Originally by: Merin Ryskin

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Ok, this is much better, but still needs some work.

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1. Bombers will be able to fit covert ops cloak

However they will have a 30 second cloak reactivation delay. This means they can warp in cloaked and better surprise their targets in a true ambush. However once they are committed to the fight, they will not be able to recloak quickly as a drawback so choosing the right time to strike is essential.

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This is fair. My only concern here is getting de-cloaked by objects. With the current covops ships, you can almost immediately re-cloak as soon as you get out of range of the object, but bombers are going to be exposed for a full 30 seconds.

Would it be possible to code the delay so it is only triggered once you activate weapons? That way you're still forced to spend a full 30 seconds uncloaked if you want to engage a target, but don't run into problems moving around.

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2. Bombers will be able to fit and use siege launchers and fire torpedoes.

This allows them to inflict a high amount of alpha damage on larger targets and be serious threat to them. In gangs with other ships and available strategies will add significant damage to the fleet. They will no longer be able to fit cruise launchers as a result.

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I'm still not happy with this one. There are three fundamental problems here:


1) Torps are redundant. You already have a short-range, high-damage weapon: bombs. And it's even a weapon that is most effective against battleships. If you fix bombs correctly (most importantly, reduce the absurd cost), the only reason you'd ever need to use torps on a bomber is if you refuse to remove the 0.0-only limitation.

2) Bombers are paper. Survival odds for a stealth bomber are bad enough as it is, de-cloak within 24km of anything with guns and you'll be in a pod within seconds. The only defense a stealth bomber currently has is its long range, and now you want to take that away? I don't see bombers getting an AF's resists or an interceptor's speed without becoming too powerful, so they really need to keep their range.

3) Wasted skills suck. Since stealth bombers are the only cruise missile ship (or even missile ship at all) for a lot of players, changing them to use torps means wasted SP, especially if they trained T2 cruise.




But as I said in the other thread, there is a better way of doing this:


1) Introduce a special bomber-only weapon: covert warhead launcher. You can load one of two options:

a) 5x cruise missiles.

OR

b) 1x bomb.

The launcher itself has a very high ROF, meaning if you go with cruise missiles, you will have very good dps as long as your missiles last. However, there are two penalties:

a) Small capacity. You do huge dps, but only for a very short time.

b) Long reload time. As in, a full minute or so (ideally with just the standard 10 seconds if you reload out of combat to change missile types).

Both of these ensure that the stealth bomber is a proper ambush ship: you can do devastating damage in a very short amount of time, but if you don't plan your ambush carefully you're going to find yourself with a very angry target and nothing to shoot back with.


2) Fix bombs. Make them proper short-range AOE weapons. This means the following:

a) Reduce the cost to something comparable to interdictor bubbles. High enough that buying a stack of 500 is a noticeable dent in your wallet, but low enough to use without hesitation.

b) Remove the 0.0-only limit. No more toys for just the rich alliances. Do NOT, however, change CONCORD/sec hit/sentry response, bombs are use-at-own-risk, just like smartbombs and ECM bursts.

c) Balance their damage/blast radius/etc appropriately for their new cost (remember, you can launch up to three at once).




There. Bombers are now fixed, and everyone is happy.

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