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Total Members Voted: 14

[Taricus]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (1) Powder Miner
Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)

[Madman198237]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (1) Powder Miner
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

If I'm not mistaken, if the Minotaur is an aerial destroyer, then it's tag should be ADD.

[Twinwolf]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (2) Powder Miner, Twinwolf
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

Use Research Credit:
Yes (1): Twinwolf
No:

We forgot about the research credit.

[Jilladilla]

With our grip on air control more tenuous then ever before, going for a bomber seems a little silly.
Even if it could attempt to fend off the Tyrant.

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf, Jilladilla
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

Use Research Credit:
Yes (1): Twinwolf
No:

[Madman198237]

I feel like I should point out that the Hydra is not only a massive upgrade to our ground forces and their ability to fend off air attack and any enemy heavy armor that may eventually show up, but also upgrades the Charybdis and any future projects that use our 105s.

The Outis is alright but may be both complicated and less than effective (due to its size and how it will likely be slower than the Charybdis) against the enemy's knockoff Charybdis, which they will assuredly be working to make cheaper since they cannot manage to make any small flying machines themselves.

The Firestorm...it's the wrong time to be trying a bomber. Frankly, if we want to do anything of that sort we should just be strapping bombs to the outside of an aircraft we already have. They're going to have to be positively MASSIVE bombs in order to do anything to the Tyrant. But we have antigravity so it shouldn't be impossible to make it work, eventually. It's just that adding thousands of kilograms of ordinance to aircraft/building a bomber to carry that ordinance is the wrong move right now.

[Twinwolf]

I'm not so sure about less effective (while slower, it also will have the shield, height, more guns, and better turrets), but I can see the argument for complication. I am honestly worried about the difficulty modifier of the thing. As one might guess from the fact I also proposed a bigger gun, I do see the value of adding an AA gun / new aircraft cannon. That being said, I'd kinda prefer making it a bit bigger? I'm honestly not solid in my vote yet.

Also, I have to agree - a bomber would be nice, but is also not really something we need at the moment.

[Madman198237]

Well, I'd be concerned about inability to track fast-moving targets because of the heavier turret, more than it being at some massive disadvantage. Basically, while it'd be a good basis for future development, I can't support the destroyer right now because it's just not what we need. It's a little too big to shoot down Charybdises really successfully, and it's far too small to pose a real threat to the Tyrant.

I feel that right now a bigger gun would be overkill (and thus more expensive, slower to move, and harder to employ than it should be) for present targets, or only useful against the Tyrant, or both. The 105 is pretty good in its role, and if we maximize its performance and then move from the enhanced version to a larger cannon, we'll have an advantage in difficulty (and thus how many features and advancements we can add onto the larger gun) and have (well, you know, in that idealistic and wonderful world where things go as planned and dice rolls never hit you where it hurts) two really good guns instead of two OK guns.

Basically, our 105 is a good enough caliber for every target right now, so if we maximize its performance now, we'll be capable of destroying every target we might face for the conceivable future and we'll be set to make the jump to a larger caliber. If we go for a bigger gun, unless it's both a REALLY big gun and also capable of reaching out all the way to the Sky Tyrant despite the Tyrant's altitude advantage, it'll just be too big to shoot down the enemy airships that are a problem for us and also RIDICULOUSLY overkill for, say, ground targets like the enemy's light tank.

As for the research credit...I don't really want to spend it. If anything, I'd like to spend it on something really meaningful. The production of an airborne cruiser with a lot of new things or something, a really advanced infantry-uniform exoskeleton (since we know that those are fairly difficult and yet very useful if done right) or similar project that suffers from uniform difficulty increases but is still very, very powerful, something silly like a cloaking device, etc. A logical and probably relatively simple advancement in tech, like moving up to a destroyer-sized vessel, or improving the 105, they don't really seem worth the credit to me.

[Powder Miner]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf, Jilladilla
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

Use Research Credit:
Yes (2): Twinwolf, Powder Miner
No:

This does seem like a good bet for the Outis

[Taricus]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf, Jilladilla
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

Use Research Credit:
Yes (3): Twinwolf, Powder Miner, Taricus
No:

From a practical perspective, the Firestorm is essentially the only option that is able to effectively harm the Tyrant. We can't stick bombs on the outside of the hull due to how the motive systems work, meaning we can't be guaranteed that the bomb will be over the target unless it's from an internal bomb bay of which the hatch is directly central on the craft's underside. Furthermore, as the bombs are utilising molten Gargilius, the effect they'd have on the Tyrant would be far greater than what a pure kinetic or explosive round would be. Our ground forces don't need more AA, and they'll be using their Argos as air superiority craft given they already have ground support aircraft, so the effect of the Argos on that will be limited.

Furthermore, our grip on air superiority is more effectively established via a Charybdis revision rather than a heavy air destroyer. We do have to deal with a foe that now does have a 10mm cannon on a fast platform.

[Madman198237]

TBC-17 "Firestorm" Bomber: (2) Rockeater, Taricus
“Outis” Heavy Air-Destroyer: (3) Powder Miner, Twinwolf, Jilladilla
ADD-17 Minotaur Aerial Destroyer: (0)
ATAA-17 'Hydra': (1) Madman

Use Research Credit:
Yes (3): Twinwolf, Powder Miner, Taricus
No: (1) Madman

Our ground forces have NO AA and if we don't give them some then they'll find themselves exposed to air attack as we lose control of the air. Bombs strapped to the outside of the Charybdis would indeed fall straight down or close enough to straight down, and a 250kg bomb isn't going to get through the shield, and is not likely to get through the hull, period.

Gavrillium has a time limit, it apparently starts cooling off relatively quickly after melting.

The fact that the Argos is going to be used in an air superiority role means that their heavier airships will move into ground-attack roles this turn, which means we either need to guarantee that we won't lose air superiority OR provide the infantry with a means to defend themselves. The Hydra does the second one and gives us a chance at the first one.

I agree that the air destroyer isn't likely to get us the right air superiority, though making it WOULD ensure that we come at least to a stalemate and possibly, if it rolls well, to an advantage because our heavy aircraft is better-armed for aerial engagement than theirs and our pilots are still better than theirs...or so I assume.

[Taricus]

Their heavier airships intended for ground support were already doing so. Only now they'll get some breathing space thanks to the Argo. As for the shield, there's a reason why it's specifically stated that the bombs have a C-null casing in order to punch through the shield.

But the big issue is that we can't really use our air superiority once we have it; in order to maintain said superiority, we can't take advantage of it with just the Charybdis, and it would gain us the initiative with forcing them to develop a counter for the bomber.

If we get stuck just trying to counter their stuff, we're going to end up in the same rut that gave abbera several unusable designs.

[Madman198237]

Yes, that's what I'm concerned about. The shield, however, is not what I'm concerned about. The bombs just will not do enough damage to get through the layers of steel and K-Wool on that battleship. Just flatly will not. They won't have enough energy to do it, not even a 12in naval gun would be capable of getting through the armor even fired at close range.

Yes we will remain unable to capitalize on the advantage, but right now we don't need to, we just need to temporarily stop them from killing us from the air, give our ground troops a fighting chance whenever the air force finds themselves too busy to help, and possibly give us a preemptive advantage against any hypothetical enemy heavy armor vehicles they may try to deploy.

If you want to capitalize on air power or force them to develop a counter you're better off backing a destroyer, probably. The bomber doesn't have to be countered any more than anything else *must* be countered, and indeed less since it won't be fulfilling what you seem to be billing as its own selling point over an artillery vessel---namely the idea that it might somehow kill the Tyrant.

Neither the destroyers nor the Hydra are directly countering anything, they are all logical evolutions to our current technologies.

[Taricus]

We need more than just an evolution of our current technologies to put them on the back foot.

The big problem with stopping them from killing us from the air is that they do it from long range. An AA gun isn't going to work particularly well to counter airborne artillery, and the air destroyer is too ungainly to really compete with the Argos.

However, the biggest advantage of the bomber is not in the air, though it's intended to help out a little there against slower-moving targets, but on the the ground. Between the shield and the armour, they have no AA capable of taking it down. A low altitude bombing run by the firestorm would practically disperse any massed ground forces in short order and allow our Charybdises to focus on securing the air.

[Madman198237]

That is not really a disprovable point, save by doing an evolution and seeing if it kills Aratamites (I have officially reached Arms Race Overload and am no longer sure which universe I'm in) WHOEVER WE'RE FIGHTING DARNIT well or not So there's not point in discussing it as a reason to do or not to do anything.

I mean, yes, but also no. Right now they can't match our range for accurate fire since we're using high-velocity weapons and nobody is operating that far from the surface (Save in the case of the Tyrant).

That is quite possible that the bomber would do that, but it would be less a than impressive choice if, say, the enemy had as many Argos as we do Charybdises next turn, since their heavier warships with bigger autocannons are then going to get them the aerial advantage and let them shoot us from the sky and shoot down bombers to boot.

[Taricus]

The bombers are both shielded and armoured to the point those 60mm autocannons will only scratch the paint. And do keep in mind we do have an ability to revise the Charybdis to boost it's efficacy as well; even just armouring back up to 100mm all-round would give it enough staying power against the 60mm autocannons as to make the Argo the only concern they have in the air.