4 flak vs 1 emp missile... guess who wins...

[lalelunatic]

those flaks are by far the most useless thing in the game compared to its costs/size/supply needs... how can a single, nearly straight flying emp rocket, from 600 range (rail engagement) fly through 4 flaks and knock out 2 heavy shields in 1 hit on top?!

i really struggle to employ those in any way that doesnt make them seem like an aprils fools joke...
4flaks use up space for 12!! pd guns... and thats in width only...

i was totally baffled seeing this today... especially as a single emp isnt really the norm honestly... so lets say i need 5 flak for 1 emp... when most ships fire around 4-6, lets say 5 emp at you per volley... so i need what? 25 flaks?

they really need a buff/redesign in my book... make them massivly smaller, double their arc, and what i think makes them miss all the time despite having "instant hit" as a trait, is that somehow the animation takes 1 frame to long and lets the missile pass... or anything the likes...

not saying they should get each and every missile in a 30+ rocket volley... but 4 of em against a single missile?? come on...

so, yeah, little rant over... back to pd´s i guess... or is there any "trick" i didnt figure out yet? like building them backwards maybe?

[a small rabbit]

2 flaks side by side can easily stop an emp head on, but it also depends heavily on the angle its coming from.

Tested it from max range emp firing at the center of ship, flaks had to be off to the side where the missle was coming from so they would shoot it as it crossed over to center.

That said, i do agree flak firing arc/range needs to be increased, possibly decreasing firing speed to compensate. Since flak can stop lasers and cannons as well, they can't be all powerful on defense, but right now 4 pd can also handle a single emp, with a much broader arc, and don't require crew constantly manning them or ammo.

Flak 3x5 footprint is also massive, I think 3 wide is fine, since 4 pd are similar in performance, but the whole thing could be shortened up by one to be 3x4 which would help on space a little and not change the interior design much.

[Netaris]

I totally agree on that one, flaks underperform dramatically. Especially when you take their size and angle of fire into account.

[a small rabbit]

This was my test setup btw, was changing which ones were powered to see how they did. Using built in Cabal ship "Ardent Piety" which has a single side launched EMP.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888625534

Single flak could not take down an emp no matter which position it was in, 2 took it down at almost max range. Emp was targeted at the central reactor.

[amimai002]

small PD lasers are good vs EMP, flack is better vs swarms of HE missiles

[a small rabbit]

Also the nature of 2 flaks being required to shoot down an emp necessitates that they be built in pairs or else the singular flak is "wasted" for that purpose as it can't handle it and you might as well not build it.

EDIT: Adding a single PD next to the flak allowed the the single flak+pd to stop an emp at about half range remaining to the ship.

[lalelunatic]

so for every small "arc" they have, i need to build 2 next to each other... yeah, proves my point, they suck... if you wanna defend not only a quarter of your ships front, you need 8+ or what... for their size and costs compared to pds, they are useless. =)

especially as you can easily dump more missiles on another ship for less size needs and much less positional needs. =)

[OKOK]

Just throw them out and use armor. Than u can ignore emp. Just turn your ship to show them fresh armor.

[lalelunatic]

thats the problem, i made a kite cruiser, which depends on speed... so dumping armor like a madman as with melee brawlers isnt an option... thus the flaks... at least the thought was, they´re bigger, so they shot down more stuff... well... seems i was wrong...

but yeah, a huge armor block in front seems to be the streamlined way to ignore 90% of problems in combat... the rest beeing miniscule repair costs for what it absorbs...

[DeMo]

Compare in terms of air defense capability

From my experience, the anti-aircraft gun is not as good as a few laser point defenses

large building
need ammo
The attack arc is small
power is not obvious

I feel that its cost is not proportional to its power

It may also be because my ship is a slanted ship, because the attack arc is very small, which limits the anti-aircraft gun's anti-aircraft ability ?

[WillieSea]

I just created a mod that increases the attack angle from 40 degrees, to 60 degrees.
Of course, any angle could be set with the mod, all you have to do is update the mod.rules file and give it a new value.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2888647290

[Yaddah]

Originally posted by lalelunatic:

thats the problem, i made a kite cruiser, which depends on speed... so dumping armor like a madman as with melee brawlers isnt an option... thus the flaks... at least the thought was, they´re bigger, so they shot down more stuff... well... seems i was wrong...

While I do agree that they appear underwhelming, it might also be that we're having the wrong expectations when we assume they're like PD guns, but better. Maybe Flak are not supposed to be a replacement for PD guns (which makes sense because every weapon in the game is late-game viable - even blasters compared to heavy blasters), but a complement. As I understand it, Flak does area of effect damage. That could mean while their damage is not better against single incoming projectiles, their area of effect acts as a potential damage multiplier in situations where lots of projectiles are incoming.

[Scoob]

I think if Flaks don't kill a missile outright, their AoE should at the very least knock it off-course, potentially causing it to flame out before it can turn to re-engage the target.

Missiles are quite fun, I find, but additional counter methods - Flares / Chaff / ECM type of thing - would be quite cool and, in turn, would allow for more missile varieties *without* effecting balance too much.

[Morkonan]

It's all about damage per shot over time and Flak's AOE effect, I think.

IMO - There's only one thing worth worrying about past the point where a player has designed some decent defenses, including the need for PD and Flak. Also - Since many other weapons can act as a direct damage point-defense against "shots," the player is not completely reliant upon having a face-full of dedicated point-defense specialty weapons. For instance, I can't say for sure that my two Large Lasers aren't actually doing a decent job against incoming missiles/shots, too.

I don't know that the following reflects current game data. (I'm not on my gaming PC) But, at least it reflects the dev's intent at one time. (Maybe? Confirmations very much welcomed! Numbers - Post 'em if ya got 'em!)

https://cosmoteer.wiki.gg/wiki/Point_Defense

That's 15 shots per second with a bonus against other "Shots" at 150 pts of damage, otherwise damage per shot is 35 for other targets. (I do not know how Missiles are classed, there. I "assume" they are also "shots."

https://cosmoteer.wiki.gg/wiki/Flak_Battery

That's 4 shots per second with a flat 1800 AOE of 4 meter per shot.

https://cosmoteer.wiki.gg/wiki/Missile_%26_Mine_Launcher#Nuclear_Missiles

I hate they.

They have, if I'm interpreting it correctly, 7200 hit points? They will usually be briefly encountered while moving at 500mps... After which time either the crew spotting them are now space-paint or the nuke was successfully intercepted.

Nukes are, to me, a "things just got serious" issue whenever I encounter them. In that sense, they are the game's answer to "you're doing very well, Morkonan."

That "hit point" amount, though, seems a bit large. I think there is a velocity effect going on, here. Or, perhaps, there is a "Shrapnel" effect with hidden shrapnel values in the AOE "cloud" that multiply their value when an enemy enters that effect based on the enemy's velocity. Maybe?

At 7200 hundred hitpoints per Nuke, they can't be "one shot" from a Flak Battery using the above numbers, yet since I mounted Flak batteries long ago, I seem to do better against Nukes... It's decidedly NOT the standard unaltered DPS output of PDs that are doing 7200 damage, even if they all get one hit on an inbound Nuke.

So... there's something else going on here, I think, involving Flak and PD in regards to Missiles or Nukes?

PS: I haven't done much other than acknowledge my ship's survival during combat with nukes, so I'd have to do some testing to check my assumptions.

[lalelunatic]

replaced 4 flaks with 4x4 PD´s plus for the rest of the space freed i could fit another 2 small shield generators and 2 large reactors for instant feeding the large shields i had, instead of using belts for delivery... aaaaannnndddd....

instant success against the rail ship i gone against... not even did the PD´s wreck 2-3 out of 4 rail shots from the enemy, depending on salvo vs in-a-row fire, they also didnt let a single missile reach my ship...

so much for comparison... no matter what the "intend" on flaks was, it failed honestly... i see that they can get more usefullness if there is like 30+ missiles coming your way... but then again, for the same space you get a plethora of PD´s that technically spread so much ordnance they would achieve the same in the current state, with less effort...

i took a close look at the old variant before i made the changes and i witnessed the flaks shooting BETWEEN 2 incomming emps..... they where not even close at hitting them. its as there is a fault in the mechanic... or better said, their firing angle is different from there lock on angle. why else would they fire and miss by 20 tiles? doesnt make sense...

anyway, they seem strange. =P

[Yaddah]

Originally posted by Scoob:

I think if Flaks don't kill a missile outright, their AoE should at the very least knock it off-course, potentially causing it to flame out before it can turn to re-engage the target.

Missiles are quite fun, I find, but additional counter methods - Flares / Chaff / ECM type of thing - would be quite cool and, in turn, would allow for more missile varieties *without* effecting balance too much.

Flares are a really interesting idea, I think. But creating too many options for countering can cause confusion and "cluttering".