[img]https://i.imgur.com/T8ONQvz.png[/img]
Welcome to Bomber Crew, the cartoony WW2 bomber simulation. Don't let the silly demeanor of the game get to you; it's hard as FUCK sometimes. It's best described as a 3D version of FTL meets IL-2. Under the funny faces and quacky simple graphics, you have to manually control every aspect of the bomber in real-time, making it extremely hectic
The game starts you off with a Lancaster, a British bomber. It's the only bomber in the game, and you simply assign a crew to it, gear them up, and accessorize your plane with armor, fire extinguishers, new cannons, etc. Every crew member has their own role, each seat giving you instrumentation that you need to/should check up on often. An example is the engineer seat, which has your fuel level gauge for both of your fuel tanks, as well as a control system to transfer fuel from one tank to the other in case of a breach or fire
The game plays entirely in real-time with no pause function, making decisions difficult and hectic. In hail of enemy b109 gunfire, you might accidentally make your pilot go repair something and it might be too late until you realize there's nobody flying your fortress. That's just how it goes
The game is one of the best I've played all year. It knows what it is and it does it [i]so[/i] well. I'd recommend giving it a shot
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvDwxkH8ZSY[/media]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/yW6WzaG.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/w2dq6XP.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/5LwfhT3.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/KMtuWer.jpg[/img]
[url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/537800/]You can buy it here on Steam[/url], and if memory serves, it is also available for Xbox One, PS4 and Switch. It's on sale until October 26, so if you're interested, now is the time to buy
Fun fact: When the Lanc runs out of fuel, you don't glide. You just drop straight out of the sky. It's how I lost my best crew ;_;
This game is fun as hell and I hope they add more bombers down the line.
This game is so fun and yet so frustrating. Once you lose a crew and a plane it can be tough to come back from.
I don't think I've landed with more then 2 engines at any point.
I was really interested in the game but I read the top review on Steam and it kind of made me hold off of purchasing it. I know it's good to take Steam reviews with a grain of salt but does anyone have counter-points for it?
[QUOTE][B]Blueprint for a Bomber Crew Mission:[/B]
[B]0-60 seconds:[/B] Your customized Lancaster takes you on a beautiful ride over the British countryside and English Channel. Every 20 seconds or so, you need to aim at a waypoint for 2 seconds to direct your pilot towards the next leg of the journey.
[B]60-75 seconds:[/B] About halfway over the Channel, you'll encounter the first Luftwaffe fighters. To have your gunners react to them at all, you must put them in the center of your screen for roughly 2 seconds each. There are usually three or four fighters in this first wave.
[B]75-90 seconds:[/B] It is about this time that the Lancaster's gunners have dealt with maybe two of the first wave of fighters. One or two remain, strafing your heroic crew. Each turret has burned through about half of its ammo. Another wave of fighters demands ~7 seconds of solo screentime. Also, another waypoint demands 3 seconds of screentime.
[B]90-110 seconds:[/B] A third wave of enemy fighters appears, while your turrets are mopping up the last of the first wave. There are now five or so Messerschmitts chewing at your tail. Some damage has been done to your crew, and maybe an engine is on fire. You direct your engineer to pick up a fire extinguisher (3 seconds of waiting), then go out on the wing to put it out. Also, the waypoint starting the attack run must be addressed at this point. The flak begins to pop around your bomber.
[B]
110-130 seconds:[/B] There’s usually a fourth flight of BF-109s by now, again requiring 10 seconds of screentime to find and highlight. Your engineer needs to be directed back inside to fix something else; heaven help you if the hydraulics have been shot, as that means your turrets can’t fire. Speaking of the guns, they’re probably out of ammo at this point, so direct each of the turret gunners to run to the middle of the Lancaster to rearm. Meanwhile, the bombing run that you’ve commenced needs attention. You must direct your bombardier to the bombsight, instruct him to open up the bay doors, wait 4 seconds for that to happen, select which bombs to drop, then wait until the precise second that the target is in the bombsight and drop the ordnance. There’s still flak exploding around the plane.
[B]
130-180 seconds:[/B] The engineer is your best friend now. While waves three and four rip your Lancaster apart, you need to manually direct Scotty to fix whatever is wrong, which can take anywhere from 3 to 20 seconds, not counting walking time. Another waypoint requires some screentime, or else your plane is flying straight to Berlin. The bombardier needs to move from the bombsight to the front turret (hopefully it still has ammo). Odds are, at least one of your crew is down, demanding another crew member to grab a first aid kit, waddle over to his downed comrade, and help him for 5 seconds. There may be another wave of fighters at this point (another ~7 seconds to look at them), and your gunners should probably be directed to resupply. The fun missions have you do another bombing run at this point, where you repeat the above 20 seconds of instructions. Still flak.
[B]
180-240 seconds:[/B] As you head back out over the English Channel, the remaining fighters in hot pursuit, your plane is in shambles. Fires break out in the cabin, electric cables are frayed, and blood from several crewmembers sloshes over the floor. If your gunners are still alive, they need to spend 5 precious seconds reloading. You direct your engineer from crisis to crisis, barely keeping the hunk of scrap in the air. A cursed mission will have another flight of Luftwaffe fighters show up, requiring too many seconds to highlight for your gunners. Two or three more waypoints distract the player and lead the crew back to Britain.
[B]
240-360 seconds:[/B] Over the white cliffs of Dover, the tailing fighters peel off. The Lancaster, now more hole than metal, limps back to the airbase from which it started. Below you, the bucolic plains of home mock you with their drowsy security. Warnings sound about fuel levels as you direct the pilot through two or three more waypoints, until finally touching down on solid ground.
[B]Debriefing:[/B] As interesting and engrossing as the game is, a lack of pacing means that it’s more aggravating than fun. While there are seven crewmembers on the plane, you do each of their jobs for them, while under intense fire.
Slight modifications, such as auto-targeting turrets or dear God, please a pause function, would do wonders for Bomber Crew’s playability. While it sucks you in, it’s just unpleasant to go through. At this stage, I can’t recommend this game.[/QUOTE]
Seems like an even more tedious FTL without even the ability to pause.
I think the person that made that review just picked a mission that they weren't geared up for.
Each crew member, IE the engineer, has a level-up system. When they gain experience, they level up associated skills with their role. Every role gets abilities, so engineers get an ability such as "lean," where they can use a leaner fuel mixture to make fuel last longer. Gunners get "focus" where their shots are more accurate. Pilots get "emergency dive" so they can plummet down to a ridiculously low altitude to stop fires and shake enemy fighters off of the tail
The game is easy, but it has a lot going on. It follows a very repetitive pattern where you fly to an objective, bomb it and return home while fighting an ungodly amount of enemy fighter planes. Despite the repetition, it feels very "new" all of the time because you always get greeted with crazy things that happen onboard your aircraft. Sometimes the electrical systems take too much damage and the radio operator can no longer find enemy craft on radar. Other times your wing shears off and all of the fuel starts dumping out of the associated fuel tank and nobody is at the engineer console to pump the remainder fuel in to the undamaged tank on the other wing
There's just a lot going on. A lot of the negative reviews are people complaining because they didn't take the time to create a strategy for their crew or they just have everyone going around doing everything.
All crew members should stay at their stations. The rear and coax gunner should be heavily armored. If you purchase a belly turret, the engineer should man it if he's not needed at his station and there's an absolute need for firepower. Alternatively, the coax gunner is literally above the belly turret, so if enemy planes swoop under the bomber just have him move in to the other gun to engage them.
Most people don't strategize and they don't prioritize, so their plane falls apart and they limp home and crash in to London on their way back to the airstrip. Then they complain about the gameplay mechanics when it's just good, old fashioned operator error
The game doesn't have a pause function, which makes everything so much more hectic. If it had a pause feature, it'd be stupidly easy, but the game is FTL-lite so there's absolutely no reason to need it
[editline]21st October 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=capgun;52806023]This game is so fun and yet so frustrating. Once you lose a crew and a plane it can be tough to come back from.
I don't think I've landed with more then 2 engines at any point.[/QUOTE]
there's I think around 5 planes in rotation. If, for example, you have your first plane for a long time and it's super kitted out and it has tons of money invested in to it and you crash it and lose it, eventually as you lose other planes you'll rotate back to a "v2" of that plane that has all of the stuff you've purchased for it.
I was pretty frustrated when I would waste all of my money on a plane, lose it and then have to start from scratch, but eventually it doesn't become a problem because those bombers start making a comeback and you don't have to spend so much to upgrade the engines and armor
[QUOTE=69105;52806448]
[editline]21st October 2017[/editline]
there's I think around 5 planes in rotation. If, for example, you have your first plane for a long time and it's super kitted out and it has tons of money invested in to it and you crash it and lose it, eventually as you lose other planes you'll rotate back to a "v2" of that plane that has all of the stuff you've purchased for it.
I was pretty frustrated when I would waste all of my money on a plane, lose it and then have to start from scratch, but eventually it doesn't become a problem because those bombers start making a comeback and you don't have to spend so much to upgrade the engines and armor[/QUOTE]
I think it might be based on the 'critical' missions
[QUOTE=StrawberryClock;52806058]I was really interested in the game but I read the top review on Steam and it kind of made me hold off of purchasing it. I know it's good to take Steam reviews with a grain of salt but does anyone have counter-points for it?
Seems like an even more tedious FTL without even the ability to pause.[/QUOTE]
Exactly how I feel about the game as it stands. It's enjoyable during the starter missions, as they're relatively easy. Later missions just become frustrating and it's a total nuisance having to micromanage your crew, especially with how they waddle through the plane leisurely instead of running to put that fuckin fire out.
Fighters also absolutely tear your plane apart and you end up with so many crew dying, or the most annoying missions where you need to bomb submarines but they keep surfacing so you end up wasting all your fuel as a result, or missing a bomb run because you have to manually tag incoming fighters.
It's fun for the first 30 minutes but soon you realise it's very repetitive and irritating.
[QUOTE=loopoo;52806657]Exactly how I feel about the game as it stands. It's enjoyable during the starter missions, as they're relatively easy. Later missions just become frustrating and it's a total nuisance having to micromanage your crew, especially with how they waddle through the plane leisurely instead of running to put that fuckin fire out.
Fighters also absolutely tear your plane apart and you end up with so many crew dying, or the most annoying missions where you need to bomb submarines but they keep surfacing so you end up wasting all your fuel as a result, or missing a bomb run because you have to manually tag incoming fighters.
It's fun for the first 30 minutes but soon you realise it's very repetitive and irritating.[/QUOTE]
The radio ops Auto Tag ability is life.
Also, crew only walk around when they’re weighed down with equipment. Otherwise they kinda half jog through the tub.
[img_thumb]https://i.imgur.com/nxm2ib7.png[/img_thumb]
i ruined the game
[QUOTE=Killowatt;52807108][img_thumb]https://i.imgur.com/nxm2ib7.png[/img_thumb]
i ruined the game[/QUOTE]
Now we just need a mod to allow the bombing of London.
It would be cool if in the future more bombers were added. I hope it's a planned feature
I've been loving the shit out of this game. Dealing with fighters is only any issue is you're trying to also multi task. Sometimes its easier to clear the skies before doing a bombing run. I've had a lot of close calls, but only one crew death so far.
Note: Don't be like me and try to mark fighter kills on the nose art. I've already run out of room.
I think as a bomber, you mark successful bombing runs and not fighter kills. That's what I've been doing
also, custom art is saved in the game's files* as a .png. it's 64x64 px, but you can import your own pictures up to I believe 128x128 pixels, so you can have finer detailed images for nose art or wing art. nice to have since the ingame art tools is pretty shit
* the images should be found in user\[i]your pc name[/i]\appData\LocalLow\Runner Duck\Bomber Crew. They are called customlivery0.png, customlivery1.png, etc
[QUOTE=KommradKommisar;52807039]The radio ops Auto Tag ability is life.
Also, crew only walk around when they’re weighed down with equipment. Otherwise they kinda half jog through the tub.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, if it’s a crew member that has to move quickly (repairman) then make sure they’re not weighted down with equipment. Rear and Mid-Gunners I weight down since they don’t move too much.
Life becomes amazing when gunners reach level 8. Incendiary rounds + focus = no fighters within seconds
honestly when I first caught sight of this game I thought it'd be generic cartoony trash - but apparently it's pretty good?
[QUOTE=69105;52809046]I think as a bomber, you mark successful bombing runs and not fighter kills. That's what I've been doing
also, custom art is saved in the game's files* as a .png. it's 64x64 px, but you can import your own pictures up to I believe 128x128 pixels, so you can have finer detailed images for nose art or wing art. nice to have since the ingame art tools is pretty shit
* the images should be found in user\[i]your pc name[/i]\appData\LocalLow\Runner Duck\Bomber Crew. They are called customlivery0.png, customlivery1.png, etc[/QUOTE]
Fuck. Wish I knew earlier.
[t]https://i.imgur.com/8xCN5mn.jpg[/t]
I'll wait for this one to die I guess.
[QUOTE=NitronikALT;52809295]honestly when I first caught sight of this game I thought it'd be generic cartoony trash - but apparently it's pretty good?[/QUOTE]
It's good, but tough as nails due to the lack of pausing/slow down. You have to prioritize or you'll get overwhelmed and eat shit.
The game also totally fails to explain a few mechanics you learn the hard way (gunner reloading, one-use medkits, etc etc.)
Yeah, the game is very fun but honestly I'd say they released a little to early. Some needed quality of life stuff is missing. The fact you don't even get a slow down when targeting is one of the biggest problems given how long it takes to target just a single marker.
Also I didn't even know until like my fourth mission that I could hold shift to quickly snap the camera in for the internal view and it'd zoom back out when released. That made it so much easier to deal with crew management.
[editline]22nd October 2017[/editline]
Also for my money, make your Engineer subclass in to a gunner so he can help in the back. Make the navigator sub in to medic so he can help heal at the front if necessary or run to the back if everything goes to shit there. Especially if you make use of custom navigation markers, the navigator can fuck off without worry as opposed to the radio operator who basically should never leave. Also because the seat is right behind them, the navigator can quickly hop to the engineer station for activating the engine extinguishers. Make radio op sub in to engineer to fix shit up front in an emergency. Sub one gunner in to medic as well, and the other in to either engineer or medic. And keep shitloads of medkits stuffed in the back of the plane.
I disagree with having your engineer be a gunner. the mid gunner can swap between the upper and lower coax guns seamlessly and s/he is also right next to the ammo box, so restocking on ammo is never a big deal for them.
my strategy is to have the tail and mid gunner be as armored as can be as they'll usually be the ones taking the most fire by pursuit planes. the front gunner can also be armored but when i'm falling back to london, he'll be useless on the front gun as most aircraft will be on the tail of the plane, so moving him to the back turret is a lot more useful
engineer as a gunner isn't a bad idea but I'm against it solely because he's the only person that can specialize in the pilot sub-class. if you lose a good pilot then you lose your emergency dive and barrel roll functions, which are honestly in my opinion the biggest things you can have outside of lean fuel mix that the engineer gets
that's the great thing about the game, though. you can customize your crew to whatever roles you see fit because you can always fit them to your playstyle
You maximize damage by putting the engineer on a gun, since the two mids can hit front and back and sides, and the belly gun can even aim up just a bit. Especially once he can focus, enemy planes just kept out of the sky. Also means he sits right next to the electrical system which will go down several times per mission.
[QUOTE=Doctor Zedacon;52810635]You maximize damage by putting the engineer on a gun, since the two mids can hit front and back and sides, and the belly gun can even aim up just a bit. Especially once he can focus, enemy planes just kept out of the sky. Also means he sits right next to the electrical system which will go down several times per mission.[/QUOTE]
Best combination I've found so far is:
Pilot/First Aid - This guy should never be off his station.
Engineer/Gunner - This is your belly gunner/do-everything-man. [B]Give this fuck [I]HIGH SPEED LOW DRAG.[/I][/B] This one needs to be able to SPRINT.
Top Gunner/First Aid - This guy should always be on the gun or getting ammo.
Ass Gunner/First Aid - Dude should literally never move once you get belt-fed guns.
Radioman/Repair - This is your off-repair something goes really wrong.
Navigator/Repair - This is your guy who taps the auto-fire-extinguishers and lean mixes since the station is right there.
Bombardier/Gunner - Pretty self explanatory.
The pilot skills seem useful, but I've yet to have mine die in combat. Only when I ran out of fuel. :v:
Ugh, running out of fuel is way too unforgiving. I literally ran out of fuel as it was landing, and instead of, ya know, gliding the remaining 50 feet, it just noses over and slams into the ground.
At which point I discovered the game doesn't save till after debrief
[QUOTE=capgun;52811350]Ugh, running out of fuel is way too unforgiving. I literally ran out of fuel as it was landing, and instead of, ya know, gliding the remaining 50 feet, it just noses over and slams into the ground.
At which point I discovered the game doesn't save till after debrief[/QUOTE]Happened to me as well, fortunately I was only ~10 ft off the ground and it fell apart with no causalities.
Ok has anyone ever had an issue where the pilot, totally unselected, just leaves his station?
Just lost 7/8 Level 7+ crew members and my super expensive plane because he just fucking got up and walked away for a piss break in the middle of combat and it hit the ground in about 5s flat.
That's the kind of shit that makes you want to put a game down.
To commemorate this bumfuckery:
[t]https://i.imgur.com/mVQRlhg.jpg[/t][t]https://i.imgur.com/TLi6G7L.jpg[/t]
Also unrelated, what's up with the balance? The toughened survival vest gives you like 30/30/30 armor/land/sea while being lighter than and as equally armored as the Heavy Flak Vest Mk 1/2 (which have no survival skills.)
Ok, after a bit more, I'm hesitant to recommend this game.
This needed just a few more months on the backburner. There's a lot of little things that need fixing, a lot of weird balance decisions, and a lot of room for easy expansion (20mm turrets; actual engine variations; there not being clouds 95% of the fucking time; how clumsy the UI gets at times; difficulty setting) that could have turned this from a quirky little time killer into an actual FTL cult following. And it hurts to see how close it is to that mark. :v:
[QUOTE=Doom14;52813822]
Also unrelated, what's up with the balance? The toughened survival vest gives you like 30/30/30 armor/land/sea while being lighter than and as equally armored as the Heavy Flak Vest Mk 1/2 (which have no survival skills.)[/QUOTE]
This is my largest gripe with the game. There isn't really any reason to not just buy the best gear you can get, and there's a lot of gear that's just outright fucking worthless, there's no choice to be made with anything really. The amount of gear diversity is basically engineer gets light weight gear and everyone else just needs to be as armoured as possible since they really don't need to leave their posts, sans maybe the navigator for a quick emergency situation.
The plane loadouts aren't really too important other than the static line of upgrades, your limiting factor is the money required to buy them. What variation you'll experience with balancing engine types with weight vs armour isn't really there honestly. Drop 2 lightweight engines on the inside engines and you'll basically be able to throw max armour and all upgrades on everything, and still have enough weight left for some armoured outer engines. Lightweight nose and heavy armour the rest of the plane, no problems there because fighters never seem to shoot the nose at all. They'll blast your pilot or tail gunner a new one via the giant windows before they hit anything in the nose.
Also pilots cap gives survival bonuses but tbh it isn't going to save him from bullets so a flak helmet is probably better anyway. The hardened survival vest is basically the end of the vest tree, sans maybe giving your gunners heavy flak vest mk 2's but then again when a fighter blasts your gunners directly they take a lot of damage, sometimes enough to incap them regardless of armour so idk if it's that important to get the extra few armour at times.
I feel like the game is solid, even if it is really micromanage hell, but it lacks features. It needs more missions, more parts, more reasons to even think of different crew builds and plane builds, etc. More fuel capacity upgrades, something that isn't just a very boring, nearly static line of upgrades. Also the bomber class guy is fucking worthless as a class, wow guys look out he can take mid altitude photographs, big fucking whoop. I literally just throw mine onto the mid lower gun and let my engineer take his job because my engineer aims bombs literally just as well. Plus the engineer runs faster (due to their kit being lighter for obvious reason) so getting ammo for the nose turret is better suited to their job, and it keeps the engineer near their post for calling boost or lean when needed, or a fast engine fire.
90% of the problems with the game could be fixed with modding but the game has zero native mod support sadly.
[T]https://i.imgur.com/xFU2F1s.jpg[/T]
Throughout my playthrough I consistently get something that is either weird RNG numbers or devs are up to some BS because every time I go for new crew somehow among new recruit women with dark skin always have better stats compared to anyone even slightly whiter. :v:
What's up with that?
[QUOTE=capgun;52811350]Ugh, running out of fuel is way too unforgiving. I literally ran out of fuel as it was landing, and instead of, ya know, gliding the remaining 50 feet, it just noses over and slams into the ground.
At which point I discovered the game doesn't save till after debrief[/QUOTE]
It's really weird too because the Lancaster was literally designed to be able to glide. It could fly with only 2 engines and glide with none.
But it makes sense seeing as how the game doesn't actually do any aero modeling, as evidence of how pin point and jankey your plane can fly at times.
I've been playing this pretty religiously, find it really fun. I like the absence of a pause mechanic, honestly micromanaging what you need to isn't hard at all - except for how finnicky it can be to click/select exactly what you want (especially on the front equipment rack). Only when you're going in on a bombing run at the same time as having fighters to tag or a fire to put out is it truly detrimental. But I like that, it forces you to make a choice - Do I take the damage and get the bombing run done with, or do I deal with the fighters now and risk having to make another pass which puts me in danger for longer?
What I don't like is how there are few real choices in terms of progression, that it's pretty much linear once you've worked out how to optimise weight vs firepower, armour, subsystems etc.
Honestly, crew equipment doesn't matter too much as long as they all exceed 20 armour. Once you get the toughened survival vest (I'm sure its stats, the fact that it's as protected as a heavy flak with less drawbacks AND survival stats must be an oversight) you can focus more on speeding crew members up.
The ammo-feed tailgun is unnecessary. This might be seen as an exploit, but what the hell - you can have the gunner go pick up ammo, then pick up the item on the rear rack, put it back, rinse and repeat until you have a pile of boxes at the back of the plane. You DO need to order the gunner to re-man the gun once they've picked it up though. Even then, with mobility upgrades (My rear gunner loadout is flak helmet, plimsolls, toughened survival vest) and the plane's armour in the right places and especially once you get the MK3 .303s, sending the tailgunner to reload really isn't that bad. The additional weight and reduced maximum firepower (provided you've not yet unlocked everything) makes it simply not worth eliminating one aspect of micromanagement.
As for the ventral gun, I use a .50 there - it'll be your least-used turret, and its main purpose is dealing with the ME-110s that like to sneak underneath, so DPS is king here - though, the 303x4 Mk3 does do more DPS than the .50x2 Mk1, but it's triple the weight.
I tried this game out a few days ago and it actually upsets me, a great concept ruined by what is essentially a mobile game. I want my B-17 the mighty eight remake, now that's a great game.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
