It took me the longest time to figure out that fighter modules dont really apply to planetary bombardment. Some might think this is a logical conclusion but I think a little addition to the tooltip wouldnt hurt and speed up understanding for the slowpokes like myself



Now....to the topic.



From what I read on the forums many people prefer troop invasions and build their siege ships around those modules in order to save time regardless the fact that its the less beneficial type of invasion due to losses to the population and destruction of buildings. The only other option currently is to wait your turns as long as your invasion power is significantly higher then the defending power of the system but it still takes a minimum of 10 turns (it can take much longer then that).



What bombers do is to "soften" up planetary defense either by destroying (random) improvements or decimate population. Bombers on their own dont do anything better then the "siege and wait" scenario...it would still take a minimum of 10 turns in addition ship designs with bombing capabilities usually have a far lower siege power then regular siege designs. Even if you bomb the enemy system to the rock it would take 10 turns min.

In the above scenario using bombers would STILL make troops the preferred option in turn making bombers pretty much obsolete because once you can use them....it would still be better to use troops. Both forms suffer from restocking options which either takes time or "cheating" (thats my take on retrofitting, its only an opinion of course).



System improvements actually react to these new options by offering new buildings specifically tailored to troops and aerial bombardment. Heres a massive difference tho. If the system defense is high enough and has the right buildings attacking with troops will keep failing, the attacker loses all his troops and has to fall back on old-school methods. The bomber options will simply remain greyed out offering no explanation to the "why" (is system defense too high or does it have AA defenses. Will AA defenses even PREVENT bombers from trying?). Having the bombers fly an attack pattern and being shot from the sky without having any effect would be a more logical result. Just a thing that had me completely confused.







So whenever the defender builds up his defenses high enough it makes BOTH (troops and bombers) obsolete. Bombers are therefore at a distinct disadvantage from turn 1 and suffer from not having a niche which would make them usefull or "required/preferred". By this time due to some other defensive upgrades (namely the ones which return control% per turn) even waiting an invasion out will take 20+ turns. This comes from a "attacker: 250.000 power defender: 8.000 power" scenario.



This is where Bombers would be quiet usefull and could fullfill their designated role while playing towards the other options (waiting and troops). For this...AA defenses have to go (snip) simple as that. I know taking content out is never wanted but this would actually give bombers a use in endgame matches where all system defenses are maxed out. Players would STILL prefer the blitz option (being troops) but once that option is negated they would HAVE to use bombers to bring defenses down enough in order to use troops effectively or take the invasion time to the 10 turn min. Figuring out when the right time for a troop invasion would be is still pretty vague. For this I d suggest altering the SCOUT module a bit to give ships the option to check system improvements...a counterpart to the system improvement which lets you check fleets in orbit. It would still take several turns to invade a planet that way (using bombing runs once or twice THEN use the troops) but this will give the defender reaction time so evens it out again.



So to sum up my thoughts:



- take out AA defenses







Question:



- would this change make players use bombers more often or at all regarding invasions?