An idea provoked in part by wondering why there is no 'falling slowly' stage of balloon destruction, only falling fast and capable of rising/falling under control - Giving balloons an equivalent to hull health with some differences.
- Damaged after normal balloon destruction, same as hull.
- Probably the same damage modifiers as normal balloon, maybe extra vulnerability to direct fire damage to compensate for lack of stacks.
- Restored for 'free' to the same % health as the normal balloon as it is rebuilt/repaired.
- Damage to the balloons second stage governs fall speed so an exactly destroyed balloon would leave it exactly supporting the ships weight, no lift, no falling. The % of second stage balloon remaining is the portion of the ships weight it can support, a ship with 0% remaining should fall faster than the current maximum to make the extra damage needed to be dealt worthwhile.
-Balloon blocking might be a problem, it might be possible to allow shots to both hit and pass through though, similar to ye olde flamethrower, or have hits both hit the second stage and the hull/armor at the same time.
-Some balancing would of course be needed in relation to the amount of balloon overkill weapons have that would now be both necessary and more important than a bit of extra armor stripping. Probably less than the momentarily aborted gravity changes though.
I think this would make the balloon destruction aspect of the game more interesting, taking a bit more to get a ship falling at all fast to start with but allowing for a faster kill once the fight is essentially won by the balloon popper.
