The T2 Bomber - Balance Suggestion Thread

It has been confirmed that there will never ever be shields ever.

:C

How about we keep the bomber where it is but increase the bomb load reload time 3-5x so their reload time is actually something like 1-2 minutes. The sheer firepower a T2 bomber can unleash feels about right now, but they can unleash that way too often. IRL a bomber would need to return to base after it dropped its payload and that would take a lot of time additionally, if it still feels too strong, maybe lower the HP so it barely survives 1 hit from a T1 fighter (so from 400 to 100 or 120).

I understand what you are saying but why is it just the air units that need RL parameters? Shouldn't ants need to return home after the fire their shells, or ships or any other unit that fires a shell. They already need energy to reload unlike any other unit. Even turrets that have "energy" weapons.

I agree with the need for the firepower solely because structures are so strong, and some are rightly so. Let's See how the formations work but AOE is a great place to start.

In a previous build fighter could kill t2 bombers so quick it was stupid. Their balance seems fine I think, The in air game seems nice right now to be honest. And the gunships with the new increased speed will make them more usable.

Well we don't exactly need RL parameters, but we are dealing with a unit that can make ground combat irrelevant all by itself, but it still need to keep its AOE and damage or else it will itself become irrelevant. I believe that this would be the best course of action. Also formations at least in their initial release won't do much, unless we get an option for loose formation.

Maybe we have different opinions of how bombers should function. I want them to be bad at killing ground units and great at sniping key factories resources etc. They don't need. High AOE for this as the bomb hits the building and maybe the building beside and damages both. However I don't want them to kill the 20 fabbers loitering around the energy plant also.

You should get an option for loose formation, sort of.

I believe you can scatter your units out, then you can click them and they will hold current formation. This, I predict, will make bombers much stronger. Imagine lining them up, then flying them over the base. They would autobomb the entire length of the base they flew over. Automatic results very effective. Imagine following up with tanks now that the turrets are gone.

But this will also allow bombers to avoid flak by spreading out in a circular area, flying in formation like that, then at the end make them break formation and just bomb the commander. Results in a successful snipe.

I always thought that T2 bomber should be useful everywhere, T1 bombers be what you are talking about and Gunships be moved to T1 for an anti-unit role.

I believe I read that Advanced units aren't meant to be more powerful, just have more specific roles.
As in T1 bomber is mediocre in killing units or buildings, but it CAN do both.
Then under Advanced units, we would need a T2 bomber that does light damage in a large AoE, and another T2 bomber that does high damage in a very small area.

Just because a combination is possible doesn't mean it's ever needed. The T1 already does AoE. We don't need a superior T2 AoE. Just use more T1.

Then why not make T1 bombers into carpet bombers with medium AOE (like T2 but less power) and have t2 bombers drop single bombs with high damage and small AOE while gunships fire missile volleys that do medium damage over large AOE. Single bombs with low AOE won't cut it against units. That way we have a carpet bomber that can take on nay target (T1) a single target high damage bomber with "bunker busters" (T2 bomber) and a gunship that's excellent at taking out huge armies.

Actually if it's done this way I get my carpet bombers the way I want then (but in greater number for the same effect and less hp) while we still stay true to uber's vision of what gunships and T2 bombers were supposed to be and we take care of the current balance problem. But gunships should really do high AOE damage then. This new Idea is even better than the one I proposed earlier

This wouldn't be bad. I always suggested t1 bomber be more health but low damage so hits are more guranteed but less effectual, and t2 bomber be higher damage but frale so it requires t1 bombers to clear anti air for t2 bombers to do their job, thus requiring both for the first time. However, having 2 t2 bombers with different specialties wouldn't be bad.

I don't care how they are balanced. Right now, losing to T2 bomber spam is not fun, it is not engaging and it quite frankly frustrates me and puts me off the game entirely simply because it's a cheap tactic.

Spam T2 bombers, scout com with Orbital/Scout Air Spam, right-click, win. The fact I just lost to this bullshit whilst having my com utterly surrounded by T2 Flak is just the deal-breaker for me.

Yes the game is in beta, yes the game is in the process of being balanced, yes it is likely to change.

But how can you honestly test something when everytime you try to play and attempt new strategies people just flatten you with bomber Mass the moment you join a game.

The best solution, as far as I am concerned, is to swap the functionality of the tech one and tech two bomber .

Tech Level 1 Bomber should have the same carpet bombing attack as the current tech 2 one has. This one should be relatively low damage, but with a WIDE area of effect, making it a perfect weapon against ground forces. However, it would be relatively low health, and not really capable of assaulting a base even in large numbers once they have a decent amount of AA up and ground forces with a good AA mix should be able to kill even a large swarm before the inflict too mch damage.

Tech Level 2 Bomber should be like the Tech Level 1 bomber is now, dropping a single, very damaging explosive. This would make them ideal for taking out high value assets.They should be heavily armoured, cost more than they do now, and be the go to option for bunker busting attacks and should take heavy amounts of ground fire to take down. Swarms of tech 2 bombers should be very costly, much more so than now, but if you successfully build such a blob and invest all that metal and energy, you should still have something as scary as you do now, albeit not able to spread such high damage over a wide area of effect.

Ground AA should be made more useful, but should not be able to defeat a large bomber swarm unless heavily stacked in an area. This is because, for me, fighters should remain their counter - players should continue to be heavily penalised for not taking part in a certain zone of warfare. Neglect your fighters, and expect the enemy to have air superiority, and really punish you if you allow him to deliver bombs wherever he wishes. Simply allowing people to turtle more by making ground AA impenetrable by simply slapping one or two flak turrets down leads to a boring game.

This is something I think should be extended into orbital, as for now, there seems little reason to me to build many avengers, but thats a separate issue.

*Edit* Seems Zwei beat me to it slightly, but hopefully thats been a more extended explanation

IMO, this is a terrible idea. There should not be any unit that is good at taking out single, high value assets, especially one that can be stacked easily and move anywhere on the map speedily and with relative impunity. Why? Because they will always solely be used to snipe commanders. There is no other target with a higher value. This turns the game into "commander hide-n-seek" which is not fun IMO.

Like gunships?

not like gunships, they're not very good at taking out high-value targets. at least not if you surround your high-value targets with AA. 50 bombers are much more likely to even get to the com than 50 gunships, which seem to fall pretty quickly once they're within enemy territory. (and yes, I do use gunships quite a lot, I think they're awesome).

Gunships generally don't have high alpha strike damage like bombers do, and there need to be mechanisms in place (like T2 flak currently) to prevent stacking them enough to give them a high alpha strike capability.

Yes, gunships currently fit better as glass-cannon raiders and area control for chipping away everywhere there isn't AA. So long as they melt as they do currently, they shouldn't be getting any commander kills except for the easy ones - undefended, without a base, without any AA support, and effectively already defeated. Execution =/= snipe, and any unit can do an execution.

Inversely, however, bombers DO need some capacity to get through AA, even if it's a suicide run. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. However, that suicide run shouldn't be game-ending.

I've almost never found myself using T1 bombers in any real respect; they're fragile, but they don't deliver a lot of punch. It takes them forever to, say, destroy a lone Mex. I almost wonder if taking out T1 bombers and replacing them wouldn't be a bad idea.

Even then, the combined DPS of gunships kinda undo's anything but flak's aoe damage.

Further going into flaks current monopoly of AA protection.

Its not the burst damage that's the problem with gunships, its the dps.

They might need more then a single shot to do things, but generally they can be just as quick as T2 bombers to kill their targets.