I really shoud have brought this up a long time ago. But the way bombers and strike craft interact with fighters just doesnt make much sense.

I was playing the campaign with a carrier fleet. Fighting Imps that were carrier heavy themselves.

Fighters shred ordnance. Why are bombers and strike craft dog fighting?

Bombers and strike craft need to ignore interceptors and continue to perform their purpose and that is to drop bombs and get troops on enemy craft.

Rework fighters to behave similarly to how cruisers with their Point defence guns function and make em chase bombers instead of tying them up.

Fighters should only break the chase if hostile fighters are close and let them dog fight. That's how we can make ordnance function properly amd make bombers and strike craft actually semi decent. Cause in its current state 2 fighter squads will absolutely shut down 4 bomber squads and that's why carriers will never be viable cause they are too easy to shut down.

Disagree, escort carriers lose pretty much all value if you can just brute-force through their fighter cover.

If you have carrier superiority, you've got the option of deploying your own fighters first to outnumber and tie down theirs. Throwing strikecraft into their hard counter is poor play and shouldn't be rewarded.

@CANNED_F3TUS

Because it would be silly. bombers and boarding craft are not "dog fighting" they try to dodge as best as they can.

If they would ignore fighter craft and just fly strait to there target they would be shot down pretty fast.

You can make the argument that they at least try to move to there target but much slower. But even that depending on the "skill" of the crew would be pushing it.

Not a bad idea but realy not worth implementing now.

@TheMadTypist said in Suggest. Rework to how fighters, bombers and strike craft interact with each other.:

Disagree, escort carriers lose pretty much all value if you can just brute-force through their fighter cover.

1 Escort carrier already shuts down 2 -3 times it's hangers worth in enemy squads. How would the escort carrier become any less viable?

If you have carrier superiority, you've got the option of deploying your own fighters first to outnumber and tie down theirs. Throwing strikecraft into their hard counter is poor play and shouldn't be rewarded.

The only problem is that. I do deploy fighters. I have played chaos carrier and hybrid lance carrier fleets for a very long time and I know that the ordnance system is a mess. It isn't cost efficient. I can tell you that I will deal more damage if I run my carriers CQB and proc damage instantly. Why bother blowing points on carrier superiority when your opponent can counter you more effeciently. Bring more ships to the field as an added bonus.

Fact is even with the 50 bonus in speed. Ordnance is still a joke. They will still get kited to the point where damage becomes negligible. And than you got all the other quirks and design flaws that go with ordnance. Who the hell wants to deal with that crud if you will be more successful with just going full macro or lances than rely on your opponent to be a dummy.

@Kando said in Suggest. Rework to how fighters, bombers and strike craft interact with each other.:

@CANNED_F3TUS

Because it would be silly. bombers and boarding craft are not "dog fighting" they try to dodge as best as they can.

Which is my whole point...

If they would ignore fighter craft and just fly strait to there target they would be shot down pretty fast.

They get shot down regardless. And any bomber pilot worth their salt. Knows they can't beat a squadron that's what fighter cover is there for.

You can make the argument that they at least try to move to there target but much slower. But even that depending on the "skill" of the crew would be pushing it.

Space craft and bombers in general would move at the same pace as usual cause there isn't much you can do as a bomber in space and an interceptor on your back. The fighter will always out maneuver you. You hold course cause physics don't favor you. WW 2 pilots knew this as well. That's why flying fortresses kept course and let their guns and fellow fighters defend them.

Not a bad idea but realy not worth implementing now.

It's a good idea cause it would make carriers less quirky and more reliable. It is easy to impliment cause you see bombers do the same with torps. You don't see torps turn around to dog fight.

@CANNED_F3TUS

A bomber/border that is flying with no support would damn well try to dodge as best as they can.

What you are suggesting is turning bombers/borders into guided missiles and that is except for some races that realy dont care just stupid.

@Kando said in Suggest. Rework to how fighters, bombers and strike craft interact with each other.:

@CANNED_F3TUS

A bomber/border that is flying with no support would damn well try to dodge as best as they can.

But it is pointless and bombers knew that.... Cuz space. That's why you have support and you don't dog fight.

What you are suggesting is turning bombers/borders into guided missiles

They already do fly like guided missiles. They make their way to the enemy ship. It's when they dog fight that is immersion breaking. Have you ever seen a WW 2 flying fortress dog fight a German fighter? Or even try to "dodge" fighters.

It really isn't stupid because it would make sense. You even agree with me that bombers would evade......
And it would cut down on how bad ordnance is.

Go play ordnance heavy chaos against experienced players and you will struggle to put out any damage because ordnance is far to unreliable and negatable. My suggestion wouldn't even nurf fighters. It would just add much needed reliability.

@CANNED_F3TUS the answer is actually somewhere in between... in space without weight to matter it would be easier to make your bomber maneuver, while you wouldnt try to fight a fighter you would certainly move to stop them from having an easier target. bombers in WW 2 kept formation because of flak and the possibility of hitting eachother. in space hitting eachother would still be a possibility being able to move in all directions would make it possible especially when talking about these smaller number squadrons you see in this game. in ww2 it wasnt uncommon to see upwards of 50 bombers descending on the same target when in this game you largest bomber squads are 5. All of the tech that would make a fighter in space maneuverable would be just as easy to apply to something larger, i think your getting hung up on the fighters you see irl. in space your fighters would probably be less maneuverable then say your typical f-15 due to what they have to do to make even the smallest of maneuvers, a typical jet from to day maneuvers using drag and Bernoulli Principle both of which arnt really a thing in space, how would attempt to do it today is by letting out spurts of pressurized gas and precisely timed intervals to get stuff to turn not really an efficient process. If you really want to get down into the 40k fluff to try to find answers youll just see that the speed at which these things fly would determine all this to be a moot point as they would just be rebar flying in a straight line.

side note you would also find that what they claim is the power of a single macro cannon shot it would be pointless to make anything above the size of a light cruiser as a light cruises macro barrage should be more then enough to crack a planet.

@imptastic You ain't wrong there are alot of things to consider. But I don't think they can out maneuver interceptors. Cause even though space should allow more maneuverability, mass still means something cause an astronaut can't move a vessel if he kicks off of it. Smaller vessels will always have better agility.

I agree it's stupid that bombers and even boats engage fighter squadrons, and assault boats accidentally dog-fighting assault boats when both run into each other takes absolute cake for the silliest AI behaviour currently exhibited in the game.

However, proceed with caution. Those suggestions may turn one carrier holding off several enemy carriers into defensive carriers being nearly useless (or that is: more useless than they used to be until very recently).

I like the idea of bomber/assault squadrons getting slowed down while engaged by fighters as it's logical they would be wasting time and momentum dodging incoming fire.

And of course, I'm stil utterly against a dumb idea of one squadron max, but that is off-topic by now.

@CANNED_F3TUS an astronaut could not that is for sure but if you look at the methods our current space vessels use you could upscale them to accommodate greater sizes its just a matter of releasing more gas, and since said vessel is larger holding said extra gas is a possibility. when you look at the scale of our current space ventures a lot of it is dictated by how cost prohibitive sending up extra resources via rockets to orbit. my point is simply i doubt its about maneuverability its more or less a problem of ordinance meaning the bombers would certainly take evasive actions but outright dog fighting is unlikely.

lore wise if im not mistaken the thunder hawks are the space marines fighter/bomber/assualt craft so them dog fighting would be par for the course, the load out wouldnt be optimal but if we are going by lore then space marines would roll over pretty much any standard imp ships. and thunder hawks are similar in size to your standard bombers if i recall.

@Ahriman yeah. Interceptor squads could go with a very tiny damage buff to compensate for not interrupting squads. But only a slight buff. Since bombers are already very squishy. And if you think about it. A defensive carrier should only be able to slightly mitigate dedicated carriers but kiting and maneuvers will get you alot of mileage in reducing ordnance damage. As it stands. There are alot of variables and abusable flaws with ordnance that make Dedicated Carrier fleets in the meta very undesirable.

I'm also afraid that bombers are still too slow cause they are still getting kited.