Air: Bombers

Something I wasn't able to find discussion about are bombers, and I have a few points of discussion:

* Should they include any tail guns a la strategic bombers from SupCom?
* What sort of bomb model should they have? Some sort of carpet bombing or frontloaded burst bombs?
* What means, if any, are going to be used to prevent mass model collision (f.e. 50 bombers squeezing into the space of one to bomb a single target)?

I feel that the traditional front loaded DPS +bomber clustering is very un-conducive to balanceable bombers, and would like to see bombers simply drop bombs on a targeted area/around a targeted unit.

Depends on what they a supposed to kill.

If 1 bomber is supposed to kill 1 tank at a time, then a precision bomb or even a missile should do fine.

Carpet bombing could then be left to advanced bombers who can then really get the job done.

But there has to be targets that are essentially un-bombable, possibly via pop-up turrets and the like.

It's also about the scaling case, if one bomber kills 1 tank than how easily do 50 bombers kill 1 commander?

Precision bombers make for very effective Comm snipes. It will likely have to wait for T2.

Carpet bombers can hurt lots of small things but will not be terribly effective against tough targets. That makes it Comm safe, and suitable for fighting T1.

Non-colliding bombers (even of the precision type) will also be less effective against Commanders because they'll all have to come in a line, drawing much more AA fire.

I always thought the strategic bomber was a bit OP in SupCom, I mean with 5 of them you can demolish an entire base easily.
Perhaps it is preventable if you have air units patrolling the area and a billion sam launchers but still it felt like they're way too strong for their price. Limiting the number of their bombs would kinda feel more suitable, after all they have STRATEGIC bombs, that **** is powerful

I think that they should deal a different explosive package, such as bombs in a cluster, or bombs in a spread, which could be useful for strategic attacks, when the enemy may have different formations of units.

I think bombers are a perfect example of where PA should adopt the principle that there is a distinct difference between big and advanced. Carpet bombers need to carry a lot of ordinance, but it's not a particularly complicated or expensive process. There also isn't really much of an issue with a player having a huge number of carpet bombers- in fact that is sort of critical to their function. By contrast, a large number of very high damage precision stealth bombers might create some very strange gameplay from being able to snipe every individual unit on the ground. As a result a big carpet bomber could actually be made from the basic air plant, and be rather cheap.

High tech units should be advanced, not necessarily large. Features like stealth, powerful AA guided missiles, precision high-damage bombs, and other features that might create problematic interactions if available efficiently en masse can be reserved for specialist, less efficient units from advanced factories.

well said and being they devs talk about making the game based on the concept video I have no doubt this is their direction.

Psht, tail-gunners were in TA, though they were pretty hopeless beyond swatting tier 1 fighters. And even then, only if you were bombing in mass. I think the easiest way to avoid the third question is some splash damage on the AA weapons. Nothing ludicrous, especially if you can't do it deliberately (it's a simple quirk of the units while they're doing their thing) but enough to kill a 'stack' easily enough. One of the things I always liked about TA and SupCom was you could actually rely on your defences to stop the enemy, allowing you to tech up for bigger guns and stuff (with the snag of being unable to expand easily, and very vulnerable to the seige artillery/nukes)

I would like an expensive super bomber of the style we see in FA or Zero K. I think the T2 bombers in TA were too much like the T1.

In general as described here Tech 2 could be very special and very expensive:

I am most concerned about the play between air and the rest of the game. I desire that air doesn't dominate the game or make commander snipes a viable tactic.

The best tactic is to have static AA be very good against bombers, if a bomber can be shot down before it can bomb the AA, then you will generally have bombers who can be used to dominate enemy bases, but the places in-between.

Bombers are front loaded damage. The only way to kill them before they attack is to have even STRONGER front loaded damage. It's a case of who can instakill the other the fastest. That becomes VERY dangerous and fickle, as not every flying thing is a bomber.

There are safer mechanics to use. One possibility is to intercept or deflect the bomb mid flight. Such a mechanic specifically interferes with bombers the best. Other anti air mechanics include blinding air against ground (shroud generators), using weapons that improve against more expensive units (instakill weapons like dragging the aircraft into the ground or emp guns), draining the unit's energy/ammo reserves(leech guns? big AoE?), or slowing air down entirely (thus hurting all aircraft that depend on speed).

Something that intercepts the bomb before it hits you say....

like a shield?

j/k

Shields intercept EVERYTHING, not just bombs. No amount of funny shield shapes can fix that. Bombs once again thrive as front loaded damage can break shields and deal damage without loitering around.

I do see a use for shields, but not as a generic, boring defense. It is better used for more exotic purposes.

Or they could, you know, only intercept certain kinds of projectile =p

Well of course the best fix to bombers is a fighter, static AA combo.

Bombers overkill 1 Static AA, and then they all get taken down.

That's no longer a shield. It's an X defense.

I have been rather enamoured with the idea of an "early detonation field" for a while. Where rather than actually shield, it causes ordnance to go off at a safe distance. Kinetic, energy weapons units etc would of course pass through unaffected. This means it would mostly be useful as antibomb/shell/missile/rocket defense but not as a general defense.

Or have fixed point defense actually act like point defense.

That makes T1 (LLTs) just as good as T2 in a way.

Say T1 PD is a moderate-low range laser with very high attack rate and low damage.

T2 PD is moderate range laser with moderate attack rate and high damage at 3x the cost.

T1 Air Defense is moderate range flak with large AoE but very low damage and high attack speed. Has no effect on projectiles.

T2 Air Defense is very high range missile with no AoE but very high damage and moderate-low attack speed. Has no effect on projectiles but can kill bombers before bombs can be dropped.

Both PD turrets target ground units, air units (which will traverse their attack range quickly), and slow moving projectiles (bombs, tactical missiles, but not artillery shells).

Boom, you have useful T1 and T2 all throughout the entire game.

T1 PD specializes in pushing back en masse ground assaults of weaker units (bots) and significantly reducing bombing run effectiveness while somewhat contributing against hardened unit assaults (tanks) and slow air units (gunships).

T2 PD specializes in pushing back focused ground assaults by hardened units (tanks) while somwhat contributing against en masse ground assaults of weaker units, reduction bombing effectiveness and causing moderate attrition against all types of air (snipes one or two bomber per run)

Neither would be strictly better than the other, and they would all contribute to overall base defense on several layers.

Also this would add a wrinkle to certain strategy. By assaulting with a bunch of tanks to distract the opponents front line LLTs, you can waste a lot of their point defense against your thick tank armour just before launching bombing runs. Mix in AoE air defenses and this would add a ton of strategy options beyond just 'make at least 1.75x as many bombers as they have LLTs and/or SAMs' and you win.