Discussion about Different Playstyles

[chemical_art]

And now you have to tweak every other structure the bomber is the only unit that can be used against.

I.e. Fortresses.

By halving bomber damage against them, you've effectively doubled their health.

You also have to consider the fighter vs. the bomber when upping the fighter base damage (or polycrystal multiplier).

Which in turn causes another series of evaluations about things that should "stay relatively the same."  And so on and so on.

There was a time when infiltrators had 100x bonus against forts. They were removed to try to remove the most crazy of niche situations.

Having forts give 0.05 damage multipliers to bombers is along the same vein. It should be looked at.

Aside from forts and shields, what has to be attacked by bombers. Key word has. Has. Not best situation, but has.

Keep in mind this is the base bomber, not the various unlocks. You still have the bomber starships which *gasp* may get more use. And never mind the various bomber like ships that seem to be equal if not worst then the original bomber.

[Wingflier]

260 of your Fighters' kills come from the MKIIIs.  This is something I would like to test out though, just to see if Diazo is correct that Fighters just seem weak.

Then again, Fighters killing 100 close combat ships is nothing compared to the power of Bombers to kill 1 Fortress.

Still, getting some statistics would help.

[chemical_art]

The problem is that close combat is not always part of games.

When you face 2 thousand cutters (forgot their name)  that scream toward you while ignoring your shields, or 2k shredders coming for you, you will pray your fighters can save the day.

However, still, with the utterly insane bomber multipliers ( I forgot how high they are since combined with how many freaking things they cover) those fighters are often needed to supplement your defenses in big bomber waves.

[Draco18s]

Aside from forts and shields, what has to be attacked by bombers. Key word has. Has. Not best situation, but has.

Handful of golems and spirecraft.  Which admittedly, don't show up often.

Also probably frigates.  Fighters can't really do it, and throwing frigates at frigates is just asking for it.
(And if you say "nu uh!  bonus ship!  think about what you're saying: either that bonus ship is a "bomber equivalent" in which case my statement is justified, or it's a fighter equivalent or a frigate equivalent, and my statement is against justified)

[Wingflier]

Checked a game I won a few days ago (against Advanced Hybrids).

Bombers got around 1650 kills.  Fighters got around 1,100.

Still, I get the impression (especially with Hybrids on), that what the Bombers killed is so much more important than what the Fighters killed.

Ironically, Frigate kills seem to be a crapload higher than both haha.

[Draco18s]

Ironically, Frigate kills seem to be a crapload higher than both haha.

Because they're anti-swarmer, and swarmers come in higher caps.

[Wingflier]

Lol well I guess on second thought it was kind of a stupid comparison to make on my part. 

[chemical_art]

Both frigates and bombers get 6x multipliers to 6 things.

Fighters get 2 2.4 multipliers and one 5x multiplier.

Fighters should get another multiplier of some sort, their current multipliers should jump to like 5, and maybe the bomber one can just go crazy.

Maybe the bomber can keep their 6x multiplier if for example the fighter gets an 8x multiplier to bombers in return for only 2 lack luster bonuses.

[Wingflier]

Well the idea behind Fighters was that their multipliers would be low because their raw damage (and armor piercing) is so high.

Armor piercing is basically a non-factor so you can throw that out, and their raw damage isn't high enough to justify such crappy multipliers.

[chemical_art]

It absolutely isn't.

Fighters do 50% more base damage, but their multipliers are such with bombers do only 25% more damage to bombers then bombers or frigates have with their multipliers. And they hit 6x as many things for their bonus. Even with their multipliers, fighters do around 60% of the damage bombers and frigates do to either close combat or medium.

[Wingflier]

Ouch, I didn't realize it was that bad.

[TechSY730]

Yea, fighters are not as bad as we like to assume, but they still need some serious love.

I think everyone agrees that tweaking speeds such that fighters are at least somewhat faster than bombers would be a good thing. (Maybe not such an extreme speed difference like before they were made the same, but still some difference)

Also, I would fully support "normalizing" the hull multipliers of the triangle ships some more, both in number of bonuses and magnitude of bonuses (adjusting raw damage as needed of course). Not saying that they should all have the same count and magnitude, but the current disparity is kind of silly right now.
Heck, how about we give fighters a new bonus to go with it (as several people have suggested), and bump down the command-grade bonus of the bombers pretty sharply (though still keep it >1)? The hunter-killers would need somewhat of a nerf though (I had already suggested removing the H/K's hull bonuses on mantis, they have enough raw damage such that they don't need it)


I still think that hull type distribution overall could use some adjustment, but that would be a more intense balancing effort.

[Kahuna]

Unless we tweaked the Bombers too...

Seems simple enough to me.  Tweak the Bombers (reduce their multipliers from 6 to 3), then buff the raw Fighter damage to compensate.  Total fleet DPS doesn't go down, it's just distributed more evenly.  Frigates are buffed indirectly because Fighters become more useful (for both you and the AI).

BOOM! Hunter/Killers' effectiveness doubled!

[relmz32]

...
Aside from forts and shields, what has to be attacked by bombers. Key word has. Has. Not best situation, but has.
...

BOOM! Hunter/Killers' effectiveness doubled!

Don't forget HK's!!! Ahhhh!!!


Also, i cant resist

...
Then again, Fighters killing 100 close combat ships is nothing compared to the power of Bombers to kill 1 Fortress.
...

"Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Wingflier. Your sad devotion to that ancient Bomber fleet ship has not helped you conjure up new technology, or given you enough clairvoyance to find the Ai's Home Command Station..."

[Wingflier]

I find your lack of faith disturbing...