Remove the ability for missiles to "see" bombs

[empty adder]

I mean comon, how can a ship 15km away see my small little 250kb bomb and launch a ram45 at it at mach jesus with a 100% intercept rate. I don't exactly remember if the RAM45 has onboard radar or if it is guided by the ship but honestly that doesn't make sense anyway. Even gun based AA is pushing it imo. The enemy team could have no idea where i am but that bomb that appears out of nowhere where no-one is looking, yeah that they can instantly see. It's just so frustrating trying to position yourself for however long it takes just for some spicy bois to make all that work go to waste

[odd sun]

bombs are not stealthy thats the problem, they stick out like sore thumbs on radar
They may prioritize and fire on bombs instead of aircraft because an aircraft has the maneuverability and tools to evade, but the bomb doesnt
iirc this is basically how the AI chooses the bomb over the aircraft

plus the bomb may enter the enemies SAM and SPAAG range while you keep altitude and remain outside of it, regardless of if you were detected

[vague dirge]

modern radar and guidance doesnt have much problem spotting and intercepting tiny munitions, munitions would have to have deliberate stealth aspects in its design for that to happen, and even then they'd still be possible to intercept when close enough

[night delta]

pro tip: do DEAD first, then go drop bombs

like, i dont mean to sound rude, but youre dropping something with a large RCS in a position that its easily spotted by something with long range weapons, what do you expect to happen?

[odd sun]

ships and Boltstrikes and Stratolances will totally stop nuke drops in their tracks

[night delta]

entire problem could be resolved by you killing the ship first, which if i had to take a guess is a MUCH more important target for helping your team than whatever youre dropping a 250 on

[odd sun]

as a player I think ships are definitely your priority when it comes to large assets, followed by IR and R Sams
I try to kill a SAM of some kind in every sortie

[coarse mural]

plus AI prioritize incoming munitions so they will shoot that down and not you
and opening bay doors increases RCS

[empty adder]

All good points, but i feel like the balance of bombs is off in of itself. I mean fine i could do SEAD and DEAD formemost, but then i could just use AGM's to take targets out at that point, there would be no reason for me to take bombs instead of AGM's, apart from having an extra bomb or two. I just kinda feel like i should be able to do deep strikes with a bomb or two in a stealthy aircraft without all that positioning and time going to waste when the entire enemy airfield lights my 250kg or 500kg going for that hangar or enrichment plant. But then again that maybe opens up the dorway for some stealth bomb, either many small or a small qunatity of big bombs, that maybe do less damage or something i dunno

[grizzled ibex]

Even modern radar SAMs can intercept a mortar shell. 2070s will have no problem with frefall bombs

[empty adder]

You know i just find it really har dto believe that a radar 15km away can find my little round cylinder of rage tumblind down at 1000kmh but hey it's the future i guess anything is possible

[vague dirge]

you can do it now, especially with ship radars those things are powerful, stealth aircraft have radar signatures smaller than the bombs they drop

[odd sun]

we can do the same thing to things thousands of kilometers away with bigger radars, its definitely possible
This is why radar is THE choice for long range detection, its just so damn good
The aircraft in NO feel too stealthy sometimes, but they are RAM coated and shaped for it

[tight junco]

yes, yes they can
it is very easy

[vague dirge]

(these are intercepting pretty small munitions)

[odd sun]

mortars, shoulder or tube fired rockets, hell i bet you could hit a frag grenade with a radar missile if you dropped it from high enough.

[vague dirge]

drop a penny and an SM-6 launched 30 miles away will intercept it

[odd sun]

yeah, to put this in perspective some large fighters have the RCS the size of dime.
Air defense sensor systems have to be CRAZY capable

So hitting a basic, completely reflective, not RAM treated or stealthily built bomb is easy

[dark trench]

A simple way to think about it, it's not about how big it is but how reflective it is.

[vague dirge]

they're round tubes they basically have the rcs of their size, regardless radars can still see them

the fun part is when you start shaping them funny

[odd sun]

iirc round things are extra reflective because the outgoing waves "wrap around" the object and come back
so its not just reflection

[vague dirge]

it doesnt reflect more than a flat side directly looking at the receiver but it reflects back at more angles, not the worst thing in the world if you know what you're doing (round but angles still facing away, like the top side of stealth fighters (upwards))

[odd sun]

so its still actually worse than flat faces when it comes to regular bombs lol, until you intentionally coat or shape it for stealth

[vague dirge]

i guess but apparently aerodynamics matter more and its easier to make them round regardless

[odd sun]

yeah

[surreal rock]

If you want a stealthy bomb they have JSOW for that

[odd sun]

fr a jsow would go hard
big pablo

[long forge]

The problem isn't with bombs themselves per se. It's with the air defenses. The boltstrike (likely inspired by the SA-15 Gauntlet/Tor M2 which has 16 missiles) carries 40 missiles. There is a clear discrepancy on how many munitions a vehicle is logically capable of carrying, and how many they are actually carrying.

[vague dirge]

the Boltstrike carries 16 missiles

[long forge]

Does it? I was certain it carried way more

[long forge]

Still dosent change the fact that with a munitions truck around they essentially have infinite ammo

The ships themselves are arguably even more egregious. The IR launchers present on the dynamo and the hyperion could only carry 12/8 by counting the numbers of tube and with no apparent reload mechanism. And yet they both carry hundreds of IR missiles firing non stop.

[vague dirge]

honestly no idea how many IRs ships carry

[long forge]

Pretty sure the hyperion and dynamo carry much more IRs than SARHs

And both of those ships carry missiles numbering in the hundreds
120 something for the dynamo (certain that the dynamo carries at least 80 MMR S3s)
Not sure about the hyperion

[vague dirge]

Dynamo has 52 Stratos and 36 S3s according to the og devblog, but it says it has 112 even though it should be 88 total

[long forge]

Yeah I'm definitely sure that the real strato count is nowhere close to that considering it runs out way the hell faster

(that's still more than what the dynamo should be able to carry BTW, the box launchers should only be able to carry 12/16 each)

[vague dirge]

it probably is just 52 R9s and 60 S3s, they dont have reliable method of getting more other than tarantula and they fire very often because of having the 2nd best radar in the game

[long forge]

60 S3s, and that's not even close to the egregiousness that is the hyperion

[vague dirge]

116, 2x S3 launchers and a single 2x8 RAM-45 complex

[long forge]

Practically the carrier should only be able to carry 32 S3s (assuming each launcher carries 16) and 8 RAM 45s

[vague dirge]

likewise the Shard has a 4x10 RAM-45 complex and it carries...40 RAM-45s, and also 40 RGM-48s do not question how they fit as well

[long forge]

Should really soft nerf the ammo count, by making them take time to reload after munition is expended from the launcher

Would also make wild weaseling a thing

[vague dirge]

ammo count nerf + being able to fire at low alt targets with lookdown shootdown would be pretty fair to me, as they are right now they are comically easy to approach with guided bombs

[long forge]

Not really look down to begin with since they are at sea level lol, and I think the clutter floor should work based on range

[vague dirge]

they should at least be able to fire at the enemy with radar missiles, perhaps with reduced accuracy but still better than what we have rn because a single aircraft approaching guided warships with only bombs is ridiculous

#screenshots-and-videos message

[long forge]

That would need a prerequisite of making single AshMs a lot better

[vague dirge]

ASMs should absolutely be the option against ships but as they stand right now the best are either AGM-68s or Guided Bombs

[vague dirge]

few approaches to make:
detection range
evasion capability
health

all these aspects could be buffed to make them much more reliable at taking out ships

[long forge]

Aegis defense system

Fire everything when bombs arrive

[vague dirge]

for the sake of game balance, just be glad IR SAMs cant track bombs even though IRL ones definitely can

the anti ship missiles must anti ship better

[long forge]

Our IR missiles gets baited by flares without needing to dump 30 in quick succession

[subtle mason]

o the left it is an air defense called Iron dome in Israel and it has a 96% interception rate. I saw it working and it looked insane! I would really like to be added to NO for PALA instead the stratolace

[vague dirge]

Stratolance is a Medium/Long Range R-SAM system mostly for aircraft and probably ballistic missiles as well

Iron Dome is a C-RAM, their only purpose is to intercept incoming munitions and have a much shorter range

[subtle mason]

It has a range of 60-70 km range

[vague dirge]

oh right they're Derby sized so it probably does have the kinematic range

not entirely sure about its effectiveness at such ranges

[subtle mason]

https://youtu.be/yJ7asbdsMyI

[vague dirge]

they interestingly run on Electro Optical so probably TV/IIR instead of the usual IIR or even Laser Beam Riding

[subtle mason]

best range for it is 50 km

[vague dirge]

50km and apparently its also considered a short range AD when it matches range with a Buk and NASAMS

[subtle mason]

they do not use optics they use radars

[vague dirge]

radar guided? wouldnt that get extremely expensive really quick? having Missile C-RAM is already inherently expensive enough

[long forge]

They have money to bleed

IR guidance ain't exactly cheap either

[subtle mason]

yes it is radar guided and it costs around 50 000 to make one

[vague dirge]

and ARHs are a even more not cheap, which is why i said they are inherently stupid expensive

also goddamn they are just Derbys

[long forge]

Like I said, they have the cash to burn

[vague dirge]

bit shorter though

[subtle mason]

okay maybe this thing that costs even more but has a range of 150 km

[vague dirge]

David's Sling

[subtle mason]

it is made for interception of ballistic missiles so this is the bests version for PALA instead of stratolance

[vague dirge]

Stunner that david uses has a pretty interesting design

the IR seeker dome is flaccid and flops to one side, i only have to assume this is to make space for the AESA seeker behind it, also its dual mode IIR and ARH, which is deranged

[subtle mason]

maybe also this

[vague dirge]

i dont think true ABMs are in the scope of NO at the moment

[subtle mason]

why not? We people that climb 15 000 m in the air and start to fire AGM-68 from the sky! like a ballistic missile

[vague dirge]

thats easily in the range of medium and long range SAMs

[subtle mason]

you can notch them

[long forge]

ABMs go Mach 10+ you know that right?

[vague dirge]

right, i guess you cant with an ABM because they dont use radar

[subtle mason]

maybe use the speed to shot down medusa that is jamming at from the other part of the map at high altitude

[long forge]

Would make more sense as an anti ship missile tbh

[subtle mason]

and to intercept that missile we will need an arrow 3 air defense

[long forge]

Reminder that ABMs like sprint have a 0 to Mach 5 time of 1.2 sseconds

[subtle mason]

not bad not bad

[long forge]

It undergoes 147 Gs of acceleration

Mach 10 in 5 seconds

[vague dirge]

its first stage booster was quite literally an explosive

[tired slate]

I dont fully disagree with the OP, but I also think the problem goes deeper than that. Bomb carriers, DR specifically, need some sort of a boost. Making Darkreach stealthier would definitely help with getting closer to a target for carpet bombing. However, the problem with that is 21st century cruise missiles are just better bombs. Unless that somehow changes DR will be nothing more than a cruise missile carrier that turns around to land right after take off and ordnance dump with bombs touched only by AI.

Either that or introduce a new, smaller and stealthier bomber (a pure bomber F-117-esque plane would be preatty great ngl). Lowering DR's RCS just so it can come closer to its target with bombs feels kinda implausible.

[surreal rock]

I presume they are just bottom loaded like a Soviet RBU launcher. And like... naval SAM is not that scary. Their SAM is not that strong nor do they carry that many of them. They don't quad pack missiles in VLS, R9 is very kinematically weak relative to its size, and 8 MMR per battery with reloads isn't better than a 24 shot HQ-10 box

[long forge]

Yeah but they don't reload so

[surreal rock]

They have maybe 30 shots per launcher on a Dynamo? It's barely more and the Dynamo as noted lacks both numbers and capability on its radar SAM in comparison