Fighters vs. Flak - Imbalance?

from Sins Forums
I'll keep this brief as I'm going to hit the hay, as it were, but I've noticed that Flak frigates and their alien counterparts are extremely effective at eating up fighters.

This is especially interesting, since everything that can carry a wing of strikecraft (and can move) is a hell of a lot more expensive, fragile, or higher on the tech tree than AAA.

I generally have a fleet that carries a group of strikecraft - a Supercarrier supported by two or three cruiser-class carriers and a couple of flak frigates for their own well-being - they generally hang out on the edges and send in their own wings of whatever I need. I have most certainly noticed that if there is just one or two flak frigates, they simply stand no chance at all and will take EXTREMELY heavy losses. Even without being in fire, replacement of squadron damages is ponderously slow, and replacing damage to the entire WING is extremely time-consuming. I've really just taken to grounding all my squadrons until all anti-air defense has been cleared.

Sure, that parallels reality to a degree, but in reality, it also takes one laser-guided or anti-radiation munition to blow the top off an SA-25. You don't send F-15s into a battlefield plagued with AAA, but they have certainly been designed to detect and jam radar sites and anti-air weaponry as well.

I'm fine with flaks being effective against strikecraft, but I'm not fine with the fact that, at least on the TEC side of things, they can not only take a ridiculous amount of punishment and refuse to go down even under withering firepower, and even a wing's worth of bombers is unable to put a dent in them, but that they're a tech tier lower, significantly cheaper, and can so effectively lock down my strikecraft, removing them from play. A whole fighter group can be neutralized by a cheaper investment of flaks.

As it is, it's meticulously time-consuming to hunt down and slowly whittle away each flak frigate first before I can launch any strikecraft - even if I designate them to LRM launchers, they still wander into range of a flak and they're suddenly half-dead.

Thoughts?
113,337 views 69 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Flack frigates have light armour, hence fighters will do twice as much damage to them as bombers. Use them
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Dead fighters cost you nothing, dead flak costs you pretty penny!
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Flack frigates have light armour, hence fighters will do twice as much damage to them as bombers. Use them
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Where the hell was this explained? They have an armor rating of 4 (or 5?). Compared to every other frigate, I consider that pretty damned heavy.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Dead fighters cost you nothing, dead flak costs you pretty penny!
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In Homeworld, it also costs nothing to rebuild primary weapon systems that get blown off by bombers, but it doesn't mean your battleship is any less worthless once it loses them. And by the time you replace a squadron's worth of strikecraft, the battle's already over.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Flak frigates exist to shoot down fighters, it's not an "imbalance." Trying to fight flak with fighters is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Flak frigates exist to shoot down fighters, it's not an "imbalance." Trying to fight flak with fighters is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.
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What a worthless post. Name a single other unit in the game that directly neutralizes a defensive structure, a cruiser-class carrier and best of all a capital ship *AND* does so for cheaper, with a lighter research investment. Cobalt Frigates cannot use their 'sabotage reactor' ability on capital ships for a reason - they're supposed to be powerful, and a mere frigate shouldn't stand a snowball's chance at defending themselves. It takes only one or two flak frigates to inflict crippling damage to a Supercarrier. Did you even read my post? Don't tell me you did, lest I assume you're a liar on top of being an idiot. Try using that thing between your ears.

Guess what douchebag, the Dreadnoughts exist to destroy planets - I guess they should be able to blow up a planet in a single shot. Also, Heavy Battleships exist to blow up frigates - they should be immune to any damage caused by them and have an ability to destroy anything smaller than a cruiser in a 4 planet radius. What else would make sense to a dolt like you? Oh! How about bombers have an 'exhaust port' ability to blows up capital ships in one shot, since they're "meant" to chew up capital ships?

Oh and FYI: The manual lists flak frigates as having a 'heavy' armor type - may have changed since the manual was written, I suppose, but yeah, fighters wouldn't work on that.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

[Much angriness]
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Swearing doesn't help anyone. If you stay polite and rational, the devs are more likely to take your complaint seriously.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top


[Much angriness]


Swearing doesn't help anyone. If you stay polite and rational, the devs are more likely to take your complaint seriously.


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Making stupid, contentless posts rife with ignorance based solely on reading the topic title alone doesn't hurt a thread any less than someone calling them out on being a dolt does.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Actually, I agree with your points. Maybe flak frigates ARE a bit too efficient. But lashing out and calling everyone a douchebag isn't helping you sound credible.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Actually, I agree with your points. Maybe flak frigates ARE a bit too efficient. But lashing out and calling everyone a douchebag isn't helping you sound credible.
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So far 'everyone' is just one person - I save my e-wrath for those that deserve it ;)

I understand your point, but I'm not going to change - I've been trolling morons for a decade. Maybe I should stop taking stupidity as an insult, but then I'd be bored.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
You could have proven him wrong without the name-calling... :p
But anyway, this thread has been derailed enough already. Let's get back on topic.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Flak frigates are awful for anything else but against fighter/bomber wings. Whats the point of having them in the game if they can't even do that job well enough? And as much as a pain it is to have to look for which frigates are flak ones, it's just something that has to be dealed with.

Thing is though, this game is not about fighter/bombers vs. fighter/bombers with frigates as support units but rather a frigate vs. frigate with capital ships as support units. Maybe by changing the unit costs for non-fighter/bombers and increasing the hangar space would make this game more like traditional space operas, but the way it is as vanilla isn't for that.

But really, just increase the costs of a flak frigate, decrease the firing times on a flak frigate, or even mod it so that capital ships are armed with at least one or two flak guns and simply remove the unit from the game. Thats the only work around I see.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

You could have proven him wrong without the name-calling... But anyway, this thread has been derailed enough already. Let's get back on topic.
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Shame, isn' it? Not surprising though......
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

Flack frigates have light armour, hence fighters will do twice as much damage to them as bombers. Use them
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I believe Flak Frigates use Medium armor which neither Fighters nor Bombers can cut through easily. Fighters are Anti-Light and Bombers are Anti-VeryHeavy.

Flaks and normal Frigates(i.e, like Cobalt) use Medium armor.

LRM Frigates, Siege Frigates and Scouts use Light or Very Light armor.

Cruisers and Heavy Cruisers use Heavy or Very Heavy armor.

Capital ships use 'Capital armor'.

There was a thread about armor types the day before launch day I think, but it immediately got buried in a swarm of newer threads.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
They are effecient at what they do, but that's there specific role, i don't know if you've ever had them firing at any other type of ship, for example a cruiser, they're pretty pointless even firing a shot.

So thats investing money into a ship to defend against something, thats the idea of combined arms fleets, i've seen them rip up a squadron of mine in no time, second my strikecraft is gone, they're now suddenly useless and when i do target them with my cap ships they go down in seconds.

And it doesn't render the cap-ship carrier useless. The TEC carrier has the ability to drop missle batteries among other things. And the cap ship is also armed, therefore still useful in a fight, it's not a kol battleship but it is still more than capable of helping take down a few ships. And i'm sure the other cap-ship carriers have ability's that are useful too. Cruiser class carriers i find a bit redundant alot of the time anyway, fielding only 1 squadron for a carrier specific cruiser, a few high level carriers can easily outfield a fleet of cruiser-class carriers meaning those points are better invested else where.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
this thread wonders me as i was thinking the exact opposite, maybe i do not use the flak frigates very well..i have to do some research at home
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Name a single other unit in the game that directly neutralizes a defensive structure, a cruiser-class carrier and best of all a capital ship *AND* does so for cheaper, with a lighter research investment. Cobalt Frigates cannot use their 'sabotage reactor' ability on capital ships for a reason - they're supposed to be powerful, and a mere frigate shouldn't stand a snowball's chance at defending themselves. It takes only one or two flak frigates to inflict crippling damage to a Supercarrier.
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Well, Flaksters can ONLY neutralize the 3 things you mentioned - nothing else. Even if Flak armament can technically hurt LRM frigates and scouts, Flaksters don't have the range or the speed to do any harm to those vessels. And against anything else, Flak guns won't even inflict a scratch even if they are within range.

This isn't the Pacific War your fighting that carriers are almighty, and flak is so inaccurate that getting hit is just a pilot's tough luck. But if there was a game mode where flaks and flak abilities were nerfed or cut out of the picture, you'll have stuff like Pearl Harbor and Battle of the Philippines all over again. Sins does a good job of simulating just about everything else, but flak got purposely blown out of proportion so that carriers do not get the value they had in WW2 and in present-day reality.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
the info in this thread about damage and armour types is incorrect (most likely extremely out of date), based on the files the flak frigates have heavy armour, fighters do anti-light damage and going by the modifiers which you can see nicely in this spreadsheet.

WWW Link

you can clearly see that fighters do 25% of their damage to antifighter(listed as heavy in their files) frigates.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
i cant believe it. you are complaining that a unit which is purely designed to counter fighter/bombers is able to blow up fighter/bombers?! thats the role of a flak frigate. i also reported your post, thats realy inmature to call someone a idiot or douchebag just because he made a valid point!

there are NO other units that can attack fighters/bombers at all. if the enemy has some flak frigates, than blow them up first, by using your attack frigates/cruisers or whatever and than send in the carriers and wreck havock. its your fault if you see some flak frigates in the enemy fleet and you try to kill them with fighter/bombers.

as Silverthief stated, its like fighting fire with gasoline, good luck with that! :)
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Flak Frigates use Heavy armor. They are countered by Light Frigates - Cobalts, Disciples, Ravastras. Fortunately, fighters can outrun flaks. You can try keeping your fighters docked while your light ships rush in and whittle down the flaks a bit, but really - Flaks arn't that effective.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
oops the above link will not work unless your logged in, so for public access try

WWW Link
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Also, carriers rebuild fighters at a pretty good clip as long as they are not in combat.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

Flak Frigates use Heavy armor. They are countered by Light Frigates - Cobalts, Disciples, Ravastras. Fortunately, fighters can outrun flaks. You can try keeping your fighters docked while your light ships rush in and whittle down the flaks a bit, but really - Flaks arn't that effective.
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Oh nos!! He's gonna get ya!! Watch out for the troll smasher!!!!
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

Name a single other unit in the game that directly neutralizes a defensive structure, a cruiser-class carrier and best of all a capital ship *AND* does so for cheaper, with a lighter research investment. Cobalt Frigates cannot use their 'sabotage reactor' ability on capital ships for a reason - they're supposed to be powerful, and a mere frigate shouldn't stand a snowball's chance at defending themselves. It takes only one or two flak frigates to inflict crippling damage to a Supercarrier.


Well, Flaksters can ONLY neutralize the 3 things you mentioned - nothing else.
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Agreed. Yes, it's very good against a defensive structure, a cruiser and a capital ship. But it's worthless against turrets, against the other four cruisers and the other four capital ships. And against normal frigates. So basically the flak frigates are worthless except against only the three things you mentioned. :P

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
For the guy with the gasoline post, you do know that's possible right?
By adding that gasoline you get a "twinge flame" (only translation I could find) which burns up all the oxygen resulting in the fire going out.
Won't always work but it's a way of fighting certain fires.