Bomber drones

[HagarTheHorrible]

I don’t want to drone on about it,but, and I do appreciate bombers, with regard to BoP, have been discussed, and dismissed, for various reasons.

 

Has it ever been considered having “Heavies” as simple drones ?  Doing nothing more than moving from one side of the map to the other, at a set altitude, in a straight line, no FM, no complex 3D model or damage model, just an objective, a mission target, around which the players play, a truck convoy in the air, as it were, one group attacking it, the other defending ?

 

It seems to me that, unless there are these mission objectives (convoys in the air) then the primary mission role for many of the late war aircraft, both Axis and Allied, will be missing.  I understand object resources are a constant balance but given the altitude that these actions were fought then one would assume ground objects  could be dismissed in favour of aircraft drone density rather than trains, artillery, trucks etc.  It might even be possible to treat several bombers in a formation as a single entity, with bits (aircraft rather than bits of ) falling off as the formation is damaged ?

 

I do appreciate also that by this stage of the war, bomber formations were for the most part unopposed by the Luftwaffe but that was more of a resources issue rather than a desire to not do anything about it.

Edited May 24, 2019 by HagarTheHorrible

[Eisenfaustus]

While I understand your idea I believe making them to simplified could take away a lot of immersion.

 

If I was to attack a fortress as a German fighter I would actually expect a DM with some complexity as I would want the location of my hits to matter.

And if I destroy single parts of the bomber (one engine, control surfaces - or whatever) I would expect these damages to show in the flying behavior of the bomber - so it's FM would also need some comlexity. And if it has some kind of FM it would also need an AI to handle it, so... We'd be back to the start with all the old problems...

 

While I still agree that an AI only Fortress could have a simplified DM/FM/AI compared to the fully modelled flyable a/c I think it would have to be much more complex than the trucks/arty we have now as bombfodder.

 

And I think that even with simplified AI fortresses BoX in it's current state will not be able to handle Defence-of-the-Reich-sized furballs. In my immagination these engage would range from 40 - 400 planes engaging each other - the fighters alone in such large airial battles would bring the game to it's knees...

 

I know there were 50+ formations on the eastern front as well and the game can't handle these either - but with BoX focus on tactical operations rather than strategic the small engagements feel much less wrong to me...

 

And don't get me wrong - I would absolutely love a working strategic airial combat simulator - maybe something like BoBIIWoV with roles changed and allies attacking from 1943 onward with state of the art FM/DM, graphics and original BoBIIWoV style AI...

 

But I don't see anything like that happen anytime soon

Edited May 25, 2019 by Eisenfaustus

[Feathered_IV]

Something certainly needs to be done. 

[Feathered_IV]

Really Luke?  Can you name one flight sim in the last twenty years that could put less AI planes in the air?

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Feathered_IV said:

Really Luke?  Can you name one flight sim in the last twenty years that could put less AI planes in the air?

 

BoS can put plenty of planes in the air without issues. The game was never meant to simulate massive bomber raids that everyone seems to be in love with. 

 

As to your question: B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty 8th. It relied on dummy "ghost" B-17s to make it look like you were part of a bigger formation, but in fact you were flying with 5 or 6 other planes with "real" AI. The other half-dozen bombers were there just for show. The end result? A half-dozen B-17s, plus another half-dozen B-17s that were an empty shell (they literally did nothing but fly straight and level), escorted by 4 fighters and maybe be intercepted by a schwarm of German fighters. Yip-dee-doo.

Edited May 28, 2019 by LukeFF

[Aap]

Well, if BoX could do AI bombers with IL2 1946 -level flight and damage models, with updated graphics, though, it would be a big step towards creating something that was a major part of air war in the west.