Overview
A basic run down on good ways to build bombers in the new meta effectivly.
Small bomber introduction
The bomber. aka the flying hunk of metal with plasma cannons.
usualy the job of a plasma bomber is killing other bots. most bots dont have good protection on their top and have it more focused on their sides. this is where the bomber comes in. you fly around and well bomb people…. not much else to say. but in order to make a bomber you must have these few key componets.
Ways of movment:
airfoil/rudders
Roter baldes
thrusters
Helium cubes
note: you need thrusters to move with the wings and helium cubes
Building basics
NOTE: if you already know how to build a plane you can skip this part.
When you go to build your bomber what you want to do can vary depending on what kind you are building. lets start with planes
when building a bomber you want at least 4 wings. 2 for each side (if it wasn’t obvious) if you have a light enough bot yo ucan use rudders. but the basic setup is big airfoil up front rudders on the rear. You also want at least one rudder virticle on your bot. usualy on top of your bot in hte middle of it.
Now if you are flying a bomber plane you will need thrusters to go any where. you cant fly with wings alone you need somethign to push you. Now as for thruster placement you are best off going with your thrusters on the top. since you’re going to be using a bomber you want them on the top side because your guns are going to be bottom mounted and they will be away from most incoming damage. here is an example image of thruster placement
Now the max ammount of thrusters you would want facing forward is about 11 or 12. you’re minimum would proabbly be 5. Thrusters on the front of your bot facing up or down can also help with pulling up and pulling down you genneraly dont need a thruster facing down but haveing some facing up can really make your bot more manuverable. how ever in the lower tiers particuraly i have found that they can also make you turn too hard and make you flip out of control. i suggest that only after you get into about teir 6 or 7 you start doing that tactic.
as for gun mounting you will want ot put your guns on the bottom of your bot. you are a bomber after all. you want a minimum of 5 guns. you can have as many as you want though. but 5 is a minimum.
Once you have the basics figured out we can move on to building tactics.
Building tactics with movments.
Now for building in advanced ways
The first thing when building advanced is being redundant with your design.
You’re best off with 6 side wings either rudders or actual wings what ever you want. so that if you lose on on one side you will not be completely crippled. as for virticle rudder it doesnt matter 1 is enough. you can have 2 of you want but 1 should be enough for most designs. you cna fly with out it its just a bit akward. You cna have as many wings as you want but 6 side wings is a good minimum ammount for effective play.
You also want a lot of thrusters. as i said previously. you want 5 as a minimum in high teris. in lower teirs you can do with 3 or 4 as a minimum. but for a maximum you will want 12 in one direction. maximum of 12 in a direction. because thats when the dimmenishing return starts to kick in and any more would not add any benifit. and at 12 thrusters redundancy is pretty good any ways. Along with your forward moving thrusters however if you’re in about teir 6+ you will want some thrusters no the front of your bot that point up. this will help you pull up making all of the following happen:
more manuverable
easier takeoffs
more conrtoll when some wings get knocked off
example of what i had said can be shown in my teir 10 bot shown below
Note that this bot is a teir 10. lower tier bots can and will be much smaller of a build. do not try to build this at a lower teir. (unless its like teir 9 wich might work)
but every thing i have metnion does work in each other teir.
Building tactics: body: heavy weight bomber style.
(NOTE: there is an upcoming update that will be adding things that will make electro plates much better you can check the game news for it or it might already be out and this update may make this heavy bomber style obsolete when it comes out)
Now if you want to get a good body on your bot there are 2 ways to do it. 1 of wich i do not have any screen shots of so sorry about that. the first way is massive cube spam like my previously shown T10 bot the second way will be in the next section.
Now before you build a good idea is in the out of the way corners or sides of your hanger you place down all hte weapons you want to be using so you can see your CPU limitations better.
so now In the seneraio of heavy bomber you want to go with thick layers of cubes. lots of wings. and thrusters if you can. you also want to try to make the position of your piolet seat hidden. in the following screen shots you will see that when you look. there is a gap between the front and rear wings. damage done to this bot in testing in game. i’ve seen that this is the part that seems to ake the most fire as it looks as tho it is a week spot or where the piolit seat is. but how ever the second shot shows where the seat is in fact located. much more upfront with more sourounding it keeping it both armored nad hidden. this wont come into play much in low teirs but as you go higher it is a good idea to try.
While building the body of your bot in low teirs you simply want to just put some good armor on your ot and cover the underside of your wings. so that they are a lot less likely to fall off. the cubes will take damage before your wings in most cases and will make you more durable
In higher teirs you want a lot more armor. you want to cover both top and bottom of your main wings like you have seen from my screen shots. this way you have the best protection with out spending too much pFLOPS on covering it completely and keeping it light as possible. the reason in later teirs you cover both top and bottom side is because flying bots become more common in higher teirs. and you will have a lot more chance to be hit from the top side.
as for the main body for higher teir play you want a lot of cubes. my personal bomber i use is 5 cubes wide. and 4 cubes tall. from the piolet seat taht is 2 layers of cubes for the many hull alone. While this may make you heavy you should have enough wings to lift you up. 6 should be enough but using 8 would be better in very heavy builds. you can also replace the normal cubes with inner cubes to lighten the weight by a considerable amount but you’ll be getting less armor per cube and on bigger builds this can add up to be a lot less armor. so that is a matter of preference.
Now when it comes to placing your plasma cannons you often want to place them where ever really. on the wing armor colums you may or may not have built can work. on the main body can too. just make sure they’re in good positions so that your guns dont clip that often (keep in mind you’re a bomber so a flat bottom with guns can work) and have at least 5 minimum for any teir. And in higher teirs it is a good idea to have maybe 2 or 4 thrusters on the side or bottom of yoru bot to balance out the thrust a bit and have some movement on the bottm incase you get hit on the top.
Building tactics: body: Light weight style
(not i do not have any screen shots of a light weight bomber styled design so i apoligise for that. if any one has a good light weight plated bomber screen shoted to help this out it’d be nice)
also NOTE: this style of bomber only really comes in at about teir 6 forward. maybe teir 5.
Now when you build light weight bombers you can usualy easily get away with 4 wings. tho you will not have any redundancy and can be taken down easily. I highly suggest you use 6 wings on a light weight design.
Unlike the heavy weight bomber previously mentioned you are building this style with light armor usualy no more than 1 layer of cubes over things. and you are going to be using electro plates to cover a lot of your bot. While in the heavy weight you covered your wings with cubes you will now change over to electro plates to put coverage on them. teir 6, 9 and 10 plates being real good at coverage on them. you generaly want the bottom of your bot covered in plates. try to only have openings for where your guns are mounted. this style is a bit hard to do at first but has been proven effective nad will be much more effetive with and upcoming (maybe already out when you see this) update.
You do not need as many wings and thrusters on this style of bomber because you are going to be light weight as the electro plates will take hte place of cubes in most of hte covering making it a lot lighter. it is also because of this that you cna go faster and monuver better as well. having the minimum 5 thrusters will usualy make you go really fast. and having the normal up to 11 will make you extremely fast. you do not neccesarily need the thrsuters on the front for pulling up but they’re still recomended. on this kind of build you might want to try putting some electro plates on the thrusters. this is of course last luxaries for the bot. but on a light weight design you are usualy going to be smaller so dont be afraid to put thrusters in some exposed spots. you’ll need the extra speed. on a light bomber
Now with a light bomber style usualy you will have a lot less space to put your plasma cannons. you will often need to make small cube struts out word to mount them but this is completely fine as you want to protect your movement and over all bot rather tahn the guns with a light design.
again i do not have screen shots of any plated light bomber but i will try to add some in the future.
Conclusion/ final notes.
So no matter how you build your bomber in the end you need to make sure of one thing.
is it effective at doing the task(s) you built it for?
that part is up to you to decide.
I hope this guide has helped you on bomber buildng and please understand that all of what i have stated has came from in game experience.
Hope to see you all bombing in your future.
EXTRA: sample section for heavy bombers
Like i said. heavy bombers should be good at taking damage. as for example i have a few screen shots of how much my bomber (wich i have shown a lot of) cna tank. there will be a base screen shot then in game damaged shots. not all of these shots show it while it is still capable of flight.
In all of these images my heavy bomber is fully capable of flight. it may not always be a stable flight but it could fly back to base to get healed. you want ot strive for this kind of senario for your heavy bobmers. The longer they can fly before going down the better.