You'd think with the bombers, the sheilds would be stronger, the longbow's sheilds recharge faster than the Shrike or Devastator's and are of greater strength. IIRC, the Longbow recharges at 80 while the Devastator goes at less than 30.
Even if the new bombers sheilds do recharge faster and you get several turrets, the number of enemy ships you face is larger, and on bombing runs you have to dodge capship IRs too. As long as you are more vulnerable and need to concentrate on objectives, you need stronger sheilds.
Of course, in Prophecy and SO, I needed to take out half the fighters BEFORE I could continue on to the capship, and if I was in a Shrike, I'd be in real bad shape. Makes me wonder how I got 140 kills on sim level 6 pushing a Shrike-maybe it was because I didn't have to face the bug missiles.
Lucky me I have WCPedit! Now the recharge rates and sheild levels are adequate, but not too much. At least nightmare is still a challenge-which it should be. If it wasn't they wouldn't have referred to the level as delta force commandos on steroids taking on a baby.
[This message has been edited by Death's Head (edited February 24, 2000).]