Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Mars on March 23, 2006, 09:29:57 pm
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Spurred by curiosity (and boredom) I've recently taken to wondering about bombers and what people thought of them. My personal favorite asthetically is the Medusa, and practically... the Medusa :D . What are people's thoughts? (The Myrmidon doesn't count :wtf:)
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Ursa, it's the second greatest ship ever.
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Only because it's got a Keyser turret. I like the Medusa because it's not impossible to dogfight with, carries a fair assortment of heavy ordinance, and actually has three full banks of secondaries. And because HTL-izing it was fun ;)
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The Sekhmet is easily the best in terms of effectiveness, although it looks butt ugly. I think I like the look of the Ursa the best, although if you consider Shivan bombers too, the Nephilim looks pretty cool as well.
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Ursa, it's the second greatest ship ever.
And according to you, the greatest would be?
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Perseus
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I love all bombers; have since WC2 (Broadsword, baby!). Bombing runs are probably my favourite mission type, and I was always disappointed the Boerner..arens..Boeings didn't get more use. I also really wish there was some more variety in single-mission releases; anyone want to work on some bombing runs? ;D Starting to FRED a bit meself, but about to move overseas so my scripting time is kinda limited. =p
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Ursa, fresh vasudan soup...
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Ugh, bombers...
Personally, I hate those "Strike bombers" or fighter bombers. When attacking a destroyer, you really learn to appreciate strong shielding with all the flak and beams flying around you. One of the nastiest ships to fight is the Seraphim with its turret. I once had six of those gunning for me! It was pretty hard to do any damage as whenever I was shooting one, five were blasting me from the rear.
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Yeah, the only issue with the Ursa is that it is huge, four times longer then a Loki, making it a very slow, very blocky, very easy to hit target. If Freespace 1 the turret on the Ursa was much less useful with a Banshee, in FS2 the Kayser can actually destroy things; this is also the downfal of the Medusa, the Avenger turret was okay if Freespace 1, but the Prometheus R in Freespace 2 really has no use, should have been a HL-7
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The Bonegrageds (or however its spelled) is pretty good. Great bomb capacity. It'd be alot better if it had a turret (turrets are cool).
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Sekhmet. No question.
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It's spelled "Boanerges"
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Aesthetically, I am an HTL Medusa fan.
In combat, I'll often take the Ursa because:
I get 3 equally sized bomb payloads. (Not as big as the boa, but I like the symmetry for some reason.)
I get a turret. Every little bit helps.
I get 5 gun banks. In fs2 I'll throw a maxim on the side guns if I can and use those 3 for strafing.
I get retarded shields and armor.
I especially like giving ursas to my wingmen. A pack of Ursas with cluster missles ordered to defend me remind me of b-17s in box formation. Very nasty. They tend to roll right though the clouds of dragon fighters in the last mission of fs1 better than any fighter escort.
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What we really need is an actual B17-like bomber for FS2. As in, somewhat larger than even the Ursa, upwards of 6 turrets, with a massive payload, and the ability to fire 4 torpedoes at once. :D
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What we really need is an actual B17-like bomber for FS2. As in, somewhat larger than even the Ursa, upwards of 6 turrets, with a massive payload, and the ability to fire 4 torpedoes at once. :D
The SMB Vanir bomber for BWO is a massive bomber with 6 turrets and has 8 gunpoints.
(http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/ce/bwo/intel/tech_vanir.jpg)
As for 4-shot torpedoes, you'd need a separate weapon with a swarm of 2, so that 4 would fire in dual-fire mode.
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Isn't that thing supposed to be nearly the size of a small cruiser?
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If its turrets are supposed to be the size of an Ursa's, then it's at least the size of a small cruiser. Packs more punch than an FS1 fenris too.
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As for 4-shot torpedoes, you'd need a separate weapon with a swarm of 2, so that 4 would fire in dual-fire mode.
Wh.
I.
Wh.
Who the hell needs beams on fighters?! TORPEDO-SWARM PLEASE!
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What we really need is an actual B17-like bomber for FS2. As in, somewhat larger than even the Ursa, upwards of 6 turrets, with a massive payload, and the ability to fire 4 torpedoes at once. :D
I made one back in the Reci days, albeit with only 2 turrets (barring the missile turrets, which were to be controlled by some FRED-ed co-pilot), but it's not much fun to have something that size unless you make it totally unrealistically fast/agile.
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The Donar. It makes an appearance in MindGames :)
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It's spelled "Boanerges"
I thought it was "Coffin". :nervous:
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I never liked the Boaner(ges), it never seemed to really do anything better than an Ursa, and it completely lacked primary firepower. You've got to wonder why Terran R&D keeps on replacing really good designs (the Orion, Ursa, Medusa) with not so good ones (the Hecate, Boanerges, Artemis) granted there are advantages and disadvatages, but it shouldn't be debatable, the newer ones should be so much better than the older that there is no question which is better.
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The Artemis is a good bomber, but it really should be considered a replacement to the Athena. It's too light to be a true replacement to the Medusa, and its primary banks are located such that they can be of at least some use in a dogfight. The Medusa/Ursa actually serve markedly similar roles when you're not using heavy bombs.
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I'm more of an interceptor kind of guy, but the medusa is my favorite retail bomber. I'm working on a modded zeus though.
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That Vanir thingy is full on retard sandwiches.
On the B-17 topic, I think an ursa sized bomber with a single smallish bomb bay but a whole load of turrets would make for a cool gunship class of ship. I'd say 8 turrets and 8 primaries, but nothing too strong on the turrets. just prometheus or light blobs. A single rear firing heavy flak cannon or a few interceptor missle turrets would be fun too.
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The Artemis was a light bomber, the Medusa is not. It was never supposed to replace it.
The Sekhmet is easily the best bomber. It is fast, manueverable, has very strong shields and armor, yet it also carries a huge payload.
The Bakha comes in at second place for me.
The Boanerges would be a good bomber if it was actually capable of reaching its target intact (same with the Ursa). It can be quite dangerous simply because of the rediculous number of Helios bombs it could carry, not because of its glaring faults.
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At least the Ursa gets a pea shooter. The problem with the Boanerges is that it usually gets blown up long before it can shoot all of its bombs off. And the fact that it fits an odd number of torpedoes per bay, and the bays are differently sized. In my mind, the perfect heavy bomber has 1-2 turrets, preferrably 2, and three equal sized bays that fit even numbers of torpedoes when they're loaded up. I think thats how the vasudan bombers usually are. Speed really helps too. and 4 guns on the same primary bank. Dangit, why are the vasudan bombers so ugly and so good at the same time?
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Vasudan bombers=cool.
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The Artemis was a light bomber, the Medusa is not. It was never supposed to replace it.
However as there is no Terran medium bomber then, the Artemis defaults to the role.
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Doesn't anyone remember the Zeus? As far as I know it is at least classified as a bomber. Zeus is the replacement for the Athena. Artemis seems to pretty much be the generic bomber fot the GTA, just like Medusa did. And Boanerges is a failed attempt at creating a heavy bomber.
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So in simple terms:
The Athena = Light bomber
The Zeus = Failed attempt at new light bomber
The Medusa = Medium bomber
The Artemis = New light bomber
The Ursa = Heavy bomber
The Boanerges = Failed attempt at new heavy bomber
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I thought the Zeus was a good successor to the Athena, but simply not needed, for the days of the Strike Bomber were long gone. Anyway, we don't really see it all that much in action, as most Zeus units defected to the NTF, so we can hardly judge.
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My first impression of the Zeus was in the Silent Threat mission Hellfire when a single Shivan blob turret ripped through my virtually undamaged sheilds and disabled my Zeus, with considerable hull damage. :hopping:
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The Zeus is kinda useless. But I like it. Flying it is a nice challenge. And I kinda like how it looks too...
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The Zeus is excellent for what it was designed for: light strike bombing. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't used it properly.
The Zeus is far from a failure.
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Just so we're on the same page, a strike bomber would zip in, destroy a Rakshasha, and zip out, right? Or that cargo / fighter depot in Derelict. I guess it would be useful in those cases.
When I had the Freespace 2 Demo, back in 2001, I text modded the second mission (I forgot the name screw it, and it's one of my personal favorites) so that I could fly in a Zeus bomber, I easily disabled the Moloch, so your right, it is apperently good for something.
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Sekhmet. No question.
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Medusa for me, please! :D It looks so sexy and it packs a one hell of a punch.
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The Artemis was a light bomber, the Medusa is not. It was never supposed to replace it.
However as there is no Terran medium bomber then, the Artemis defaults to the role.
maybe the Artemis D.H.? idk...
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DH is actually identical in the tables. It's the placebomber. :p
The Zeus can't really hack it. It doesn't have the manuverablity or speed to truly fulfil the strike-bomber role. This could be forgiven, and it might still work, if it were to have the durablity to compensate. But it doesn't. I was once going to build a campaign around a scout-bomber squadron that used the Zeus exculsively, but after a few missions it became painfully apparent that the Zeus just was not up to the task.
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Zeus/Medusa for me. The Zeus is fast with some bomber qualities, while the Medusa is mostly bomber with some un-bomber speed.
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Here's what I wrote on the Wiki:
[t]he Zeus is excellent for what it was designed for. It's a strike bomber, which means that it's used for tactical as opposed to destructive bombing. If you need to take out a few capships, obviously the Medusa or Ursa would be a better choice. But if you need to knock out subsystems or you need to be able to dogfight as well as drop a few bombs here and there, the Zeus is the way to go. Summary: The Medusa is better for destroying lots of ships, but you wouldn't want to dogfight in it. The Athena is better for dogfighting, but it can't carry the Tsunami. Ergo the Zeus fills an important vacancy in the FS1 bomber lineup.
The Zeus is used in several important missions in Silent Threat: Reborn. :)
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Tease :wtf:
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Actually, it wasn't meant as such. I just wanted to convey that I know, from experience, that there are situations for which the Zeus is well suited.
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What we really need is an actual B17-like bomber for FS2. As in, somewhat larger than even the Ursa, upwards of 6 turrets, with a massive payload, and the ability to fire 4 torpedoes at once. :D
The SMB Vanir bomber for BWO is a massive bomber with 6 turrets and has 8 gunpoints.
(http://www.3dactionplanet.com/hlp/hosted/ce/bwo/intel/tech_vanir.jpg)
As for 4-shot torpedoes, you'd need a separate weapon with a swarm of 2, so that 4 would fire in dual-fire mode.
Its actually really hard to use...ad yes its nearly the size of a small cruiser. When a group of 3 of these arrive on the scene and start dumping torpedoes its not a pleasant view if your on the wrong side of things.
Boanerges was my favourite bomber followed by the Artemis and the Medusa. Also the Sekhmet was alot of fun.
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Isn't that thing supposed to be nearly the size of a small cruiser?
yeah, well, so is the Ursa.
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The small Faustus is roughly four times the length and five times the voleume of the Ursa.
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Yeah, the ursa's big, but hardly a small cruiser.
Unless you mean modern naval cruisers, in wich case you may get somwhere close for a realy small cruiser...
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At that point a warship would be considered a frigate (by the US at least), or a destroyer by WWII standards.
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The Artemis was a light bomber, the Medusa is not. It was never supposed to replace it.
However as there is no Terran medium bomber then, the Artemis defaults to the role.
Not totally true, there just isn't a NEW Terran medium bomber. For some wierd reason they didn't bother to replace it. Then again they didn't totally replace the Fenris either. :p
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...they didn't totally replace the Fenris either.
The Aeolus (if they had decided to continue production) would have been the perfect replacment for the Fenris. The Deimos does mostley fufil the strike role, but it seems rather inefficent to send in a giant warship that is a major fleet asset where a small cruiser would work just as well, and put thousands fewer people at risk however, since it takes four Cyclops torpedos to destroy the Fenris, the Fenris can't really fufill its role either.
Also, it is my opinion that the Zeus is the light (strike) bomber, and the Artemis is the medium bomber.
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I'm pretty sure the Artemis was supposed to replace the Zues.
The Aeolus (if they had decided to continue production) would have been the perfect replacment for the Fenris
Yes, but they didn't so that's kind of a moot point.
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For me? Ursa, hands down. Both asthetically and in usefulness.
Reasonably maneuvarable, great shielding, large payload, and good primaries.
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Oh man i hate the artemis with a passion.
The artemis is awesome for bombing, but i hate where the ****ing gunpoints are located.
I like the fact that it shoots for lasers at the same time, but they're way too offset for dogfighting or even hitting a turret accurately.
The athena on the other hand, the most powerful laser you could put on it was the avenger, but it had very concentrated gunpoints, the athena equipped with avengers was still very powerful.
Plus the athena was tough as ****, it could take a whole lot of punishment, i wished that the athena was in fs2, i swear as a fighter, it could take a lot of punishment.
But, my main choice of bomber is the Sekhmet, it's like a shivan bomber, but way cooler.
Also fast, takes punishment, and can get the job done:)
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The Athena and Artemis have identical shields, but the Artemis has 75 more hitpoints, making it basically equivalent to the Athena tougness-wise.
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Not totally true, there just isn't a NEW Terran medium bomber. For some wierd reason they didn't bother to replace it. Then again they didn't totally replace the Fenris either. :p
Incorrect. The Artemis is deployed to fulfil a medium bomber role in your time with the 64th Raptors. You sure as hell don't send strike bombers for blockade, or against a destroyer. It also has a decidely medium bomber-equivalent payload.
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I was actually using the Boangeras bomber today in a few missions and despite what I've read, it performs very nicely, I think... It does a better job than the Ursa, and the turret is better becasue its a Prometheus S turret, not a disruptor turret like the ursa....
Ursa's are very nice too....
Vasudan Sekhmet bombers are sweet... Their actually quite manueverable.... considering that they are bombers that can carry cyclops..
Oh that reminds me, how can a myrmidon carry cyclops torpedoes? I cant see that happening...
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Oh man i hate the artemis with a passion.
The artemis is awesome for bombing, but i hate where the ****ing gunpoints are located.
I like the fact that it shoots for lasers at the same time, but they're way too offset for dogfighting or even hitting a turret accurately.
The athena on the other hand, the most powerful laser you could put on it was the avenger, but it had very concentrated gunpoints, the athena equipped with avengers was still very powerful.
Plus the athena was tough as ****, it could take a whole lot of punishment, i wished that the athena was in fs2, i swear as a fighter, it could take a lot of punishment.
But, my main choice of bomber is the Sekhmet, it's like a shivan bomber, but way cooler.
Also fast, takes punishment, and can get the job done:)
Its not like the Ursa DIDNT have that problem... Dude, three of the banks are offset so you need to aim OUTSIDE of your reticle to hit an enemy ship thats smaller than the middle of your HUD reticle.....
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I know but the artemis sucks fulfilling a fighter role.
I hate doing something like having to take down dragons with the artemis and it's wideset guns.
Usually i spin my craft to make the lasers hit, but still, i hate the artemis when i have to do a fighter role with it.
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It does a better job than the Ursa, and the turret is better becasue its a Prometheus S turret
The Boanerges has no turret. :shaking:
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Also, the ursa has a kayser turret...
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[quoteOh man i hate the artemis with a passion.
The artemis is awesome for bombing, but i hate where the ****ing gunpoints are located.
I like the fact that it shoots for lasers at the same time, but they're way too offset for dogfighting or even hitting a turret accurately.
The athena on the other hand, the most powerful laser you could put on it was the avenger, but it had very concentrated gunpoints, the athena equipped with avengers was still very powerful.
Plus the athena was tough as ****, it could take a whole lot of punishment, i wished that the athena was in fs2, i swear as a fighter, it could take a lot of punishment.
But, my main choice of bomber is the Sekhmet, it's like a shivan bomber, but way cooler.
Also fast, takes punishment, and can get the job done:)
Its not like the Ursa DIDNT have that problem... Dude, three of the banks are offset so you need to aim OUTSIDE of your reticle to hit an enemy ship thats smaller than the middle of your HUD reticle.....
However, the Ursa had its guns offset to one side, making it possible to adjust, it requires superhuman powers to make all the shots from the Artemis hit. By the way Zman, none of the Terran bombers have Prometheus S turrets, the Medusa has a Prometheus R however, could you be thinking of that?
You know, until this moment, I never realized what a hot bed bombers were for being controversial ships, the Boanerges and Zeus in preticular have their proponents and opponents, it's like the Fenris or the Colossus.
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The ursa i've found is easier to aim with than the artemis.
At least the ursa has most of it's pummeling weapon banks on one side.
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Athena is the king of lighter bomber is you ask me..
For bigger ones - the Ursa.
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The only bomb the athena could carry was the stilleto though, most modern fighters can do it's task.
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I would elaborate my ealier statement by stating that the Sekhmet is the coolest bomber, if not one of the coolest fighters/bombers, in FS2 (and FS1). Speaking of which, we should have a HLP-wide poll asking about the coolest ships, with a general category and a player-flyable-only category. We could even include ships from the most-played mods.
Btw, would anyone like to share techniques for intercepting bomber attacks? I've noticed that my gameplay has gone through several distinct phases, with changes in things like preferred weapons, energy distribution, and proportion of time spent intercepting bombs as opposed to bombers, and even orders to wingmen. It's interesting that a space combat sim can provide that degree of decision-making to the player.
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I would elaborate my ealier statement by stating that the Sekhmet is the coolest bomber, if not one of the coolest fighters/bombers, in FS2 (and FS1). Speaking of which, we should have a HLP-wide poll asking about the coolest ships, with a general category and a player-flyable-only category. We could even include ships from the most-played mods.
Btw, would anyone like to share techniques for intercepting bomber attacks? I've noticed that my gameplay has gone through several distinct phases, with changes in things like preferred weapons, energy distribution, and proportion of time spent intercepting bombs as opposed to bombers, and even orders to wingmen. It's interesting that a space combat sim can provide that degree of decision-making to the player.
IMHO, the most important thing in interception is firepower. This can be substituted to speed but only to some extent. With heavy weapons, you have the means of taking down a bomber quickly. You need to manage your energy a lot more than in a dogfight. Engines when you're intercepting, weapons when you get into weapons range. This becomes essential when you have power draining guns such as Kayser.
Missiles are a great asset in taking down the bombers. Trebuchet is obviously an excellent missile because of its range and payload. Just memorize how many Trebs it takes to shoot down a certain class of bomber, and you can easily pick the off from 5 klicks. Tornados also pack a nice punch and have a fast lock time. Especially in the early game, Tempests can clear entire waves of bombers. They are a nice standby if you happen to run out of weapon energy.
I don't generally shoot bombs, only if they happen to be in my sights. Most ships have guns that can deal with the bombs provided they have enough time. Every second you waste shooting at bombs the bombers get nearer their target. Shooting bombs might be necessary if the ship in question is some light transport/freighter, or badly damaged. Just make sure there is someone (your wingmen, for example) to deal with the bombers.
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EMP-Adv=win
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Ever tried shooting down bombs with aspect seekers? Thats fun!
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I've always wanted extreme fast-lock on, very small damage, fairly long range missles for taking down bombs.
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Even better, long range aspect-seeking cluster warhead, that detonates some distance from the bombs with a forward cone explosion, and releases some aspect seekers (or heat if it needs to be) with "target only bombs" flags. Another idea I had was for a bomber wing killer, but only works with TAG-slaved turrets. It would be a conventional cluster weapon like the Piranah, but has an EMP blast-wave and releases heat-seeking TAGs. It disorients the bombers, disables the bombs, and lights the bombers up for AAA turrets.
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I would elaborate my ealier statement by stating that the Sekhmet is the coolest bomber, if not one of the coolest fighters/bombers, in FS2 (and FS1).
Yeah, the Sekhmet is excellent in just about every way, by far the best bomber in FS2. It has the same bomb capacity, armor and shielding levels as the Ursa, but without the Ursa's off centered primaries and large size. Its maneuverability is superior to any other GTVA bomber and the speed is also above average for heavy bombers. It's actually quite effective as a heavy fighter and in fact, it used to be the second most popular ship in TvT games on PXO, next to only the Herc II. It doesn't have a turret, but its other characteristics make it much more effective against fighters than the Ursa or Medusa anyway. I think the only real limitation is that its weapon energy reserve is only average, which causes the quad primary bank to run through it quickly when firing something like a maxim. And of course, it looks ugly as sin. :p
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Sekhmet is the best bomber!...
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He he he :)
I sekhmet that :lol: