Bombers or Fighters?

Fighters and bombers do completely different things.

It depends on the situation.

Fighters kill scouts, siege frigates (most things destroy these) and long range frigates. However, their true purpose is to kill bombers which they do very well. Fighters are the only units that counter bombers.

Bombers destroy structures, starbases and cap ships. 

 

Which one is better just depends on what you are fighting. Fighters are good against other strikecraft and most lightly armored ships like long range frigates, siege frigates etc. Bombers are good against ships with heavy armor like Capital ships, heavy cruisers and structures/starbases. I usually have more fighters than bombers because there tends to be more LRMs than heavy cruisers, and because air superiority is usually far more important than the extra damage bombers do to capital ships. That said, I usually have a couple of carrier cruisers in reserve loaded with nothing but bombers to be used against starbases, though they've often proved useful for supporting my main fleet as well.

JuleTron makes a good point

do you wish to defend from a bomber attack?

flak is a poor counter but fighters strip the air clean pretty quick

flipside, if you need to take out some serious obstacles (HCs, Starbases, caps) bombers are the way to go

To be honest I dont think either or is better or worse, I think they need each other. Bombers need fighters to cut through the enemy flak and fighters so they can do their job. And Fighters need Bombers to deal heavy damage that they cant provide.

I always go 60% Bomber 40% Fighter. That way theres a balance. Plenty of fighters to defend bombers. And plenty of bombers to completely devastate an enemy.

Well i think the question was pretty much answered based on situation, where depending on what it is u may want to vary ur ratio of fighters and bombers.

But I think another factor is race. Advent fighters are brutal so when playing advent u may want more of those. While i atleast prefers the TEC bomber to its fighter. This is because og the weapons they use. so u need to factor in the enemy and the weapon type u want to make use of or upgrade.

And u can use mostly bombers but then u would have to mass flak leaving them open to easy counter so jus balance out fighters and bomber.

Vasari bombers are tough as nails and can bypass shields with phase missiles. If you're Vasari, you'll definitely want to invest more in these than their relatively weak fighters (unless of course you're facing opposing bombers). Be sure to keep some sentinels around to  kill enemy fighters and keep your bombers healthy. Another nice thing is that sentinel weaponry takes the same upgrades as bombers, so upgrading your bomber firepower also upgrades the firepower of your sentinels, and you can upgrade sentinels to do splash damage to enemy strikecraft. They are excellent at killing enemy fighters. If you're good with micromanagement, Vasari bombers are the way to go.

The game is usually decided upon air superiority. You do not want to be the guy that goes "oh shit" when a certain player's fleets enters a gravity well.

Advent bomber spam is the worst.

The other thing i think that needs to be concidered when choosing btwn fighters or bombers is whether you are using them for defence or fleet. for defence i use more fighters(hanger bays) due to the fact that fighters take out some of the brutal atk ships like mass seige frigs or light frigs easier than bombers. plus you will need fighters to take on enemy strikecraft.

But if ur atking more bombers are needed for taking on structures caps and so on

i always go for a full fightr spam

 

for the simple reason that my fleet is here for taking care of ships ^^ the fightrs are here to take air control

 

only reason i would make bombrs would be to take a sb without confronting it

 

 

an other reason to use fighters is that they use a lot less am to build then bombrs ^^

 

when you have a mobile fleets and loose air from battles its the only reasonable choice

 

simply no other choice

Wow really ?

 

Fighter spam all the way ?

flak spam will bring down the fighter spam

And then the everything-else spam will bring down the flak spam because all they can do is sit there and go "pew!  pew!  pew!" with their otherwise pathetic cannons/phase missiles.  At least with fighters you can convert them to bombers once their task as fighters is complete (fighters kill fleet, then switch to bombers to mop up the structures/starbase).

 

As for specific situations, if fighting Advent I always go for fighters, as the main Advent strategy tends to use Illuminators/bombers or scouts (all strong Advent units) and fighters can deal effectively with them all.  For everything else, there's HC.

Eh, you need a few bombers in the mix. If nothing else to be decoys for enemy fighters while your fighters do their thing.

If I'm using fighters myself my fleet will probably be comprised of less fighter vunerable units (like HC)  and/or Hoshikos to the point at which the fighters' ability to effectively damage my units is moot.  If both of us are using fighter heavy strategies, well, time to switch tactics to lf

Interesting points, all of them I find to be correct. But really, you shouldn't even launch fighters if the enemy has flak frigates, bombers will be ok, but I don't recommend it. I don't tend to use squadrons myself unless the enemy has ABSOLUTELY no capability to defend hemselves against them, that means, no cap ships or light carriers that can launch fighters, and no flak frigates. When that happens, which it usually does, thanks to my Kostura , I call in about three heavy carriers, two full of fighters, the other full of bombers, and five light carriers (remembering, they are all escorted with attack cruisers, and this is a late game situation), three with fighters, two with bombers. If the enemy has SB(s), then I use more bombers.

I think your babying your Fighters and Bombers if your scared to launch them due to a counter. Really your only limiting yourself in that manner. Unless they have spammed an entire fleet of flak. I dont see why you would hold off on launching them.

Theyll seriously be fine. And like the manual states. Their a staple in the Fleets arsenal. If you allow your opponent to scare you into grounding your SC in fear of losing them to flak. Your opponent already has to upperhand.

 

everyone always seems to spam bmbers. so i spam fighters and sweep the floor with them.

but for the hangar defense, i go one fighter, one bomber. mind you i dont have entenchment. yet.

Actually I general have about a 50/50 in my fleet

Heres a common scenario where I would hold off launching them- Opposing fleet has fighter spam, I have fighters/bombers and flak. Keep fighters docked, bombers and flak on local area only. Fighters fly after the bombers, my flak thins em out, then I can launch my fighters to keep them under control while my bombers do their thang. Or Ill engage enemy fleet with bombers docked, let the flak thin out the fighters, then launch bombers to take down cap ships, defensive structures, HCs, and really anything. So really its a often a good idea to keep your air forces docked sometimes when you;re facing fighter spam.

 

Bombers are so popular because theyre really good at killing just about anything with the exception of fighters.

^ Im not saying dont keep your SC docked at certian points. Because I personally launch my Fighters about 30 -45 seconds before launching my bombers to give the Fighters a head start on slamming my enemies Fighters. My point is, Dont bring SC to a fight and not use them at all. Its a waste of effort to build all of that and then to not use it intentionally. Yes flak will beat up on SC but at the same time. If your SC numbers are high enough. You wont notice the insignificant loses. The one thing I do technically spam is SC because they are the true backbreaker in a battle. They can quickly swarm a Cap before its healers can warm up and they can percision bomb and destroy absolutely everything while your fleet stays out of direct harms way. Id rather throw my SC into the wind knowing they can be rebuilt during battle then my actual Fleet that has to wait for reinforcements multiple jumps away when it takes heavy loses.

I dont baby something I know to be even stronger then it is fragile.

actualy i launch fightrs when the enemy has flaks for the simple reason that flaks will auto target fightrs first

 

so if the dude dosnt micro his targets i'll kick his flak while he tryes touching my fightrs all around the well

 

 

simple stuff, and i do actualy make 1 or 2 bombr squad for decoy but i use caps do to those since caps don't burn AM to build squads ^^

Yeah, doing that is SO funny, I mean, you could have a fighter squadron just go around and around the GW at the start of a battle, get id of their flak frigs from the main fleet, or force them to micro-manage every combat moment, which is HARD in MP.

But then again, you should focus on his combat units and then send your ACTUAL attack force around his fleet.