archpsi

different replays of flaks vs LRM and then mixed fleet vs lrm only

▼

different replays of flaks vs LRM and then mixed fleet vs lrm only

from Sins Forums
first 4 replays are garda vs LRM
5th is illuminators vs defense.
last part is discussion about clusterwarheads

replay 1:

I made a map to demonstrate garda vs LRM (garda is the worse flak price wise and LRM seems to be the best price wise) after seeing that people continue to totally ignore posts which state flak as a counter to LRM.

This is just a demonstration of the power of flaks vs LRM's, I did require micro to pull this off, however I could have maybe improved the micro quite a bit (e.g. I moved all of them instead of the one being focus fired, I moved them at the start too far out) and a lot was just shift queuing movement.

Worse flak (stat wise the garda is not as good as the defense, Sentinel for its cost. sentinel gets aoe laser later on, so you have to take that into account when comparing flaks) vs best LRM (stat wise the tec LRM is the cheapest for dps)


fleet make up.
10 LRM's: 2500 credits, 400 metal, 200 crystal and 40 supply.
vs
5 garda's: 1875 credits, 200 metal, 125 crystal and 20 supply.
outcome
10 dead lrm, 2 garda alive.

the cpu that barely microed didnt do so well.

link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R06Q7GV2

this also demonstrates how effective micro can be in this game.

replay 2:
7 flaks vs 10 LRM, no micro at all.

fleet make up:
10 LRM's: 2500 credits, 400 metal, 200 crystal and 40 supply.
vs
7 garda's: 2625 credits, 280 metal, 175 crystal and 28 supply. (selling 120 metal and 25 crystal at lowest sell price is 290 credits).

outcome:
10 dead lrm, 3 garda alive (one barely, under 80 hp or so).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4UU57U2G

replay 3:

mixed fleet vs 49 lrm.

49 LRM vs 21 flaks and 20 LRM. (was supposed to be 50, but cant be bothered doing it again for one more).
mixed fleet: 12875 credits, 1640 metal, 1025 crystal and 164 supply.
vs
LRM fleet: 12250, 1960 metal, 980 crystal and 196 supply.

outcome: 10 flaks alive (one barely).

http://files.filefront.com/mixedfleetrecord/;9672984;/fileinfo.html


replay 4: only 4 minutes long.

just for fun :).

mixed fleet vs 50 lrm.

50 LRM vs 20 LRM and 55 scouts (if you convert metal and crystal into credits, 30 LRM = 55.5 scouts, ignoring costs to tech to LRM).
roughly equal costs, bit more for LRM.
50 LRM: 200 supply.
20 LRM and 55 scouts: 190 supply.

outcome: from the mixed fleet 8 scouts and 20 LRM alive, 50 dead from LRM fleet.

http://files.filefront.com/scout2record/;9673197;/fileinfo.html

I just did this test for fun, please try to avoid mass producing scouts, they are not worth it, flaks can be used vs a combined force of LRM, fighters/bombers, siege and have much better survivability (used as tanks vs pirates/rebels..etc).

replay 5:
10 defense vs 10 illuminators

10 illuminators: 3500 credits, 500 metal, 400 crystal and 60 supply
vs
10 defense: 3500 credits, 400 metal, 200 crystal and 30 supply (could have made it 11-12 and not 10).


outcome:
10 dead illuminator, 7 alive defense (one barely).

http://files.filefront.com/illumvsdefenserecord/;9674236;/fileinfo.html

clusterwarheads

I made a mod where the LRM's started with clusterwarheads and except for that everything was identical (flaks got no upgrades at all in anyway)

did the exact same test as replay 2, got the following results
10 dead LRM, 2 flak alive.

the replay crashes sins, if I try running it without the mod enabled.

29,386 views 67 replies
Reply #51 from Sins Forums Top
The real problem is that cruisers are more expensive than flaks, and flaks counter cruisers 1 on 1.

What I mean to say is, we have to take a more scientific approach to the whole thing.

We can do it pop vs pop (fleet vs fleet) instead of these ridiculous ai scenarios.

For instance, LRMs are only 4 pop, Flaks are only 4 pop. Furthermore, you have diminishing returns from additional carriers. Why is this? Because the more fighters clump, the more damage they take from flak (also, against carrier cruisers, my Kol will have flak burst, which crushes them).

Certainly, stupid strategies involving 100% flak, will not work.

But a balanced LRM/Flak army with good capital support, will beat advent drone carriers pop for pop (2 level 3 kols will INSTANTLY kill any ARBITRARILY large group of fighters).

This isn't to say defense frigs will do any better (against 2 kols, the gauss spam will also crush them, Mazra radiation bomb also does well). All I'm saying is, it's nontrivial to counter LRMs with ANYTHING. Certainly, no counter consisting of a single unit type exists.
Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top
Even doing it in a scientific approach has its problems.

For example, flaks don't counter cruisers. They counter strikecraft(BIG difference). They do piss poor damage to all cruiser types, including carrier cruisers. Support and heavy cruiser types also do more damage against flaks. They also carry abilities which complicates things even further.
Another example, only one faction's flaks have a bonus against clumped up fighters. So it doesn't even apply to 2/3rds of the factions(more than half).

Of course a balanced LRM/flak fleet will beat a fleet consisting of only drone carriers. But that was a "what if" scenario created to try and dismiss my "fighters are the best at killing LRMs". I already countered it with another "what if" scenario by tacking on support cruisers with the fighters. "What if" scenarios continue on till eternity, but whatever.

Its actually very trivial to counter a one unit-type fleet with something. Take the unit that does the most damage against it and that can survive the longest. Simple. To use anything else means you were either oblivious, had incorrect data, or there were other gameplay factors to consider. And if you didn't state what those other factors were beforehand, then one of the two former occured.
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top
.But a balanced LRM/Flak army with good capital support, will beat advent drone carriers pop for pop


ye Im trying to imply how a LRM/Flak army will defeat a LRM/carrier (the carriers might not be destroyed, but having dead fighters make them obsolete) army for equal supply or resources (the tiers of all ships is between tier 1 and 3).


hey do piss poor damage to all cruiser types, including carrier cruisers. Support and heavy cruiser types also do more damage against flaks.


support cruisers (not heavy) do really poor damage to flaks (under ~5 dps), so while flaks might barely scratch support cruisers (~2 dps to ~8 dps, around ~4 on average), the same applies to support cruisers.

support cruisers are good in supportive capabilities.



Of course a balanced LRM/flak fleet will beat a fleet consisting of only drone carriers. But that was a "what if" scenario created to try and dismiss my "fighters are the best at killing LRMs". I already countered it with another "what if" scenario by tacking on support cruisers with the fighters. "What if" scenarios continue on till eternity, but whatever.


notice that this whole thread is focused on tier 1 to 3, and you have to use a "what if" scenario where one side is using stuff from tier 1 to 3 and refuses to tech and the other is tier 2-7? I think its quite clear that the guy stuck at tier 3 who decided not to tech at all was outplayed by the one using tier 2-7 (if the armies are of equal size).

if you do play 1v1 (both making spearhead towards enemy), most players focus on LRM's at the start and based on scouting at some point some start making a mixed force, in this stage of the game its either flak/LRM or carrier/LRM, I've never seen a flak/lrm group lose to a carrier/LRM group for equal supply/costs (carriers might not die, but they barely do damage, due to the flaks killing fighters and LRM's simultanously). These fights occur long before heavy cruisers appear and if there are support cruisers, theres no reasons both sides don't have them.

now this doesn't mean the flak/lrm doesn't tech up to support cruisers while the fighter/x does as you were implying in your "what if" scenario.

Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top
I don't have a lot of experience 1v1, but it seems to me that light frigates/Flak would be the ideal counter to LRM/Flak. Most likely, you'll also have a handful of LRM by the time you scout your opponent building flaks, so you can use a combined Flak/LRM force to take out a few LRMs before phasing in your light frigs, which will make short work of the remaining flaks. Meanwhile, your own flaks continue to rip apart the opponent's LRM. Anyway, flaks are only an early game investment and aren't worth massing, whereas your light frigs will continue to be useful in the mid-game.

But this is just theorizing. Is this viable?

Revised:

Well, since flaks don't do significant damage against LRM, and your opponent would most likely FF the light frigates first, it makes sense to forgo building flaks at all. The point of flaks vs LRM is that they survive for longer. The point of using LFs is that they can survive against flaks and do more ~4 points unupgraded more dps than LRMs (against flak).

To summarize, if you see your opponent building flaks, build some LFs. Use your LRMs to take out most of your opponent's LRMs. Bring in the LFs when it comes down to a battle of attrition. Phase out your LRMs when the last opponent LRM is down. Flaks are useless against LFs, so your opponent will be forced into a retreat. I'm aware LFs get raped by LRM, which is why I'm not saying you should mass them. Ideally, you'll have about as many, maybe less, than your opponent has flaks. The idea is to guarantee you win the war of attrition.
Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top
This doesn't prove anything? The whole purpose of this experiment (from what i can tell of the poster's intent) is to demonstrate the effectiveness of flaks against the LRM spam. It aptly demonstrates that even if your opponent has more LRMs than you, mix in a few flaks and you have yourself an even match, if not tip the balance decidedly in your favor. Obviously if you're LRM spamming your going to want to knock out the other's capitol first, but that's what the guy with the flaks should be doing with his anti-cap ships (LRM, light frigates, etc.) if everything dies but the flaks, you still win. (The total flak fleet was a demonstration, obviously it'd have to be a pretty special situation for that to be a winable strat.)

But, as has been said before, if your opponent has a fleet 10X larger than yours, your going to loose regardlessly of ship mix. That's just life.

Thanks for the informative post archpsi. We know flaks counter LRMs stat-wise, but numbers are always nice.
Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top
This doesn't prove anything? The whole purpose of this experiment (from what i can tell of the poster's intent) is to demonstrate the effectiveness of flaks against the LRM spam. It aptly demonstrates that even if your opponent has more LRMs than you, mix in a few flaks and you have yourself an even match, if not tip the balance decidedly in your favor. Obviously if you're LRM spamming your going to want to knock out the other's capitol first, but that's what the guy with the flaks should be doing with his anti-cap ships (LRM, light frigates, etc.) if everything dies but the flaks, you still win. (The total flak fleet was a demonstration, obviously it'd have to be a pretty special situation for that to be a winable strat.)

But, as has been said before, if your opponent has a fleet 10X larger than yours, your going to loose regardlessly of ship mix. That's just life.

We all know flaks beat LRMs just from looking at stats, but hard numbers are almost always useful, and there are probably plenty of newbs out there that didn't know that. Thanks for the great post archpsi.
Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top
This doesn't prove anything? The whole purpose of this experiment (from what i can tell of the poster's intent) is to demonstrate the effectiveness of flaks against the LRM spam. It aptly demonstrates that even if your opponent has more LRMs than you, mix in a few flaks and you have yourself an even match, if not tip the balance decidedly in your favor. Obviously if you're LRM spamming your going to want to knock out the other's capitol first, but that's what the guy with the flaks should be doing with his anti-cap ships (LRM, light frigates, etc.) if everything dies but the flaks, you still win. (The total flak fleet was a demonstration, obviously it'd have to be a pretty special situation for that to be a winable strat.)

But, as has been said before, if your opponent has a fleet 10X larger than yours, your going to loose regardlessly of ship mix. That's just life.

Everyone who's been over this forum knows that flaks beat LRMs, but hard numbers like this are always useful. Great post archpsi.
Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top
support cruisers (not heavy) do really poor damage to flaks (under ~5 dps), so while flaks might barely scratch support cruisers (~2 dps to ~8 dps, around ~4 on average), the same applies to support cruisers.

support cruisers are good in supportive capabilities.


They do over 5 DPS. Over 6 fully upgraded. Flaks have heavy armor. What damage type do you think support cruisers use?
And where'd you get the ~8 DPS from? Fully upgraded TEC and Vasari do only around 6 vs. heavy armor(and thats only if it can fire all 4 guns). Vasari phase missiles are nullified because you're fighting ships that continuously heal/add hulls.

And you're right. Support cruisers are good at supportive abilities.

Support cruisers are the best at supportive abilities. They're the second best at taking out flaks.
Light frigates are the best at taking out flaks, support cruisers, and carrier cruisers. They're the second best at supportive abilities.
Fighters are the best at taking out siege frigs and LRMs. They're the second best at taking out fighters and bombers.
Flaks are the best at taking out fighters and bombers. They're the second best at taking out siege frigs and LRMs.
LRMs are the best at taking out light frigates. They're the second best at doing "average" damage to all frigs and all cruisers(keep in mind strikecraft are not frigates or cruisers).

That takes into account armor type, weapon type, weapon mounts, base damage, abilities, total health(shields + hull), supply, and upgrades. It doesn't take into account resources, armor, how shield mitigation benefits high health ships exponentially more than low health ones, time, and other miscellaneous things.
You wanna win a pointless "what if" war? Factor in something I didn't.

notice that this whole thread is focused on tier 1 to 3, and you have to use a "what if" scenario where one side is using stuff from tier 1 to 3 and refuses to tech and the other is tier 2-7? I think its quite clear that the guy stuck at tier 3 who decided not to tech at all was outplayed by the one using tier 2-7 (if the armies are of equal size).


Then why did you mention a supply size of 1600 in your "what if"? If you have a supply size of 1600, then i'm going to assume you're at a high enough tier to get support cruisers. Damn, seriously...
But ok, have it your way. Assuming the enemy has flaks/LRMs and you only teched to carrier cruisers(and capital ships with their strikecraft are somehow nonexistant ;)), then you build a mixed carrier/light frigate fleet. Both fleets completely counter each other. The one who micromanages the best(or at all) wins.

...unless you're Vasari with the tier 2 reintegration ability. That ability just makes the battle lopsided.
Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top
That whole "flak = awsome" stuff is .. meh.

Just divide a regular cobalt frigate fleet in 2 or 3, then you'll be firing at the flaks all the time with superior firepower for lower cost.
sure, the flak guy can divide his fleet also, but you'll be simply ignoring that, and still targetting group by group.

I'd make a replay, but im far too lazy.



There are deep design problems with this game that changing stats around a bit wont fix.. its not as elegant as say, starcraft. but then, nothing is.
Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top
There are deep design problems with this game that changing stats around a bit wont fix..

Such as?

Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top
I think this was a great post, and I approciate the OP author put into it.
I woudlnt call flak frigs a COUNTER until they can kill them 2:1 without micro though. The fact that flaks are fairly useless against other types makes them a bit handicapped. Still its a lot LESS unbalanced than the forums have been implying.

Could be amended by lowering the hitpoints of TEC LRMs by about 30-50%. They are carrying missles you know. maybe they woudl be vulneabile to cooking off the warheads...

Mag
Reply #64 from Sins Forums Top
support cruisers (not heavy) do really poor damage to flaks (under ~5 dps), so while flaks might barely scratch support cruisers (~2 dps to ~8 dps, around ~4 on average), the same applies to support cruisers.support cruisers are good in supportive capabilities.They do over 5 DPS. Over 6 fully upgraded. Flaks have heavy armor. What damage type do you think support cruisers use?And where'd you get the ~8 DPS from? Fully upgraded TEC and Vasari do only around 6 vs. heavy armor(and thats only if it can fire all 4 guns). Vasari phase missiles are nullified because you're fighting ships that continuously heal/add hulls.And you're right. Support cruisers are good at supportive abilities.Support cruisers are the best at supportive abilities.


actually no supportive ships cruisers are not the second best in taking our flaks, its light and heavy before supportive and just because they are possibly 3rd best doesn't mean its a good option, maybe "average" at best(using your own term).

about my dps calculations.
heres some math, dominas/command do 5 dps(1.25*4), and for vasari its 5.49 dps, but theres a reason I used the ~ symbol. yes your right about flak damage I meant ~1.x to ~5.x and on average above ~2.x.

lets look at fleet makeup again:
Im gonna emphasize this again, these are mixed fleets not ship to ship comparison.
if one fleet is LRM/support/flak and the other is LRM/support/fighters then the fighters are taking out of the equation pretty early on and it becomes LRM(some would die before fighters)/support/flak vs LRM/support.

about 1600:
I mentioned thats its possible quite early in the game as in early game to get rid of the 1600 supply, to exaggerate how effective it is.


about malice and brilliance, I was actually thinking of a few other abilities that advent get that are accessable early game (if you go multiple caps, none will be too high) which combined can kill x ships frigs and fighters, but take some time and can be negated if he micros the ships.
Reply #65 from Sins Forums Top
Doing more damage does not mean they are good at taking something out. I omitted the word "damage" from all but the LRM for a reason. The LRM and the heavy cruiser are the only 2 ships that can damage all ships equally well. I couldn't think of a good word at the time, so thats why "average" was in quotation, so as to not be used literally.

I believe thats the main reason for the LRM's percieved imbalance. Someone who makes a fleet consisting of every ship type will lose to a mass of LRMs or heavy cruisers. But thats a good thing. A balanced fleet being the best fleet composition is no better than 1 ship being the best. In either case, there's only 1 optimum build, and im glad the devs put in LRMs/HCs to counter that. And of course, mass LRMs and heavy cruisers are easily countered by strikecraft(fighters for the former and bombers for the latter). That couldn't have been a coincidence, could it?

Im gonna emphasize this again, these are mixed fleets not ship to ship comparison.if one fleet is LRM/support/flak and the other is LRM/support/fighters then the fighters are taking out of the equation pretty early on and it becomes LRM(some would die before fighters)/support/flak vs LRM/support.


So now flak/LRM vs. support/fighter turned into flak/support/LRM vs. fighter/support/LRM. Isn't this one of those logical fallacies that people commit often in an argument? I forgot what the fallacy is called.

Reply #66 from Sins Forums Top
Support cruisers are tech-intensive enough to take themselves out of the LRM-spam picture, being Tier 3 for all factions. Same for heavy cruisers(Tier 5).

The Advent have a convenient early-game counter for LRM+Flak fleets: fleets of Seeker Vessels + Disciple Vessels + Aeria Drone Hosts w. Fighters.

Firstly, Seekers have Light armor and therefore take only standard damage from LRMs(unlike light frigates which get thrashed), while they do double damage with AntiLight weapons. Best of all, they are dirt cheap at only 200 cash and 2 supply points. Thus, 2 Seekers take 4 supply and deal 12 DPS to 1 LRM, which also takes 4 supply but deals only deals 11 DPS to one Seeker, and the 2 Seekers' combined hull plus shields far exceeds that of the LRM with price remaining equal(400 cash vs. 250 cash + 40 Metal + 20 Crystal).

Of course, the enemy flaks would deal full damage to the scouts, so that's where Disciples are used. Their anti-heavy weapons would deal 10.63 DPS against Flaks and they use only 4 slots and cost 250 cash + 40 metal. So they could be used to kill the more expensive flaks.

Once the flaks have been kicked out or destroyed, the Aerias may launch their fighter squadrons and proceed to thrash the remaining LRM force.

Alternatively, if someone doesn't bother at all with Flak and goes all out with a pure massed LRM fleet, then massed Seeker spam could beat them. The TEC Arcova Scouts got beaten up in those test replays, but Seeker Vessels have more than double the shield strength and twice the armor of TEC Scouts(TEC = 450 hull + 175 shields + 1 armor while Advent = 400 hull + 425 shields + 2 armor).
Reply #67 from Sins Forums Top
So now flak/LRM vs. support/fighter turned into flak/support/LRM vs. fighter/support/LRM. Isn't this one of those logical fallacies that people commit often in an argument? I forgot what the fallacy is called.


ah I see whats going on, I was under the impression that you were making a what if scenario for 1v1 maps as I kept referring to, but you weren't. your what if scenario wasnt a player who was playing on a small map and didnt have time to easily tech to support/fighter (never made lrm's) and mass produce them before the opponent arrived.

In one of my previous replies I stated how your fighter/cruiser vs flak/lrm is a biased "what if" scenario, because its unfair to state that one player will have such superior tech to the other, since that barely occurs successfully in fast 1v1 (one could have superior tech, but his fleet would be too small and most likely cost him the game). Which is the reason I assumed we could drop that scenario (e.g. if they did have equal supply and one was superior tech wise then the player that teched was already much better no matter what) and instead use a scenario were both sides were close in tech and supply throughout the short game. Basically both sides started to get small amounts of support cruisers towards the end of the 1v1.

pesky:
I agree that for advent seekers are quite good and if the enemy doesnt spam carriers..etc are better than defense for their cost, especially when advent LRM's are tier 2 (i.e. 3 labs).

if you like make a few advent fleet compositions that you want me to try in replays :).