Strike Craft & Counters discussion

from Sins Forums

After playing twice on Hard (and getting trounced, when I usually win), I'd like to get other's opinions on the new strike craft buffs.  I think they are great, bombers scare me now, I use to shrug them off.  But in the 2 games I played, I made 15 Flack the first time to counter the strike craft; they seemed to do little.  So my second game, I made nothing but fighters on my 6 Cap ships, put nothing but anti-strike craft upgrade on them too, plus 20 flack, and the bombers/fighters still totally trashed me.  Even when I had 6 Hanger bays supporting my fleets, the swarm of fighters/bombers still destroyed me in the end.

It seems the Flack def are now pretty useless, when it was you only needed like 4-6 to hold off most strike craft.  I wonder, is whom'ever has the most fighters going to win in 1.1?

 

 

 

 

 

2,348 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
IMO, carrier spam has become an issue. Carriers are much harder to destroy now, and the best counter to them (light frigates) are not effective because they die too easily and too quickly in an environment littered with LRFs.

Light frigates should be buffed. They either need more firepower or need to cost less.

As for countering the strikecraft, flaks don't have the firepower they did in 1.05, so you will need more of them. In a medium sized engagement on a small map, I like to have 16-20, plus about 4-8 of my own carriers with nothing but fighters. TEC also has the best anti-strikecraft capital ship abilities, IMO. Kol battleship's flak burst is pretty deadly to fighters once you level it up. Also, the Dunov gets two things that work against strikecraft. Magnetize is the obvious one, and is also humorous to watch. Magnetize is particularly effective against Vasari strikecraft, since they have small numbers of strikecraft per squadron. The Dunov's EMP charge can also be indirectly used to neutralize strikecraft. Carriers have to spend anti matter to replace lost strikecraft. Remove their anti matter with EMP charge, and the rate of replacement goes to nothing, giving your strikecraft total space superiority and making his carriers big fat helpless targets.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Something concerning the strikecraft:

* The passes they make over their targets are too long. The strikecraft are all over the grav well, making targeting them with flak and anti-strikecraft abilities more difficult. They should stay in a smaller area and maybe be a little slower.

* Strikecraft AI sends all fighter squadrons to hunt down a single enemy fighter which is a huge waste of firepower. It's annoying when all your fighters break off of a designated target to attack the first rebuilt fighter of a destroyed squadron across the grav well.

* They are expendable unlike any other fighting craft because they don't require credits/metal to rebuild. Maybe they should?
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I for one allways wondered why the light frigate was more expensive then the LRMs. The cost only made them more useless. Not to mention they use more supply.

As for flacks, I tink they should try to keep a 1/2 to 2/3 ration of flaks/carriers to get to a point were you'll have enought flaks to severly limit the fighters/bombers. I think that would be the Butter zone.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I played on a small map; had 20 flaks + 12 squads of fighters, still got trounced; the gravity well was black with AI fighters/bombers. But this IS a beta, so I'm glad we get to see this and comment before 1.1.

If Flak had like, I don't know, 25% more range, that might go a long way to using them defencively. Or, make them do more damage, but less range; even more defencive. I'm playing my 3rd game today, and I just stopped making flak, and only carriers, but I'm a defencive player, and use to love Flak.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Remember that the only real counter to bombers are fighters. Flak actually isn't that good against bombers. It will kill them, but it will take a long time. The only strikecraft it's good against is the fighters. It's kind of weird, because the game itself doesn't say this, which is misleading. When you look at the description of flak craft, it says "Strong vs. Strikecraft."

However, if I recall, the flak is only good against the fighter's armor, and not the bomber's. Fighters are considered "Very Light" and bombers are "Light." Flak is effective against "Very Light" but not "Light" while Fighters are effective against "Light."

Also, Fighters themselves got a slight buff against many ship types, allowing them to be very useful.

Long story short: If you're afraid of bombers, focus on fighters. Use your fleet to take care of their flak, because that's the biggest threat to fighters.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
tbh I dont like the design of having to fight bombers with fighters and that being the only counter unit. where is the problem with making flaks effective against bombers as well? and yes, they should destroy them reasonably fast. gives me little consolation if they do wipe them out in the end, when it takes so long that in the meantime half my fleet got pounded. make them borderline useless against anything else, but they HAVE to be able to take out bombers. more so even than fighters.