What if t2 fighterbombers were extremely powerful, but had to be reloaded at an air staging facility or an aircraft carrier (cnc style)? Would be really cool to be able to test out this concept in a mod.
Sim mod request: reloading fighterbombers
If you'd throw fuel out, then one can implement this via the GetFuelRatio and SetFuelRatio. For every bomb a fraction is lost. Once all 'fuel' is gone the game would automatically send it to an air staging facility to refuel.
A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned
Experimenting is good. And I have wanted to try something like this. Tying it to fuel makes sense, piggybacking it on a mechanic already there, and highlighting an underused thing (air staging)
Perhaps to boost the bombers without it being a huge boost to snipes, buffing AOE in lieu of damage would suffice. Could do it to gunships too. Making them nice strike aircraft.
You need to get them in, have them spread their attacks out, and have them pull away so they still have their fueled up speed to escape.
You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!
Would be interesting to see fuel replaced/reused as an ammo count for air instead. Wonder how that would change up the air meta.
For what it's worth, Zero-K requires ALL bombers to reload at air staging after a single pass but all bombs are extremely powerful, and it's colossally infuriating because if your air player misses the radar signature heading towards the front line, too bad! The bomb is dropped and the bomber has already had its order stopped and is flying back over enemy AA to be refueled in the middle of the enemy base. Hope you catch it next time! Great idea in practice to stop bomber camping, I personally love the idea of having to reload t1 bombers after 5 passes, but horrendous execution in existing games.
EDIT: Also an important note, the air factories in Zero-K come with a single refuel/reload point each, meaning you don't need dedicated air staging early game.