So lets all quit bringing 90 bombers to big fleet fights and fight like real men with guns and missiles

Maybe even some Rokhs and Maelstroms

Yes, you guys might not be able to warp down to a target at 30km and remained cloaked, and then pre-align your ships before decloaking and bombing.

The horror.

Or actually welcome to how every bombing run worked before the cloak changes.

Or actually, welcome to admitting to not having the scope to realize the cloaking change affects more than bombers.

So lets all quit bringing 90 bombers to big fleet fights and fight like real men with guns and missiles

Maybe even some Rokhs and Maelstroms

So lets all quit bringing 200 slowcats to big fleet fights and fight like real .MEN with guns and missiles


Fixed that for ya ;)

Will the new anti-capital void bomb collide with other objects in space or will it just keep travelling the same direction it was fired until it detonates? I think it would be frustrating as hell to see your bomb bounce off your target and explode meters out of range. Also if collidable it would become a viable tactic for a subcapital to ram and deflect bombs off course.

The only other thing I'm left wondering is if you had a perfect aim and a marauder stuck in bastion mode, you could really ruin their day.

Right. Thanks. I don't have EFT in front of me to see what the total cap might be on a typical carrier pilot but the tone of the criticism was making it seem like a less than full wave of bombers was going to decimate a cap fielded by a smaller group. If you're dropping a carrier on a group that can *also* send a wave of 7 bombers at you, maybe you made a bad decision to begin with because if those pilots where in other ships, you'd probably be screwed too.

Cloaked Ships Decloaking Each Other:
The change that allowed cloaked ships to pass through each other without decloaking was made back in 2012 to make bombing easier. With the last few years of evidence to look at, it becomes clear that organizing bombing runs has become a bit too easy.
This change will add some more complexity to organizing multiple cloaked ships, as well as returning the old gameplay of attempting to decloak other players with your own cloaked ship.
We know that some players are going to be unhappy with the way this makes their gameplay more challenging, but bombing was very viable before the cloaking change and it will continue to be very viable after.

Great work killing bombing runs completely.

Cloaked ships decloaking other cloaked ships would be fine IF fleet members could actually tell where each other are.

This is probably one of the first times in recent memory where I just could not see why a change was made to the game. I'm sitting here in complete disappointment at just how bad the majority of these ideas are. I can't say I completely blame you because covops and bombing are an extremely niche play style that many players do not participate in and less even excel at it. While the majority of ships all balance around the idea of dps, mobility and tank, cov ops factors in the mental game more so than any other ship.

There are some staggering bad misconceptions expressed within the thread which I have read through most of but I want to underline and debunk a few because I believe CCP is putting these changes in out of a misunderstanding mostly backed by said misconceptions. Bombers as they are now are perhaps one of the most balanced ships in the game. The only thing I would have done is to add a touch more fitting and mobility to the Nemesis. Bombers are devastating but their paper thin tank allows them to be easily counterable which I will detail.

Furthermore bombers are not only almost completely balanced, but also act as a balancing factor in Eve. They are one of the few ships that curb the N+1 problem. Bring 10,000 ships against me? As long as they are within the radius of the bomb blast, they all die the same. Bombers/cov ops are one of the few ways the "little guy" can stand up to the big powers.

Now some of the bad reasons FOR the changes:

ISBoxing: Although CCP won't say this directly, it seems to be an almost universal opinion here that curbing ISboxing bombers is one of the main reasons for some of these changes. As explained, even by posterchild ISboxer bomber wheniminspace, as well as others, this penalizes individual bomber pilots much more than it does ISboxers. Want to deal with ISboxer? Ban it directly.

No more Shield Battleships: This was spoken by a few people some of which should clearly know better. The main reason for armor bs doctrine dominance is due to the popularity of Archon/Armor triage carriers. NOT because of bombers. Shield BS doctrines were popular long after the cloak changes were made in 2012. Certain groups preferred armor, others shield. PL took over Delve as part of the HBC using Rail Rohks.

No counters?: A few people say there are no counters to bombing runs. Anyone remember insta lock arty canes? I know TEST was running with a good twenty or so in every major fleet. These pilots would have an overview tab that would show bombers and only bombers. The moment something appeared on their overview it was locked and popped. Bombs don't do damage if your bomber dies before it detonates. You can also use frigates such as the combat ceptors or pirate frigs to catch bombers. Not every bombing run is a success. Bubbles already are a strong counter to them as well as a defensive bubble will pull in the bombers and either put them out of place or decloak them.


Bombers are suppose to be nimble evasive frigates designed to provide a counter to the N+1 problem. Making them slower, making them uncloak one another (which was said to be a glitch) and messing with their bomb damage is completely pointless and limits player interaction. Now bombers will only be on grid for the moment it takes them to drop their bomb rather than 150+ away on grid setting up for a run. I urge CCP to reconsider these changes, even scrap the majority of it all together.

This is probably one of the first times in recent memory where I just could not see why a change was made to the game. I'm sitting here in complete disappointment at just how bad the majority of these ideas are. I can't say I completely blame you because covops and bombing are an extremely niche play style that many players do not participate in and less even excel at it. While the majority of ships all balance around the idea of dps, mobility and tank, cov ops factors in the mental game more so than any other ship.

There are some staggering bad misconceptions expressed within the thread which I have read through most of but I want to underline and debunk a few because I believe CCP is putting these changes in out of a misunderstanding mostly backed by said misconceptions. Bombers as they are now are perhaps one of the most balanced ships in the game. The only thing I would have done is to add a touch more fitting and mobility to the Nemesis. Bombers are devastating but their paper thin tank allows them to be easily counterable which I will detail.

Furthermore bombers are not only almost completely balanced, but also act as a balancing factor in Eve. They are one of the few ships that curb the N+1 problem. Bring 10,000 ships against me? As long as they are within the radius of the bomb blast, they all die the same. Bombers/cov ops are one of the few ways the "little guy" can stand up to the big powers.

Now some of the bad reasons FOR the changes:

ISBoxing: Although CCP won't say this directly, it seems to be an almost universal opinion here that curbing ISboxing bombers is one of the main reasons for some of these changes. As explained, even by posterchild ISboxer bomber wheniminspace, as well as others, this penalizes individual bomber pilots much more than it does ISboxers. Want to deal with ISboxer? Ban it directly.

No more Shield Battleships: This was spoken by a few people some of which should clearly know better. The main reason for armor bs doctrine dominance is due to the popularity of Archon/Armor triage carriers. NOT because of bombers. Shield BS doctrines were popular long after the cloak changes were made in 2012. Certain groups preferred armor, others shield. PL took over Delve as part of the HBC using Rail Rohks.

No counters?: A few people say there are no counters to bombing runs. Anyone remember insta lock arty canes? I know TEST was running with a good twenty or so in every major fleet. These pilots would have an overview tab that would show bombers and only bombers. The moment something appeared on their overview it was locked and popped. Bombs don't do damage if your bomber dies before it detonates. You can also use frigates such as the combat ceptors or pirate frigs to catch bombers. Not every bombing run is a success. Bubbles already are a strong counter to them as well as a defensive bubble will pull in the bombers and either put them out of place or decloak them.


Bombers are suppose to be nimble evasive frigates designed to provide a counter to the N+1 problem. Making them slower, making them uncloak one another (which was said to be a glitch) and messing with their bomb damage is completely pointless and limits player interaction. Now bombers will only be on grid for the moment it takes them to drop their bomb rather than 150+ away on grid setting up for a run. I urge CCP to reconsider these changes, even scrap the majority of it all together.

I think some people came into this thread expecting it to be something completely different, and are therefore disappointed.

The decloaking mechanic was there before, and there was plenty of successful bombing going on.