I don't build flak at all, perhaps if they had more upgradable capabilities for defensive roles...

In regards to this, will the other races get simular deal ?

If Fighters only did "below average" damage to other fighters, but great damage to bombers, and Flak did great damage to fighters (and/or had longer range), then I think it would be a pretty good recipie in Sins to encourage mixed fleets:

Flak > Fighters > Bombers and Bombers take out caps and cruisers maybe. LF eat Flak, Cruisers eat LF.

Flak frigates were overpowered because how damn hard they were to kill by all unit types.

Not because of there damage, now SC are more numerous there had there damage reduced too.

Damage should be put back up to what it was, health reduced as it has been to say 33% orginal values.

Now I know what your saying.. too weak?

Give flak an aura which gives fighters/bombers a 25% chance to miss while flying through it.... after all getting shot at with explosions all around you is gonna put your aim off just a little.



They become the supportships they are surposed to be.

Easy to destroy, but effective in combined fleets agasint SC.

And you dont lose out by having them stick with the fleet.

with the current build

Tec still has no problems if they build mutiple khols agasint SC spam.
Could become very inbalanced for the other races.

I actually like this idea quite a bit. While I'm not sure about the other possibilities of adjusting damage and health from where they've been moved too, I think adding this simple ability would instantly put them back on slightly above even footing with light cruisers, where they belong (you do need to do research to get flak frigates, afterall) and they also would provide a very useful but not overpowering benefit to mixed fleets. I can only hope this gets read by the devs.

Too true. Sc do regenerate. Also, I've seen players make carriers totally ineffective with flak. Sc do not regenerate that quickly. Especially in a fight due to negative 50% production rate. So where does that leave flak.

I totally agree.

Well, an X-Wing destroyed both Death Stars... and an A-Wing destroyed the Executor (the Super Star Destroyer). In the X-Wing game I was able to destroy a Star destroyer on my own. It's not easy, but it can be done.

However, I agree that fighters should make a lot less damage to big ships, as they are not equipped with weapons to make a ton of damage to those ships, and they're basically overpowered.

yesterday, i was playing a 2v2 with the ai.

me & tec, 2 advents, all on normal, fast everything.

I managed to secure a chokepoint and built it up with my fleet.
The ai did the same on his side, and we shared the bottom half of the map together.
I presumed that the ai would be able to hold his own, and so i focused my fleet on the ai nearest me. Before I knew it, the ai lost 3 planets along the choke point, and was going to lose, fast. I sent in my fleet (lv.4 akkan (my flagship), lv.4 marza, 20 cobalts, 10lrm, 5flak, 2 hosihko robotic) Before I knew it, my fleet was decimated by over 20 bombers and 10 fighters. I ordered a retreat, but each cap would be focused upon one at a time, and each pass would deal over 600 damage. 8 cobalts, 2lrm, and 1 hosihko robotic cruiser made it out alive.

So I rebuilt my fleet, to be even stronger than before, and this time added 15 carriers. This new fleet consisted of (all lv. 3, 2 kols, 2 sovas, 1 akkan, 1 dunov, 1 marza; 30 cobalts, 15 lrm, 10 flak, 15 carriers, 4 hosihko, 5 kodiaks, 3 celios). By the time this fleet was ready, the enemy had conquered 2 more planets from the ai, and was a phase jump away from his homeworld. His home had 507 health left when my fleet arrived, but immediately caused an enemy rout. I gave the ai a lot of money to rebuild, and waited as his fleet grew. (i didn't want to fight against 2 ais on my own if i could help it) Once his fleet was building, i sent mine to retake the choke points on the ai's side. my fleet caused an instant rout, and i let the ai retake the asteroid nearest his home. then i sent my fleet out to the next planet, and another rout, along with the obliteration of nearly half the enemy fleet.

Sorry, I kinda got caught up in the dramatics, but anyways, my point:
1) Flak is clearly ineffective. Before, it was okay to go with a 5:1 ratio of cobalts to flaks. Now you'll need at least 3:1.
2) More fighters are the counter to fighters. Basically creating carrier spam.

I'm losing hope that there will be balance after 1.1. Flak is totally useless. Carrier spam is the new ticket. Imho worse than the hc spam issues. Crap.

I think it's part of why the current version is listed as a Beta. It's why this is in the Beta Feedback forum.

well, I'm already curious how the devs are going to tackle this one, but I guess we will see in time. after all, I understood there would be updates before the beta goes ... well ... rc or whatever it is for patches.

Holy Crap this is a beta?

yeah, you would think with all this weaponry, ship makers would consider any ship a threat regardless of size so they should have weapons to counter it. cruisers should have a flak cannons, maybe not frigates. and def capitol ships!!

or even very low fighter/bomber health so they would require less shots and less chasing?!?!

Agree?!

Phalnax, the idea of adding flax guns to HCs was already proposed (by yours truly). I think it is a great idea, although the flak ship should do more damage obviously. Adding a flak gun to a cap ships also wouldn't be a bad idea (of course, the Kol is the mother of flak ships with it's flak burst ability).

flak added to Capital ships would be nice. It would remind me of playing Freespace 2, when attacking a capital ship meant being heavily attacked by its flak guns... ahah, it made space fighting so great.

You said it, Vaihlor!

Gods, I love FS2!

I mentioned this in the carrier thread, but I also believe ALL cap ships should have basic flak guns... Historically, all heavy ships had them, and in sci-fi all heavy ships seem to have at least basic automated flak or anti-strike weapons even going back to the original Battlestar Galactica series and Star Wars.

How about a more specific special ability for FLak Frigs...? Something along the lines of "Guard" where you can select a specific ship for the frig to guard and not leave a defined "command radius" of that ship to protect it from incoming strike craft? That would stop them from chasing down carriers and LF's, too. Flak, also, I think should do more damage to bombers than fighters, as fighters are nominally considered far more maneuverable and aren't required to (logically speaking) maintain a heading to ready a launch of bombs. perhaps up bomber damage a bit and require them to positively track their target with a fixed heading for a certain amount of time for targeting purposes and if they fail to hold the track, lose a percentage chance to hit.

Make fighters travel faster and do lighter damage, making them more positively a bomber and fighter hunter...?

Change the cost for fighters and bombers from anti-matter to actual credit, metal, and crystal costs. Minimal, sure, but it would mean something especially in early game rushes when your resources are stretched thin.

Many fleet engagements are usually made or broken by fighter and bomber success/failure. This should hold true with SoaSE, in my opinion. Historically, carriers were the core of the fleet, not battleships as some assume. 1-2 bombers, in the real world, could take out a battleship, or even another carrier, if it could get through with its dropped torpedoes and bombs.

While I'm not advocating making the game "like the real world" in this regard, I am advocating that strike craft and their nemeses take on more than just a cursory role, unlike the past. I'm sure a balance of some sort can be reached. The only question is where will Ironclad and Stardock find that balance.

this balance should be, more powerful flak cannons. less health to fighters/bombers but still same attack. cuz vasari bombers have like 150 health fairly upgraded. that's a lot of shots with a flak cannon just to take out one bomber. moving at very fast speeds in space, one bullet should cause lots of damage to any fighter. maybe even faster flak frigates or longer range. either way it would help fix the problem.

anyone agree?

have yous even thought of splash damage as a flak cannon spreads not just in one line at the moment it hits one fighter what about if it has a chance to hit the fighter next to it in the formation as well //or dose slight damage to the ones next to it in the formation?

I think we are focusing too much on how to fix the Flak frigate. We don't. The Carrier was messed up, so we mess it up again.
1) Fighters do no damage to structures, frigates, or cap. ships
2) Bombers are slower and less nimble

then we can mess with the flak frigate. The reason the flak frigate's preferred target is fighters. SoaSE assumes that you have a balanced fleet, i.e. assuming that you have a lot of light frigates, with frigates, cruisers, and a cap. ship or two for support/fire support. This includes have carriers (cruiser class carriers). Also assumed is that some of the squads are fighters, and if they are gotten rid of, your fighters can devour enemy bombers, while the flak frigates guard against rebuilt fighters.

Because of the new imbalance, all we need is a target fighters/bombers switch in the abilities menu for flak frigates. Then your flak frigates can selectively destroy bombers/fighters to suit your strategy.

that could work but what if it was a fleet option so it effects so that AA's joining the fight do it as well or have it set to shoot at closest squad prioity. This should also be make avilible to the fighters so if theres a few fighters and all bombers or you need to cover your capital ship while it runs from bombering runs.

I have yet to see the ai spam strike crafts. Build a few yes, but spam hardly.

My first beta game against an advent AI I saw SC spam in a big way. Also made me realize how handicapped flaks are now, because I was trying to complete the game with the no strikecraft acheivement. I had 24 flaks to his 20 or so carriers (60ish squads)and they didn't make a dent. If they did, they were rebuilt so fast that it wasn't easy to notice. Also, more annoyingly, I had 16 Kodiacks chasing said cariers across 3 gravity wells and the combo of 3000 hp/shield the advent carriers have is way too much.




I think this sort of fix is the way to go. People are torn between the flaks not doing enough dmg vs chasing SC around a well. The flaks need to have some sort of engagement range, that is that you tell them where in a well to hang out (conceiveably near some cap ships or heavys) and they stay there and target SC that enter their gun range. I am also in agreement that yhey should also be more effective against bombers than fighters, but they should by no means be any less susceptable to bomber weaponry than any other frigate or cap ship for that matter. I want be able to tell my flaks to tailgate the primary target of bomber spam and watch them tear it up.

If you make Flak do more damage to bombers, we'll be back to 1.5, where flak is everywhere, and there is no need for fighters again.

If Flak did more damage to fighters, then you would need both fighters (to destroy bombers) AND Flak (to destroy fighters); a mixed fleet and combined arms.

Of course Flak should damage bombers too; it just should'nt out-do the fighers; and if Flak was able to have a chance to shoot down some the the missles from LRM frigs, I'd sure as heck have them tail-gating my targeted cap ships, and that would cut down on LRM spam too.