EVE:Bomber FC

Bomber FC Ships

If you have a small wing of bombers and want to get the most bombs down range as possible, then you are going to be FC'ing from a bomber and will be bombing with the fleet. In this case, you will fit the traditional bomber fit, but instead of the 3 torpedo launchers, you will fit an expanded probe launcher.

If you have lots of bombers, then your better bet is to FC from a Covert Ops, or Cloaky T3. You wont get the kill mails, but you will have a much better view of the field.

Where to take bombers

• Have a target, roaming with bombers does work, but is not ideal.
• Make sure its a target that makes sense bombing (IE: You shouldn't use bombers against a single frig)
• The larger the target fleet, the better.
• Pick bombs based on your target (Shrapnel against armor, Electron against Shield), or a balanced bomb (Concussion or Scorch) if you aren't sure about their resistances.

Before the fleet

PERCHES! PERCHES! AND MORE PERCHES! The more perches the better, good perches are 200 - 300km (ON-GRID) off a target point. Ideally, perches will be aligned so that there is a celestial on the other side of the target from the perch. In addition to these bombing perches, you will need perches above and below the targets to avoid bubbles.

• Gates.. ALL OF THEM
• Strategic Objetives: IHUBs, TCUs, POSes, Stations, or any other point that is likely to have a enemy fleet in grid with it.

Forming the Fleet

Have two wings, one "Active" wing and one "Support/AFK/Dead" wing, where the Active wing only has bombers that are ready to bomb in system, and the other wing has everything else.

Inside the "Active" wing, create as many squads as bomber squads you have, having more than 4 squads its not recommended as its really hard to make efficient use of them with only one FC. Rename those squads as Bomb 1, Bomb 2, Bomb 3 and so on based on the position they appear on the fleet window.

Turn on Free-Move

Tell everyone that dies that they should move into the other wing so you know what you are working with. Remind everyone not to take squad command positions.

Positioning the Fleet

The first approach its to go to your perch, if its in a good position tell everyone to warp to you at 0

From your perch, scout the field, see where hostiles are, where blues are, and where bubbles are.

TIP: In every major battle, all the frigs usually starburst away from the battle and sit 300km off just watching, these frigs (Hostiles and friendlies) are a amazing resource for bombers FCs, as they provide mobile perches, even if they don't know it. So, if your perch is in a bad position, run a probing result with the "Frigs Only" filter and bounce to frigs until you find a good perch that has a clear line to bomb.

When to Bomb

• Friendlies are not at the targeted location and WONT BE at the targeted location
• There are no bubbles in your bombing line, you can always hit ALT and play with the camera to see your bracket and line it with the targeted location to check for bubbles.
• The target is worth it

The Single Squad Bomb

If you are bombing with one squad at a time:

• Move yourself into the squad command position for the squad about to bomb
• Tell the squad to align to the target
• Warp the squad to 30km from the target (if you are warping multiple squads from the same perch, or you are not in a bomber, then cancel your warp)
• Count to 5 and repeat with the next squad

The Multiple Squad Bomb

Much more difficult to pull off than the single squad bomb, but also much more effective.

You will need 1 perch for each squad. Each perch needs to be at least 90° from all other perches. This means that you can have a maximum of 6 squads if you are very, very good with your perch set up. The more common approach is to have 3 perches that are about 120° apart from each other and not to use the vertical dimension (bombing from a perch above or below your target is more difficult).

• Move yourself into the Squad Command position for Squad 1 and warp them to the first perch
• Repeat until all squads are in position.
• Tell the squad members to bookmark their perch so they can get back there later without you having to warp them
• Warp the wing to 38km from the target and tell them to bomb and GTFO.

If the bombers all launch from 38km, then when the bombs explode, they will be 8km from the target (still within the 15km explosion radius), so the target will take full damage from all bombs. However, the bombs from each squad will be 16km from all the other squads (outside the 15km explosion radius) so the bombs will not kill each other.

Random Tips

• Be invisible, NEVER give out that you have bombers in system until you are bombing.
• Always move your probes offgrid
• Never ever decloak in your perches.
• If you see that the bombers went on the wrong direction, or the battle situation has changed, call for an ABORT of the bomb run, aborting is way better than killing blues or wasting bombs into space.