Insurgents should be rewarded for shooting down helicopters

I think that the best way to balance helicopters is to reward Insurgents for shooting them down. My solution is this:

  • Remove helicopters dodging. It was okay when they hovered directly over you, but now that they circle I see it as just a silly and unnecessary mechanic.

  • Make them hover longer. It will make more sense with my later points.

  • When a helicopter is shot down, Security automatically loses a wave of reinforcements.

  • When a helicopter is shot down, the wreckage becomes a new side objective. If the Insurgents can reach it and capture it (I guess like a normal objective, but faster), they get extra waves.

  • Security can prevent this by reaching the wreckage first and destroying it. This would be similar to taking out a cache, but rockets shouldn’t be able to destroy it.

  • Implement a mechanic that guarantees the helicopter will land in an area accessible to both sides.

I like this idea because it would mean helicopters are very effective, but also very risky. Currently there isn’t much incentive to shooting them down since if you don’t, the helicopter will leave in ten seconds anyway. A Black Hawk Down scenario where you have to quickly scramble to a new objective should make the game much more interesting, and force players to not sit in the same spot all game.

Turning a crashed heli into a side objective? Oh man yes! Black Hawk Down all the way!