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[Wapno]

It's a small one, but one that matters.

I've noticed that all bombers firing non-guided payloads do not lead their target - they always fire head-on, at the position their target currently is at, instead of at where they're going. This matters less with a Khopesh, for example, but severely limits the usefulness of Piranhas and Flashes, which drop slow-moving bombs and prox charges. If the target is a light cruiser or less, chances are they will just nonchalantly dodge to the side and all that damage will just float lazily next to them, into nothingness. I swear, I've never been hit succesfully by a Piranha simply because of how easy those bombs are to dodge (at shoot down).

Now of course, I know it shouldn't be too easy for those bombs to hit - they do crazy damage. Nor do I claim bombers aiming ahead of the target will mean certain hits all the time. Still, I feel it's just something they should do. Even Perditions suffer from this, often firing an entire barrage that completely misses, just because their target is moving sideways. Cobra seems to be less affected, because it tends to fire its Reaper at shorter range, but still doesn't lead.

I pretty much always gravitate towards using homing torpedo and kinetic bombers, simply because of how reliable their are. Unlike the rest of the bombers, they are effective against any ship class, including frigates. Even Tridents are worth their cost, simply because you can count on their Atropos to hit their mark.

And just in case you're wondering: No - Wing Commander 3 does not affect bombers (at least it doesn't seem to). As far as I can tell, it only affects accuracy of fighters.

[Alex]

Bombers do lead their targets and are affected by Wing Commander 3.

If the target is a light cruiser or less, chances are they will just nonchalantly dodge to the side and all that damage will just float lazily next to them, into nothingness. I swear, I've never been hit succesfully by a Piranha simply because of how easy those bombs are to dodge (at shoot down).

That doesn't have much to do with target leading - no matter how perfectly you aim the bomb (or indeed a torpedo), the AI will try to avoid them, and in most cases it's at least possible to a degree. In the case of bombs, as you note, it's easy. I suspect this is what you're seeing - the AI dodging successfully.

[Wapno]

Oh, okay then. Excuse me for spreading nonsense then

That concludes the discussion then, as I'm not going to complain about AI being good at dodging ^^. It must be too subtle for me to spot - I did test runs with and without Wing Commander 3 and did not spot any difference, but if it's there, then it's okay.

Thanks!

[Wyvern]

It's worth doing some test runs regardless - it's certainly -possible- that there's some sort of subtle bug, here.

(I plan on testing this some, soon, as my current run has given me a mod faction cruiser blueprint that has a single fighter bay; will be interesting to try out different bombers and see how it goes.)

[Alex]

Oh, okay then. Excuse me for spreading nonsense then

It's all good

That concludes the discussion then, as I'm not going to complain about AI being good at dodging ^^. It must be too subtle for me to spot - I did test runs with and without Wing Commander 3 and did not spot any difference, but if it's there, then it's okay.

It's worth doing some test runs regardless - it's certainly -possible- that there's some sort of subtle bug, here.

(I plan on testing this some, soon, as my current run has given me a mod faction cruiser blueprint that has a single fighter bay; will be interesting to try out different bombers and see how it goes.)

Yeah, a subtle bug is sadly always a possibility.

Another point to consider: at high carrier CR, fighters/bombers will have perfect/near perfect (or, rather, best-quality, which isn't perfect) target leading as a baseline, so Wing Commander 3 won't really be noticeable.

I did give it a quick try with a low-CR carrier vs a high-CR one with WC3, and it looked like the quality of the aim was different, but I didn't do enough tests to get a sample size I'd be 100% confident in.

[Wapno]

If that matters, I based my original post on tests done with a 70% CR carrier (reading "Standard Performance).

[Alex]

At 70%, the target leading should be "pretty good", with most of the WC3 bonus still having an effect (which, right, could still be hard to notice when the torps etc are being dodged).

Also: target leading improves with time spent firing at a target, but I'm not 100% sure if it affects bombers - it may not, since they don't spend much time firing, and I'm almost certain that the time spent lining up on a target doesn't count towards this.

[Wapno]

As an extension to this thread, I'm also going to point out that there actually is another problem with how bombers aim their inertia-led bombs, specifically up-close.

The problem begins when the distance to target is short and Piranhas/Flashes (also happens with Khopesh to a lesser degree) don't have enough room to drop their entire payload and begin dancing around the target. The issue here is that in this stage, if the target is big enough, they don't back off properly and start going at the target again while being too close to it to drop anything (they usually refuse to drop their bombs at point blank - might have something to do with lining up for the drop). They will now mostly bounce around uselessly while not dropping anything and exposing themselves to PD fire.

This can be easily observed in a sim - load up an Astral with 6 Flash bombers and sic them at an Onslaught or Paragon at a short distance. I mean, yes, some of them still bomb the target but majority just loiter around it as described above.

[TaLaR]

Really intelligent usage of slow bombs would be more about wing placement than target leading.

6 wings of Piranhas dropping bombs with perfect lead on Eagle as they do now = easily dodged with maneuvering jets to the side.
Same 6 wings assuming broad, half-surround formation and dropping bombs from frontal 180 degrees = very likely dead Eagle, unless it can backpedal enough.

[Cosmitz]

At 70%, the target leading should be "pretty good", with most of the WC3 bonus still having an effect (which, right, could still be hard to notice when the torps etc are being dodged).

I'm pretty sure that Thunders just rarely hit their targets with the Ion Cannon just because of their speed and low time-on-target, as well as projectile speed. They end up spraying everywhere.