How about an epic naval mission?

[bbosen]

Here's an outline for a mission I would LOVE to see:

1- All aircraft are launched facing each other as usual, but 300 km apart so that each is 150 km from the center of the map. (Compared with our "classic" missions, this separates initial aircraft positions about 4 times farther.) At launch, the available fuel for all aircraft is limited to just 250 km. With just 250 km of range before fuel is exhausted, this means that anybody that flies all the way into enemy territory and tangles with opposing aircraft will very quickly drain their fuel down to worrying levels.

2- Each team launches a battleship toward their respective opponents, also from 150km behind the centerline.

3- Undefended airfields are unable to offer fuel, armament, or repair services until they are safely behind their advancing, friendly battleship. Accordingly, at the commencement of battle, fuel from undefended airfields is equally restricted to both sides, and only available far from the battlefront. However, as battleships advance, the available fuel supplies and services advance with them, functionally representing the advance of front lines and associated military infrastructure. The primitive facilities at undefended airfields do not suffer from damage like defended airfields do, but it takes them much longer to pump fuel, repair damage, or replenish ammunition. Aircraft on the ground at undefended airfields are easily susceptible to damage from bombs, rockets, or strafing attacks. Accordingly, players on the ground at these undefended airfields will want to ask their friends to defend them while their aircraft receive service.

4- Only airfields 22 and 23 are defended by ground gunners, and each is located about 70km from center (as usual for these two "secondary" airfields). These two defended airfields can never be completely destroyed in this mission, but they are susceptible to damage as usual, almost to the point of destruction. Airfield repairs are always slowed to about 20% of normal, but because there are so many of them, players should always be able to find an operable secondary airfield somewhere behind their advancing battleship. Consequently, the undefended airfields are of primary strategic importance, since the damage level of the two defended airfields can easily be kept at a level that renders them useless. Even Replay Blokes will be able to effectively eliminate services from the two defended airfields.

5- Aircraft must protect their own battleship while attacking enemy battleship.

6- Additional pairs of new battleships are launched, from the original locations, every ten minutes. After sinking the battleship that has advanced farthest toward or into enemy territory, the opposing team's battlefront and available services reset back to the next battleship, denying services from any airfields that are no longer behind a protecting battleship, since undefended airfields only offer their services after being passed by their own friendly battleship.

7- There are two ways to win the battle:
A: The first team to destroy four enemy battleships wins, or
B: The first team to get their battleship beyond the centerline and 150km into enemy territory wins.

8- Whenever the player presses "q" in flight to query his forward observer for the status of the defended enemy airfield, he will also get an audio report or SystemMessagePanel text indicating whether or not undefended airfields at his present East/West position are friendly to him and able to offer supporting services for fuel, ammo, and maintenance.

This ought to result in a refreshing, new kind of online LAC battle in which naval ships are of primary strategic importance, and in which the battlefronts gradually approach one another, collide, overlap, and recede over and over as battleships advance, sink, and re-spawn far to the rear of the action, as if "territory" is enlisted in support of the team that "conquers" and subdues it.