TEC Really Need Something to Protect Themselves From Insane Bombers

from Sins Forums

Just a boring game vs the AI. Because the fear of VRT, I decided to go for the bombers at my best.

So that's what finally I have, before I start to invade a TEC loyalist AI:

  • 100 carriers, with 135 bomber squadrons;
  • cap fleets with 35 or 37 bomber squadrons;
  • Scramble Bombers. I just forgot how many squadrons at the same time, but I had 6 Skirantra.
  • cloned carriers created by Duplicate Force. I chose the fighter : bomber as 1:1.

I forgot the exact number. So let's say I had 180 squadrons of bombers at that time. The AI had about 80 squadrons of both fighters and bombers in total.

Then I just selected all the bombers, and gave them attack orders, first one was Lv10 Kol, then second one was Lv7 Kol, then the other caps, then the Ankylon. No further micro-management for the bombers. (I'm not a skilled player and not good at microing.)

So the Lv10 Kol was killed in seconds. My bombers are damaged, but still acceptable. Then I killed the Lv7 Kol again without heavy loss. All the things left was just slaughter.

Normally I play TEC, and rarely Vasari. That's the first time I go for more than 20 carriers, and now I understand why people always say the Flak Burst is not so useful as it looks. Even it was AI that allowed me to build carriers insanely, and maybe not possible in MP games, but it still shows how helpless Flak Burst is. It really hurts, but it can't prevent the first wave of strike. Jam Weapons and Telekinetic Push can delay even such an insane attack a little while, to make fighters a chance to kill some before the inevitable attack.

Well, maybe it's just the fear of a TEC player.

43,722 views 57 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Welcome to the bomber hell. Still say because of this you need to arm the ships with flak weapons. We can do that now.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 1
you need to arm the ships with flak weapons

Best idea since corvette!

Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

its even more potent to upgrade flak cannons, hulls specially going against vasari and shields and also spam the heck out of perchelon fighters.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, add LRM's a flak battery.

 

Balanced, totally balanced.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Vasari bombers are also harder to deal with than the other two races as they're the only ones that can survive two shots by flak burst (though just barely)

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Cpt_Siddy, reply 4
Yes, add LRM's a flak battery.

 

Balanced, totally balanced.

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 2

Quoting Ryat, reply 1you need to arm the ships with flak weapons

Best idea since corvette!

He doesnt mean every ship. 

 

To expand on his train of thoughts...he is implying to add Flak weapons to Caps much like Titans have.

 

But hey you could just be instead total Online Jerks™ as usual. 

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 5
Vasari bombers are also harder to deal with than the other two races as they're the only ones that can survive two shots by flak burst (though just barely)

 

Not to mention they have phase missiles so they melt capitalships much faster then either other race's bombers.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Everyone needs something to protect themselves from bombers. ;P

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 8
Everyone needs something to protect themselves from bombers.

 

I have it. Rage quitting. 

60% of the time it works all the time.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 8
Everyone needs something to protect themselves from bombers.

I think flaks and fighters can do this well, currently.

The problem is, since I built so many bombers, it seems TEC had no means to delay the first wave of attack.

Even every ship is equipped with flaks as a swarm of hedgehogs, can change nothing about this. I call it as the damned-first-wave-can-kick-everyone's-ass-to-hell problem.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

Never have an issue with bombers as TEC myself. My friend tends to spam them and heavy cruisers, they're yet to do too much damage to me as I just build more flak frigates to begin with.

 

Flak burst definitely needs more power though; it should be able to take out most of a fleet of Vasari bombers too.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

TK PUSH TK PUSH TK PUSH...if you aren't playing Advent, that's your own fault!

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting gundamlit, reply 10
The problem is, since I built so many bombers, it seems TEC had no means to delay the first wave of attack.

Everyone has this problem. Only the Advent with Telekenetic push can maybe avoid it, but its really not enough in many cases. Phasic trap makes them invulnerable so you're just delaying the first wave, which can be a crucial thing if you can stall long enough to win but doesn't fix the problem.

 

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

The most unknown counter to bombers is akkans aura + flak. Some people may be employing  this without realizing it, thus they claim there is no bomber problem.

The more known, but kinda expensive option is 2 Kols.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Bombers are only counter to AoE titans. You can't nerf them directly or indirectly without making late game even more titan-centric. There are other balance reasons not to nerf bombers in regards to turtling, RB and such but let's not dwell into that now.

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

maybe if they changed the sova's heavy fighters to heavy fighter mandate; an ability that still retains the same values, BUT acts like concetration aura in regard to carriers. It would effectly strengthen the strikecraft of ships able to house strikecraft including the sova in range of the sova.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 15
Bombers are only counter to AoE titans. You can't nerf them directly or indirectly without making late game even more titan-centric. There are other balance reasons not to nerf bombers in regards to turtling, RB and such but let's not dwell into that now.

Agreed. There are so many titans with powerful anti-ship skills, bombers are normally the only way to kill them.

Quoting Astax, reply 14
The most unknown counter to bombers is akkans aura + flak. Some people may be employing  this without realizing it, thus they claim there is no bomber problem.

I always call it "Flak Aura". And it still can do nothing to weaken the first wave of attack.

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 13

Everyone has this problem. Only the Advent with Telekenetic push can maybe avoid it, but its really not enough in many cases. Phasic trap makes them invulnerable so you're just delaying the first wave, which can be a crucial thing if you can stall long enough to win but doesn't fix the problem. 

What I mean is not to turn the tide with only several Caps - it's unfair just considering how much resource 100 carriers cost, comparing to 3 or 5 Caps.

The problem is, TEC has no way to delay it. If one player build many ships, the first wave can be weakened by an attack of SCs. But if he mass SC out, TEC has no means to weaken the first wave. Even 3 or 4 seconds can be valuable, but now none for TEC.

Flak Burst really hurts, but it can only punish the criminals after his fleet is raped by the bombers.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting gundamlit, reply 17
But if he mass SC out, TEC has no means to weaken the first wave. Even 3 or 4 seconds can be valuable, but now none for TEC.

I've argued this many times, that flak burst provides no SC cover like Jam Weapons or TK push do...but them some dingleberry pro player will rant about how I'm retarded and flak burst is the best thing since Moses and Abraham rode dinosaurs to Disnelyand...

Anyway, I personally use a modded version of the ability that is a periodic action with a larger radius and a debuff that reduces the accuracy of all enemy SC in range...

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Since when cap ship abilities are supposed to COUNTER frigates/cruisers? Flak bust is v. good support for your fighters/flak. It's not meant to rape thousads of SC by itself. Caps are support. Yeah, they are.

BTW TK push blows vs bombers.

 

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 19
Since when cap ship abilities are supposed to COUNTER frigates/cruisers? Flak bust is v. good support for your fighters/flak. It's not meant to rape thousads of SC by itself. Caps are support. Yeah, they are.

Surely not. Simply caps don't cost so much.

What I think necessary is, some delay of the FIRST WAVE of attack. Some delay of the inevitable doom of the fleet.

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 18

I've argued this many times, that flak burst provides no SC cover like Jam Weapons or TK push do...but them some dingleberry pro player will rant about how I'm retarded and flak burst is the best thing since Moses and Abraham rode dinosaurs to Disnelyand...

Anyway, I personally use a modded version of the ability that is a periodic action with a larger radius and a debuff that reduces the accuracy of all enemy SC in range...

Several days before I just think it is a good idea. Now I totally agree with you.

I think I got the bomberphobia syndrome now.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

Just let flak burst decrease their accuracy slightly for 5 seconds and let the debuff stack so that multiple Kols can do a better job at defense.

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

I dont see the problem. If the enemy allowed you to amass such insane amounts of bombers, he deserves some serious losses.

 

Build more flak frigates, Percherons and Sovas with fighters, and multiple Kols with Flak burst ability. Plus LRM frigates and cruisers with afterburner ability to go after the bomber carriers. And Hangar defenses with flak and fighters.

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Mecha-Lenin, reply 19
BTW TK push blows vs bombers.

I think you are trolling...in fact I know you are, but let me get my dead horse beatin' stick anyway...

First consider the usability of each ability:

  • Flak burst has range of 3000 (lvl 1) to 4140 (lvl 4)....TK push has range of 4000...
  • Flak burst has cooldown times of 12 (lvl 1) to 7 (lvl 4) with an average of ~9...TK push has cooldown of 10...
  • Flak burst has AM cost of 100...TK push has AM cost of 90 and is on a ship with better AM reserves/regen...

Now let us consider the effects of each ability:

  • Flak burst does 30 (lvl 1) to 69 (lvl 4) damage...TK push does 20 (lvl 1) to 46 (lvl 4) damage...
  • TK push actually pushes SC away and disrupts bombing runs - note that TK push (range 4000) outranges bomber weapons (range 2400)...
  • TK push slows down affected SC for 15 seconds

In terms of usability, TK push has a clear advantage at lower levels...it has much greater range and a better or comparable cooldown...at higher levels, the usability of each ability is fairly comparable...flak burst can be used quicker and has marginally better range...however, TK push uses less AM and is on a cap with more AM reserves, AM regen, and 2 passive abilities (so nothing else is competing with that AM)...

Personally, I say TK push has better usability...it's clearly better at lower levels, and is barely beat at the higher levels...furthermore, it is more AM friendly lending to greater utility in long, drawn out battles (not that attrition really matters much when it comes to bombers)...

In terms of raw power, TK push only does 2/3 the damage of flak burst...however, it disrupts bombing runs completly (as in, you can prevent SC from hitting parts of your fleet for short windows of time) which is useful even if you only have one Halcyon...flak burst meanwhile only does raw damage, and without 2 kols it's utility is severely diminished...

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 21
Just let flak burst decrease their accuracy slightly for 5 seconds and let the debuff stack so that multiple Kols can do a better job at defense.

Needs to last longer than 5 seconds, and shouldn't bank on stacking...no capital ship ability should depend on you having the same ship with the same ability...

I personally liked having a periodic action ability with much greater range and a heafty accuracy penalty (I think I used 15% or so?)...while it initially seems bad, the damage overtime combined with the greater range made one instance of the ability more dangerous...of course, I haven't played with it recently and I had bombers slated with a slightly different balance of power...but anyway, it was cool to see constant looking of the flak burst effect...

 

           

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

It needn't last longer than five seconds though.  By the time bombers are that close, they're going to fire at something and bombers have a long cooldown on weapons.  As such, you only need to have it affect one volley of their fire.

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

 

Quoting Seleuceia, reply 23
note that TK push (range 4000) outranges bomber weapons (range 2400)...

ROFL. Finally proof you don't know what you're talking about. That's 1600 difference. You know how long it takes for a bomber to travel that distace? If you leave TK on autocast it will activate too late and you will take full bomber volley. You can try microing it, but GL with that. You would know it if you actually played the game. In reality, bomber range>TK push range.

 

Look at the whole picture. Anyone with half a brain will FF caps. Halcyon will die in few  bomber passes. Kol can take a beating, especially in defensive position (60hp/s reps, hoshikos). Not to mention it benefits from upgrades so much more. Halcyon CAN'T take hits, even surrounded by repair platforms. This is so typical, throwing random numbers around and ignoring the context.

This is what pisses  me out about modders. Look up the numbers, compare 2 abilities, and there, conclusion! :D Unfortunately, it's a bit more complex than that. You need to put it in the game context. Or, you know, launch the game once in a while.

 

I was talking about bombers. TK push tears fighters apart.