Skill Discussions

Alright so I've got a fresh rolled character here that I want to train for bombers. What skills do you guys recommend I train to be competent with a bomber and its equipment? I will be training for the Hound first if that counts for anything. Do the certificates give me a good general guideline as to where I should start?

Oh alright so I guess I'll just fly around in a covops frig without a cloak and weapons just bumping people to death

While this is true for someone that's pretty much worked out the ambushes perfectly, maxing basically every subcapital navigation skill and your capacitor stuff is helpful if you don't quite land the combo perfectly.

Also, whether you're solo or in a group sort of changes what you take in missiles. Solo, you want your launchers to cycle fast and max your torpedoes and (with the coming alterations to skills) all of the precision/explosion velocity/etc stuff, where if you're in a group with someone else doing tackle going for range first and staying far out might be a better strategy.

Can't go wrong with your basic fitting and armor/shield stuff, too. And having frigates V for _every_ race (or at least three of 'em) so you can use all damage types is advisable.

A couple things _not_ to take:

The fifth level of cloaking. No targeting delay in a bomber, no one cares.
More than three (more than one, honestly, but it's cheap enough to three) levels of bomb deployment, if another bomb is up and your target isn't already dead you should have probably run already.
Honestly, Torpedoes V. Though this is supposed to change with the final rounds of frigate rebalancing, currently you can't realistically fit T2 launchers, so it shouldn't be a priority. Nice when you have time, though.
Loads of extra targeting: a bomber only needs one, frankly. And with the number of points you've probably picked up along the way you're probably good.

Supplementals:
The EW for a given race can sometimes be tacked on a stealth bomber in place of shield tank for the lulz
Obviously the more you're specced into tackle solo the better, for when you don't quite get 'em on the first burst
A couple points in drones so your covops ship can defend itself can be helpful
Since you've already got covops specced, might as well use the ship. Astro-mapping/exploration is a nice side-specialty, easy to get.