A Suggestion for the Echidna Light Flak Cannon

[Dementio]

...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.

[ZnC]

@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.

[Daft Loon]

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.

[BlackenedPies]

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.

[Lieutenant Noir]

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.

[Kamoba]

Send that post to feedback@musegames.com or email the forums link and mention the post number as your conclusion. 

[Extirminator]

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.

[Lieutenant Noir]

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.

[Dementio]

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.

[BlackenedPies]

The smoke effect seems largely determined by graphics settings.

[Kamoba]

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.

[Lieutenant Noir]

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.

[Dementio]

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.

[Daft Loon]

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.

[Lieutenant Noir]

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.