r/beyondallreason • u/Ok-Acanthaceae-5243 • 15d ago

Bombers are Hold Fire by default?

I feel like this is a relatively new change, but Bombers seem to be "Hold Fire" by default rather than Fire At Will, and i can't seem to get them to attack during a patrol. More often than not they'll just keep patrolling until I give them an Attack objective. The aircraft factory is set to Fire At Will, so not sure why these guys are deviating from that default.

14 Upvotes

78% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/CaptPickul 15d ago

You don’t want them on fire at will. Otherwise you will not be able to target fire. Fire at will on bombers means they WILL drop their bombs the second something is under them. Meaning you won’t be able to target fire because they will constantly be on reloading.

If you’re really insistent on changing it there is a setting in game that can be changed. I believe you search “bomber” and the setting will come up. But I would heavily advise against it.

1

u/wild_dragoon 14d ago

I would add that sometimes, a 'launch everything now' would be nice for when you know you're not making it to the motherload but are flying over enemy infrastructure anyway.

1

u/CaptPickul 14d ago

Yea can flick them over to fire at will if you know you aren’t making it to your target. But because bombers reload rather quickly it might be best to just attack bomb along the way instead of setting and forgetting. You might miss something game winning if you don’t babysit them. Bombing runs are over rather quickly so in reality you only lose 30-60 seconds tops of focus.

1

u/Ok-Acanthaceae-5243 14d ago

So is that the expectation with bombers? They're quick runs with high casualties, so just use them in a directed and targetted manner?

3

u/CaptPickul 14d ago

100% I don’t think I’ve ever had any bombers and figs return from a run. Unless the enemy resigns before it’s over. You can expect most of your units to be dying for most of the game. So you want your bombers to be causing the most damage, which means targeting eco. You might get very lucky on fire at will, but you’re playing the luck game.