FreeSpace Port ReCharged Dev log 07: Balancing Bombers
- Iain 'Sessile_Nomad' Baker
- 3 days ago
- 6 min read
Welcome back, friends. In this week’s dev log, we will see what the PDCs we covered in the last post did to the threat posed by bombers.
"What are ‘bombers’ in FS Land?", I hear you ask. In FS parlance, a 'bomber' is much like a 'fighter', but bigger, bulkier, more heavily armed, armoured and shielded, at the expense of being slower and less agile. They suck at dogfighting, but that’s not their job. They are bomb trucks - their role is to close to within torpedo range, then ‘deliver’ their multi-megaton ‘packages’ to their unwilling recipients.
In vanilla FS1 and 2, bombers were a significant threat to warships, transports and other large vessels. Their warheads could do devastating damage to these vessels if they connected.
Since the point defences in vanilla FS1 were pitiful, it was largely up to the player (and to a lesser extent, their AI wingmates) to shoot down these ‘bombs’ mid-flight.
Enter PDCs
The introduction of highly effective PDCs in FreeSpace Port Recharged (FSPR) changed this, however. Now, these bombs were being swatted from the sky with ease, largely nullifying the threat bombers posed. In many cases, neither the player nor their AI wingmates needed to do anything at all, which soon became boring.
I tried making the PDCs a little less accurate, with the Avenger being less accurate than the ML-16, and the Prometheus being less accurate than the Avenger, as can be seen below, but this wasn't enough to make bombers a threat again.
Vanilla Torps vs PDCs
FreeSpace Port ReCharged was not the first FreeSpace campaign to give warships adequate point defences - the highly regarded Blue Planet War in Heaven campaign did this too over ten years ago. This, too, resulted in bombers (the ones you go up against in gameplay at least) often being relegated to ‘minor threat’ status, at least to warships.
It was clear that the ‘bombers vs PDCs’ equation needed balancing ASAP. But how?
Algebra with Nukes
My first attempt involved significantly increasing the speed of the ‘bombs’ - which from now on I will refer to as 'torpedoes', or 'torps'. (The reason for this will become clear later.)
This helped a bit, but there was a limit to how fast I could make them, because I still needed the player to be able to chase them down to shoot them down. So, about 120mps was the upper limit. As you can see in the video below, this alone wasn’t enough to reliably balance the equation.
Fast Torps vs PDCs
(NB - I neglected to mention in the Flight Mechanics post that I felt the vanilla game was a little sluggish. To rectify this, all fighters and bombers in FSPR have received a blanket 20-25mps speed boost - to both their max cruising speed, and max afterburner speed. Plus, all strike craft have afterburners now. Therefore, 120mps is perfectly achievable for all but the slowest strike craft.)
The Swarm
If speed alone wasn’t enough, what else could I try? There is a saying that ‘quantity has a quality all its own’, so how about increasing the number of torpedoes fired per salvo as well?
It turns out this was simple enough to do as well, and pretty soon, I had created swarm torpedoes, which increased the number of warheads significantly. What’s more, they could be made to ‘corkscrew’ on their way to the target, making them even more difficult to hit.
Corkscrew Swarm Torps Vs PDCs
To maintain balance and to ensure there remained a use case for ‘single non-swarm torpedoes’, I ensured the combined yield of the smaller swarm torps totalled to about 75% of the larger single one. Therefore, the swarm torpedoes trade raw yield for an increased chance that something will get through to find its target. By mixing and matching enemy loadouts in FRED, gameplay was kept unpredictable and varied.
The next thing I did was to make the Prometheus PDC burst-fire. This, combined with its lower accuracy, shorter range, lower projectile speed and lower rate of fire, made it less effective against torpedoes. However, its higher DPS and shield effectiveness made it more effective against the bombers launching them.
Therefore, the Avenger remained better at torpedo intercept, while the Prometheus was better at taking out bombers. As the campaign progresses, warships begin swapping some of their Avenger-based PDCs for their Prometheus-based counterparts. As such, they get better at defending themselves against bombers, but become more vulnerable to the warheads they launch.
This largely balanced the 'Bombers vs PDCs' equation. However, warships are not supposed to be unescorted. Once escorting AI fighters are thrown into the mix, the new 'Bombers vs PDCs and AI Escort Fighters' equation needed balancing too.
Corkscrew Swarm Torps Vs PDCs and AI Escort Fighters
Strike Packages
The solution was a trifecta of making the bombers more numerous, more survivable, and more deadly in other ways.
The numbers game is simple enough - just spawn more bombers. Since we are no longer constrained by 1998/99 PC hardware, adding significantly more craft of all types into a mission can be done easily without reducing FPS to single digits. (My fairly old laptop still averages 120FPS).
Making the bombers more survivable was done by giving them proper escorts. In vanilla FreeSpace, bombers would often jump in on their own, which made them easy prey for fighters and interceptors. In FSPR, bombers ALWAYS jump in with fighter escort, which means they tend to live longer.
Making them more deadly beyond the torps they launched proved to be an interesting project. I decided to give the Shivan light bombers extra bite in the form of heavy-hitting kinetic cannon - the slower firing blue-white shots from the 'Shaitan' light bombers you will see in the video below. These not only punch holes through warship armour, they also smash turrets and 'disrupt' them – which temporarily prevents them from firing. This proved VERY effective.
In mission via FRED, I designed 'Strike Packages', where light bombers with light fighter escort would go in first to disarm the target, followed up by heavy bombers with heavy fighter escort delivering the Coup de Grâce.
Yep, ‘Wild weasel’ 'SEAD and 'DEAD' operations have come to FreeSpace. (‘Suppression of Enemy Air Defences’ and ‘Destruction of Enemy Air Defences’)
Shivan Strike Package vs PDCs and AI Escort Fighters
The equation was now in favour of the Bombers, but there is another factor at play to consider as well - the player!
The above scenario might well go to Team Green if the player takes an active role in intercepting torps, dogfighting bombers, and prioritising targets for their AI wingmates.
Play-testing and fine-tuning the number of friendly and enemy craft will balance the mission overall to ensure the player has just enough to do, and the right level of challange doing it.
(Un)happy Accidents?
The kinetic cannons proved surprisingly effective against fighters, too - including the player. Being hit by them knocks the player around and temporarily paralyses them. This is both annoying and disorienting as hell.
The much derided ‘Shite-an’ has stopped being 'The joke bomber' and become ‘The Heath Ledger as The Joker bomber'. Aka, something to be respected and feared. Why so serious? Because these things are bloody deadly now, that’s why!
And yes, I did experiment with equipping the heavy bombers with these cannon too, but having them fire five at a time made them ‘a bit’ overpowered, so I ditched that idea. I’m not THAT sadistic, honest 😁
The equation was balanced at last. The player’s actions mattered again. With that aspect of combat fixed, it was time to up the ante on the next aspect of in-game combat - hot warship-on-warship action (stop sniggering at the back). But that’s a tale for next time. See you all there.
Previous dev log posts
Iain is a 40+ author and gamer from England, who started his gaming journey on the Atari 2600 36(ish) years ago. His specialities include obscure cult classics, retro games, mods and fan remakes. He hates all sports games and is allergic to online multiplayer. Since he is British, his body is about 60% tea. He can be reached via email at nomadsreviews@gmail.com
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