Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[nowtakenusername]

Alright, I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out:

Tridents are slow, turn slowly and have a very long replacement time. To make up for this, they have a reasonably tough shield to sponge damage with.

I find that while using them, they die fairly often after they release their payload since they can't turn around fast enough and get killed. Before their buff to 20 OP, I mainly used them in battlecarriers since they'd take off, instantly fire their torpedoes, and return to their carrier without moving around all too much, negating their downsides. Now? They're in a much better place, but I still have issues using them in carriers that aren't the Astral (which completely routes around their downsides by sucking them up once they lob their missiles).

Perditions have similar downsides to the Trident, but unlike the Trident, they're made of glass and die immediately to nearly everything. I haven't managed to find a way to make these work effectively, honestly.


My proposal: Give these guys a mobility ship system. Give it one charge, and mess around with the AI to make them pop it after they release their payload on the target. This wouldn't make the initial strike faster, just the retreat "phase" of the attack.
For the Trident, it's Plasma Jets. Call it something like a one-time-use temporary "plasma injection" system the designers built-in to the Trident to get it out of there.
For the Perdition, it'd be Maneuvering Jets. It's, in-lore, a converted cargo shuttle, surely it'd have thrusters for fine adjustments while ferrying cargo. Let's say that the Luddic Church/Path added a reserve tank of propellant during the conversion process to give these thrusters a boost when it needs it the most.


Now, the Cobra also has poor manuverability, but I think that's pretty flavorful considering it's huge and literally carries an enormous antimatter nuke. 

[Thaago]

I would also support giving bombers a maneuvering and/or speed bonus after they drop their payload. Would be thematic and help them survive post-strike.

[Doctorhealsgood]

I want to suggest the piranha bomber getting a form of single use burn drive. Why? Because the bombs speed is dependant on the inertia of the fighters, and because the bombs are steadily deployed one at a time ship systems that do not mantain a steady pace are not situable for a full bombing run. Burn drive fits this need perfectly. The AI would probably have to be tweaked to make the bombing runs start eariler so they don't just crash into whatever they are bombing or be forced to interrupt burn drive early way too often to make a meaningful difference.

How it would work? Well probably some sort of solid fuel booster(s) attached to the piranha that are deattached when they run out of fuel or when the burn drive has to be cancelled early making them fly off erratically that might or might not work as diet annihilators (It's mostly for amusing flavor as i expect hitting something with it not being easy or all that effective. You know kinda something like the lidar array beams)

If it changes up the piranha too much maybe make it a variant or something like the piranha mk2 or something. The pirate pilots would probably love the idea of putting two rockets onto their bombers to go faster but fighter variants are opening another can of worms.

[TK3600]

Sure, but Trident is strong enough as is, and need nerf if it gets buffed this way. Perdition is almost good enough, but its main problem is not mobility.

Perdition's main problem is it is hard to spam, it requires line of sight, and it is often a problem with allies swarming an enemy blocking LOS. When it does have line of sight, it just mean enemy shield is not sufficiently pressured by allies, which also render the torpedos useless. For this reason bomber spam is best used with Trident or dagger.

[Thaago]

I want to suggest the piranha bomber getting a form of single use burn drive. Why? Because the bombs speed is dependant on the inertia of the fighters, and because the bombs are steadily deployed one at a time ship systems that do not mantain a steady pace are not situable for a full bombing run. Burn drive fits this need perfectly. The AI would probably have to be tweaked to make the bombing runs start eariler so they don't just crash into whatever they are bombing or be forced to interrupt burn drive early way too often to make a meaningful difference.

How it would work? Well probably some sort of solid fuel booster(s) attached to the piranha that are deattached when they run out of fuel or when the burn drive has to be cancelled early making them fly off erratically that might or might not work as diet annihilators (It's mostly for amusing flavor as i expect hitting something with it not being easy or all that effective. You know kinda something like the lidar array beams)

If it changes up the piranha too much maybe make it a variant or something like the piranha mk2 or something. The pirate pilots would probably love the idea of putting two rockets onto their bombers to go faster but fighter variants are opening another can of worms.

This would certainly be interesting (an "attack run" system), but the changes this patch (double bomb drop rate, aiming fix) were very good for the piranha. I'm cautious about buffing them too much because right now they are viable - useless vs frigates/fast ships, strong vs slow targets (12k damage per wing does that), late game good PD can shoot down lots of bombs so I've found their reliability remains low, but the damage potential is extreme in the cases where they get through. I've seen them even bracket and kill destroyers when the battle space is messy, which in past versions I'd have said piranhas are useless against.

Having a pirahna mk 2 with the system and some other downside could work. Maybe reduced bombers per wing? The current one has low reliability/hit rate to counter the crazy damage and it mostly works - one with better speed/bomb speed would hit more reliably, so I think the damage potential would need to go down.

[nowtakenusername]

Sure, but Trident is strong enough as is, and need nerf if it gets buffed this way.

Yeah, the Trident is in a good place currently. It's a good sidegrade to the Dagger and situationally quite a bit better on certain ships... it'll probably need nerfing if you do something like this.


I feel like the Perdition legitimately needs help though. Compared to the other bombers, the only things it has going for it are:

• Slightly increased maximum damage potential (4500 HE if all torpedoes hit, most others like Trident, Cobra, Khopesh have 4000 HE, this is, of course, ignoring the benefits that a higher hit-strength gets for penetrating armor)
• Slightly faster torpedoes (500 su/s vs 400 su/s), that still miss frequently!
• Slightly more durable torpedoes (Hammers have 350 HP vs 300 HP for Atropos)
• and a low(ish) replacement time of 15 seconds.

It pays for these upsides by... being kind of slow, getting blocked by friendly ships (like the stray Omen that always gets in the way) and getting blown up instantly. It's cool to have a bomber that's squishy and forces you to defend it more carefully at the benefit of getting extra damage out of them, but I just can't keep them alive when they can't disengage after dropping their torpedoes. In their current state, I don't know why you'd use them when the Trident is right there and two OP more expensive. Or, even better, the Cobra does the same thing and if it dies the entire wing comes back in 20 seconds, so no big deal!

If it could crank itself around and escape the worst of the PD heading its way, I could see the argument for using it a little better.

[Killer of Fate]

(rewritten)

A - what about Cobra?

B - maybe drop Perdition's op even further. Down to 15

C - is Khopesh good this update? Does it need help?

[Doctorhealsgood]

Wanted to suggest the piranha thing mostly because it was cool. That aside the perdition really needs help. Costs as much as a dagger and all that for what?

I think i got an idea.
Bump the op up BUT make it the largest sized bomber wing in the game. Like 5 or 6. should be fine considering the fact that the bombers themselves have awful stats. Hammers do have the identity of being the cheap torpedo launched in volume so maybe it doesn't fit in terms of OP but it does in the volume part.

[prav]

I don't think Perditions or Tridents need a speed boost, though Tridents could probably use some other boost. Periditions on the other hand are pretty good, by bomber standards. But then, fighters and carriers suck overall, so maybe some more general solution is called for?

As a plug, my prv Starworks has a Plasma Burn fighter that also launches speed-bosted torpedoes, the Skrål Wing, if you're curious about how it'd work out. I like to think it's neat. Try the console command addwing prv_skral_wing if you have trouble finding LPCs.

(dev note: boost fighters need very good turn rates, and an AI that lets them boost out - otherwise they just suicide in and die)

[Killer of Fate]

I don't think Perditions or Tridents need a speed boost, though Tridents could probably use some other boost. Periditions on the other hand are pretty good, by bomber standards. But then, fighters and carriers suck overall, so maybe some more general solution is called for?

what if nav rating affected fighters?

edit: something at like 50% strength
so 20% nav rating means 10% for fighters