objective which only you (and the red team) can see. The objective could be made to fit your plane’s selected bomb load. (which is realistic really). You don’t have to bomb it, you can go for other red targets. (same assignment happens after reloading)
    The map holds a certain amount of RP for bases (as is now), and at the end of the match allocates them to all base bombers by some distribution sceme. To make it more realistic: Each team sees all the many existing bases on both sides in grey. You see your personal current objective in red, and damaged bases in blue or red. When something is hit but not dead, it is avaible for grabs to all. Bombs only score when they hit red targets.

This would stop the undesirable internal team competition. You have your own private base target. But the spoils of base bombing would still have to be divided among all who participated successfully. Which means that the MIG-21 BLUs will have to share the profit with others. This may just make the base bombing less lucrative for planes with other options. During grind, you may not yet have the options, so you could BLU a few modules before other missions will be more profitable.

It will hopefully reduce bombing by those who have alternatives. They can bomb, but they can’t reserve it all for themselves by being there first. So it will be less profitable for them. It might also break up the usual flight patterns.

TL/DNR: Give bomb carriers individual base objectives but limit total team base reward to what it is now.

1 Like
147

I don’t disagree. I actually won’t mind if fighting gave better rewards than bombing.

1 Like
148

This also would somewhat fix strat bombers and bases being stolen by Wyverns and alike. They are still made out of wet cardboard, but hey, at least you dont have to race against faster planes

149

That’s what I’m thinking too. Instead of barring players from choosing to bomb in their fighter, Gaijin should incentivize A2A more. But of course, this is Gaijin and bvvd will probably just nerf the bombing rewards to be just as bad as A2A instead.

2 Likes
150

Or M18 hellcats redesignation as a light tank from a tank destroyer when an IRL it was a tank destroyer

151

Erm… I was expected to get rock-throwing to me when I wrote this

But no likes or dislikes either feel a bit awkward.
:d

Should’ve I made it shorter maybe?

152

The main issue is the MAPS. All the ARB maps are designed around WWII aircraft not modern aircraft. Redesigning the maps to be bigger, and have more ground/Navel targets to go after would help solve the issue. Drop tanks or napalm, cant hold down after burning the whole map to get to a base so you would have to fly slower to get there or put on the drop tanks and engage in air to air, ether attacking the ground attackers or providing cover for your attackers.

Radar installations, Munition warehouses, Ports, Bases, AA defense, Harden bunkers that need those laser guided bunker busters, secondary airfield being able to destroy the runway, the hangers, fuel deposes ect ect

2 Likes
153

Some of us don’t like PvP but like the plane, here’s waiting for a mode like this: DCS inspired PvE mode for air battles

154

Maybe, but you don’t offer an alternative that we could comment on or think through. I actually offered 4 alternate options of different complexities, but they also get lost in a sea of 1-2 line posts.

I can’t say that I like the few big maps in RB. Even more time in transit for basically the same action. And when you are out, you are out. Wouldn’t be my choice. And just putting more varied targets on the map wouldn’t change things, as long as bases deliver the best reward to the fastest BLU striker.

1 Like
155

Well. Maybe I wanted to see you guys agree that ‘Removing napalm itself cannot be a solution but makes things worse’ or not.

But damn… Thanks to the current situation of rotten ARB, which was overdue long ago.
It seems my small brain can’t offer other options for
‘How can we fix this problem without removing napalm as a makeshift idea’.

Things are just FUBAR and only hatred between each other is left.

:(

156

The issue with size is less distance and more mission design.

Compare these two:

Both maps are 128x128 km with 16x16 gridsquares.

Vietnam in Air RB:
image

Smolensk in Air sim:
image

Do you see the difference?

Objectives.

Smolensk feels far larger with far less player density over vietnam despite being effectively the same map because…

On Vietnam, the greatest distance between 2 minibases is ~20 km (1 grid square)
On Smolensk, greatest distance between 2 mini bases on red is ~48 km. (3 grid squares, but slightly diagonal)
Greatest distance for 2 blue mini bases is sqrt((5x16)^2+(3*16)^2) = 93 km.

This alone makes the bombers spread out and thus spreads out people hunting the bombers, thus spreads out the people hunting the bomber hunters, thus less player density.

Beyond the mini bases, on Smolensk we just had an “Capture an A point” on B5, while red team had a bomber intercept on the D row (by the time I took the screenshot, the bombers were about to escape at D7, but even when they were on D5 it’s at least 16 to 32 km distance between people intercepting and people brawling for the capture).

There’s also ground targets to bomb at B4 and C5, this time being quite close together so not that big of a split.

Even on 64x64 (Ruhr) maps where a gridsquare is only 8x8 km, we get far greater distances between objectives:

image
image1569×927 124 KB

Ignore the convoy objectives as nobody in a WW2 plane or even early-modern jet without guided munitions can kill them safely.

This is what I mean when I mean wanting bigger maps for air RB.
Bigger map as in: wider, more spread out.
And I’m pretty confident, at least amongst pre-BVR players, others mean the same but without the experience with other game modes to precisely define the issue.

Current air RB maps are narrow columns 16-48 km wide in a 16-32 km tall box where all 16v16 players funnel into in a chain reaction of base bombers/ground pounders, people wanting easy kills going after them and so forth. Having only 1 airfield excarbarates this funneling issue as people just fly straight at the enemy airfield even if they ignore the groundpounders.

The map itself is big. But like ~50 km on either side might as well not exist as nobody has any reason to go there.

3 Likes
157

I say no but drastically nerf it against bases just like rockets to deter fighter base bombing

158

as before…
It isn’t the size, it is the effect. On arcade maps, attackers and bombers have good reasons to bomb various targets. Despite the map being very small.

Both are easily programmable options.

159

Maybe because there is an in-air reload of ordnances in AAB?

In ARB, it is one of the main reasons why the Strategical bomber is more heavily ineffectual than the attacker counterpart.

4 manned squadron of Lancaster in full downtier match can take less tickets than single Wyvern at same match in full uptier status.
Even if Lancasters throw their best efforts on killing ground targets.

Worse flight characteristics are not only a disadvantage on Base runs but also a disadvantage on land-and-refuel procure for second run.