Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Sonlirain on December 03, 2012, 05:42:58 PM
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While bombers are powerful and all... i personally find them a bit impractical for several reasons.
Bombers approach their target and launch torps/bombs at the capship.
Then fly fight through the darn thing (that's where most of the guns are)
This is bad but there's more!
They turn around and do it again!
Why? Because Alzheimer 3 forgot about launching his torp so the entire dagger wing has to go back into PD (and every other gun including anti capship guns) hell again.
Obviously the life expectancy of bomber pilots is pretty darn low. Probably lower than Talon pilots.
Now my ideas to combat this suicidal behaviour would be:
1 - Upon selecting a strike target set where you want the bombers to hit it (Left/Right side, rear, or front) the bombers would then try to avoid enemy ships (pretty much like when returning for refit) and attack the target from the desired direction.
2 - Select the range at which the weapons get used (close, medium, far) medium being the current range close being 50% (mostly for killing blows) and far 150% (for maximum safety).
3 - Bombers can break formation when the option is selected (verying from stiff formations used now through slight changes to outright breaking off to attack from several angles) ordered so for example ALL daggers can launch their torps on any ship other than a conquest seen from the side instead of only 1 or 2 at a time.
4 - Bombers break off from the attack vector after all torps/bombs got released and head back instead of flying straight into enemy guns (something that rarely ends up well for them)
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Its because bombers turn back only after strike ammo is spent. Piranha bomber wing have more bombs than they can spend effectively before crossing target enemy ship. Dagger bombers will try to fly back as soon as they launch payload. Maybe some avoid zone around target must be set for them to turn back and repeat strike run unless target is overloaded or almost destroyed/venting.
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I like the last two points. Daggers would become very effective if they launched from three directions. The last point seems like something of a no brainier... Although piranhas seem a bit slow to do this effectivly without reducing the number of bombs released in a single run.
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I like the last two points. Daggers would become very effective if they launched from three directions. The last point seems like something of a no brainier... Although piranhas seem a bit slow to do this effectivly without reducing the number of bombs released in a single run.
Theen they should break off sooner and start another attack run till they run out.
Strike craft should do ANYTHING but fly directly into guns. Especially flak guns and large guns.
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Continuing a bombing run by flying over the enemy ship isn't actually that bad an idea, especially for Piranha wings that keep dropping bombs. Often a piranha wing will end up hitting several times on the exposed armour of the enemy ship as it flies over, especially in the case of low tech ships with only frontal shields. Flying over the ship also tends to put them outside the firing range of most point defence weapons, as they usually end up at the back of the enemy ship after a bombing run which is where point defence is lowest.
Obviously the situation where one dagger out of three fails to launch and forces the entire wing back could be fixed, though for the most part the daggers work as advertised, moving into strike range and firing before breaking off to rearm.
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It would help if they got a speed boost and could maneuver better, so the enemy guns could not hit them accurately.
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I feel they a too weak as well. They are only good in opportunistic situations, but not smart enough to hold back and wait for those.
Maybe it would be a good idea to introduce systems for bombers. Something like maneuvering thrusters, activated just before the target, could go a long way for bomber survival. Hi-tech bombers might even get phase skimmers or something similar. The Terminator drone already has it after all.
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Or, well, the range on the torps could go up and the turret arc for those fighters raised slightly or they could get mild guidance and have DO_NOT_AIM or both (I did both, for Vacuum).
That fixes Daggers somewhat.
Piranhas are a much tougher problem. Classical bombs are usually dropped a fairly long distance from the targets IRL, but the range on bombs is quite low. Raising that range doesn't effect the AI's dropping behaviors, though. Even if it did, though, it'd lead to un-ideal outcomes, such as bombs being dropped in useless places, although if that happened but the Piranhas survived to make another run, it might be worth it.
Probably the best fix is to simply buff Piranhas' health / armor / give them a decent shield until they're useful in their role, and buff their costs to compensate somewhat. That's how I approached this in my mod, and it works for situations where they're taking on one major ship. Past that, they're still pretty useless, simply because of the likelihood that they'll take engine damage and go spinning off uselessly.
I think that's my biggest beef overall with fighters / bombers atm; while it's cute that they're subject to the same rules as player ships, I kind of wish they weren't on the subject of engine damage, so that they'd live, fight and die as a team more often. Four fighters all adrift are almost as bad as dead ones, and it's very likely to happen, especially if they get swept by beam weapons.
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I don't have too much of a problem with the bomber AI. I wish Daggers would converge a bit more at the end of their run so that all 3 fired (and they don't have to do a second pass). I think Piranhas are fine though. I do find that veteran crews are essential to improve bomber aim.
I think fighters/bombers are going to be getting some TLC soon - they certainly need skills that deal with them, and while ships have been getting more an more powerful fighters haven't.
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Agreed that bombers need better defensive behaviour. Flying right over an enemy ship isn't a bad idea but they very much need to scatter/abandon formation after their bombing run (in both cases of going in for another and returning to rearm) to better avoid interception and PD.
A fighter/bomber specific order to remain docked at a carrier (and a relative 'launch fighters/bombers' command for carriers, although docked bombers/fighters should definitely still respond to new intercept or strike orders) would be very helpful tactical options.
Fun bonus: add a leadership perk that makes recalling/launching fighters/bombers cost no CP when the player is piloting a carrier.
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Bombers need to be less tightly knitted, they should be split out more so that a single flak shell cannot hit multiple ones. They also need to dodge more while still heading towards their target.
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Giving more defense and life to those bomber wings would make them too OP.
In my opinion the AI should be changed like suggest so that they dodge more, spread out and try to wait for the right moment to strike.
Bombers aren't supposed to take heavy damage because we have the assault wings for this. :)
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Bombers should be more split up compared to fighters so that their bombs are hard to catch with the same flak gun.
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Maybe giving some speed boost to bombers which used all strike ammo will help? After all bombers without bomb/torpedo load must fly faster, at least in theory.
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Maybe giving some speed boost to bombers which used all strike ammo will help? After all bombers without bomb/torpedo load must fly faster, at least in theory.
Except that only really works for Daggers and Tridents.
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Maybe giving some speed boost to bombers which used all strike ammo will help? After all bombers without bomb/torpedo load must fly faster, at least in theory.
Except that only really works for Daggers and Tridents.
Well reducing the ammount of bombs Pirhanna can carry would fix that.
Or making them drop bombs from a further distance so it cna empty its bomb bay before playing peek a boo with a HAC.