Planetside 2 Liberator Bombing Confirmed!

[demonicale]

I like very much

[Malorn]

Bomber ace platinum twice over back in the day, I know a few things about bombing.

High Altitude was useful when you wanted to hit a target, avoid infantry-based AA, and buy a little time before aircraft would be on you (because they had to fly up to the flight ceiling). It also required you to know where the target was and worked best on targets that were stationary, namely an AMS, but also areas where you just wanted to put some suppression so ground troops could make a push.

Bombs have two advantages

1) Potential for a lot more damage. While a 150mm cannon is more precise and better at suppressing an area, the greater distance the more inaccurate it becomes. It's effectively a low-altitude bomber. Sure you can use that cannon on stationary targets at high altitude, but it's about tradeoffs. Bombs are just as good at stationary targets and potentially a lot better at suppression. So you make the tradeoff for accuracy of the cannon vs the power of the bombs. Less accuracy, more pilot skill required, and more restricted in target choice, but it could be very good at suppression and taking out galaxy anchors.

2) Effectiveness at high altitude. Bombs can be effective at high altitude because you don't need to be super precise, and if they're strong enough even one hit can be enough. At high Altitude a lib will have fewer ground threats, and the tailgunner would be in an advantageous position against enemy aircraft. Chances of getting over the target to apply the payload is much higher at high altitude vs low altitude where one can easily pick up an enemy fighter and be more susceptible to infantry and tank-based AA. Flak is also more effective at close range when more shots can hit the target and with less delay.

A lot of strategic lib runs are suicide missions, but if they take out their target that 2 or 3-man crew could make a significant impact on the immediate battle.

That's why I loved the Liberator. It was something that, if used correctly, could make a huge difference. It was like an Orbital Strike on demand, only better. If a lib takes out an AMS by the time it gets replaced the position may have already been lost. By taking out a cluster of vehicles at a repair silo you can give your own tanks a bit of breathing room to make a push. By hitting the vehicle pad you slow down vehicle production. By carpet bombing a hot hill you can give close air support to infantry. All good things that impact the flow of battle. That was the value of the lib and its bombs.

[Malorn]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

That's not bombing at all.... Big difference between dropping a gravity, velocity inheriting projectile like a bomb and a point and click newb weapon like a rocket.

Thought maybe kevmo had knocked some sense into them. Maybe next time.

They might be rocket-propelled bombs so they travel to their target faster rather than simple gravity. We need more details before we can judge whether it is more or less effective then PS1 bombing.

It could let out a barrage of rockets so it ends up being PS2's version of cluster bombs that hit the ground faster. Don't know if they have tank busters too but I think they need those as a hard counter to deployed Galaxies, just as libs were the hard counter to AMS in PS1.

[Grognard]

Hmm, "different from PS1", "rockets"...

Honestly, I really like the E3 version, and I am kinda lost on what the hell they are talking about. Is it a change, or and additional ability? I think if the E3 implementation is scrapped, then this will be the first decision they make that I will be unhappy about. I planned for my daughter to use that sky howitzer, lavishly...

[kaffis]

I enjoyed piloting Liberators back in the day, and in my experience, the bombardier wasn't the hard spot to get even randoms to fill.

I enjoy high altitude bombing because having a few liberators and a few escorts flying that straight, steady route in formation is always super-tense and exciting. It probably helps that Memphis Belle is one of my favorite war movies.

[Captain1nsaneo]

Originally Posted by DashRev

... None of those that I saw complain actually explained how it was worse though, and I cannot seem to figure it out...

As I see it, a cannon can do anything the PS1 Liberator could do and more.

Originally Posted by Rendar

Im hoping there are 2 options.

Gunship Lib, Pilot, Main Gunner, Tail Gunner

Bomber Lib. Pilot (who loses main cannon but now has access to dropping bombs), Main gunner spot is removed in place of bomb bay, tail gunner.

I remember in PS1, even during heavy play times, sometimes I just could not get a full crew from my liberator that would stick around for more than 1 pass. So having the options to go bomber route when your 1 guy short and let the pilot have the option to do some decent damage seems nice to me.

Being able to bomb with the lib allows the lib to do significant damage and then run away. Running away is VERY important for a lib as AA gets enthusiastic over a base. With a mortar you have to stick around for a bit to make sure the target dies instead of trusting in the 10 bombs you just dropped in a tiny spot to take care of it while you high tail it over the nearest hill.
One thing I will give you is that the mortar is better for anti-tank and moving targets but the element of surprise is lost after the first hit. This matters as the mortar has a slower firing rate than bombs do and requires the lib to hang around the base far longer than I'd be comfortable with. (that length being equal to the time it takes me to drop my payload)
If you're going to think about the lib think about it in terms of a Prowler. The vehicle does best when the pilot flies like he doesn't have a nose gun and focuses on setting up the bomber for solid passes. The pilot also controls the bomber's X axis while the bomber controls the Y making team work a necessity in a good lib crew. The pilot also has to think about the tail gunner as if the pilot does twists in the air to try to shake other air he's handicapping the tail's ability to defend him.
As for having the pilot drop the bombs, do you remember the aircraft in BF2? I do. I hate them. I hate them a LOT. (except when I was gunning for the two seater, that was balling.) A lib with the ability for the pilot to bomb is better than any other aircraft for farming kills. It would gut all the team play aspects and interdependency that makes a lib an excellent vehicle.

Each of the seats has a role at all times when in a lib, the pilot obviously need to constantly be thinking about how he's approaching, disengaging, or just prowling. The bomber when not lining up shots needs to be in lib cam and feeding any information to the pilot about what's off to either side of the aircraft. The tail gunner also acts as a pair of eyes spinning around under the lib while not in action. Eventually a crisis or opportunity presents itself and the crew goes into their roles. The pilot does his best to sneak up on the target while remaining out of sight, engages with the nose cannon, or runs away as best he can. The bomber sets his sights on the target making sure that the bombs all drop on their target(s) or continues to act as another pair of eyes watching for AA. The tail picks up anything it can on the pass over (sometimes stealing the kill from the bomber) and defending from any air that come. If the team isn't constantly talking with each other you're in a poor lib.

Randoms just don't work very well in libs, the chances that you'll get a good bomber are very slim or the chances that the pilot your bombing for isn't a rookie is a real shot in the dark. Normally these crews break up quickly as quoted. But in the outfit I remember people fighting over who would be apart of the lib crews.

The nose gun on the lib is one of the most powerful weapons in the game. It takes 4 shots to kill any infantry outside of a max and it can go head on against a skyguard. Removing it for the ability to bomb would reduce the effectiveness of the vehicle as a whole and de facto make the lib a one man vehicle as I bet the pilot won't stop for a tail gunner when the he controls the bombs.

A little talk about high altitude bombing, it's definitely not the best method in my opinion but against the TR bursters these days it's pretty much the only defense as you can predict their lead times and just dance around their flack. The only problem is that this makes it REALLY HARD to actually drop your bombs. Also high altitude is bad for bombing anything that's paying any sort of attention. Deployed flails have enough time to get away from your bombs if you're bombing from flight ceiling and they're watching their radar at all. High altitude is not why I want bombs.

As a final point, I have never seen a time when more diverse options for how to play was thought of as a bad thing.

[wraithverge]

I imagine the new bombs are going to be camera guided, so they can be dropped from high altitude.

[SztEltviz]

Now, we only need vehicle queues in the open One pass, 40 kills and the sweet /tells...

[Shigins]

in love .... LOVE BOMBING!!!!!

[Vanu Techpriest]

http://youtu.be/0xcmHYuUbn0?t=1h6m15s

If you look at around 1:06:15 in the video I think you can see what she is referring to as "bombing". It reminds me more of an AC-130 cannon than actual bombs but the effect is about the same.

[DashRev]

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Being able to bomb with the lib allows the lib to do significant damage and then run away. Running away is VERY important for a lib as AA gets enthusiastic over a base. With a mortar you have to stick around for a bit to make sure the target dies instead of trusting in the 10 bombs you just dropped in a tiny spot to take care of it while you high tail it over the nearest hill.
One thing I will give you is that the mortar is better for anti-tank and moving targets but the element of surprise is lost after the first hit. This matters as the mortar has a slower firing rate than bombs do and requires the lib to hang around the base far longer than I'd be comfortable with. (that length being equal to the time it takes me to drop my payload)

Why does a mortar/cannon necessarily have a slower firing rate than dumbfire bombs? The fact that its a cannon only effects your ability to aim the projectile, it has nothing to do with the rate of fire, the radius of the explosion, the number of explosives that can be launched before having to reload, or the damage per explosive.

[Khellendros]

Man, flying the new lib is what I am anticipating the most for beta. I hope that nosegun is as fun to use as it was in PS1.

[Fenrys]

Originally Posted by Xeb

Would it really be anymore effective than the lib's mortar canon? Sure you hit a larger area but you'd lose that pin-point accuracy that looked so devastating at E3

Who needs accuracy when you have enough libs flying in formation to make an entire grid square explode all at once?

[Galapogos]

I did not read all the posts in this thread so this has probably been brought up all ready, but the biggest difference to me between the mortar cannon thing we saw and actual bombs is that bombs fall instead of being shot downwards, so thus players usually have a few seconds to dodge bombs granted the lib is high enough. However, though the rof of the cannon we saw was much slower than that of the lib bombs in ps1, the only way to avoid it is pretty much to be inside or behind a building and out of the cannon's line of sight. To me, an under belly cannon just isn't the same as actually dropping bombs and then watching the kill spam in anticipation. I also feel like having cannons like that on aircraft would make tanks less special, so id rather see grenade launchers like on the gg in ps1.

[Malorn]

There's a lot of ways they can make tradeoffs for the different weapon options.

The cannon we saw in E3 was great because it was both strong and accurate with a good pilot.

They could make the bombs significantly stronger, and have a larger blast radius, so while they aren't as accurate, they're a lot more devastating. They could also make the bombs release faster, allowing a huge burst of DPS in a single flyover not possible with the cannon.

They could have rockets attached to the bombs to make them fall faster. They could add a camera guidance system on the bombs so they have some guidance, slow ROF, but massive damage. they could make the bombs cluster bombs that cover a wide area, more than what the cannon could cover.

There's a lot of tradeoff options there. I'm glad to see them considering bombs for the Lib, as they introduce more flexibility for the vehicle and more strategic options for its use.

Sort of reminds me of PS1 tank crews where driver & gunner work together to have a powerful vehicle. In PS2 really the Lib is the only vehicle like that, but it certainly has huge rewards for teamwork. That's what I like to see.

If the tanks in PS2 are "medium" battle tanks, I'd like to see a "heavy" battle tank that has the same properties of the Liberator - dedicated driver, powerful guns that really rewards teamwork.