Bring back old flak vs fighters?

Flak is actually still effective against LRF, especially if you micro.  The problem isn't that flak doesn't work, the problem is that fighters and bombers cost nothing to rebuild.  The flak can kill it all day, so as long as the fighters are slowly killing off your expensive ships, you are the one losing.

Tons of flak CAN shut down carriers, forcing them to pull back and rebuild their strikecraft.  You just have to have some other capability besides the flak to press the attack...flak by itself doesn't cut it.

Flak could probably stand to be a little more dangerous specifically to fighters, but too much of an adjustment and carriers will go back to being useless and extremely counterable like they were in 1.05.

Would some tiny metal/crystal cost per strikecraft do anything at all to carrier spam?  Just pondering.

Try to use flak vs LRFs, and you will lose mroe credits in structures then the opponent will in LRFs.  And you are not the only one that can micro, he can micro too.  Unless he happens to be TEC, he can easily retreat his LRFs before they are destroyed.

Actually, enough LRF can destroy many things before even their counters can kill them.  But that is nothing new from 1.05.

I was only responding to your statement:

Flak couldn't kill LRF fast enough in 1.05 either....I ignore it back then just like I do now.  So I'm not sure what YOUR point is, because my point is Flak still work the same vs LRF and Scouts.  If LRF's try to kill Flak, equal cost of Flak will in fact kill them easily.  The whole problem with Flak is that they can be ignored because they don't do damage that fast, but this is nothing new.  They lost a little bit of damage potential vs light armor, but it isn't enough for them to change their status as a soft counter to the light armor types.  The only thing they are a hard counter to is Very Light, and the only reason we can't see them as a hard counter anymore is that people build a metric crapton of carriers and STRIKECRAFT ARE FREE.

The main reason flak was popular in 1.05 was NOT because of its anti-LRF soft counter potential, but because it was an extreme hard counter against strikecraft.

Yes Mazuo, if strikecraft took even the slightest bit of metal and crystal to build, this would nicely balance out carriers, because people wouldn't want to just have their strikecraft endlessly die to flak fire, which would suddenly seem more valuable. 

Flaks actually do kill a fair amount of strikecraft, but it is hard to see because they are always being rebuilt.  Not to mention that most fleets are now dedicating 50% of their supply cap to carriers...if not more.  I have actually had people counter small raiding fleets of 10 of my carriers by building like 25 flak/defense vessels.  But of course, I just run away when the strikecraft die. 

If all of those suicided strikecraft cost me something...even if it was relatively cheap, it would create an economic value for the flak to be damaging.  The problem with flak is that they are firing at something that lacks intrinsic value because it can be easily and freely replaced, while frigates/structures destroyed by strikecraft have an economic cost. 

The only way to capitalize on flak superiority is if you have ships in play to hurt the carriers before they get away (which is challenging, given their speed), or if you have the ability to rapidly take out a world before the carriers rebuild their strikecraft and come back to harass you.

Hmm.  It'd be interesting to see what the total resource cost turned out to be on a fleet built on the concept of carrier spam if say each strikecraft cost maybe 5 metal and crystal.

Additionally, this might also add a good reason to keep strikecraft docked in a system with strong anti-strikecraft defenses, such as flak on hangars and other fighters, if its other ship defenses were weaker.  Run in your combat ships and wait until you've disabled much of the anti-strikecraft forces.  I like the dichotomy and having to more intelligently use carriers.

Yup, it would generally make you think a bit more about how you use carriers.  They would still be very powerful, but you wouldn't send the fighters out to die needlessly unless you were rich.

Strikecraft should definitely have a price tag attached to them. But individual rebuilding costs are too complicated for Sins.

Instead, make carriers cost 20% more fleet supply which translates into credits/metal/crystal per second. This would represent the cost of constantly rebuilding strikecraft.

i have another idea. instead of bringing back the 'old feared flak frigates'. why not research the 'old flak frigates?' i mean, to all the current factions in sins, have a powerful anti fighter frigates for each race and adjust the research requesite for options to a more powerful anti fighter ability. this would make a whole lot better than just injecting flak frigates with steroids and slamming everyship thats out there as soon as it gets out of a frigate factory hangar. anyone agree with me on this?

Agree with Mazuo and Cykur. Either make strikecraft paid, or alter carriers speed/hp so they could actually still be usefull, but only when inteligently used with other ships combo, not as super unit just by themselves. Something must be done about these carriers Stardock, the game is closer to balance compared to 1.05, just the current state of the carriers is spoiling the picture.

Quick refference - yesterday I played 1 game on ICO for the first time during the past 4 months. Played with Tyr and Berzerker who are good enough to cover my temporary inadequateness due to lack of practise. So 3 of us played vs 5 other guys. So just to make sure that i do not get defeated early, and because i had forgotten almost everything, from the start to the upgrades etc, i have decided just to spam carriers. The only goal i had was to survive. Well, the most distant of my few (compared to the others) colonies got assaulted by 2 players. Fortunately i had about 10 of my carriers and my cap there. One of the players attacked me with more than 20 light frigs, few defence vessels and few carriers, the other one had about a dozen of kodiaks and same amount of flak. Both of them brough in 1 cap each. The first they destroyed were my factories, but i was able to build few more carriers, which were scheduled there and to get about a dozen of LRMs. The LRMs were destroyed pretty fast, but my carriers were just circling around and used the cap as a bite. So i got both their cap ships, all the light frigs, carriers and defence vessels, and at least half of the kodiaks. Lost maybe 2 or 3 carriers most. So after all I didn't lose the colony, and in the mean time, almost lossless, held them and that didn't even stall my economy. And, believe me - I played terrible during that game, really slow and bad and was counting on the carrier spam ONLY. So that's how imbalanced this unit is.

Would be grateful if Ironclad fix that problem and nerf the carriers a little bit (speed/hp or strikecraft cost). Thank you.

Anfield

Making carriers more expensive is certainly an alternative, but they would probably still be worth it....

Anfield, when you consider the cost / supply cost of your fleet vs their combined fleet, consider they didnt really have enough anti-carrier power with them, and add to it that you were on defensive so they had multiple infrastructure  targets to shoot at, this doesn't really surprise me.   You might have felt you played awful, but I'm sure you are still competitive.  Not that carriers aren't a little too tough, we all know they are... 

Truth, their fleets werent very well suited to clash with carriers. But that was only in the beggining. Afterwards the TEC player researched the charge ability for the kodiaks and heavily spammed flak frigs. The other one spammed defense vessels and built several carriers himself too. But most of the time i was fighting the TEC. And the kodiaks charged on my carriers, and even so i lost few only. Thats my point - it might turn out that speed reduction wouldn't be enough for the carriers. They are still pretty tough to shoot down. Even when all my strikecraft has been shot down and with a dozen of kodiaks charging on my tail, i was still able to retreat to a nearby planet with almost no casualties. Rebuild the strikecraft and jump back....

So once you catch a carrier, at least let it be a bit more fragile, so you could effectively cut them down before they jump out. They always float at the edge of the gravity rim anyway.

Yes, Cyk - I really sucked, even so I feel i would go back in track in few days of playing. Just don't have those 2 days:) Anyway whenever I am able to go on ICO would love to try some things I have in mind (almost perfectly carrierless:)).

Hope see ya online:)

Even if you made strikecraft cost resoruces, it would not make flak useful agaisnt carriers.  It would still be terrible, and it would not help the topic of this thread.  Topic is that flak is terrible, not that carrier is great. We have 20 carrier is great threads on the board, so take your ideas there, and stay on topic.

If you nerf carriers so people don't use them as much, you have not helped flak frigates at all.  As is there are 2 frigates which I am 99% sure not to research in any game: 1) siege frigate, 2)flak.  Now it's real shame when you don't find it worthwhile to even research a prototype of a frigate!

Compare that to 1.04 when flak could be the first frigate I research!  That to me says to me the game has lost something.  It is now less than what it was, and as such it should be remedied.

Alternate idea to fix flak would be to change it to 1 gun, increase dps.  This would make it both, more usefull vs light armor targets and useful against strikecraft.  Sure you hit fewer craft, but when you do hit 1 you are sure to kill it.  Which is what we want.  I don't wish to hurt a strikecraft to 50% health, cause that does nothing to it!  It will heal up and in the mean time it still does damage.  I wish to kill the craft so it has to be rebuilt and can't deal damage.

I haven't played seriously in months, but are you really saying that if you have 10 flak you won't be frequently vaporizing strikecraft?

That would run counter to what I've read elsewhere.  I'm open to the suggestion that they're not as effective as you would like, but this comment that they're so ineffective as to never be built seems a little hysterical.

Well, I for one haven't built any flack frigs since probably 1.04. A fighter spam kills enemy fighters + their ships too, so there's not really a reason to build flack.  I like the idea of strikecraft costing money, as it would bring back the flack frigate into the game, while not radically shifting the balance of play.

In 1.04 and 1.05 I never researched carriers...ever.  That to me says the game has gained something.  Not that flak couldn't be a tiny bit stronger specifically vs very light armor.

I still say that the new flak still makes a good replacement for a cobalt. I mean, Come on, even though they're not as effective against fighters, they can still tear them some when you replace all your cobalts with them. I mean, The TEC has flak that can cover your fleet from strike squads as the fleet is jumping, (Due to its @$$ guns)

Sure they're not like they were, but its still better than a freaking cobalt.