Bomber spam, the lazy man's win button and why they need to change.

[Wasbeer]

Sure enough a bomber or two can be dealt with but often times matches turn into bomber spamfests and turtle matches with hardly anything going on resulting in some seriously boring and jacked up gaming.

 

Scenario 1 deathmatch turtle: A team rolls out 4-6 bombers and finds a tight spot where they can just sit and hide and wait for people to come and die off to a huge cluster of mines and railgun sentries. I will note that railgun sentries are small, have a fair amount of health, have 0 track acquisition time when targeting, and do just as much damage as the actual gunships. This in effect with mines as a buffer plus the fact the bombers can fly around and shoot anyone trying to take out this mass of mines/sentries makes for an unapproachable zone resulting in a very long turtle of who will venture out to the other team's little nest of sit and wait. It's not fun and it's just stupid.

 

Scenario 2 capture the sats: A team rolls out 4-6 bombers and can essentially sit and camp any satellite flying tight circles and weaves around the sat avoiding any damage as they drop mines and sentries completely guarding the points and blocking long range railgun attacks. Often times these sats are themselves contained within tight areas in which bombers can last ages untouched. This results in what can often be a completely one sided and effortless win for the side spamming bombers.

 

Now when I say effortless I mean it, the bomber needs only fly around and around and around and they can remain nearly indefinately. It's a tactic that requires very very little skill but reaps huge benefits. Now I'm sure by now the die hard bomber farmer is ready to start calling QQ and other varients without even reading or caring what I've said or am about to suggest but here it goes.

 

1: Add acquisition time to railgun sentries in effect making them long range and not point blank to long range defense options. By adding a track time the railguns should hit fine at range but if there's someone in close flying past or zipping around it to take it out it wont be able to keep a lock. (If BW wants to get lazy about coding they could just add a minimum range to it instead but then I'd bring up people who sit their ships still and fire while stationary so that's not a good option.)

 

2: Add a reload period to mines/sentries, this would work something to the following effect. Let's pretend our bomber has a capacity of 20 mines, now that bomber can lay 1 mine every 10 seconds, however it contains said mines in bays of 5 that must be replaced after all 5 mines have been launched. So the bomber drops 5 mines every 10 seconds till the first bay is depleted then it must reload the 2nd bay of 5 over a period of 60 seconds. This would reduce the spam and provide windows of vulnerability. (KEEP IN MIND THE TIMES ARE JUST USED TO MAKE AN EXAMPLE, THESE ARE NOT LITERAL SUGGESTIONS OR REFERENCES OF TIMES.)

Edited November 26, 2014 by Wasbeer

[btbarrett]

You are wrong. I don't know if it is worth giving you a more detailed response. There are a million threads like this one where people have given great suggestion on how to counter bombers. Perhaps you should try reading them instead of instantly assuming that the class is broken?

[Wasbeer]

You are wrong. I don't know if it is worth giving you a more detailed response. There are a million threads like this one where people have given great suggestion on how to counter bombers. Perhaps you should try reading them instead of instantly assuming that the class is broken?

 

I'm not new to the GSF game, I've been playing it a lot and I"m pretty good at taking down ships any kind and certainly put out my fair share of objectives and damage with fighters and scouts. 35k on the low end and 50-60k on the higher end with a really good match being 80-100k damage output. My ratio is typically more kills than deaths or breaking even on a really bad match. I'm certainly no scrub but that's also why I'm able to recognize just what's wrong with bombers. You might also note that one of my suggestions is merely a balancing tweak to railgun sentries to bring them in with actual gunships and perhaps a little below them in time but baby steps.

[Verain]

I want to be nice, but just like, I can't be.

 

 

You're just wrong dude.

 

 

"A team rolls out 4-6 bombers and finds a tight spot where they can just sit and hide and wait for people to come and die off to a huge cluster of mines and railgun sentries."

 

This doesn't work if the opponents are good. If they are bad enough to feed drones, then they'll feed anything. This is not a strategy, though it is hilarious. Feeders will feed, period.

 

" team rolls out 4-6 bombers and can essentially sit and camp any satellite flying tight circles and weaves around the sat avoiding any damage as they drop mines and sentries completely guarding the points and blocking long range railgun attacks. "

 

No, they have to CHOOSE. If a bomber is on a node and I'm on my gunship, they will either LOS me or die. If they LOS me, they are not also orbiting the sat. They have to pick- orbit the sat and be more defensible versus scouts, strikes, and bombers, or stay LOS and avoid the railguns. If four bombers are on a node, that is fully clearable with many teams that feature less than four- balanced teams, in fact (ex: ion gunship, minelayer, battle scout can rather rapidly eat up four camping bombers).

 

 

Then you add a bunch of nerf ideas. Please, no. Bombers are pretty far from the number one choice for nerfs, and if that's your suggestion, we'd just go back to battle scout spam.

[Ramalina]

Soooo...., there are already cooldowns on mine deployment, and the rail drone takes a long time to charge a shot.

 

You're basically asking for these to be made a bit longer?

 

 

I mean, I try to make it a point to swat down rail drones, because they'll massacre new players on your team, but they're not seriously dangerous unless your hull is already most of the way gone, and you habitually ignore them.

 

If you want to nerf dangerous things with railguns try nerfing Verain and Aimbot.

 

Expect heavy resistance.

 

Oh, and failure. Expect failure too.

[Magira]

I will note that railgun sentries are small, have a fair amount of health, have 0 track acquisition time when targeting, and do just as much damage as the actual gunships.

 

A railgun drone makes only about 40% of the damage compared to a GS railgun.

[Verain]

@Rama, thanks for the shout out. @Magira yea, it's around 30-40%. The damage is also lower because the railgun drone takes longer to charge and also select the second shot- it's definitely less than a third of the damage sustained. I didn't really reply to that stuff because it's pretty obviously wrong.

[Wasbeer]

Soooo...., there are already cooldowns on mine deployment, and the rail drone takes a long time to charge a shot.

 

You're basically asking for these to be made a bit longer?

 

 

I mean, I try to make it a point to swat down rail drones, because they'll massacre new players on your team, but they're not seriously dangerous unless your hull is already most of the way gone, and you habitually ignore them.

 

If you want to nerf dangerous things with railguns try nerfing Verain and Aimbot.

 

Expect heavy resistance.

 

Oh, and failure. Expect failure too.

I'm pretty sure you completely missread the railgun comment. Tracking as in, when an automated defense is acquiring a target it must track it, aim at it. With any automated system the farther away something is the easier it is and less time is required to track a target and stay on it. However when a target is close it becomes harder, this is basic math but is skipped in GSF with railgun sentries. Instead of a dynamic track they simply stay fixated and hit no matter what, if you say fly straight at it then zip past the instant before it fires it will still hit you.

 

Now compare to a pilot who must charge, take aim, track, and time his/her release to hit the target. It's far easier to incapacitate a real player and avoid their shots especially in close range. That doesn't seem right at all in my opinion even if we're taking into account that the sentry railgun is automated.

 

As for mines, the fact of the matter is mines are very spammy, it doesn't take much game time to see just how many mines 1-2 bombers can put out repeatedly in one area. The bay idea would simply pace it so that a bomber can't just constantly be dropping them, in a pinch they can drop enough to get out or provide a supportive barrier, but they can't hold out indefinitely in one spot without a pause to the mines every now and then. The rate at which they could be released with a loaded bay would still be the same. So you could drop out X amount of mines in a pinch at the same rate as current.

[btbarrett]

Bombers really can't dispense mines as quickly as you are making it out. The shortest cooldown on a mine is 15 seconds. The most mines of one type you can have out is 3. The Razorwire/Rampart is the only bomber who can lay down two types of mines. So we are talking about, at most, 6 mines per bomber. Each mine has 150 hitpoints, so pretty much ANY damage will destroy it.

 

If you made it so bombers had a finite mine capacity it would completely gimp the class and you would need to buff them substantially in other areas to compensate. If a bomber doesn't have its mines/drones there is very little it can do (aside from the Decimus which totally rocks and everyone should fly one). The t1 and t2 bomber has no thruster, no missile breaks, and no maneuverability. If they have to start chasing down strikes/scouts with just blasters they may as well suicide into the sat and respawn with mines. It is the same thing with gunships: if you gave them a finite number of railgun shots it would ruin them.

 

There are plenty of tactics to counter bomber: you should consult them. Those railgun sentries that you are so worried about are completely countered by a single gunship. And if that gunship has t4 ion railgun? Well that bomber is going to have a bad time. Railgun sentries are one of the few things in the game that can give scouts pause and make them consider how to charge in to the fray. Nerfing bombers is just buffing scouts and that is the last thing this game needs.

[Bolo_Yeung]

Hit the turret or drone nearby by ion rail with T4 area effect (it will destroy the or lock an EMP missile - it will destroy all mines nearby and (in case of EMP) disable drones / turrets for 15 seconds, along with some nasty effect for bombers in blast radius.

The bomber can drop seismic / seeker mine after it - second ion rail shot will destroy it ; in case of EMP missile you have to shoot it down by blasters... or use charged plating to take it in the face and laugh

[Apoll]

Scenario 2 capture the sats: A team rolls out 4-6 bombers and can essentially sit and camp any satellite flying tight circles and weaves around the sat avoiding any damage as they drop mines and sentries completely guarding the points and blocking long range railgun attacks. Often times these sats are themselves contained within tight areas in which bombers can last ages untouched. This results in what can often be a completely one sided and effortless win for the side spamming bombers.

 

Amen. Well said.

 

I do not understand the naysayers above, except

a) They have gunships, so they solved the problem.

b) They use bombers and those tactics described

c) They do not play GSF without group.

 

For the majority of the new solo players like myself is almost impossible to shift 2 bombers camping on a station having drop turrets who track you faster than you can turn on a T1 scout (properly upgraded also).

 

And if one person cannot do anything against one enemy player, given that "solo" battles there is no communication, the result is simple loss.

 

Deathmatch the issue isn't that terrible, because we can score kills, and especially boom & zoom works even with a scout having just Lasers and rockets. I like them when they turtle in those matches to be honest. I cannot miss even if I do not aim.

 

Nor I have issues to top the list if the teams are balanced with both sides fielding Bombers and Gunships.

 

Two days ago, I made a similar post. One side had only Tier 1 scouts and strikers. The other side 4+ bombers.

Believe me was an impossible game to win and ended pretty badly. And the same happened on 8 out of the 10 battles I gave the last few days. The ones that were balance I won them on the trot doing miracles.

 

Also has to do with the players and server.

On TOFN to win as Imperial a domination battle, is close to impossible, while with my republican toon I have no issue and not remember the last time lost as republican.

 

And without victories, and good battles, the fleet requisition points come harder, and cannot open fast enough the damn Gunship to blast those bombers to oblivion.

 

 

(Suggestions of an active EU server with Imperial GSF is welcome, I can move server without second thought).

[Ramalina]

Amen. Well said.

 

I do not understand the naysayers above, except

a) They have gunships, so they solved the problem.

b) They use bombers and those tactics described

c) They do not play GSF without group.

 

For the majority of the new solo players like myself is almost impossible to shift 2 bombers camping on a station having drop turrets who track you faster than you can turn on a T1 scout (properly upgraded also).

 

And if one person cannot do anything against one enemy player, given that "solo" battles there is no communication, the result is simple loss.

 

(Suggestions of an active EU server with Imperial GSF is welcome, I can move server without second thought).

 

Quite simply, if you lack experience and a Battlescout, Gunship, or Minelayer, and have a decent amount of upgrades on one of those three ships, you're going to have a very difficult time solo capturing a satellite defended by a competent pilot no matter what kind of ship they are flying. I am entirely sure of this, I have defended successfully against 2 bombers and a Sting for more than half of a match, using a Pike that had less than half of its hull left. They were very unskilled pilots and I'm sure it felt very unfair to them that with a 3:1 advantage they could not take the sat from a badly wounded strike. This doesn't mean that T2 strikes have too much defense though, it just shows that capturing a defended satellite is very difficult for new pilots if they are facing experienced pilots.

 

If you are solo, and are outnumbered by people who have played by more games than you have (they'd have to in order to unlock the bombers, unless you're talking about the cartel market versions), and are defending a satellite (which gives them a large tactical advantage), you should expect to loose every single time. This is true no matter what kind of ship they fly. In order to win, you would have to be a much much better pilot than the defenders and they would have to make a whole bunch of stupid mistakes. If you complain about this, I have sympathy for how you feel, but I also know that you still have a great deal to learn about how to play GSF. Don't worry, if you keep playing you'll eventually get better and many of the things that seem impossible now will become doable.

 

Once you get a lot more experience you'll learn to spot and kill rail drones early (they're so easy to kill that they can be destroyed before they fire a single shot, even on a stock scout or strike this is possible). You'll also learn to deal with mines by just flying around them (and know how to fight effectively even while doing this).

 

Bombers are hard to kill, that's what they are designed for. It's not impossible though, just slow and difficult work, that requires a certain level of skill.

 

I would also recommend that if you are still in the first two ships, when hunting bombers you should pick the strike and use heavy lasers and proton torpedoes or concussion missiles. The heavy lasers and concussion missiles will need the armor piercing upgrades to be truly effective, and the proton torpedoes require a lot of practice aiming.

 

If you much prefer a scout, thermite torpedoes are the best option, but must be combined with cannons to be most effective, and that can be a bit dangerous as you have to get close to the bomber and its mines.

 

More than anything else, playing hundreds of games against bombers is what will help you most in destroying bombers.

 

If you still feel you MUST complain about bomber design, do not waste time on basic design elements that will not be changed. Instead complain about the weapons that are supposed to counter bombers. Bombers are designed to counter burst damage scouts, and they do a very good job of this. EMP field and EMP missile are designed to counter bombers but do a very bad job. Proton and thermite torpedoes are perhaps also more difficult to use against bombers than they should be. These are things that the developers might actually be willing to change to make them more helpful against bombers.

[Verain]

Bombers really can't dispense mines as quickly as you are making it out....

 

If you made it so bombers had a finite mine capacity it would completely gimp the class and you would need to buff them substantially in other areas to compensate....It is the same thing with gunships: if you gave them a finite number of railgun shots it would ruin them.

 

I agree with your post completely, but I will add that they COULD go with something in between the "infinite whatever' model and the "run out and dead" model.

 

 

Ammo is a strange mechanic. To convince yourself of this, think about the ramifications, one at a time, of the following things becoming infinite in quantity:

 

1- Rocket Pods

2- Cluster Missile

3- Concussion Missile

4- Proton Torpedo

 

You probably would consider (1) a giant buff, (2) a pretty darned big one, (3) a wash, and (4) almost negligible. And of course, each one of these has progressively fewer charges. The issue is that it's trivial to deploy rocket pods for burst, very easy for clusters, and the other two mostly aren't limited on ammo, nor do you have to concern yourself with them, despite having far fewer.

 

 

A middle mechanic is one where you have a small pool of ammo that you can run out of, but you have a recharge on that.

 

For instance: Pretend you could only have up to 10 rocket pods at once, but every ten seconds you gained a rocket pod back. This would allow for burst, but represent a resource you have to manage.

 

Now, with mines or railguns treated in a similar fashion, you could end up with a system that is different than current without "run out and dead". This would result in a rebalance of these components, of course, and could be really neat (pretend plasma didn't have this restriction because you can make it with energy, but it had a higher cost, and slug DID have this restriction, and the damage was balanced appropriately).

 

 

 

But, we didn't get that system. The "stack of cooldowns" idea is a fundamentally good one though- WoW does it to great effect for some of its cooldows that you are meant to be able to either use when appropriate or pool for burst, and a game like GSF would make even better use of that mechanic IMO.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, that's just an aside. Obviously none of these changes would be intended as nerfs, but alternate resources with ups and downs. OP is just asking for blanket nerfs to whatever is killing him.

[LilSaihah]

Isn't that 'stack of cooldowns' basically how the Powertech/Vanguard shoulder rocket system works? Would something like how those rockets work be a good change to Rocket Pods?

[Ryuku-sama]

Isn't that 'stack of cooldowns' basically how the Powertech/Vanguard shoulder rocket system works? Would something like how those rockets work be a good change to Rocket Pods?

 

They exactly works like that in fact.. To make the most out of them, pop TT and Wingman and melt faces.

[Verain]

Sorry, it might already be in the game- I had quit until GSF was announced, and I came back just for it (though the expac looks pretty cool, so I may give it another real shot).

 

The reason that the "stack of cooldowns" is a nice thing is because it is a resource, and it lets you do stuff like, make something threatening while ensuring that it isn't effectively infinite nor just runs out. Something like "pop TT and blow pods" is literally already a great strategy, but putting a limited resource like that would allow it to be a lot deeper.

 

 

But, that's just an idea, and a fanciful one- it would require a mild redesign of components to support, after all.

[btbarrett]

I agree with your post completely, but I will add that they COULD go with something in between the "infinite whatever' model and the "run out and dead" model.

 

 

Ammo is a strange mechanic. To convince yourself of this, think about the ramifications, one at a time, of the following things becoming infinite in quantity:

 

1- Rocket Pods

2- Cluster Missile

3- Concussion Missile

4- Proton Torpedo

 

You probably would consider (1) a giant buff, (2) a pretty darned big one, (3) a wash, and (4) almost negligible. And of course, each one of these has progressively fewer charges. The issue is that it's trivial to deploy rocket pods for burst, very easy for clusters, and the other two mostly aren't limited on ammo, nor do you have to concern yourself with them, despite having far fewer.

 

 

A middle mechanic is one where you have a small pool of ammo that you can run out of, but you have a recharge on that.

 

For instance: Pretend you could only have up to 10 rocket pods at once, but every ten seconds you gained a rocket pod back. This would allow for burst, but represent a resource you have to manage.

 

Now, with mines or railguns treated in a similar fashion, you could end up with a system that is different than current without "run out and dead". This would result in a rebalance of these components, of course, and could be really neat (pretend plasma didn't have this restriction because you can make it with energy, but it had a higher cost, and slug DID have this restriction, and the damage was balanced appropriately).

 

 

 

But, we didn't get that system. The "stack of cooldowns" idea is a fundamentally good one though- WoW does it to great effect for some of its cooldows that you are meant to be able to either use when appropriate or pool for burst, and a game like GSF would make even better use of that mechanic IMO.

 

 

 

 

Anyway, that's just an aside. Obviously none of these changes would be intended as nerfs, but alternate resources with ups and downs. OP is just asking for blanket nerfs to whatever is killing him.

 

I love this idea! It is too bad it will remain just that, an idea. The resource management would add another layer of complexity to the game and it may make the use of the 25% ammo capacity (now 25% increased ammo regen) crew member. For one thing it would make players more judicious on when to use their burst and not just rely on a respawn to top them off (or a repair drone/prob). It would also allow you to bait your opponent into expending their payload so that you could attack them without fear of a secondary (I picture this as the classic Dirty Harry: "I know what you're thinking: did he fire six shots or five?").

[MiaowZedong]

The resource management would add another layer of complexity to the game and it may make the use of the 25% ammo capacity (now 25% increased ammo regen) crew member.

 

Actually, Pierce and his pub equivalent are used by quads'n'pods and laser cannon and pods scouts, and is a solid choice for BLC and pods. Rapid Reload is worthless with rocket pods, and Improved Kill Zone is bad for pods and doesn't work well with quads or laser cannons either. The one offensive passive that's really bad is Rapid Reload, because even for the builds that really want to reduce secondary cooldown you don't get that much out of it, and you usually do benefit from Improved Kill Zone (e.g. a conc/torp T2 strike).

 

@Verain: you're basically proposing to make all secondary weapons work more like mines. Mines essentially have a pool of 1 replenished every 15 seconds. I don't have an issue with that change, don't think it would add much though.

Edited November 29, 2014 by MiaowZedong

[StrixHiraeth]

I feel obliged to point out that a team rolling out 4+ bombers is pretty unusual; the scenarios set forth by the OP are certainly not the norm.

 

Edit: Now that I think about it, if a team has four or more of any ship type but strikers, balance goes out the window (e.g. gunship walls, battlescout swarms). It's just a side effect of having 'specialized' ships in the game...

Edited November 30, 2014 by Ymris

[Altheran]

Edit: Now that I think about it, if a team has four or more of any ship type but strikers, balance goes out the window (e.g. gunship walls, battlescout swarms). It's just a side effect of having 'specialized' ships in the game...

In my opinion, it's not the side effect of having specialized ships (Strikes can be specialized), but the side effects of having ships that follow the pattern "bad chassis, OP component" and a lack of finesse in the mechanisms to keep in check what happens when some components are stacked.

 

I'd put the battlescout swarms problem in an other basket, though. They're problematic because as the name implies, they are BATTLESCOUT swarms. They just pack too much for a single ship.

From my experience, facing numerous Novadive and Spearpoint doesn't have huge consequences, and are manageable with whatever team and ships.

[ALaggyGrunt]

Battlescout swarms are annoying, but manageable: get them all chasing you and a gunship buddy or two can pick them off one by one.

 

Bomber spam is really hard to manage without a gunship. Even with a gunship, they're hard to manage: they've been known to come out of their hidey-holes and drop seismic/interdiction mines on unsuspecting gunships.

[Verain]

Those are generalizations involving a skill gap of the gunship over the persueing scouts, and a skill gap of the bomber over the gunship being mined.

[SacredViridian]

It's true that a team of 8 bomber pilots who barely know how to fly could win a domination match fairly easily 9 out of 10 games.

 

I would like to see some sort of limiting factor placed on bombers and also gunships to bring them more in like with scouts and strike fighters as far as lethality.

 

even a couple bombers or gunships can decimate a team of green to semi-green pilots.

[Ryuku-sama]

It's true that a team of 8 bomber pilots who barely know how to fly could win a domination match fairly easily 9 out of 10 games.

 

I would like to see some sort of limiting factor placed on bombers and also gunships to bring them more in like with scouts and strike fighters as far as lethality.

 

even a couple bombers or gunships can decimate a team of green to semi-green pilots.

 

Comet Breaker. Protorp. Thermite. HLC. Directionnal. Bomber dead. And that is the worst ship ever to fight anything.

 

Killing bad bomber is easy.

[MiaowZedong]

Comet Breaker. Protorp. Thermite. HLC. Directionnal. Bomber dead. And that is the worst ship ever to fight anything.

 

Killing bad bomber is easy.

 

That build is painfully bad. Please stop posting it.

 

Well actually it could be made even worse...look what you've done to me.

 

Also, anyone trying to put scouts and strikes in the same bracket is either ignorant or dishonest. One is the strongest class, the other is the weakest.