All-Out Guide to Bombing

by Syco Phantic

General

Stealth Bombers are a great tool for hit-and-run tactics. In this guide I want to mainly focus on tactics to fight in situations where we want to avoid getting caught in any case, i.e. if we are hopelessly outnumbered.

SBs will either be fit with only Torpedo Launchers or with an additional Bomb Launcher. If you have never used one before, make sure to continuing reading, before you wreck yourself (literally).

How to Bomb

The general usage is rather simple. Upon activation, the bomb launcher will launch the loaded bomb in the direction your ship was facing at launch. The bomb will travel for 30kms and then explode, effecting it’s specified area of effect. You don’t need to lock your targets or anything like that. Different bomb types have a different velocity and flight time, which will always add up to 30km travel range. (I did the math!) Make sure that, after launching, you don’t just continue approaching your target with mwd. This will lead to very embarrassing killmails.

If you have the tactical overlay active (button left of your capacitor) it will show where the bomb is going to explode with its explosion radius when you hover over the bomb launcher

bombing_tactical

Bombs have an explosion radius like missiles, meaning they will do less damage to targets with a small signature. That also means that it can pay off to hit a small target with mwd on, with a potential to one shot with a damage bomb.

Bomb Types

Damage Bombs

Those are Electron(EM), Concussion(Kinetic), Shrapnel(Explosive) and Scorch(Thermal). They all do the same amount of damage and all have an Area of Effect of 15km. They only differ in damage type. Generally just use the one that is bonussed by your racial SB.

bombing_dps

Void Bombs

There are 2 void bomb types: Void Bomb and Focused Void Bomb. They both neutralize capacitor energy.

The Void Bomb has a smallish Explosion Radius, the same Area of Effect like a damage bomb (15k) and neutralizes a smaller amount of energy. Therefore it’s mostly used against subcap ships. The Focused Void Bomb is basically the opposite of that; Very big Explosion Radius, minimal Area of Effect (1m) and a very big amount of neutralized energy.

bombing_void

Lockbreaker Bomb

There is only one variation, the Lockbreaker Bomb, and it does what its name implies. Meaning it applies a jammer to all affected targets and will break their locked targets by chance based on the jammer strength and the targets sensor strength etc.

bombing_lockbreaker

Engagement Tactics

Hit-and-Run (Mixed Damage)

This is what you want to if you are only against a few targets that are a bit more thanky and would survive a bombing run. You will use your torps and bomb launcher to deal as much damage as possible to target and hopefully kill it before reinforcements arrive.

  1. get a cloaked warp-in at approx. 30 km off target
  2. uncloak and approach target
  3. launch bomb
  4. launch torpedos
  5. keep at range 20k and long point if you don’t have the target bubbled or manually pilot and align
  6. leave grid once you get targeted / aggressed (even by rats) / take damage otherwise you will be dead within seconds

Bombing Run

In this variation you only use your bomb launcher. It’s main use is against a larger amount of enemies that are basically hugging each other. Timing and predicting the movement of your targets is key here.

  1. get a cloaked warp-in at approx. 30 km off target
  2. uncloak and approach target or offset your alignment to factor in the movement of your targets
  3. launch bomb
  4. fuck off

Others / Support

Surely there are more tacticts in which bombers can used in. For example another heavily used tactic is to use (Focused) Void Bombs as a support for killing carriers.

You just need to know how bomb launchers work and be careful about not getting killed near instantly due to basically non-existant tank and you will have a pretty dangerous but easy to handle weapon on your hand which can certainly beat the odds.