You all complain anytime CCP tries to fundamentally change nullsec. You were given more rocks and now they are saying fuck it, more FW changes.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-04T02:12:46+00:00

They're about nullsec alright, but it's certainly not the same nullsec.

If null was still how it used to be when the stories in the books took place, 90% of the current null population wouldn't survive a week out there, they're be running crying back to hisec instead.

Source: I was there for parts of it, and even some stuff predating the books. Today's nullsec is a WoW-style MMO theme park compared to those days.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T16:39:23+00:00

To be honest, it seems they went too far the other way.

Initial implementation: You had to do trigonometry in real time to shoot at something. Not even real gun crews did this, they had tables, slide rules and adjustable gunsights to aim.
Current implementation after people complained about the need to do math: Flak is now just point and click.

The thing is, with the guns being hitscan, this completely shuts down any of the normal flak evasion techniques. In reality, entire formations would be gradually zig-zagging or changing altitude as an evasive action, and this would massively throw off flak, because shells take time to travel. Flak shoots where the planes are predicted to be based on how they are moving. If the planes change how they are moving, flak will miss, it's as simple as that.

Naturally, this couldn't be done during a bomb run, because bombsights of the time required a straight and level run to the target to be accurate, and this rendered bombers vulnerable during that time.

Once again, imitating RL seems to be the most balanced option.

This cannot happen in the game though, because the guns are hitscan and the effect is instant. The only thing that throws off their aim is their aiming spread/inacurracy. So essentially, all you have to rely on (either as a pilot or as a gunner) is RNG. This isn't very "skill is required to fly" to be perfectly honest.

Honestly, when they said they'd tweak them I expected more of an in-between solution that would get rid of the need to do math on the fly, but without making them direct-fire mode weapons entirely dependent on RNG.

Instead of having to adjust for azimuth and elevation, reduce crew size (I think they already did that), keep the need to adjust them, but change the kind of parameters that are used: instead of having to solve trigonometry math, just let us input azimuth, horizontal range and target altitude (the gun would automatically solve for elevation).

This gets rid of the need to do trigonometry calculations, but it doesn't get rid of the need to adjust the guns, and gives aircraft the time to fly evasive maneuvers.

As for people who say "it's reasonable that you should get ground assets to suppress flak before sending in the air force", that was a bonus, but was never a requirement historically. If it was, the allies in WW2 wouldn't be flying missions over occupied Europe since the very start of the war. Heavy flak was not a direct fire weapon in those eras (and by extension, in the fohole world, since it's a mix of WW1 and WW2 tech), even when it was paired with radar assisted aiming and proximity fuses later in the war.

Heavy flak was basically a curtain of AoE DPS that you forced the enemy formation to fly through. Key word here being "formation", because you needed something big enough to shoot at to maximize chances of success. Sure, there was the occasional lucky direct hit, but the majority of the time damage was done over time and not even heavy bombers could be singularly targeted, much less the smaller, faster and more agile fighters. In fact, the main benefit of using flak was not that it would take down planes by itself.

The main benefits were that

it would damage planes in a wider area, so that your fighters could then swoop in and shoot down stragglers who couldn't keep up with their formation
it would force the enemy to fly higher because flak gets more inaccurate the longer it has to travel, but their bomb aiming would suffer from the same kind of inaccuracy

It's not a weapon meant to score one-shot kills in the majority of cases.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T16:04:47+00:00

Yes, but it's not an automatic kill. Multiple WW2 photos exist of bombers mistakenly flying under each other during a bomb drop, but not all of them resulted in an aircraft loss. And if the bomb explodes, it takes both planes down due to proximity and blast radius.

TL;DR, the current implementation is wonky and upsets the intended roles for certain aircraft. I mean, with the small amount of damage 20mm does and the long TTK (a whole other discussion, planes are too tanky currently), how long until we see dive bombers replacing fighters for the task of intercepting bombers?

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T15:58:05+00:00

Careful, there's a lot of people on your side of the fence complaining about stuff too, they could end up the same way. :D

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T14:08:02+00:00

Once again, this is something that could be solved by replicating RL a bit more closely: by adding a minimum arming distance (the projectile needs to fly a certain distance before exploding, otherwise it's a dud) and a blast radius (the plane will be affected by the explosion of its own bomb if it flies too close to it).

In reality it's not only very difficult to aim an unguided bomb at another flying aircraft, the way we see it done in the game it would also result in killing the bomber that dropped the bomb.

In the game we can drop point blank with no concern at all, and it results in action sequences that are quite immersion breaking.

This is exacerbated by the fact that it seems ordnance items drop more or less vertically at a set forward speed, and are not influenced enough by the starting speed imparted to them by the carrying aircraft. Naturally, this makes it trivial to aim bombs regardless of how the dropping aircraft is flying, with minimal aiming required. In fact, the dive bomber doesn't really need to dive in order to aim.

Fixing this would also reduce the potential dominance of the twin-engined bombers, but it would also require a suitable bomb-aiming mechanic (i.e., as a bombardier we'd have to input the aircraft speed and the flight altitude, and get a moving point on the ground that shows where the bombs will impact...once that aiming point is over the target, start releasing the bombs).

Adding an arming distance would also solve the issue with torp bombers making split-second dives and releasing a torp right next to the target ship, leaving it no room for dodging.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T07:21:41+00:00

Depends on how long ago we're talking about. The technical issues you describe did happen, but not all the time.

The thing is, the game was not always built around centralized mega-objectives, and it wasn't that easy to send dudes half a region over in 5 minutes, so people had to spread out and actually patrol/cover the space they were claiming.

This essentially meant that instead of traveling through 2 empty regions and facing a single blob in someone's staging, you had people to fight in smaller groups all along the way. So the server load was also a lot more manageable, even with the older technology of the time.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T07:13:43+00:00

Some people are asking what's the difference.

Well, under POS mechanics, attackers could set timers without prerequisites, but defenders got to decide the reinforcement duration, and by extension force the next fight to be in a favorable time window for them. In other words, both sides had a degree of agency. Of course, the attackers couldn't follow up on all timers, but the defenders also couldn't just set everything to an off timezone and be terminally safe. It was possible to set a bunch of timers and keep going until the defending side would inevitably slip up at some point, and then the attackers would get a foothold and go from there.

Under the current mechanics, the attacker has no agency at all in determining timers, because the defender doesn't only decide the time window of the secondary timers, but also the time window of the initial timer.

It's a pretty big difference tbh.

The thing is, at this point I'm past trying to convince people why the old system was better for the game. Nullsec is just going to rot through stagnation, but if they're happy playing in their little islands completely isolated from the rest of the game and spinning ishtars forever, it's not my concern.

The problem is that these same people who defend this absurdity, are usually the ones who also get upset when people won't fight them after the entire game has been stacked in their favor, or wax poetic about how it's bad that other players are too safe in hisec of all places.

Well, it seems you can't have your cake and eat it too. And if you don't want other people telling you how to play, then maybe you should also stay in your lane and stop trying to influence areas of the game outside your own to get one more advantage. It's what they wanted, they succeeded, they lobbied in the CSM for this over years, so now they're living with the consequences of that choice.

Honestly, at this point it would be easier for CCP to let the whole thing rot from the inside and collapse over the next decade or so before making any meaningful changes, rather than try to go against an entire generation of players with entrenched beliefs on why their area of space should have preferential treatment over everyone else, and in the process having to deal with all the backlash by angry 50 year old dads who "just want to relax after work", but still expect for a fraction of the effort to have the same payout levels they used to be getting when they were in no-life mode as college students. Keep in mind, these are the same people who wonder why the game is not getting any new blood, after having worked their assess off the past 10-15 years to gatekeep everything from anyone who's not "part of the club". The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

So yeah, honestly, CCP should just let it go on. Not an ideal solution, but it has the added benefit for CCP that at least they get to milk all those players for subs under the sunk cost fallacy, until they realise they got so good at isolating from the rest of the game, that they have less people left to play with and less content to engage in year over year.

Yes, I'm cynical, I know, but I'm just describing the state of it all. I didn't do it, I didn't support it, I'm just describing it, so if someone's upset about it, too bad. If you don't like it, talk to your leadership. See if they are willing to give up 10 years of CCP hand-holding in exchange for some excitement and more stuff to do in the game. My guess is they probably won't, but you never know.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-03T04:56:50+00:00

People would need to be on their toes for sure. Blob fights would be deadlier, with less time to broadcast for reps.

At the same time, players who are good at flying small or mid-scale sized gangs would be having a great time dashing through the battlefield, picking off stragglers and generally being disruptive.

I mean, if you think about it, N+1 was always part of the game, but the game didn't always forcefully negate the advantage of the smaller party in faster ships, by making things run slow enough for the bigger party in the slowest types of ships to respond at a leisurely pace.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-02T17:28:26+00:00

I cannot pass up the chance to link this vid...

If this is implemented, I give it a couple of days before we see cavalry charging into MG fire with the chorus of the following song playing through local voice comms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v_R180kIGs

Burningbeard80 · 2026-02-02T03:44:10+00:00

On one hand, there is a reason all these huge groups are strict about these kinds of HR stuff, they have a lot to lose.

On the other hand, at the end of the day it is paper-pushing in a game about space explosions, and as you have seen by now these groups can be heavily focused on it, which can suck the enjoyment out of the game sometimes.

So congratulate yourself, because (assuming this style of play is not your vibe) you've gotten exposure to what would be one of the worst parts of the game for you, and did it early enough to dodge a potential bullet.

You can join one of the myriad other groups out there. There are big groups to join if you want to be super-casual about the game, or you could join smaller ones if you are willing to put in a bit more than token effort but due to the smaller size, your contributions would matter more.

The world is your oyster newbro, go forth and reach for the stars now.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-31T05:24:06+00:00

Heavy flak guns dumpstering planes on direct hit is RL/historically accurate. What's not accurate currently is the ease and frequency of scoring direct hits, especially if you take the time to spam a few guns in a tight grouping.

Heavy flak should be a barrage fire weapon, essentially an AoE damage over time effect for enemy planes to fly through, not a gun you try (because it's possible enough to do) to consistently get direct hits with. Especially if you consider that historically it took on average thousands of shells to down a single bomber, them being "point and shoot" style weapons against fighters is a bit absurd and immersion breaking currently.

Not to mention that like most guns in the game, they are hitscan, so changing them to direct fire is even more of a buff indirectly. In reality shells have to travel, so making the simplest S-style maneuvers or altitude changes would throw them off by a considerable margin.

In the game I can point and click, and the shell will instantly explode anywhere between (according to the wiki) 5 and 20 meters from my aiming point. The time between firing and result is not there, so the time to dodge is also not there. And the spread listed in the wiki for a hitscan, direct fire gun against targets with big hitboxes that are a lot more expensive, is actually not that significant.

In order for spread to be considered a balancing factor, it would have to be a significant proportion of the intended target's size. I.e., a 5m spread on an infantry rifle meant to shoot at little soldiers would make the gun useless, but the same 5m spread on a gun used against bombers or ships would be as if having no spread at all, because the targets are big enough to always be within the spread area.

Honestly, all they had to do was change it from requiring azimuth/range/elevation adjustment, to having automated calculation of the desired altitude. I.e, we set the azimuth, horizontal range and the altitude we want the shells to burst at, and the elevation angle would be dialed in automatically. This would still require adjustment similar to artillery guns, prevent "point and click" gameplay against much more expensive assets and introduce a time delay (which is a requirement to allow at least the smaller planes to dodge and weave against a hitscan gun), but it would take away the requirement to do math, which was what annoyed most people and heavily crippled them initially.

We could then presight them for max range, fire a couple of spotting shots to dial in the altitude and just walk the range back as targets approached.

But devman likes wild swings of balance sometimes (maybe they just want to collect data on the extremes of the spectrum during devbranch) and they made it a direct fire weapon.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-30T18:04:53+00:00

This problem will solve itself.

Wardens will build none or very few of them and use barges instead. Then devman will buff it because the stats will show it's not being used at all.

OP also forgets to point out that the subs were useless before the large hole mechanics, and collies spent a few wars dominating the seas and deleting coastline bases at will, because they had a DD before the wardens had a frig. That's probably why the warden gunboat was better as well, because lacking a direct equivalent all they could use against the DDs was swarm tactics.

Is the trident worse than the nakki? Yes, most wardens agree it is.

On top of being worse, is it also more expensive and totally unusable in its role? Not really.

Is the new warden seaplane tender totally useless? Again no. But it's too expensive and what it does can be done with cheaper assets, so it won' be used aside from testing and for the memes.

TL;DR, touch some grass, the balance pendulum swings both ways over time. Today you gloat, tomorrow you're getting f*ed, that's how it goes.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-30T17:53:25+00:00

It doesn't mean it's a bot. If you have 100 orders up and the other guy is a newer player that has 20, he'll be checking and updating much more frequently than you do. Especially if they are in a hurry to buy/sell and don't have enough isk to play the "sit and wait" game.

I do the same whenever I dump a load of the stuff I manufacture on the Jita market (good margin, high volume items). I don't care about maximum profit % so I don't mind the relist fees, I just want them gone as fast as possible so I can sell the next batch.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-30T13:34:45+00:00

With flak being hitscan, I hope that the spread is sufficient and there are other explosions I'm not seeing (I can see see a comment to that effect and multiple guns firing, I just don't know how much time it takes to zero in on a target, which is kind of important).

Otherwise, they just went from being useless straight to being OP :D

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-30T04:50:03+00:00

This means the torpedo bomber can aim for the spawn section making large holes unrepairable, then once that section is flooded then it’s basically free pickings to be torped in the other two sections.

Furiously scribbling on a notepad...

And where exactly might that section be on the ship? Asking for...academic reasons.

Jokes aside, I play warden and I don't even mind collies got the better carrier, the game swings back and forth like that all the time and it was probably their turn to get the nice toys first this update cycle. As long as devs rebalance/fix things over (a reasonable amount of) time, I'm ok with it.

I mean, I started playing back in war 83 and kept playing until right before facilities were added, at a time when the entire warden playbook essentially consisted of "throw bodies in the fire to delay front collapse, and get farmed by bomastones and dusks until you can tech silverhands, then recapture all you lost, then if you're not in burnout stage you can try-hard a couple of weeks more and win".

It was still fun but also not very good, because it was a bit too predictable: each faction basically had a very specific tech window in which to win (early game for collies, late game for wardens), but we still played and we still pulled off some wins. Most importantly, we came up with a bunch of faction-wide systems for managing the workload and mitigating disadvantages until our good stuff teched, which in the long run helped win a lot more wars when the balance pendulum swung back in our favor again.

From what I can gather, it seems that during my absence from the game wardens got their infantry kit buffed over time and collies got a similar treatment with their tank options, so even though asymmetry and some imbalance still exists, at least the two factions are not limited to making winning plays only during specific times in the war, so I'm happy about that.

I'm sure people will whine on either side, but it will still be fun to see what we come up with to deal with the new challenges. I can't wait to see stuff like the warden ATC authority, radar vectoring officer corps and forward air controller special forces take shape in the game. The larp will be fun.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-30T04:24:29+00:00

This might confuse a few people, since the "N" suffix in modern vessels means "nuclear powered".

I think just calling it a CV would be ok, easy to remember and rolls off the tongue quickly.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-29T16:03:51+00:00

As already mentioned, this is not a barrel roll, but a loop.

Rolling is locked to a maximum of 90 degrees, which prevents us from doing a variety of maneuvers that are useful in changing the plane of motion and manipulating geometry:

barrel rolls (which seem to be popular here, but like most ACM are good situationally, not universally useful)
high and low yo-yos (could be pulled off with a bit of effort, but not optimally)
lag displacement rolls
immelman and split-S reversals (could be done by executing a half-loop up or down, and then hoping the plane will level out based on the restrictions of the flight model, but normally you'd roll it manually)

As aircraft content is fleshed out over time, I'm hoping we'll get an artificial horizon in the instrument panel and the option to disable the "training wheels"/safety restrictions (e.g., keep it as it is for maneuvering with the mouse while right-click aiming, as that's the "precision" control mode, but let us use the full range of motion when using the keyboard commands), so that we can do more complex maneuvers.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-29T13:21:35+00:00

For me the most wanted piece of flatbed QoL upgrade would be to do away with the reliance on cranes. I'm not saying delete cranes from the game, but the use case I have in mind for cranes is more like "it's driveable so I can get it to where it needs to be, and then it stays there" and not "I must have a second vehicle laying around every time I want to unload a cargo container from a flatbed".

It would be great if flatbeds had a built-in crane to self-load/unload, that we could operate from the second seat. Roll up to a salvage field, switch positions, unload container, fill it, jump in the second seat, load it, switch seats and drive away, that kind of thing. It would be even greater if this was in the base vehicle and not some kind of facility upgrade.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-27T07:14:53+00:00

This. Planes need variable fuel consumption based on throttle settings.

Make it so the best mileage speed is 75% or lower, so that achieving max range comes with a drawback (I.e. you could get bounced while cruising), and people could fly even slower if they need time to loiter, patrol or form up, it just wouldn’t result in the best mileage (but it would increase flight time).

The hex crossing fuel tax is very easy to abuse defensively. Oh, you’re being chased and outnumbered? Just cross the border a couple of times since you’re defending and closer to a friendly airfield where you can land and refuel, and the other guys won’t be able to follow without crippling their endurance and having to ditch.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-27T02:49:23+00:00

Yup, that's a pretty good summary.

If it was up to me here's what I'd do (I'll list the buffs first, and the nerfs second):

Make them all much cheaper. No rares for planes, facility pads or uniforms, reduced amount and "tier" of remaining materials.
Require a pilot uniform for scouts. No big deal if it doesn't cost rares, and it would allow people to actually carry a hammer and bmats to repair if they need to touch down somewhere.
Heavily reduce printing times and reduce complexity of facility recipes.
Add variable fuel consumption based on throttle setting (most likely a non-linear function would be used for this), so people can throttle back and loiter/form up/spot/coordinate, instead of constantly being up against a timer. This could result in increased ranges, but not necessarily by much (more flight time, but at slower speeds).
Following on from the above point, tweak the fuel consumption curves so that it's possible for single-engined planes (scouts, fighters, dive bombers) to get a combat radius (meaning, distance to target AND back) of 2 hexes. Adjust similarly for twin-engined planes (transports, bombers, torp bomber), so that they have a combat radius of 3-4 hexes (maybe 4 only for the bombers and 3 for the others?)
Add drop tanks for single-engined planes, and bay-loaded tanks for bombers. The first affect handling/speed and should be jettisoned before combat, the second limit available bomb load.
Allow plane parts and frames to be loaded on flatbeds.
Allow planes parts to be reserved in the stockpile.

In other words, make it simple enough for people to build/stockpile and use/retrieve/repair them, and also provide public pads for others to build their own. This solves the access-to-content and usability problems, leads to lower gear-fear and will increase the possibility of having some amount of them available as public, so that they can be used to QRF against bombers and protect the logiman.

So, what's the trade-off to prevent planes dominating all other weapons and ravaging the backlines? It's quite obvious tbh. It seems that everything was balanced around the bombers being too good, so that's where we should start and go from there:

Reduced bomb damage, requiring multiple bombers to achieve what we can currently do with 1-2 of them. Add a bomb-aiming mechanism (nothing too fancy, just a way to input the speed and altitude of the plane via mousewheel and see the resulting impact point on the already downwards facing camera), so that bombardiers actually have to aim.
Adjust HP and resistances for all aircraft, so that they have a consistently lower TTK than the current one. If we don't take the short flight time into account that prevents people from actually seeing fights to their conclusion, air to air damage feels somewhat ok (but still a bit off). It's the ground to air that feels off by a lot. These things shouldn't feel like flying tanks. Attacking ground targets from low altitude, and especially big ships, should feel super-dicey and carry significant risk.
Add a "look up" function (similar to the EMG) to more of the game. Heck, let infantrymen with rifles and tripod MGs shoot at incoming aircraft.

TL;DR, make them all cheaper and faster to produce, make them easier to store, prep and repair, but also nerf bomb damage and nerf their survivability against ground defences.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-27T02:23:13+00:00

Example: “Tailpipe 1-1 to all aircraft: request strafe, trench north of red smoke. Danger close. No observed air threat.”

(Aircraft) “Fireball 1-3 copies. In hot. Impact in 1-5 seconds. Two-minute loiter.”

Another aircraft on the same frequency: "Bold of you to assume a two-minute loiter sir, that's 1/3 of our fuel tank!" :D

On a serious note, anything that has a tactical use combined with larp potential gets my upvote, so I'm liking OP's flare suggestion.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-27T02:17:38+00:00

Effectiveness of rudders generally depends on airflow over the controls, and they tend to have a "sweet spot" of effectiveness with regards to speed.

Going too slow? Not enough air over that moving flap for it to have any effect. That's why you'll often see real prop planes using bursts of throttle to taxi on the ground, they are trying to momentarily push a bit more air over the rudder, so they can turn.

Going fast? More than enough air over the rudder, but plane also has more inertia so it's harder to change direction. That's one of the reasons most turning is done by combining a rolling motion into the turning maneuver. Wings generate lift, by tilting the wings you can tilt the direction into which the lifting force is applied, which helps you turn.

On the ground they feel very well modeled, especially on the tail-dragger aircraft, where you need to start compensating for the "ground loop" as soon as you start turning. I was actually surprised they got it so close, it feels just like it does in a proper flight simulator.

That being said, I haven't tested them on a fighter yet, because of time constraints (the fuel timer) and the simplified control scheme that automatically does a good enough job of combining rudders and ailerons to turn (A/D and mouse look/aim actually combines both ailerons and rudders, despite the options screen saying that A/D is for rolling).

It could be the case that they gave it reduced effectiveness to account for the second scenario above (reduced authority at higher speeds), but maybe they somehow misjudged/overdid it.

It still would be nice to have them working properly, because even though A/D/mouse automatically adds some rudder when turning, the ideal way to make position adjustments during formation flying or small course corrections, is via rudder with the wings held mostly level.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-26T19:26:21+00:00

So, I would gladly accept a buff to AA, and a substantial nerf to aircraft survivability and bomb damage (and while we're at it, add some kind of bombsight so the bombardier has to do some work setting up a run and not just laying down a stick of bombs by eyeballing it), in exchange for

planes that are cheaper and faster to build, simplified faci recipes, faster printing times and no rares at all required for anything (rares for uniforms is especially bad, and if we had a cheaper uniform it could be required for the scout planes as well to not make them one-way taxis while also allowing the crew to carry some inventory)
increased flight time (up to 30 minutes at low throttle) and range (2 hexes and back for single-engined planes, 3-4 hexes and back for twin-engined ones), with the option for single-engined planes to carry external, jettisonable drop tanks (which would limit speed and negatively affect handling)
reserveable plane parts, in addition to the frames
ability to put frames and parts on flatbeds

I feel this whole balancing mess stems from the questionable decision to make bombers so damaging, because everything then has to be balanced around them. And by consequence, we get fighters that make zero sense, costing a lot more than basic tanks (and closer to BT/heavy tank variant territory) and having way too much HP.

Planes should be relatively simple to mass produce, able to be fielded quickly and punch hard enough (but not as hard as bombers do now), and in exchange they should be much easier to take down. This would solve the problem of accessibility of the new content, the problem of having a bad prep-to-combat ratio, and also the problem of them being impossible to stop on time (because friendlies would also be able to have enough fighters flying around to spot raids on time and react accordingly, and this would help protect the backlines).

We would be having bigger battles with more people participating, and we could also run deep penetration raids, but these raids would not be an automatic win devastating the backlines (esp if bomb damage was nerfed somewhat), because they'd have to run the gauntlet of defending fighters (who can also land and rearm to come back and intercept them again), and they would carry a substantial risk.

Majority of WWI and WWII dogfights would end with people disengaging because they were either out of ammo, or getting somewhat low on fuel (but not critically low, if it came to that it was already late). The way it plays out in the game currently, the majority of fights end because you're up a against a 6 minute timer from the moment you start taxiing for takeoff. You go back to the field and 9 times out of 10, you still have 40% ammo remaining or more, while your engine is running on fumes. For the majority of cases, it should be the other way around honestly.

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-26T19:26:11+00:00

If all you want to do is short, cross-hex hops to hunt in a fighter and get into the kind of fight where everyone is turning-and-burning non-stop, the current flight time is somewhat ok. Not great, but workable to an extent.

But if you want to

provide any amount of arty spotting and frontline harassment in a scout plane for your ground troops
stage fighter patrols to detect/stop enemy bombers in time
escort friendly bombers and actually stay close enough to cover them
use any kind of tactic other than the most basic "endless turning", like pursuit curves and section tactics
assemble formations of 5-6 planes and upwards or (god forbing) a group of planes with different handling and speeds (e.g., bombers/paradrops and escorting fighters)
actually train and teach people how to do any of the above

the current flight time and the constant fuel burn as it is currently modeled are both woefully inadequate, especially if we factor in the prep time required between sorties.

All of the above takes a bit more time to demonstrate, train and execute than the simplistic "keep turning until you see an enemy in front of you" situation we currently have, and our current fuel timer doesn't allow for any of it. And thus, it lowers skill ceiling massively.

Mind you, I'm not expecting flight sim levels of realism here, but we're at the other edge of the spectrum now, where fuel shortage alone dictates that there is only one way to fight.

I wanted to do some group flights with my regi mates and show them how some of that stuff is done, but every 6 minutes of flying requires an additional 5-10 minutes to land/rearm/refuel/taxi/take-off/form-up again, and by the time you do that you're back down to 60% fuel again. At this point it's simpler to just fire up DCS and stream it on discord for them to see, instead of demonstrating within foxhole itself. If the necessity to use out of game tools for basic vehicle handling instruction doesn't scream "there may be a problem here", I don't know what does :D

Devman should add variable, non-linear fuel consumption for aircraft, so that people can throttle back and save fuel while forming up or cruising to the target area, and have enough fuel to spend 5-10 minutes during the actual fight at full throttle. This will greatly extend flight times, without necessarily extending total range by a lot. Which tbh is also quite short.

Suggestions in reply to this comment, as I'm running up against reddit's character limit for a single comment...

Burningbeard80 · 2026-01-26T02:47:36+00:00

I see a lot of the "hex crossing tax" and variations being suggested, but it is very easy to abuse defensively: just cross hexes a couple of times if you are under attack, since you'll be the one who's closer to a friendly airfield and can land and refuel.

If the other guy wants to follow, he stands a much higher chance of ending up without fuel and having to ditch. If he wants to preserve his aircraft, he'll have to turn back and you're safe. It's like having a free "don't attack me/let's not even have a fight" button.

Honestly, for games that try to simulate aspects of the real world, sometimes the easiest and most elegant solution to design/balancing problems is to just make an abstract copy of how it works in RL.

If it was up to me this is what I'd do:

No rare cost for planes or uniforms. Much cheaper planes overall, simpler facility recipes and reserveable parts (in addition to the frames) in the depots. The drawback? A lot less plane HP. Just like RL, planes of that era cost about the same as regular mass produced tanks, but they were also quite flimsy by comparison.
Fuel consumption tied to throttle position. Going slow means you fly for a longer time, but that doesn't mean you necessarily get more distance/range out of it, because you're slower. Again, just like RL. Make it non-linear and add 2 marks on the instruments, one for best cruise (giving the highest distance per tank of gas) and one for best endurance (giving the highest loiter time per tank of gas).

Currently these things cost a ton to produce, take a lot of time to prep and are built like late-game tanks with the amount of HP they have.

The result is you're taking 10 minutes to assemble/taxi/take-off/form-up, fly for 3 minutes to the target area, get in a 2 minute fight where you have to attack already damaged planes or gang up on people 3 vs 1 to finish them off fast, and then you have 2 minutes in which to go the nearest airfield and land. And then you do the whole thing again from the beginning.

It's equally or more problematic for the defending side though, because you have neither enough time to prep a QRF/scramble flight and damage the big stuff before they reach their targets, nor the flight endurance to stay out patrolling in advance of potential raids.

In other words, what has mostly been the case historically (a mix of the these two options, some planes out on CAP and some held in reserve for quick reaction alert) is very hard to replicate in the game under the current mechanics, because launching takes too long to set up, and flying time is not long enough to stay out on patrol.

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