Orbital Bombardment Possible? Dev and community question.

[Mr Jaeger]

Okay So first post but one that I hope garners a large discussion by both the devs and community.

So here's the question for the devs, Is it/will it be possible to have an Orbital bombardment in Starbase and if so, how will you go about it?

Since discovering this game I am eager to see what kind of destructive machinations the community can come up with and Orbital bombardment is near the top of the list when it comes to my enjoyment of all things DAKKA and BOOM. With the top of the list being a planet cracker but, baby steps. ^^

So here's the question for the Community. If we could do an Orbital bombardment with *insert your ideal weapon here* How would you go about it? How long do you think it'd take and what strategy would you employ to insure target saturation and effective neutralization?

 

[Cavilier210]

Weapons currently can't pass about 1km. So orbital bombardment while technically possible will not be done from orbital distances.

However, the best method to do it is torpedoes and missiles.

 

[Mr Jaeger]

Could the type of Torpedo/missiles have certain payloads? Like Incendiary or radiation?

 

[Cavilier210]

Not at the moment they don't.

 

[Mr Jaeger]

Okies, so a saturation of the target area by torps, or more likely missles is one option. Is it possible to use a container of an explosive gas and allow gravity to do it's magic? Probably already tried that, but i'm just checking all options.

 

[Lionard Freezer]

Not at the moment they don't.

They do. Corrosion and normal explodi boy. At least the missiles do, idk about torpedos.
Heres the vid they did about this:

Tho they say Here: https://wiki.starbasegame.com/index.php/Missile_warhead That there is only HE. Idk if they removed the corrosion again.
After a quick look, they only placed one type of each componment in the wiki. Not sure if those are the only parts ig rn.

 

[Cavilier210]

They do. Corrosion and normal explodi boy. At least the missiles do, idk about torpedos.
Heres the vid they did about this:

Tho they say Here: https://wiki.starbasegame.com/index.php/Missile_warhead That there is only HE. Idk if they removed the corrosion again.
After a quick look, they only placed one type of each componment in the wiki. Not sure if those are the only parts ig rn.

They haven't put in a corrosion warhead yet I believe.

 

[Venombrew]

Okay, 2 days ago i discovered something that gave me an idea. so i was trying to fight the gravity going off the surface of the moon, i was low on fuel and the vessel i was flying wasn't meant for speed or power, so i was struggling getting into orbit. sure enough i ran out of fuel trying to make the climb and gravity began to rip my ship to the ground, i tried changing a fuel rod and it flew with the quickness down faster than my ship.

on the surface of the moon it seems capable of dropping items that will from my experience travel quickly to the moon's surface, and flying on the moon surface makes you battle with gravity. the idea came in when watching Marvel's End Game, after seeing Warmachine fly across the battle field dropping explosives canisters that carpet bombed an area as he flew by.

this is actually possible granted you can figure out the deployment of the bombs, since things do need to be secured in some fashion while flying. you figure out the deployment method and you sir got carpet bomb capabilities. you can or should able to in the future attach torpedos to fuel containers for bigger explosion, and just program the explosives with a 4-5 sec delay, and leave the warheads attached to the torpedos to trigger the explosion. depending on height would depend on what your delays should be so that when they deploy you want them to explode about 1 second after they hit.

 

[Mr Jaeger]

Okay, 2 days ago i discovered something that gave me an idea. so i was trying to fight the gravity going off the surface of the moon, i was low on fuel and the vessel i was flying wasn't meant for speed or power, so i was struggling getting into orbit. sure enough i ran out of fuel trying to make the climb and gravity began to rip my ship to the ground, i tried changing a fuel rod and it flew with the quickness down faster than my ship.

on the surface of the moon it seems capable of dropping items that will from my experience travel quickly to the moon's surface, and flying on the moon surface makes you battle with gravity. the idea came in when watching Marvel's End Game, after seeing Warmachine fly across the battle field dropping explosives canisters that carpet bombed an area as he flew by.
View attachment 2620
this is actually possible granted you can figure out the deployment of the bombs, since things do need to be secured in some fashion while flying. you figure out the deployment method and you sir got carpet bomb capabilities. you can or should able to in the future attach torpedos to fuel containers for bigger explosion, and just program the explosives with a 4-5 sec delay, and leave the warheads attached to the torpedos to trigger the explosion. depending on height would depend on what your delays should be so that when they deploy you want them to explode about 1 second after they hit.

I like the sound of that, Do you think it'd be possible to use some kind of sling shot style undercarrage like the Piat or Fatman launcher from Fallout to help with accuracy. Hell now we need to test if it's possible to make a bomber with a high enough degree of accuracy.

 

[Venombrew]

I like the sound of that, Do you think it'd be possible to use some kind of sling shot style undercarrage like the Piat or Fatman launcher from Fallout to help with accuracy. Hell now we need to test if it's possible to make a bomber with a high enough degree of accuracy.

one thing i do know is, need a deployment method, and the second is this only works on gravity bound areas, you were to release the payload in space without gravity it just blow your ship up. because they will not drop and will freefloat and your ship will just hit and drag them inside the payload container. but this idea with a working payload deployer is very doable.

 

[Thofi]

making a small automatic ship with a Yolol to go to a designated target with a warhead on it would be the easiest I think.
(anyway both fuel and battery would explode on impact)

 

[Mr Jaeger]

Both of these ideas sound lovely ^^ Tho to answer the deployment method, it might be possible to have some kind of sling release system where you use a command to push the bomb out of the ship, then you could focus on things like accuracy or speed of the projectile.

For the ship making side, true that would be the easiest but is it the most cost effective? Judging from what the new costs for ships will be and depending on the size of the ship you'd build. It may end up being more counter expensive in the long run. But I'd happily watch a Nuka ship impact on a player base. ^^

 

[Lionard Freezer]

Well, since i dont have access to the game rn its just an idea but...
You can bolt the explosives of rockets together, without needing any other part of the rocket for them to work.
Now i wonder... can you bolt something to a fully assembled rocket and have it fly off with it? Like bolting more explosives onto the rocket or bolting multiple rockets together.
If so, you could have a cluster bomb and similar things to drop on your enemys and friends.

 

[CalenLoki]

Well, since i dont have access to the game rn its just an idea but...
You can bolt the explosives of rockets together, without needing any other part of the rocket for them to work.
Now i wonder... can you bolt something to a fully assembled rocket and have it fly off with it? Like bolting more explosives onto the rocket or bolting multiple rockets together.
If so, you could have a cluster bomb and similar things to drop on your enemys and friends.

You can bolt rockets together, but it doesn't really increase damage potential at all. They all gonna explode at the same point, and the explosion radius is not cumulative.
You'd be better by sending tiny missile equipped ship that launch rockets close to the target and scatter/stagger them a bit.

 

[Venombrew]

@Lionard Freezer one of the problems right now with the deployment issue, is, you can't do much to the ship while it is moving and that includes minor repairs. this problem is something needs to be corrected before EA, if it hasn't already. what i was thinking as a work around, but it be a real power user, is set the missiles in a cargo beam set up(if the beams can hold missiles.). make areas under the ship and have those areas protrude below the rest of the ship like a large box with opening doors. key would be to open the hatch doors(make sure they are wide enough to avoid contact) as you pull the nose of your ship up to elevate it a little bit to rise up as you ready to drop them, then release the beams hold and by gravity and elevation they should deploy on their own. im sure your gonna have some trial and error but if above text can be met, should be able to do it.

i even drew a bit of a diagram for more visual
.

 

[Thofi]

you could use the rocket launcher facing downward without any thruster for bombing if you want safe and easy bombing bay.

 

[Mr Jaeger]

@Lionard Freezer one of the problems right now with the deployment issue, is, you can't do much to the ship while it is moving and that includes minor repairs. this problem is something needs to be corrected before EA, if it hasn't already. what i was thinking as a work around, but it be a real power user, is set the missiles in a cargo beam set up(if the beams can hold missiles.). make areas under the ship and have those areas protrude below the rest of the ship like a large box with opening doors. key would be to open the hatch doors(make sure they are wide enough to avoid contact) as you pull the nose of your ship up to elevate it a little bit to rise up as you ready to drop them, then release the beams hold and by gravity and elevation they should deploy on their own. im sure your gonna have some trial and error but if above text can be met, should be able to do it.

i even drew a bit of a diagram for more visual
. View attachment 2641

Deffo would need to test this when i get into EA but this might be the best possible hope for bombing and possibly orbital bombing.

Do you think you could use the same delivery tech to drop such things as gas cannisters or fuel pods to amplify the explosive payload?

 

[Venombrew]

@Mr Jaeger possibly

 

[Lionard Freezer]

The consept i was thinking of, was having 1 clusterbomb that spinns and then decouples a lot of explosives. Since explosives are around 1/5 of the size of a missile it would do a lot more dmg. The spinning to distance the explosives from each other.
The only problem here is that idk how to decouple the explosives. The spinning is easily programmed if you use a torpedo as it can hold yolol chips, but afaik there isnt any device for decoupling.
The way the missle/bomb could be droped out of the ship would be that it would simply fall out of the back of the ship. Maybe have a cargo frame under the ship that doesnt have a solid back? Or a door that opens just bevore droping the bomb? something like that.
Would also work great for a deployable minefield so that you can run away from your enemys.

Edit: Quick question... do you think sliders would be able to decouple by simply sliding off?

 

[Venombrew]

@Lionard Freezer my thing is whatever you do, debolting ect, can you do it while moving? that is a problem, most things cant be done in movement, even if debolt it, it just fly awry. if you can figure something out here, it get you closer to getting a working deployment.