Flak frigs: do they suck or what?

Researchable abilities for flak frigs:  Flak burst for TEC, telekinetic push for Advent, jam weapons (or phasic trap?) for Vasari.

Again, make these units slow, and keep their ranges limited so they don't compete with fighers.

yes, flak frigates are near useless.... tough rly DO help when used properly,

first of all, dont use them as an attack frigate,  rather use them as a support frigate, and spread them out acros your fleet, tough pretty slow at killing fighters/bombers, becuase it's inability to pursue, spreading them out during a battle where strikecraft are a problem rly does kil them, tough slowly...

the only thing that gets annoying is that they break of of your intended destination and pursue a fighter on the other side of the grav-well... that is probably the only reason why flaks are not being used,   their damage vs strikecraft is fine as it is, range is short  as it should be,  autotarget is what messes it up, they'll run out of the battle pursueing a single squad. even though there are 20 bombers right behind him..., and so do all the other flaks...

"wish they'd fix targeting... al ships should target close-by ships first... then when priority target "flak vs strikecraft / LRM vs LF" enters a certain range it'll autotarget, when the unit leaves a certain range (runs or is destroyed), a new target is picked using the same commands as before....."

so up short... no i rarely use flaks,  even when my enemy uses carriers only, i often build carriers of my own "unless it's Advent carrier spam"  every 5 fighters should also have 1 bomber,  not to destroy capital ships etc.  but to distract enemy fighters "prioroty target is bomber" having enemy fighters target bombers first can save u alot of fighter losses....

Repost:

newb here..

but I've already stopped using flak frigs, as they appear to be useless...(and strikecraft are way overpowered)

IMHO, they are way underpowered. They should devastate strikecraft, period. Just a few Flak frigs should be able to remove those annoying hordes of swarming fighters and bombers, creating zones of "Fly in, but no fly out" areas in the grav well. Maybe bumping up the cost of them in materials, and in fleet would be a balance for increasing their power, along with making them slow lumbering hulks.

Another thing that would be nice (and may exist and I just haven't found it yet) would be the ability to assign an "auto-defend" command so that the Flak frigs (or whatever) only attacks targets attacking what they are defending and won't go off chasing the one lone fighter as 20 bombers are bearing down to kill the Cap it is assigned to defend.

On the overpoered strikecraft issue, adding a flak aspect to turrets to make them take out strikecraft more effectively would make them more useful. as it stands, I've quit using those as well, in favor of Hangers (the AI doesn't seem to understand that taking out the thing spitting out the strikecraft willl get rid of the strikecraft a lot quicker than shooting the strikecraft will)

Personally i have found that making only strike craft for Captial ships is at least a start to hold off bombers.

I usally have 5 - 10 flak ships per combat group as well.

While not particuarly effective, I always make about 7 per fleet.  It takes time, but they do make a big difference when facing fair numbers of squads.

A possible strat to keep them from chasing off after squads is to change thier tactics to "Hold position" or nearby target (I cant remember this particular name exactly).  You could then place them in a location and they wont move or will only engage nearby targets.  I use the latter on Siege frigates when i assault Pirate worlds to keep them from getting nuked too early by going straight to the planet and into a hornets nest of ships and platforms.

And yes, I am a newb, sorry if you dont like my advice.

They are very useless now.  Only used it in MP seriously once, where the enemy had all carriers and he was down to his homeworld. I built a ton of them and surrounded my marza witht hem while I killed his planet ignoring his fleet

Perhaps a solution, on top of beefing up basic anti-fighter frigates, would be to have anti-strikecraft Cruisers?

TEC  -  Kaminov Heavy Flak Cruiser
 - The Kaminov's primary weapon are explosive shells that are proximity detonated. The explosive turns the heavy casing into lethal shrapnel, ripping through lightly armored targets. Very effective against groups.
 - Ability Upgrade: Box Barrage - Cruiser can target an area of space, and will concentrate all fire in that space. Attack speed significantly increases, but cannot attack any other place.

Advent  -  Aegis Cruiser
 - The Aegis is armed with a massive battery of remote controlled, extremely light laser weapons. When deployed, they form a 360 degree sphere around the cruiser. These laser weapons can independently target individual strikecraft. However, when the weapons are deployed, the Aegis's speed is severely limited, and damage to the cruiser can destroy individual batteries, limiting its damage output. After a period of time, for the cost of antimatter, they are automatically replaced.
 - Ability Upgrade: Weapons enter a period of overcharge, dramatically increasing damage output. However, between 40 and 70% of them will be destroyed after the overcharging process is complete, and must be slowly rebuilt by the Aegis host.

Vasari  -  Dakarus Destroyer
 - The Dakarus is armed with two heavy batteries of phase missiles. These special phase missiles contain MIRV warheads that, while somewhat effective against most ship types, are especially damaging to strikecraft. When the missile gets close enough to a target, it will randomly target a handful of targets within range, and deal damage to each of them.
 - Ability Upgrade: Gravity Sink: When engaged, for a short time, all targets are pulled towards the Destroyer. How effective this is depends on hostile craft direction of movement, mass, and speed. Ships with a lot of inertia or faster speeds may be affected less than those with lighter weights or slower engines.

Just some thoughts I came up with real quick.

Another start that someone else mentioned is simply putting the anti-strikecraft weapons on every Capital ship.

 Flak: With proper micro and use at the proper times with fighters wins space superiority. Those without lose space superiority. Also on another note with the multi targeting ability will flak be again a soft counter to lrm spam?

for temporary fix

set engagement range for Flak Frigs

Why bother with a heavy flak cruiser?  Fix the flak frigate we have now!  There's no reason to have two units for the same role if one does it incompetantly, we may as well just have one unit.

Their AI is the big problem, but if you micro them they actually work.  You need to use abilities like jam weapons and telekinetic push to buy them time, because they don't kill strike craft very swiftly, but if the battle drags on the tough flak frigate can really wear down a strike-craft based fleet and give you a solid edge.  If the targetting AI was dealt with, they'd probably be fine, it's just strike craft that are a bit on the strong side.

Actually, flak does not suck as much people think.

To beat carries you need 1 flak per squadron. Light frigates with their anti-support ability are also important. Makes it harder for enemy strikecraft to be replaced.

I agree.  If we get a heavy flak cruiser, what's the flak frigate for?  A paperweight?  He gets points for good creative ideas for cruisers and their special abilities though

I was actually wary of saying anything about the flak frig.  You see, the tendency when "fixing" something in games is to "overfix" it, and break something else.  In other words, buffing the flak frig might make strikecraft and carriers obsolete - that would suck.

The problem is the battle dragging on.  Just tonight I played Advent, went up against a Vasari online.  I just spammed carriers, and set them to bombers (I know the pros set them to fighters, but I set them to bombers and it works every time).  I had about 100 squadrons of strikecraft.  I met his fleet at the star, he had over 30 enforcers, he matched me in numbers of carriers (set to fighters), he had tons of flak, and he had 3 leveled up capships.

He had more stuff than me, and it was VASARI stuff (i.e. tougher and more expensive).  It was a bloodbath, and a quick one.  All he got out with was his carriers.  He lost all capships.  The only thing I lost was 1 capship.

He messaged me after (as I was on the way to his homeworld, heh, because he no longer had a fleet), and said "Now I know why nobody plays vasari.  VASARI SUCK."  I told him the pros seem to play them just fine.  He asked what he did wrong.  I told him I actually didn't think he did anything "wrong" per se, it's just that from my experience bombers seem to totally rape you a new asshole if given half a chance.  He said "But I had tons of fighters and flak!"  I said "I know.  But they didn't have time to do anything - the bombers killed all your stuff almost instantaneously."  He said "So it's just like Starcraft then!  Build a bunch of carriers and automatically win the game!"  I said "Well, in Starcraft, in a 'real' game against a 'real' opponent you weren't going to get an opportunity to build a bunch of carriers."  He said "I hate games with 'one unit wonders' !"  I said "...I'm at your homeworld now" and he resigned.

Actually, heh, the guy did not play badly in that he had more stuff than me, and he was teched up as high or higher.  He still got raped a new asshole.  Actually, I sort of felt a little sorry for him, heh.

I'm not calling you a liar, but I'd like to see this done in practice, not just theorized about.  No amount of flak or light frigs would have helped this guy this game.  His fleet evaporated instantaneously.  Again though, I can't stress this enough:  I don't know what to recommend.  I don't want carriers overnerfed, or flak frigs overbuffed.  Figher craft should probably be buffed against bombers - this guy had "enough" of them but they couldn't save him.

I just dont really build them.

Well, maybe flak frigates should cost more, but they should all have a special ability like

- TEC : Flak Burst (just like Kol)

- Advent: Telekinetic Push (just like Halcyon)

- Vasari: Jam Weapons (just like Kortul)

or any other kind of special ability, like any strikecraft passing near a flak frigate could have its speed reduces by 50% for 30 seconds

or any strikecraft passing near a flak frigate could have its hull restoration disabled for 60 seconds.

Just random ideas! Your thoughts?

Once you have a critical mass (like 100 squads), bombers are just plain wicked.  You'll kill the enemy cruisers and capital ships before their fighters can deal with your bombers.  This works best for advent with their rapture (30% extra strike craft damage... ouch), and is very difficult to stop without Kol, Halcyon, or Kortul.  You NEED those anti-strike craft abilities to survive.  Early game, though, your bombers don't deal quite enough damage and fighters will take them out before they deal their critical damage.  The more versitile fighter shines there, but later on a balance is a good idea.

For all that's said about the wicked power of strike craft, I had three level 5 Kortuls last night all with maxed jam weapons... let's just say I did just fine without fighters or flak.

i lied the ideas of heavy anti-strikecraft cruisers, and especially because of the great creativity, huge kudos to you

however, i do agree that having two ships that do the same is a waste (though nowadays i have replaced using LF with Heavy cruisers and only throw in a few LF for versatility...)

i think the idea for anti-strike weapons on all caps is a great idea... i mean these things are huge, they should have plenty of space...

speaking of which, i dont kno why we dont give the light carriers the FF weapons... i find that they usually fly into a combat zone anyway so might as well make them useful... however... look at the tech nowadays, if you want to shoot down a fighter jet, they rarely use guns, its more missiles etc (and soon lasers probably)

the only time guns are used are the huge 20mm orelikon rotary guns that they mount on naval cruisers and carriers... but even they are only good at short range and are only lik 70% effective when the target is coming straight at them.

so, i think that whatever happens with the flak frigs (or cruisers if Stardock desides to upgrade), is that they have 6-8 banks or weapons. 4 banks being what we have now, 4 auto-cannons abel to fire at 4 diff targets (or concentrate on 3 or less targets) and 2-4 light missile banks for longer range targets.

also, i think that to ensure flak frigates dont become too effective versus other frigates and druisers etc, im sure that the devs can program in a thing that makes strikecraft either especially vulnerable to flak weapons, or makes all other ships less vulnerable to said weapons.

possible upgrades could be the ability to fire EMP warheads to make the guns job easier... i have a few other but i just decided that it is a rather small and specialised frigate so too many upgrades would be overkill...

one a side note that answers the OP's question, atm, i think flak frigates atm are quite useless... though, think about it, the average damage output of a flak frigate is 15, while the LF and LRF are 10-11 and 12-13 respectively... given certain weapons do more damage than others regardless of damage output but still...

also, the devs have re-programmed the flak to be a mine-clearer, in that each bank fires a a different target, thereby clearing minefields quicker... how you use it is up to you

I find that the anti-fighter frigates for both the Vasari and TEC work very well when dealing with strikecraft spam. (I don't play Advent, so I cannot have an opinion on their anti-fighter ship) I normally have about 15-25 anti-fighter ships per fleet, and they provide me with plenty of fighter and bomber protection. I try to keep them all clustered near forward/center area of my fleet, and when the fstrikecraft attack, i just leave them to the frigates. depending on the numer of strikecraft, by the 4th or 5th attack run, anywhere from 25%-75% of the strikecraft are destroyed. When that happens, it is then that I release my fighters to assist mopping up the rest, and when the rest of their fighters are gone, I release bomers.

Personally, I feel that it is a good balence. Anti-fighter frigates won't slaughter strikcraft on tghe first pass, but will take chuncks out of them on each pass, and unless your opponent has over 100 squadrons, only about 20 frgates are needed.

As an aside, if you are facing that many srtikecraft, its late enough in the game to spam the frigates to about 60 or so, which can tear those fighters to pieces

I normaly also have a few when I attack they are nice shields lol and  help with the fighters and bombers

Just some clarification - the idea that missiles made guns obsolete is why the F-4 Phantom was one of the most doomed fighters the US ever flew. It became so bad, several squadrons retrofitted external 'gun pods' that were clumsy, loose, and inaccurate, just because the enemy MiGs were often encountered in subsonic, close-range environments.

Also, describing the 20mm as 'massive' is a bit of an overstatement - AFAIK, most USAF aircraft equipped with a gun for air to air combat is 20mm...

Problem is, as I've been saying, just a moderate expenditure of resources on carriers can field a devastating number of bombers. No other unit in the game can inflict the kind of unstoppable damage that a single pass of Bombers can. By the time they make two or three passes, you can almost guarantee that the target will be destroyed ten times over. Compounding the problem is that for every fighter you destroy after they pass, by the time you manage to destroy another one from that squadron, the original one you killed has already been replaced.

Note that I'm talking about the 'en-masse' number of strikecraft here. Like, the numbers that the AI likes to use.

My suugestion was not theory, I have successfully used it in practise.

You need carriers yourself. Bombers already get popped by fighters super fast. They do NOT need a buff against bombers. If anything, fighters need a nerf. carriers also need a small speed nerf and a health nerf imho.

That was decades ago, when missile guiding system were primitive. Technology has greatly advanced since then. The usefulness of a gun on aircraft is still debated. On the other hand, the A-10 Thunderbolt II's cannon is extremely effective on the battlefield.

I'll let you know when my F-15 squadron gets back from Red Flag in March

Buff the flak frigates! 

This is a serious issue that is ruining the game by making carrier spam un-counterable except by your own carrier spam. 

strike craft annihilate Capital Ships hugely easily making it even more important to have some decent flak. 

just for clarification, the cannon on the A-10 is effective for taking out tanks in a close air support/ground attack role. it's effectiveness against other aircraft is questionable (although IF it hit something, that something would become confetti, I am sure)

My searches on the web found A-10 kills for helicopters, and aircraft on the ground, but no air-to-air kills. so the "hog" isn't applicable as a fighter in this discussion, it would be more along the lines of the bombers that are blowing the bejeezus out of our cap ships.