Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Lieutenant Noir on August 24, 2015, 12:49:50 am
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I love the look of the light flak and so I wanted to suggest something that I think will give it a bit more love.
The Light Flak has both arming time and limited range and so there is a limited window for max kill potential, making it a true mid-range weapon
My problem with it is a combination of each shot not doing enough damage and enemy ships outmaneuvering that limited window.
Basically during the time the armor is down, not every shot will be able to hit the hull. This is annoying because we have to keep the ship at an optimum range, have to deal with not all of its shots hitting, and those shots not doing enough damage (Why not use anything else).
I want to suggest having its clip size reduced to 2 or 4, having the total clip damage spread out to those 2 or 4 shots and a reload time increase to compensate for the increased DPS (Around enough time for the next armor break~).
This would mean that in the time that the armor breaks (Provided the Flak is in its optimum range), every shot in its clip will hit in the window where the armor is broken. Next, the Flak would be reloaded just in time for the next armor break.
A mortar can basically kill most ships in one greased clip provided the majority of shots hit. This Flak wouldn't be able to but would offer mid-range potential and be easier to hit the damage when it counts.
tl;dr Make it more like the Heavy Flak
I wouldn't want this to replace the Gat/Mortar Metamidion but to make more people fear ships that bring Flaks.
What do you guys think?
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So just stick a heavy flak on a light mount and call it a day.
Pass, want the old LF back. Shots had spread, no arming, and did adequate damage. Mort would kill in one clip, Flak often in 2 but the shots would hit more consistently and could be utilized while strafing. Trying lateral movement with Gat/Mort and you'll often end up missing a lot of shots unless you get the timing down. Even then, ships evading can cause shots to miss. Flak back then would miss but not as often unless the spread came into it and cause a shot to veer off.
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So just stick a heavy flak on a light mount and call it a day.
Pass, want the old LF back. Shots had spread, no arming, and did adequate damage. Mort would kill in one clip, Flak often in 2 but the shots would hit more consistently and could be utilized while strafing. Trying lateral movement with Gat/Mort and you'll often end up missing a lot of shots unless you get the timing down. Even then, ships evading can cause shots to miss. Flak back then would miss but not as often unless the spread came into it and cause a shot to veer off.
Out of curiosity as a proponent of lesmok mortar how did the old flak differ from that.
My pet idea for the flak is to go more or less to the other extreme, reducing the hull damage on the artemis (getting rid of some of the boring mobulas) and giving flak a speed, range and accuracy boost to put it in the long range hull damage niche. It probably would need to fire fewer shots to work in that role, i like the rapid fire feel though so id probably say from 6 to 4 not 2.
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Personally I don't want to see any change to the Artemis. It is already only a gun which is efficient when used by a better than average skill level crew. Lower skill levels and it losses its disable abilities, abd the perma hull damage is not that high, it takes time to kill with an Artemis, time which only proficient disabling shots can give you, which means high skill level balances the strengths the gun needs to be efficient.
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I think the light flak is good enough with range being the limiting factor. It already does twice the dps of banshee and nearly 4X that of artemis making it by far the most potent explosive light gun. The problem is that ranges over 1000m require lesmok ammo which makes the max damage per clip 448. It has a speed of 350 m/s (same as Minotaur) which makes it difficult to hit at range without lesmok.
The reload and empty time for light flak are the best in the game (besides mine) at 4s reload and 2.1 empty. This means you can pre fire plenty and don't lose the potential damage of burst ammo from the enemy rebuilding hull in under 2.9 seconds. At its optimal range the light flak is supreme and woe be the ship who's hit by a clip of buff burst. Heatsink is an excellent ammo choice that reduces arm range.
I use the light flak on mobula and spire, and I'm not convinced it needs any buff beyond slight range and speed (1200m 400 m/s).
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I think it could use about a 20% decrease in jitter, and that would be enough for its long range capabilities. It still wouldn't do much of anything past 1000, which is fine.
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meh 20% would make like a 4m difference in spread at max range. I personally would like to see a slight increase in speed while range stays at 1000m, because I feel like the range is pretty decent for medium range and its just pretty hard to hit reliably - so subtle speed increase would be nice.
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The flack does need some loving. The arming time was best for the game even if it killed the flack's effectiveness as a primary gun. I am all for the OP's suggestion of decreasing the clip size to increase DPS. I would like the clip to be small enough so that charged becomes the optimal ammo for the gun.
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Rather not see it remain a super range gun and get a huge dmg buff because then we'll have a total return to sniper battles. All it would take is 2 ships with mercs + flaks and a clear lane. Even if they approached CQC range, if its a Junker it could have dual sides and easily handle it.
Gotta think about how each change would affect overall gameplay and potential for exploitation. As Muse found out with the Artemis buffs awhile back. People stuck 3 of them on a Junker and introduced one of the most boring disable metas the game had since the merc days.
There should be a power for range trade off in the guns like there used to be. The closer you get, the more powerful something is.
Mortar -> CQC
Flak ->CQC - Mid
Art -> Mid - Long
Banshee would be the only exception to the rule. Partly because it isn't a real killing blow weapon. More of a ranged flamer with some explosive. Also couldn't see this going in super long range segment because the launcher isn't designed for accuracy like the Art.
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I wouldn't mind having Projectile speed increase while still keeping it's mid-range sweet spot.
My problem was that while the armor was down, the flak shots would take a long time to hit it's target meaning only a few of the shots would hit during armor break.
This isn't the case for the Mortar because the ship is generally closer to the ship.
I wanted to mitigate this by having less shots to hit to still be effective in that narrow time period while having a reload time increase to keep its overall DPS (I worded this wrong in the original post).
If the flak gets a projectile speed buff I could defiantly see more hits hitting when it counts. I could also see it being much more effective at longer ranges.
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I agree with hamster, make the flak a bit easier to use. Increase velocity, keep max range the same. Maybe slightly decrease arming distance.
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Pushing its side arcs from 50 out to the 60 that the banshee has would put it into consideration for some of my builds, squid and mobula in particular. With an unarmed flak having slightly more hull damage than a banshee (unarmed buffed burst can kill a pyra or junker) the slight lack of arcs has been the main limitation.
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Part of the banshee's charm is the 60 degree arcs and I don't think flak should too. 55 max
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One of the weaknesses of explosive-type weapons is low projectile speed - to prevent kills from happening too quickly. Increasing the base projectile speed will make it too strong; the Light Flak already has the highest projectile speed of any pure explosive weapon.
Mortar: 125 m/s
H.Flak: 240 m/s
L.Flak: 350 m/s
It is difficult to hit because of the combination of spread, shell drop, and the nature of explosive killing weapons - low projectile speed. My stand on this is removing spread so there's a more consistent gunning response and less RNG involved.
P.S. It is also worth noting that the Light Flak has 50% higher DPS than a mortar while firing, and about 15% less DPS if you factor in reload. Not a bad trade-off at all for extra 200 m/s projectile speed, as long as you can keep it within arming range.
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Don't know why anyone would want to increase the projectile speed, to be able to inflict hull damage should not be guaranteed with a gun that is easier to hit with but skill of the shooter or captain getting in a good over watching position. Can't get any red hits when their armour goes down? Well that's part of the challenge of the midrange piercing + explosives meta. Timing is different and gungineers may need to look for puffs of smoke when armour is getting low
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Don't know why anyone would want to increase the projectile speed, to be able to inflict hull damage should not be guaranteed with a gun that is easier to hit with but skill of the shooter or captain getting in a good over watching position. Can't get any red hits when their armour goes down? Well that's part of the challenge of the midrange piercing + explosives meta. Timing is different and gungineers may need to look for puffs of smoke when armour is getting low
This guy, right here. ^
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Big *Donkey* wall of text
I felt that due to the risk of enemies staying in the arming time of the Flak I always had to compensate for it by taking other guns that did the same thing but slightly worse and didn't have arming time.
When I said I wanted to give the Flak some love... I kinda meant make it OP (I'm very bad with words)
Let me try to explain:
I understand that from Close quarters to long range there should be a decrease in damage
-I'm going to ignore the Artemis and Banshee because although they have a decreased explosive damage output they offer disable and fire stacks (A bit unfair to compare to explosive - explosive weapons).
-Although the flak has mid-range and DPS it has a really really bad con and it's that it has Arming time
Other guns compensate for utility/ damage output due to the fact that they have arming time
Lumberjack - in a clip will break a balloon with devastating power and potentially solo kill the ship
Mines - can stun/ de-Arc an enemy ship, deal decent damage to every component, and potentially solo kill the ship
Hades - Long range Gatling Flamer meaning armor will never stay up and can potentially solo kill the ship
Heavy Flak - can potentially one-shot ships and does enough damage to kinda break armor
Do you see where I was going with the original Suggestion?
I basically wanted to make the Light Flak a mid-range Heavy Flak because I wanted to keep the arming time on the Light Flak.
I didn't want Muse to suddenly make the Flak good again because it does magical impact damage or something. It has Flak in it's name, it should act similar to it's older brother who has found a nice warm place in GOIO.
From what I've heard of the old Light Flak let me compare what the suggested Light Flak would be like
Old Light Flak
-Easy to shoot and land hits, no arming, Longer mid-range and short range due to no arming, decent damage
New suggested Light Flak
-Hard to shoot and land hits Already implemented, Arming time Already implemented, mid-range only Already Implemented, more damage to compensate for Arming time
Also about the DPS thing... when you have to keep a ship only at mid range and have to strip it's armor. You might as well have a gun that can kill short and mid-range in one clip, Stop them from shooting you as well as kill them and potentially help in breaking armor, or stack fire to keep their armor down as well as kill.
^you know what those guns are, because you have all used them in favor of the Flak
Alternative suggestion: Get rid of the gun
Tl;dr Make Light Flak more like Heavy Flak
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Another buff that was already implemented is moving some aoe damage value into direct damage to make unarmed shots sting a little more.
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Light flak definitely has a home, and in Alliance mode is looking to be a very popular choice, which will likely encourage its use in skirmish mode too, it is a good kill weapon at the right ranges.
And along with focused firepower, it is a beast of a weapon, it just needs more pilots realising its strengths over its weaknesses in my opinion:)
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i kind of like how the flak is. Any stronger and no one will want to brawl and you get these unexciting and frustrating shooting contest covering the entire distance of one map boundary to the other. that was exactly how it was until they made changes to the mini flak, Artemis and Mercury and heavy flak to what we see of them today.
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However, if I want to make it work better at what it's suppose to do at its given range:
-slightly reduce jitter by a few percent. Not too much so heavy clip can still be relevant for the longer shots. Or so you can at least hit a galleon a few times if you use Lemok.
-reduce damage per shot but increase magazine size by 2 or 3 shots to make a zero net gain/loss on damage potential per reload.
-can't complain about projectile speed, that can stay where it is
-I like the idea of increasing primary damage while decreasing secondary damage, but arming time should be tweaked slightly to compensate.
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Counter argumentative wall of text.
The Light Flak can empty its clip in less than 2.5 seconds (regardless of ammo type) to do 672 damage per clip (normal rounds), reloads within 4s, like the minelauncher and thus quicker than any other gun in the game, so you are quickly able to shoot at broken armor again in case you timed it wrong.
Use a buff hammer and burst or heatsink on it and you can kill 3 out of 7 ships in one clip, while two more can be finished by a Hades or even a Gatling. Galleon and Goldfish the only one that can survive, but are dead after the next clip. The Goldfish and Squid can repair their armor quickly, yes, but then again, the Flak empties its clip very quickly and reloads very quickly too.
Its spread can be felt, but it can still very reliably hit a targets hull at its max range. At max range the shot is easier to be dodged so if you are up against a competent pilot that has decent balloon/engine health, you will have troubles, yes, but the same goes for a lot of other guns, so predict the enemy pilot's movement. #GunnerSkill
The Light Flak is better than the Artemis and Banshee when it comes to killing, because it gets the kill much quicker. The moment you start creating fire stacks with the Banshee or disabling with an Artemis you will run into the issue of not being able to get the kill, because most of your clip is gone or you are reloading and when you are done, the enemy armor is rebuild.
Fun Fact: Instead of creating fires and disabling guns, the Flak does create a lot of smoke. I only had to face a double light Flak once and I couldn't see the enemy in front me, as a pilot.
Remove the arming time of the Light Flak and you get a better Mortar, not able to get the kill in one clip against all the ships, but getting the kill in two clips against all the ships, while it can profit more from the Gatligns 450m range.
And this is a quote from how the Light Flak's balance changed, because I want to compare the current Light Flak to the old one:
- Light Flak: Spread 1 degree (from 4), Arming Time 0.85s (from 0, arming range 300m), Range 1000m (from 790m), Scope Power 2x (from 1.5), 6 Ammo Clip Size (from 4), 2 Bullets/s (from 2.32 b/s), 45 Explosive Direct / 30 Explosive AoE (from 96/30)
It's rate of fire was then increased to ~2.8 b/s, direct explosive damage is now 50 and its arming time is 150m, later its reload time was decreased to 4s from 5s. And it also got more zoom and was decreased in gun rotation speed, but is still one of the fastest to rotate guns.
So compared to what you said about the old flak
From what I've heard of the old Light Flak let me compare what the suggested Light Flak would be like
Old Light Flak
-Easy to shoot and land hits, no arming, Longer mid-range and short range due to no arming, decent damage
It did have decent damage per shot, but it was never easier to land hits, especially with even more degrees of spread and it did have less maximum range than today. Damage per clip, unbuffed and normal rounds was 705.6 and emptied its clip in 2 seconds, compared to the current one, which empties its clip in 1.75s, with normal rounds.
DPS is not all that important for explosive guns, but if you want to know: Current ~117 vs old ~109 (both normal rounds)
The current Light Flak is perfectly fine as it is, while I personally believe the old one was worse when compared to the current one.
Instead of making the Light Flak more like the Heavy Flak, why not use the Heavy Flak to begin with? The Light Carronade is also not that similar to the Heavy Carronade anymore. It can destroys balloons in two clips, while the Heavy C. can destroy balloons in one clip. Light Flak can kill every ship in two clips, Heavy Flak can destroy every ship in one clip (well, it is guaranteed if charged rounds and buffed).
And when talking about arming time: It really isn't that hard to stay 150m away from the enemy or 120m when using heatsink, come on now.
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It really isn't that hard to stay 150m away from the enemy or 120m when using heatsink, come on now.
Oh yes, and the moment a single shot hits before arming you tend to lose that oh-so-mighty damage potential for maybe a third clip or so, which can put it on par with banshee. It infact is on par with banshee as long as something as limiting and unreliable as the arming timer is in place.
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What builds do you bring the Flak on?
Let me know the ways that you use it.
I have a Mobula with top Flak, Balloon Hades, Hull Gatling, Balloon-wing Artemis, and Hull-wing Flare.
I have a third crewmember as buff engi and when I spot an enemy, I would make them top up the buff on the Flak and quickly jump onto the Artemis.
If the armor breaks (Hopefully before the buff on the Flak runs out... it almost always runs out) I jump onto the Flak with heat sink.
Another is a range centralized spire with lumberjack, Hades and Artemis up top, with a Flak at the bottom. I make the gunner load in greased or heat sink into the Flak for when Armor breaks.
I want to know the special role that everyone seems to see in it
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I say, you should use the Light Flak when you just want to get the kill and intend to not brawl face to face.
Although I don't do many Pyramidions, if I were to choose between front Hades/Artemis and front Hades/Flak, I would choose the one with the Flak. The Pyramidion is rather vulnerable, so the enemy should preferebly die quickly. It is also a good support dps ship.
I also believe that in every Hades/double Artemis trifecta one Artemis could be replaced with a Light Flak and be just as efficent, although the Artemis lack of upwards arcs restrict the Light Flak as the ship will probably want to be above the enemy -> balloons may block Flak and probably won't attack from below, because of the Artemis -> less opportunities for victory.
I do believe that Mobulas with a Light Flak perform better than with Banshees or Mortars, unless it is intended for it to be purely for close range. I personally wouldn't put the Light Flak on the top wings though, because I always fear that guns like that won't have the arcs that I want them to have.
A lot of my ships are very disable oriented so I often don't get the chance or need to use it at all.
I have exactly one ship where I use it on: Lumberjack Spire, with Light Flak on top, bottom (lesmok) Gatling, top side flare. I have the Flak, because Mortar doesn't have the range and Banshee is not going to kill anything.
There was also a Mobula loadout I once adapted: Top Flak, bottom hull Hades, top hull Hades 2, balloon bottom Artemis, balloon top Flare. The idea was, I guess, that the Hadeses would destroy the armor quicker than a normal Hades Pyra, while the balloon Artemis makes sure armor and Hadeses stay safe. In order to really kill something the Pilot had to use the Light Flak. It was very effective, but I feared that once somebody was smart enough to actually get close to me, I would be dead, so I stopped using it, and also because I couldn't really move around stuff while shooting and having arc.
I have a Squid with front Hades and side Banshee. If the Light Flak, or Hades, had better horizontal arcs, I would use a side Light Flak instead.
As well, I would also do side Light Flak on a Squid with a front Gatling, but I don't do Squids with a front Gatling, so that's that.
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For mobula you want the light flak on a wing or bottom position with the hades up top. Hades has the most limited arcs and benefits the most from being buffed/having a gunner. If you're putting the flak on the bottom I recommend it on the balloon side as that position tends to be more static, and you likely want the engineer to bring chem spray. The hull side engi needs a spanner mallet. Buffs only work on the top position and situationally on the balloon side- you never want a buff on the hull side. Only use a wrench buff on the balloon if you don't expect to take balloon damage. I always have the top engi bring spanner mallet buff. As pilot you can bring a fire extinguisher to extinguish the top gun if it catches on fire (look up and jump).
The most potent mid range kill combo for mobula is hades top, gat bottom right, and light flak bottom left. Here is an example of mid range pure kill with lesmok gat and defense flamethrower (gunner jumps to flame).
(http://i.imgur.com/7y6amSy.jpg?1)
My favorite ranged mobula uses a lesmok light flak on the top left. An artemis is often used in the right position but I prefer the banshee for better arcs and higher damage (+25% hull and armor dps). Buffed charged merc does a bit more dps than lesmok hades, and heavy clip banshee + lesmok light flak each do about 30% of merc dps to armor. Positions are merc flak banshee, merc gat banshee, or flak gat banshee depending on opponent and position.
(http://i.imgur.com/ObBeIV2.jpg?1)
The other ship I sometimes use light flak on is lumber spire. Depending on opponents the bottom gun may be heavy clip banshee or burst light flak.
(http://i.imgur.com/S9vjl8K.jpg?1)
http://ducksoficarus.servegame.com/
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Don't usually fly mobula as much as i used to and only for ranged loadouts. But the hades + dual miniflaks were my favourite. Gunner got the top hades while both engineers took the bottom flaks. Wingtips were usually flamers or mine launchers since the hades ammo was compatible and were used for self defense by the gunner who jumped down. Engineers never needed to move anywhere else and were always close enough to get into repair mode. They carry greased or heatsink to reduce arming time so its not so helpless in close range.
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An interesting point: The hull of the pyramidion takes an absolute minimum (assuming 1 engineer only) of 5.6s to rebuild while the light flak takes 5.75s to reload and fire an entire clip (5.4s for the 5 shots needed to kill), so in the right situation vs a pyra,junker,galleon (and probably mobula in practice) there is essentially no risk to firing for armor dps. The L.Flak does 144 armor damage per clip and marginally exceeds the mallets repair with normal rounds so it is fairly beneficial.
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Interesting points brought up by everyone. My perspective is one from a gunner who spent a lot of time studying every gun.
I do find that the Light Flak (like the Heavy Flak) is very specialized - it is only effective when armed, isn't very accurate, needs a forward facing mount, and most importantly, doesn't do much in the important first moments of a fight. I've thought about ways to put it on my Spire, however a Banshee is simply better - better arcs, rotation speed, and damage to armor & balloon.
But thinking it through, I imagine the Light Flak would be a strong follow-up weapon used by a killing ship, after a disabler has engaged and worn down the enemy. The gun is fine as it is when I think about it this way.
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Interesting points brought up by everyone. My perspective is one from a gunner who spent a lot of time studying every gun.
I do find that the Light Flak (like the Heavy Flak) is very specialized - it is only effective when armed, isn't very accurate, needs a forward facing mount, and most importantly, doesn't do much in the important first moments of a fight. I've thought about ways to put it on my Spire, however a Banshee is simply better - better arcs, rotation speed, and damage to armor & balloon.
But thinking it through, I imagine the Light Flak would be a strong follow-up weapon used by a killing ship, after a disabler has engaged and worn down the enemy. The gun is fine as it is when I think about it this way.
That is why I like flak on the mobula (see Blackenedpies post above) because it taakes advantage of Artemis wear down, and is only shot during armour break, unlike the banshee, which from my observation most players mis-time the shots of, or target balloon while armour os up, now while this is a good use for banshee, when the aim is midrange kills, I find it better to "wait for red" which most people do withe the flak. :)
Maybe the accuracy could be looked at, but I'm unsure atm..
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...however a Banshee is simply better - better arcs, rotation speed, and damage to armor & balloon.
The Light Flak, when armed, has more dps on the armor and, because it reloads faster, has a higher chance shooting at the exposed hull and get a full clip into it, which also does more damage than the Banshee. The Light Flak's explosion also is a lot of smoke and if spammed can maybe even screw with enemy accuracy.
...doesn't do much in the important first moments of a fight.
You mean like the Mortar that can potentially one clip every ship in the game without buff or special ammo type? Not only the first few moments of a fight are important.
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@D: Interesting, I didn't know the Light Flak has more DPS to armor than the Banshee. I checked that with my spreadsheets and found it is indeed significantly higher, but almost the same DPS when factoring reload. However, Banshee still has a much higher chance to light fires, and causes problems to the Balloon.
In terms of killing power, the Light Flak wins hands-down, but the Banshee has a lot more utility (i.e. better arcs, faster rotation speed, higher projectile speed, fire chance). As weapon synergies will go, I guess the Light Flak is better paired with armor strippers, and as a wear down weapon, Banshee goes better with guns like Lumberjack.
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I recently removed banshees from a few of my ships in favor of the light flak.
-A mobula left to right mine-L.flak-hades-hades-mine. The arcs are still managable and the extra hull damage and reduced scatter out near max range are well worth it.
-A squid on the rear slot paired with a side gatling. The arcs are a little tricky needing the width of the target ship to make them work sometimes but being on the rear of a squid makes it easy to keep out of arming range.
-Junker on the main deck slot of what was a banshee-banshee-gatling combo, only tried it once and got stomped for unrelated reasons but it should work well provided i can persuade the engineer firing it not to waste its DPS by thinking its like a mortar.
Does anyone know what the fire chance on the standard L.Flak is, all the explosive weapons apparently have one but the wiki only lists the H.Flak at 20% for 4 stacks on the AOE. If it gets more than 1 stack on either direct hit or AOE incendiary light flak could be worth considering. It gets the upside of rounding and only loses 16% clip size (rather than 25%) and reduced rate of fire only adds 0.75s to emptying the clip. It still does far more hull damage than banshee and reduces 45m of arming range.
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Decision for flak/banshee also depends on enemies. For example on lumber spire I bring burst flak primarily against spire, galleon, and goldfish; heavy clip banshee against junker and mobula with pyra/squid situationally. The combo of flak, banshee, and buffed merc works wonders on mobula.
My favorite junker is hades double banshee left, gat carro right. Meta setup with double buff and heavy clip banshees, lesmok hades. Both sides have easy trifectas with the front banshee.
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Okay after using the Flak for a long period of time, I have found that most of your builds that incorporate the Flak are the same as mine, have the same problems of mine, and even though I knew that from the beginning, I did it anyway. Now I am Disillusioned and I hate being Disillusioned.
I just want to say that I'm fine with the Flak being a PVE weapon for the new Alliance mode.
I, however, still have problems with the Flak that I don't think have been addressed and I want to lay down my thoughts in order to close this topic for good.
For one,
I don't like you guys comparing the Banshee and the Artemis to the Flak.
While the Flak does have more killing potential, these guns have uses in disabling which means that they have uses for outside the armour break.
As such, I don't think it is very nice to compare it to the light carronade either. Light Carronade can pop balloons in two clips but I think it still isn't fair to compare it to the light Flak. Mainly because popping balloons can disrupt arcs, make a ship vulnerable to Terrain, make the Hull more exposed, and separate enemy ships.. Even damaging balloons can cause a decrease in vertical mobility. The Flak can only kill and there is plenty of time for an enemy to incapacitate/ disable you in the time of that second clip.
I will now keep the comparisons between guns that are Explosive Explosive damage.
Mortar and Heavy Flak.
The Light Flak has more Dps than the Mortar but the greased un-buffed Mortar can kill any ship in one clip.
The Light Flak has a higher rate of fire and projectile speed than the Heavy Flak but the charged un-buffed Heavy Flak can kill a ship in one clip even faster than the mortar.
The light Flak is only useful at short-mid to long-mid range. Where as the Mortar has uses for short to short-mid range and the Heavy Flak has uses for long-mid to long range. I don't know about you all, but I tend to find that most of my engagements where I used the Light Flak ended up around the ranges of either the Mortar and Heavy Flak due to the prevalence of disable centric ships.
I don't think I like the idea that a gun that is only useful for when the armor is broken can't kill a ship in one clip when we have two guns that have that ability. It means that we have a gun that is only good for killing ships and can't do it faster than two other guns. I find it annoying that a gun that is useless for a vitally important portion of a fight will have to have the help of other guns that speed up the killing process.
You have a gun that is useless until the short window of opportunity in the armour break, only useful at the small window of mid-range where engagements are less common, and you can't kill a ship faster than other guns that are useless until armour break.
I wish you would stop bringing up Dps as a pro because not many ships have ridiculous hull health to utilise Dps on an Explosive Explosive weapon. Also most ships I tend to find, have their armour up around 80% of the time. I think damage per armour break is a much more accurate statistic for the potential of a kill centric weapon in PVP. Alliance mode isn't even out yet (Where enemy ships and structures will have more health to utilise the Dps of the Flak) and even then armour will be brought back up.
If we didn't have the Mortar or the Heavy Flak then I wouldn't have made this discussion. Now that we have Alliance mode coming, I think we will see a lot more Light Flak usage. I kinda wish Muse would get rid of the gun in skirmish because It would save me the trouble of describing how to use the Flak effectively on their Pyramidion for inexperienced players. When I tell them that using it on ships that have other guns that will help the process of wearing the health down, I tell them they can't use it up close or too far, and that they can't line up the Arcs to pair up with other weapons very well; they take it off the ship. It makes farming for those ridiculous Flak achievements that much more aggarivating.
I will say that I have used the Flak and it works but I would still much rather incorporate other weapons that kill faster or have utility purposes. I'm still not sure what you people see special about this thing but I accept it as it is because you all seem to agree that it has found it's place.
We live in the Era where the Meta is multi-range disable. People still bring Brawler ships and win with them because there are plenty of maps that provide wonderful ambush strategies. It is also still easy to ambush a ship and render the Flak ineffective due to arming time. Not to mention, the Flak is also still pretty hard to shoot at max range as mentioned by a few people in the forum. It is a "mid range" weapon not "Long range" which means you will be closer to the ship and have more opportunities to render it useless.
I like the idea that the Flak that is outclassed at killing can be used for a utility purpose such as creating smoke. I would like it so that the impact shots would eject smoke for a longer period of time to utilise this function to a greater extent. I think then, I would be much happier using the Flak in pvp as it would have a place in my torture/ mine builds.
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Send that post to feedback@musegames.com or email the forums link and mention the post number as your conclusion. 8)
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A few points I would like to make:
For one,
I don't like you guys comparing the Banshee and the Artemis to the Flak.
While the Flak does have more killing potential, these guns have uses in disabling which means that they have uses for outside the armour break.
As such, I don't think it is very nice to compare it to the light carronade either. Light Carronade can pop balloons in two clips but I think it still isn't fair to compare it to the light Flak. Mainly because popping balloons can disrupt arcs, make a ship vulnerable to Terrain, make the Hull more exposed, and separate enemy ships.. Even damaging balloons can cause a decrease in vertical mobility. The Flak can only kill and there is plenty of time for an enemy to incapacitate/ disable you in the time of that second clip.
It is viable and necessary to compare the light flak to a banshee or an artemis, exactly because of their multi-role purposes and varied circumstances of usage. At the end of the day, when you are creating a ship load-out, and you are contemplating which gun you want that can damage hull, you have a wide range of choices simply because the light gun slot is not restricting you with which gun you can place where - you have an unlimited range of options to go for, so you need to weigh all the options before you and pick for yourself which gun will be best suiting your case.
That is why you ultimately NEED to consider and put into equation all other 'semi-explosive' guns.
I don't think I like the idea that a gun that is only useful for when the armor is broken can't kill a ship in one clip when we have two guns that have that ability. It means that we have a gun that is only good for killing ships and can't do it faster than two other guns. I find it annoying that a gun that is useless for a vitally important portion of a fight will have to have the help of other guns that speed up the killing process.
You have a gun that is useless until the short window of opportunity in the armour break, only useful at the small window of mid-range where engagements are less common, and you can't kill a ship faster than other guns that are useless until armour break.
The reason why the mortar is able to kill a ship with one clip is because the extremely limited range it has, due to jitter and low projectile speed I would place it as not reliable for killing on ranges above 200m.
The reason why the heavy flak is able to kill a ship with one clip is because the extremely low projectile speed it has for a gun with such range, and quite arcing shots over distance. At long ranges, the bullet travels so much time in the air, that it gives you an impressively small window for your shots to land if you are trying to time the armor break. What most people end up doing is to just spam it all the time and hope for the best. All-in-all, the heavy flak's ability to one-clip-kill ships I will place as reliable only at about below 1-1.2k range, and around 1.5k range for more experienced gunners. Factor in that a lot of maps will not give you the opportunity to snipe someone all the way from 1.5k until he's right in your face, and you get shorter effective ranges, with the enemy being at about 500m already and closing in fast - it almost always spells failure for a long range heavy flak build.
Switching to the flak, first of all, the flak is able to one-clip-kill Mobula, Pyramidion and Junkers. With placing significant damage to kill any other ship with the second clip.
With an arming time of 150m that can be manipulated a bit with ammo types, an a max range of 1000m, I will place the effective range of the flak from 200m to 850m. Those are 650m of range it is effective on, compared to 200m of range for the mortar, which explains why taking a mortar has to be a lot more rewarding due to the higher limitations. As to the heavy flak's effective range - around 500m~1200m which is pretty much the same range window as the light flak's give or take 100m, but the heavy flak needs to be able to perform those one clip kills due to the relatively hard nature of firing the weapon.
There needs to be a reward factor when using a weapon as hard to use as the heavy flak, or as range limiting as the mortar. The light flak is an inbreed, both possessing the higher range window of the heavy flak, and ease of use of the mortar - a combination of traits that make the light flak the go-to weapon if it could one-clip kill every ship, there needs to be a penalty for it and that is the limiting factor.
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I have a tendency to do this where I state a point and I don't explain it so bear with me as I try to explain my points.
Banshee:
Utilities in fire stacking
multi-range capabilities
low explosive damage for killing ships
I didn't want to compare the Flak to this gun because it has ulterior effects other than full on kill potential due to having fire and explosive damage. Other than being able to kill a ship, fire can pressure crew members off guns, potentially incapacitate components, and a multitude of different factors other than being able to kill. The trade off being that it has relatively low dps in explosive damage to compensate.
Artemis:
Utilities in Disabling components
Multi-range capabilities
low explosive damage for killing ships
I didn't want to compare the Flak to this gun because of the nature of it's disable potential. Other then being able to kill a ship, this gun can break components and so crew members will be spending less time pressuring your ship with firepower if the gun is broken and less time making sure the armor doesn't go down if engines are broken when they shouldn't be. The trade off being relatively low dps in terms of explosive damage.
I would argue that the effects of these guns are what make the disable meta shine and thus I consider these weapons disable weapons. I understand that the Flak has greater killing potential and this should give the Flak an edge over these guns. These weapons however have the ability to be used to greater effect in more versatile circumstances due to usage outside of Armour break. Even in the time of Armor break, they have the ability to potentially decrease the effectiveness of a ship at killing your ship. I would argue that comparing explosive Dps is largely problematic due to the fact that the disable potentials of these guns have extremely versatile uses.
Although the decision to put one of these guns on your ship could be for ranged killing potential (A niche that the Flak occupies), they have ulterior purposes that factor into the nature of the gun itself. I would say that it is arguable whether this makes these guns superior in comparison to Kill focused guns like the Flak, but I wanted to keep the discussion based on kill focused weapons as I feel it would deviate from the reasons people put Flaks on their ships. The reason being to kill ships at range.
I would say that because it is an Explosive Explosive weapon, it is a weapon that is going to be ineffective for a reasonable portion of the fight. I understand that there should be limitations put in place due to the factor of having increased range, ease of use, and low damage. I would say; however, that having low damage potential on a weapon that is solely focused on killing as well as arming time has cause a decline in the usage of the Flak. I wish that the Flak was harder to use and had more damage because damage becomes a big factor in deciding whether to bring a gun that can only kill a ship. I say that Arming time on the Flak has made it not very versatile. Even though there is a fair percentage of effective area the Flak has to utilize the Aoe damage, engagements in my experience of using the Flak have tended to emphasize Brawl or Mid-Snipe ranges. There is always the risk of Arming time coming into factor and I wish that that damage was used to compensate for this limitation instead of ease of use.
That being said, as I stated before. I am all for an increase in smoke stacks or longer duration of smoke stack emission as I feel utility weapons that occupy the Piloting Blind spot disability are a neat idea.
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I would say; however, that having low damage potential on a weapon that is solely focused on killing as well as arming time has cause a decline in the usage of the Flak.
What really has caused a decline is the current Meta. It consists of disable in all ranges and close range brawling. The Light Flak would beat a Pyramidion since its easy to hit with its hull everywhere and a Galleon for its large and unmoving profile. Spires would also be easy to hit, but often tend to ambush with Hwacha, so Flak doesn't work here. Mobulas and Junker often have one too many Artemises and the only way to beat an Artemis is to outarc it, outplay it or out-Artemis it, which the Light Flak isn't particularly good at. Squids and Goldfishes often go for brawling too.
The Light Flak doesn't really have a place here, so it appears to be "weak".
That being said, as I stated before. I am all for an increase in smoke stacks or longer duration of smoke stack emission as I feel utility weapons that occupy the Piloting Blind spot disability are a neat idea.
I would be up for that.
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The smoke effect seems largely determined by graphics settings.
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The smoke effect seems largely determined by graphics settings.
So if Muse did buff the smoke visual, they'd also need to re-work it so it is not effected by graphics settings..
I still like the idea of buffing the smoke effect.
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Okay, after some thinking I take back what I said about the whole smoke Flak thing
We would have to deal with a name change, damage change, how effective something like creating a piloting blind spot would really be, and a smoke cannon should really have a separate gun model.
I'm going to mention some more points about why I favor a damage increase rather than ease of use because I don't think I was very clear.
I know that I will be pissing a lot of people off by suggesting the Flak become a mid-range Heavy Flak as I have already suggested, but I don't see anywhere else the gun can go.
I mentioned that in order to deal with the fact that Arming time makes a lot of guns not very flexible, guns with arming time utilize high rewards per clip as well as difficulty of use.
Lumberjack
Heavy Flak
Hades
Mines
(I stated the sheer effectiveness of these guns in a previous post)
These are all guns that are not only popular but they are very effective at their jobs
Can you imagine how ineffective these guns would be if their first clip was not able to do their job?
They work because they are effective within a short amount of time and that works perfectly with arming time as a factor. Not to mention, they are also hard to operate (Fly/Shoot) and so the effectiveness of the high reward is balanced toward this aspect.
In my original suggestion, the Flak would be a mortar that has arming time (No Brawl) but more range and it would have been a Heavy Flak with less range as well as taking longer to kill.
Originally I wanted to only increase the damage because I was under the impression that a lot of people had a hard time shooting this Flak (The spread at range, the projectile speed in terms of predicting Armour break, Determining effective range, Flying at mid-range etc).
Even though I have been thinking for a long time, I don't know how much harder you can make the gun shoot. I'll probably think of something quick.
I know that this would be a significant change to a gun that has had a bad past but I would rather see it have a place in the game rather than be a gun for Vets to use to make their ship load outs unique or bring it out when they need to farm Achievements. Actually, I think that the Flak has a place in this game.... I don't like it and I want it to have a higher priority on ships.
An alternate route the Flak could take would be to get rid of arming time and make it do only a fraction of it's previous explosive damage. This would mean; however, that the Flak would truly have no place as it would be outclassed by the capabilities of other guns. I'm sure you would all hate for this as it would be a return of the previous Flak but useless as it would probably not kill anything fast enough to stand up to a disable in the current Meta.
In regards to the Disable Meta, People still bring kill weapons like the Mortar and Heavy Flak. Although there are many many reasons as to why someone would put them on their ship in the age of the Disable Meta, one of them is the damage potential of Only-kill weapons. Brawler Spires and Mobulas, the Meta Galleon, and the infamous Loch Spire all incorporate these weapons. There should be more reasons to put a Light Flak on your ship, much like a Mortar and Heavy Flak.
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Heavy Carronade destroys balloons in one clip, Light Carronade in two clips.
Heavy Flak destroys hull in one clip, Light Flak destroys in two clips.
However, the Heavy Flak at range is very much not guaranteed as timing armor breaks with it is nigh impossible and the Light Flak can actually destroy 3/7 ships in one clip. How many times did you manage to one clip a Squid or Goldfish with a Heavy Flak? The Light Flak makes up for its lack of one clip kill ability with its ability to empty the clip very quickly and reload fast, which means that Squid, Goldfish and Spire, ships that the Light Flak can't one clip and have very low amount of armor so it breaks very easily, are in danger of being two clipped very quickly.
There are multiple guns that can't "do their job" with one clip only:
A Mercury can destroy every component with one shot only, but its armor destruction ability is very weak.
The Artemis is also good at destroying components, but is unable to quickly kill a ship once the armor is down, often due to the fact that it emptied more than half its clip before the armor breaks.
The Light Carronade, as alreay mentioned, can't destroy a balloon in one clip and although it does limit the enemies vertical mobility, there is a good chance it can't save your ally.
The Banshee in comp (or just "against good enemies") is supposed to fail miserably at its job. It can set fires? The ship probably has chem spray up and running just fine, and even though chem spray reduces repairs per second it would probably be up and running even if you don't have a banshee. But it can help stress the engineers out and disrupt chem cycles? By that time you probably already got an armor break, because Gatling and Hades. If you really wanted to kill them, the Banshee wouldn't be your gun of choice.
The Hades is not so strong. Numbers say it can easily destroy armors in one clip, which often doesn't happen, because it happens to be rather hard to hit with.
The Mine Launcher is a very unreliable and slow gun that sometimes can't do its job if the pilot has kerosene or moonshine activated so he doesn't get turned around.
And there is rarely only one ship in combat. If your ally is not a quick kill ship, you could use the Light Flak to severly damage your ally's enemy's hull, which might even kill him. The Banshee and the Artemis could potentially also do this at range, but it is much less damage output from those guns. On that Lumberjack Spire that I mentioned earlier this thread where I do have the Light Flak, said tactic of shooting your ally's enemy was working very well as we often got the kill very quickly, while disabling our own enemy with the Lumberjack, so its not a completely wrong thing to do.
There should be more reasons to put a Light Flak on your ship, much like a Mortar and Heavy Flak.
There are reasons to put a Light Flak on your ship, the problem is that the enemy often gives you enough reasons to not put it on your ship. Not being able to kill within one clip is never the primary reason, which is its lack of disable or brawling ability.
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Might just be a boatload of confirmation bias applied to my general anti-meta prejudices but since this discussion started I've been putting the light flak on a bunch of ships and really liking the results. Today added the combination on a junker with hades + front art and the somewhat silly L.flak,Minotaur,Lumberjack galleon (the match i ran it was a novice crew i hadn't bothered to organize vs novice opposition so I'm not sure if the impressive damage is massively over or understated by circumstance).
As crew i found it really effective on a murder-spire paired with the hwacha and both engineers shooting upper deck guns essentially creating constant hull damage potential. I don't think the banshee, mortar or artemis can compare in that role.
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Hey, I figured out how to Quote!
This is so cool
Okay, back to the topic at hand,
If you look back, I mentioned that guns with Arming Time offer High rewards in return for difficulty of use within a short time frame. I have a tendency of not being very clear, so once again please bear with me as I will try to be as clear as I can.
I mentioned that in order to deal with the fact that Arming time makes a lot of guns not very flexible, guns with arming time utilize high rewards per clip as well as difficulty of use.
Not to mention, they are also hard to operate (Fly/Shoot) and so the effectiveness of the high reward is balanced toward this aspect.
My Points were
These are all guns that are not only popular but they are very effective at their jobs
Can you imagine how ineffective these guns would be if their first clip was not able to do their job?
They work because they are effective within a short amount of time and that works perfectly with arming time as a factor.
Okay next point
There are reasons to put a Light Flak on your ship, the problem is that the enemy often gives you enough reasons to not put it on your ship. Not being able to kill within one clip is never the primary reason, which is its lack of disable or brawling ability.
I'm going to have a look at the ships that incorporate Explosive Explosive weapons that I mentioned previously because I didn't elaborate on them.
Brawler Spires and Mobulas, the Meta Galleon, and the infamous Loch Spire all incorporate these weapons. There should be more reasons to put a Light Flak on your ship, much like a Mortar and Heavy Flak.
All of these ships carry something that disables in order to stand up against the Current (Super Quotation Marks) Multi-Range Disable Meta(Super Quotation Marks)
On all of these ships, you would pretty much be able to replace the Explosive Explosive guns for something that disables such as a Hwatcha, an Artemis, a Banshee, etc. I remember flying these ships because we often got the kill very quickly, while disabling our own enemy
Onto the Next Point
However, the Heavy Flak at range is very much not guaranteed as timing armor breaks with it is nigh impossible and the Light Flak can actually destroy 3/7 ships in one clip. How many times did you manage to one clip a Squid or Goldfish with a Heavy Flak? The Light Flak makes up for its lack of one clip kill ability with its ability to empty the clip very quickly and reload fast, which means that Squid, Goldfish and Spire, ships that the Light Flak can't one clip and have very low amount of armor so it breaks very easily, are in danger of being two clipped very quickly.
I'm want the Flak to have the Potential to one clip a ship. You can miss shots with the Mortar or Heavy Flak, you don't always kill with two clips on those either.
The Flak is still pretty hard to use as I mentioned
(The spread at range, the projectile speed in terms of predicting Armour break, Determining effective range, Flying at mid-range etc)
You wouldn't always land every shot with the Flak just like with the others. If you increase its overall clip damage... lets put it this way, you would increase the chances of killing a ship in a second clip (Without the use of a buff hammer). In return, being able to land every single shot would be up to the skill of the shooter.
I would be okay with the ability to only be able to kill in 2 clips if Muse incorporated some system of play where a severely damaged ship had permanent disable properties. Examples being:
-A broken ship being harder for crew members to move around
-Gun arcs being slightly harder to angle
-Piloting perspective distorted (Having a broken wall in your face obscuring your situational awareness)
This change however would probably make Kill weapons a little too over-powered but I would be all for having quicker matches.
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I would be okay with the ability to only be able to kill in 2 clips if Muse incorporated some system of play where a severely damaged ship had permanent disable properties. Examples being:
-A broken ship being harder for crew members to move around
-Gun arcs being slightly harder to angle
-Piloting perspective distorted (Having a broken wall in your face obscuring your situational awareness)
This change however would probably make Kill weapons a little too over-powered but I would be all for having quicker matches.
I like this idea from a thematic perspective but it could have some balance problems as far as leaving suicide and re-spawn as a better option sometimes than continuing.
A variant - Hit points of all components reduced in proportion to hull damage. Maybe at 50% rate so taking half damage from a flak would reduce armor, guns etc to 75% hit points. It might be a bit hard on 90% dead squids (130 armor!) and would more or less require a hwacha nerf.
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If you look back, I mentioned that guns with Arming Time offer High rewards in return for difficulty of use within a short time frame. I have a tendency of not being very clear, so once again please bear with me as I will try to be as clear as I can.
I mentioned that in order to deal with the fact that Arming time makes a lot of guns not very flexible, guns with arming time utilize high rewards per clip as well as difficulty of use.
Not to mention, they are also hard to operate (Fly/Shoot) and so the effectiveness of the high reward is balanced toward this aspect.
My Points were
These are all guns that are not only popular but they are very effective at their jobs
Can you imagine how ineffective these guns would be if their first clip was not able to do their job?
They work because they are effective within a short amount of time and that works perfectly with arming time as a factor.
Yes, I can imagine how ineffective these guns would be if their first clip was not able to do their job, because most of their first clip will very often not do their job, because they are hard to hit with and sometimes even easy to dodge.
Arming time isn't even a factor in how effective the guns are within a short amount of time. Arming time only helps Muse to tell people where the guns are supposed to be used. If arming time really was that bad than think about this: Hades. If people don't use the Light Flak than they probably kill ships a lot less quicker than they want to, but luckily they manage to keep the enemy either out of arming time of the Hades or have a pair of close range guns to fight with when it comes down to it. If they had at least one Light Flak than it should mean that they kill or severly damage their target before it even gets into close range. And once they had at least one armor break to empty their entire Light Flak clip into their enemy and the enemy survived that, then they could still kill their enemy with the Light Flak even when it was inside arming time! Except for the Galleon, it would survive that second clip when it was inside arming time, but realistically speaking it would be hilarious if a Galleon managed to enter the Light Flak's arming time.
Yes, an Artemis could then easily snipe that Light Flak and if they Light Flak could one clip all ships it would at have a higher chance to win in the above mentioned scenario. But at the same time, I hope at least, the Artemis was sniping the Hades so it wouldn't even come to an armor break in the first place, which would result in the Light Flak, and all other explosive/explosive guns in that scenario, to be "completely uselss" during the fight, but luckily the Light Flak has already more dps against the armor than the Banshee, so when chem spray is perfectly up and running, the Light Flak may actually have some use.
And why do you assume that the Light Flak's job is to kill every ship within on clip? Because all those other two guns with explosive/explosive can do that? Do all explosive/explosive guns have to follow that trend and if yes, would it make the game better if all of these guns would essentially be the exact same thing? Personally, I find that the current Light Flak is a good way of killing ships, even if it can only one clip 3 out of 7 ships. I don't like the fact that ships die as quickly as they do in general, if you were wondering.
And is the Light Flak not effective in killing ships? It takes two clips to pretty much get a guaranteed kill. It takes two clip for the Light Carronade to destroy a balloon and that is effective too, isn't it? I do throw that Carronade into these arguments a lot, but when you think about it, a ship without a balloon is out of combat, which is similar to a ship that is already dead, as it leaves the other one in a 2v1.
And if the Hades is so effective at destroying armors, shouldn't it mean that a skilled gunner can drop armors left and right? So many and quick armor destructions should make it very easy for the Light Flak to kill a ship, even when it requires at least two clips.
You said "high rewards in return for difficulty of use within a short time frame". The Light Flak is not that difficult and so returns not that much reward. You want it to be more difficult so it would give more reward, as in, you mentioned "more like the Heavy Flak", so:
Instead of making the Light Flak more like the Heavy Flak, why not use the Heavy Flak to begin with?
If I want to destroy a balloon in one clip, I will use the Heavy Carronade or Lumberjack. If I want to kill all ships in medium/long range with only one clip, I would use the Heavy Flak (or still the Light Flak). Why buff one gun, a gun that is in my opinion just fine as it is, when you can use another gun to achieve what you want to achieve? I suppose it is not the same if you are forced to use a heavy gun which only 3 ships in the game allow you to do (or just 2, because the Goldfish doesn't support Heavy Flaks), but that is where pilot skill comes in: Make a ship loadout that does exactly what you want it to do and then make it do that in-game.
I would also find it rather silly, if the Light Flak would be as powerful as its heavy version, its not even as big as a Mortar, but that's just design.
All of these ships carry something that disables in order to stand up against the Current (Super Quotation Marks) Multi-Range Disable Meta(Super Quotation Marks)
On all of these ships, you would pretty much be able to replace the Explosive Explosive guns for something that disables such as a Hwatcha, an Artemis, a Banshee, etc. I remember flying these ships because we often got the kill very quickly, while disabling our own enemy
I said that, because, as you pointed out, explosive/explosive guns tend to be rather useless outside of armor breaks, so I gave you one example scenario where you can use the Light Flak during somebody else's armor break. The Light Flak, and all explosive guns in general, are not limited to killing the one ship that you decided to 1v1, it can still kill other ships too. The Lumberjack gave us many opportunities to just kill whoever our ally is fighting. At the same time, the Lumberjack only made these kind of things easier, since we could have very well gone for the other ship from the very beginning and probably killed it with Hades/Flak Pyramidion, before we would have needed the disable power of the Lumberjack.
I'm want the Flak to have the Potential to one clip a ship. You can miss shots with the Mortar or Heavy Flak, you don't always kill with two clips on those either.
The Flak is still pretty hard to use as I mentioned
(The spread at range, the projectile speed in terms of predicting Armour break, Determining effective range, Flying at mid-range etc)
You wouldn't always land every shot with the Flak just like with the others. If you increase its overall clip damage... lets put it this way, you would increase the chances of killing a ship in a second clip (Without the use of a buff hammer). In return, being able to land every single shot would be up to the skill of the shooter.
The above also applies here.
Now that's just a shot into the dark, but I believe we have found ourselves in a position where it is "I want" vs "You want" and we will continue in circles from here on out. You want a Light Flak that can do around the same damage as the Heavy Flak while also being as hard to shoot with as the Heavy Flak. I don't want that, because I believe it would make the gun, and the gameplay of killing, more dull, whereas you could keep it as it is, as I believe it is fine as it is, even in comp, and even newer players have a gun that they can actually hit and kill with.
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I apologize, I miss calculated. I thought it was 512 not 743.68 all this time (Forgot the Explosive multiplier). Oops :P
Silly me
Now that I realize that the Light Flak does have the damage potential to back it up, I think I would like a clip size reduction while keeping it's overall damage per clip.
Yes, I'm still leaning towards the Flak being able to kill within a shorter period of time.
Yes, an Artemis could then easily snipe that Light Flak and if they Light Flak could one clip all ships it would at have a higher chance to win in the above mentioned scenario. But at the same time, I hope at least, the Artemis was sniping the Hades so it wouldn't even come to an armor break in the first place, which would result in the Light Flak, and all other explosive/explosive guns in that scenario, to be "completely uselss" during the fight, but luckily the Light Flak has already more dps against the armor than the Banshee, so when chem spray is perfectly up and running, the Light Flak may actually have some use.
I think from this post the point was that in a scenario where the light Flak was used, it wouldn't be effective because it would be disabled or Armour stripper being disabled. Do tell me if I'm wrong because I'm having a hard time understanding (This is nothing personal but I do have trouble sometimes understanding people).
I'm going to mention the list of Builds that incorporate Explosive Explosive weapons again
Brawler Spires and Mobulas, the Meta Galleon, and the infamous Loch Spire all incorporate these weapons.
I want to mention that all these ships usually contain a disable weapon of their own whether it be a Hwatcha, Artemis, Merc, or Lumberjack. I also want to mention that not all of these ships are seen in competitive and they shouldn't.
The reason I bring these ships up is the fact that they are used, not all the time but see regular use.
These ships often incorporate a combination of guns that disable as well as stand well on their own. Some examples being Double Gat/Hwatcha, Merc/Art, Hades/Lumber, etc. They are incorporated in order to make the ship stand up in the Age of the (Super Quotation Marks)Multi-Range Disable Meta(Super Quotation Marks)
I also want to mention that the Explosive Explosive weapons are effective within a short period of time, whether it be the fact that the Mortar can one clip or Flak can two clip at a fairly faster rate.
These are the types of ships I want the Light Flak used more on and I think being effective within a shorter period of time would mean more opportunities to use the Flak.
Next Point
If I want to kill all ships in medium/long range with only one clip, I would use the Heavy Flak (or still the Light Flak). Why buff one gun, a gun that is in my opinion just fine as it is, when you can use another gun to achieve what you want to achieve? I suppose it is not the same if you are forced to use a heavy gun which only 3 ships in the game allow you to do (or just 2, because the Goldfish doesn't support Heavy Flaks), but that is where pilot skill comes in: Make a ship loadout that does exactly what you want it to do and then make it do that in-game.
-I want the Light Flak to be effective within a shorter period of time because it is an Explosive Explosive weapon that incorporates Arming Time (The inability to Brawl). I believe that if you make the Flak more effective within a shorter period of time there would still be reasons to use the Heavy Flak. The Heavy Flak would have more range as well as the quick time it takes to unload a clip. You wouldn't kill as fast and you wouldn't have the range, I believe this would make the two guns able to stand on their own.
-I believe there are not that many opportunities to use the Light Flak and I want to see it used by more people
-When you stick an Explosive Explosive weapon on a ship and your build is effective, it sort of defines your build load-out. The kill potential is impressive and most ships that incorporate Explosive Explosive weapons are build around the fact that you want the Kill Potential (and you want it fast against the potential of disable). Unless your ship is going full troll, there's not a lot of flexibility a weapon like the Light Flak can have (Especially when you have Arming Time to factor into the equation).
Next Point
It takes two clip for the Light Carronade to destroy a balloon and that is effective too, isn't it? I do throw that Carronade into these arguments a lot, but when you think about it, a ship without a balloon is out of combat, which is similar to a ship that is already dead, as it leaves the other one in a 2v1.
And if the Hades is so effective at destroying armors, shouldn't it mean that a skilled gunner can drop armors left and right? So many and quick armor destructions should make it very easy for the Light Flak to kill a ship, even when it requires at least two clips.
Okay, I know that I said that I didn't want to compare Disable weapons to Kill-only weapons because of how effective disables are in comparison to Killing potential. I think I might as well compare them since it's going to keep popping up anyway.
You already compared the Flak to the Artemis and so that fight is lost
-I will now compare the Light Flak to the Light Carronade
-Now you mentioned in the quote above that a disabled Balloon means dead ship right?
so Popped Balloon = Killed Ship
-Bear in mind that one of these guns is only effective when the Armour is down, where as the other gun can be used immediately
-That means the Light Carronade can effectively kill a ship faster than a Light Flak can.
-There that's it... Comparison over. Kill-only weapons suck and that's why we have a Disable Meta, why am I even talking about a Kill-only weapon?
Next Point
You want a Light Flak that can do around the same damage as the Heavy Flak while also being as hard to shoot with as the Heavy Flak. I don't want that, because I believe it would make the gun, and the gameplay of killing, more dull, whereas you could keep it as it is, as I believe it is fine as it is, even in comp, and even newer players have a gun that they can actually hit and kill with.
-Here is where our points differ because I don't think the Flak is very easy to hit with
I don't think that it is because of the points that I mentioned
(The spread at range, the projectile speed in terms of predicting Armour break, Determining effective range, Flying at mid-range etc).
This is the only point that I fully believe we have reached a Stalemate on because I see this gun as one of the harder guns to operate and especially for new players.
-In terms of changing the game play of killing, I believe with the inclusion of this change it will not have any effect on the Disable Meta.
What we would see would be an increase in use of the Flak in "Disable" builds or currently existing Kill Builds. My point was never to change the Meta but to get the Flak into the current meta or more than it is currently.
I do sort of enjoy these discussions as it helps me with my inability to be clear with my points. Do let me know if you don't know where I'm going with a point. The feedback helps.
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The light flak can be easy to hit with but it suffers the same from turning as the artemis, possibly more. Just yesterday i had an engineer on my flak-hades-hades mobula hitting full clips consistently at around 700m, mostly because having only 10 degrees of effective arc means flying very carefully. (unfortunately he was an awful engineer and the gunner was hitting nothing but air with his hades so i didn't get to see what kind of effect it could have had, as it was we killed the galleon at least as fast as double artemis would). The timing is also an overstated difficulty since mobula,pyra,junker and galleon armor takes long enough to rebuild that even the worst case where rebuilding starts at the same time as the reload the flak can still get hits on hull and squid,goldfish and spire are in serious danger of losing the last of their armor to the flak and taking half the clip to hull.
Going back to the original suggestion there is a slight limitation to compressing the damage into fewer shots - Lochnagar
The current loch-L.flak does an almost respectable 250 hull damage and as much fun as it would be to dish out 500-750 (compresing to 3 or 2 shots) damage with a single light gun shot people might find it objectionable. Especially since an arming range reduced to 75m is essentially no obstacle (loch mines are 66m). So 4 shots minimum.
One thing that is annoying is that it gets very little from ammo choice, you can lose 50 damage per clip to gain half a second or lose a second to gain 100 with no real effect on average damage over time.
Pointless nitpick:
The light carronade can 1 clip balloons, you just need perfect burst or buff shots (if they get the mallet hit in perfect buff-burst shots)
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I would say I would be happy with a 4 shot clip for the Flak
In terms of damage output for the Flak if we were to keep the normal round total explosive output the same
meaning 480 explosive damage into 4 shots.
So maybe 75 direct damage and 45 Aoe damage
This would mean ammo types would only be either Heat-sink or Charged as recommended
Heat-sink would do a total of 5 shots with a clip potential of 480 so same as normal but you get a decrease in Arming time
Charged would do a total of 3 shots with a clip potential of 468 so it's less but you have a smaller clip so less shots to make (I have yet to factor in the 25% decrease in rate of fire)
With this you would still be able to one clip a Pyra and Junker for both Ammunition
This would be overall less damage than the previous heat-sink Flak damage potential of 512 but would have a higher rate of fire due to less shots and not having to land as many shots to be effective.
You would be able to get that second clip ready in time for the next armor break.
Yeah, I would say it would be better than having to land all 8 heat-sink shots at a distance while predicting the armor break to pull off the total damage potential.
The light carronade can 1 clip balloons, you just need perfect burst or buff shots (if they get the mallet hit in perfect buff-burst shots)
Shhhhhhhhhh, no more
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Ugh, scratch the previous post due to wrong calculations
Heat-sink clip would actually have a damage potential of 498 Explosive so a little higher but not quite enough to one-clip a mobula
I think the only really ammo would be greased with the same damage potential as normal rounds (480 Explosive)
Since you have the same damage as normal rounds, a pilot could tell the shooter to switch to normal if the enemy is farther away. That way you could hit farther and need only 4 shots to do the job.
If you use greased then you would have the same damage potential but higher rate of fire and an Arming Time Decrease for 5 shots.
A plus plus when you're dealing with needing to empty that second clip as fast as possible within a short time frame.
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http://ducksoficarus.servegame.com/
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Alright, Let me clean up the previous calculations just to make it more clear
So currently the Light Flak does a total of 480 explosive damage per clip with 6 shots
My suggestion was to decrease that clip to 4 shots but keep the same Normal explosive damage
That would mean each shot from the New Flak would hit 120 total Explosive damage
In this case, I suggested it having 75 Direct damage and 45 Aoe Damage.
By this statistic, the most used ammo types would be Greased, Charged, and normal
Greased rounds:
(Total clip damage: 480) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 672
Increase clip size to 5
Decrease Arming Time
Increase rate of fire
Charged Rounds:
(Total clip damage: 468) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 655.2
Decrease clip size to 3
No decrease in Arming Time
Decrease rate of fire but load next clip quicker
Normal Rounds:
(Total clip damage: 480) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 672
Clip size 4
No decrease in Arming Time
No change in rate of fire
My idea is that it would make it easier to pull off the damage potential for the first clip in order to make the second clip more effective.
My problem with previous Flak:
-land 8 Heat-sink shots
-At Relatively far distance
-Also predict when armor would break
-Shots that land don't even do enough damage since you would never land enough before the armor comes back up
New Flak:
-Still predict shots
-Still relatively far distance
-Less shots to make
-Less overall Clip Damage potential
-Would increase chances of unloading full clip in Armor Break (Increase consistency of Clip damage potential)
Let me know what you think about this suggestion
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The miniflak takes up a light weapon slot. Should it be expected to take out ships easily when armor drops? Considering the lower risk/reward balance of attacking enemies from range as opposed to getting in close to the enemy and using short ranged weapons I still like where the miniflak is at the moment. I bring up the concept of risk/reward to explain how being able to survive closing the distance to your opponents should be rewarded with potent short ranged weapon attacks of high damage and disable power. That's why mortars can take out most ships with just one magazine. Miniflak doesn't require the captain to risk bringing the ship in close hence requiring a reload or two to destroy said target. Want to take out a ship like lightning from a cloudless sky? Better deal with taking a ship with a heavy weapon slot, a heavy flak and a gunner who knows how to use said heavy flak.
Back on the miniflak tho. You might make it more user friendly for newer players to get in the damage with less hits, it will be a lot more devastating when used by experienced players. You may end up seeing more boring shooting contest in competitive games that is based only on who shoots more accurately than ships trying to outmaneuver each other with flankings, turning or height battles.
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The miniflak takes up a light weapon slot. Should it be expected to take out ships easily when armor drops? Considering the lower risk/reward balance of attacking enemies from range as opposed to getting in close to the enemy and using short ranged weapons I still like where the miniflak is at the moment. I bring up the concept of risk/reward to explain how being able to survive closing the distance to your opponents should be rewarded with potent short ranged weapon attacks of high damage and disable power. That's why mortars can take out most ships with just one magazine.
I understand that the weapons like the Mortar and Heavy Flak should have higher rewards based on the range, ease of use and this is shown in the ability to kill ships in one clip.
Currently the Flak has the ability to kill in two clips because it has relatively decent damage potential per clip.
My issue is that the Flak isn't that easy to shoot and I don't care how good at shooting you are, you are not gonna be able to land 8 of those shots consistently at range and while predicting the armor break.
You're gonna miss some shots and every shot counts on a big clip that needs to do it's job within two armor breaks.
I never stated that I would be increasing the damage per clip, in fact compared to the previous Flak damage per clip you would do less.
Previous Heat-sink Flak does a total clip damage of 531.2 Explosive and 743.68 damage to hull health.
My point is that you would have to land less shots to pull it off.
This doesn't mean much of a change to the current Flak when you think about it (You would still have to wait for a second Armor break to pull off enough damage to kill). All this means is that you would be increasing the consistency of damage output.
That first shot or first two shots you missed wouldn't mean as much as it would have because:
-Each of your shots would do more damage
-That second clip will reload faster in time for the second Armor break
The time it takes to unload a clip shouldn't be more than the time it takes to rebuild armor, especially if your gun is a kill-only weapon that only kills in two armor breaks.
Next Point
Back on the miniflak tho. You might make it more user friendly for newer players to get in the damage with less hits, it will be a lot more devastating when used by experienced players. You may end up seeing more boring shooting contest in competitive games that is based only on who shoots more accurately than ships trying to outmaneuver each other with flankings, turning or height battles.
I don't think this change would affect the Competitive meta much at all. In fact you still keep the limitations of the Flak's killing ability in turn with ease of use. We are still in the era of the (Super Quotation Marks)Multi-range Disable meta(Super Quotation Marks), which means a gun that can only kill (in two armor breaks) and can't brawl will have limited use much like it does now.
I only want to increase the efficiency of being able to kill in two armor breaks.
It has ease of use and if that is the case, it should have reliable damage.
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On a side note, I found a flaw with my suggested change:
I just want to label some information
So with a Charged Heavy Flak clip you would do 1202.2 hull health damage
With a Greased Mortar clip you would do 1411.2 hull health damage
With the change to the suggested Light Flak
In two Greased clips (Each doing a total of 672 hull health damage) you would do a total of 1344 hull health damage
In two Charged clips (Each doing a total of 655.2 hull health damage) you would do a total 1310.4 hull health damage
Do you think it should be more damage considering you can't kill a Galleon in two clips?
I think that considering you have to land a full two clips, it should do more damage
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I wouldn't increase damage for mini flak just so you can destroy a galleon in two reloads. Galleons have a load of HP for the purpose of soaking the damage. They are also a large target with longer armour rebuild so there shouldn't be an issue with landing hits in a relatively large opportunity window from its optimal range.
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Would a decent enough buff for the light flak be a nerf to the double barreled mortar
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Would a decent enough buff for the light flak be a nerf to the double barreled mortar
More importantly, would the current flak be balanced and desirable if Mortar was nerfed in some way? (I got the idea by misreading the quote above.)
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Well that depends on if the aforementioned weapons function they way that they were suppose to function. While debating if it is acceptable for a light mortar to take out most ships without needing to reload and then to consider it "balanced", mini flak usage involves greater target leading and volley timing all because of the projectile travel time. Not to mention your target will try to evade your attacks. Too hard to use and needs a buff? I don't know for sure.
I don't think the mini flak is always desired for all opponent ships fought against. Goldfish and squids being the harder targets because of their speed and low armour rebuilding times. They work best against larger and/or slower targets. However you can plan along with ally captain who can bring disables to help fix your target in place, for example.
Therefore I think it's a lot more complicated than just simply buffing the mini flak to make it more useful in a given matchup. What ships your ally and opponent uses, their load outs, the map being fought in, tools being used, etc, etc, etc. All those things need to be taken into consideration.
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Would a decent enough buff for the light flak be a nerf to the double barreled mortar
If you were to buff the Flak in the previous suggestion I made before,
The Flak would be an explosive explosive weapon that would need to kill in two armor breaks and would be unable to brawl.
The mortar would be an explosive explosive weapon that would need to kill in one armor break and would be able to brawl at the sacrifice of range.
My previous suggestion would only increase the chances of killing within two armor breaks by decreasing the amount of shots
I think that would be reason enough to bring either of those weapons
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As for the being only able to kill a Galleon in three armor breaks...
If we compare the Heavy Flak and Mortar to the suggested Light Flak
Heavy Flak:
Charged
-Difficulty of use
-Long-mid range
-slow projectile speed
-Kill galleon in 3 shots (two clips) (Two armor breaks)
Mortar:
Greased
-Ease of use
-Short range
-Slow projectile speed
-Kill galleon in 14 shots (1 clip) (1 armor break)
Suggested Light Flak:
-Ease of use
-mid-Longish mid range
-Fast projectile speed
-Kill galleon in
---Charged: 9 shots (Three armor breaks) (Three clips)
---Greased: 15 shots (Three armor breaks) (Three clips)
My problem that I came up with for the suggested Flak was that three armor breaks is still a lot of time for something to creep up because you're dealing with a weapon with Arming Time. Remember also, in both those two ammo types, you would have to land exactly every single shot of those three clips (although you do get the added benefit of having to land less shots). Personally I think having to kill a galleon in three Armor breaks is a bit much considering you would be bringing something to have kill potential without disable in a weapon slot. I might come up with something later.
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Okay, as much as I don’t like the idea that the Flak needs to kill in two clips (Mainly because the time between armor breaks was the moment where engagements went brawl or disables start hitting for me).
I think I’ll go with it because the enemy hitbox is relatively big at mid range and most of you agree that the Flak is pretty easy to shoot.
So… onto the calculations!!!
Galleon Health (1400) / Explosive modifier (1.4) = 1000 Explosive damage
Damage for two full clips 1000 / 2 = 500 Explosive damage per clip
If taken into account that 2 full clips would kill a galleon
Each clip would need to do Greater than or equal to 500 explosive damage
This would mean that you would be bringing back the Current Flak’s ability to one clip a Mobula (Considering 500 x 1.4 = 700 hull damage)............ use that suggestion as you will :-\
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New suggested Flak stats!!
Total explosive damage for a Normal (4 shot) clip = 520 explosive
with each shot being 130 explosive damage
Bear in mind that 1 clip means 1 armor break (since it's an explosive explosive weapon keeping in mind the reload time)
Greased rounds:
(Total clip damage: 520) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 728 hull damage
Increase clip size to 5
Decrease Arming Time
Increase rate of fire
Charged Rounds:
(Total clip damage: 507) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 709.8 hull damage
Decrease clip size to 3
No decrease in Arming Time
Decrease rate of fire but load next clip quicker
Heatsink rounds:
(Total clip damage: 539.5) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 755.3 hull damage
Increase clip size to 5
Decrease Arming Time
No change in rate of fire
Normal Rounds:
(Total clip damage: 520) w/ Explosive modifier of 1.4 = 728 hull damage
Clip size 4
No decrease in Arming Time
No change in rate of fire
In terms of keeping the 5/3 ratio of Direct to Aoe damage,
130 / 8 = 16.25
16.25 x 5 = 81.25
16.25 x 3 = 48.75
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Honestly it would be easier to go
Direct damage = 80
Aoe damage = 50
and you kinda keep the ratio~
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You may want to rethink having the mini flak destroy a ship within 2 armour breaks cos the gun is a light weapon and some ships have more than one light weapon slot that share the same arcs. I remember reducing a spire to burning debris in one armour break with a hades + dual flak mobula. They never stood a chance. That was before the spire HP buff. A 2.5 clip of mini flak would be a reasonable amount of punishment most ships should endure. More if they lack speed to evade.
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The galleons hull takes around 7s to rebuild with a spanner.
The current light flak using charged rounds can 2 clip a galleon in 7.9s, buffed greased takes 6.4s.
In practice a lot of other factors are added in but with a slow engineer and a fast gunner it should be possible to take out a galleon inside 1 armor break.
Compared to that double greased banshees take 9.5s and double burst artemis takes 16.3s, greased mortar takes 4.7s but needs every single shot to land, burst mortar can afford 2/14 misses but takes 7.3s. Compare the projectile speed of 350 for charged light flak and 100 for greased mortar.
Charged and burst light flak can also 1 clip the mobula as is.
Pyra, Junker, Mobula and galleon can all die in 1 armor break to the current light flak and the pyra and junker can't rely on arming time to save them any more than 10% hull.
Squid, Fish and Spire probably shouldn't die in 1 break because breaking thier armor is so easy.
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A proper galleon will have a minimum of two spanners, if not 3. The armour takes long enough to go down that you can call a full tank well in advance. Every galleon should average 3-4 rebuilds per death.
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A proper galleon will have a minimum of two spanners, if not 3. The armour takes long enough to go down that you can call a full tank well in advance. Every galleon should average 3-4 rebuilds per death.
That is true, although a good light flak can deliver 700 out of 1400 hull damage in 2s + travel time which is a threat to all but the best tanking.
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The current Light Flak has capabilities in two clipping ships in two armor breaks so all I would be doing would be making it more able to two clip/kill in two armor breaks.
I would say that there is always possibilities in missing shots with the inconsistencies of shots as I mentioned before.
It also has Arming time and relatively slow projectile speed to predict the shots.
Not to mention there is always inconsistencies that happen in the time of that second armor break.
Also adding a second Flak means sacrificing disable potential from an Artemis, or Banshee.
While you could argue that it would make the Heavy Flak less effective...
The Heavy Flak kills all ships in one clip/armor break, except the Galleon in two clips/armor breaks
The suggested Light Flak would kill the Junker, Pyra, and Mobula in one clip/armor break but everything else in two clips/armor breaks
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I think flak should be buffed vs. balloons and engines, to give it a little more utility. It's kill range works, but it could use a little tweaking.
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I think flak should be buffed vs. balloons and engines, to give it a little more utility. It's kill range works, but it could use a little tweaking.
This would just make is a duplicate of the banshee.
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You could increase its AoE radius.
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^
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Can I be informed on what AoE does aside from doing component damage while hitting the ship?
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At 50% of the radius it deals 100% of the secondary damage. After that the damage decays linearly to 20% at the edge of the radius.
On average it would deal more damage to everything.
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I think flak should be buffed vs. balloons and engines, to give it a little more utility. It's kill range works, but it could use a little tweaking.
You could increase its AoE radius.
-If I'm guessing this right you would increase the Flaks chances of breaking armor because it would be spreading the total Explosive damage to more around the ship.
Kinda like how a Buffed Burst Mortar can finish off a Pyramidion by itself because it is capable of breaking armor relatively easily by spreading the damage over more armor.
-If you increase the Aoe radius you also make it so that you increase the chances of hitting secondary damage farther away from the hull while the Flak is out of Arming Time (Maybe even hit the Balloon).
Kinda like how (because the Aoe radius of the Lumberjack is so high) you can kinda still pop a balloon if you hit armor with a Lumberjack.
-You also increase the chances of breaking components
If you hit the Balloon component enough times with the burst damage from Explosive, you can even pop the Balloon
You might even increase the chances of causing fires
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You would essentially get a Burst Flak with normal rate of fire
-While I do kinda like these changes, the Flak still wouldn't be very good at Breaking Armor, Popping Balloons, Breaking components, or starting fires compared to other Disabling guns.
-It would be nice but other weapons would be able to do the job at a much more reasonable rate.
-In my opinion, the only way to increase its utility would be to switch its Secondary or Primary damage type for something that causes fires, disables, pops balloons, or breaks armor.
Because it's a Flak, I don't know if I would be okay with that idea considering it has a very popular big brother that brings pride to the "Flak" family name.
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-While I do kinda like these changes, the Flak still wouldn't be very good at Breaking Armor, Popping Balloons, Breaking components, or starting fires compared to other Disabling guns.
None of these are jobs that the Light Flak should exceed in or even be good at, so of course it won't be good at those things.
Last SCS there were a few Light Flaks and I think they did rather well.
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None of these are jobs that the Light Flak should exceed in or even be good at, so of course it won't be good at those things.
@_@