This game is what I would consider good use of magpies, yet in this case they are at best moderately effective. The first 2-3 built and probably quite effective at countering early raiders.

A major problem with their use is the infrastructure they require. They spend 20 second on the pad, which has a significant energy cost for early game and if you have more than 2 really requires an air repair pad.

I heard it said that these units were designed to kill lances, but I don't think these units can be used in that role. You require I think 3 to do it and by the time lances are out there's too much aa to use them effectively in that role. They aren't survivable enough.

From the early/mid game onwards I find that likhos seem just more effective. They are simply more survivable and also have more firepower.

It's probably not an ideal map for it, but I think a little rethink might be needed. Either more survivability (either through range or hp) or more damage.

I wonder how these would go if you 1.5x-2xed their range. Maybe I'm thinking a different standoff bomber unit that you can use when there is a lot of aa though.

Thanks, we need games highlighted out to try to tune things. I made a list of the Magpie-related things that happened in the game for convenience.

• By 1:00 - 2.5 Magpies
• 1:00 - Killed 2 Bandits
• By 2:00 - 4 Magpies, 750 metal in enemy AA.
• 2:10 - Killed 80% Hacksaw nanoframe
• 2:40 - Killed 1 Bandits
• By 3:00 - 4.2 Magpies, +1 Airpad, 970 metal in enemy AA (one Flail and one 80% Hacksaw dead, that I saw)
• By 4:00 - 6.5 Magpies, 1120 metal in enemy AA. Heavy E-stall.
• 4:15 - Killed 2 Daggers
• 4:45 - Killed 2 Mex
• 5:20 - Hit a commander for half health
• By 6:00 - 11 Magpies, 1140 in enemy AA, but different types so some has died to land. Estall defeated with a Fusion.
• 6:30 - Killed 1 Mex
• By 7:00 - 12 Magpies, +1 Airpad, 2050 in enemy AA. Includes a Chainsaw that I may have missed at 6:00.
• 8:20 - Killed maybe 200 metal in light shieldbots.
• By 9:00 - 12 Magpies and an Owl, 2600 in enenmy AA.
• 9:05 - Killed 1 Archer.
• By 11:00 - 13 Magpies, +1 Airpad, 3440 in enemy AA.
• 12:40 - 1 Magpie dies, and another in a minute or so.
• By 15:00 - 11 Magpies, 3600 in enemy AA (three chainsaws and some Anglers). 1600 in allied AA, but no enemy air.
• 16:40 - Magpies play a large part in killing 6 Halbers snuck in under a cloaker. Hard to say how much was saved. At best, a Lance and a commander standing next to 1700 metal of Snitch.
• The Magpie team wins around 18:00.

Many of the Magpies were set to Fire At Will, what this intentional or a bugged default? In any case, sometimes they would waste shots on healthy units or mexes when they went to do something.

Magpie seemed to do pretty. I'd agree with "moderately effective". Notably the first died around 12:40 and the other team spent about 20% more on AA throughout the game than was spent on Magpies and airpads. The Magpies killed some things, and the team got Owls out of the air plop.

Getting the most out of Magpie seems tough. Given the infra cost it may be that Magpie should have other bombers filtered in, which cost more metal and are cheaper to rearm. There was a bit of a lack of early targets, and by the time the enemy had a Lance it was under a mobile shield. Then the army on the right had about 6 Anglers following it, and the left front had two chainsaws. So it was tough. Maybe the answer was to put the metal for the latter six Magpies towards a Likho, or maybe the switch into Impaler was better anyway, which would be fine.

Overall, Magpie cost less than the response to it, and made some kills. It did less than Likho, but it started doing it much earlier, and the whole force cost only about 3k with airpads, whereas a serious Likho force would be at least 4k. I think there is a lot of room to discover where it works best, how to use it, and how to counter it. So I'd leave it as is for the moment, based on this game.

Also, I don't think range is the attribute for bombers that deal with there being a lot of AA. The counters to bombers include dedicated AA, and things with less range than AA. A bomber with range only needs to fear dedicated AA, so dedicated AA had better counter it, otherwise it has no counters. A goal for Magpie is to avoid much of the damage from flex AA (mostly riots and raiders), and to force dedicated AA to come a bit further forwards, at the cost of worse damage and reload than Raven. The general bomber for poking into regions of AA is still Likho, just based on raw health, with ideally some specialist uses for Odin.