Bombers or fighters?

[CptnCankles]

I notice most carrier ships seem to prioritize building fighters over bombers so if for example the ship has three squadrons, I change it from two fighters and one bomber to two bombers and one fighter squad since bombers do more DPS overall, but fighters ARE faster and can be more numerous.

In the end, does it really matter?

[This PC]

Yes, it matters a lot, because of pierce.
Fighters are more adept at taking down targets with low durability, bombers are more adept at taking down targets with higher durability. Usually I have like a 20% ratio of fighters. They also aren't affected by the same research ie: they don't have the same weapon types.

Bombers are meant to be focus targeted on a starbase, a cap or a titan, fighters are generally perceived as being best to fight off bombers, and spreading their damage instead of focusing, tho they work against anything with low durability in large enough numbers hehe.

Bombers also can't shoot other strikecrafts. Fighters can~

[Wuorg]

In addition to what This PC said (keep an eye on those pierce/durability values!), there is another important wrinkle to the analysis: TEC and Vasari bombers use missiles, which can be shot down by PD. Advent bombers use beams, which don't have that problem. This makes them rather adept at knocking down the enemy fleet's flak to ensure "air" superiority.

I think the game defaults to mostly giving caps fighters because most of them have minimal or no PD to speak of, so the fighters are meant to help out on that front. That said, if you know what you are doing and go through the effort of designating targets for your bombers, most find that dedicating the lion's share of your strikecraft capacity to them to be the better choice. One major exception to this is in the early game where your opponents field a lot of basic frigates, which are especially vulnerable to fighter swarms!

Finally, it doesn't take too long for your fleet to create a new assortment of strikecraft, assuming you get it done outside of battle, so don't be afraid to adjust your setup for the upcoming fight!

[HappyCamperBubbleBelow]

As far as I am aware, bombers do more damage against any target fighters/bombers can both target, by a significant amount.

Originally posted by This PC:

Yes, it matters a lot, because of pierce.
Fighters are more adept at taking down targets with low durability, bombers are more adept at taking down targets with higher durability. Usually I have like a 20% ratio of fighters. They also aren't affected by the same research ie: they don't have the same weapon types.

Bombers are meant to be focus targeted on a starbase, a cap or a titan, fighters are generally perceived as being best to fight off bombers, and spreading their damage instead of focusing, tho they work against anything with low durability in large enough numbers hehe.

Bombers also can't shoot other strikecrafts. Fighters can~

[This PC]

Yeah, they do more damage for sure lol, do they hit all their shots on smaller targets like corvettes tho ? excluding advent bomber from this, since I know they work similarly to first game with instant beam. I also feel fighters stay in the fight and would fire at their target much more often. Bombers tend to work in runs and fire much less frequently ? I still wouldn't dump fighters, they feel fairly useful, but am genuinely curious.

[Fendelphi]

Originally posted by HappyCamperBubbleBelow:

As far as I am aware, bombers do more damage against any target fighters/bombers can both target, by a significant amount.

Originally posted by This PC:

Yes, it matters a lot, because of pierce.
Fighters are more adept at taking down targets with low durability, bombers are more adept at taking down targets with higher durability. Usually I have like a 20% ratio of fighters. They also aren't affected by the same research ie: they don't have the same weapon types.

Bombers are meant to be focus targeted on a starbase, a cap or a titan, fighters are generally perceived as being best to fight off bombers, and spreading their damage instead of focusing, tho they work against anything with low durability in large enough numbers hehe.

Bombers also can't shoot other strikecrafts. Fighters can~

Most of the time, yes. As was mentioned, missile based bombers can have their missiles shot down by point defense, or if it is a fast target(corvettes), they can potentially manuever in a way that the missile miss.

The other thing to consider is number of craft in a squadron. So if the bomber shows, let us say 7 DPS and the Fighter shows 6 DPS, but they are shooting at something with durability 50 or even 0, the fighter squadron will overall deal more damage, because there are more entities in the squadron to make up for the lower DPS.

Another thing altogether is speed. Fighters move faster, so they can get to fleeing, almost dead vessels faster. Sometimes, bombers are just a tad too slow in some situations.
And because of this speed, they will be the ones to typically get targeted first by enemy fighters and PD, meaning less damage is dealt to your bombers.

For Advent, Bombers are defintely the go to, but they still need to be careful that they are not completely giving up on air superiority. TEC are capable of quickly replenishing their squadrons for a second wave, in case they are dealing with a lot of PD or fighters.
The Advent do not have such tricks. If they lose air superiority, they do not regain it.

[Warhunter]

missiles do time out but i think they are fast enough that they dont time out vs corvettes, it just takes them awhile to hit

bombers are alot slower so they take longer to reach the corvettes as well as increased time between attack runs since the bombers fly away after every attack run before coming back in, since corvettes move alot the bomber has to spend more time reaching the target again

fighters do stay on target if the other ship is moving. which means against moving targets (corvettes/strikecraft are almost always moving) they can keep applying their full dps. not sure on how long the reload on their guns are but they probably lose dps vs stationary targets since they have to do attack runs which probably takes longer than their reload time

missiles are slower than other projectiles which means there is a delay before you deal damage. so corvettes have more time to deal damage before the missiles hit

fighters are needed to counter other strikecraft. if they lack strikecraft targets they do great vs corvettes since they can catch up and apply dps faster. they do ok vs light frigates but not any better than bombers. then worse vs anything larger

bombers also lack ways to defend themselves vs fighters. so if you win the fighter battle you can tear through their bombers quite fast
or if you lose the fighter battle your poor bombers will get chewed up by their fighters

[HappyCamperBubbleBelow]

Fighters only have 50 pierce, even with missiles being destroyed, I think fighters would only really be useful against Vasari PD corvettes which would push their DPS(due to destroyed missiles) up.

I think fighters should be clearly superior in action against low armored units like they were in Sins1

[Node]

My opinion:
* Against AI, spam bombers for supreme DPS.
* Pvp, takes more planning and you should have a mix of fighters and bombers depending on what your enemy is fielding

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by HappyCamperBubbleBelow:

Fighters only have 50 pierce, even with missiles being destroyed, I think fighters would only really be useful against Vasari PD corvettes which would push their DPS(due to destroyed missiles) up.

I think fighters should be clearly superior in action against low armored units like they were in Sins1

It really seems like they are mostly a defensive tool in Sins 2. Good for dealing with the things your big ships can't or can't be bothered with.

[Modern Spartan]

I just hope a modder goves the Vasari their fighters back. Just call them drones, and it'll fit the lore.

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Modern Spartan:

I just hope a modder goves the Vasari their fighters back. Just call them drones, and it'll fit the lore.

I don't know if it would be OP or not, but...my dream solution to this would be to just give their Bombers a rear-facing PD turret. This way, they can't actually function like a fighter, but they aren't totally helpless against them either. Fits with the lore of them valuing Vasari lives too, by giving their bombers a way to defend themselves.

But again, I've no idea how balanced or not balanced this would be, lol...

[Modern Spartan]

Originally posted by Wuorg:

Originally posted by Modern Spartan:

I just hope a modder goves the Vasari their fighters back. Just call them drones, and it'll fit the lore.

I don't know if it would be OP or not, but...my dream solution to this would be to just give their Bombers a rear-facing PD turret. This way, they can't actually function like a fighter, but they aren't totally helpless against them either. Fits with the lore of them valuing Vasari lives too, by giving their bombers a way to defend themselves.

But again, I've no idea how balanced or not balanced this would be, lol...

I would absolutely take this too. A jack of all trades strike craft would make SO much sense for them!

[Jambie Lionheart]

The ration depends on the situation. If i'm facing Advent, I'll have anything from 50% upto 75% fighters because otherwise my bombers will get shredded by their fighters. If i'm against Vasari then I either go all fighters to annihilate their bombers or I go all bombers because I don't need to care about their bombers. If I'm advent, iI'll just for 70% bombers right upto 100% sometimes because they're just that effective. It's also important to note this is mostly against AI and not against human opponents.

[Nightskies]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the HP totals of fighters vs bombers and didn't really talk about their attack pattern too much.

Fighters operate more in a swarm closer to their target and are in greater number per wing/squadron (whatever a unit is called), are more evasive and overall harder to kill even if they were sitting still.

Bombers make long passes, withdrawing after an attack run to a long range (patch noted less efficient pathing) to get them out of flak range from the target. They are slower and are generally more squishy due to smaller number of craft per wing/squadron.

So in addition to anti-strikecraft and anti-light (particularly corvettes), fighters also serves as a screen for bombers and corvettes. 20/80 seems a good ratio for dedicated strikecraft fleets in general, after a transition into tougher ships. Assault frigates appear to be better targeted by bombers.

[Wuorg]

Originally posted by Nightskies:

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the HP totals of fighters vs bombers and didn't really talk about their attack pattern too much.

Fighters operate more in a swarm closer to their target and are in greater number per wing/squadron (whatever a unit is called), are more evasive and overall harder to kill even if they were sitting still.

Bombers make long passes, withdrawing after an attack run to a long range (patch noted less efficient pathing) to get them out of flak range from the target. They are slower and are generally more squishy due to smaller number of craft per wing/squadron.

So in addition to anti-strikecraft and anti-light (particularly corvettes), fighters also serves as a screen for bombers and corvettes. 20/80 seems a good ratio for dedicated strikecraft fleets in general, after a transition into tougher ships. Assault frigates appear to be better targeted by bombers.

I also might drastically change up the ratio depending on the ship in question...for instance, to make the most use out of the Halcyon's Anima Tempest I almost always go for an all bombers approach, leaving the other ships in the fleet to deploy fighters.