EVE Search - Often repeated: Stealth bombers with CovOps cloak

All Channels

Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Often repeated: Stealth bombers with CovOps cloak

» Click here to find additional results for this topic using Google

Monitor this thread via RSS [?]

Pages: [1] 2 :: one page
Author	Thread Statistics \| Show CCP posts - 0 post(s)
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.04.04 08:01:00 - [1] The topic pops up every so often here and in general discussion. Stealth bombers as they are now are quite limited, and they for sure aren't the stealthy ninja attack ships they are meant to be (or, that many people would like them to be). As somebody says in his signature (paraphrasing): Quote: Nothing spells stealth quite like "Oh look, a stealth bomber warped in" The most often voiced counter argument is that the CovOps and Recon ships would lose their niche as covert scouts, which is connected to their ability to warp cloaked. However, with the introduction of overhauled scanning, the focus of CovOps ships has changed to scanning for exploration sites and ships. The focus of (stealth) Recon ships has always been long range EW, cyno generation and also safespot snooping, which now returns to CovOps as a tendency. The focus of Stealth Bombers is meant to be a high unexpected alpha strike, which is useful against frigates and pretty much ends there. Industrials and Cruisers are additional targets, but are only really endangered if there are several bombers due to their low damage over time. SBs also have wet paper bags as a tank, so any target actively fighting back has a good chance to get them, or at least to escape when the SB has to recloak/warp. The niches of Stealth Bombers and CovOps/Recon don't really overlap. With CovOps-cloaked bombers, they could all dabble in all of these roles, but would still work best in a well seperated role. As an additional measure to protect the usefulness of CovOps (I haven't heard anybody debating the usefulness of Recons), their not-so-useful combat bonuses from the frigate skill could be changed to more scanning related bonuses, like reduced deviation or increased probe sensor strength. Alternatively, they could get the ability to target while cloaked and use non-intrusive modules like ship/cargo scanners, maybe in combination with passive targeters. Incidentally, that would increase this module's usefulness above its ridiculous tritanium compression ability. So could we please get cloaked warping stealth bombers? ______________ Join the Family
Meditril	Posted - 2007.04.04 11:14:00 - [2] I really love Stealth Bombers and I got already many kills with them. They are funny ships and you are right, they really need some love. However I think giving Stealth Bombers the ability to warp while cloaked would be overpowered. I propose instead the following changes: Raise the race-specific bonus for Cruise-Missles from 5 to 10% per CovOps level. Raise the scan-resolution to allow faster locking. Double or even tripple the current numbers. Make the missles hit their target after cloaking. To current implementation with missles doing no damage after cloaking is crap. Best regards, Meditril
Eleana Tomelac Gallente	Posted - 2007.04.04 12:10:00 - [3] Missiles should really be "fire and forget" for stealth bombers, it's a nonsense to wait for them to hit. Well, even for other ships, warp in, lock, launch a pack of missiles, warp out or cloak. -- Pocket drone carriers (tm) enthousiast ! Flying Vexor and Ishkur, Myrmidon was too slow, got ganked by 3 BC and a Megathron...
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.04.04 13:05:00 - [4] Hm, some thoughts on overpowered ships. I think a ship is overpowered when you can use it without fear of retaliation, ie. one-volley kills versus player ships (NPCs is a different matter), or also instant recloaking after firing. If you combine faster locking times, higher damage bonus and missiles that hit even after you recloak, I think you're getting dangerously close to this area. Even hit-after-cloaking alone is very powerful, even though it would arguably make more sense that the guidance is provided by the missile, not the ship. The ability to warp cloaked gives you a tactical advantage, the enemy doesn't know he's about to get jumped, and I think that's the whole point of stealth bombers. You currently have this advantage only if you a) wait until somebody comes to the belt/station/gate where you're sitting cloaked (boring) or b) warp into a different grid and then approach the target from off-grid (tedious/impossible). Now, if you are in a Recon ship (about twice the cost with current covops cloak prices) you get this element of surprise, and with for example an Arazu, you can kill any single target that can't tank your damage with damn near impunity (damp, scramble, orbit at 20-30). SBs can not attack with impunity, and their ability to one hit kill is limited. So half the bang for half the buck? ______________ Join the Family
Vincent Almasy Gallente The Underground	Posted - 2007.04.04 14:56:00 - [5] Change the bonus of the sealth bomber to: Covert Ops Skill Bonus: 5% bonus to Cruise Missile thermal damage and 10% reduction to cloaked velocity penalty per level. New T1 item: Covert Ops Cloaking Device I -Maximum Velocity Penalty: 0% -Sensor Reclibration Time: 15 Seconds -Scan Resolution Bonus: 75% -Reactivation Delay: 5 Seconds This makes coverops useable but chose targets wisely as they can be locked onto. There are rigs to make this weakness lesson but still is there and they move at 50% speed at best. How does this sound?
Meditril	Posted - 2007.04.04 19:39:00 - [6] Sorry, Vincent, I do not see your point at the moment. Referring to Kakitas second posting: I do not think a StealthBomber will be overpowered if it can fire and cloak. Sure, if you have a big, fat, slow ship than you maybe can not engage him well, but you have always the option to warp away or simply tank him. If you are in a small and fast ship, you can try to approach him and decloak him. What I would like to see is the usage of StealthBombers against Blobs. At the moment you can not use them in such situations because you have to wait too long uncloaked for missles to hit. It would be a big fun just to use StealthBombers to mix up a Blob, they are no real thread for large ships but at least the small ships have to play with them. This could provide a good opportunity for unexpected attacks. I do not think that StealthBombers should be used to warp cloaked to lone targets and engage them... this is the task of Recons.
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.04.04 21:17:00 - [7] Originally by: Meditril It would be a big fun just to use StealthBombers to mix up a Blob, they are no real thread for large ships but at least the small ships have to play with them. This could provide a good opportunity for unexpected attacks. I think that's the problem right there.... the attack will hardly be unexpected if the stealth bomber has to warp in uncloaked first. ______________ Join the Family
Angelus Xenotov	Posted - 2007.04.04 22:31:00 - [8] Originally by: Kakita Jalaan Hm, some thoughts on overpowered ships. I think a ship is overpowered when you can use it without fear of retaliation, ie. one-volley kills versus player ships (NPCs is a different matter), or also instant recloaking after firing. If you combine faster locking times, higher damage bonus and missiles that hit even after you recloak, I think you're getting dangerously close to this area. Even hit-after-cloaking alone is very powerful, even though it would arguably make more sense that the guidance is provided by the missile, not the ship. Its a good point, but think of what happens if the stealth bomber gets locked or warp scrambled? Its boned. Letting a Stealth Bomber warp cloaked is only fair and hardly overpowering the mostly useless class.
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.04.05 05:55:00 - [9] I was replying to Meditril's idea to give SBs higher damage bonuses, faster locking and making missiles hit after the SB cloaked, instead of warping cloaked. While it's also a valid suggestion, I think it would upset game balance more than allowing cloaked warping. ______________ Join the Family
Ansuru Starlancer The Phoenix Rising Lotka Volterra	Posted - 2007.04.05 06:39:00 - [10] gasp I might actually have to train Cruise Missiles and get a Bomber if they did that... ponders To /sign or not to /sign...
Buckyballs Caldari Science and Trade Institute	Posted - 2007.04.16 16:30:00 - [11] I think another option may be to increase the missile speed per level of cov ops or something like that. Many times I've been in a fleet battle and engaged from a cloaked position 90km off a gate and the targets get killed before my missiles hit or they see the incoming and warp off before impact. Due to the SBs paper thin defence, I don't want to get anywhere near the fight. Although they are made to take out frigs, a fast mover can close the gap pretty quick so I have to be aligned and ready to go. I think the damage can be taken care of by going T2 Cruise launchers and ammo. T1 just will not kill a target in one volley. Granted some of my skills need work but I do think the SB is seriously underperforming in some areas.
Christopher Dalran Gallente Deadly Alliance	Posted - 2007.04.16 18:34:00 - [12] I would say 1. Give the SB its own special missile launcher that holds its own special missile that has a AOE effect that diminishes with distance to the target, has a High refire rate but a very low ammo capacity. Since it now has its own missile damage on it can be changed and edited withough affecting Battleship damage that uses cruise missiles. 2. Give the stealth bomber 2 other abilities, A decrease in sensor recalibration time per ship lvl and the ability to cloak while a lock is in progress (would still be unable to cloak if a lock is established [counter would be an extremely fast locking ship with sensor bosters]) 3. Re-do missiles so that the still do damage if the ship firing them is cloaked (makes absolutly no sense that a missile deals no damage if the SB is cloaked) This would allow a Stealth bomber to fly around cloaked in ambush, decloak and fire off a few volleys and the cloak again. The low ammo capacity would give the ship a HIGHER alpha stike but not change its overall DPS too much because it would have to reload often. The changes to recal time and cloaking while being locked (but NOT if a lock as been established) and to missiles not doing damage when the firing ship is cloaked would allow the SB to decloak/fire/recloak/relocate without fear from large long distance ships but would still leave it vulnerable to small fast locking ships that can establish a lock before the SB recloaks. Because of the long distance at which a SB would be fighting at on its own they could cause too much of a problem because they would not be able to lock down anyone and the group of ships they are firing at would easily be able to just warp away or disperse before the missiles reach their target. I think these changes would help discourage large Blobs of ships provided the AOE was large enough without upsetting other areas much. SB's would have a nice role then. ------------------------------- C.D's Formula for success ------------------------------- Credit Card = Game Time Card Gametime Card = ISK Therefore Credit Card = ISK.
Nachshon Caldari Gradient Electus Matari	Posted - 2007.04.24 01:30:00 - [13] The whole point of a stealth bomber is as single powerful attack. Frankly, they get pretty close to attacking with impunity - but they have to be fast, or they die. I say, allow them to use CovOps cloak, and bump up the damage bonus immensely - enough that a single stealth bomber with good skills can destroy an untanked cruiser in one salvo (note: need way to balance out Manticores (who mount 3 launchers) versus others (who mount 2)). Then nerf their ROF - single powerful strike, possibly destroying the target, then scram. Multiple bombers will be needed to destroy bigger ships. ____________________________________ Caldari by birth, Minmatar by citizenship. The True Meaning of Freedom
Minigin Ganja Labs Astral Wolves	Posted - 2007.04.24 04:29:00 - [14] so basicaly get rid of standard cov ops and just make the bombers do everything. Downside would be HUGE cost. Increase in hull anyway. Your signature <----- My awsome Sig Real men PVP on the Forums.
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.04.24 05:55:00 - [15] Have you actually read my post? Allowing bombers to warp cloaked will definitely NOT replace cov ops, because bombers can't scan for crap, since they run into fitting trouble without even thinking about a scan probe launcher, and they also don't get any bonuses whatsoever, which means they'll need at least twice as long as a dedicated CovOps frigate (not even talking about rigs). ______________ Join the Family
Kiithnaras Minmatar OVER-DOSE Hedonistic Imperative	Posted - 2007.05.05 20:49:00 - [16] Edited by: Kiithnaras on 05/05/2007 20:48:54 This is a big one for me, too. Stealth bombers really need one of two major routes; either A) Covert Ops cloak, or B) Assault resistances and boosted HP in shields and armor. since A would much rather play in to the stealth role than B, let's go with the covert ops cloak. The missile de-lock after cloaking (Or warping out of grid for that matter) is a major hit as well, and needs to be fixed. Missiles still fly and hit their target after losing a target lock, so it's safe to assume that they have inbuilt guidance. And I agree with what others have said; covops frigates could be given more or better non-combat bonuses to further separate the roles between covert ops and stealth bombers if they were to be given covert ops cloak ability, and it's very true that bombers have a very hard time doing anything cyno or scanning related as it is. Without covert ops ability, though, bombers are entirely lackluster (as indicated by many people posting here), and they're more of a very expensive luxury item than an actual strategic component of battle right now. This in conjunction with anti-cloaking weaponry would achieve very strong balance in the field of stealth warfare.
Riddick Valer	Posted - 2007.05.05 22:25:00 - [17] I like the idea of a special launcher with an AOE attack. A smartbomb effect around whatever ship is hit by the missile. The powergrid is such that only one launcher could be fitted, but it does better damage then 2-3 cruises, along with the AOE damage. Also, how about a 5% decreased factor of signature radius for cruise missile explosions per level of skill. Would make them better to wipe out smaller ships. Then, a stealth bomber could chose to fit for smaller targets or bigger targets, and be valuable against both.
Del Narveux Obsidian Angels Enterprises	Posted - 2007.05.06 00:02:00 - [18] How bout a new cloak that lets ships wapr while cloaked (any ship, not just bombers) but when warping you only go at like 0.01 AU/s. Reeeeaaaalllly slow, but you could sneak up on unsuspecting folks. Or better yet just give this ability to the current non-covops cloaks. _________________ [SAK] Alumnus--And Proud Of It! -- aka Cpt Bogus Is that my torped sig cloaking your base? Originally by: Wrangler Well, at least we have forum PvP..
PCaBoo Dirt Nap Squad FREGE Alliance	Posted - 2007.05.07 09:22:00 - [19] Originally by: Del Narveux How bout a new cloak that lets ships wapr while cloaked (any ship, not just bombers) but when warping you only go at like 0.01 AU/s. Reeeeaaaalllly slow, but you could sneak up on unsuspecting folks. Or better yet just give this ability to the current non-covops cloaks. ^wow. I like the OP's idea. My alt has almost maxed missile skills and flies a manticore/buzzard. It's a fun ship to fly, but hardly useful in any real fleet engagement. Missiles hitting target (after cloaking) would probably be the best option... warping while cloaked would be nice, too, but I wouldn't cry if it was left the way it is. I'd really like to see a 4th launcher on the manticore, more than anything else. Some say that would be overpowered, but considering the potential DPS over actual DPS, makes it seem like a logical move imo. ________________________________ Caldari's are the Chosen people!
Pinky Denmark The Cursed Navy	Posted - 2007.05.07 12:12:00 - [20] CCP is working on boosting the Bombers... not a straight boost but something anti-blob'ish I assume. - I'm a nice guy!! and OMG I love Team Tuxford for the speedbalancing...
Kakita Jalaan Viriette Commerce and Holding	Posted - 2007.05.07 15:06:00 - [21] Hm, stealth bombers shooting remote smartbombs of doom might be a tad overpowered for their price tag. Something like a cruiser or battlecruiser sized heavy bomber carrying citadel torps would fit that role better, I think. ______________ Join the Family
elitatwo Autaris INC	Posted - 2007.05.21 13:39:00 - [22] Oh yes please give SB's a special ability the ability to warp cloaked. I fly a manticore and used one to clear out a frig/cruiser support from a lvl4 Worlds Collide mission - yea thats stupid, anyway SB's are more the a useless investment as they hey to fear any attack of any ship while they have to wait and be a sittick duck before the crise hit. Another special ability should be added as cloak wont work in gas-clouds - please why use a cloak while its useless? I could even get rid of the cloak, because it has no use. As mentioned before you have to decloak/fire and wait (to get killed). Its like "hey look, a stealth bomber warped in -> pwn it..." - Give bombers some love and make them stealth AND bombers not small flying cruise missile launchers which just a nice look. I have a question about the manitcore. I was able to fit a t2 ab on it but it gets a speed penalty with it. Why? Any ship gets a speed increase not decrease, so why the hell do ab's suck on a manitcore? An t2 ab gives me with my current skills a speed increase of +148.5% but when activated my manti increases from 234m/s base speed to 349m/s speed. There must be something very wrong about that as the calculation goes base + ab/mwd speed bonus. If im not wrong that should be 234 + 234(=135% t2 ab bonus) + 113,49(=13.5% skill bonus) = 582m/s but after testing the speed it was 349m/s which really sucks. Death to all macros!
Meditril	Posted - 2007.05.21 14:17:00 - [23] Afterburner and Micro Warp Drive speed boost depends on the weight of the ship you are using. Maticore has a very huge weight for its size/class and therefore you get only a low speed boost.
Drizit Amarr	Posted - 2007.05.21 14:19:00 - [24] I agree to warping cloaked. The SB has nothing other than it's ability to overcome the speed reduction that a cloak gives you. Apart from that, it's no better than a standard cloaked frig. Even a cloaked Raven has a better chance of taking the role of SB except for it's speed reduction. However, a Raven can target and fire over a lot longer range, hold more targets simultaneously, mount many more missile launchers and even tank what's thrown at it until the missiles hit. I know what I'd rather fly into battle under cloak. --
elitatwo Autaris INC	Posted - 2007.05.23 00:38:00 - [25] Originally by: Meditril Afterburner and Micro Warp Drive speed boost depends on the weight of the ship you are using. Maticore has a very huge weight for its size/class and therefore you get only a low speed boost. Oh i see. Thanks for the hint! Anyway let us warp cloaked, fire uncloaked and recloak to move undetected or just remove cloaking devices for all ships except cov ops cloak. And rename SB's to flying cruise launchers Death to all macros!
Camilo Cienfuegos Caldari EP0CH	Posted - 2007.05.25 20:16:00 - [26] Quote: So could we please get cloaked warping stealth bombers? How about combining the current setup and the new "heat" functions, allowing a bomber pilot to overrun his cloak drive to warp cloaked, but then unable to reactivate it for a full minute when he finally decloaks? Could provide some very interesting tactical situations... The biggest "fix" stealth bombers need in my opinion is race specialisiation. As it stands, only the manticore is worth spit due to it's extra cruise launcher - and no change to the cloaking mechanism will ever change this. What I propose is to allow them to use their own racial battleship class weapons: Caldari: 4x Cruise/Torp Launcher Apply the bonus for cruise missile to torps also. The reality of the situation is that with the limited resources on this ship you'd never be able to squeeze on those torps without spending millions on rigs. It also needs that extra missile slot, as it's damage output is currently pretty poor against all ship classes. Amarr: 4x Large Pulse/Beam Laser Why would the Amarr want a missile boat? A frigate with large guns would be awesome to fly, and so very vulnerable. To be able to hit anything, you'd need to stand pretty much still and in a frigate that's tantamount to suicide! Like on the manticore, the reality is you'd never fit a set of tachyon beams on without spending a fortune on rigs. Gallente: 4x Large Hybrid Can you imagine? 4 blasters would give this ship a terrifying damage output, but like all frigates if it allows it's enemy to get within web range. This'd probably make most people fit 350mm (425mm would use too much resource) hybrids, turning this into a very nice little sniper boat. If it came face-to-face with a real sniper of course, it'd turn into so much smoking wreckage. Minmatar: 4x Large Projectile Like the Gallente, this would be a very flexible ship. I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to run more covert operations, and as it stands there is only the one ship class that allows for covert combat operations - the recon. I think the above lovin' would turn the stealth bomber from a footnote in the history of Eve to the most desirable PVP ship in the game. Trolls/Flames welcome ;)
silken mouth	Posted - 2007.05.26 07:41:00 - [27] My proposal would be this: 1. CovOps cloak 2. 3 Torplaunchers for all SBs 3. high refire rate but really slow reloading rate 4. self guiding torps 5. dedicated Ships that can hunt cloaked vessels, with an omnidirectional longrange ping and shortrange boom... (cloaked ships being invisible in local)
StarMartyr Gallente Freelancing Corp Confederation of Independent Corporations	Posted - 2007.06.01 03:02:00 - [28] My .02 ISK. Allow SB's to cloak during warp but with a countdown timer so the SB has x amount of time to warp to the target and get into position to attack. The amount of time that you have depends on your skills with bombers and/or cov ops. Once you get there and decloak, either by the timer running out or you getting ready to launch, you can't recloak for x amount of time. This will even the playing field and give the other guy the chance to shoot back. This mean you'd have to warp in, decloak, launch and get the hell out of there before you get nailed. This brings up another problem that needs to be addressed: missiles not being able to find the target if you recloak or warp out. Perhaps a change to FOF cruise missiles would do the trick. Allowing FOF cruise missiles (and only FOF cruise missiles) to finish their attack after you recloak or warp out would work nicely. You could limit it even more and say that only FOF Cruise missiles fired by a SB had this ability but that might be taking it too far. Anyway, my .02 ISK, StarMartyr ================================================== Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. -George Carlin (1937 - )
Acidictadpole Caldari Dirty Deeds Corp. Axiom Empire	Posted - 2007.07.13 10:32:00 - [29] Originally by: StarMartyr My .02 ISK. Allow SB's to cloak during warp but with a countdown timer so the SB has x amount of time to warp to the target and get into position to attack. The amount of time that you have depends on your skills with bombers and/or cov ops. Once you get there and decloak, either by the timer running out or you getting ready to launch, you can't recloak for x amount of time. This will even the playing field and give the other guy the chance to shoot back. This mean you'd have to warp in, decloak, launch and get the hell out of there before you get nailed. This brings up another problem that needs to be addressed: missiles not being able to find the target if you recloak or warp out. Perhaps a change to FOF cruise missiles would do the trick. Allowing FOF cruise missiles (and only FOF cruise missiles) to finish their attack after you recloak or warp out would work nicely. You could limit it even more and say that only FOF Cruise missiles fired by a SB had this ability but that might be taking it too far. Anyway, my .02 ISK, StarMartyr You bring up a good point about the firing and cloaking. FoF missiles are precisely what the discussion has been thinking that normal missiles are. For those of you who are interested in air combat, consider Active Radar missiles vs. Semi Active Radar. Active radar missiles recieve their target from the plane's radar before being launched, and once launched it can independently track the target, meaning that the aggressor could be shot down, or turn around or have their onboard radar shut down and still the missile would hit the target.. These are what FoF missiles are related to. I Believe. (More on this after explaning semi-active) Semi-Active Radar missiles don't have their own tracking system, they rely on a constant lock from the plane firing the missiles in order to track their target. Since a plane's radar system usually only projects forward you need to keep your nose in the same relative direction as your target, and your missile will recieve instructions in-flight from your onboard radar and computers. The F.O.F. (Friend or Foe) missiles seem close to but not exactly like Active radar, while every other type seems like semi. I know there are some details about being jammed and stuff but again, this is just an analogy to justify what I've quoted. If we were to fire FoF missiles, they should be able to track the target on their own, and therefore hurt while the aggressor is cloaked. However we would have no control over what we fire at, which could be a bummer, maybe a new specific missile type is required? Anyway, on topic. Quote: Nothing spells stealth quite like "Oh look, a stealth bomber warped in" I believe this explains it all, there would be no balancing issues of having a Covert ops classed frigate warping cloaked. And yes, it is a covert ops class in the market, and you require covert ops to use it. So why can't we use a covert ops cloak!? It would give a better intelligence gathering platform for hostile space, since it can at least defend itself a little with retaliation, whereas if any other covert ops gets caught it's dead. But it doesn't have the probing bonuses, so it still gives the covops frigates (that can use the covops cloaks) their purpose. Maybe a scanning range increase on the covert ops frigates is also a good idea (Directional scanner). I would like to hear the dev response to why they have no implemented this idea yet. They have known about it for a while now and they seem to be choosing not to work it in and I'de like to know why.
TimMc The Caldari Confederation	Posted - 2007.07.13 21:49:00 - [30] Stop thread digging, this is an old topic before latest patch and love for Stealth bomber.

Pages: [1] 2 :: one page
First page \| Previous page \| Next page \| Last page

COPYRIGHT NOTICE
EVE Online, the EVE logo, EVE and all associated logos and designs are the intellectual property of CCP hf. All artwork, screenshots, characters, vehicles, storylines, world facts or other recognizable features of the intellectual property relating to these trademarks are likewise the intellectual property of CCP hf. EVE Online and the EVE logo are the registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights are reserved worldwide. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CCP hf. has granted permission to EVE-Search.com to use EVE Online and all associated logos and designs for promotional and information purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not in any way affiliated with, EVE-Search.com. CCP is in no way responsible for the content on or functioning of this website, nor can it be liable for any damage arising from the use of this website.