Hawkeye Paladin Bomb

The Paladin Bomb - things are getting serious now. A high explosive bomb to be used in air to ground combat. Just make sure you don't use this the wrong way up or you might accidentally have it go off on your own Tech.

The **Hawkeye Paladin Bomb** is a grade 3 weapon block manufactured by Hawkeye. Like all Hawkeye blocks, it can be crafted with a Hawkeye Fabricator.

It has 3 attachment point(s) and takes up 3 cell(s).

## Usage

The Hawkeye Paladin Bomb is a deadly weapon. In fact, as a ranged weapon the damage level is around 1.5x higher than the Hawkeye Cruise Missile, but still lower than the Mk3 Battleship Cannon. Due to being heavily affected by gravity, it must be used on aerial techs - preferably faster-moving ones - against ground targets, therefore maximizing the advantages of the bomb by retreating to mid-air, where most weapons are unlikely to reach the player, including missiles. The bombs do chase their targets, but they are somewhat inaccurate without manual targeting, which effectively limits the height that they can be dropped for maximal effectiveness. Therefore, level bombing at high altitude requires fairly accurate guesstimates as for when to drop. Dive-bombing can eliminate the need for manual targeting and accelerates the bomb, though the bomb may strike a block placed immediately in front of or behind the bomb bay and fail to arm. Toss-bombing can be used to avoid overflying a missile-armed tech at low altitude, but this unconventional technique is situational and difficult to execute. Due to the long projectile lifetime, enemies can be engaged beyond the render distance, more easily than any other weapon. For this reason, a radar is helpful for aiming these beyond-visual-range drops. A sustained assault can be achieved by using an anti-gravity/hoverbug tech that keeps enough altitude for both security and accuracy.

The only concern is Paladin Bomb's low health, which can be remedied with large shields and repair bubbles with a high heal rate, like the Venture one, and of course, batteries, or even the use of techs that avoid attacks outright. Overall, while they can't attack anything that moves too fast, is flying, or both, there is no stopping to them otherwise. Remember that the most practical placement is to have the bomb hatch facing downwards, in order to ensure that it will function properly. It can function normally if placed sideways, though it is less reliable than if placed facing downwards. It would be even better to have the red end facing forwards, though it's not necessary as the bomb can move horizontally in any direction without too much trouble.

## Trivia

* The Hawkeye Paladin Block was formerly an experimental weapon block, better known as the EXP Big Man Bomb.
* Despite the description, it does not damage the tech that it is attached to, nor any allied techs, unless it's destroyed.
* If they are dropped too close to the ground or any block/tech, they will roll around and explode shortly after, mimicking the behavior of the Hawkeye Cruise Missile as they're both homing projectiles.
* The bombs leave a white tracer when dropped.
* The bomb regrows inside the bomb bay shortly after it is dropped. This creates a situation where an armed bomb cannot be dropped immediately.
* The bomb itself appears to be based off the GBU-10 Paveway II, a laser-guided weapon, which explains why the Paladin Bomb is able to home onto enemies. However, unlike real laser-guided bombs, it doesn't have proper gliding trajectories and simply moves around in any direction freely.