How to use bombers without micro

[Aurion]

You need ground units versus ground units unless you get gunships (but you still need a significant ground force excluding some navy maps I guess). Patrolling bombers to defend stuff is really inefficient at least.

Auroras are not cost effective when defending against raiding early on, to defend against 2 mantis, without radar coverage and micro, you need 5 auroras or so. That's why I want an early defensive bomber, just to get those annoying raiders that are difficult to chase or got close to my auroras.

I just thought I could easily call upon them to help with big frontal assaults, but apparently that just doesn't work.

If they are in the right spot they are. Sure, it's hard to get map control fast with aurora vs mantis (while slightly later you have a big advantage because of range), but using bombers to defend is even less cost-effective (and probably doesn't even work, making raids successful). It's better to plan accordingly, ie. defend expanding engies with escorts.

[Valki]

It's better to plan accordingly, ie. defend expanding engies with escorts.

Escorts of what, Obsidians?

Seriously, to defend an engineer without micro from 1 mantis you'd need 2 Auroras and a scout. It is very nice to notice an incoming Mantis and micro, but mantis move fast, the map is big, and radar coverage of a scout is low - and you would probably still lose the engineer before destroying the mantis.

[keyser]

the radar coverage of aeon scout is the biggest.
feel like you can spend the apm to back the engie and kite the mantis in early game. At least i can do it, and i don't have high apm. Maybe you should use your apm for more important task (defending expension engie is an important task)

[Valki]

the radar coverage of aeon scout is the biggest.
feel like you can spend the apm to back the engie and kite the mantis in early game. At least i can do it, and i don't have high apm. Maybe you should use your apm for more important task (defending expension engie is an important task)

Maybe it is, I'll spend some more APM on defense for a while and see what it does.

[Vee]

Auroras are excellent tanks, far better than mantis. What actually happens in a real game is that a mantis comes, he does not know where your engi is, and meanwhile an aurora is shooting him. If your enemy can pay attention to his mantis to target your engi, then you can also pay attention with your aurora and engi to run away. Of course you need a scout with your aurora, otherwise it can't even use its full range. Luckily aeon scout is OP: biggest radar range, fastest movement speed, hover, etc. Even if you react late you can still use ridiculous aurora dodging and win vs mantis even in a close range fight.

About bombers: you may think that your bombers are ineffective because they are not killing any units, but that's not true. They may not kill any individual unit but against groups they damage several units at once. A bomber is 80 mass. A tank is 50+ mass. If a single bomb hits 4 units it's already worth it. Aeon bombers in particular are extremely good because they stun units, even t2 units. Stunning some t2 tanks or a t2 destroyer can easily turn a fight in your favor. Remember that a destro is 2250 mass, a 80 mass unit that can stun it is very good.

Switch from aeon to cybran, then you'll see.

[Valki]

Make no mistake, I play Aeon mostly for the Auroras. Especially when used offensively they can wreck havoc, even against superior numbers (which is great, because I suck at early game eco).

However, when I have 20 auroras defending something (say, my base), and 20 mantis run in then I can't do anything to prevent them from running into my base, and killing radar, engineers, newly produced units and maybe some pgens or mexes. Sure, the mantis will die, but so will a lot of my base.

I am just looking for something to deal with that. Bombers still seem like the best option for defending outlying mexes, ACU and PD only defense for main base.

[theeggroll]

You cant really lay down a specific set of ways to do each thing, everything in sup com is situational, and there will be different circumstances behind most expansion mexes that you want to hold on to. Keep in mind that t1 mexes are insanely cheap and pay for themselves very quickly, so losing them isnt always the worst thing that can happen

[ax0lotl]

T1 bombers are very useful for killing radar.