Since the announcement of ground vehicles, I have been hoping to implement my accumulated fleet of aircraft into ground battles, but unfortunately, for many years now, we have been deprived of that opportunity. Although over the years, there have been occasional events where you could bring out your plane, and it’s fair to say that it wasn’t extremely unbalanced—since in arcade mode, planes are much easier to counter with anti-aircraft guns than in RB, thanks to the presence of targeting markers or enemy team movements that coincide with your flight.
I propose expanding the mechanics of flights for player-controlled aircraft and helicopters—everything remains the same: you earn sortie points for kills/activity. When choosing which aircraft to deploy, a suitable class plane from your setup is selected with the currently equipped setup. If the aircraft is lost, it becomes unavailable for the rest of the battle (if you suicided the you pay the cost in silver lions, and the cell is blocked). A standard random selection of aircraft then occurs, if the aircraft survives within its allotted time, it becomes available again for deployment (this partly addresses the suicide bombing issue). Correspondingly, “own” aircraft provide experience for progressing along the aircraft tree, and helicopters level up helicopters (another way to upgrade them).
The main goal of this change is to attract arcade players to progress through air tech trees (recently, it’s been quite difficult to find quick battles in aviation arcade mode, and almost impossible to find a full lobby), as well as to diversify air combat options (introducing “anti-tank” planes with larger calibers stored in hangars), and bring joy to those who have long awaited ground battles with their own planes in arcade mode.
Based on my experience with naval arcade battles: a skilled pilot can indeed cause some trouble (knocking out 1-2 players on large ships once a minute), but since aerial time in ground arcade mode is limited, players will only be able to make 1-2 attacks depending on their aircraft’s maneuverability.
Also, regarding the Tu-4 and Pe-8: don’t be afraid of them for several reasons. Shooting them down in Arcade isn’t difficult; having such monsters in the air forces ground players to disperse and move around to reduce their chances of being hit. Additionally, bombs in arcade mode don’t explode immediately—they give a few seconds for retreat. And we have separate for the mode BRs mechanic now.
P.S. To balance certain aircraft/helicopters, you could increase the number of points required for plane deployment (introduce a “dangerous” group of planes that require 5-6 points instead of 3 — like a mini-nuclear option)
- Yes
- No