flaks are in their current state because they were WAY too powerful in past build of Sins. they so completely dominated squadrons that there was no point to using carriers. the current state of balance is a big improvement in my opinion. 

i think the current balance is very good. you can't lean on Flaks for all your fighter defense needs. having your own fighter squads or a cap ship with anti-squadron abilities is much more helpful, and thats a good thing in my opinion. 

flaks still help of course, which is good. they just get overwhelmed in the late-game, which is also good. flaks are cheap to build, low tech tier ships. it was kinda weird that they were hard countering (1 of the 2)  primary late-game units so easily.

Even so, flaks still can have their damage output increased through autocannon/laser/phase missile research.

i ocasionaly build 3-4 flaks, building more is useless, but early on, flak is good against advent fighters, since they are made out of paper and die to first hits...

if im remembering correctly Junsurak Sentinels used to be able to use Charged Missiles. it must have been changed a while ago though, or i'm just not remembering it correctly. i thought that was some kinda neat flavor for the Vasari flak unit. 

here is what i have to say flak needs to be buffed abit and carriers need to be nerfed a bit current balence is not working carriers kill everything in sight and with carful micro can not be destroyed

A small cost to each fighter squadron might be more welcome.  MAybe them people wouldn't send them off to die like lemmings if each squad actually ate up some metal and crystal.

You forget, while you are travelling arcoss the grav well you are constantly taking dmg and any strike craft he loses are instantly replacable. 

and oh ya, the carrier jump out the instant you get in range for some dmg. Wow he just played you for a fool there... nice.  

but you managed to chase him out of your grav-well. 

its possible to succesfully DEFEND against carriers using a mix of flaks and lights. neither of those ships is viable in an invasion fleet though. you really have to just bring a larger number of your own carriers, or rapid tech up to heavies. 

Flaks already gained a bit of a boost in 2.5, in that they're now one of the best mine-clearing ships in the game; you're more likely to have a few on hand for that.  But I agree that boosting them would be a great way to help with the carrier spam.  However, I don't think increasing their offense outright is viable, because then we go right back to the situation we had before, where they're great frigate-killers.  So here are a few suggestions:

1> Give them another two points of armor, even if it means upping their costs slightly.  This wouldn't help them be any better against heavy vessels, and their firepower would be too weak to kill light frigates quickly, but they'd be practically immune to fighter damage while they did their designed job.

2> Take advantage of the new "bank" rules for weapons.  Instead of four guns that do X damage, have four 2-target banks that do X/2 per target (or a little more, to compensate for armor).  They'd actually be weaker against other ships in skirmishes, they'd do about the same against other ships in big fleet actions (where there'd always be multiple targets in each arc), but they'd be far more dangerous to strike craft, especially Advent ones.

3> Tweak the damage type modifiers.  Flak vessels are Heavy armor and Anti V Light damage.  Their armor type is fine; it's great against Fighters (25%) and good against Bombers (50%), and is the same armor type the carrier cruisers have.  But on offense?  Anti V Light does 105% to Fighters and 85% to Bombers.  Colony Ships, Scouts, and Fighters are far better against Bombers than that (150%), although to be fair, nothing else is even above 15%.  Jack these up to the 125%/100% range and you'd see a big improvement in strikecraft suppression, without any change in the flaks' ability to fight other ships.

This is the problem with adding flak to, say, the heavy cruisers (or starbases): it'd require the vessel to be put into two damage categories, and I'm not sure if that's possible.  But you could add an anti-strikecraft activated ability to some vessels, in the same way the hangars gained a new ability.

The main problem is that SC are replaced faster than they can be killed in most situations.

My soultion:

Carriers shouldn't be able to spawn SC during a battle.

Sounds realistic to boot.

As an illustration, this is the story of the first time I encountered carriers.  I jumped into a grav well with a bunch of assailants.  The guy had a small number of carriers.  I said "Hah, those carriers are dead meat!  Sure, he might get a few of my assailants, but once I close the gap it's gonna be a slaughter!"  So as I charged him he grabbed all his carriers and just ran around the grav well, continuously.  Like an idiot, I of course gave chase.  After a few minutes I realized that I had never caught up to his carriers to kill any of them, meanwhile most of my assailants were dead!  I scratched my head and asked myself "what's the problem?"  Answer - carriers are faster than assailants!

This debacle stimulated two responses from me.  1) I now had a new tactic to use with carriers myself (if someone comes at mine with lrms, just run around the grav well).  2) I worked on trying something else besides dumbly chasing carriers without giving any thought to the matter.  The next time this happened to me, I DIVIDED MY FORCES.  The first group chased his carriers, just like he wanted.  The second group cut across the grav well to meet him where his carriers were headed.  He lost a few carriers, realized I had out-smarted him this time, then he smartly jumped out of the system.

The point I'm making is, I could have simply said "nerf carriers and their associated tactics!"  Instead I turned it into a learning opportunity (stole his carrier tactic for my own use), plus an opportunity to create MY OWN counter tactic, which actually worked!  I don't really see the point of a strategy game if this sort of dynamic is removed.

So after reading this topic and many others...There are 2 schools of thought here.

A- Buff Flak

B- Nerf Carriers

Both have some great ideas and vaild points. I think we can all agree that the ability of the carrier field SC and keep those squard up and running without strong a strong counter. Maybe the best way to handle this is to not only buff flax and nerf carrier but do both.

If we give Flax a increased damage vs Fighters to 120% and Bombers to 90%. That would allow better responce from Flax to handle both bomber and fighters. Giving them the ability to make dents in squads without being over powered against anything else. Now with this increase we changed how carriers field their SC. While the SC are in combat their squads can not be replace. To replace your SC lost during combat would required the Carriers to recall their squads if any are left to dock and remained docked till squads are at full strength and/or till they are launched.

If both these are implimented the it allows for players to still use both Flax and Carrier without destroying any tactics all ready in play. It also curves the current Carrier spam by allowing a player, who uses flax and such correctly, a break from the SC tide. Requiring and allowing both sides to regroup and plan their next move.

These 2 simple things are all that is needed.

I beg to differ.

The correct plural is "ARE no tactics," not "IS no tactics."  At any rate, I don't necessarily agree with you, but perhaps you shouldn't be trying to catch them anyway - at least not in the way that you are trying to do it.  Perhaps that's one of your (many) problems.

Again, perhaps you shouldn't be "playing their game" and moronically chasing them through system after system with slower ships.  Funny, in the story I told above, I learned after my first encounter with these tactics, and corrected my behavior, and changed my tactics.  You never did.  What does that say about you?

I've seen this from you in several other threads.  You claim that everyone agrees with you, and whoever disagrees is the guy that can't see the problem.  You usually follow this up with an attack of being a "carrier spam buddy" or whatever term you use.  Let's just say that I really don't care how many people agree with me or don't (it's irrelevant), but having said that I think most of the agreement you think you have is in your mind.

Funny, I never depicted you as an unsophisticated player (although you may be).  Neither did I defend any sort of spam (but neither did I attack it).  What I said was that what you are really doing is arguing for removal of tactics from the game.  Every time you scream about a carrier sitting at the edge of the well that you can't catch, and every time you say that carrier range should be nerfed, you are arguing for removal of tactics from the game.

If you didn't speak of carriers at the edge of a well, or carriers running away, then I wouldn't accuse you of wanting to remove tactics from the game.  If you simply left it as a discussion on what the attack and defense values should be on flak frigs, strikecraft, etc. then that would be fine.  Then we'd all be arguing over the correct numbers for attack, armor, etc.  But instead, you always choose to bitch about a tactic.  That's your problem.  It's a common sense, no-brainer tactic actually.  I mean, why on earth would anyone want to sit there like a dumb rock with a ship designed to combat other ships at range, and duke it out with a slower more powerful ship when he could keep his distance and keep dealing damage?  That's just a no brainer.  And yes, IT IS A TACTIC.

I have no fear of a guy who confuses singulars and plurals, and who doesn't know what a tactic is.  I'll play you in chess anytime, anywhere.