A Suggestion for the Echidna Light Flak Cannon

[Lieutenant Noir]

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?

[Squidslinger Gilder]

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.

[Daft Loon]

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.

[Kamoba]

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.

[BlackenedPies]

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).

[DJ Tipz N Trix]

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.

[Extirminator]

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.

[HamsterIV]

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.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

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.

[Lieutenant Noir]

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.

[Omniraptor]

I agree with hamster, make the flak a bit easier to use. Increase velocity, keep max range the same. Maybe slightly decrease arming distance.

[Daft Loon]

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.

[BlackenedPies]

Part of the banshee's charm is the 60 degree arcs and I don't think flak should too. 55 max

[ZnC]

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.

[Mr.Bando]

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