Vaygr bombers, the lost unit?

Homeworld Remastered Collection Homeworld Remastered Multiplayer
#1

Sadly, I’m pretty much a primary Vaygr player. I just love a swarm and carrier based faction, so I wanted to get some other players opinions on my thoughts.

For some reason I just can’t fit bombers into my fleets; their roll is accomplished so much better with Laser Corvettes. Back when I played HW2, they had their uses as anti subsystem units, and were especially important once Battle Cruisers started coming out. You could knock out the engines and move into blind spots, or even better, keep destroying the Capitol Ship modules on the shipyards to keep the BC advantage. Their gurilla strikes were key to advanced play, often kept in reserve as surprise, or used in deep Z-axis flanks to accomplish module attacks on the home fleet. If you were missing a gravwell, or didn’t have a capitol ship with one close enough, you could take out the opponents Hyperspace module to prevent escapes when your opponent was in a losing fight.

Yet when facing HW1 factions, they seem to serve no purpose as they don’t have any worthwhile subsystems to attack. Engines on carriers don’t really matter much, since you can’t take out their hyper space capability, they can just escape anyways. Against the frigate swarms that HW1 players love, there are no subsystems to attack at all and they will get chewed up quick before they actually do much damage. It’s just much better to bring the DPS of Laser Corvettes.

I think I could fit them in better if I could make more strike craft, but the 18 unit limit just doesn’t afford them space when I’m focusing on Lance Fighters and Fighters to tank/obscure those Lancers. I really don’t bother to research them at all anymore.

Have Vaygr bombers lost their roll in HW remastered? What is your experience both with Vaygr bombers and facing against them?

#2

I always liked the hw2 bomber swarm and they used to be a scary sight when I was playing hw2 classic. It is true that in RM against classic units seem useless or possibly less of a threat (in a bad way)

#3

I understand what you are saying. Maybe they just have a less diminished role against hw1?

#4

They will have a bump vs frigates, and you also are going to have more trouble keeping vettes from both HW1 and HW2 down if you don’t dedicate some of that vette cap to missiles. Both pulsars and gunships, especially gunships are going to give you a bad day if you don’t work missile vettes into your plan, assaults and HMFs are going to cut it.

It’s going to take the HW2 guys a little while to get used to the idea of HW2 vettes being useful, but they will. And the Old HW1 guys are going to start using them real fast once they see they’ve retaken their place as one of the core units in any HW1 fleet.

Last don’t forget that for HW1 production ships, it’s not just engines, but RU drops are also attackable (as they are with HW2) Fighters in general have trouble taking down HW1 collectors because of their armor and the fact that the drop heals. Try taking that out first then attack the collectors.

#5

The only issue I see is light corvettes shutting down Vagyr fighters. Assault craft do not have the firepower to take out HW1 collectors (unless you have a lot of them) - unlike HW2 you will often be able to turtle long enough to get corvettes or even a grav well out before being significantly damaged by these fighters. As bombers require a research module and technology, they will take longer to get out than assault craft. It is almost impossible to get bombers out before light corvettes, and even scouts have the firepower to take out bombers en masse. If you get missile corvettes to suppress lights (and later heavies or multiguns) you lose a fighter production slot and will lose to HW1 spamming interceptors and bombers using their double production line.

Bombers were always anti-subsystem, so they do not make much sense vs HW1. Unless they do more damage vs frigates than lasers (dubious considering the relative cost) their fragility, vulnerability to basically any strike craft and poor performance against HW1 collectors and supercaps make them suboptimal for this type of combat.

A possibility could be to give bombers a major damage bonus against HW1 collectors, but not HW2. Therefore, bombers would be used against collectors the way interceptors/assault craft are now. From what I notice, bombers don’t hurt collectors any worse than interceptors do.

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#6

Thanks for the reply!

[quote=“ratamaq, post:4, topic:586434”]
They will have a bump vs frigates
[/quote]Is this something happening in the future, or currently in the Balance Mod? My last impressions was that they both don’t perform as well as Laser Vettes, and don’t last as long. If it’s in a future update, I’ll be happy to test it out!

[quote=“ratamaq, post:4, topic:586434”]
Both pulsars and gunships, especially gunships are going to give you a bad day if you don’t work missile vettes into your plan
[/quote]Ah, this is switching away from HW1 opponents I am talking about, but if I’m facing corvettes, I should produce more Lancers, no?. I thought Lancers are the paper to rock corvettes. Why build generalist Missile corvettes against dedicated anti-corvette units? I might not know the numbers under the hood, but that seems like a mistake on the surface of it. I’m probably misunderstanding something here…

[quote=“ratamaq, post:4, topic:586434”]
It’s going to take the HW2 guys a little while to get used to the idea of HW2 vettes being useful, but they will. And the Old HW1 guys are going to start using them real fast once they see they’ve retaken their place as one of the core units in any HW1 fleet.[/quote]Interesting to hear. What are the intended implications to the Vaygr bomber with the shift to more HW1 faction and HW2 Hiigaran corvettes?

[quote=“ratamaq, post:4, topic:586434”]
Last don’t forget that for HW1 production ships, it’s not just engines
[/quote]Yes, and I would love to send a squad or two of upgraded bombers to harrass that, but it’s a 2000RU research path and with an 18 unit cap, everything is tied up in Lance/Assault fighters against those crazy multi-gun HW1 corevettes, and those lightning fast Interceptors (which are crazy fast). The lack of dedicated anti-corvette unit in the Vaygr corvette tree means that hull class takes over the bomber role, and thank god the Laser Corvette is such a beast. The Laser Corvette loses the bonus anti-subsystem damage, and trades it for tons of structure damage; which seems like a win-win against HW1. Another strike against the bomber =(

#7

[quote=“MaxL_1023, post:5, topic:586434”]
Bombers were always anti-subsystem, so they do not make much sense vs HW1. Unless they do more damage vs frigates than lasers (dubious considering the relative cost) their fragility, vulnerability to basically any strike craft and poor performance against HW1 collectors and supercaps make them suboptimal for this type of combat.

A possibility could be to give bombers a major damage bonus against HW1 collectors, but not HW2. Therefore, bombers would be used against collectors the way interceptors/assault craft are now. From what I notice, bombers don’t hurt collectors any worse than interceptors do.
[/quote]We’re kind of thinking the same thing. I’m not sure about the increased damage against HW1 collectors, as I think Lance Fighters (??) already do increased damage to HW1 collectors. I would say giving them a sharp damage bonus against HW1 super capitol ships to make up for the lack of subsystems to attack on those would be very flavourful, but in the end it would probably be pointless as they would just evaporate to missile destoryers :confused:

#8

I’m on my mobile so I won’t be able to answer inline point by point, but I’ll try to hit all your points. This isn’t what the mod is now, but the next update is coming with a MAJOR vette rebalancing. And it will probably be tweaked more once formations drop.

Vaygr have been interesting and almost backwards to balance to the other 3(2) races because of lance fighters and laser vettes, so this is how it will all shake out.

Lance will beat most vettes, but not the dedicated anti fighter vettes (gunships and multi guns). But laser will stand to all frigates, even the dedicated anti vette frigates (Torp and HW1 assault) but will suffer heavy losses doing so.

Missile vettes are a dedicated anti vette vette, but with decent anti fighter and minimal anti frigate capabilities.

What this means in reality is your fighter/vette/frigate fleet will perform differently depending on what your facing and it will be important to know the difference. So often bombers will be a better choice over laser because laser, while the strongest anti cap below the HMF, is also the weakest to everything else.

If you tried to use only lance and laser, gunships or even interceptors alone would stop you, so facing say a Torp gunship combo, a better match would be missile vettes and bombers. And I antisipate a large uptick in vette usage from both Hig and HW1 races. That is going to seriously cut into your laser usage because the Vaygr do not have and anti vette frigate.

We’ve spent the last 2 weeks tweaking vettes top to bottom and I think we are almost there so that no 1 unit or even a combination of 2 units (like multi guns and bombers are now) is a combo that is best in most situations and near uncounterable.

When the update is finalize I’ll post unit vs unit numbers we settled on and then tweaked and tested until we got consistent. It feels really good now in the test mod, and I think everyone will like it once they see how it all fits together.

Vaygr bombers got some extra love with not just frigate damage (both HW2 bombers got this) but also how they apply that damage. They are bad about friendly fire. This is hopefully fixed.

I’ll have to check into lance vs collectors and bring that up as a discussion as to if they are suppose to be better then bombers or not. I could see vs HW2 collectors, but HW1 collectors are more of a frigate class vessel in many ways (built in hyper drive for one thing) even though it can dock. Reminds me, I need to discuss removing that capability (dock and hold in bays) which it didn’t have in HW1.

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#9

I don’t think Homeworld 1 collectors can hyperspace?

Without docking, moving them around a medium/large map with their 110 m/s engine would be useless.

#10

Yes they could, that’s how you moved them around medium and large maps in HW1.

#11

But in Remastered you can’t so you need them to dock to move long distances

#12

You can now in the balance mod.

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#13

I think their hyper space ability will be restored eventually. It’s already back in the Gear Box balance mod.