Bergelmir needs a bigger model. Upsizing this one makes it bugged so it's meh...
As to light bombers, well IMO we should just get rid of them altogether and upsize all light bombers to medium ones. The concept of a light bomber just doesn't hold up any more, we don't want bombers that can compete with fighters anyway. So slow them down, give them that bigger reactor and more bots.
The hardest part about bombers is the guns/turrets. Right now bombers are setup as super-duper fighters, and everybody is scared to death of ROC with multiple codenames coming back, so we have these bomber guns now that are just ... blah... in order to keep them from being completely OP fighters again. What if, instead of messing with the guns, we change the nature of the ship?
My opinion is that bombers should be a hybrid between fighters and gunboats. Fighters use guns/missiles to shoot what's in front of them, and put the emphasis on getting into a position where the enemy is in front of them. But bombers should use torps and turrets, the torpedo nukes whatever is in front of them while turrets shoot the stuff that is around them rather than what's in front of them. This is the flying-fortress model--you choose to attack with great force, or you choose to defend, but a single pilot cannot do both simultaneously.
To achieve this, I think bombers should use gunboat turrets. *BUT* they should have severely restricted arcs, like only 2 point in any direction at most, so that they dont compete with gunboats directly. Also since GB turrets use vastly more energy, this will restrict their usage a bit, and the pilot will have to choose between shooting ~2 GB turrets forward or firing the torpedo, but cant do both. Or the pilot can switch to turret view and shoot ships around it, but not as effectively as if it turned the nose forward and dropped a torpedo.
Also the VHF should be leveraged for its utility, and allowed to mount a SNAC (or a mini-SNAC maybe), but it should use all of the fighters available energy so that they cannot use their guns at the same time. Some weak VHF would not be able to use it.
TLDR summary
VHF can play the light-bomber role against lightly-armored targets
Light bomber has one torpedo mount, and 2-4 GB turrets for defense
Heavy bomber has two torpedo mounts and 3-5 GB turrets
Flying fortresses, that's the role they should fill
' Wrote:The hardest part about bombers is the guns/turrets. Right now bombers are setup as super-duper fighters, and everybody is scared to death of ROC with multiple codenames coming back, so we have these bomber guns now that are just ... blah... in order to keep them from being completely OP fighters again. What if, instead of messing with the guns, we change the nature of the ship?
My opinion is that bombers should be a hybrid between fighters and gunboats. Fighters use guns/missiles to shoot what's in front of them, and put the emphasis on getting into a position where the enemy is in front of them. But bombers should use torps and turrets, the torpedo nukes whatever is in front of them while turrets shoot the stuff that is around them rather than what's in front of them. This is the flying-fortress model--you choose to attack with great force, or you choose to defend, but a single pilot cannot do both simultaneously.
To achieve this, I think bombers should use gunboat turrets. *BUT* they should have severely restricted arcs, like only 2 point in any direction at most, so that they dont compete with gunboats directly. Also since GB turrets use vastly more energy, this will restrict their usage a bit, and the pilot will have to choose between shooting ~2 GB turrets forward or firing the torpedo, but cant do both. Or the pilot can switch to turret view and shoot ships around it, but not as effectively as if it turned the nose forward and dropped a torpedo.
Also the VHF should be leveraged for its utility, and allowed to mount a SNAC (or a mini-SNAC maybe), but it should use all of the fighters available energy so that they cannot use their guns at the same time. Some weak VHF would not be able to use it.
TLDR summary
VHF can play the light-bomber role against lightly-armored targets
Light bomber has one torpedo mount, and 2-4 GB turrets for defense
Heavy bomber has two torpedo mounts and 3-5 GB turrets
Flying fortresses, that's the role they should fill
Please tell me you are either drunk or trolling.
You really want to buff bombers by allowing them to use GB turrets in order to weaken them?
I can`t follow that logic. That would make bombers (which aren`t OP in my opinion) really OP since it would give them even more firepower.
And bombers are certainly no super duper fighters. They mainly are prey for real fighters.
A mini Snac like you mentioned is the Mini Razor. Giving fighters the ability to insta an other fighter like the snac does is out of question. Bombers have that ability but they lack the agility to use it efficiently.
Only thing discussable is the time it takes to take down a bomber. Where certain bombers as Joe described have an advantage against others of the same class.
' Wrote:About time someone other than the GC players came out and said this. I've been sick to death of all the people going "Orchid is OP, stop complaining."
It's not. It sucks as hard as some people wish the GC did. (Stop chuckling you sexists.)
One of the worst bombers in my opinion. Converting to a medium bomber would be perfect given its shape and size, which is pretty much spot-on to all the medium bombers' sizes.
As a indi that flies a Orchid, in one of the most heavy pvp oriented parts of Sirius, it is by no means OP. Though I wouldn't call it the worst bomber either. It is by far my favorite and I've integrated it into my RP since before the tech chart came into play. I'll take any boosts to it you wanna make. :D
' Wrote:You really want to buff bombers by allowing them to use GB turrets in order to weaken them?
The secret is limiting their arcs so that only 2 can fire in any direction:
Median class-9 gun damage is 2100 hull DPS. 6 class-9 guns = 12,600 DPS.
Median codename damage is 2500 hull DPS. 4 codenames (alone) = 10,000 DPS.
Median gunboat turret damage is 3000 hull DPS. 2 GB turrets = 6,000 DPS.
The big benefit to GB turrets is faster munition speed makes targeting much easier. Also 800 range so they have further effective reach than fighter guns. These are good benefits for a flying-fortress model. You just have to really limit their arcs, only let 2 fire in any direction.
Quote:A mini Snac like you mentioned is the Mini Razor. Giving fighters the ability to insta an other fighter like the snac does is out of question. Bombers have that ability but they lack the agility to use it efficiently.
I'm not 100% on this, other than I know VHF should be the only "fighter" that can mount a torpedo, and it should be useful weapon. Right now some of the lower fighters can mount them, and the torpodoes are not very useful. I'm not sure on this yet.
' Wrote:The secret is limiting their arcs so that only 2 can fire in any direction:
Median class-9 gun damage is 2100 hull DPS. 6 class-9 guns = 12,600 DPS.
Median codename damage is 2500 hull DPS. 4 codenames (alone) = 10,000 DPS.
Median gunboat turret damage is 3000 hull DPS. 2 GB turrets = 6,000 DPS.
The big benefit to GB turrets is faster munition speed makes targeting much easier. Also 800 range so they have further effective reach than fighter guns.
This still would make bombers OP.
I use made up numbers now so don`t pick on them:
A 50% hit rate with 2 GB turrets is more efficient than a 20% hit rate with 6 class-9 guns.
6 class-9 guns are barely used of course, since shieldbusters are essential in every snubfight.
Allowing bombers to use GB turrets would make it too easy to hit with those weapons for the reasons you mentioned yourself.
Bombers are now able to use TS too (not sure if that`s supposed to be so, I`m honestly against it), that means a Fighter fighting a bomber will nearly always have 2 projectiles heading in his direction. These two projectiles are more likely to hit than 6 projectiles a Fighter can shoot towards a bomber, which the Fighter only can use while facing the bomber directly.
' Wrote:Allowing bombers to use GB turrets would make it too easy to hit with those weapons for the reasons you mentioned yourself.
Yes they would do a lot of damage but they would also be large slow lumbering things. Heavy Bombers should be like Fafnir and Barghest, and should probably only have 170 afterburner.
One-v-one dogfight the bomber should absolutely destroy the VHF, but with the fighter on the tail it should chew it apart. 2v1 the fighters should win almost all of the time. Three VHFs can kill a GB with 6 turrets now, imagine what they would do to a bomber with 2 turrets.
I agree that the design of a bomber isn't optimal for destroying fighters. Such acts come from skill. The mindset should remain by the devs to keep bombers balanced so that they are not optimal for taking out fighters. But I argue and warn against the mindset of flatout trying to prevent them from being capable of doing so. To achieve this extreme would most likely result in the ship not being able to deal damage in any form be it against cap or snub since some players will still learn to use an unorthodox method of taking out an enemy combatant. I'm quite certain devs did not intend for mortars to be hitting snubs either but I know I've done it even against Asbestos (surprisingly). It certainly wasn't the most efficient use of my powerplant but it is doable considering many of us have been doing it with a projectile moving achingly slow (SNAC). You can only make em so slow and they won't even be any use against the largest of caps but still a player will learn to do it in a ram attack on a snub.
But this is about the light bombers in comparison to it's brother's and sisters in the bomber class. I see this similar situation in a couple other ship classes and yet we still keep it going and in a sense I haven't seen how it's been overly painful. HFs and VHFs, for example, is one I'm familiar with. We have HFs as the core of our fleet and I'd say they don't compare to the damage output and durability of their VHF counterparts yet share the same role. Indeed on paper the Karasu isn't really something one would touch but in performance it (along with all the usefull HFs) is phenomenal in group fights and probably best fielded in pairs or more. I feel light bombers face this similar situation and are best fielded in more numbers then their counterparts. This all can be viewed also with the bigger picture of the fleet that the bomber is part of. How are the other ships in that fleet? How do these light bombers play in the overall strengths and weakness of a faction's fleet.
Other ship classes in similar shoes are GS/GB, Dessie/Cruis/BCs, lgt BS/med BS/hvy BS.
' Wrote:One-v-one the bomber should absolutely destroy the VHF, 2v1 the fighters should win almost all of the time.
So you want to mess up each and every balance making fighters superior to bombers? Did it ever come to your mind that fighters are acctually made to eliminate the dangers bombers cause?
No, just no. There is no justification making bombers superior to caps and fighters too.
Edit: Ninjad by Prowler here
' Wrote:Three VHFs can kill a GB with 6 turrets now, imagine what they would do to a bomber with 2 turrets.
Train a little more...
If your GB gets destroyed by 3 VHFs there`s only one thing needed: skill, not balance.
So.. Basically bombers would the be prime chow food in every fight (they are already) since
A) Too slow to evade fighters
B) Too fragile to fight turret zoom gunboats
C) You need three or four of them to even get a cruiser down and that's with 10-15 mins, and it getting support.
IMO, scrap the bomber line then.
And scrap all the snubs while you're at it.
Let's go capwhoring with style.
Edit: And change all the faction ID's to allow the use of caps too, while you're at it.
<3
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:12:00] Traxit: this is smut stop