bombers (discussion only)

[Elsdragon]

The phantoms took Sllipy:(

LF's Need 5 guns, maybe.

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No longer a slave to the man!

[Tenacity]

Well duh. It makes sense for bombers to be more numerous than caps. If you're a military force and are expecting capital resistance, are you going to deploy a single 1.5 billion piece of equipment that can easily be destroyed by overwhelming numbers, or a strike force of bombers and fighters, each totalling between twenty and thirty million credits each? I'd take 1.5 billion credits worth of bombers any day.

strategically, you're right. It's logical to deploy bombers against caps.

However, gunboats aside, the ONLY ships that caps are effective against right now are other caps. They're designed to fight each other. It isnt fun for cap players to encounter squadrons of bombers everywhere they go.

Nobody likes getting constantly owned with no way around it, and face it - right now there's no way around it. I can fly with as many escort fighters as I want, and a single group of bombers will still be able to kill me long before my escorts dispatch them. Those escorts, as inefficient and ineffective as they may be, are the only thing that lets caps survive, and right now that is not acceptable.

Bombers cost a fraction of what caps cost, and they're more effective in -every- aspect of the game. That's why it's the most popular class of ship on the server right now - who doesnt want to fly a ship that can kill everything that you throw at it, and then some?

Bottom line is that fighters (All classes of fighters) need to be buffed, and a slight nerf to bombers wouldnt hurt either.

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[Ash]

they're more effective in -every- aspect of the game.

I disagree. More firepower doesn't mean more power in my opinion. It may be the case in terms of a particular bomber. But you are NOT going to have an advantage in fight against a fighter. When i'm bombing i always hire a merc/freelancer, or get a wingman in a fighter to team up encase such a highly possible scenario should present itself.

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[blubba]

Oh Jake...but you said..I'm going to take that kudos back!

Let me re-iterate. In the question of balance, you cannot include skill. Saying that you kill loads of bombers in your **** is not particulalry useful. The pilots must be of exactly equal skill to assess the balance.
We don't have that luxury here but we can have general concensus.

If the majority of players think bombers are overpowered, then they probably are. If they feel they are not, they aren't.
If it's sort of 50-50, then that counts as a 'not'.
After a result, take another look.

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[Galacius]

I disagree. More firepower doesn't mean more power in my opinion. It may be the case in terms of a particular bomber. But you are NOT going to have an advantage in fight against a fighter. When i'm bombing i always hire a merc/freelancer, or get a wingman in a fighter to team up encase such a highly possible scenario should present itself.

See I have seen the manuverable bombers (roc, bh bomber ect) take down fighters like clockwork. It was so shocking how easily they did it I would be afraid to fight one of the fighter type bombers in a vhf, but thats not truly the point of this thread. The point is how bombers can completely shrug off fighters and wipe out capships and transports way before the fighters can even dent them.

[Rudo]

I eat fighter bombers alive in a VHF. Om nom nom.

You need to learn to think like they think, then counter that. Mindgames all the way.

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[11of10]

Well, a scenario: Transport, escorted by two fighters, runs into two pirate bombers.

Those bombers usually go and obliterate the transport in a few seconds, than deal with escorts.

In my oppinion, this might be as bad as when trader says "kill me it's cheaper". Naturally, somebody correct me if I'm wrong.

So, is that the debate? VHFs haven't got enough firepower (or LFs, or whatever) to take bombers down quickly enough?

Had anybody tried to use sunslayers against them, to take off their TCD/SNAC?

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Be excelent to each other!

[Colonel Z.e.r.o.]

Some one mentioned in this thread about boosting the bomber thrust speed (250-275?) for bomber runs (probably make specialized thrusters with limited energy) so when they make their run they're not absolutely sitting ducks against pursuers. But (and I stress you to consider this) when they have to turn around for another attack/recharge their thrusters, the fighter can take advantage. Granted the agility of these craft are snipped slightly.

Another point I tried to get out somewhere was about making a line of bomber guns/turrets with awful speed but extreme projectile range along with moderate damage/fire rate and energy consumption. This way bombers wouldn't be so often abused to bravely PvP fighters. We could also look into adding more torpedo slots (3-4?) and expanding the array of torpedoes/anti-capship weapons (emp torpedoes/bomber class pulse cannons and finally hull busting torps).

I also thought of possibly making very heavy "dept charges" for bombers with damage maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the hull busting torpedoes just to make the bomber runs more interesting, of course probably knack the refire rate some, boost up the energy consumption (mines do/can be made to consume energy right?) so their not used by fighters, and of course, reduce their speed so they don't easily track and destroy fighters (unless they're stupid enough to get caught in it's blast radius.)

Then theirs the armor well in combination with the two above, the armor might be able to be left alone. The shielding could be bumped up again to freighter class just so they're aren't completely helpless against fighters and attackers despite the agility nerfing.

I'm not very good at making stats, so I didn't bother/I just got home from work so I won't bother wasting your time.

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Nathan's Log || The "Real Story" of Lenox Casper

[Friday]

Make a start by upping fighter weapon projectile speeds - see how that works first. I am sure that fighter escorts will be grateful for every boost they receive.

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[Irra]

What about lowering snac price and hit points so couple of missiles or torp can take it out so bomber becomes useles?

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this is cool signature