Should bombers be much slower than fighters?

Its space, turning and acceleration due to higher mass would be impacted more then top speed.

as for strike craft auto docking, what would be the point?  If this saves server/client resources then it should be implemented, imo.

Lag sometimes seems to lessen when people dock all their strike craft.

Question, in regards to auto dock, does the Kostura's disable prevent Hangar defenses from being able to launch any docked strike craft?

Another interesting gameplay mechanic waiting to be fiddled with

nice idea senza

Thanks, I was just thinking that auto dock might make the Kostura a little more effective if that were indeed the case, since not even SC could be mustered to the defense.

If sins used Newtonian physics then yes strike craft speed, or any ships speed wouldn't really matter much, because ships would infinitely accelerate until they hit light speed as they applied thrust. Only Mass, and amount of thrust applied would determine the speed at which they accelerate.

However the dev's chose to give ships a fixed maximum speed limit. I happen to agree with wbino on this topic. This has been an issue since Original Sins, because of the bombers virtually unstoppable "alpha strike" capability. Especially if there is a large swarm of bombers. I also agree that bombers should be slowed down. Not by half, but by perhaps 25% or perhaps we can come to an agreement on what the number should be to give anti strike craft weapons, and units a chance of breaking up that alpha strike.

The dev's already tried to deal with this issue by buffing/debuffing weapons, and hit points. I say lets try reducing bomber speeds a little, and see where it goes.

Such speed limits exist right now in our search for faster space travel.

Sins imitates the actual via a simpler model, it won't do so perfectly because there are "population average" hardware constraints, and the need for the gameplay to be fun.  Fun doesn't include zooming around faster then human reaction getting blown up so fast you didn't realize what happened because the action happenis all in one single frame.

Increasing the range of anti strike craft capital ship abilities would be the easiest, and most effective way to deal with this issue.

I would say that this isn't as much of an issue anymore as lvled titans can't be alpha striked down to nothing in one hit.  So really, they made a ship thats too big to die easily.

Pie in the sky because Sins is perhaps two patches from end of life...but..

Not only would bombers be slower and bulkier but "SPAWN" missiles that would I guess be "mini frigates" that could be shot down.

True. Only thing i can suggest then is modding. Unless the dev's have something planned that we are unaware of.

In space, projectiles dont have maximum range either, what is your point?

Actually, many have a maximum effective. Certain ones. such as missiles run out of fuel, while others, such as railguns and autocannons (it's very stupid to use the latter in space), can only fire accurately and reliably within a certain distance.

Inertia, ever heard of it? Auto cannons are as deadly in space as they are on earth, recoil can be handled by recoilless rifle design. Of course, the only reason you want to use something like auto cannon in space is to litter orbit with debris or close in defense against incoming sophisticated guided weapons. 

And space time weapons, real long range ones, would be something more sophisticated than modern atmospheric missile.

 After all, all you need to do is cook your target, dissipating heat in space is a bitch.

Umm.. How did this turn into a "real physics" debate? We were talking about lowering bomber speeds in game, and perhaps increasing range of anti strike craft weapons. Game mechanics. Not physics.

Aren't bombers already slower than fighters?

-Twi /)

"I have 3 idle CPU cores ready to take on the task of physics calculations and thats just counting the CPU so you wouldn't believe just how much my GPU can do given the CPU could render this data." RiddleKing, 2012

Right now we could decrease the speed of bombers and have them raped by fighters, flak and ant-strikecraft abilities. After failing so hard we would then increase the bombers hp taking into account of real world mechanics that show you that a bomber is bigger and bulkier.

After we increase the HP and shield points we would then have to find a balance between them and flak. You know so flak and high armor targets aren't wiped by indistructable bombers. 

After suceeding to find the balanced hp numbers then we would assess flaks dps against them and fighters. We will probably have to increase the fighters dps to account for the bulkier bombers hp but also test the extra dps against all light armor units and increase there durability. After that we would then find a balance once again and continue the same process. 

The question is how much of a difference will be felt with a decrease in their speed? 

Answer: they will be more seating ducks to all kinds of weapons that can target them. 

The problem: Aren't we just making corvettes by making bombers bulkier?

Answer: Yes we are. That is the sad part.

Question: So what do we do about them?

Answer: nothing for now.. we need to do the testing. It would probably mean overhauling all the units speeds or not but those are the quirks of game development. 

"Thank you for taking the time to read my text. If there is any grammar and spelling mistakes then please forgive me because I speak more than 3 languages-one them being advent." RiddleKing,2012

RiddleKing - signing off

RiddleKing, that is one hell of a text, it's long, but I actually read it But you are indeed right, I wonder tho, could there be a way to make bomberspam less useful, or more easily countered...Because atm it's completly overraping everything :O(My biggest fleet was 100 bombers and that already raped, I shall try out a maxed real bomber fleet today and see how that goes

give bombers ammo - or antimatter - and give it a default recharge rate of 0. It must dock to recharge, much like real life aircraft must go back t o base to replenish their payload. Maybe that would warrant an increase in damage, since they would have few shots before having to go back and dock to replenish.

But can bombers/sc even have skills and AM at all?

Would be nice to have one faction have kamikaze strike craft/bombers, which would destroy themselves for large damage.

I think this is more about "bomber swarms" than any kind of speed, or weapon issue on the bombers themselves. A single bomber wont scratch the paint on any ship, but hundreds of bombers in a single grav well are a force to be reckoned with. Bombers are already much slower than fighters in game at present. Which gives fighters more of a chance to intercept them. In the few games i played i didn't see much of an "unstoppable alpha strike" issue. As long as you have decent anti strike craft capability. You can break up bomber swarm. In my TEC fleets I used 10 flak frigs, and 10 carriers. Each carrier had 1 fighter, and 1 bomber squad. Plus the strike craft of my cap ships which i used mostly fighters for them. It decimated a 20 carrier. 5 cap ship + support vicious AI advent AI fleet! The advent bomber swarm did some damage, but my anti strike craft capability pretty much neutralized the bomber swarm. Allowing my TEC fleet to wreck the advent fleet. You can multiply those numbers by any amount, and the results will probably be similar.

So this means you can counter bomber swarms with:

1) Fighter swarms (most effective).

2) Lots of flak frigs (not near as effective but better than nothing at all).

3) A mix of both (best option, because what the fighters dont take down the flak frigs will).

I think the issue is that not many focus on effective anti strike craft capability.

IMO this is now more a strategy issue than a game mechanic issue. Test it, and see for yourselves.

Why yes, I have. I would hope so, seeing as I'm in a mechanical engineering program.

Oh really? Even with the much larger ranges of space combat? There's a reason I said maximum effective range, not maximum range. There is a big difference between the two.

CIWS are last-ditch defenses against missiles. They aren't even that great to be truthful. Only thing an antocannon would be useful for is something like fighters. Against anything other than small things like fighters? It's pretty damn useless.

Range means absolutely nothing in space as far as the possible damage goes.  There's no resistance to slow the ammunition or change its course.....

And in a game where colonizing a planet is just another day at the plant, aiming at long ranges shouldn't be an issue either, so your second point is invalid.

-Twi /)

Except autocannons have minimal velocity, so the chances of them hitting a moving target are pretty small.  Any sort of basic evasion course will make them completely miss.

Sounds good to me.

Also I'd still like to see Vasari Bombers damage dropped to be more in-line per fleet supply with other phase missile units(seriously, every other phase missile unit has inferior DPS per fleet supply to it's Advent/TEC counterparts to compensate for how obscenely effective phase missile techs are- bombers are the only unit to have phase missile and non-phase missile quality DPS:supply).

Only if you discount such things as physics. Once you factor in the relativistic speeds of objects in space the longer the range the less likely you are to hit the target. 

The exception would be something like a planet or moon that is in a predictable fixed orbit.

A moving target is only a problem if:

A )  They aren't moving at a steady speed.

B )  They are moving in an eratic, un-identifyable pattern.

If neither of these are true, targetting computers should ensure most of your rounds hit.  In fact, the only weapons that CAN actually hit such targets are missiles, which can track their targets.  Even Beam/Laser weapons aren't instant hits.

-Twi /)

You aren't intentionally trying to be dense here are you?

The only thing that would fit your condition is what I just described. 

A spaceship with it's active propulsion would only become predictable to targetting computers as it gets close enough to actually predict where it will go. 

At longer distances any ship would easily be able to adjust it's course even just slightly to avoid any weapon fire. Even missiles at range would suffer similar issues as they need to first go to where the contact should be made. Even a small adjustment at a large enough distance could alter the relative distance between the original vector where the missile needed to go and to where the ships are now that it may be to large to correct.

You can't view space combat as a static set of point A - B given the speeds, distance and 3 dimensional space to work in.

Again most space combat would need to close that distance to a point where targetting computers could actually attempt to predict firing solutions.