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[Thaago]

For bombers, the speed boost skills and never ever using piranhas  (or tridents) is the solution to their speed woes. The dagger for example, has a cruising speed 245 if the shield is up and/or its under fire and has flux, with the full speed boost of 40%.

Carrier spam fleets won't get the speed boost of course since it caps out, but for a slow fleet just having some interceptor carriers that get command point assigned to murder any enemy frigate that is away from a pack does well at countering them. Bombers get decently fast with skills, while interceptors go crazy fast.

P.S. You might be tempted to use piranhas. They look so nice on paper with that massive damage wave, and we all remember when the AI got a good lucky run in that hurt us a lot. But don't do it! They are slow unreliable hazards with such long cycle times that they don't end up doing anything useful and more often then not will cripple your own ships at the worst times. Just say no!

[Nightstrasza]

Yeah, I only used long bows and tridents (hard to resist 4 antropos instead of 3), the speed was horrendous but at the same time when was using broadswords, they were getting murdered by vulcans, paladins and devastators. I'm currently satisfied with lux heavy fighters, they are very durable, deliver constant hard flux, have flares and good damage but only have 9 hangars filled with them and wall of PD or high accuracy high tech weapons still eat them.

[Thaago]

As you discovered Tridents are also just never worth it except maybe on Astrals where the system reduces the cycle time by half. Fighter groups fly at the speed of the slowest member and speed is everything for bombers: cycle time for DPS, spending less time in enemy gun range before firing, evading fire in general, and it effects carrier replenishment rate because the carrier will tick down after they fire until they dock!

Capitals in general are very good vs fighters, and Devastators/Paladins are nasty anti-fighter, so I can see why you weren't happy with broadsword performance vs them. Its especially true vs ordos that might have elite point defense. I like to use fast interceptors or bombers in endgame and generally have phased out the mid speed attack fighters by then(though they are good pre-endgame for fighting cruisers/destroyers).

[Megas]

The thing dislike most about Piranhas - and Flash bombers - is friendly fire accidents.  Piranhas are worse because their bombs blend into the background when they do not have the red diamond overlays because they came from fleet.

I may use piranhas if I need them to bust a station and I have nothing better.  Beyond that, I leave them because I do not want to drive into a bomb that is hard to see.

[TontonBoo]

You might be tempted to use piranhas. They look so nice on paper with that massive damage wave, and we all remember when the AI got a good lucky run in that hurt us a lot. But don't do it!

Something I always felt but was never really 100% sure of. Gut feeling. Thanks for confirming. Dagger it still is then.

you weren't happy with broadsword performance vs them.

I've never been able to make Broadsword work in anything but pestering frigates. They feel kinda sorta weak or I haven't found their proper use yet.

All around swarms of fighters/bombers is a very good counter to fast ships. Not so much against the Big Guys though. Or (REDACTED) of almost any size.

[Thaago]

The thing dislike most about Piranhas - and Flash bombers - is friendly fire accidents.  Piranhas are worse because their bombs blend into the background when they do not have the red diamond overlays because they came from fleet.

I may use piranhas if I need them to bust a station and I have nothing better.  Beyond that, I leave them because I do not want to drive into a bomb that is hard to see.

Completely agreed. I've lost my own flagship to my own 'dumb' bombers so many times, usually by not seeing the bombs and losing my engines at that key moment where I really can't afford to lose engines.

You might be tempted to use piranhas. They look so nice on paper with that massive damage wave, and we all remember when the AI got a good lucky run in that hurt us a lot. But don't do it!

Something I always felt but was never really 100% sure of. Gut feeling. Thanks for confirming. Dagger it still is then.

you weren't happy with broadsword performance vs them.

I've never been able to make Broadsword work in anything but pestering frigates. They feel kinda sorta weak or I haven't found their proper use yet.

All around swarms of fighters/bombers is a very good counter to fast ships. Not so much against the Big Guys though. Or (REDACTED) of almost any size.

I like Khopesh for bombers too - a good compromise bomber for less OP thats still fast flying and with good damage.

[FenMuir]

Yeah, I only used long bows and tridents (hard to resist 4 antropos instead of 3), the speed was horrendous but at the same time when was using broadswords, they were getting murdered by vulcans, paladins and devastators. I'm currently satisfied with lux heavy fighters, they are very durable, deliver constant hard flux, have flares and good damage but only have 9 hangars filled with them and wall of PD or high accuracy high tech weapons still eat them.

The main problem with tridents is that they move too slowly. If the bomber gets back to the carrier, it comes out again extremely fast. As Thaago said, Astrals are really only where Tridents shine since the ship can just teleport them back.

[DaShiv]

The window of opportunity isn't much shorter than other ships - PPT time is vastly outweighed by CR decay time, especially for SO ships.

...The recent Wolfpack Tactics nerf to PPT was clearly aimed at Hyperion, without considering how minor the impact is when post-PPT CR decay rate is so easily countered by Combat Endurance + Hardened Subsystems without Delicate Machinery.

Against that 537 seconds, an SO Hyperion losing 20 seconds of peak time from the recent Wolfpack Tactics change was basically chump change. In the attached graph, you can imagine the blue line being shifted to the right by 1/3 of a square; that was the effect of the change.

Thanks for illustrating with the actual numbers! I think it clearly demonstrates how ineffective the current PPT/CR constraints on Hyperion really are. IMO if we want both the "window of opportunity" idea that TaLaR alluded to and the "hangar queen" per the Codex description, then Delicate Machinery and a reduction to daily CR recovery would be consistent. Despite all the Hyperion spam fleets being posted here (and on Reddit) lately, I still don't think Hyperions are actually overperforming - they're just insufficiently CR-constrained.

[Nightstrasza]

More like systems overrides are the problem not hyperion, so many ships become too good for the window they are performing and if things die faster, you don't need that lost CR time + enemy has less chances to retaliate/retreat when you are that fast, lethal and full of flux.

[Yunru]

The real main problem with Tridents is they're actually only Bidents.