Bomber balance

[Blodo]

I think this would be a case of 'making everything the same' and I wholeheartedly disagree.

Not really, just balancing it more or less out. The point is however that big bombers even with their fat shields and hulls WILL go down faster than small bombers, because they WILL get hit and using this logic they are unfortunately bad against capital ships, which defeats their point.

Actually I'm going with the skeptics here....most bombers work fine... Thor works fine as well IF you keep distance from the capships. This is somehow difficult in the asteroidfield in Omega 5, on the other hand you can hide behind the rocks....

I would agree, if there weren't any gunboats in the mod. As it stands there is no such thing as "keep distance from gunboats" thanks to the speed of the SN and the speed and size of the gunboats themselves. Thors are only manageable in O-5 because you can hide behind asteroids. Believe me, fight capships in open space and you will be surprised at how no matter what you do your shield and hull just goes down. On the other hand funnily enough Thors are quite average against fighters if they get to joust them and the fighter has damaged dodging, like a corsair one. Call me silly, but that's how it is, and I think it's wrong.
An improved powerplant won't change the fact that the Thor just goes poof when fighting big ships.

Another good point is that realistically a bomber should be at an advantage to a capital ship just like a capital ship is at an advantage to a fighter. We can't help it, with so many different ship classes there needs to be teamwork. Currently I can easily say that half of the bombers on disco are jacks of all trades (and as an extension whored, taiidan and catamaran comes to mind) or they are simply useless (thor, barghest, waran). The useless bombers should be buffed in the size and dodge department but should possibly be nerfed when it comes to turning.

The whored bombers could use a nerf or two themselves too. No bomber should be able to out-turn a fighter. And believe me there are some that can.

[mjolnir]

Not really, just balancing it more or less out. The point is however that big bombers even with their fat shields and hulls WILL go down faster than small bombers, because they WILL get hit and using this logic they are unfortunately bad against capital ships, which defeats their point.
I would agree, if there weren't any gunboats in the mod. As it stands there is no such thing as "keep distance from gunboats", and Thors are only manageable in O-5 because you can hide behind asteroids. Believe me, fight capships in open space and you will be surprised at how no matter what you do your shield and hull just goes down.

Bombers are supposed to be vulnerable to GBs. Their counter to them is
1. dodge them - doable in Catamaran, Falcata, Havoc...
2. kill them fast - RH bomber, Challenger, Praetorian...

As it stands Thor alone has difficulty killing a GB in open space yes. Up the powerplant and it won't have so big problems. The view from Omegas is a bit twisted by meeting Corsair GBs which have 2 more guns than anything else and most I have seen lately are very anti-fighter set up. Also you have access to Inferno, mount it on some fighters/bomber instead of the Imp. Debilitators you do know. It's kind of more logical RP wise also. Infernos own GBs big time.

I have some flying behind me in a Barghest... killing a BC with only one VHF in support(in open space), getting a rampage in NY against Cruisers/GBs multiple times with fighters on me all the time.

I do believe that over 90% of the bombers are just fine.

The ones that need to be upped are definitely

Thor (powerplant)
Barghest ( shield and even better powerplant)
Waran (questionable since it's supposed to be dated design)

civilian is geting changed completely to have BHG turning, while having 4 guns and beeing even bigger

The ones that need to be "nerfed" would be:

Catamaran - one or both of these: 1. better hitbox for the rear part of the ship, 2. loose the turret
if you have flown the BHG bomber which is basically the same in turning and very close to agility while being bigger you will find that it's in no way uber

Taidan - 1st. it should be GMG/IMG only, not "civilian", Pregeagle and Havoc are civilian, the idea that everyone can use it as well as the infocard and placement is a relic from 4.83 where there were only 2 bombers.
2nd it should get hitbox that covers the sides much better:
http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?s=...st&p=261995


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On the other hand funnily enough Thors are quite average against fighters if they get to joust them and the fighter has damaged dodging, like a corsair one.

Not really... mount a sunslayer, use mini properly or use mine + cd. Specially with the explosives you strip the Thor off guns quite fast, since it is a huge target. I tried from both sides and while it's arguably better than say a Challenger it's nowhere near a Falcata for example.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Blodo]

Bombers are supposed to be vulnerable to GBs. Their counter to them is
1. dodge them - doable in Catamaran, Falcata, Havoc...
2. kill them fast - RH bomber, Challenger, Praetorian...

Again, I would agree were it not for the fact that a single Catamaran would be able to destroy a GB, a single Thor wouldn't even with the improvements you suggest, because it wouldn't be able to even target the GB without losing bots (or fly around it while energy recharges for that matter) due to crippled dodging and a huge hitbox. I mount an Inferno and SN on my Thor and I can still only do so much before getting blasted to bits, most people agree with me that unless we jump somebody in a pack of 4 or more Thors it is next to impossible to do anything, which is out of balance if you ask me.

A fighter and bomber should be able to effectively take out a GB. Remember when we were fighting Mule in O-5 in his GB (me in a fighter, you in a bomber), were it not for the rocks and Ronneburg base we would both be toast, and even then we had no chance of fighting him off before chopper undocked with his bomber. Now for it to take three ships to toast a GB when normally a skilled catamaran player can pull it off alone... I am sorry, but I can't agree with just the powerplant buff.

I have some flying behind me in a Barghest... killing a BC with only one VHF in support(in open space), getting a rampage in NY against Cruisers/GBs multiple times with fighters on me all the time.

NY however is more or less newbie nation. Four Taiidans can completely cripple anything that is thrown at them (including fighters, GBs, LFs, you name it) by the lawfuls there, and I know that from personal experience. Not much use using it for compare purposes.

As to your points about the Catamaran and Taiidan: I wholeheartedly agree on those. Both have a bit of a weird hitbox, it should be remade before 4.85.

[mjolnir]

Again, I would agree were it not for the fact that a single Catamaran would be able to destroy a GB

Actually downing a GB in catamaran if you don't have Inferno (which it basically shouldn't have), or 5 shieldbuster is quite difficult. I have not beeping able to down a few like that... and they didn't even had missiles. Put two missiles on and it's almost not possible. The main problem is the shield comming up before you can fire supernova again => means you need to shoot it down => you are pretty exposed while doing it.

.. a single Thor wouldn't even with the improvements you suggest, because it wouldn't be able to even target the GB without losing bots (or fly around it while energy recharges for that matter) due to crippled dodging and a huge hitbox. I mount an Inferno and SN on my Thor and I can still only do so much before getting blasted to bits, most people agree with me that unless we jump somebody in a pack of 4 or more Thors it is next to impossible to do anything, which is out of balance if you ask me.

Then how do you explain the fight with mw in Thor + 2 Odins and 1 LF, against first: 2 Titans, 1 Praetorian, 1 GB... gb and one Titan died then the rest left (because 2 more GBs and a Cruiser came and they felt it was too much), and we killed the 2GBs and the Cruiser.

A fighter and bomber should be able to effectively take out a GB. Remember when we were fighting Mule in O-5 in his GB (me in a fighter, you in a bomber), were it not for the rocks and Ronneburg base we would both be toast, and even then we had no chance of fighting him off before chopper undocked with his bomber. Now for it to take three ships to toast a GB when normally a skilled catamaran player can pull it off alone... I am sorry, but I can't agree with just the powerplant buff.

You had pretty much useless anti-gb loadout (2 Imp.Debs + 2 Natters + 2 Missiles and CD). And no I won't be able to take him down with catamaran for the reasons explained above.
Thor is not that bad as you picture it, it needs you to work a lot on dodging... but so does the RH bomber. Only thing it needs is the powerplant. With it even while using bats/bots you will punch trough GB shield/hull before you get low on bots. Oh, btw. it's getting 10% size decrease according to AoM.

NY however is more or less newbie nation. Four Taiidans can completely cripple anything that is thrown at them (including fighters, GBs, LFs, you name it) by the lawfuls there, and I know that from personal experience. Not much use using it for compare purposes.

I will give you names then:
1 Barghest(SN+CD) +1 Sabre (with CD) were against Oxidfox in Liberty BC.. he died.. even though an SA (don't remember name) came to cover him in a Liberator half way trough... and was on me the whole time.
The other huge fight was 2 USS (one of them USS Titan in the BC, one in Cruiser), 2 random Cruisers and GBs a few VHFs and LFs including Ibanez in his laggy liberator, vs 2 Sabres, 1 Falcata and one Barghest. In the end of the fight we killed BC, 2? Cruisers, 2 GBs, some 3 fighters, and the LF. Denelo in his Falcata died as well as one sabre. The last of us left when one BS came and cruiser + gb re-engaged.

On another day I was alone in the Barghest against Sniper in the Goliath (liberty carrier), I was able to keep his shield down without getting hull damage (using range yes), but not hurt his hull since the shield came up too fast.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Blodo]

Actually downing a GB in catamaran if you don't have Inferno (which it basically shouldn't have), or 5 shieldbuster is quite difficult. I have not beeping able to down a few like that... and they didn't even had missiles. Put two missiles on and it's almost not possible. The main problem is the shield comming up before you can fire supernova again => means you need to shoot it down => you are pretty exposed while doing it.

Agreed. But even without missiles (taking two equal skilled pilots) it would not be possible at all for Thor without any sort of fire support in open space to survive, let alone deal damage.

Then how do you explain the fight with mw in Thor + 2 Odins and 1 LF, against first: 2 Titans, 1 Praetorian, 1 GB... gb and one Titan died then the rest left (because 2 more GBs and a Cruiser came and they felt it was too much), and we killed the 2GBs and the Cruiser.

They targeted your support? Odin's had viable anti GB loadout? You had asteroids to hide behind?

You had pretty much useless anti-gb loadout (2 Imp.Debs + 2 Natters + 2 Missiles and CD). And no I won't be able to take him down with catamaran for the reasons explained above.
Thor is not that bad as you picture it, it needs you to work a lot on dodging... but so does the RH bomber. Only thing it needs is the powerplant. With it even while using bats/bots you will punch trough GB shield/hull before you get low on bots. Oh, btw. it's getting 10% size decrease according to AoM.

I am working on dodging, however even with vertical dodge it cannot evade fire well enough to at the very least be able to do circles around the capship without being hit while it's energy recharges. That's the very minimum that it should be able to do with a good pilot behind the steering wheel, hiding behind asteroids doesn't count much.

I don't want to make the big bombers uber cause they suck at this moment, I believe the approach should be that bombers should not be good against fighters (which should easily outmanuever a bomber) but they should be able to dodge capital ship fire, because otherwise they are useless no matter how much armour they wear. It's annoying that FL works that way, but nothing we can do about the engine. We can do something about stats though. The Thor being reduced next version is one thing, but I say that other bombers should get a rebalance as well.

Taiidan, while being whored right now, only needs a slight turn rate reduce and a proper hitbox and it would be perfectly balanced IMO. That's my idea of how a bomber should look like cause it can easily dodge capship fire with it's actual vert and horizontal dodge. It's how Thor and Barghest should be able to fly as well.

[mjolnir]

Taiidan, while being whored right now, only needs a slight turn rate reduce and a proper hitbox and it would be perfectly balanced IMO.

I don't think it needs turning nerf... just proper hitbox and restrict it (by putting it on GMG base). Hitbox makes much bigger difference than almost any reasonable change in turn rate - again I point to Catamaran vs BHG bomber both have basically same turning/agility.

Thor is not and never will be a bomber for circling close to a capital ship (when it's in turret view), that's a fact. No ammount of turning/dodging can help that as long as it has the size. So it should keep beeing different (just like Barghest), bigger powerplant for long range (over 700m) bombardment alows it to miss a few shots while beeing effective. If you miss in an agile bomber you are pretty much doomed.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Symbol]

In small ship vs small ship combat (small ship means anything smaller then a SHF) turning is by far the most important aspect of any ship. At the moment, in fighter vs bomber combat the bomber is already useless. I have never had a bomber do hull damage to me in a 1v1 or 1v2 situation simply because i can dance around their ship so effortlessely. Ask any bomber whos 1v1ed or 2v1ed BlueBeard, ?, or AcE. So i think further reduction of the turn rate would just nerf them entirely in fighter combat. However i do agree with decreasing their size and incresing their strafe force from 2000 to 3000 and lowering their mass a little so the strafing is more violent, like a sabres strafing.

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<span style="font-family:Arial Black"><span style="color:#FF0000">[X]-BlueBeard-[X]</span> - Pirate!
? - Corsair!
[M]-AcE-[M] - Merc who doesnt get paid enough!
??? </span> - Military!

[sovereign]

Okay, I had my first serious fight in my Thor today. Yep, its agility is junk. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get a bead on a Wrath with no luck, not even a potshot. I almost forgot the guy's name since he stayed off my screen the whole time. Yech. Not fun at all, especially since I could never really see any of the shots coming at me.

Admittedly, the Wrath should school the Thor, but I couldn't even shoot back! Methinks improved strafing at the very least is in order. Or a smaller hitbox, when I was turning he was shooting at the edges of me and I couldn't see me getting hit. Ow. Blodo, I am sorry I doubted you.

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[Blodo]

Symbol: Umm, they are supposed to be bad in fighter combat. I even saw Razr get shot by a supernova once by two praetorians so please do not underestimate bombers in their current state. Bombers destroying fighters with ease is just an incredibly stupid concept, at least to me. They should be able to dodge better though yeah.

The reason I am trying to discuss this through is that bombers like the Thor can never stand up to bombers like the Falcata in any combat, since the Falcata pilot can choose to be either close to the capship or away from it. Thor on the other hand has to always be away. It seriously limits tactics and the bomber in general. It should by all means be hard to hit by a capship but easy to get by a fighter, which is why I propose hitbox reduction and/or strafe increase but turn rate decrease.

EDIT: Though now that I think about it the Thor already turns really badly anyway..

[Othman]

The bombers are fine as they are now imo. I would just tweak the ones that need a size rebalancing or any other cruicial fix. But currently, I believe that someone who knows what he is doing in his VHF is very likely to counter a bomber decently enough unless the bomber pilot is a true bomber whore.

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On the uncharted lagoons of anguish, I sail with a canoe made of my sins.