2 Questions: Flak to SC Ratio and Shield Mitigation Impacts?

from Sins Forums

I've been playing Sins for a few weeks now, and have worked my way up to taking on Unfair computers.  If it's a small map and I go with a rush strategy it's no problem; however, on a larger map which gives more time for teching up I've run into a bit of a difficulty.  The computer always ends up making carriers, so I opt for flak to counter the strike craft.  But it doesn't seem to work.  My flak can never take down the SC fast enough to avoid catastrophic losses in terms of cap ships, LRFs and support cruisers.  They always take down the SC eventually, but by then they've managed to destroy the meat of my fleet leaving me unable to win the battle.  I've tried more and more flak up to a ratio of 1 flak per enemy SC, but it just seems to take way too long.  So I'm wondering: when countering a carrier-based fleet, how do you determine the appropriate number of flak to get?  Or, if you go with the option of taking down the carriers, how do you deal with the fact that it takes minutes for a SC squadron to die after the host goes down (assuming it dies from no host, and not from being attacked)?

 

Another question relating to how shield mitigation works.  How does this work with Malice and phase missiles?  The shield mitigation obviously reduces the damage taken by the target of an attack, but it Malice is active does it reduce the damage distributed?  Since I'm an engineer I'll try asking that same question in equations in hopes that it will make sense.  Let's say that ship A is being attacked, and ship B is taking damage from Malice.  Damage to ship A = Damage * (1 - shield mitigation).  I think anyway.  So what's damage to ship B?  Is it = Damage * 0.3 or is it = Damage * (1 - shield mitigation on A) * 0.3?  And what about phase missiles?  Since they can have the effect of ignoring shields does that mean that shield mitigation occasionaly has no effect based on the level of research performed?

strategy
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Flak will only work about 1 to 1 if they are fighers. Flak does less damage to bombers. Which Im assuming is why your losing your Caps. You need to have a healty ammount of fighters yourself to help combat bombers and fighters. To be honest you cant have too many Flak ships. Also it helps to have they hold postion. That way they are chasing the SC around and allows they to use all their guns as the SC do fly-bys.

Another tactic is if you know its a carrier heavy fleet, jump your Flak in first.

I could be wrong here on the Mitigation but I think its Damage * 0.3. Then that damage is apply to the mitigation of the second ship that is affected.

And yes Phase missles can bypass shields and their mitigation. But the chance to bypass in based on the lvl of research. And what ship it is. Per se, a Kol has an ability to reduce phase missle bypass.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Bombers are your problem here, as Carbon says.  You'll need fighters of your own to beat those.  Use the Kol, Kortul, or Halcyon depending on your faction for their useful anti-strike craft abilities.  A combination of the right capital ship, some fighters, and some flak can really hammer a strike-craft based army. 

As for shield mitigation, anything that is shield bypass will ignore it (including phase missiles).  I'm not sure how malice interacts with mitigation, you'll probably either need to ask a modder or do some detailed tests.  In any case, I think it's a moot discussion since there is nothing you can do about it.  Either malice does or doesn't interact with mitigation, and there doesn't appear to be any strategic consideration (other than the ability's effectiveness) either way.

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