In this post, I would like to make a suggestion about fighters.
Here is a summary:
One, there is a control point midair, and when a fighter takes control of the point, it can call bombers.
Two, after the bombers are called, the opposing team have time to attack them with planes and AA guns. Shooting them down has advantages.
Now, if you are interested(or have questions), keep on reading for details.
Some fighters have little or no CAS abilities at all. If there are no enemy planes to shoot down, these fighters have no meaning of staying up in the air. As it is impossible to know when the enemy planes will appear, fighter pilots get stuck in a dilemma: staying in the air and doing nothing doesn’t help the game. And when they see enemy planes doing CAS after they get off the plane, they regret leaving the plane. I had this experience several times while playing Moscow Allies, using the Yak-1.
I was listening an Enlisted Podcast in Quadro’s Youtube channel, and I heard about fighters calling bombers when they capture a control point midair. I decided to elaborate on that idea.
When the battle starts, a midair control point is shown. It has a cylindrical shape, and the center of the base(circle) is the control point(If it is Conquest, the center is at the middle of the map). The altitude of the midair point would be from 300m to 800m, and the radius of the base can be 500m(For Conquest, it must be smaller).
Fighters have to stay on the point for some time in order to capture the point. Attackers can’t capture the midair point. Think of this midair point as a big Conquest control point in the air. When it is captured, the point disappears and the bombing process is initiated.
The fighter pilot opens the map interactive mode and moves the bomb zone using the mouse(for moving) and the R button(for rotation, btw idk about consoles). If the pilot didn’t confirm the bomb zone in given time, the zone is automatically chosen.
After the bomb zone is confirmed, the narrator tells the soldiers that the attackers are coming and they will be bombing after some time. Several attackers(2 or 3)(I will call them support attackers) spawn far away from the control point and start moving towards the point. The enemy team have time to stop the bombing by shooting the support attackers via planes and AA guns.
The bomb zone is known to infantry on the side which called the support attackers right after bomb zone confirmation. However, the other side doesn’t know the bomb zone.
The support attackers can’t be controlled manually, and they make a U-turn after dropping the bomb and return to their spawn point. The midair point reappears above the control point after the support attackers are despawned (or all shot down)
The fighter must protect them because there is a penalty for losing them. If support attackers are shot down, even after dropping the bomb, the time needed to conquer the next midair point increases proportional to the number of attackers lost.
In order for this to become reality, there is a lot of work that needs to be done. First, the support bombers must be able to use basic techniques to stay in course after taking some damage. Also they must be able to shoot defensive mg if they have one (ofc they shouldn’t be aimbots)
As the importance of air battle increases, more players must be able to use planes, so an additional vehicle slot should be given to non-premium players.
I’m not sure about the bombers that fighters can call. Simple way to do it is designating one bomber that fighters can call(that’s easier for the devs) Or should fighter pilots call bombers that they unlocked in the campaign? If so, what must be given to fighter users who didn’t unlock a bomber yet? Please leave in the comments. Thank you for reading this long post.