Bombers versus Tanks

[Mazuul]

Is it just me or are tanks vastly superior for transporter raiding, possibly overall? A transporter takes speed out of the question. They do significantly more dps (at mk1:  2400 versus a meagre 250!) At mark 4, the tank still does over thrice the dps of a bomber.

When I don't take tank as my opening unlock, I struggle to raid without the use of shield boosters or additional ships to give the bombers time to whittle away forcefields. When I take tanks, they tear any FFs apart. As much as I would hate to see my tankies nerfed.

In a nice bonus perk, tanks tend to do well at protecting bombers, though their dps is perhaps better spent destroying the target...

But maybe I'm horribly, horribly mistaken?

And a query because I've never had the opportunity to test it ingame, how effectively do shield boosters help tanks? Is there some effectiveness ceiling that they are already touching up against, or do they basically become impervious to fleet ships at that point?

[Spikey00]

They do tend to get mauled by anything that comes within range of their shields because their base HP is really quite low (and they cost quite a lot to replace like bombers); bombers offer a more well-roundedness to their specialty of anti-base/frigates, which would be the sacrifice of the tanks in being a focused unit against structures.

I've learned not to build MK1 bombers because of their poor stats, in comparison to the improvement hike with MK2+.

I haven't used shield boosters in combination with tanks, but I imagine this would be a nightmare if the AI had them.  I don't think they have a roof limit on the shield boosting, or rather that it doesn't really matter since the shields would be so high that enemy units would have to essentially start humping to get past those shields.

[Lancefighter]

most enemies already have to hump tanks to get through the shields (20k, right? i dont think any ship has that much range save high tier frigates) so shield boosting isnt incredibly powerful..

However, the main drawbacks of the tank are decreased when you stick them in a transport for doing stuff. I suppose it wouldnt be dissimilar to loading siege starships in a transport for moving around while they arent shooting..

[superking]

tanks blow, far too many units can either have a decent minimal hit %, AoE, or pure bypass or reverse shielding. even MK I lasers one hit kill them and they scale up very poorly between MK compared to everything while bombers scale up supremely. they also move incredibly slowly and cost a fair amount of metal.

[Draco18s]

Tanks are even better in 3.800

"Low" health but with 120,000 Armor (damage - armor = hit points lost, to a minimum of 5% of the damage; so tanks in reality have 20 times the hitpoints it says they do: around 1 million for a Mk1)

They also eat hybrid hives for breakfast.