If the bomber was given its long-range anti cap weapon again, I doubt they'd be anywhere near as effective as in the old days due to all the additional mechanics in place. Fuze, Energy damage guns, shield energy drain.
The only times the old bombers were effective was when no one shot them. In duels their opponent even when good needed to make one mistake and had no way to adjust to it, the new fuze mechanic would fix this for a big part.
Then there is the EMP mechanics with a whole lot of guns having energy damage, you can probably keep a bomber from even firing their snac properly, not to mention the added drain from shields. Bombers are always charging their shields in fights now.
I do think that the shield drain is far too high for certain classes. As soon as you get shot you lose your defensive abilities and can't regain the upper hand if you're both equal, let alone when your enemy is better.
Especially Cruiser and up suffer from this far too much as well as freighters.
I really wish engagements had more range, especially for capital ships. Also, bombers needing to basically ram into their target with the way the current bombs are setup is just plain stupid - especially since the bombs are so inaccurate they are not more energy efficient than your regular guns or those from a fighter.
Edit: also if the dev team is so picky about insta-killing. Remove the gunboat mines and give them proper regular guns again, please. It's annoying to have these insta kill balls of doom randomly pop up in a snub brawl.
