Welcome Commanders! In this new edition to the
Tip of the Week series,
c9q9md delves into the splash damage of the Vindicator! A lot of players are either unaware of the nature of the Vindicator's splash damage, or simply don't seem to use it - so this tip will surely be helpful for all Allied players regardless of their skill level.
Tip of the Week #52: Vindicator Splash Damage
To be more precise, this guide is about the bombs that a Vindicator drops. The bombs, as many may already know, have a small radius of splash damage & as a consequence of this can deal 100% damage even if slightly off target. It should be noted at this point that the damage output of the splash considerably decreases as you move further to the outer 'area of effect'.
Using Force-fire [ctrl + right click, the default hotkey(s)] is a must and is the
only way of doing this. The key is to aim the impact of the bombs using force-fire BETWEEN the structures where you don’t see the health bars of the structures. Also, try to aim as close as to the target as possible without aiming on an individual structure and/or unit.
Splashing against Structures
This technique can be used in a vast amount of situations, but recognising when such an opportunity arises is important. In these next few examples (note: the images are clickable!) we'll take a look at a given 'target' and where the Vindicators' attack should be directed to.
Power Plants take
3 upgraded (via the
Advanced Aeronautics protocol) Vindicators to take down in one bombing run, and when grouped together they can be taken down as such. - it even being possible to take down
three-in-one if they're close enough.
Next, let's take a look at a
Vs
match-up....
It's not unusual
to see Empire players place their Mecha Bay next to a Refinery, or a VX-Turret next to either their Mecha Bay/Refinery, for defensive purposes. When the situation arises it's possible to damage both the Mecha Bay and Refinery quite considerably, or one of the two structures while taking down the VX-Turret. Another variation would be to attack the Ore Collector whilst it docks at the Refinery to deal damage to both.
If one structure is tougher than the other and will survive the run, that doesn’t mean it's useless to attack. Lets imagine a
Vs
match-up: say there is a Power Plant and a Refinery placed next to each other and you have 4 Vindicators. You do this and kill the Power Plant and damage the Refinery half of its full health. “Useless!” you think as soon after your bombing run there are Bullfrogs and Flak Troopers ready to defend against the next wave of attack from the Vindicators.
But wait!
Was it useless? Repairing structures in RA3 costs a lot of credits (roughly half the price of the structure/base defence). In the scenario above, If they opt to repair the Refinery they'll have to pay approximately 500 credits just to get it to full health again, which means that the bombing run also set them back 500 credits in the long run in addition to having killed a 800 credit Power Plant!
Splashing against Units
This technique can also
be used against units, though it's arguably more difficult to pull off and carries a lot of risk due to the mobility of units and the nature of force-firing what is essentially the water or ground next to the target(s).
That said however, in situations where you'd be picking off a tank it could pay off to off-set the target a little as it's possible to take out 3 tanks in one bombing-run!
