Cali Serrano
Baptism oF Fire
Sons of Tangra
   |
Posted - 2009.03.28 08:38:00 -
[1]
Edited by: Cali Serrano on 28/03/2009 08:42:35
Considering you're trying to make them more useful overall, a total rework of weapons, bonuses, and more importantly skills and tactics is a bit drastic. You'd probably be better off just making a new ship. What you should be doing is trying to find the adjustment that makes them more useful or better fulfill their CURRENT role.
As an anti-BS ship torpedoes would be great, in low sec. This is where you primarily find smaller BS heavy gangs, mainly because they are needed to tank the gate guns. Here torp SB's won't be of great use becaues they can't initiate hostilities due to gate guns. However if the hostiles are aggressed already or outlaws the SB's would be great.
Massive fleets are the other prime BS hunting ground and these types of fleets generally have a modest support crew that would eat a close ranger bomber group alive. If they catch the enemy fleet on a gate, I could see the bombers (say 5-10) getting right up next to the BS's once or twice maybe as many as 4 times if the fc/ fleet reacts badly and if the fleet doesn't just jump the gate. After that the inties/ fast hacs will probably have figured out what they need to be doing and the bombers will be in trouble. They will have ideally gotten a BS a run, but that's only 4 out of 30+. While that is a good percentage of the total BS's, the more BS's there are the less likely the bombers are to get away (mainly because there were probably be more support). In a situation where you have that many BS's gathered and that many SB's it'd actually almost be as good if not better to use CURRENT bombs if they weren't so expensive or difficult to coordinate, but the coordination is a player issue not yours.
The velocity bonus while cloaked is great, the only way to come in on a gate camp or enemy fleet gathering right now is long range or off grid (really long range). A velocity bonus would make this CURRENT tactic more viable and less time consuming (as is there's a good chance they'll leave if the grid is to big).
Move the bomb launcher to a utility slot, making it have insane fitting except for on the SB's without using a launcher hard point. This means the bomber won't have to sacrifice its primary DPS/ alpha for a secondary attack (bombs aren't even second as is). This would increase bomb use simply by having more of them on ships. Couple it with a further reduction in bomb price (I'd say down to at least under 5 mill) and their use might just sky rocket.
Just these minor changes would cause the bombers to become more useful overall ... which, as you said, is your intent. It would also accomplish making small groups more dangerous to BS's (increased bomb use) WITHOUT detrimenting those who aren't missile users who trained cruises specificly for SB's, WITHOUT causing major changes in bonuses, and WITHOUT forcing major changes in current tactics (actually would force the development of new ones in the effective deployment of multiple bombs).
I personally don't think you need to up the missiles to pre-QR levels. Let them stay as is and let the players figure out how to make them work for what they want (it's suppose to be our sandbox). The covert ops cloak would be sexy and I wouldn't complain if you gave it to SB's, but it's probably to much. As for bomb deployment, another method would be nice, I've bombed with the current one with no problem but that was solo, maybe something along the lines of selecting a trajectory to follow once it leaves your ship; X Degrees from 0 ( 0 straight ahead, 180 behind ), Y Degrees from 0 (+90 straight up, -90 straight down). Could base it on tactical overlay or relative to the ship itself, whichever is easier.
That's it but I'd just like to make a general comment, when you're doing these balancing games, try and do them by changing as LITTLE as possible. Sweepingly drastic changes are more likely to create a WTFBBQPWND mobile or the "LOL you're flying that ship?" which, I believe (hope), you are trying to avoid.
|