Smart Bombs Seem Kind of Dumb

Thank you for that explanation, it is appreciated.
I don’t think I’ll risk it in my Viator. It has Cov Ops cloak, so it can warp cloaked, but still uncloaks as it approaches a gate, and it can be a few seconds before the gate activates.

A single smartbomber isn’t going to kill your Viator.

Additionally, warping cloaked, they won’t see you on d-scan and so won’t be able to time uncloaking and activating their smartbomb.

A blockade runner is pretty safe against a lowsec smartbomber.

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Anyone waiting at the gate doesn’t need to lock to use a smartbomb. If there’s three of them… you’re dead. On the other hand, with your cloak, they shouldn’t realize you’re coming to this specific gate, just that you’re somewhere in the system in some ship, heck you could be a miner for all they know.

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On top of what @TiberianSun371AlexW wrote - there’s nothing about lowsec that requires gate-to-gate direct warping.

The old recommendations of warping to a safe, or to an asteroid belt, or some other location in system before warping to gate still apply, when you are travelling in something squishy or that you don’t want to lose.

That will put you outside the smartbomb range usually; and in a lot of lowsec systems now, there is often an Upwell stucture nearby the exit gate, but offline from a direct gate-to-gate warp, that provides a convenient location to warp 100km off before warping down to gate.

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The term “smart bomb” makes sense if you’re familiar with arcade games like Defender, in which the term was used for area weapons that took out all nearby enemies. It doesn’t make sense if your point of reference is precision-guided munitions.

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the goons used to do something called " project Valhalla"
they carried smart bombs to get kilmails on blues wen the fleet was about to fail
null sec people are the worst people … :frowning:

This interpretation is, in my opinion, subject to debate. I assume it comes from the personification of the character called the “grim reaper”, and that is fair, but the scythe he has comes from being a type of reaper, as in, you reap what you sow.

The scythe is a farming tool, for harvest. When it’s employed to gather your food and feed the hungry, it has a lot of responsibility for sustaining life. You can also mow grass with it, though I suppose the grass would come to view you as a grim reaper of sorts, or perhaps just a barber come to give everyone a trim since cutting the grass doesn’t seem to kill it.

I digress, and this is one of those stick in the mud expositions you get from the glasses adjusting killjoy, but I feel like the scythe gets a bad rap.

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Its a farming tool. The reaping is wheat.

Edit: only noticed the above after I wrote this, sorry.

I know you know this, but c’mon the ignorance of the masses doesnt making for interesting naming.

Firebolt Ammo is the equicvalent of always packaging a firing missile accessory with an action figure; unnecessary and unimaginative.

@Ramona_McCandless

First of all, you guys know I was trying to be cute right?

Second of all, does it matter what a scythe is used for when most people’s exposure to scythes doesn’t extend past pop culture references -where it is typically associated with the reaping of souls.

Anyway, I can see what you’re saying Ramona about how naming things after their function is unimaginative, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it is unnecessary. Eve is a complex game with a lot to learn, and having to learn all the different ammo names does make the learning curve a little bit steeper than it would otherwise have to be. For example, I’ve done things like set the desktop background of my third monitor to ammo infographs/whatever that could help me quickly select the correct ammo (the following infograph was from when I was flying beam nightmares in incursions).


No P2W

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yep !

At least they got one thing almost perfectly in order: the names of the laser crystals follow exactly the order of the wavelengths in the spectrum - from longest range (longest wavelength = radio) to shortest (= gamma). We forgive them for calling the visible portion simply “standard” and adding the odd “multifrequency”, and the group name “frequency crystals” (frequency being highest at shortest wavelengths, so running in the opposite order) is still better than “wavelength crystals” which would sound … silly.
image

But !! What cuts deepest of all is that abomination in PI : they coined the P0 for oxygen “noble gas” !! It’s anything but a noble gas, it’s the bloody #1 oxidizer (forgetting fluorine for a while) !! It makes my eyes water every time I see this, wanting to huddle in a corner and sob uncontrollably.
:crazy_face:

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‘Searches pockets for 20c (AUD)’

Actually I said the opposite. That a Scythe has a function, and its not killing people.

The comparison was about giving something an over the top name that doesnt describe what it does. I have exactly the same problem with ship descriptions.

Since when did any Amarr battleship live up to its over the top description for example?

I do agree that the game is needlessly obfuscated though. CCP think its funny or something.

Just call them what they are then and be done with it.

This is just one reason I dont bother flying armed ships anymore.

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I understand you were trying to be cute, and it is cute, but I am one of those people outside the ‘most’ who does not associate the scythe with death so I ribbed you for it. Nothing more, nor less.

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They sucked up a few lines up coke (probably from a hooker’s belly) before they decided to call the healer ships logistics.

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I noticed that. What do you think they should be called?

They change the game’s mechanics around so much. Who knows? Maybe Scythes will have a bonus to mining lasers in a few years.

The “smartgun” from Aliens that hit stuff without you needing to aim directly at it.

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I have personally smartbombed and killed cloaked haulers, bombers, and covert ops. A lot of blockade runners have no tank or even anti-tank to increase speed.

The trick is to be able to see when they enter warp with a scout or dscan. They appear for a moment as they align. Then you know their warp speed on average and the distance between your gate and the one they came from. So you count x Mississippis after they enter warp and hit your bombs when you think they are landing. Boom! From out of nowhere a wreck appears. Dead cloaky! Works about 50% of the time as you can’t see them. The more you do it the better you get the timing. As a bonus you not only get their loot but you can get salty eve mails about how bad of a player you are and how you aren’t a real PvPer.

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