Someone make a bomber guide?

[Sadishist]

Anyone who played PTS, care to share tips on what components you use for bombers? Start your own thread or so. Edited February 1, 2014 by Sadishist

[Luneward]

The problem is that so few matches could be played for lack of people and for existence of bugs, that most guides will merely be theorycrafting until we actually get in a match. And it really does vary a great deal depending on which bomber you go with.

 

The drone carrier is going to be more of a utility vehicle, and the mine layer a bit better suited to defending a sat or clearing out pesky orbiters, though the drone carrier can certainly fill that role to some degree.

 

Drone Carrier:

It sacrifices offense and defense for utility. Your only mine shares the slot with your missile selections. Your engine component shares a slot with the Hyperspace beacon (though the only defensive engine component it gets is the Interdiction Drive). It has a missile drone and railgun drone, or you can sacrifice that for an interdiction drone to slow down targets (good for sat defense). The shield component is a little weird. You can select between a repair drone to fix allies, a shield projector which can restore your shields and ally shields, or a very powerful shield with a slow regen rate.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Luneward

[Sadishist]

The problem is that so few matches could be played for lack of people and for existence of bugs, that most guides will merely be theorycrafting until we actually get in a match. And it really does vary a great deal depending on which bomber you go with.

 

The drone carrier is going to be more of a utility vehicle, and the mine layer a bit better suited to defending a sat or clearing out pesky orbiters, though the drone carrier can certainly fill that role to some degree.

 

Thanks for the heads up, I just saved up some fleet reqs to pour into the bombers once 2.6 starts, and just want to get the right components.

[Luneward]

I put a small intro on drones in my edited post.

 

Minelayers are going to be more about what kind of effect you want. They can carry up to two kinds of mines at the same time (though they sacrifice proton torps for a second mine). Some are just raw damage like concussion mines, but ion mines will blow away shields and some engine/weapon power. Interdictions and Seismic mines are going to be my combo for first tests because they do direct hull damage.

 

Minelayers also get hyperspace beacon and the shield projector, but that's the only utility they get from the dronelayer. They have more personal offense and defense. But even though they are more sturdy than other ships, the lack of any active engine escape/missile break and evasion makes them more fragile overall.

[Sadishist]

Thanks for a heads up on those. You should help dulfy out once 2.6 is out.

[Suzina]

Well, I've been on PTS, I played the Bomber in Beta for two weekends of testing at about 2 actual hours of que'ing (the servers were only up on weekends). I also went on PTS for the recent "test events" but I wasn't able to get a pop at all this time. During one of them, we seemed to have enough people in fleet to get a pop, but I didn't see one. So... yeah.

 

 

Take everything I'm about to write below with a grain of salt, but I'll share my expectations.

 

First about stats/nerfs/ect...

 

The base stats on most things that matter about the Bomber did not change during the first incarnation of PTS. HOWEVER they were nerfed AGAIN (Yay!!) and not many people noticed (Yay?). You will see on dulfy.net for example, you will still see both incarnations of the Bomber have access to the Engine component that lets them create a spawn point. This is no longer true, and I am logged into PTS to verify.

 

These are now out of date because of the recent round of nerfs nobody has tested, but here's the two bombers:

RazorWire OLD STATS

Legion OLD STATS

 

Since these screenshots were taken, the razorwire's got the following nerfs:

 

1. Weapon power capacity from 110 to 99

2. Shield Power Capaicty 2700 to 2250

3 Shield Power Regen 49.5 to 41.3

 

The Legion nerfs:

1. Weapon power capacity also to 99

2. Shield power capacity went from 2124 to 1770

3. Shield power regen rate 103.5 to 86.3

4. No more Hyperspace Beacon!! (create spawn point for team)

 

 

 

Both bombers can take a beating compared to other ships. Both bombers are slow. Very slow. Don't expect to prevent the enemy team from capping a Sat' if your team chooses more bombers than scouts at the start of the match. Your blasters for both bombers are difficult to use compared to other ships. You can't play a bomber like a scout because you are effectively it's opposite in terms of speed and squishyness.

 

For both bombers I believe you will find it effective to:

 

1. Drop mines on someone chasing you close behind and shooting you to almost guarantee a kill.

2. Use seeker-mines to clear satellite huggers. (although you have more simultaneous mines with the Razorwire)

3. Think like a melee-fighter. I know, I know, you want to "bomb" from afar. Me too. But point-blank range kills.

 

 

You have two choices of Bomber. First up: the Razorwire

The razorwire is pretty much your standard bomber. 2500 fleet req last I remember.

You should get the Razorwire if you think like this:

"

"I want the Razorwire for the Hyperspace Beacon. It's an awesome exclusive to make a spawn point and then protect it with a mine-field. Beautiful. I'm often a hero cause' cause my spawn point directs the course of battle."

Or

 

"I want the Razorwire cause it's the best at what the Bomber really is: a minelayer. I like to mine and turtle up. I'm all about strategy and tricking people. Mayble I'll team up with my Gunship buddy and cover him up with mines. Or I'll layer the entire bottom of the satelite with energy-draining mines and wait beneath. I yell "It's a trap!!!" as I cackle insanely and tear in with my blasters. I don't mind waiting underneath a satelite that isn't being attacked for half the match defending, it makes the inevitable action more fun. Plus, if I get bored enough I can probably get to another satelite eventually"

 

The Legion is no longer the "default choice" of bomber in my opinion. It's a slightly higher 5k fleet last I saw.

you should get the Legion if you think like this:

 

"The Bomber is a support ship, not a dog-fighter. Therefore the Legion is the better choice for the support options. I can repair. I can heal. I can slow. I can do anything my group needs to do. If they need a railgun, I drop a railgun drone 10k meters out forcing someone to leave a satelite while my buddy sneaks in and caps. If my buddy is flying a humming-bird pattern around a satelite, I can drop a blaster-drone 6 k meters out so the enemy ship's shields get peck'd upon with every pass continually. Sure, I'm vulnerable to being nuked down on my own, but I chose Legion to fly with my wing-mates, project my shields onto them, heal their hulls and add overwhelm the enemy with annoying drones. Beautiful."

 

 

There are many other play styles that go to the bomber, but those two give you an idea. You're not getting anywhere fast, but you are deadly/useful once there.

[Kaivers]

As the main selling point for GSF's introduction to new players, I'm just hoping they are fun and provide enough engagement to ensure these players remain interested.

 

The two videos I've seen of people testing the bombers were not encouraging, but we will find out soon enough.

[AMightyKnight]

I'm looking Forward to some brick hunting with my nearly maxed Pike. The lack of an anti missile drive will really hurt Bombers.

 

But i fear Bombers will make the games even more one sided. A team with strong players set to dominate the Opponent anyway will be able to make great use of the utilities the Bomber offers. But a Bomber Players in weak Teams willjust get shot down very quickly without any chance properly setup those utilities.