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[Errant Variable]

Many of the gripes I've heard about airstrikes and artillery center around that they are nearly unavoidable and that they tend to be devestating. Four seconds from activation to impact is unlikely for any form of free-flight artillery currently known (it would be close to direct fire, and you can't really speed up the time it takes something on a ballistic trajectory to impact. I've got a few thoughts on how to make the "support fire" more interesting and less unrelentingly brutal.

Three archetypes of ballistic support

-Light artillery. These are relatively quick-reaction guns near the map. 10 seconds to arrive on a smoke marker (close enough to have a director see what they're shooting at), numerous 10-15 damage shells in an accurate cluster, possibly several waves of fire in a volley. If possible, have these arriving from a predetermined direction and blockable by cover (falling at a 45 degree angle maybe?)

-Long guns: Big tubes, many miles away. Time to arrive would be higher (15+ seconds) and the damage would be far nastier (about what we have now), and there wouldn't be much point in smoke to warn the target. On the other hand, the spread would be far wider and the time to reload would preclude multiple waves of fire.

-Mortars: pretty much what we have now but with a 30 second timer... lots of hurt coming straight down on your head. No smoke since it's a very area-based attack, two or three waves of rounds coming down, wide area, random spread and if possible drift on the initial aim point. Not something to use near your own team, and ideally difficult to use against a mobile force, but death on a group of people holed up and waiting.



Air support: less pain, faster reaction time. This could come in the shape of a missile attack (I've seen several other people bring this up), bombing run like what we have now, or even a cluster munition/guns attack to do a number of small hits but never crack armor that's in good shape (or heads for that matter). If possible in the engine, allow these to be noticed and shot down as an interrupt, with the current smoke marker remaining for the target indicator.

Edited by Errant Variable, 27 July 2014 - 11:40 PM.