Can someone please give some sort of explaination why tactical ordnance (rockets) is more effective against bases and airfields than strategic ordnance (bombs)?
I understand everyone is loving the rewards so this will be an unpopular opinion, but this is absolutely insane. As of right now, the best aircraft at striking bases are fighters with light rocket loads. No other planes can keep up now because rockets are also the lighest ordnance option. Before people go crazy about the “extra shrapnel”, no bunker or building has fallen to shrapnel, explosive force is what matters for strategic targets.
I know there has to be a reason to why this is how it is or why it hasn’t be corrected already…
Yes, light rocket load because the tnt equivalent is only 302.26 kg for the 254 FFARs, which can kill two bases. This is compared to 3 500 lb bombs (352 kg tnt equivalent), and it takes 10 500 lb bombs to kill a base or 20 to kill 2 bases. That is almost 7 times more explosive to destroy the same strategic targets. Those numbers don’t make sense in the slightest.
I think Gaijin wants base destruction to be possible even if your team doesn’t have access to bomber payloads. They don’t really seem to care if bombers have a “place” in the game, due to how hard they are to balance. They either nuke all the bases without ever being touched and J-out, leaving their team out to dry, or they get caught nearly every time and get shot down before doing anything of importance to the match. They are more of a curiosity that can sometimes work as a good vehicle for task/SL/RP grinding than they are an entrenched aspect of the game’s design.
They don’t leave teams out to dry any more than a MIG23ML or J35XS going from 6 missiles to 2 or less. I can understand lower tier bombers, but nothing at 7.0 (F-89D is an exception) or below can carry enough rockets to be effective base destroyers. The problems lies at higher tiers where large rocket loads are on the all purpose bombers. The F-4S is my greatest example, it can now destroy 2 bases and outrun the Kfir Canard with one base worth of ordnance and the Kfir Canard was the fastest single base bomber before this change happened. The Kfir can hit mach 1.15+ with bombs and will lose out to a rocket load. Rockets could kill bases before now, but it took an entire F-4 payload of rockets to kill one. I believe that is still the case with the Zuni rockets, so it isn’t even consistent with other rocket types.
Edit: The rockets are even better than the incendiary bombs for killing bases and that is what the incendiary bombs are actually in the game for.
This is an effect of the so called “small bomb bonus” function. It boils down that the smaller the TNT effects or your payload, the higher the damage output.
In case yo fly top tier - i saw recently a nice vid about base kills with rockets (F-16) in order to save weight, might worth be your time: Link
Imho this effect is fully intended by gaijin, base bombing is usually underestimated regarding the complexity. I made a list here.
I’m aware of the small bomb bonus, but I know something changed with the FFARs specifically that hasn’t effected the Zunis and larger rockets (I speak on Mighty Mouse and Zunis as I main USA). It used to take the entire load of FFARs or Zunis to kill a base before this last major update. Now FFARs deal much more damage to bases and the Zunis still deal the same amount. It is just a weird change that has caused a huge shift in what can be considered as an effective loadout for base destruction.
Edit: It seems that it is a bug that the rockets are dealing as much damage as they are. The creator of that chart is waiting on Gaijin to answer him and I hope they do soon and fix this.
Rockets destroying bases in the way they do now is a bit stupid. It makes it that much harder for certain planes / nations which may only have access to bombs to compete.
Example: Tornado can only equip bombs is a strike aircraft in a lot of cases / nations trying to compete with an F4S which is a fighter / multirole who now takes rockets kills a base and either ignores its need to fulfill the fighter role or goes on to perform that role as well while also making it difficult for the Tornado to earn any reasonable points in the match.
It would be potentially better if fighters received a reduced damage multiplier for killing bases say 50% with strike aircraft and bombers having no penalty to incentivize players to fulfill their role while not removing their ability to kill things such as ground targets.
Unfortunately I don’t think it would be a case where you can incentivize any changes in a positive way as its more the case of fighters trying to eat everything at the table and needing to be brought back in line.
I actually am trying to bring things back to attackers favor with base bombing, but the posts have been in limbo for a few days. Incentive bonus for a vehicles primary purpose, different base destruction health, and strikers spawning at the forward airfield to help them actuall do their job. Hopefully they get appoved.
I 100% agree with what OP and most everyone else is saying; its really dumb rockets are better at BOMBing than BOMBS.
It’s hard to complain about it being easier to kill bases, but honestly, it’s just stupid that the meta for bombing right now is a fighter jet loaded with FFARs that can splash 2+ bases on its own. Theres really no reason to use strike jets or any ordance other than FFARs when a fighter jet with rockets is faster and can deal more damage than thousands of lbs/kgs of bombs.
The best and simplest solution is just reducing the damage multiplier for small rockets like FFAR.
Rockets should still be a viable light-weight option to take out a base in large quantities, but should not be superior to bombs in the amount of bases they can destroy. This would make it so that fighters with large rocket loadouts like the F-4 have a reason to use them, but would also make bombs a viable option. If it required close to a full loadout of rockets to destroy a base there would be real reasons to choose between taking bombs or rockets depending on the situation.
This would make rockets an unvaible option for bombing on jets that can’t carry large quantities, but I think making bombs useable again would increase the diversity of aircraft and playstyles more than decrease it.
Hopefully Gaijin addresses this issue in some way soon!
I am not here to educate (or judge) others how i think they should play the game - and i actually don’t care about how others play the game because it is a free world - and i mind my own business.
I simply replied (without judging your actions, read it again) as i was wondering why you stopped your “White Knight fighting for Justice” approach at this point and why you think you are selected to bring “balance to the force” in Air RB.
Why?
If you apply your own rule set to Air RB as a whole, you would have to shoot down every clueless tanker in Air RB lobbies. Simply because that these guys are ruining the game for passionate pilots as their sheer masses ruin the numbers game which eliminates key factors like skill, tactics or strategy.
You can be skilled like hell - but this won’t help you in the usual 1 vs 8 after a few minutes if 90% of your team thinks that totally useless (regarding game/match impact) actions like going to bomb respawning bases is a perfect strategy. Those guys are ruining the game for others.
If you go a step further you would have to shoot down any player with a winrate below 40% - doesn’t matter if he has a negative K/D or not and if he is a passionate pilot or a tanker. Alone the fact that his WR is that low indicates that he is a burden for his teams and he is ruining the game for others.
So why you stopped your crusade at this specific point?
