Possible Solution for Overpowered SCs

fuel? that's a start but how about range?

Carrier spam sitting at the extreme edge of a gravity well while sitting back and watching the slaughter then jumping out at the first sign of any real threat makes it impossible, really, truly to hit the carriers. With Strike Craft instantly replacable, it borders on insanity.

How about the range of Strike Craft reduced to 2/3 of the gravity well? We all agree that Capital Ships should get "some" sort of Flak by default and Flak Frigates are flipping useless right now, but how about a innovative solution?

-A new class of strike craft called: interceptors - even better than fighters (which are generally multi-purpose) whose sole porpose is to destroy other strike craft. They would annhilate bombers, and generally hurt fighters in a 3:1 fashion (3 fighters to take out a interceptor). If you're like me, and generally make light carrier's purely to counter the other guy's Strike Craft this is the option I want. 

Think about it, and oh ya give Caps Flak already Ironclad!

On top of the fuel idea how about having the SC have to get back to their frigate before it can jump?  

I like this fuel and arms idea. Id like to see the use of strike craft more heavily reliant on the use of telling them when to dock and so on. We have teh option to but noone ever does because it serves no purpose. Strikecraft should stay free to repair but make building/rebuilding them much harder. As for teh tactic that they sit on the edge of teh gravity well and launch them I think is a very good tactic that should stay. Though I think right now is the problem of the strike craft respawning too fast and having too great of range.

 

I think another good idea to fix the range issue for strike craft would be for instead of fuel specificly to lower their health outside of a perimiter to their host. Outside of that they take damage like they would without a host leaving them to die quickly. This could stop strike craft being self killing machines and make them more reliant on their host to survive. Calling them back once or twice during a battle would keep them alive as bringing them back into the perimiter slowly restores their health but docking them restores it much faster and might give a wepons or health boost or something for a little while when they next launch.

 

That's already a reality

The inclusion of range also might be a good idea. The SC would be required to stay only so far from their host. With them having to dock after they run out of fuel/ammo.

Of course flak turrets on Cap Ships are simply mandatory and should be added regardless. It only makes sense that Cap ships would have this feature.

and flaks on starbases of course.

Caps don't need flak guns - that's what flak frigs are for.  Caps having flak guns ensures that flak frigs remain useless.

Someone will say "but flak frigs suck! we can't use those!"  Well, the solution isn't to stick flak guns on caps, the solution is to FIX THE DAMN FLAK FRIGS!  Doesn't that sound easy enough to understand?

Edit:  In thinking about it rationally, cap ships already have features of other frigs, i.e. they have long range missles, they have planet bombardment ability, they have colonization ability, they have strikecraft, etc.  In light of this, it wouldn't be too out of whack to stick a few flak guns on them (or maybe on some of them, like support caps).  But it certainly shouldn't be overkill.  And it should be done with the realization that the FLAK FRIG should be the primary defense against strikecraft.

Capital Ships deserve Flak guns, not only because its highly highly unrealistic for ANY capital ship to not have any, but they deserve "some" weak type of Flak. In fact, its HIGHLY unrealistic for Caps to NOT have any FLAK. 

LOOK at popular culture: Star Destroyers - yup lots of AA, Battlestar Galactica - a Flak platform on wheels, Battleships in WW2 - huge huge concentration of Flak to end all Flak. Capital Ships automatically has flak in EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE of real life and popular sci-fi culture. By the very same logic you can say "Oh Starbases shouldn't have Flak because they have some many other features..." Yeah the Death Star didn't have laser cannons too.

Agent of Karma you're deliberately pulling BS out and no one believes you. 

In any game right now, let's say a guy only has 4 caps and other Frigates but no Flak Frigates and no SC of his own. He would automatically get owned by a group of SC, as in they can't even shoot back. It's realistic even for ships (esp. huge expensive Cap ships) to have AA capability even IF they weren't esp. designed to fight SC like the Flak Frigate. 

No they would NOT replace FLAK FRIGATES once Flak gets buffed, because without the exception of say the Mothership-type Capital Ship the rest would only get WEAK FLAK, equal to or less than a single Flak Frigate. FLAK FRIGATES will still be the main type of anti-SC. 

Won't work. Carriers and flak have a tricky balance. On the one hand, carriers counter flak by rebuilding their squadrons. On the other, flak counter carriers by killing the craft. If the flak frigates mop the floor with squadrons, then you'd never see them on the field. If they keep up with carrier production, then flak can't stop anything until the damage is already done. Flak does counter carriers, as long as you use the proper numbers of them(most people don't).

The problem with half heartedly stopping carriers, is that the carriers suffer no loss. The main ships are still alive, which sucks. Not only that, but the antimatter lasts so long that a carrier doesn't feel the loss of a few fighter craft. This gives them an incredible long term endurance for their squadrons, where other unsupported ships would already be dead.

Even after the carriers are "countered", the squadrons still have time to do a lot of damage.  This problem gets worse with rapid "hit+run" style attacks, where flak simply doesn't have time to counter the carriers, yet the carriers still have time to do substantial damage. A carrier completely devoid of antimatter can still rebuild squadrons on the field at a very deadly rate, and doesn't need much respite to completely recover. Dry carriers can dump out ships at a frightening rate with some AM research. All this makes flak a very poor counter to carriers, even when they have the upper hand.

There is NO way to balance flak damage values against carrier hit and run tactics, because it has nothing to do with the flak's damage, the squadron's health, nor the carrier's rebuild rate. The carrier doesn't stick around long enough for any of those things to become a factor.

It's all because the carrier can do high speed and high damage hit and run attacks, and it can keep on doing it without personal restriction. No other ship can do this.

I'm not sure I'm understanding you.  See if you can help me out here.

Perhaps this is oversimplifying the problem, but it seems to me that it should be reasonably possible to balance the flak's attack and cost so that it properly counters carriers/strikecraft.  It seems to me that this should be possible even in your high-speed high-damage hit and run attack scenario.  How to do this?  Figure out whatever proper ratio is needed of flak to strikecraft, whatever that ratio is.  Balance the flak so that if this ratio is there, and if strikecraft fly within range of the flak, they are dead.  Period.  Now, at that point it doesn't matter whether it is a hit and run attack or not - the strikecraft are countered and nullified.

You will probably say "but then the carriers will just jump out, recharge mana, and jump back."  But then I will say "yes, and I will still be there with the proper ratio of flak to counter their strikecraft when they return."  Overly-simplified?  Yes. Doesn't take into account all the infinite scenarios?  Admitted.  But isn't it a start towards thinking about the problem and the solution?  Tell me what's wrong with it.

Also, see the thread I'm about to post on my most recent attempt to counter strikecraft without building carriers of my own (extreme failure).

 

Building 1 flak per enemy squadron properly counters the carriers and by doing this, you spend only half as much money as the carrier spammer.

Problem is, flak can only kill the SC. Once the enemy gets other units out, the flak are useless, but the SC are great in all situations.

Flak need to kill enemy SC faster then they can be replaced. Not as much as in v1.05 but not like it is now either.

People should note my last sentence in my OP. I suggested that flak frigates not get buff bonuses but be faster and have a good deal faster turn radius. This is the biggest problem I notice. The damage is fine but the SC can simply be microed to evade or always outrun flak frigates. The flak frigate should turn faster and go faster to keep up with the SC so they can be deadlier.

Adding a range for SC also keeps the carriers and Cap ships from staying at the edge of the gravity well so they can jump back and forth.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/340117

Bingo! You nailed it. That is EXACTLY why flak can not be balanced around hit and run attacks. My point is this:

Sins is balanced around prolonged engagements. Carriers can deal their damage, but can deny flak a full engagement AT WILL without penalty or remorse. Without a full engagement, flak can not be balanced to give carriers their proper time on the field.

If flak really gets the power to liquify fleets simply by LOOKING at them, then carriers become worthless. 100% worthless. Why? Because in a PROLONGED fight, one where you aren't required to wipe out squadrons in mere SECONDS, 1 flak will counter over 10 carriers, because they'll eventually run dry(it takes a while...). Their squadrons get liquified, and the carriers are powerless to stop it. Carriers aren't built to fight in terms of seconds, nor is any other ship in the entire game.

What about the side effects? Given such a balance (which would require over 500% DPS increase to flak!), a handful of flak will render the mightiest of carrier fleets completely impotent, as their ships will get whittled down in less than a minute. Will you next suggest that carriers should be able to do their full damage allotment in less than a minute? Because that'll break things even more. Your solution will wreck things in one of two ways:

1) carriers turn a non-flak field into pure space dust, or

2) a flak field turns carriers into an oversized and overpriced bullet soak.

A major issue with countering carriers is that flak needs to reach a "Critical Mass" before damage can be done. Carriers use antimatter to both build and replace their squadrons, and this rebuilding is a direct FLAT counter to the flak's damage. Carriers have two points for critical mass:

1) The build rate of the squadron. This directly opposes the flak's damage output.

It takes a LOT of flak to beat the build rate of a carrier. You beat this and you have truly hard countered a carrier squadron(given that they don't run and come back fully loaded in 2 minutes). But if you counter even half of the carrier's value in flak, you can eventually win out, though you might take some casualties. This is an issue, but carriers can't survive without it.

2) The storage and recharge rate of antimatter. This ALSO directly opposes the flak's damage output, but runs out in a good long fight. You beat this and you've basically soft countered the carrier's potential. Without direct AM drain, you'll never soft counter a carrier before an unholy amount of damage is done. (which is IMO the biggest issue)

#2 is where critical mass comes into play. If your flak can not oppose the hostile carrier's rebuild rate, then the carriers are not countered. Period. This is where most complaints come into play, usually because players didn't build enough flak to even pretend to get the job done. Many complaints touch upon this, and somehow think that buffing flak or nerfing carriers will solve everything. That will only make it easier to reach critical mass against carriers, but that isn't the real issue. Carriers can already be both hard and soft countered by flak. Read above.

 

I don't know that I said flak should have the power to liquefy by simply LOOKING.  Just off the top of my head, it should be  balanced the same as any other counter for any other unit in the game.

What is the "liquefy by looking" ratio of, say, lrms to light frigates?  Is it half as many lrms will take out twice the light frigs, leaving what... half lrms left?  Is it a third will take out thrice as many, leaving three fourths lrms left?  I don't know what the balance is for this, but what would be wrong with balancing it around whatever "balance philosophy" exists for other units in the game?

I actually share your concerns about turning carriers into worthless units.  It's the last thing I'd want to do.  But just to ask a question and play devil's advocate, do lrms turn light frigates into worthless units?  Maybe they do, maybe they don't, I'm just asking.  Do fighters turn lrms into worthless units?  If the answers to those questions are "yes," then perhaps flak should make carriers just as worthless, but there also needs to be something to make flak just as worthless.

Another balance consideration is that carriers are upper-tier, expensive units.  Should they be countered easily by low-tier, easily spammable, cheap units?  If so, perhaps there would never be a reason to tech up and put money into carriers - in fact it would seem a risk.  However, consider that flak frigs really can't be used for much else besides anti-strikecraft duty, while the carrier can.  Does that handicap then counter the fact that flak is cheap, low-tier, and easily spammable?  And does that then provide a useful incentive to tech up to carriers?  I'm not saying I know the answers to these questions.  At this point, I'm just playing Socrates and simply asking them.

It is in relation to this part:

Do you mean "give them a few minutes" die or "kill them on sight" die? Strike craft are different from other ships, in that they can escape from the fight at any time by going to dock, or the carriers can pull them out by jumping. A fighter who is "deep in the thick of it" is just seconds away from escape. Any real combat frigate may need more than a minute to pull out, while they're not shooting, while they're vulnerable, which is a BIG difference. So when you say "They're dead. Period", that suggests a severe and unescapable demise, something that counters even their unbelievable escape speed.

This makes it hard to simply say that flak should kill the squadrons better than before. The squadrons aren't around anymore when flak comes around!

Actually, it's probably fair to say that carriers are a mid tier unit. Can't have them right away, but they're not the last ones either.

The concern I have for carriers is that I feel they should be a heavy support style of unit, the kind which hits hard and fast when it matters most, but still needs main battle ships when it runs out of juice. However, the nature of its unlimited range, infinite ammo, quick retreat, and hard fought swarms means that the carrier can stand on its own as a main battle ship with little need for support. Players spam carriers because they're seen as an all purpose unit, perhaps not the best at everything, but a versatile and damn hard thing to beat. It doesn't help that only carriers can counter fast enough and hard enough to counter other carrier swarms devoted to quick and lethal strikes.

not in 1.13 , was playing today and was able to warp with like 50+strike craft on the other side of the  star

I mean that, conceptually, the strikecraft are "countered."  Now, if you say that it might take several minutes to kill the strikecraft with a particular flak balance, meanwhile the strikecraft have destroyed everything in the system before they are dead, then that does not sound like "countered" to me.  Thus that particular flak balance isn't any good.  If you say the flak killed all the strikecraft, but the strikecraft were able to take a couple units out before they died, that sounds more "countered."

It's like anything else.  If you send 50 cobalts into my planet, I should be able to counter you with X numbers of lrfs, and that counter should work before my system is laid to waste.  In other words, if I have the proper numbers of lrfs in my system, I WIN.  If my system is laid to waste, then I didn't win, I lost, and the balance isn't right, and thus the counter is not viable.

To simply ask a (hypothetical) question, would "severe and unescapable demise, something that counters even their unbelievable escape speed" be a problem?  Off the top of my head, it doesn't sound like it to me.  However, I also know that you should never do jack shit off the top of your head, and the devil is always in the details.  But humor me - tell me what would be wrong with this, just so we thrash it out and get it on the forum for others to ponder.

I have no problem with unlimited range - that is the point of a carrier (actually, the range isn't unlimited - it's limited to the grav well).  I have no problem with a quick retreat - again the point of a carrier.  Here you are delving into "tactics territory" as DorianGray does.  Also, infinite ammo is nothing because all ships have infinite ammo.

Tactics, range, etc. isn't the problem.  Even your "this should be a support ship, not a main line ship" isn't the problem (I'm not so sure I even agree with that contention).  If there is a problem, it is simply counterability.  Period.

So the first question that needs to be asked is "what is the counter supposed to be?"  Intuitively, I look on my ship list and see something called a "flak frigate."  Well, if this isn't supposed to be a counter, then what else is it to be used for?  Window dressing?  A potted plant?  Is it sort of like the PJI when the game came out?  Something which costs money but does nothing?

Now, if flak is supposed to be a counter, then the question becomes "does it actually do its job?"  If the answer is "yes" then we move on.  If the answer is "no" then the unit should be adjusted.

Question1: what are the "bona-fide" counters to carriers?

Question2: are those counters effective?

Strike craft will attempt to return to a jumping carrier, and I think they'll refuse new orders. But they're under no obligation to be docked when the carrier finally jumps.

If that happened, more strike craft would be lost to the void than would be killed by flak frigates! Not exactly a fix the flak frigate was looking for.

Strike craft have a weapon fire rate of around 12 seconds. Squadrons rebuild in a few minutes. If they die in seconds, they get one volley off. If the strike craft are already dead, the Vasari cap can't heal them. If they're dead, rebuilt fighters are all alone, and will die in milliseconds.

Squadrons are 100% reliant on sustaining their numbers to remain viable. If the number deteriorates faster than it can be rebuilt, then the carriers are left unable to do damage. If this happens in seconds, the carrier ends up doing 1 volley of damage before it dies/runs/craps its pants. This is the hardest counter there can be, leaving a unit completely defenseless. As such, I'm very strongly against the carrier being unable to sustain squadron numbers, except in the most brutally countered situations.

Carriers take a few minutes to rebuild their fleets. If the strike craft are killed over 20 times faster than they can be rebuilt(such as going from minutes to seconds), then you really only need 1/20th the number of flak to effectively "counter" the carriers into helplessness.

On the other hand, using attrition to beat down carriers is a much softer way of "countering" them. Currently this is a very weak strategy, because carriers not only start with a full payload, but typically have several squadrons in "cold storage". Flak, in order to beat current balance carriers, have to destroy squadrons several times over before they have completed a successful counter. This gives the squadrons a TON of time to do damage. Carriers, on the other hand, can do the hardest counter (complete annihilation) in mere seconds.

the devs have been very quiet on this kind of topic, so we might get something when entrenchment is released.. hopefully.

^^I have noticed this too. Could this be a bug!

Sorry I should have quoted.

I was reffering to the carriers being able to jump out when thier SC were on the oppossite side of GW.

What if the fix for flak took a page from Battlestar Galactica. LEBSG's solution to incoming missiles and strikecraft is to provide a constant cover of flak in effect acting like a shield. What if Flak frigates had a method of creating such a fire solution within a limited range. This means that when you enable their firing solution they plant themselves and fire a constant barage within that range.

OR, they could have a subdued version of flak barage like what the Kol's have... maybe half its strength but give it a wider range. This would allow multiple flaks to "cover" a fleet, as opposed to go chasing after SC... it would also allow SC to remain untouched.

I see squadrons replaced instantaneously.

So what?  That means the carriers are countered, right?

I'll say it again: Whatever level of violence other counters perform to the units they are countering should be performed with flak against strikecraft.  Or, whatever level of protection other counters provide against the units they are countering should be performed with flak against strikecraft.  If a "fully countered" force of cobalts essentially does nothing to the grav well it is attacking, I see no reason why the same shouldn't apply to a "fully countered" force of strikecraft.  Do you?  Now, whether that ends up being "1 volley of damage" from the strikecraft, or 10, it is irrelevant, isn't it?

So, if the strikecraft are "fully countered," you are still for allowing them to exist and do damage?  Then how is this a counter?

Whether it is 1/20th the flack, or 20 times the flak is irrelevant.  What matters is that the flak is balanced in all aspects (unit cost, supply cost, attack values, hit points, speed at which the unit can be built, etc) for its role.  If it's 1/20th the number of flak, as you say, then it sounds like flak will need huge boosts to attack, and huge boosts to costs/supply.  Coming from where we are now, where I seriously question whether 1 flak per squadron effectively counters strikecraft, this sounds like a strange balance direction to head in, but whatever.

By the way, whoever is reading this should feel free to substitute the words "any carrier counter" for the word "flak" in everything I just said.  In other words, whether we are talking about light frigs countering carriers, flak frigs countering carriers, etc. it's all the same in the analysis.

Since when? Individual ships take around 10-15 seconds to rebuild. The full squadron is just the individual build time x the size of the full health unit. So a carrier takes a few minutes to replace a squadron, more or less. If squadron ships took no time to replace, then capital carriers would have an unlimited stream of ships pouring out the vents.

The same way that "fully countered" LRMs, LFs, HFs, and every other unit are still able to do damage. A ship can be countered yet still fight it out to the bitter end, and in large battles can still unload some substantial damage. If carriers actually stuck around to die like they should after a successful counter, then there wouldn't be any complaints about them, because they'd be both countered AND dead.

That isn't the case. Thanks to a carrier's long range it can sit on the edge of the gravwell, with their fingers literally on the jump button. That's fine. Flak then comes in and, given proper numbers, decimates the fighter/bomber fleet. Some casualties are taken, probably taking no longer than a few minutes. That's fine too. Next is the carriers jump away. Okay, that's a bit annoying, but you'll get them next time, right? The kick in the face is when you realize the carriers don't even need to take a breather or give so much as a "whoopseydaisy" for suffering catastrophic squadron losses. In a minimal time frame the squadrons are at full capacity(even after jumping dry), and ready to come back for another 1-3 minute raid.

With a huge carrier fleet, the inertia(high speed, high numbers) carried by maximum squadron strength is enough to wipe out several key structures or units, even with absolute flak coverage. Carrier "hit+run" tactics rely on this prepackaged force to carry them through the fight. They don't care about losing a few squadrons. They don't care about losing antimatter, especially considering the constant phase jumping involved. All that matters is the existing swarm lasts long enough to do permanent damage before the carriers jump out. All the damage is repaired at home. TEC takes this a bit further by repairing the carriers to keep true casualties down.

Flak is not made to counter this, because this has nothing to do with a straight up fight, where flak can and does beat down the carriers. It's all about hitting hard and falling back before the carriers start slowing down. However, the carriers regain that edge so quickly, even when fully deprived of AM, that you can never call them truly defenseless. Even if you knock the squadrons out and give chase immediately afterwards, you'll have a hard time squashing the unending tide of fightercraft. That's not counting if they fall back behind a friendly defense grid, with friendly antimatter regeneration, in which case you don't have a chance.