Stealth Bombers

[DRAFT] The Stealth Bomber in Combat

[i](note this is written cold ,first draft dumping thoughts into the post.)[/i]

The stealth bomber is one of those interesting Enigmas of the Eve universe. It is a ship that packs an enormous punch but cant take much more than a sneeze without blowing up. The combination makes flying a Stealth Bomber a risky, adrenaline filled exercise. At the same time a few stealth bombers added to a larger gang could provide a huge tactical edge in defeating gangs of other ships. However, in order to get that far, we first need to figure out how to use it in a solo experience.

Basic Stealth Bomber Operation

When fitting out your bomber it is important to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the bomber and to anticipate your combat scenarios. Whether you are fitting up a bomber or carrier, you should close your eyes and imagine a realistic battle and your role in that battle. What happens when you get targeted? What happens if you start taking damage? Where will you be in a multiple ship fight or in a solo fight? Once you can visualize this, fitting the ship will be much easier.

Typically there are two major roles that a stealth bomber can assume. In a cruise missile role, the bomber is configured to deliver cruise missiles to targets at range while in a bombing role, the bomber will be delivering area effect bombs to the targets and using tactical evasion to avoid getting blown up. Because of the light armor of the bomber, the bomber tanks but avoiding getting hit through a combination of EWAR and cloaking evasion tactics. In fact, whichever role the bomber assumes, skilled evasion tactics can make the difference between life and death of the battlefield.

Cloaked Evasion

Since a bomber can not warp while cloaked, a pilot will need to know good evasion techniques to escape bubble camps and to position for a shot on the opponent. Cloaked evasion is the process of evading enemies while the bomber is cloaked. These enemies may either be trying to actively search for the bomber or merely stumble accidentally near the bomber. In either case, the pilot of the bomber will need to be alert and react fast to avoid losing their ship.

The first thing that a pilot needs to know about cloaked evasion is that any ship getting within 2 km of the bomber will decloak the bomber and it will have to wait for the cloak to reset before it can recloak. Even with good skills this can be as much as 5 seconds which is quite enough time for small ships to get a lock on the bomber. Once an opponent has a lock on your ship, you may not cloak. So your main goal is to make sure that you avoid having anyone pass that close to your ship when you are in a vulnerable position and to ensure that if you are decloaked you have a warp-out escape planned.

A stealth bomber goes faster when it is cloaked than when it is uncloaked due to bonuses on the ship. This presents a significant advantage when trying to evade an enemy as the stealth bomber can instantly warp when coming out of cloak so long as it aligns to the warp while cloaked. When the pilot drops the cloak, or the cloak is lost by a close encounter with another object, the ship is already traveling faster than it needs to to get into warp so there is no chance to lock the bomber and if the bomber is not already in a bubble it is unlikely the interdictor will have the reflexes to put one up before the bomber can warp out.

However, there are many circumstances where it is impossible or undesirable to warp the bomber out. The key to evasion is to exploit the turning radius of the ships searching for the bomber or just flying around aimlessly. Usually when an opponent is searching for a bomber, he will be using fast ships and often he will deploy drones to increase the area of the search in a hope to decloak the bomber. By contrast the bomber will have much lower speed and be able to see the trajectory of hunting ships while they can not see the bomber. This means that the bomber can turn much faster than the hunting ships and this can be leveraged to evade. By making sharp turns that are 90 degrees different from the hunting ships, the bomber is able to evade the hunter assuming it has enough time to clear 2km before the hunter gets there. The higher speed ships would need much longer to make the turn even if they knew which direction the bomber went. This makes it easier for the bomber to put distance between the hunter and himself.

The final rule when doing cloaked evasion is to always stay aligned for something on a warp out if you have to and be prepared to go.