Not sure if it's too late for them to do anything about this, but it would be nice to have the bombing runs act differently depending on how many bombers you have in orbit..
You only get one squadron of bombers at a time, but AA units/turrets can destroy incoming bombers. Since your number of bombers in space is finite (for the most part), once they are all gone, no more bombing runs.
Ahh, ok. That makes sense.. thanks :)
add a lot more realism nice
You only get one squadron of bombers at a time, but AA units/turrets can destroy incoming bombers. Since your number of bombers in space is finite (for the most part), once they are all gone, no more bombing runs.
Hopefully, you or Delphi can answer this question. Since your answer indicates that there is a way for the engine to poll to see the number of bombers in orbit, I am drawing a few conclusions from this. Please correct any assumptions that are in error, thanks:
1. If you have 1 ISD and all of its bombers are killed an its reserve bombers are lost but you win the battle, you will not have bombing runs available.
2. A modder could use the information about how many bomber groups are in orbit to make the bombing run button timer change accordingly. 1 bomber group, same as now, 2 bomber groups, half that time, etc.
3. Assuming #2 is correct, the modder could then adjust the timer accordingly if a bomber group is lost, so if you have 8 bomber groups and the time is 1/8th of what it is normally and you lose all but 1 bomber group, then your timer will be back to the normal time frame.
4. Being able to see how many bomber groups are available indicates that you should also be able to see what starships are present. This would allow someone to set up another button (or replace the marker button or something) to allow for orbital bombardments with the bomber bombs or turbolaser shots (or something) to be spawned above the viewing plane and directed down on an area marked with a targeting cursor like the bombardment one. The timing on this one could be set up the same way and the size (quantity or severity) of bombardments could be dependant on the fleet size in orbit.
5. Assuming #4 is correct, perhaps the defender can fire the hypervelocity gun or Ion cannon with the button and this will eventually remove an orbiting ship at random or increase the countdown timer on the invader's bombardment button. This should also affect the available bomber groups if a carrier unit such as an ISD or Acclimator is disabled, thus the bomber groups in that ship would be taken out of the available bomber group count.
As you can tell, I will be persuing ways to implement capital ship bombardment once I get ahold of the game (preordered collectors edition ;)). Anything you could tell me about these 5 assumptions would be greatly appreciated by me and probably anyone else that drempt of seeing a hail of turbolaser fire fall on the battlefield.
Same way I see/hope it will be