What to do with the Bomber Starship?

[Epsilon Plus]

larger burst? really?

the siege outdps them insanely much, as well as generally have similar volley.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1026

Yes, larger burst. The Siege does more DPS and has a higher refire rate, but the Bomber does more damage in one shot, which can be useful. The Bomber is also quicker and more heavily armed, and the shorter range can be an asset - it makes it more of a fleet ship for dealing with big things approaching whatever blob(s) I have out. If you really want to get bleeding-edge there's also the fact that Bombers, being closer to their target, have less of a shot travel time, but I think that's rather edge-case.

[Foogsert]

I really don't see any reason to get Bomber Starships until your Siege is capped out or you have a massive surplus of metal but not crystal. Bombers may be "more" durable, but they're still rather frail. They do similar damage per volley, but the Siege fires far more rapidly. Siege Starships can take targets of opportunity easier. They can take out guard posts without eating retaliation easier. Bombers are also terrible with using transports. The only thing the Bomber does any better is get shot at, and if you want a damage sponge go for a Zenith or Spire.

They need their reload chopped down to make them comparable to Siege, or they need their alpha beefed up so that they can at least surpass Siege as a hit and run ship. Maybe a damage mod against either Starships or Structures to give them a focused role. As it is, trying to hit an Mk3+ world they're almost as glass as Siege, do less damage than Siege, take more damage than Siege due to range, same as Siege for alpha and hit and run, and worse with transports than Siege.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm looking at the Siege as the "Trebuchet" (insane range, glass-cannon, slow) and the Bomber Starship as the "Battering Ram" (point-blank, tough-as-nails, relatively-fleet-of-foot).  I think the Bomber could stand to have some buffs to have much higher survivability and to bring actual dps more in like with the siege, though not necessarily to equality.  But I've been listening to these discussions to see if there was anything feasible that would be more interesting than just having them both be "bash things".  But it's not the end of the world to have them just be very different forms of bash-things.

[Epsilon Plus]

I think a good way to differentiate them might be to give the Siege a railgun-type or beam-type weapon instead of its slow projectile - Sieges have a for-all-intents-and-purposes-infinite range weapon but it takes a long time to travel. It's part of the reason I find Bombers more feasible, IMO - they're far closer and, as such, their shots have less travel time. If the Seige's gun was quicker, it could even potentially use a slightly lower damage shot with a slightly lower-damage reload time. This gives the Seige a more constant stream of DPS compared to the Bomber, but gives the Bomber more burst damage, further cementing their roles as support/fleet ships.

Of course, they're still both "bash things" (most ships are - this is a war-themed game after all), but this does differentiate them, or at least make them better at particular types of bashing.

[Frozen Critical]

Hey Hey Hey Hey there

Stop Comparing Bomber Starships to Sieges , They have Nothing in Common.

To those Complaining about Sieges Being Better : Watch out for the Resource Cost and Single Shot Damage , The bomber Starship Wins at those , And so Does Close Range , Major Ship Destruction , Chasing Things down , Lone Wolfing , Assault Force Leading , Battle Extension , Flanking , Etc etc etc

In Short : Bomber Starships Dominate at Close Range , While Sieges Do the Medium to Long range Slaughtering

[keith.lamothe]

I think a good way to differentiate them might be to give the Siege a railgun-type or beam-type weapon instead of its slow projectile

I actually rather like the lumbering shot effect.  If anything, I think I'll have it use the Artillery-Golem's shot (not the Artillery Guardian, the Golem) or something like that.  The idea is that it's some massive and slow plasma torpedo or something, and but if it hits you it hurts

Of course, they're still both "bash things" (most ships are - this is a war-themed game after all), but this does differentiate them, or at least make them better at particular types of bashing.

Right, but specifically I mean that they're almost exactly the same thing in terms of damage: raw damage, no bonuses.

[Winter Born]

well a trebuchet used a high arc like a mortar to get over things while the catapult was a direct fire weapon.


Slow vrs fast shot speed
long vrs short range
both slow reload

The siege might slow down and get more armor piercing to simulate an over the wall effect.
Ignoring shields would be overpowerd imo.

[Fox Soul]

For heavier and higher mark guard posts my buddy has been using bombers as escorts for the siege starships.

Then when they all enter the target system, siege and bombers go after one target. This way if the target isn't destroyed by the siege ships but only needs a couple more shots, the bombers will get the job done.

[Heavens]

Hi everyone .

In my little newbie experience so far (so feel free to ignore my input ^^), the Siege S. is better than the Bomber S., but saying i have tried every strategy with both ships would be a lie  .

Even with 2x Health and 15x Armor Bomber S. dies 10x faster than Siege in destroying non mobile threats (playing against 2x AI-7 Zenith Descendants at the moment). In this case 38k range defeats increased Health+Armor+Speed in survivability at least, Bomber S. having to get real close to the target.

In a non micro way, group moving them with you fleet is a complete waste of their great speed, so it would seem to me they need a bit of micro to take advantage of them.

If i decide to raid an enemy system next to mine to get rid of some specific structure, i think Siege would still be better, at least (unless they are heavily Anti-Artillery, but I didn't try this enough to reach any kind of definitive conclusion). PS: AT least, again, in survivability, still don't know who would get the faster kill, taking in acount SS has a Cap. of 5 BB 4.

Siege S. can also safely start pounding on enemy Force Fields while my main force gets rid of the immediate mobile threats.

Siege has 5000 Engine Damage Bonus compared to Bomber, not yet sure it makes a huge difference.

Bomber S. has great speed that allows rapid intervention in case of "oh crap an enemy biggy is chewing the health of my command center at an alarming rate 4 hops from where i am!"

And as a matter of resource cost, a ship that has a higher survivability is cheaper than a ship that costs the same and dies often (costs of both ships are mirrored I know SS being 4k/60k vs 60k/4k for BS ).

Bomber Starships don't need research unlock (interesting question would be, would you research them if they were initially locked?) so I'll continue to make them if I'm not short on resources, but I will still always build Siege Starships first.


Will be testing some more.

[Lancefighter]

guys.. why are you defending an obviously broken ship?

the 'it has more volley!' crowd: assuming full caps, the bomber starships have about 200k more volley damage at mk1. At mk2, they do LESS volley than sieges. Yes, that means you get to pay slightly more crystal instead of metal. Deal with it.

the 'it is more survivable!' crowd: again, if you take a few moments to tactically plan your assaults, there is absolutely no situation where a siege should be under fire, ever. the ONLY acceptable time is when another siege is on the field, in which you get to take the hit like a man while your sieges destroy the other.

the 'i use it and its useful!' crowd: Yes, but so is bringing mk1 ships as cannon fodder for your mk2+ ships. Its useful because you are using it, its not useful itself comparatively.

[RCIX]

guys.. why are you defending an obviously broken ship?

the 'it has more volley!' crowd: assuming full caps, the bomber starships have about 200k more volley damage at mk1. At mk2, they do LESS volley than sieges. Yes, that means you get to pay slightly more crystal instead of metal. Deal with it.

the 'it is more survivable!' crowd: again, if you take a few moments to tactically plan your assaults, there is absolutely no situation where a siege should be under fire, ever. the ONLY acceptable time is when another siege is on the field, in which you get to take the hit like a man while your sieges destroy the other.

the 'i use it and its useful!' crowd: Yes, but so is bringing mk1 ships as cannon fodder for your mk2+ ships. Its useful because you are using it, its not useful itself comparatively.

You just pointed out the disadvantage of the Siege: they need significant protection. This means you either need to "sterilize" the target planet before bringing in your siege or do a lot of micro protecting it. The bomber starship has neither of those disadvantages.

[Lancefighter]

Eh? I said they need to be well positioned. As in, the way someone might position artillery units in supcom.
Because they outrange anything that can deal damage to them, they die less than bomber starships.


Also, I don't suppose you've tried to send bomber starships against alaser guardian? :/

[Epsilon Plus]

You're coming off as really defensive when you say "deal with it", and I have no idea what your crystal/metal statement is supposed to mean - and your survivability comeback is assuming perfect or near-perfect gameplay. Yes, the best way to assure ships don't take damage is to assure they don't take damage? It's kind of like saying "just die less" in an FPS - every once in a while you're going to eat a rocket and respawn, and every once in a while you're going to lose a starship or two.

keith: what if Siege got some kind of secondary, fleet-supporting effect? Tweak their damage down a bit/give Bombers a bit more and maybe cut down Bomber armor/health. Then give the Sieges something like, I dunno, a small force field. Makes a group of Sieges harder to take out (since you could arrange their FFs to overlap) and gives them a bit more survivability/versatility. They're too slow for the rapid-response/interdiction role the Bomber can fill, so the Siege can serve as a more defensive/long-term attack role.

[Lancefighter]

For mk1 cap if bomberstars, you pay 240k metal
for mk1 cap siege, you pay 300k crystal.

[Ozymandiaz]

I would support more ehp for the bomber starship, to make it more durable during assaults.