Flak: Needs to actually work.

[Giga]

I've done some digging after having several problems with flak in game and having some bad run-ins with missle fleets, and have come to the conculsion that there needs to be an offical wiki, first and foremost, because when you type in ANYTHING about BGD, you get wiki pages for the show. There's too much speculation about everything and no solid anything.

But I've also come to the conclusion that flak walls are RNG and based on one of your subsystems, whichever that may be, and won't work 100% of the time. That's really stupid. That means that it's only really good at killing your own fighters, which is the only thing that it will do 100% of the time. It doesn't even stop your own missles, which basically means that it's a huge roll of the dice whether or not your Battlestar will die in one turn to torps or missles. And bluntly, it means that missle ships like Arachnie and Rangers are the best at ending a battlestar without risk, because fighters, both kinds, are terrible for defending against rockets or even a sheer wall of missles. After having a battle against 3 arachine and a nem, I ended up replaying the battle just to see how effective flak vs fighter defense is, and both are about as useless as the other. Flak will just sometimes let 40+ torps through, while fighters can't kill more than 4 or 5 munitions in a round.

Please....Please fix the flak. I don't know if it was nerfed because of people complaining about it, I don't know if there's just a bug. But this is just really bad, when the only reason I bring these ships in is to be a flak boat against missle fleets. If flak isn't going to deal with missles, then it's better if I switch my battlestars out for minotars...At least then I'll have a long range option to deal with arachines even if one dies.

[Hannibal0216 도마도 재배자]

Seems like we're playing 2 different games. Flak absolutely shreds every missile that is fired from that side, whether its enemy or friendly. As long as I have flak active I never need to worry about missiles hitting that ship.

[Galactic Origins]

same here. FLAK is wonderful.

However, FLAK from a given ship may not intercept missiles heading past that ship for another target because the missiles may be at a different elevation. Those missiles are not always destroyed by the FLAK.

Also, missiles coming in near the front or rear are not on the side, so FLAK will not always get them. FLAK is for a side only.

My FLAK works great. I once killed 6 Culon fighter groups with a single FLAK. ha! take that cylons!

[Giga]

'Starting to wonder if I have a bugged game or something, because it's pretty common for missles to just go straight through flak. Same with enemy fighters. I've watched them just fly right through the supposed zone, and smack the ship with no issue half of the time. Either the graphic is misleading, or there's a problem. On the other hand, when it does work, fighters are ripped to shreads, and missles never get the chance to get close to the ship.

On the other hand, Chaff, no issue whatsoever. Almost to the point that it's too good, because it'll leave a field for a couple turns and all. Fire a volly, then chaff it up while they're on CD.

[El Terrifico]

Fighters can get though - especially later in the game. Missiles never. You sure the missiles didn't come at an angle from above or blow the ship? Also, Sometimes I tend to forget to activate the flak after selecting a side, maybe that's what's happening?

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Flak performance is based upon the armoury subsystem, which in turn is affected by posture. Defensive posture increases flak potency, offensive posture decreases it.

So if you've got +6 to +12 Offensive posture then yeah, hostile fighters are gonna zip right through it. It may also decrease the amount of physical flak "projectiles" being thrown out, and in turn make it's anti-missile performance inconsistent when you pour into offensive posture. I distinctly recall there being a visual difference between offensive and defensive posture flak.

What would be ideal though, is to see replays. Even autocam footage will do which shows the missiles getting through when you think it shouldn't.

Like most things with BSG Deadlock, I've noticed it works well, but only once you've spent some time with it and snooped around to look into the kinks.

[Giga]

Okay, this just happened to me and I decided to record it, just to show that, yes, missles/torps can get through a flak screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aed8y7ULSok&feature=youtu.be

You can see that the flak destroys some of the torps, then just lets the rest through. I'm sorry, I get the logic behind it, but I disagree with it. Especially when Chaff lets you shoot your own munitions through it [Tested it this same battle], and never 'misses'. Even if this is a case of 'your ship moved an inch so it's now slightly out of the way', that just means that the flak field needs to be expanded. It's like getting a riot shield that only covers your forearm; Great if you want to prove you're some macho man, but utterly stupid if you're trying to keep your head attached.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Looks to me like the target that fired the ordinance was heading towards the Battlestar, so the first half got caught by the flak and the other half went over it. The forward torpedoes were simply out of the flak. What posture was the Battlestar set at?

There's also the point that there was a LOT of ordinance just thrown at you there.

[Giga]

Originally posted by Sir Wagglepuss III:

Looks to me like the target that fired the ordinance was heading towards the Battlestar, so the first half got caught by the flak and the other half went over it. The forward torpedoes were simply out of the flak. What posture was the Battlestar set at?

There's also the point that there was a LOT of ordinance just thrown at you there.

Full offence, because it was the last three enemies, and one was about to die, and said battlestar has more than half it's HP while fighting these. No matter what the case is, this is not okay. If it is as you say it is and the Flak defense is based on Armory, which can be shut down, then there's 0 point to using it other than as a fighter trap against the AI. Why would I ever bother with Flak, which stops my own munitions and kills my fighters, over using Chaff that does neither of those things and seemingly has a 100% interception rate?

Bluntly, Flak needs to be reworked and buffed. The area is too small to use effectively, only covers 70% of one side and not above or below, and just lets what it's meant to block through. Compared to Chaff, which can cover two or more ships easily, Flak is worthless defensively, and seemingly is only useful for offense against fighters.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Position yourself well and Battlestar flak will make it and anything behind it completely invulnerable to missiles/torpedoes. The targets that were engaging you were quite a bit above you and were closing in on you too. Know and appreciate it's limitations and you'll do fine with it, it's certainly not in need of a buff.

And hell, as an extra note, you can manually manipulate the angle of the flak by ordering the Battlestar to make a sharp turn. Make a sharp right turn, it'll flick the left side up and give you higher coverage for the start of your turn if something has fired missiles from a high angle from your left, for example.

If anything, chaff is horrifically overpowered at the moment, just push button and missiles go poof without thought to your own placement or heading.

[ShadowXV]

I never had a problem with Flak i do get hit with some missiles but they came at a slightly angle compared to my flak i move the ship but one or two got though. If it deadon i just laugh as i took two basestars full of missles and watch them blow up in my flak turn it off blasted on a basestar then turn it back on before the next round hit me basestars die and my battlestar was more or less undamage from missile attacks

[Giga]

Originally posted by Sir Wagglepuss III:

Position yourself well and Battlestar flak will make it and anything behind it completely invulnerable to missiles/torpedoes. The targets that were engaging you were quite a bit above you and were closing in on you too. Know and appreciate it's limitations and you'll do fine with it, it's certainly not in need of a buff.

And hell, as an extra note, you can manually manipulate the angle of the flak by ordering the Battlestar to make a sharp turn. Make a sharp right turn, it'll flick the left side up and give you higher coverage for the start of your turn if something has fired missiles from a high angle from your left, for example.

If anything, chaff is horrifically overpowered at the moment, just push button and missiles go poof without thought to your own placement or heading.

You say it's overpowered, I say it's working as intended. I'll say that no your own missles shouldn't be immune to it, and it should destroy them too, but otherwise it's doing what it's meant to; Stop missles.

The more I play and use flak, the more I'm convinced it's primarily designed for active defense of fighters more than dealing with munitions. Chaff can't do jack to fighters, but Flak can wipe out whole squads with impunity. But when dealing with munitions?....Lets see.

It only covers one side, and only after a certain distence, so anything too close will get through anyway.
It has apperently a percent chance of actually doing 'damage' to a missle to destroy it, and unless you get into the 8+ defense range or have buffs to armory similar, it has a chance to miss in spades.
It's actual hurtbox is smaller than than both graphics show. The red bubble when activating it only highlights the area where the flak WON'T be, and is roughly 20% larger than the actual box, while the flak effects are 10% larger than that actual box.
It has a Cooldown....What we see is missles exploding and sometimes getting through in the same volly. Turns out, if you zoom in real close, you can see missles detonating at different positions at set intervuls. Thus, it has a short CD per check to destroy munitions.
And it doesn't extend upward or downward, unlike most cannons in the game. All that is required is a 10* to 20* difference to basically ignore flak screens.

With flak, you have to over-position, to maybe get defense, and it also requires full Defense and Armory. I checked it after you said it was Armory; You're right, and if the Armory is down, due to any reason, flak has a 0% chance of destroying enemy missles or fighters, but a 100% chance of destroying your own. Chaff only requires that you stay positioned between a stationary cloud that stays for 4 rounds, that can be moved around or simply waited out while it has to reload.

Please, tell me more about how flak just fine and not in need of a rework.

[Veritas]

Flak is probably the strongest defensive option you have access to. Sure, you have sweepers, but they tend to be vaporized if a cylon fighter swarm decides to aggro on them, and often you are putting them in places where it's very plausible for them to be attacked. It sucks that you have to go defense scale to make it work but it makes sense. I just wish the AoE on the vertical planes was a bit better, the horizontal coverage is excellent though.

[Giga]

Originally posted by Snazzy Dragon:

Flak is probably the strongest defensive option you have access to. Sure, you have sweepers, but they tend to be vaporized if a cylon fighter swarm decides to aggro on them, and often you are putting them in places where it's very plausible for them to be attacked. It sucks that you have to go defense scale to make it work but it makes sense. I just wish the AoE on the vertical planes was a bit better, the horizontal coverage is excellent though.

Again, I haven't finished the game, but I've yet to have an issue with fighter swarms. Mainly because the AI is...Limited. Normally, I summon all my fighters, have them all defend a single unit, then wait for the enemy fighters to get in range that they can start locking onto my guys. 9 times out of 10, they'll go for fighters, so it's just a matter of positioning a battlestar inbetween them and their target. They fly through, and don't fly out. Then it's just send the angry bees at the enemy.

As to Sweepers, once the fighter threats are gone, I just attach them to their parent ship, set them to chaff for a round, unchaff, rechaff, and then recall to refill the chaff in two turns. Maybe I play differently to everyone else, but I keep my fleets in tight formations, so they can wolf pack targets down, and bank on eachother for defense-- like defensively screen eachother to prevent total armor loss, while maintaining focus. Because of that, chaff works perfectly fine for me, while flak is inconsistant and hindering.

[Jackrabbit_V6/ RSProduxx]

Originally posted by Giga:

Okay, this just happened to me and I decided to record it, just to show that, yes, missles/torps can get through a flak screen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aed8y7ULSok&feature=youtu.be

You can see that the flak destroys some of the torps, then just lets the rest through. I'm sorry, I get the logic behind it, but I disagree with it. Especially when Chaff lets you shoot your own munitions through it [Tested it this same battle], and never 'misses'. Even if this is a case of 'your ship moved an inch so it's now slightly out of the way', that just means that the flak field needs to be expanded. It's like getting a riot shield that only covers your forearm; Great if you want to prove you're some macho man, but utterly stupid if you're trying to keep your head attached.

looks alot like those that hit came from a higher position and went close over the flak...

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

I honestly don't know what to tell you. Flak has a job, stop missiles and fighters that enter the designated area, and it does that job just fine. I've had no problems with it as I've used it with it's strengths and limitations in mind.

It sounds to me like you want flak to be as good as sweepers.

The problem with that is, flak works fine in it's current state, while sweepers over-perform due to the ability to clean a massive area of hostile ordinance whilst allowing your own to work unhindered. Buffs to flak would just result in two over-performing pieces, and that's how you go into a very nasty balance spiral of trying to match crazy with crazy. I've been there, it's a ♥♥♥♥-sandwich.

The solution for you here, since you seem unwilling or unable to use flak with it's applications in mind, is to simply not use flak and continue to use sweepers, Vipers and PCM's for your AMD duties.