Launching duds for the real bombs to hide amongst is a reasonable strategy. If the defenders chase a dud then that is handy stuff.

sure if you can only launch one at a time and they still cost 75% of a standard bomb

So... the "random" part.

Let's say there is a bombing wing with 11 bombers while there are 10 destroyers with d.i.c.k.s. cycling on grid.

Bomber 1 decloakes and launch a bomb.

10 d.i.c.k.s. get triggert by nearby bomb and shoot down the single bomb, causing 120 seconds cooldown on every d.i.c.k.

Remaining 10 bombers decloak and launch bombs.

Very random.

Or do all d.i.c.k.s. on grid communicate with each other and only a single defender missile is fired when there is only one bomb nearby?

A few thoughts:

1. Bombs are generally launched in waves, and defenders will now randomly go after bombs. One bomb wave, and you may destroy every bomb, the next wave, only a single bomb (at least that's how I understand the mechanics as you describe them). That lack of consistency would be frustrating, especially in a game that is significantly less random than other MMOs.

2. Bombers are in a pretty good place right now. IMO they don't need this nerf.

3. Destroyers are the meta right now, they don't need the help.

4. Command destroyers are already unique and strong. Adding a third fleet assistance role to command destroyers on top of jumping and command bursts would make them too good IMO, though I do appreciate the effort to reward people who bring combined fleets.

Hi Space Friends,

Coming with the December release, we're going to be releasing a feature we talked about at EVE Vegas 2016.


Defender Missile Skill
The skill, Defender Missiles, will no longer require Missile Launcher Operation. All alpha characters will be able to train this to Level 1. The skill will provide a 10% per level bonus to Defender Missile velocity. No other skills will effect Defender Missiles.


Defender Missiles
Defender Missiles will no longer shoot down missiles aimed at you. Instead they will launch at a random bomb (non-structure) within its flight range. A single defender missile will kill any bomb. These defender missiles can only be loaded into a new defender launcher (described below)
The Defender Missile I has a base range of 30km (45km at max skills), and a flight time of 3 seconds.
During the December patch downtime, all existing defender missiles (and their blueprints) will become the new Defender Missile I


Defender Launchers
The Defender Launcher I can only load Defender Missiles. It may only be fit to Destroyer class vessels (Destroyers, Interdictors, Command Destroyers and Tactical Destroyers). Once activated, it will scan local space for any bombs,and if it finds one within range, launch a defender missile to intercept it. If it doesn't find any bombs within range, it will still cycle.
The Defender Launcher I has a 120 second reactivation timer. It doesn't require a launcher hardpoint, and has low fitting requirements (10 cpu, 2 powergrid), but uses some capacitor (50gj) to activate. You can only fit one defender launcher.


Command Destroyers
Command Destroyers receive at 50% role bonus to decreasing the reactivation timer on Defender Launchers.


Bomb Changes
Bombs now have a Minimum Velocity of 1m/s that you must be traveling at before you can launch. This is to fix some issues that can happen when your velocity is 0, causing the bomb not to move and just explode on you.


You can checkout these changes (and more) on Sisi soon. We appreciate any feedback you have!

Cheers,
CCP Larrikin and Team Phenomenon

Hi Space Friends,

Bomb Changes
Bombs now have a Minimum Velocity of 1m/s that you must be traveling at before you can launch. This is to fix some issues that can happen when your velocity is 0, causing the bomb not to move and just explode on you.

Cheers,
CCP Larrikin and Team Phenomenon

you guys all sound like every ship will have at least one defender missile launcher...

bombing fleets are rare as it is, so this module will never be used anyway, so why freak out?

2004 Player here.

I have to agree this Nerf was not warranted.

Give the Destroyer the bonus, do not take anything away from the bomber.... 0m/s

My old 2 cents.

Edit: 10 pages of negative reply's day one of post, is a move in the wrong direction.

Hi Space Friends,

Coming with the December release, we're going to be releasing a feature we talked about at EVE Vegas 2016.


Defender Missile Skill
The skill, Defender Missiles, will no longer require Missile Launcher Operation. All alpha characters will be able to train this to Level 1. The skill will provide a 10% per level bonus to Defender Missile velocity. No other skills will effect Defender Missiles.


Defender Missiles
Defender Missiles will no longer shoot down missiles aimed at you. Instead they will launch at a random bomb (non-structure) within its flight range. A single defender missile will kill any bomb. These defender missiles can only be loaded into a new defender launcher (described below)
The Defender Missile I has a base range of 30km (45km at max skills), and a flight time of 3 seconds.
During the December patch downtime, all existing defender missiles (and their blueprints) will become the new Defender Missile I


Defender Launchers
The Defender Launcher I can only load Defender Missiles. It may only be fit to Destroyer class vessels (Destroyers, Interdictors, Command Destroyers and Tactical Destroyers). Once activated, it will scan local space for any bombs,and if it finds one within range, launch a defender missile to intercept it. If it doesn't find any bombs within range, it will still cycle.
The Defender Launcher I has a 120 second reactivation timer. It doesn't require a launcher hardpoint, and has low fitting requirements (10 cpu, 2 powergrid), but uses some capacitor (50gj) to activate. You can only fit one defender launcher.


Command Destroyers
Command Destroyers receive at 50% role bonus to decreasing the reactivation timer on Defender Launchers.


Bomb Changes
Bombs now have a Minimum Velocity of 1m/s that you must be traveling at before you can launch. This is to fix some issues that can happen when your velocity is 0, causing the bomb not to move and just explode on you.


You can checkout these changes (and more) on Sisi soon. We appreciate any feedback you have!

Cheers,
CCP Larrikin and Team Phenomenon

Hi Space Friends,
Command Destroyers
Command Destroyers receive at 50% role bonus to decreasing the reactivation timer on Defender Launchers.

From a game balancing perspective this makes absolutely no sense unless you plan to roll back the bomber nerfs from 2013.
Bombers with bomb launchers are used rarely in any large engagement now-a-days due to the distributed multi-grid fights across several systems making the logistics and strategy of a bomber fleet quite complicated.

But now you wish to take the remaining and small usability of bombers and throw that completely out by giving an I-WIN button to counter bombs. Where is the logic in this? Usually these balance posts are preluded by motivation for a particular nerf or boost. I.e. "We will that bombers in general are too powerful in the current game play". But there's no such explanation given here - possibly hinting that you don't have a legitimate motivation.

This change will lead to simply extinguishing an interesting and dynamic combat mechanic in EVE.

2004 Player here.

I have to agree this Nerf was not warranted.

Give the Destroyer the bonus, do not take anything away from the bomber.... 0m/s

My old 2 cents.

Edit: 10 pages of negative reply's day one of post, is a move in the wrong direction.

Bomb Changes
Bombs now have a Minimum Velocity of 1m/s that you must be traveling at before you can launch. This is to fix some issues that can happen when your velocity is 0, causing the bomb not to move and just explode on you.

Like 10 people in those 10 pages, but who's counting?

People complain about every change CCP makes because it's not fixing THEIR pet issue.

With bombing runs requiring extreme planning and luck and skill to execute now you're making it even harder to use against a class of ships which already have so many options to counter (warp off kill bombers) now bombing runs were useless against frigates from what I have seen. So this really only helps battlecruiser and battleship roams and who does those oh yea nobody so unless you know somebody is going after a tower, poco, citadel bombing runs are just not really used or fail out right the meta for blops is torps or more ships. just not seeing the utility or use here. Perhaps you're thinking of lifting the ban on bombs in hi sec so CODE can use them to hit retrievers? With no accompanying buff to boms just doesn't make sense to me.

Worst cases for this change are either they have to tone it down a little, or it doesn't have a significant impact on fleet comps and things stay more or less as they are.

50% accuracy or summat.

Given the random nature of the defender-to-bomb targeting, this would make defender missiles mostly useless, unless used en-mass.

We don't need more Destroyers, or in fact small ships love, we need CCP to fix T3c, BLOPS and Battleships.

I think CCP is trying to get Alpha clones involved in fleet as Dessie's pilot with a use, thus the Defender Missiles change (fine enough) and the use of combined fleets (ok).

However, as already stated, Dessies will just be alphaed off the field before Bombers commit. Looks to me like another indirect atempt to fix Battleship's vulnerabilities while trying to not actually touch Battleships.

IMHO, Defenders would have seen such a better use as a battleship module.