Just to clarify, Nazi Germany never completed an aircraft carrier. The Bismark was escorted by the Heavy Cruiser (Prince Eugen, I believe).

The Bismark and Price Eugen fought against the British Battlecruiser Hood and the Battleship Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait. The results of that battle saw the Hood sunk, a damaged Prince of Wales forced to flee, and the Bismark slightly damaged.

People often misunderstand what part Torpedo Bombers played in destroying the Bismark. Later on, a wing of Torpedo Bombers were able to damage the steering mechanism of the Bismark with a lucky hit. Now, big ships would usually still be able to be able to steer by using the starboard and port propellers. But the Bismark had been built to conform to a relatively small Port size. Because of this, the way the propellers were mounted on the hull offered less ability to steer without a rudder.

So by taking out the Bismark's rudder, the Torpedo biplanes effectively immobilized the ship. This allowed the British fleet to collect around it and then move in as a combined group.

The Bismark was sunk by a salvo of torpedoes after enduring a lot of main gun barrages. Oddly, the main guns couldn't sink the ship, but a few torpedoes launched from destroyers (cruisers?) did it in pretty quickly.

So, doesn't that support the idea that torpedoes should be more powerful then they are in the game right now?

Anyway, I hope they keep the idea that you need flak frigates and fighters to deal with bombers.

And THAT is exactly the problem with the current system. In my word, like I put it earlier, the current system feel very artificial as opposed to being realistic.


Balance, by all means, is not just about math. In your example you are only look at one side of the issue: Yes, even the most formidable battleships in WWII can hardly withstand the number of direct hit torpedo hits up to two digits. If my memory is correct, the Yamato only took 7 hits before she went down. Now, but does that mean the US only needed to send in 7 Torpedo bombers to do the job? No, about 400 aircrafts were sortied for that battles, to make that 7 hits happen.


It's not just about crunching in number. The current system is technically both side got nerfed to achieve an artificial balance rather then a realistic balance. That's why I propose bombers should be more powerful while at the same time there should be more defense against them, that still maintains the original balance, but the difference is between an artificial and a realistic one.

I havent even seen a torpedo in the game, though i would like too, they would be like guided missiles but stealthy and long range.

Well, I've been calling the bomber munitions torpedoes, but I suppose they could just as easily be called missiles. The only thing I think we will all agree on is that they aren't bombs.

I also agree with Satthukaraoke in that bombers should be more powerful. Though, fighters will need to be more nimble/faster to compensate.

If this is done, fighters will have a stronger role in the game.

I completely agree with Paradoxnt. In reality a FIGHTERplane could sink an aircraft carrier. Let's not go into too much realism and destroy the gameplay. If we all agree that a bomber shouldn't be able to destroy a cap ships perhaps we can reach a consensus that cap ships shouldn't have too efficient AA guns.

Otherwise we can simply delete the small ships from the game.

In reality cap ships usually do have AA protection but the strike craft can be DEADLY to them. In the game we don't want a lone bomber to destroy a huge capital ship but to balance it out I wouldn't want to see very efficient AA guns on them as well.

IMO a lone cap ship (with no flak special ability ready) should be forced to flee from five bombers - but it should also be able to flee from them unless it's too far from the edge of gravity well.

I know this could be off-topic but the best way to make bombers more effective is to add hard points to capital ships. The Bismarck is an excelent exemple: torpedo bombers (I think they were called swordfish) were able to immobilise the battleship without destroying it by blowing up the steering mecanism.

Adding hardpoints will make the usage of bombers more tactical and thus more lethal so only then can we justify the addition of aa-guns to capital ship.
In that case we can balance gameplay and realism.   

Shades of Homeworld 2. I would love targetable modules on the cap ships, but I don't think the designers are interested.

I think bombers are good as they are maby add 2 more to a squad they can take down a cap ship at the mo it just takes time. u can sworm emm with like 3 - 4 squads of emm and own a cap ship so i think they are good now there not ove powered and not underpowered.

I'd like that if a normal fleet would be around 10 ships or so. Above that and you are lost in the details. Or the AI would have to be REALLY good...

Yeah, good point. Sins has way to many ships in most battles to have a Homeworld 2 type targetable subsystems. I was just throwing it out there.

What would be great though is if Sins has a 'critical hits' system. Critical hits would be very rare, of course. Some critical hits could momentarily slow down/stop ships, others could reduce/stop weapon fire, others could make the ship uncontrollable for a brief period of time (simulate a damaged bridge).

I see your point. But maybe we can issu a general order to bombers to attack all capital ships, your bomber squads will disperse in order to attack them all: for exemple you have 6 bomber squad vs 3 capital ships, when you issu this order it will be 2 bomber squad vs a capital ship.
If it was a huge battle that you won't be able to target the hardpoints, you can simply issu a general order to your bombers but with a specific target, for exemple Bombers attack all capital ships' engines.

I don't know but it sounds more realistic, I mean do you see a commander giving orders to every figther squadron around?!

Perhaps this general order, I know the name sucks , can be expanded to all ships, like fighter engage all bombers or fighters, Capital ships target carriers.
Well maybe it is best suited for fighters and bombers since they will be swarms of them in endgame battles.

Don't get me wrong - I'd really like for the game to get as complicated under the hood as it can. The subsystems could be very cool when you would have some high-class targets and an incentive to capture them. Like when you would see a ship use some sort of new tech and would have a chance to back-engeneer it, but Sins ship creation doesn't work this way. It has predetermined ship classes and experience-based upgrading.

It could also be great if there would have been more distinct and important capital ships planned and you would have an option to slowly immobilize and cripple them - but in Sins the cap ships seem to be the majority anyway so no real purpose here, too.

IMO susystems, bigger ship classes and so forth may be some of many dev's ideas for the future.

Keep on topic and there will be no subsystems in sins

Back to Caps should have aa.

I dont think they should have antifighter weapons. I dont think bombers should be any more lethal then they already are. I think it is ok as it is.

If bombers are more lethal , to compensate for the aa on capships , then whatabout light frigate vs light carrier(with bomber) , or bombers vs kodiaks. all units without aa will be crap

yea good point but they are going to make the auto cannons shoot fighters but be rubbish at it and not improve the bombers

i have edited it in same place u edit forward lazers and the kol now shoots at fighters   and its crap at doing so but still

I suggested a critical system months ago but none of the devs responded to it directly. I am still of the opinion that it would a lot to the immersion factor.

Acutally, the Bismarck proberly had the most advanced AA systems of any battleship up to that point. However, the Swordfish Bombers traveled slower then the minimum tracking speed of these super advanced artillery.


However, I see SoaSE bombers as real world Submarines, near impossible to destroy if your ship is not geared towards hunting them, but then when you are able to kill them, you kill them (relatively) easily.

+lol+ whoever says that Cap ships should not have Anti Air is seriously wrong...

1. Cap Ships are expensive in cost and time
2. Cap Ships have the highest priority to defend (they are flagships)
3. Fighters and bombers are cheap in cost and time
4. Look at todays modern warfare, and explain me, why there cannot be any ship-ship combat anymore +lol+

The only question is, how much firepower is good to balance the game out, but I think, if it will not be in Release version of the game, no problem, there will be good mods for Capital Ships AAs anyways

yea i totaly agree with u but iv made it so kol auto cannons shoot fighters just edit it where u edit the forward lazzzzzzzer cannons to fire sepratly

I did that also, but then I felt the KOL FLAK ability was going to waste

lol they dont hit often and it only takes about 5% of a fighters soo i found flack is still good   when is hot fix coming out?

Hell, I don't think I've ever used the Kol flak ability. My Kols were either to drained to power it, or I was to fricken busy with the rest of the battles to care. So having half the auto cannons able to target fighters was nice.

yea but i just keep that on auto fire only half of emm shoot fighters?