Author Topic: Specialized orbital support weapons  (Read 1889 times)

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Offline Platys51 (OP)

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Specialized orbital support weapons
« on: May 04, 2021, 11:31:02 AM »
Orbital bombardment causes heavy damage to the world whenever used, often rendering presence of fleet in orbit pretty irrelevant above the world unless you do not care to gain wreck of a world.

It is strange that while yes, energies involved in orbital combat certainly would put current time nukes to shame, there exist no way to support ground units by any other way.

What I would like to propose is an option to turn one of the less used weapons (microwave/meson) to "Orbital support" in weapons designer. This option would make it impossible to fire upon ships, but if such weapon is used in orbital support, it would add one extremely high damage and high AP shot same way as if it was a ground unit.

This change would add impact to having fleet in orbit above world ground action is happening on and would allow to crack heavy defenses without ruining it for very long time if proper investments are made.
 
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Online nuclearslurpee

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2021, 12:13:45 PM »
Mesons would be great for this, as they should be able to penetrate GU armor and thus only roll against HP. Particularly if they are reworked to gain +damage from one of their techs (they really, really need a buff!!) this could be very effective.

Microwaves might be interesting but they already have a good niche in a JP defense role or a FAC role so they do not need the help as urgently.
 
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Offline Droll

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2021, 12:44:31 PM »
I agree with everything said but I think another reason why OBS feels so ineffective is how bad CAS fighters perform against enemy ground based Anti-Air weapons. Combine this with the horrible micromanagement needed to actually field fighters in any appreciable numbers and fighters tend to be useless.

I will say that in the one case where I bothered to use them they can actually do good damage, good ECM is essential for CAS fighters.

I'm also aware that I have posted this exact same sentiment multiple times and feel like I will keep doing it until CAS gets the love it so dearly deserves.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2021, 03:57:59 PM »
Planetary bombardment is bombarding a planet with no real discrimination so it is suppose to do an inordinate amount of damage to the planets surface. You can use tactical bombardment with FO and it will not damage the planet to the same degree.

Air support craft used to bombard enemy troops also need armour to do well against AA, especially heavy forms of AA, but you also have to understand that heavy AA is very inefficient weapons to begin with in comparison to other ground forces, so them being good against air target seem appropriate.

If you armour your fighter they don't dies as soon as they are hit so you can withdraw them once they are damaged enough, thus you can repair them to live and fight another day.

Step one with using the air-force is to suppress the enemy air defence with heavy bombers... once it is suppressed you can use the more unarmoured lighter bombers to better effect.

Another thing is to not use too big guns when firing in orbital bombardment support, the more damage they do the more likely it is they do environmental damage or destroy the infrastructure of the planet, just as ground troop weapon does.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2021, 04:11:07 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline Droll

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2021, 04:09:45 PM »
If you armour your fighter they don't dies as soon as they are hit so you can withdraw them once they are damaged enough, thus you can repair them to live and fight another day.

This is the problem. In my experience armored fighters don't actually work, they get instantly downed anyways because there is too much AA and fielding enough fighters is completely untenable.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #5 on: May 04, 2021, 04:13:05 PM »
If you armour your fighter they don't dies as soon as they are hit so you can withdraw them once they are damaged enough, thus you can repair them to live and fight another day.

This is the problem. In my experience armored fighters don't actually work, they get instantly downed anyways because there is too much AA and fielding enough fighters is completely untenable.

I have not experimented with it enough to say if this is the case, but the few times I have done this it did work though...
 

Online nuclearslurpee

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #6 on: May 04, 2021, 04:40:38 PM »
If you armour your fighter they don't dies as soon as they are hit so you can withdraw them once they are damaged enough, thus you can repair them to live and fight another day.

This is the problem. In my experience armored fighters don't actually work, they get instantly downed anyways because there is too much AA and fielding enough fighters is completely untenable.

I have not experimented with it enough to say if this is the case, but the few times I have done this it did work though...

It may depend nontrivially on how willing one is to micromanage several dozen or hundred ground support fighters in the first place...
 
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Offline Platys51 (OP)

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2021, 11:42:59 PM »
What I would like to see from this is a way to support ground armies without damage to the planet.

It would be weaker and needed investment, but end result would be habitable planet after.
 
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Offline xenoscepter

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2021, 11:47:11 PM »
What I would like to see from this is a way to support ground armies without damage to the planet.

It would be weaker and needed investment, but end result would be habitable planet after.

 - Surgical Strike options would be nice, perhaps have them tied to smaller formations as well, to increase their usefulness.
 

Offline Demetrious

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #9 on: May 26, 2021, 04:03:05 PM »
Mesons would be great for this, as they should be able to penetrate GU armor and thus only roll against HP. Particularly if they are reworked to gain +damage from one of their techs (they really, really need a buff!!) this could be very effective.

Microwaves might be interesting but they already have a good niche in a JP defense role or a FAC role so they do not need the help as urgently.

Exactly this. In fact, Mesons might make that roll already. Has anyone tried it? It would also be very interesting if some percentage of the baseline meson armor penetration tech-line (that governs how likely a Meson is to penetrate all layers of armor before decaying and applying its damage point) is also applied to fortification/terrain bonuses. Even after the space/ground scale adjustment, one point of damage isn't a lot; but if mesons had some ability to reach out and touch dug-in troops in rough terrain then that'd go a long way towards giving them a secondary role and give you a lower-collateral option for effective close support of troops in contact. Just based on HP-vs-damage, heavier units would be likely to survive a hit, but not having to unleash big-bore beam weapons just to penetrate the armor in the first place would go a long way towards reducing collateral damage.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Specialized orbital support weapons
« Reply #10 on: May 26, 2021, 04:42:14 PM »
If you armour your fighter they don't dies as soon as they are hit so you can withdraw them once they are damaged enough, thus you can repair them to live and fight another day.

This is the problem. In my experience armored fighters don't actually work, they get instantly downed anyways because there is too much AA and fielding enough fighters is completely untenable.

To be honest.. this game is all about micromanagement by nature so that is not relly a huge issue in general in my opinion.

I have not experimented with it enough to say if this is the case, but the few times I have done this it did work though...

It may depend nontrivially on how willing one is to micromanage several dozen or hundred ground support fighters in the first place...