Originally by: Sir Drake

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I think all of us agree that the stealth bombers are pretty useless atm.
The main point of disagreement is what their role should be.

From my point of view i would like them to be battleship killers.
I would love them to have a real niche and not being multirole.
For that the bomber would need a very decent alpha strike that should to be delivered from close to medium range and be a real threat to BS in the first place, second to cruisers and not at all to frigs.
This would be best/easiest achieved by letting them fit torps instead of cruise as torps can be outrun by frigs with AB/MWD pretty easily and even if they get hit they wont get much damage due to their small signature, same goes for cruisers to a lesser extend.

Detection IS a problem for stealth bombers but what to do about it?
Solutions might be:
- give them the cov ops cloak, at least the approch would be easier that way
(i wouldnt use the bomber with that as ship/equipment would be worth more than a tier 1 BS and that with a paperthin armor/shiel)
- let them passiv lock (with the module) while cloaked and let missiles keep their lock when ship re-cloaks
- scrap the cloak for the ship and give it a passiv bonus to signature that would make it extremly hard to lock (even with sensor-boosters)

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Originally by: Prescience

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Edited by: Prescience on 06/12/2006 19:24:16
Ok, Ill go with this, you've swayed me, however I would still like the option of being threatening to frigs. Most of my kills with my Nemesis has been against smaller targets.

"In addition, stealth bombers' extremely advanced missile navigation subroutines are able to triangulate a cruise missile's trajectory in advance, resulting in a decreased factor of signature radius and making the missile more effective against smaller targets"

This is taken from its description, from which I dont like to deviate too much. If CCP are going to change them they wont make MASSIVE alterations, probably just tweak them. Although, far be it for me to second guess CCP!!

I would focus more on the detection. If they used covert ops cloaks, I would just stop using them, I own *EDIT* two COC(T2) and I recently checked the price in THE FORGE. I was SHOCKED.

Im thinking that they wont want to alter the craft too much so that it makes it unusable by players using it already, so we have a framework of skills to surround it. I just looked and its suprisingly easy to fly one of these things. Only 2 lvl 5 skills for a T2 frig.

Well, Im stumped, it would really be for CCP to decide, using the suggestions we put here perhaps.

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Originally by: Varis

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yeah - there are two schools here.

Personally, if i want to kill frigs/ceptors etc - i bring a dessie or assault frig. Cheaper.

But as was said elsewhere - there is really nothing that is small that can hurt the big guys - Nothing like a guy with a RPG vs tank.

I strongly think there is a need for a "bomber" type craft - a frigate that is meant to attack the battleships etc - but is very weak against anti-frig tactics. Thats why i wanted the torp type weapon.

Honestly i think the "stealth" part is just a gimmick. Without the ability to warp cloaked its badly gimped, and with the ability to see you in local its also largly gimped as well.

<shrug>

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Originally by: TheBelgarion

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- giving it CovOps Cloak ( SEED MORE OF EM)
- targeting /fireing whiel cloaked

looks like a great alpha strike weapon ...

but than again ... having a 4-6 BS gate camping gang jumped but 10-20++ Stealth Bomber and going insta POP - sound like a nice story ... but only for the winning team :-)

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Originally by: ScythedMiner

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A random thought popped into my head while reading the thread.
Why are we only thinking about stealth bombers Vs other ships??

Using the RL analogy (bad I know but you gotta start somewhere) aren't stealth bombers more effective against less mobile things - like Capital ships (Titans, Motherships, Carriers, Dreads) and maybe POS's?

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Originally by: Sir Drake

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Detection IS a problem for stealth bombers but what to do about it?
Solutions might be:
- give them the cov ops cloak, at least the approch would be easier that way
(i wouldnt use the bomber with that as ship/equipment would be worth more than a tier 1 BS and that with a paperthin armor/shiel)
- let them passiv lock (with the module) while cloaked and let missiles keep their lock when ship re-cloaks
- scrap the cloak for the ship and give it a passiv bonus to signature that would make it extremly hard to lock (even with sensor-boosters)

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Originally by: Ithildin

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Torpedoes, definitely, but the explosion radius bonus must go. A Rage torpedo would have an explosion radius of 100, which would translate to a world of pain for everything except that which is fast enough to outrun the torpedo (aware frigate) or out-last it (battleships).

Since the ship section is filled to the brim with ships dedicated to killing frigates (in fact, I don't think there's a single frigate meant to kill anything larger than itself!) what the game needs is a bit of a look upwards. Something small that's dangerous to Bigger stuff, apart from tackling.

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Originally by: Prescience

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Edited by: Prescience on 06/12/2006 12:12:28
I agree about revamping the stealth bomber. Im coming to the opinion that cloaking is the wrong idea for it though. Perhaps instead of being entirely invisible, it should be incredibly difficult to lock in the first place, a miniscule targetting radius, less than anything seen before, so that it takes many seconds to be locked by even a frigate. Play around with the resistances as need be.

The problem with this is that as soon as anyone detects it on scanner, the game will be up. I cant think of a way around that one though, sorry.

"And for the local, all stealth ships should not be hidden, the should mimic the radar signature of the tech I ship with the same hull. So when scanned, the stealt bombers and covops ships should look like tech I frigates."

- Agreed with Makiavelli (sp)

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