Dude, you're attacking flaks with a single type of ship, the very type they're designed to counter. What do you expect to happen? Bring some direct fire ships along, take out the flaks then launch your strike craft.

well on a personal note i say STOP BEING SO FUCKING STUPID.

sry for that but really flaks are designed to counter fighters and bombers its their role they cant harm any other ship well at all and get taken out pretty easily once you get 50+ ship battles soo i mean yeah their not unbalanced their low on tech tree cause i mean how hard is it to make a ship lower the range of your lasers *by lowering emiter size* or cannons *shorter barrel* or plasma *smaller generator shorter barrel* and loaded them up onto a ship designed to carry them to counter? answer pretty simple now please put this topic to rest the games designed for balance and realism and if you were in a tiny tiny piece of metal in space and this massive frigate was stairing down at you with ashitload of cannons you would know your gonna die.

So in a fleet of two capital ships, 30-40 assault frigates, a handful of cruisers, and 25-30 LRM launchers, it's completely balanced that I can completely stomp the Advent Drone Carrier spam - a race that is HEAVILY FOCUSED ON FIGHTERS - with just four or five flak frigates? That it should be expected that their entire force should slowly crawl around and chase away at a handful of units in order to use something?

Flak frigates being effective against strikecraft is fine, as I said - however it's the fact that they're TOO effective. It should be a 1:1 squadron - flak craft ratio of balance. As of now it's about 1:10. If cruisers are going to carry just one squadron, it should almost be 2:1, as light carriers are worth a hell of a lot more than a flak frigate.

Just to refresh your memories, this is a GAME, and it's about BALANCE. Last I checked, a Tier 2 cheap little frigate completely neutralizing three or four Tier 3 CRUISERS is NOT balanced.

The balance is completely broken in the opposite direction too. I've almost never seen a million strikecraft boil towards my fleet and think "I'm screwed". If that's the case, you just hit their carriers with your LRMs. Either you blow them up as they're incredibly fragile, or you make them run, which removes the fighters anyway.

So we have a flak frigate, early game cheap unit which is able to completely neutralize a truckload more midgameish cruisers which aren't exactly superweapons to begin with.

I'll admit that I'm still new to Sins (have played only one game as Advent); but it seems to me like your hypothetical Advent Drone Carrier fleet could really benefit from a half-dozen Domina Subjugators to remove the "four or five Flak Frigates" from play long ehough to take them out. Advent players, is this feasible?

Advent is heavily focused on fighters? Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only difference I can find between advent and everybody else fighter wise is that they have a single tech, and it raises the amount of fighters stored in a defensive building.

That's why you bring something other than fighter and bomber squadrons regardless of race. The OP is greatly exaggerating the strength of a flak frigate while simultaneously ignoring all the other benefits of a super carrier, not to mention the super carrier's own weaponry.

Well, how about this for your apples, other than other fighters, nothing -but- flak frigates can -actually- counter fighters.

That said fighter craft are incredibly useful even with Flak frigates roaming around p@wning them like no one's business. If flak frigates were that overpowered then fighters wouldn't nearly be as universally awesome as they are.

how many drones? what support was there for the drones? how did you micro them?

as a person who has used mass bombers in many games, I have beating forces with more flaks than drones, so I think your just trolling.




heres the difference between bombers of each race.


when I said more bombers in the above picture for advent, I was refering to only squadrons coming out of the carrier/hanger.


general things that apply to mass bombers (not just bombers deployed from a cap):

vasari:
1) within cultural influence vasari bombers can do 7+ damage each, which means that per squadron they do around the same damage as advent bombers.
2) vasari bombers fully teched have 30% chance to bypass the shields, they can kill caps extremely fast.
3) within range of the cap carrier they can be healed and at the same time blink around avoiding damage or even getting faster to their targets.

advent:
1) notice how drone hosts have no shields and the bombers don't, which is a a really bad thing for a race based mainly on shields.
2) with the aura from the cap dreadnought they can do a lot more damage (~27 per squadron).

many people think advent is all about bombers since the advent can get it much earlier so many more players used it and thus a misconception begun.

Hey guys, the flack frigate doesnt kill the carriers themselves, they have bad attack against anything but fighters. All it does is kill the FREE fighters that auto respawn anyway. This thread is just slightly stupid...

Ok these ratios are insane. I play as Vasari mostly and I find it incredibly easy to gather some 40ish squadrons of strikecraft for my main fleet. If you wanted the ratio to be 1:1 that would be a huge waste of resources and fleet points to build 40 frigates that can only take out one type of unit. The other reason is because flaks are the only unit that can take out strikecraft, but any type of ship can take out a flak (some are more suited than others but they still have that ability nonetheless). So in this case strikecraft would be way too overpowered, especially considering you can repair and rebuild strikecraft on the fly in the battlefield.

I'm not sure what effect armor would play in fighter battles, so I disregarded that, but the vasari and tec would have about the same power with Advent being more powerful (assuming they're being shot at) (15 : 15 : 22).

However, the Advent would be extremely vulnerable to the TEC Capital Flak ability that does 60 damage in a huge aoe, it would just about kill every advent bomber in the area. if you had two of those capital ships at level 3, which is easy, they could both do a 45 at the same time and instantly kill every advent bomber in the area. I think you have bigger threats than flak frigates.

nice idea durikk and yes I could see that crippling mass mass bombers of advent and tec (both under 120 hp) and to some extent vasari (just need to wait till next one).

250 bombers swooping towards the 4 caps, bam they kill one cap and second later 2 remaining caps use the ability and 250 bombers go poof .

Repeat after me... "It's only a game... it's only a game".

Well, in the beta flak frigets were extremely inefficient so IC decided to make them more powerful. In my opinion I see no problem with that.

Fleets should be ballanced, therefore you should always have ships that will counteract each other.

You can come in here and say my fleet of carriers doesn't work against his fleet of actuall frigets and expect us all to yell "IMBA!!!" with you.

Can Uranium-235 make a single thread without being a complete bastard?













No.

So here's the interpreted stats for cruiser carriers:
___________________________________________
Vasari Lasurak Transporter - 3 bombers

Total build time = 90 seconds
Total attack = 18 Phase Missile
Total hp = 420
Total armor = 15
Special Abilities:
- 10%, 20%, or 30% chance to pierce shields and hit target hull directly. The probability of piercing shields increases with better technology.
- Chance to penetrate shields increases by 25% with support from a Subverter cruiser.
- 7.6 Phase Missile attack per bomber when operating in same cultural influence.
___________________________________________
Advent Aeria Drone Host - 7 bombers

Total build time = 126 seconds
Total attack = 21 Beam
Total hp = 525
Total armor = 7
Special Abilities:
-Damage boosted to 4 per bomber with Rapture Battlecruiser's Concentration Aura.
___________________________________________
TEC Percheron Light Carrier - 5 bombers

Total build time = ?
Total attack = 15 Missile
Total hp = 500
Total armor = 10
Special Abilities: nothing
___________________________________________

You haven't mentioned the build times for the bomber wings, just the carriers.

The TEC seems to really have been beaten at this carrier-cruiser game. They have the weakest, most basic equipment with the Percheron. The Advent are, of course, the strongest with their drone bombers, but the Vasari aren't far behind either with their silver-bullet bombers. Since weapon techs give % bonuses, the Vasari would close in on the Advent to an extent with higher tech levels because they deal twice the base damage per bomber. Whatever numerical gap is left with max weapons tech would just be filled in with the Phase-attack advantage.

As for capital carriers, the Advent supercarrier can hold an extra squadron for a total of 5 squads. That leaves them with a significant numerical advantage, but rebuilding a wing would take longer if flak shoots 'em up.

The Vasari supercarrier has 2 special abilities. One of them gives their strikecraft the ability to teleport in order to save time and dodge attacks, and fully repair themselves in case they get damaged. The abilities would give them an edge against flak frigates, and they can rebuild faster than the Advent squadrons can.

The TEC supercarrier also has a powerful ability - at Level 6, it can instantly rebuild strikecraft if they get killed. But apart from that, it's bombers are still plain weak.

So that's how the cookie crumbles!

That's the end of that chapter!

You know what I wonder? If the Iconus Guardian's bubble shield protects fighters/bombers from flak.

Let's try to keep the "f"-bombs in check gang. Thanks.

You're forgetting Heavy Fighters, which makes Sova fighters tough and makes em deal more damage.

More precise damage stats:

TEC


44.4 dmg / 13.5s
3.29 x 5 -> 16.4 dps
25s build time

Vasari

76.9 dmg / 13.5s
5.7 x 3 -> 17.1 dps

Advent

34.4 dmg / 13.5s
2.55 x 7 -> 17.8 dps


However, all researches were not created equal. The TEC missile upgrades are easier to get and far cheaper than Advent beam upgrades or Vasari NME warheads. Vasari NME warheads also don't provide as big of a total buff. In any given game, TEC bombers are likely to be upgraded further than Vasari or Advent bombers. Furthermore, Advent squadrons are the most vulnerable to Flak Burst and Telekinetic Push.


while we're at it...

TEC Fighters

60 x 6 -> 360 hp
19.5 / 12s
1.625 x 6 -> 9.75 dps
20 x 6 -> 120s buildtime

Vasari Fighters

85 x 4 -> 340 hp
30.75 / 12s
2.5625 x 4 -> 10.25 dps
24 x 4 -> 96s buildtime

Advent Fighters

40 x 9 -> 360 hp
16 / 12s
1.33 x 9 -> 12 dps
16 x 9 -> 126s buildtime

Finally, bear in mind that noone actually knows how armor works.

Regardless of the manual- Fighters do extra damage to flak frigates.

Do keep in mind that if you take 30 Light Carriers, build all bombers you can jump into the system and 'alpha strike' a target, destroying a Cap Ship or some such, regardless of flak protection... then jump out.

You lost some bombers which are replaced for free... they lost a capital ship. This was very common in Beta, and it is perhaps why the Flak Frigate has become ruthlessly efficient. I for one never used it in beta, and I only do so now sparingly.

Having your own fighters seems more effective to me. Or is at least cheaper

I don't really get this complaint, as flak frigates are designed to destroy fighters/bombers. Doesn't it make sense that they would slaughter them?

Why the damage-per-second ratings if all of the fighters/bombers take the same time(12.0s and 13.5s)? Only abilities like Microphasing Aura and speed-boosters would decrease this time, but that wouldn't be a general rating.

So at max strength with a single cap-carrier, Advent fighters would be operating in 5 squads with support from a Rapture's Concentration Aura. Vasari fighters would be operating in 4 squads with Hull Repairs, Microphasing Aura, & Antorak speed boosts(which would make them extremely quick). TEC fighters would be operating in 4 squads with instant replacements and Heavy Fighters.

The Vasari would use their speed, teleport around and repair themselves to avoid losses while the TEC would take steady attrition and just pop out more fighters. The Advent would be stronger initially, but once they begin taking losses, they're actually worse off than either of the others! Flak would also severely ruin the day for their bombers since they can't repair and dodge shots like the Vasari or output a constant stream of firepower like the TEC. The 'carrier-centric' Advent would actually come out as the most vulnerable when everyone actually deploys counters.

BTW, what the heck is an 'NME warhead'?

I wouldnt mind seeing flaks being less effective, if other ships had flak of their own. I wish capital shipshad AA guns also, and Flaks had some heavier weapons, so they would be more like AA destroyers. Of course, I like the WW2 battles, so recreating those in space isnt bad.

^^The above reply is in context to DeadlyShoe's post.