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Fixing bombs, not the bombers

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FireFrenzy
Cynosural Samurai
#21 - 2015-05-20 07:33:23 UTC
Silvia Nova wrote:
For my taste bombs should become more of a first strike instead of an end all weapon and bombers as a class more mainstream. You should be able to use bombs everywhere (not only nullsec) but only up to 5 seconds after decloaking. Additional changes to make it work: Reduced damage (by ~54% to 3000), reduced AOE range (by 66% to 5km), increased travel speed (6sec to 30km; firewallable and primary target for defender missiles - so defenders could finally have a use?), reduced cost (~100k per bomb) and reduced size (~5m²), launcher cooldown reduced to 60sec. All bombs should get equal resistance to all damage types to enable the racial bomb bonus and make up for lost damage per bomb(er). Bomb neut amount should be based on target signature size. You should be able to target multiple smaller hotspots with your bomber-fleet and increase the max bomb count on each hotspot. The detonate on contact behavior should be removed. Bombers should get a small (2-5% per level) damage bonus to heavy and light missiles and a powergrid reduction for heavy missiles to open up more usage scenarios. The proximity decloak should be reduced to 1000m between black ops and covert ops cloak enabled ships (while cloaked or uncloaked); increased to 2500m for all other ships. Example: a bomber can be at 1200m to another (cloaked or uncloaked) bomber and still activate cloak while a (cloaked or uncloaked) T1 frigate at 2500m would decloak the bomber (and the T1 frigate if it was also cloaked).


Wait you REALLY think this? you want to HALVE flight time when they UPPED flight time to 12 seconds so that it was EVEN REMOTELY POSSIBLE to actually not get your fleet wiped?

What the hell are you smoking and is there anything left?
Alexis Nightwish
#22 - 2015-05-20 17:30:23 UTC
Chance Ravinne wrote:
I 100% agree that any issue with bombers lies in bomb mechanics, and not bombers themselves. While there may be a few people out there who wish they could return their torpedo deliveries, by and large the complaints about bombers stem from their massive AOE death waves.

That said, my concern with these solutions, while cool, is that they don't fundamentally shift the impact of bombs. Right now bombs do the most damage to things with large signature radii that are too slow to burn out of the explosion radius before they impact.
My goal wasn't to directly shift the impact of bombs, but rather change the damage mechanic to one that makes more sense, doesn't punish shield ships for being shield ships, and to give flexibility to allow fundamental changes in the future if CCP sees a need. Right now, there is very little flexibility.

Chance Ravinne wrote:
#1 still punishes slow-moving ships. Industrials, battleships etc will still be taking the brunt of bomb damage while frigates and destroyers, which were already fast enough to get out of the way within 12 seconds, will still be taking zero or nearly zero damage.
Well currently ships with large sig radii are punished (BC/BC, anything with a MWD on, shield tanked ships). With #1, poor shots by the bomber, and/or quick reaction by the targets can reduce the damage. For example, a Typhoon with a MWD can move about 14km from the time the bomb is launched to detonation. This would drastically reduce the damage it takes if the bomber made no attempt to lead the target.

Chance Ravinne wrote:
#2 is the same thing, and is essentially what the explosion radius currently does. Ships with lower signature radius already get bomb damage reduction. This may be increasing that reduction but ultimately on a high level doesn't solve the "problems" that bombs cause.

#3 through #5 are therefore mixes of the same thing. I guess I just wonder if it will change enough, essentially

(EDITED to not go off on a tangent)
#2 is not the same thing as it literally does more damage to larger objects rather than those that are easier to get a target lock on. The Moa cruiser running its MWD doesn't take 8000 damage from a bomb, but the much larger Machariel battleship does.

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Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Alexis Nightwish
#23 - 2015-05-20 17:36:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Alexis Nightwish
Garrett Howe wrote:
IMO, bombs should be anti-capital weapons, with much less damage applied to sub-capital ships. I would increase the explosion radius of bombs from 400 m to around 2000 m, then give bombers a bonus to bomb damage against capital ships (maybe like 10x or so). This is assuming that capitals are made more useful in the future than they currently are with the new sov system. Otherwise, this would probably be a bit cruel.
The purpose of this proposal isn't to change the goal of bombs. That's for CCP (hopefully with feedback from the CSM and players) to decide. My goal is just to change it from the counter-intuitive and inflexible sig radius system to any of my proposed solutions leveraging the falloff formula.

I am particullary fond of #5 as I feel it has both the greatest amount of balance for the attacker and defender, and the greatest amount of flexibility in achieving whatever vision CCP may have for bombs. Do they want them to be anti-capital weapons? Increase the volume needed to reach 100% damage. Do they want them to be anti-blob? Adjust the blast radius to what they feel is correct. Do they want them to be area denial? Reduce bomb damage but greatly increase radius. I could go on.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Alexis Nightwish
#24 - 2015-05-20 17:46:57 UTC
corebloodbrothers wrote:
With the changes to smartbombs and bomb flight time, except void.. Alot changed. Its become harder to bomb of thight comps as they smartbomb it easy off with medium smarties.

Ccp has stats on death by bomber and it would be intrssting too see that development. I think smartbombs aoe btw is up, as its more commonly used, which btw, would be the alternative that needs fixing next.

Bombs also poor mens choice, and good against blob. There should be a counter too blob. As long as it requires skill, which it does more and more.

Also with fozzie sov comming ,fights will be more mobiel, will be intrsting how kills by bombers adjust too this number wise.

I am not conviced there is a issue atm, and would like more data from ccp at summit, on bomber kills veruss other kills.

In this area fit, t3 and ishtars still, or overwhelming impact of logi, and supers and so on. All questionable, but needed direct data in oreer to make good call

My goal with this wasn't about changing the damage potential of bombing runs. Just changing the model of how they do damage. As I said in my original post these changes introduce an inherant nerf to thier damage so if implemented, it would have to be tweeked to keep the damage about the same. Like you said, CCP has the data on this so it should be pretty easy for them to do so. In the future (perhaps after things settle down a bit from Fozziesov) CCP can make tweeks to things like radius, or max volume rather than just "nerf the bomber" and call it a day.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Alexis Nightwish
#25 - 2015-05-20 17:48:31 UTC
Wooly Akachi wrote:
I get the right sort of vibe from #5 as if you manage to land a bomb in the middle of a bunch of frigs they are going to know about it! but they are smaller so it takes more skill to line up the shot. but you don't have to be quite so accurate on say a BC.
It seems to follow a fairly logical curve.

AS for comments on hamsters, They have alot more to worry about than a few pesky bombs going off, they will survive.

Wooly

P.S bombs in low would be nice - you can use DD in low so why not bombs!

#5 is definitely my favorite :)

I'm not going to argue for or against bombs in LS, however I am happy that DDs are allowed there as anything that gets supers out and used is a win in my book.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Tusker Crazinski
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#26 - 2015-05-20 17:49:39 UTC
oh; how nukes actually work....ish

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law
Enya Sparhawk
Black Tea and Talons
#27 - 2015-05-20 19:55:09 UTC
A firewall should detonate the bomb, not destroy it.

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BeBopAReBop RhubarbPie
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2015-05-20 22:08:39 UTC
Enya Sparhawk wrote:
A firewall should detonate the bomb, not destroy it.

This would actually work very well if the falloff formula were used to calculate damage. Bombs late in a wave might be detonated by other bombs, but would still apply some of their damage. Smart bombs would reduce the damage your fleet takes without eliminating it entirely.

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Reaver Glitterstim
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#29 - 2015-05-21 07:08:37 UTC
I'm okay with how bombs currently work, though I think they hit small ships a bit hard. I'd like for smartbombs to have a similar damage reduction to smaller targets, still hitting them harder compared to what they can handle but dealing less damage in total to smaller targets.

The damage reduction factor for bombs could be tweaked to make the damage by signature radius fall off a bit more steeply, thus making it so that frigates no longer die in 1-2 bombs but could survive almost as many as a larger ship can.

Shield ships taking more damage from bombs is one of their drawbacks. This is countered by their improved ability to recover from damage done to their shields, and their greater amount of buffer HP remaining after their tank breaks. Shield ships are supposed to die faster to rapid sources of damage, while being able to recover faster. Armor ships last longer in a harsh firefight but cannot sustain the same rates of damage that shield ships can over long periods of time. I think armor logi should be adjusted to represent this, costing less capacitor and allowing weaker cap chains with a focus on more flexible logi fits, but also having a lower raw HP/s repair rate. This way a bombing run on an armor fleet may not destroy ships, but there may be time to come around again and finish the job.

I think that bombs should deal more damage to larger ships, increasing over 400m sig radius. Capital ships should take much more than the listed damage from the bomb.

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Tabyll Altol
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#30 - 2015-05-21 09:11:43 UTC
Just stop blueballing or be better at it and you won´t loose your ship.

Or use a mjd/mwd to get out of the blast area, use a low sig ship.

But please don´t nerv bombs to uselessness.

-1
Alexis Nightwish
#31 - 2015-05-22 17:30:21 UTC
To the top!

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
James Baboli
Warp to Pharmacy
#32 - 2015-05-22 18:54:41 UTC
Tabyll Altol wrote:
Just stop blueballing or be better at it and you won´t loose your ship.

Or use a mjd/mwd to get out of the blast area, use a low sig ship.

But please don´t nerv bombs to uselessness.

-1

So, battleships and battlecruisers continue to get shafted, because MJDs can't spool up fast enough, and can't reliably get out of range with an MWD even if already cycling it on when the bombs are launched.

Something as simple as another 1s (so 1 tick to see bombs and start MJD spool up) would be a massive change, and produce a spot where a well coordinated group of bombers could be ready to bomb those ships that are now almost all in one spot, 100km directly forward.

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Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#33 - 2015-05-23 04:45:23 UTC
Shield-tanked ships taking more damage because of their increased shield radius makes sense since the shield increases the surface area of the ship exposed to damage.

Since they're called "shield extenders" it indicates that they increase shield HP by making the surface area of the shield bigger.

Assume that unextended shields are about 1m off the ships hull. If you had a perfectly spherical ship with a 124m radius (for easy maths), the surface area of the shields would be 196, 000m3. This is what would be exposed to AoE damage.

Assume further that a shield extender adds just 5m to that raduis. This increases the surface area of the shield to 212, 000m3. More area exposed to damage should mean more damage taken.

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Alexis Nightwish
#34 - 2015-05-26 19:51:10 UTC
Rayzilla Zaraki wrote:
Shield-tanked ships taking more damage because of their increased shield radius makes sense since the shield increases the surface area of the ship exposed to damage.

Since they're called "shield extenders" it indicates that they increase shield HP by making the surface area of the shield bigger.

Assume that unextended shields are about 1m off the ships hull. If you had a perfectly spherical ship with a 124m radius (for easy maths), the surface area of the shields would be 196, 000m3. This is what would be exposed to AoE damage.

Assume further that a shield extender adds just 5m to that raduis. This increases the surface area of the shield to 212, 000m3. More area exposed to damage should mean more damage taken.

Well if we're talking lore and not just game mechanics I still disagree because if you ever look at the shields on ships (you can see them when using a hardener) they are no larger than the ship itself. The shield is literally right on the surface, and for all we know it is nanometers in thickness.

Going back to game mechanics, how does a target painter or MWD have anything to do with how much damage a non-targeted AoE weapon should do?

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Gabriel Karade
Coreli Corporation
Pandemic Legion
#35 - 2015-05-26 20:41:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Gabriel Karade
I really like solution #1, it also opens up potential for doing a lot more with bombs/bomb launchers with regards balancing. Never been found of 'solutions' using explosion velocity, as the shockwave velocity would likely be >> Eve ship velocities, rendering it moot. Using distance ties things up nicely.

Could even be applied to smartbombs too, allowing for another balancing stick to be used there...

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Enya Sparhawk
Black Tea and Talons
#36 - 2015-05-26 23:28:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Enya Sparhawk
Its hard to find a fair balance with something that does a mass amount of damage over an area. (Basically it does exactly what it was intended to do.) There really isn't anything else mechanics wise that compares to it except smart bombs.

If you could incorporate some sort of 'bump' mechanic expanding out from the center of the explosion (like the shockwave before the actual explosion; use the explosion velocity as a factor in the calculation) pushing smaller mass ships/drones a certain distance (based on the ships mass) out of the area of effect of the main damage (like a set mass limit defined by a certain class of ship ie. frigate, cruiser etc.) and affected by velocity, vectoring of the mass in relation to the bomb's location at time of detonation. Could also affect other bombs (a shockwave detonates others, the explosion destroys them). It could space out spam bombing a bit. (There is also nothing that would stop someone from pushing a ship away from one explosion right into the center of another; could make for some interesting game play)

This would give you two sets of damage numbers to use; two separate definitions for applying damage with only one calculation (if object makes it out of area, apply this part, if not, apply this one. One for smaller massed ships (shockwave) and one for the others that don't move out of range (which could also still be the smaller ships depending on their agililty etc.) The idea being that you wouldn't have a ship affected by both definitions at the same time (it either made it out of the area of effect or it didn't receiving the full brunt.)
The shockwave AoE would have to be a distance greater than the bombs AoE...

Any ship pushed away by the shockwave would still take damage and would then be disoriented (like running into a stationary object)
Spinning outward, maybe even being pushed out of their own weapon/mod range in the process... Let's face it, even the power behind a shockwave can destroy something small like drones, missles, even poorly fitted or weakened smaller class ships.



Hmmm, I can't really tell or not if my explanation of this idea makes sense?

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Bíonn súil le muir ach ní bhíonn súil le tír.

Is maith an scéalaí an aimsir.

When the lost ships of Greece finally return home...
Alexis Nightwish
#37 - 2015-06-09 22:33:50 UTC
Enya Sparhawk wrote:
shockwave stuff

To be completely honest I hate displacement in games, and the coding that would have to go into this would certainly be complex so I can't really agree.

My hope is that my proposal would introduce a mechanic that simple enough to understand (most of us already know how the falloff formula works), but flexible enough to easily balance, while at the same time not punishing a player horribly just because he/she flew a shield ship/had MWD on.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Alexis Nightwish
#38 - 2015-06-09 22:36:42 UTC
I just thought of another perk of my proposal. If CCP ever wanted to introduce different types of bombs, it would be much easier to mess with the numbers to produce different types.

Just a random, spur of the moment example, but high yield vs low yield bombs? High yield could be small radius, large damage, while low yield could be large radius, low damage.

CCP approaches problems in one of two ways: nudge or cludge

EVE Online's "I win!" Button

Fixing bombs, not the bombers
Delt0r Garsk
Shits N Giggles
#39 - 2015-06-10 11:11:39 UTC
I here this alot. Bombs or bombers are XXX problem. Yet there is no data to support this. None.

In fact a look at killboards and they only thing that needs fixing seems to still be Ishtars.

That is right very few ships in the scheme of things are dying to bombers.

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SFM Hobb3s
Perkone
Caldari State
#40 - 2015-06-10 12:42:27 UTC
I think EHP of bombs should be at least halved. Less concentrated bombs per volley, still making a meaningful impact, but not replacing an entire combat fleet with an I-win button. Bombs literally make battleships the weakest combat ship of the game.

Also, 'distance to epicentre' is a horribly bad idea. Anything that tries to calculate 'falloff' from bombs is bad. You are adding so much more calculation requirement to a function that already eats up way too many cpu cycles (as evident in ANY fleet fight involving tidi).

And this is all the more reason to lower bomb EHP. Less bombs/volley, less strain on hamsters.
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