Heavy Flak Cannon

[Squidslinger Gilder]

If you're going to have range fights, might as well have them quick rather than having a waiting game. At the same time, I keep saying, make it so that melee vessels at least have a way to get close without taking fire (such as smoke screens).

Thank you!! You just made my person of the day list.

Melee vessels did have a way...it was called speed sneak attack and it cannot be done anymore until the ship which was best at it gets fixed/reverted back to it's former abilities. Smoke screens are nice idea but they'd be focused down  and/or flared quickly. Hence, not really doable. Now if the cloud had kind of the ability to fool gunners. Metal fragments or reflectors that negate the ability of the flare to see through it....hmmm..maybe.

[QKO]

You could have the ability to deploy 2 smoke screens for one flare launched. That way the flare launcher can still decide to move, but gives the melee an ability to make him guess for which smoke cloud he should aim with his flare gun.

[Captain Smollett]

Well, this probably isn't the thread to start this discussion on; but I honestly do not think flares are op.  They only shoot 600 meters or as far as the nearest cloud (which now a days is much closer).  Anything within the flare is already in gattling range and can return fire on the flare shooter, so it doesn't give a sniping team a huge range advantage.

Flares are one of those things, that as Gilder points out, become really rewarding in higher level play.  It took me a while of playing GOI before I ever figured out a reason to equip one, and I have new players all the time asking me what  I use them for. 

For me they increase the complexity of the game, and create this sub game of cat and mouse, where one team tries to approach unnoticed, another team tries to flare them, and the first team, knowing about the flares tries to approach in a place they don't think will be flared.

TL;DR Flares aren't OP, they add layers of strategy and complexity to high level play,

[N-Sunderland]

Well, this probably isn't the thread to start this discussion on; but I honestly do not think flares are op.  They only shoot 600 meters or as far as the nearest cloud (which now a days is much closer).  Anything within the flare is already in gattling range and can return fire on the flare shooter, so it doesn't give a sniping team a huge range advantage.

That's not entirely true, since targets behind the cloud are also highlighted, which is where the range advantage comes from.

[Captain Smollett]

Gattling range is 700 Meters, so even if someone got off a max range flare it's likely that the ship would be in range or nearly in range by the time they were spotted.