Dropship Fabricator Questions

[MoonBeech]

I get that the dropship fabricator objective was added to the game later, but why is it that despite them being one of the most dangerous secondary objectives in the game almost every team I have ever been in ignores them like they are invisible? If I had a nickle for every random lobby I've been in that lost the match because everyone else decided to go to extraction despite pings and chat messages then lost the mission because of the endless stream of dropships from across the map then I would have enough money to buy the game for people I could be in a voice call with lmao.

It wouldn't be so bad if the fabricators weren't immune to all damage aside from hellbombs, which are themselves super fragile and the dropships instantly target them with the full force of their arsenal as soon as one is called. It just sticks out as an objective where you only have one way to complete it in a game full of objects that are destructible by most stratagems or clever play with secondary weapons. It genuinely feels like an oversight or a test concept that didn't work out as intended.

tl;dr idk why AH made dropship fabricators so resilient to all forms of damage except hellbombs, then made hellbombs fragile, then made them instantly aggro dropships which spawn directly next to them, and despite all that headache most teams ignore them religiously

edit: i have seen a similar mentality toward stalker nests on bug missions. if you see a stalker, why is your first thought not, "oh which direction did that thing come from so we can go nuke the base and not have to deal with tanky invisible lethal ragdolling flying minions the rest of the mission"? That said, it's not really comparable because as mentioned stalker nests are pretty easy to solo with a well-placed strategem, good play, and an explosive weapon in a pinch

[Cabbage]

I think your second paragraph answers your first question.

[Forblaze]

Originally posted by Cabbage:

I think your second paragraph answers your first question.

The gunships aren't going to go away just because the factory is hard to take out.

[LoboFH]

You can solo airship fabricators too. If your gun can kill them (a scorcher can do if your support can't) do it first and rush to call the hellbomb, perhaps they will spawn before so you must kill them again but if you are fast it could not happen.

Better as a team but there is the option if your teammates are being dumb.

[MoonBeech]

Originally posted by LoboFH:

You can solo airship fabricators too. If your gun can kill them (a scorcher can do if your support can't) do it first and rush to call the hellbomb, perhaps they will spawn before so you must kill them again but if you are fast it could not happen.

Better as a team but there is the option if your teammates are being dumb.

This is true. I have to admit if i were better then it wouldn't be a problem, in fact I've started carrying the laser cannon specifically because I might need the responsive armor piercing for gunships. My main issue is that in order to solo gunship fabricators you have to have disproportionately more skill than any other secondary objective in the game, which isn't a git gud scenario, it's an uneven game design one.

Additionally, there's a bit of random chance to it too. i just tried to solo a double gunship fabricator spawn, and the laser cannon, with a fresh hellbomb drop, will lose the DPS race against 2 or more gunships. I.E. the ability to solo them drops catastrophically if two or more fabricators spawn on the same tile, because you can't reliably kill multiple gunships fast enough to protect the bomb, so you are incentivized to bring the shield generator relay or smoke bomb stratagems on missions that are already bottlenecked down to 3 stratagems, just for the off chance of running into an unlucky spawn.

The overall issue is that they are already oddly difficult compared to the rest of the game to the point of sticking out from a development side, and I don't get why teams don't acknowledge that, nor why they were designed like that in the first place

[TunaHematoma]

A trick you can do with the hellbomb is to bring a shield generator along and deploy it simultaneously alongside it. Shield gens are pretty nice vs bots.

Sure would be nice to be able to 380mm them. I've yet to see a team completely ignore one though. Sounds like console peasant behavior. Turn off your crossplay.

[Van]

Originally posted by GamingOak:

Additionally, there's a bit of random chance to it too. i just tried to solo a double gunship fabricator spawn, and the laser cannon, with a fresh hellbomb drop, will lose the DPS race against 2 or more gunships. I.E. the ability to solo them drops catastrophically if two or more fabricators spawn on the same tile, because you can't reliably kill multiple gunships fast enough to protect the bomb, so you are incentivized to bring the shield generator relay or smoke bomb stratagems on missions that are already bottlenecked down to 3 stratagems, just for the off chance of running into an unlucky spawn.

Regrettably, I have to agree with your example. Call it a skill issue on my part, but unless I had enough foresight to bring an HMG, I don't think I can handle 2 fabricators side-by-side unless I came prepared. One time on an 8-dive, our team was unlucky enough to go up against 3 fabricator structures at each corner or the map, put us all on edge.

I recommend experimenting with the HMG for your bot dives, as it can destroy the gunships easily and maybe out DPS a swarm of them (at least better than the AC and AMR can...for sure).

[Birdman656]

My tactic for dealing with gunship fabricators is having someone with a recoilless rifle or a laser canon take down the gunships that spawn, I'd run in, drop a shield generator right next to the hellbomb beacon, arm the hellbomb, and bolt because the shield generator will protect the hellbomb long enough for successful detonation.

[LoboFH]

There are supports that deal nicely with them: AMR, AC, Laser cannon, recoiless. If it's a single fabricator EAT is also good....Quasar struggles, but I don't understand why players go with Quasar against bots, it's C tier being generous. But I won't judge though.

[LeftIsBest-James]

Hellbombs and SEAF mini-nukes.

1. 170m is aggro range for fabricator.
2. small contingent of troopers at base of fabricator (will trigger bot drop)

a) trigger a botdrop nearby, and eliminate quickly. (or cheese it with smoke)
b) you have 2 mins*** approach/eradicate troopers at base of tower to avoid dropship.
c) use smoke nade or shieldgenerator to protect hellbomb from drones
d) run

*** 2min 30sec with localized confusion

[LeftIsBest-James]

Originally posted by LoboFH:

There are supports that deal nicely with them: AMR, AC, Laser cannon, recoiless. If it's a single fabricator EAT is also good....Quasar struggles, but I don't understand why players go with Quasar against bots, it's C tier being generous. But I won't judge though.

I've seen one guy use Quasar/EAT-combo successfully on VIPlaunch missions (from extract helipad overlooking approach).
1. the first time I used quasar on a bot'n'gun left me with trauma to this day.
2. the second time I used quasar. I was stubborn, slow-on-the-uptake, didn't learn my lesson from (1)

[MoonBeech]

I appreciate the tips, so I'll conclude with this: people are misunderstanding the point here and I think it's clarifying for me my own issues with the gunship fabs: nobody on any difficulty is writing up brady games strategy guides on how to deal with objectives that may or may not spawn except in this one case, the problem is that gunship fabs are weird and don't mesh with the rest of the game's design principles, and as an unfortunate aftereffect, a lot of teams ignore them which makes the underlying issue worse.

You can't claim that "oh yea they're easy if you have these stratagems and this team behavior" because neither of those things are guaranteed, unless you are in a lobby with friends, and have specifically tailored your own loadout to one random chance objective, neither of which are things that anything else in the game requires to do effectively. One side objective shouldn't decide the meta for bot missions

[LoboFH]

Originally posted by GamingOak:

I appreciate the tips, so I'll conclude with this: people are misunderstanding the point here and I think it's clarifying for me my own issues with the gunship fabs: nobody on any difficulty is writing up brady games strategy guides on how to deal with objectives that may or may not spawn except in this one case, the problem is that gunship fabs are weird and don't mesh with the rest of the game's design principles, and as an unfortunate aftereffect, a lot of teams ignore them which makes the underlying issue worse.

You can't claim that "oh yea they're easy if you have these stratagems and this team behavior" because neither of those things are guaranteed, unless you are in a lobby with friends, and have specifically tailored your own loadout to one random chance objective, neither of which are things that anything else in the game requires to do effectively. One side objective shouldn't decide the meta for bot missions

But to be honest the "meta" to deal with airship fabricators is the automatons meta, even before the airship factories were released. So it should not be such a big deal, you can go and fight automatons with the flamethrower, this is a free world, but you will have a terrible unfun time and you will be carried.

And if we are precise all automatons special facilities really need a brady guide, a jammer needs a small puzzle and also call a hellbomb unless the fabricator is attached to the jammer, airship factories are not more complicated in this sense.

[EvilChaosKnight]

Jammers still can be dealt with much easier than gunship factories because they don't require a fragile call-in hellbomb to take out. Yes, you do need to fight or (better yet) sneak your way to the terminal to shut it down, but afterwards it can still be destroyed in a variety of ways

Gunship factory, on the other hand
- Cannot be stealthily shut down with a convenient little console next to it
- Cannot be damaged by almost anything. Most of the time, you have to call in the hellbomb, and the gear/stratagems you have will not open up any new ways. If you are lucky, you might get artillery with a mini-nuke. If you are extremely lucky, you might get a wild defective hellbomb close enough to the fabricators
- And for all of your efforts, you still get the same rewards as the illegal broadcast or rogue research side missions. Hilarious, I know

Possible improvements, obviously 1 or 2 of these should suffice to make those fabricators more fun/manageable:
- Add a console like one on sabotage enemy air assets which would cause fabs to detonate?
- Add a shutdown console like one for a jammer?
- Add a weakspot of some sort to allow AT weapons take them out with careful aiming and timing? Like when they open up to release a new ship
- Make them vulnerable to the heavy hitters like 380 or 500kg? Can still require 2 hits or so per fabricator to not make it too easy, of course
- Give them an Eye of Sauron which only sends out gunships if it sees you?
Bonus: Add some valuables storage to the fabricators so you'd get something extra for risking your neck? Like a POI container with stuff to loot