| Tech 3 Air Units | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spy Plane |     | |||
| Air-Superiority Fighter |     | |||
| Strategic Bomber |     | |||
| Gunship |     | |||
| Other |   | |||
| Torpedo Bombers | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tech 2 Torpedo Bomber |     | |||
| Tech 3 Torpedo Bomber | | |||
 Aeon T3 Torpedo Bomber: Solace | |
 | |
| Build costs |  -27500 -1650 6600 |
|---|---|
| Max health |  3750 |
| Speed Fuel | 20 (Air) 20:00 |
Veterancy  |
 4 (+3/s) |
| Intel (radius) | Vision: 32 Sonar: 90 |
Weapon: Torpedo Cluster Anti Navy - Projectile |
|
| Damage per second | 308 |
| Projectile damage | 500 |
| Salvo size | 8 Projectiles (in 0.9 s) |
| Reload time | 13 seconds |
| Range (min–max) | 4 – 42 |
Weapon: Air Crash Death |
|
| Damage | 150 |
| Damage radius | 1 |
The Aeon T3 Torpedo Bomber, nicknamed the Solace, is an Aeon unit. It is a bomber.
From a purely economic viewpoint, the Solace is completely inferior to the Aeon T2 Skimmer. Although faster and with more fuel, HP and DPS (it's DPS is almost 6x that of a Skimmer), it costs far more mass, energy and time to construct; you could build approximately 6 or 7 Skimmers for the cost of a single Solace. Although the improved speed is effective in protecting it from interception by enemy ASFs, large numbers of Skimmers are almost always a safer bet than the Solace for dealing with enemy naval units. Additionally, due to the Solace's use of torpedoes rather than depth charges, it is likely that it's weapon is also vulnerable to anti-torpedo weapons, while the Skimmer can avoid this by mounting depth charges.
It can, however, be very useful for sniping enemy commanders hiding in the water, or when a torpedo bomber with more overall durability is needed.
In fact, due to its higher survivability, and the ability to couple it with an air staging facility means that in the long term, it can save you mass, be easier to manage and have a faster response time. Obviously, it depends upon what net result you're after, but occasionally in a long game, a single T3 torpedo bomber will often go further than six or even seven T2 torpedo bombers will, and not having them in large groups cuts down their susceptibility to flak (whether from ground defences, mobile flak or flak mounted on an Ithalua), which can be a life-saver, especially when dealing with said cruisers. Hordes of T2 torpedo bombers would likely be mown down, whereas a smaller number of casualties would be suffered from a single pass against one. Obviously, this is not an ideal situation, but is still somewhat better than the alternative. Useful tip: Since the torpedoes are launched early and travel so slowly, when dealing with an enemy such as a seraphim cruiser, tell it to attack, then AS SOON as the torpedoes are away tell the bomber to move away from the cruiser. This will require microing, but if done right, the Solace will destroy the Seraphim Cruiser and take little return damage.
Usage[]
Since its torpedoes are launched early, meaning that even should it die, it will likely hit its target, it is ideal for taking down naval units, if its survival is not paramount. Considering it launches eight torpedoes, each doing 500 damage, if none are intercepted by anti-torpedoes, it will do a total of 4000 damage per pass, actually higher than a Strategic bomber (although obviously, without the blast radius). This means it will generally take two to take down a Destroyer, occasionally with a bit of health left over, depending upon the faction and the effectiveness of any anti-torpedo defences around the target. It will take approximately six passes to kill an aircraft carrier, and approximately thirteen passes to kill a battleship. As it will kill a strategic missile submarine in a single pass, it makes these an ideal force for dealing with them. It is also a useful unit against submerged experimentals.
Like all air units, it is vulnerable to cruisers. A Solace has a similar cost to a single cruiser. Although it will take out the cruisers of any faction in a single pass, the Aeon Infinity Class's guided missiles will destroy it as wellAgainst a UEF Govenor, it will survive with around 550 HP, against a Cybran Siren, it will have 1266HP, and because a Seraphim Ithalua uses flak, and the Solace is a fast unit, the Solace will survive with 2326 HP - more than half its total. When 7 torpedo bombers are used for these attacks, on the other hand, the cruiser is again invariably destroyed, with 4 or 5 bombers remaining in the case of UEF, Cybran and Aeon cruisers, but with none remaining against an Seraphim cruiser using flak. So it is a superior unit against the Seraphim Ithalua than single torpedo bombers, but not against other cruisers.
The Solace is also extremely effective against most submerged experimentals (excluding the Atlantis). This is an extremely useful defense tactic on the map Betrayal Ocean in which experimental units take a long time to cross the map. As such, the Solace's will be able to get many passes on the experimental as long as it is not protected by cruisers.
Aeon Solace
A group of Solace torpedo bombers.