Questions About Bombers

[TheDujin]

Hi all,

In short: My bombers don't always fly/bomb where I want to, and they also like to make single-unit suicide rushes. How do I stop them from doing that?


Longer: I'm curious about how to use bombers more effectively. Right now I have two issues that make them weak:

1. They fly in awkward patterns that fail to maximize their damage.
   For example, my UEF T1 bombers sometimes fly at a perpendicular angle over a column of enemy tanks, meaning that instead of hitting the tanks with all the bombs, only some of the bombs will hit anything.
   Also, when bombing outlying buildings, e.g. a mex, my bombers tend to fly further into enemy territory while turning around and thus get pummeled by enemy AA
   
2. They have a habit of chasing down targets themselves.
   For example, if my enemy rolls a few ground units into radar range, some of my bombers that are landed close to the contacts will fly over by themselves and (usually) get killed one by one. This is basically feeding metal to the enemy.

How can I prevent/minimize both of these behaviors?

[Ceejay]

No real way of doing it without micro managing.

The way to stop 1, would be to manually fly your units in the opposite direction to the enemy, then turn them around and attack, then repeat, so if there is a column of tanks say in a dianonal line say going from top left to bottom right, you would need to fly your units much father north west, turn then around and head south east and bomb the column on the way. or manually fly them much further south east, turn them around and head north west, bombing the column of enemies on the way over.

2. Turn auto attack off, but them you need to remember to switch it back on otherwise even if you manually fly your bombers over the enemy, they will not attack.

It a wee bit of a pain either one.

[TheDujin]

How do I turn auto-attack off? Is it under general settings and affects all units, or is there a button for each unit that toggles auto-attack on each one?

[Ceejay]

When you select a unit, on the bottom at the right hand side of the hud is a grid of 3x4 icons.
2nd row down, red icon on the right, when you left click on that you can select between return fire (auto attack) hold fire (auto-attack off) and hold ground (where you can get units to fire at a certain area, for things like firing constantly into a choke point damaging anything coming through or perhaps attacking an area you cannot see)

[TheDujin]

Ah, I see. Thank you!

[Cyrix]

Bombers die far too easily to be worth using. You're better off spamming gunships.

[TheDujin]

Originally posted by Cyrix:

Bombers die far too easily to be worth using. You're better off spamming gunships.

So if I'm not playing Cybran, should I just avoid using T1 Bombers completely and only use air-to-ground units (Gunships, I guess) at T2 and above?

[Ceejay]

To be fair, i never use bombers at all, except for early on in the single player campaign when you have no other units to use.

[TheDujin]

Ok, sounds good. I just won my first game against my friend by not building bombers like I usually do, lol. Thanks all!

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by TheDujin:

Ok, sounds good. I just won my first game against my friend by not building bombers like I usually do, lol. Thanks all!

In multiplayer a few at the start of the game set to guard mass can be a pain and distracting for someone trying to expand etc, but I do not use them for full on attacks.

Oh and congrats on your win :)

[WinterShade]

Originally posted by TheDujin:

Hi all,

In short: My bombers don't always fly/bomb where I want to, and they also like to make single-unit suicide rushes. How do I stop them from doing that?


Longer: I'm curious about how to use bombers more effectively. Right now I have two issues that make them weak:

1. They fly in awkward patterns that fail to maximize their damage.
   For example, my UEF T1 bombers sometimes fly at a perpendicular angle over a column of enemy tanks, meaning that instead of hitting the tanks with all the bombs, only some of the bombs will hit anything.
   Also, when bombing outlying buildings, e.g. a mex, my bombers tend to fly further into enemy territory while turning around and thus get pummeled by enemy AA
   
2. They have a habit of chasing down targets themselves.
   For example, if my enemy rolls a few ground units into radar range, some of my bombers that are landed close to the contacts will fly over by themselves and (usually) get killed one by one. This is basically feeding metal to the enemy.

How can I prevent/minimize both of these behaviors?

I know I'm late to this conversation but I want to echo what others have said, you'll mostly have to micro your bombers for maximum efficiency -- Unfrotunately the pathfinding in this game makes bombers have a heart attack -- it's even worse when you miss with T3 bombers but at least those have AoE to compensate.

EDIT: If you have any more questions regarding the game, I'm certain the community would be willing to help.

[glythe]

Depending on what you are doing you might prefer a ghetto gunship to a bomber while you are in the first tech phase. (You set its attack path by making a short straight line). If you are playing against someone who makes too many engineers at the start this is extremely effective.

http://supcom.wikia.com/wiki/Ghetto_Gunship


One of the strengths of supreme commander is the infinite waypoint system. Let us imagine a scenario where you want to bomb a Mex slightly south of your enemy's base. His base is directly north from yours.

Option 1: fly your bombers directly north to blow up his Mex. The result is that your bombers go right into his AA and die after dropping their bombs.

Option 2: Fly your bombers North East from your base and then have them attack directly west. After they drop their bombs they should circle around and attack roughly east. Make sure you have the bombers set to move back to your base after blowing up the Mex.


Overall I would suggest not building tech 1 bombers unless you know your opponent loves to tech/expand without defending (or you are playing Aeon who has no tech 2 bomber). Then what you do is make either 4-5 so you can kill most stationary targets in a few passes ( this allows for no response time). You make hit and run attacks as fuel allows on undefended areas only.

What you want to do is build tech 2 bombers if playing Cybran/UEF. They are way more efficient for the cost, have radar and can shoot down planes. Tech 2 bombers can usually slip past Tech 1 AA so if he is lacking there you can punish him. This has an additional bonus as if you wait you might catch that Mex as he is upgrading it to tech 2.... meaning he has put more resources into it.

Overall it is easier to sneak into tech 2 air units because your land factory will be making lots of ground units before it has the chance to uprade.


Then again... you might want to stick to tech 2 gunships as they offer a lot more control overall (and you can even pickup a ground unit with the UEF version to add some ghetto factor to your tech 2 ship... but remember it cant refuel when it does that).

[LuckySl7vin]

You should vector your bombers when going on a run. To save my bombers, I always do the following and it has worked out pretty well for me.

1. Select a few bombers (5 or so at a time). More than 5 bombers are generally not needed to destroy a single target in one pass. Obviously it depends on what the target is, but if I need more than 5 planes I usually use to groups of five.

2. Vector your bombers to an attack position. This means fly them away from the enemy to line up your run. For example, if your target is a column of tanks moving north-south, move your bombers to a position north or south of them.

3. Then shift-right click to send them to attack the target.

4. Shift-right click on a blank location on the map to vector them away from the target, avoiding enemy AA batteries as much as possible.

5. Send them to an airbase or carrier to repair using another shift-right click on your airbase

6. Shift-right click on your assembly area so that they return there once repaired and refueled. This will keep the space around your air bases clear.

7. Sit back and watch it all unfold. All of these moves should be queued up so that they all execute concurrently. It's a little micro management but it's worth it to save your high-end bombers.

NOTE: I have generally found that tier 3 bombers aren't nearly as useful as T3 gunships. Gunships can absorb much more damage and groups of them can deal with almost any unit/structure fairly quickly. The same principles apply for gunships but I use 7-10 at a time.

[TheDujin]

Should I always set bombers to hold fire, and simply move them around when I need them? The general consensus on this thread seems to be that bombers are useless when left to their own AI.

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by TheDujin:

Should I always set bombers to hold fire, and simply move them around when I need them? The general consensus on this thread seems to be that bombers are useless when left to their own AI.

Pretty much, okay early on to perhaps harrass the enemy, but really your better off with other untis.

[glythe]

I manually control them by say go here attack from this angle then attack this. Then when that is done move here and attack this thing from this angle.

Shift move +shift attack+shift move+shift attack+shift move return to base.