Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Let's talk Stealth Bombers! As we mentioned in the Travel Changes Dev Blog, we are doing rebalance passes on Bombers and Hictors in Phoebe.

It's important to note that we do not expect these to be the last changes to bombers in the near to mid-term future. This ship class is going to take time to get right.

Our plan for bombers in Phoebe has several aspects, all aimed at keeping bombers effective while strengthening their counters and allowing skilled fleets to protect themselves.:

• A stat rebalance on the bombers themselves. Short version is significantly more HP, weaker agility, larger sig radius, more cargo (so that they can all carry 3 bombs), smidge more CPU, lower warp speed.


• Bomb launchers will increase ship signature radius when online, by +10 for T1 and +12 for T2.


• The capacity of the T2 bomb launcher is being increased to 300m3.


• Reduction in HP (with increase in resists) for the damage bombs, so that they can be destroyed by (named or higher) medium smartbombs.


• 17% reduction in bomb speed, with associated flight time increase. This means that you'll have 12 seconds to react to bombs instead of 10. Range stays the same.


• Doubling the effect of the Bomb Deployment skill, to 10% per level. This will allow people to bomb more often.


• A new anti-capital void bomb called the Focused Void Bomb with a tiny range and a large explosion radius. You need to land it right on your target but if you hit a cap ship it will eat a ton of cap. This bomb will be available in the Syndicate LP store.


• New 10km radius interdiction probes. Intended to give fleets more options for bubbling themselves and pulling in opponents (including bombers) at undesired ranges. These Surgical Warp Disruption Probes will be available in the Syndicate LP store. :These Surgical Warp Disruption Probes will be delayed slightly after launch so that we can correct a graphical issue with them:

Stats:

Purifier:
Fittings: 45 PWG, 305(+7) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 350(+138) / 600(+213) / 450(+63)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 355(+42.5) / 266.25(+16.25) / 1.33(+0.0833)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 300(+38) / 4.4(+0.053) / 1,495,000(+99000) / 9.12s(+0.71)
Warp Speed: 4.5(-1)
Sensor strength: 19(+2)
Signature radius: 40(+3)
Cargo Capacity: 260

Manticore:
Fittings: 38 PWG, 330(+2) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 625(+309) / 350(+62) / 400(+62)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 315(+46.25) / 236.25(+21.25) / 1.33(+0.0833)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 280(+24) / 4.5(+0.622) / 1,470,000(+4000) / 9.17s(+1.29)
Warp Speed: 4.5(-1)
Sensor strength: 21(+1)
Signature radius: 41(+2)
Cargo Capacity: 265(+80)

Nemesis:
Fittings: 38 PWG, 315(+8) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 400(+125) / 475(+159) / 650(+228)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 355(+61.25) / 266.25(+31.25) / 1.33(+0.0833)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 275(+11) / 4.6(+0.057) / 1,410,000(-11000) / 8.99s(+0.04)
Warp Speed: 4.5(-1)
Sensor strength: 20(+2)
Signature radius: 42(+5)
Cargo Capacity: 270(+55)

Hound:
Fittings: 40 PWG, 310(+7) CPU
Defense (shields / armor / hull) : 550(+304) / 425(+87) / 350(+69)
Capacitor (amount / recharge / cap per second) : 285(+35) / 213.75(+13.75) / 1.33(+0.0833)
Mobility (max velocity / agility / mass / align time): 310(+26) / 4.4(+0.326) / 1,455,000(+85000) / 8.88s(+1.14)
Warp Speed: 4.5(-1)
Sensor strength: 18(+1)
Signature radius: 38(+4)
Cargo Capacity: 255(+60)

Bomb HP Reduction:
We're decreasing bomb HP to 96 armor and 20 hull, and increasing the racial specific resistance on the bombs to 99.8%. This keeps the maximum number of bombs in a wave the same (except when damage bombs are mixed with void or lockbreaker bombs :removed incorrect statement, my bad:), but makes it easier to destroy bombs with smartbombs. Notably this puts the total bomb HP to a level where named or T2 medium smartbombs can destroy them, providing more options for cruiser and BC fleets to defend themselves.

Bomb Speed and Flight Time:
Pretty simple, this reduces the velocity of damage bombs from 3000m/s to 2500m/s, and increases the flight time to 12s. They'll still travel 30km, but they'll take 12s instead of 10s to do it. This provides more time for a fleet to react to a bombing, and puts the correct emphasis on effective strategic use of bombs combined with other ships rather than bombers acting alone.

Doubling the strength of the Bomb Deployment Skill:
This allows you to get your reactivation delay on T2 bomb launchers down as low as 67.5s, adding more value to the Bomb Deployment skill and reducing downtime a bit.

New Anti-Capital Void Bomb:
This is the first toe dipped in the water for smaller AoE (and therefore more aiming required) dumb weapons, which we think have a lot of potential in the future. It's a void bomb with the following stats:

Armor HP: 600
Explosion Radius: 5000
Energy Neut Amount: 15,000
Flight Time: 15s
Velocity: 2000m/s
AoE Range: One Meter

This thing is most useful against very large ships, and has to detonate right on top of a target to have any effect. We don't expect it to take the world by storm but it should be a very good option for harassing capitals, especially with small numbers of bombers.
This bomb will be available exclusively in the Syndicate LP store.

New 10km Dictor Bubbles:
:This addition will be delayed slightly after the initial Phoebe launch:
This is a new ammo choice for dictors that act just like the normal aoe bubbles except with a smaller range and +50% bubble lifetime. These are intended to be...

Interesting changes, definitely a nerf for multiboxers (at last!) even if they are not the only ones penalized. The anti-capital bomb seem a bit too weak in my opinion though, and I'm not a fan of the reduced warp speed, but the rest sounds nice, challenging and fair for everyone.

GOOD JOB.

hmmm....

so, my thoughts on an area of the game i absolutely adore:

Agility/align time down, AWESOME!
A large part of being good at bombing is getting the right balance between bombs on target and in line warp outs, this makes getting this right even more critical to keeping stuff alive.

HP increase - not sure I'm a massive fan but ill go with it. It makes sense from a balance perspective (a sluggier ship is probably heavier tanked right?)

More cargo is always a great plus! having 3 bombs in everything (not just the purifier) will be beneficial to the a multiracial bomber fleet as a whole, its not going to affect die hard bomber crews though as they all train into hounds and purifiers(if they do use SB's to bomb and not just torp)

Im glad to see the Nemesis coming back into the frey with the rest, it was always the ginger kid that nobody liked / people were sometimes stuck with! (stats look like its easily on par with the manti if not all the rest!)

Cloaked ships decloaking each other is somewhat a touchy one. Fozzie some people will think this is a change to make isboxing bombers impossible, or at least combat it. was it? and if so do you realise that isboxing bombers will very easily sidestep this change and continue to operate just as easily?
My issue with this change is that when it was initially corrected, it was stated that cloaked ships decloaking each other was a BUG, and that it shouldnt have been occurring. But that devs got around to it and realised it was a thing, so they fixed the error.

Bomb HP reduction - im in two minds on this. on the one hand yes non bs fleets should have a way to prevent bombs from exploding by killing them prematurely. however another part of me thinks, that if this should be the case it should be balanced to T2 smartbombs not meta/named smartbombs as it would give an incentive to both balance fits for the extra fitting, and promote training of the smartbomb skill past level 1.

Bomb Speed decrease - i guess to make it fair for people with high pings to the server vs low ping-to-server bombers. However this change does change the goal posts with regard to increasing how many fleet doctrines can become technically 'unbombable'. the only way currently to bomb such fleets is to warp bombers in @ 0, realign to hostile fleet and bomb. with the decloak change this tactic is now extremely hazardous, and less likely to allow bombs to 'catch up' to a fleet.

bomb deployment skill change - awesome as it means more runs and more chance for terrible bombers to die.

anticap void bomb - ive been (and im sure many oothers have too) pining and suggesting a coupling of higher effect / much larger explosion radius bombs and its good to see this being trialed! personally think the 1m radius is absurdly too small. 100m is NOT exactly big in this game at all. so 1 metre is somewhat ridiculous. but very pleased CCP is willing to try this!


Q: will this new void bomb be a t2 bomb for the t2 launcher or the same as all other bombs (usable in both t1 and t2 launchers?)


10km interdiction probe - i dont see the point of this except as a very direct way of pulling bombers into scram range. screwing with a bomber run can and does occur using bubbles anyway. a smaller catchment area for interdictors runs completely opposite to its role. if you'd like Fozzie i can show u a few bombing runs screwwed over by hic bubbles where blue bombers actually kill each other with their bombs. nothing can be more sweet and funny as that!.


my one request if all these are to be going into phoebe is to change bombs to still cause damage even if the bomber itself dies. A fair trade I think if you're making bombers that much more sluggish and prone to decloaking each other by accident.

How about giving back more ISLs to interdictors? Or at least reducing reload times?

Where's the ISBoxer ban announcement Fozzie

whatever about you thinking bombers need a nerf, i'm fine either way with that

but why aren't you addressing the fact that an isboxed bomber is far more effective than the equivalent players. in fact you are furthering the gap with the cloaking change

they can still be aligned or in warp at all times and therefore immune to pvp, right? because that's bad.

i expect this new anti-capital bomb is ment to be counter for supers and titans so can we get something like immunity or at least effect reduction for triaged carriers and sieged dreads?

Edit - what will be signature radius of theese new void bombs? 400m as others or different?

collateral damage from iskboxer literally ruining legit bombing

I like the new bomb!