Typhon, Heavy Flak Discussion.

[awkm]

Okay, I want to clarify what Shell Life and Projectile Speed.

Shell Life is how long the projectile lasts before exploding.  This is an artificial cap and used to maintain range on projectile weapons.  It is a value in seconds.

Projectile Speed is how fast the projectile travels.  It is a value in meters per second.

A projectile will travel at its' designated Projectile Speed until it hits something and explodes or reaches its' Shell Life and explodes.  For example, is my projectile speed is 100m/s and my Shell Life is 2s then my projectile has a range of 200m (100m/s * 2s).

The Heavy Flak already reaches a range of 1008m (240m/s * 4.2).  It's arming time is 1s meaning it is armed at 240m, which is just bordering close/medium range.

Changing Projectile Speed will alter a projectile's drop.  Changing Shell Life will not alter a projectile's drop.

[Rainer Zu Fall]

I'm out of my element with heavy flak, so forgive me if I say things that are known to be impossible. I'm not entirely sure on the going rate of death from 1.3 flak with two shots. I assume that a gunner can be trained to hit all shots in three shot clip, so the thing here was (which we seem to agree on) is that it isn't able to simply murder any ship in that three clip. If so, then ammo me up.

For the arming, it was purely just to compensate for the added reality that the long game has gotten harder, and with large arming times, your bubble of "oh crap, we cant do anything to him" can be large, so a reduction might help mitigate that.

Right again. It's purpose is to maim. I do like the idea of it suppressing though too, to a lesser degree than it's main role of killing. If my armor is up, I couldn't care less about flak shots. If armor is down, I'm looking for them the entire time. Any added suppression will make me at least factor it in as a threat at any time vs the former. It already light's things on fire thanks to the explosive damage. The fire damage was just to give it a slight bite to armor/balloon, while not giving it something OP like piercing.

I suppose you can say we agree here for the most part.

What about giving it Impact damage as a primary while slightly increasing the secondary Explosive damage?

Eh.

So, this is becoming a nice discussion after our little...uh...misunderstanding there.

A trained gunner could kill a ship with a heavy flak using a 2 ammo clip with the help of other guns/ships - or alone, although it's taken some time. Quite nice if you ask me! It needed lesmok though - and lesmok only, which is a problem, as you've already stated.
So, since lesmok now gives it one shot less, I think upgrading it's clip capacity to one more might help, giving it two shots with lesmok again, but adding more shots when using burst and other ammo types (they're using percentage too!).

Regarding the arming, I see the main problem in even letting the enemy get that close to you. How comes? Because of too many clouds? Or because you're already going backwards and he didn't die? Because whichever problem applies, we need a whole different strategy of getting rid of instead of covering it up. The heavy flak should stay the long range gun it is. It's main counter is to get close to it! That's one of the factors which doesn't make it that OP again. Never touch a running system.

Yeah, using it as surpressive weaponry might be quite interesting, but as said: first you need to speculate about the AoE of fire damage - and how much of it would be dealt.

[Captain Smollett]

Well playing competitively, I tend to speak from a slightly different perspective from players that do not however I don't think adding more fire to the heavy flak would help it all that much unless the stacks were significant.

I think the problem with the heavy flak was that even in 1.3 it was a very niche weapon.  With a very skilled gunner it could reliably provide kills better than other guns in the game at ranges between 1.6km and .7km however at all other ranges the gun became eclipsed by other weapons and below .35km the gun lost the majority of its killing power.  Now with the lesmok change the gun performs better than other guns really between 1km and .7km giving it an extremely narrow window of tactical superiority.

Heavy weapons due to the sacrifices inherently made by taking ships that can equip them should excel at something, and the flak should be the best finishing weapon in the game.  Ideally changes to Flak should help give it superiority at finishing over a wider range than currently.  That's why a proposed longer shell life a very slight speed boost and possibly a reduction in arm time could give the gun a more prominent role.

[Rainer Zu Fall]

Smollet, I've got one thing to tell you that speaks against that: You don't want an allround gun.
It's good it's been that superior to other guns at that specific range, because that was it's purpose. It is a long range gun after all. That wasn't a problem but a tactical thinking behind setting up your ships, which is one of the main points this game provides us with: Tactics.
Compare it to chess: Different figures for different ways to perform actions. That's what we need.

[Captain Smollett]

I think we're agreeing without realizing it.

I don't want the heavy flak to be an all around gun.  But as a heavy weapon I want it to be the best finisher at a broader range than it currently stands.

[awkm]

I think we're agreeing without realizing it.

I don't want the heavy flak to be an all around gun.  But as a heavy weapon I want it to be the best finisher at a broader range than it currently stands.

Pushing the the gun further into its niche is easy.  The main reason why the Flak got arming time and big nerf to its projectile speed was because it was too easy to kill at close range.  If projectile speed was increased to maintain its long range effectiveness (this means its arming distance would increase, but I'd fiddle with arming time to ensure medium range or more) then increasing its clip size is viable.

[Rainer Zu Fall]

I dare to say that that is what we're talking about, awkm: Giving the gun a meaning again.

[Twinkie D-Lite]

Oddly enough, I have no issue with the arming time, that's what Lochnager is for. But one round of Lesmok is of no value as even with that round its still moves slower than an old man getting into a bathtub. I don't need it nerfed to make it easier to hit with, but at least make it worth using.

[Nidh]

I really like Zill's suggestion of adding fire damage, or rather a chance of fire. I'd lower the arming time, lower the explosive damage, and give it a considerable chance to set fire within the AoE. It would be able to "strip" hull armour without too much need of assistance, albeit slowly, and it would make it more appealing to close-mid range fighter on a goldfish... no connection to my play style there.

[awkm]

Explosive damage already causes chance for fire based on how much explosive damage it does.  More?  Yeah it's possible.

[Nidh]

Does it now? Wow, I just assumed that the enemy were using incendiary lol.

[Captain Smollett]

I don't consider fire to be a reasonable hull breaking option at range since ships have the ability to easily chem spray. 

[Nidh]

Well, the point would be to make the Flak a little more independent from the merc. Also, the amount of charges set could be increased too.

[awkm]

Fire is worrisome because it will also affect balloons.  Very dangerous.

[RearAdmiralZill]

Its important to note I meant to only add fire damage, not fire ignite chance, as the explosive damage a flak does already gives it a rather large chance to set a stack of flame. I figured it was the best "in-between" damage to do a little more damage to hull armor. Awkm is right to say it'll effect the balloon as well though, but I only wanted to add a little so the dps on balloon shouldn't be too significant, in theory.