Guided Bombs

Guided bombs are an area of effect (AoE) weapon which can only be used by large and extra large Upwell structures which have a Standup Guided Bomb Launcher fitted. In contrast to 'normal' bombs, guided bombs are targeted at a ship, i.e. the structure gunner needs to target a ship and activate the module on that ship. If that ship warps off before it is hit, the bomb just continues to drift in space until its maximum flight time of 400 seconds ends. The area of effect radius of guided bombs is 20 km.

There are two types of guided bombs which can be used by the same launchers:

• Standup Light Guided Bombs deal 2,800 omni damage (700 in each type), with a 100m explosion radius and 3,000 m/s flight velocity.
• Standup Heavy Guided Bombs deal 9,600 omni damage (2,400 in each type), with a 500m explosion radius and 2,500 m/s flight velocity.

Both have an explosion velocity of 100 m/s (see missile mechanics). It's obvious that heavy guided bombs are meant for bigger targets. But as they deal significantly more damage, they are usually the better choice than the light variant. As a rule of thumb, light guided bombs are better for afterburner fit destroyers and below while heavies are better for everything above.

The Standup Guided Bomb Launcher exists in a T1 and T2 variant. Both have a reload time of one minute. The T1 variant fires a bomb every 60 seconds and has a capacity of 300 m³ which allows for three bombs; the T2 variant fires a bomb every 48 seconds and has a capacity of 400 m³ which allows for four bombs. Citadels have a bonus of 20% for the rate of fire.

Tactics against guided bombs

The obvious way to deal with guided bombs is to bring enough (remote) repairs to tank their damage. But besides that the ship targeted can ping off so that the guided bomb can’t do damage. Or the fleet gets spread out so that not everyone is hit and thus reducing the incoming total damage. Fast ships might actually be able to outrun guided bombs. The Muninn for example has a speed above 2500 m/s with MWD and command bursts and thus is faster than the heavy version.

History

On 2022-04-05 guided bombs got a significant nerf:

• The guided bomb launcher modules can now only be fit to Large and Extra Large Upwell Structures.
• Tech I module has had its capacity reduced to 300m3 from 1000m3 (now holds 3 bombs).
• Tech II module has had its capacity reduced to 400m3 from 1300m3 (now holds 4 bombs).
• Reload time for both Tech I and II has been increased to 60s (was 10 seconds).
• Standup Heavy and Light Guided Bombs have had their bomb radius reduced to 20km (was 30km)