Bomber Revamp Idea

[Shaka]

I'll admit, I'd love to see a 40k energy bomber torp with maybe 120 m/s, 300,000/150,000 damage, range of 7k.

It'd make the 47k bombers more versatile against caps, and the torp could be shot down easily at that speed.

I agree, that'd be cool.

Onto my main point,

The main problem here is that Disco's space combat (and basic plot) revolves around the second world war, specifically the navies. Thus, we have battleships and cruisers. Problem being, this was the same time when fighters and bombers made most modern navies realise that large-scale capital warships were infeasible. There's a reason the USN has decomissioned it's last battleship. The point is that we can't continue to model our imaginary universe around something that doesn't work.

As it's been mentioned before, the basic engine of freelancer favors the fighter. Adding to this the disproportionate power of bombers, caps become showpieces. No matter how we try and change the way things work, battleships will either be ultra powerful or on a near par with bombers. Considering how online play works, I'd say that we just take several peoples' sound advice and leave things as are.

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[Bolverk]

I think, two bombers taking down one battleship is about right. If one battleship could pwn 3-4 bombers why even bother flying bombers? Ship that can't perform its basic function without spamming is not worth it.

[Oldum]

I'm really happy to see this topic.
Before anyone starts shouting, I've tried quite a lot of bombers, my current favourite is the Upholder with my type of setup but still ...

What should a bobers be like? I never really liked this whole SNAC thingy, cause it takes the reason away to call a bomber a bomber ... call it a cannon ship ... or anything ... since nowadays, the only bomber I see a Nova Torp. Launcher mounted are the heavy bombers (Barghest , Challenger) and a few exceptions...

Oh and the wonderfull weapons ... which you say it's hard to take a fighter out ... Well, I'm not the best in PvP, but I'm really good at dodging, which I hadto learn during my flights with LPI ... always overpowered ... or most of the time ... Anyways, current bomber weapons can rip a fighter to bits with a bit of skill in it .... especially 4 of them ....

So what would my point be?

Yes, bombers could be modified, but not by so drasticly as Montezuma is dreaming about it ...

So what i propose is to:

* Get rid of bomber turrets and weapons
* Give bombers more than 2 torp slots (maybe even 4 or 5 on the bigger ones)
* Give bombers much larger powerplants, maybe even over 100k for the biggest, as i understand it, the SNAC uses 28k power to fire
* Reduce bomber turning to that of a medium to heavy GB (was inspired by the Imperetor in this)

In my view, this will make bombers a more specialised ship class, as i think they should be, so, this is what i feel that the suggested changes to bombers will lead to:

* Bombers only being flown with large ammounts of fighter or GB escorts, and in balenced fleets
* Bombers being extremely potent against caps, able to fire multiple SNACs at once for example, and in teams of 3 or 4, obliterating the heaviest of BSs with ease.
* Bombers being highly vulnerable to fighters and cap solaris/secondary weapons, with GB turning and no guns or turrets, they will be anti-cap only, but VERY powerful in an anti-cap role

IMO :

*Bomber weapons should be kept, even though noone really uses turrets on a bomber, but reduce the nuber of them to 2 for light bombers, 3 for heavier ones ...

*I would say giving all light bombers 2 torpedo slost, with an extra slot for CD only. ... yes, like on the current heavy bombers . And for heavy bombers, an aditional slot for a torpedo ...

(For the next one, 90% of the community will hate me ... )

*Somehow rahter remove SNAC or change it's purpose ... or keep it as it is but modify it to be only be efficient agains Gunboats or Gunships ... I'll tell you why ...

Right now, a SNAC is a weapon that couldn't even exist ... to understand this, I'll show you some numbers ...

AN-3 "Supernova" Antimatter Cannon .........on the other hand...TL-4a "Light Mortar" Antimatter Cannon
Weapon Class: Bomber Torpedo.............................................Weapon Class: 9
Hull Damage: 132,000.........................................................Hull Damage: 150,000
Shield Damage: 66,000..................................................Shield Damage: 75,000
Energy Usage: 29,740..........................................................Energy Usage: 1,000,000

I hope everyone can see my point ... it should be clearly impossible for a bomber to cause almost the same damage as a Cruiser , with only a small piece of energy ... At least in my view of physics .. and since noone said that Freelancer uses different physics then we would ... Well I guess everyone can continue ...

As I said, modifying the stats of the SNAC could be one thing ...

At the same time, bombers should really be made like bombers . Not using some energy cannons which they shouldn't even be able to use, at least not with this damage rate ...

//I can hear people loading their guns, ready to shoot me but I don't really mind ... //

So, I suggest that if the SNAC gets out of the picture, do something with Torpedoes ... Especially Nova Torpedo ... because in my view, bombers should use those , since it's a lot more possible to get the ammount of damage with something ... in stead of just "energy". I'm sure I don't have to explane what a torpedo is made of. So modify torpedoes to be actually usefull against Cruisers, Transports and so on .. cause right now, if a torpedo hits a Transports shield, it just flys away laughing ... cause nothing happens ... If that could be changed, either with explosion range increase or any other way (I'm not a professional in this) , then bombers could be even more usefull against big ships then now ...

Further more, you might have noticed that with these ideas, bombers would actually consist of 2/3 guns and 2/3 torpedoes. To Solve this matter, and to help bombers overcome Gunboats (since Nova torpedo is slow in turn and even if the explosion rate gets increased, GBs can easily evade torpedoes...) add 1 or 2 types of "missiles" for bombers only, with the damage rate of like double of the Mini Razor, but slower in turn so they won't be useable against small fighters, only Gunboats or bigger ...but for bigger ships, there's the Nova ... so GB only mostly...


I know this post is getting long but 1 more thing... Powercore. A slight increase could be done, but not as high as 100.000 ... just enough to make it able to fire all 2/3 torpedoes at once if it wishes ... and before you say it's way too powerfull, if you can shoot well, you can shoot a torpedo out before it hits you ... (I can't do it yet, or only by plain luck ...)

I guess I got everything I really wanted to tell, now everyone can point their guns at me ...


Edit: An example for the Upholder

Guns/Turrets 2/ 0
Opt. weapon class 6
Max. weapon class 6
Additional equipment

* 2xT
* 2xM ("Bomber Missiles")
* 1xCD
* 1xCM
* 1xM


Power output 45,000 u (instead of 38,200 u )
Power recharge 2000 u/s(insted of 1,722 u/s )

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[Tovig]

IMO, bombers should be between gunboats and fighter for size, speed and agility. They should not carry any guns (maybe turrets that can fire backward only) and minimum 2 Torpedos slots + one CD.

Then we have a specialised ship, very usefull against caps, totally useless against fighters and still hittable by caps weaponry if you aren't careful (due to the size and agility).

[Bolverk]

Nova torpedoes seriously need fixing, if bombers are to use them as a main weapon. At least, their blast radius should be enough to hit the shield hardpoint on any ship. Now, for example, Vidar is absolutely impenetrable by Novas from behind, it just can't hit shield. Also, Novas are really slow, cruiser can dodge them with minimal effort.

[... kur nubėgo?]

SNAC is good thing. And I am agianst its removal. I am one of thoseholy snac worwshipers. It's balance of the universe.

Anyhow if you really dream to remove it by giving torp's to bombers. I littile suggestion. It should be not ammo biased weapon. But energy one.

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Vladimir]

I always looked at bombers in space as on a slow ships with a pair of big nasty torpedoes easy to shoot down by fighters with maybe one turret on their back for minimal self-defence. They come when fighters are away, fire those slow-but-exetremely-powerful-torpedoes and move back for reloading, while gunners at capital ship they were aimed for suddenly forget about anything else than those torps and start trying to shoot them down.

It would be great, but how to do it with 70 ammo used for everything ammo based? Refire 50.0? That would even let bombers stay in fight instead of firing torpedoes and disengaging.

That will make bombers look more like bombers.

But something tells me that won't ever happen.

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[... kur nubėgo?]

or give 4 diffrent torpedos with complete same stats. And 4 torpedo slots. 4x 70

But anyhow I see all this suggestion more like implenting compeltly diffrent class of ships. Not replacing current ones.

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Shryke]

If anyone's thinking of removing the SNAC, then the mini Razor should go too.

Not to mention relying on torpedoes is a very good way of blowing yourself or your teammates up. CD's fly like mosquitoes in furballs. All you need is one setting off the wrong torpedo at the wrong time.

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