Flak doesn't seem to counter tempest missile spam

[Lokilogic]

So I'm trying out some skirmishes against the AI. Missile spam seems to be their stock and trade. Ok I guess that's fine but they show up with like 70 missile ships and flak doesn't seem to do anything vs all the missiles. I have 50 flak frigates near my star base yet they seem to melt it in seconds. Anyone have any tips for me please on how to counter this?

[kmpapples]

no tips, it does genuinely seem like a balance/ possible game error issue on my side as well.

I've been playing primarily advent, i can confirm that I've also been having this issue.
it kinda makes capital ship (a little) a joke, with 35 of the missiles ships i can take out a capital ship in about 8-10 volleys. at least...it feels like 8-10 (i didn't count).
it may be due to the sheer numbers vs the equivalently low number of flak that seem to be on other ships (supposedly vasari have more, but it doens't seem to be helping the AI much)

[ExavierMacbeth]

Yea I think they have a balance issue with Missiles vs PD with the new rules. The only real way I have found to deal with them is a pre-emptive strike...

As TEC I keep a level 6 Marza Dreadnaught with its Missile Barrage ability on manual use only. Charge him in to blast the doom stack of missile boats as early in the fight as I can.

Bombers are also a pretty good alternative for this if you have a sizable carrier/hanger group handy in the system. Just select the bomber stack in the menu on the right and right click on the missile boat stack, the default settings will spread the bombers out across them (you can can change it to focus on one at a time if you don't have a horde of them)

Not sure what specific weapon the Advent or Vasari have to deal with them because I haven't played those races yet to see what new toys they have.

[Lywelyn]

i already confirmed in a previous thread that atm capital ships are useless against a spam of frigate and seeker missile.

while there are obvious balance issue, there are also a lot of rendering issue that put sins2 to shame if comapred to sins1.

for now i'll give the benefit of the doubt to the devs, either i'l willing to believe they had to push a deadline release and scraped a few thing or they plan to get players feedback and fix it on the long term...

tho the Audio overall is a disgrace. was so hype to use a ragnarov titan and felt like it's main snipe ability's audio was scraped for a fart noise.. a disgrace i tell you !

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by Lywelyn:

i already confirmed in a previous thread that atm capital ships are useless against a spam of frigate and seeker missile.

while there are obvious balance issue, there are also a lot of rendering issue that put sins2 to shame if comapred to sins1.

for now i'll give the benefit of the doubt to the devs, either i'l willing to believe they had to push a deadline release and scraped a few thing or they plan to get players feedback and fix it on the long term...

tho the Audio overall is a disgrace. was so hype to use a ragnarov titan and felt like it's main snipe ability's audio was scraped for a fart noise.. a disgrace i tell you !

Seems like either no one bought the epic copy or atleast didn't give any feedback...

Don't get me wrong this game has huge potential but as you've said above the core of the game is terrible..

Bad combat animations the guns and stuff just look meh compared to game 1... the sounds are reused or worse!

Hopefully the devs don't think this is acceptable and we get some changes?

[Nongenti]

Originally posted by Lokilogic:

So I'm trying out some skirmishes against the AI. Missile spam seems to be their stock and trade. Ok I guess that's fine but they show up with like 70 missile ships and flak doesn't seem to do anything vs all the missiles. I have 50 flak frigates near my star base yet they seem to melt it in seconds. Anyone have any tips for me please on how to counter this?

There are area of effect flak effects like the tec flak burst or the advent halcyon capital ships ability.
Vasari cab also phase out a friendly target and make it shortly invulnerable.
Using these might help you if the enemy focuses mostly on missiles.

[Nongenti]

Originally posted by Lywelyn:

i already confirmed in a previous thread that atm capital ships are useless against a spam of frigate and seeker missile.

while there are obvious balance issue, there are also a lot of rendering issue that put sins2 to shame if comapred to sins1.

for now i'll give the benefit of the doubt to the devs, either i'l willing to believe they had to push a deadline release and scraped a few thing or they plan to get players feedback and fix it on the long term...

tho the Audio overall is a disgrace. was so hype to use a ragnarov titan and felt like it's main snipe ability's audio was scraped for a fart noise.. a disgrace i tell you !

What rendering issues have you encountered?
The new engine is notable more powerful than the old one so that is surprising to hear.
If you can reproduce those issues, reporting them to the fevs on their official discord would likely be a hughe help fir them to investigate and improve it.
Same goes for your feedback on audio.

[Nongenti]

Originally posted by Hurricane:

Originally posted by Lywelyn:

i already confirmed in a previous thread that atm capital ships are useless against a spam of frigate and seeker missile.

while there are obvious balance issue, there are also a lot of rendering issue that put sins2 to shame if comapred to sins1.

for now i'll give the benefit of the doubt to the devs, either i'l willing to believe they had to push a deadline release and scraped a few thing or they plan to get players feedback and fix it on the long term...

tho the Audio overall is a disgrace. was so hype to use a ragnarov titan and felt like it's main snipe ability's audio was scraped for a fart noise.. a disgrace i tell you !

Seems like either no one bought the epic copy or atleast didn't give any feedback...

Don't get me wrong this game has huge potential but as you've said above the core of the game is terrible..

Bad combat animations the guns and stuff just look meh compared to game 1... the sounds are reused or worse!

Hopefully the devs don't think this is acceptable and we get some changes?

I looked at a lot of effects in in Sins 1 and 2, the turrets, tracking and better effects looked like an improvement to Sins 1 to me, do you have an specific example?

Also there should not be reused audio from Sins 1, audio and text has been newly or re-recorded. Do you have a specific audio effect in mind?

[Delirium_Sidhe]

Originally posted by Nongenti:

Originally posted by Lokilogic:

So I'm trying out some skirmishes against the AI. Missile spam seems to be their stock and trade. Ok I guess that's fine but they show up with like 70 missile ships and flak doesn't seem to do anything vs all the missiles. I have 50 flak frigates near my star base yet they seem to melt it in seconds. Anyone have any tips for me please on how to counter this?

There are area of effect flak effects like the tec flak burst or the advent halcyon capital ships ability.
Vasari cab also phase out a friendly target and make it shortly invulnerable.
Using these might help you if the enemy focuses mostly on missiles.

Yes, but it doesn't help a lot. Today played as TEC and encountered Vasari with missile fleet, Missile wave just one shot any capital or deeply crippled it. One salvo. All with t4 upgrades to armor and shields. I had 20 flac frigates on the way of missiles and they either were ignored completely or just wasn't enough. Flac module can save from first volley, but second will end capital for good.

Also this particular AI killed his neighbor and almost killed another one, just bumped at me due to planet rotation. I truly don’t know how to counter it. So AI also doesn’t counter it well it seems.

It was mid game on hard, just got my titan and seemed going pretty well up to this point...

[Lywelyn]

i do, as i quoted for instance the snipe ability for ragnarov is the most obvious i've compared so far...

unfortunately :

- i do not use discord on a professional level.
- if i'm to do QA i might aswell get paid for it, or get benefits at the very least.

(kudo to thoses doing that for free tho).

in fact i do not wish to QA a game at all on my free time as i'm already on a full time job in that matter for another bunch of clients.

does that unvalid the review i'm building for the game on steam ? no,
nor will it discredit me, i in fact hope they'll learn from it. and forward it to a JIRA project or whichever software they use for their work, provided they'll consider my feedback in due time on my game review once i've done it.

it is not enough for a game of such scale to be resumed in a crude 20ish hours of playtime. but good enough for thoses with keen eyes for details, to start gathering valuable information.

[HappyCamperBubbleBelow]

Point defense blows balls when dealing with mass missile spam
Works something like(not real in game numbers)
1 missile vs 1pd all missile stopped 100% of the time
10 missiles vs 10 pd 5 missiles stopped 100% of the time
100 missiles vs 100pd 10 missiles stopped 100% of the time.

PD is shooting "dead missiles" because they take time to "explode" like 5 seconds.
So for 5 seconds a leading missile takes all the flak fire when its already dead...
This was obviously done because otherwise missiles just get swatted away... the problem is that 100-200 missile barrage its imbalanced the other way and missiles are vastly too broken.

It also does not help that missiles out range anything on a starbase but missiles...
You need to go out and attack the missile spam that is behind their own fleet and you need more resources then the enemy has(unless you have missile spam)

Bombers/fighters don't work... bombers waste to many missiles on a dead missile launcher platform, while fighters just dont do damage... Sins one was kinda balanced in that fighters did great damage to light armor like missile frigates. You could use them and their guns to quickly eliminate the missile frigates... but now you can't it even had a counter, have flak frigates near the missile frigates to defend them...

Even a Marza doesnt work if you are playing against a player... they just target it first... sure... maybe if you have 3-4 level 6 marzas you can do it... but then again if you split the missile frigates up so they cant all be targeted even that doesnt work.

[Lokilogic]

Well thanks for all the suggestions and replies. I'll do some more experimenting. They must have made some serious changes between the Epic version and this release version. I could win in a 10v against nightmare AI. I'm getting my ass kicked by Hard now. I have a few hundred hours in the Epic version. I suspect it might be something with missiles, and how PD work. They must have made a change that drastically changed how the balance is or how they work. I hope they fix it soon because at this point capitals are kinda getting wacked way to easily IMO. I watched a youtuber play last night and he had the same issue. He adapted by running a fleet with 0 capitals, and just his titan. He still had to use recall often to keep his titan from getting melted.

[Nongenti]

Originally posted by Delirium_Sidhe:

Originally posted by Nongenti:

There are area of effect flak effects like the tec flak burst or the advent halcyon capital ships ability.
Vasari cab also phase out a friendly target and make it shortly invulnerable.
Using these might help you if the enemy focuses mostly on missiles.

Yes, but it doesn't help a lot. Today played as TEC and encountered Vasari with missile fleet, Missile wave just one shot any capital or deeply crippled it. One salvo. All with t4 upgrades to armor and shields. I had 20 flac frigates on the way of missiles and they either were ignored completely or just wasn't enough. Flac module can save from first volley, but second will end capital for good.

Also this particular AI killed his neighbor and almost killed another one, just bumped at me due to planet rotation. I truly don’t know how to counter it. So AI also doesn’t counter it well it seems.

It was mid game on hard, just got my titan and seemed going pretty well up to this point...

One of the Devs has mentions plans to nerf the Tempest Vessel somewhat over on the offical discord. No infromation when this nerf will hit yet.

[Laughing Man]

Originally posted by Nongenti:

Originally posted by Lokilogic:

So I'm trying out some skirmishes against the AI. Missile spam seems to be their stock and trade. Ok I guess that's fine but they show up with like 70 missile ships and flak doesn't seem to do anything vs all the missiles. I have 50 flak frigates near my star base yet they seem to melt it in seconds. Anyone have any tips for me please on how to counter this?

There are area of effect flak effects like the tec flak burst or the advent halcyon capital ships ability.
Vasari cab also phase out a friendly target and make it shortly invulnerable.
Using these might help you if the enemy focuses mostly on missiles.

That might work but the ideal would be still be for the primary mechanics to counter missile units to work as expected.

I think the other issue, at least in the two games I've played, is that there's no way to force your ships to target the missile boats and the AI has abysmal target selection. That leads to excessive target micromanagement as a mitigation which isn't overly entertaining.

The ideal would be for ships to prioritise targets based on distance, threat posed to the fleet and how effectively the unit can target them. The current system seems to select targets randomly so far as I can see.

[doublejesus]

Originally posted by Laughing Man:

I think the other issue, at least in the two games I've played, is that there's no way to force your ships to target the missile boats and the AI has abysmal target selection.

ALT Right click the enemy unit in the top right gravity well unit list to make your fleet focus a particular unit type. This hilariously does nothing if there's only one of that unit type.

[Lokilogic]

Well I managed to win in a 5v hard ai match free for all. There didn't seem to be a lot of missile spam this time around so maybe there is some RNG there, but I did try selecting my fighters and bombers, and then selecting attack on the enemy missile ship squad. That might have helped. I also gave up on having an AI on my team since there are no controls to coordinate attacks or defense.