In the newly imagined hit-series Battlestar Galactica, the capital ship had a very sophisticated Flak defense array capable of projecting a dense Flak shield around the battlestar. Now, I have to ask the Ironclad developers, have they ever seen the Anti-SC capabilities of a capital ship in that series? Well it looks like this:
That is a lot of Flak. Also in the series, we've seen on television how effective these Flak shields can be taking down several cylon raiders on several occasions on television. Battlestars were equipped with hundreds... of point-defense turrents that created the lightshow you see in the above picture.
In Star Wars Episode III, we saw dense capital ship Anti-Aircraft fire from the first minute.
In any canon Star Wars hand-book of ships, it lists major capital ships such as Star Destroyer as carrying several AA-missile batteries and AA-Ion cannons in addition to its TIE squadrons for a secondary line of Anti-SC defense.
In real life, the battleship - the epitome of what is considered a "capital ship" - is literally a moving Flak platform on wheels. The largest battleship ever created The Yamato had over 150 Type 96 25mm cannons, and over 25 type 93 13mm triple AA machine guns, other ships indeed almost any ship worth anything in battle carried Flak guns. Naval battles in the pacific tended to be massive Flak vs. Strike Craft contests with a lot of puff puff clouds covering the sky for miles.
The question is why then can't Capital Ships get Flak in this game? Yes, there are several caps (1-2 for each each) that has an anti-SC ability such the Kol Flak Burst, or the Dunov's Magnetize but does that really make up for Capital Ships not even having a small built in Flak defense system? No, not really.
Yes, there are a specialized type of frigate: the Flak Frigate that is meant to be the primarily Flak defense for ships in SINs but does that mean unless you always bring along Flak Frigates your capital ships will always be completely defenseless against SC? Yes, it does (not counting the starting 1-2 strike craft your non-carrier capital ships get)
What I propose is: give all capital-ships a general weak Flak capability equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates.
Why we should give Capital Ships Flak. (And Starbases)
Capital Ships loved to be focused fired on by strike craft from all types of players. They see the biggest thing on the battlefield and want to take it out. This means, Capital Ships are always in near-constant danger of strike craft every game that goes onto the mid-game. You cannot count on your Anti-matter abilities because you may not have any, and your starting SC will not be able to really protect you unless you've spammed them in the form of light carriers. This extra protection however slight is needed.
The philosophical question really is: Why shouldn't huge capital ships (and even larger Starbases) that are very expensive and valuable not be able to protect themselves against SC without relying on abilities or your own SC - even slightly? They may not even good at it, they may not be effective at it, but they should be able to fire back. In WW2, Flak was nessecarily the best option for taking down planes, and options such as interceptors were better, but that is no reason to completely strip capital ships from having it.
Why Capital Ship Flak is balanced.
The weak to moderate strenght Flak equipped on Capital Ships would only be a second to third line of defense for the capital ships against enemy-SC. Mass Flak Frigates would still be much more effective than relying solely on a Cap's light Flak defense, and your own fighter SC would also be much more effective. Essentially the balance will be unchanged from what it is right now, it'll only be just that now Capital Ships can shoot back and lightly dmg enemy SC swarming around them. Flak Frigates will NOT be obsolete (agent of Karma), Fighter SC will still be more effective, and enemy SC focus-firing on capitals will still be just as effective. Like I've mentioned, this is a humble change.
"We can live without Flak for capital ships, but do we really want to? Also on very principle we shouldn't. We owe it to the Science Fiction Genre. "
Why Starbase Flak is needed.
Everything that applied to capital ships applies here, except that Starbases in addition to being huge, expensive, and valuable, they are immobile. Strike Craft could simply avoid them, and they will be a zero threat. Now, for players attempting to assault these structures, they could send SC but its perfectly flesible and realistic they will take losses. Carrier Strike Craft, should not be able to jump in on the other side of the grav well released their strike craft, wait for a few minutes while the strike craft do their dirty work (without taking any losses, due to the lack of flak guns) then jump out once the Starbase dies. Yes, Starbases can have up to several SC of their own, but that is only available after multiple upgrades you need to buy. Starbases should already start out with built-in Flak or at least make it a cheap upgrade.
Babylon 5 station's defense grid. Interceptor Station Point Defense Guns.
Specifics: Give the Akkan, Progenitor, and the Jarrasul a moderate Flak capability.
All the other capital ships and starbases will have a weak Flak equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates, however the Mothership type capital ship I adovcate for a moderate Flak ability equal to about 3-4 Flak Frigates.
The Akkan should receive moderate Flak abilities.
Again not much of a leg up, but still important. This makes these ships even better and helps protect your fleet in the immediate radius. The reasoning for this is, Flak is a support/defense ability these ships could have in contrast to the battleship capitals with their high hp + dmg and the command caps with their great abilities. This gives player an addition reason to go with these ships as their first capital ship knowing it will be very useful even in late-game battles vs. just slightly useful in combat.
PLEASE NOTE: This thread is not here to discuss Flak balance vs. Strike Craft Carrier balance. That is for another thread, and there are plently of them out there. Please do not post something like: "Great idea, but it's all unless without a carrier fix and a general buff to flak" [I actually agree with this, but keep it in another thread]
This is Silfarion's three criteria for adding in a change to the game. That I agree with.
1. It's balanced.
2. It fits the theme of the game and what the developers had in mind.
3. It works with minimal fuss or change.
---------------------
1. - Topic for debate. I say Yes.
2. - Yes, and double Yes. I have to ask, do the developers even watch BattleStar Galactica?
3. - Yes, and triple yes. It is easily implemented and won't create much of a fuss, (except for diehards out there such as Hack87, who won't like this idea no matter how humble)
I make sure to make all my trends very specific, full of examples, and with a Rebuttal section to combat the diehards out there, who hate new ideas no matter what they are. It is my hope that most people will see the merits of this humble proposal despite the over-the-topic critics that will surely seek to destroy this thread with everything they can muster.
Objections & Rebuttal COLUMN (read this first for all you diehards out there)
— "This isn't really needed"
Having cherry on a Ice-Cream Sunday isn't needed, but it's good and moreover it's "right". If we were to simply not do a change because it wasn't crucially needed and we only did things when it was absolutely nessecary in today's society then we would not have video games, ice cream, ... toilets. This change really implements the spirt of the genre and a humble change that will not cause any problems for balance.
— "Capital Ships already have 2 things to deal with squadrons ... It's a bad idea then, its a bad idea now."
Some Capital Ships have two thing to try to deal with SC, but with 1 they fail completely, the other is very micro/anti-matter dependent. I'm talking about of course their own SC, and their own capitial ship abilities that some ships have. The flaw in the first one is that the number of squadrons a cap carries (1-3 max) will almost never be enough to really protect it against enemy swarms. Second, the abilities are anti-matter dependent and highly situational. None of these 2 give a good reason why capitals shouldn't have a reliable built in Flak both in game-terms and philosophically.
— "Capital Ships aren't supposed to be a one-ship fleet, they support, and need support... they need Flak Frigates ad fighters already with them. Capital Ships are limited by hardcoding to three weapons systems..."
They're not. Capital ships will still very much need support to be effective. Giving capital ships a weak Flak will not by any means make them one-ship conquer all wonders. Flak Frigate support will still be very much desired, Fighter support will still be very viable. As for hardcoding, there are mods out there that already has this as a feature, so we know its all very much possible.
Yeah, that's wonderful idea.
Capitals having flaks as well is wonderful idea as well.
See, even in modern warfare most ships have strong anti-air guns and missiles. Do you know how many AA missiles carriers and cruisers carry?
In older battles ALL ships were armed with flaks.
Again, this really does not prove that we don't need flaks on capitals.
yea but flak frigate dont do there job well when strike craft in mass the are overwhelmed unless you have a true fleet of them and it was just a thought so calm down this post has so much yelling and trolling
ok every thing that can be siad about this subject has already been siad but i thought i would gett my two cents in.
any one who has played an RTS game and is good at it can tell u that balance is key and sins is no exception, if u dont use flak ships 2 back up ur fleets ur just screwin' urself.
that being siad i dont disagree with anything that has been siadhaving some sort of light anti-strikecraft guns on capital ships would be a nice adition. i like the idea of placing extra flak guns on each factions mothership class capitol ship, i never really used them as much as i did other capitol ships and having good anti-strikecraft abilities would definitly make me want 2 use them more.
also i like the idea of seeing large clouds of flak going off (similar 2 whats seen in battlestar galactica) during the allready visualy apealing battles
flak are ment to kill strike craft which they can only do vs small numbers of strike craft there for we need a buff on them or a new flack cruiser or flack cap ship
ravok2789, how the hell does that look like BSG? I can't quit see it. Sure I have the same colors of the metal, but most ships in this game have it as well, so I guess they look like BSG too. Hell, most ships ever seen have a gunmetal gray as their primary colors (or at least a shade of gray). The hanger bay is on the bottom which can't be seen in this picture. BSG has two on the side and then those tubes to launch fighters. BSG shoots what appears to be solid ammo (see the first pic on this thread) and those are lasers. BSG's engines are blue, mine are red. I have a Command Deck in the front where as BSG doesn't even have one visible on the outside (don't quote me on that though). And this ship is smaller and only designed to be a Skirmish Carrier. It wouldn't be as expansive as BSG
I could go on with the differences but I'll stop (for now).
You're blind. I pride myself on originality and that ravok2789 , is a low blow which I do not take kindly too.
Anyone else think that my spaceship (on Page 4 of this thread) looks like BSG?
Thanks!
-Phalnax
Lol
Geez, three responses in a row from me lol.
I would like to see this enacted by Ironclad. Would be interesting. Hopefully one of the expansions packs adds another cap ship for the races.
Cool, let's remove all lasers, the autocannons, and the entire basis of the game as they have no base in historical realism either. Instead, we can build small wooden boats to capture each others ports or something.
Then..fix them? I'm pretty sure it's a lot easier in every respect (balancing as well as coding) to up some damage values in the flak frigate entity file at the end of the day.
notice i said like not os it has the basic design
thank you for agreeing with me and i did not mean to insult your ship im sorry
i like the idea of a flak cruiser for each faction, not sure how well a flak capitol ship would work though...
Read my post - I said I was going to focus purely on Sins and not involve WWII or SW stuff so the debate was only about Sins.
My points ARE valid. There are only 3 weapon banks available in the engine. So to add flak (which you say will only target SC) WILL REMOVE ONE OF THE EXISTING ONES. This is a balance issue.
Also, do you really think someone can build enough SC to take out the LRM that is surrounded by flak quickly in early game. Because that is what will happen. Yes SC are free, but the research to get them and the carreirs themselves are not cheap. You can easily build enough flak yourself to counter them but it requires you to have an outlay to do so. Getting flak to protect your LRM for free on any cap for free reduces the role SC can play early game fielding a mixed fleet vs a cap and LRM spam fleet. The fact that some caps have an ABILITY to do this means that 1) You must pick that ability vs utilising a different one and 2) You must have the AM available to use it. This means making a decision and using a tactic. It doens't mean "I'll just sit my LRMs near my cap in a battle ball as the cap flak will protect me).
Yeah no. If there was to be a flak Capital Ship, then it would have to have at least one other armament other than flak. However, small wooden boats would be quite comical in the game. White skulls and black flags on the horizon. The pirates!!! Fire one bullet to take them out
Haha it's all good. There was a bit of sarcasm in there even if it wasn't detectable.
As Kosher as it is to give Capital ships flak, we need to understand the need for balance over-rides and practicality of giving them flak. People keep on referencing science fiction to reinforce the need for flak on capital ships, but you need to realize, that the need to feel "realistic" is secondary to balance.
My problem with giving all capital ships flak that it unbalances the capital ships between each other. The carrier class cap ship will be rendered nearily useless to combat orientated cap ships (the Kol for example). I think this is a perfect time to help balance out the cap ships as they are now; The carrier class cap ship (as well as the colonizer) should be given flak, giving players more uses for them.
Alright,
I hope everyone knows Hack and Carbon spamming posts doesn't help them in any fashion whatsoever.
Also, just 1 thing I wanted to point out. There has been no opposition to starbases flak whatsoever, Hack you're slipping. Now go spam another thread about how OMFG, starbase Flak is BS and Credit's idea is once again shit. Just because you say so.
Come on termites, you need to step up the shredding! You're slacking.
Credit, please stop stooping to personal attacks... man seriously it only detracts from your ideas and your credibility, which although personally I see things mostly from Hack/Carbons view I don't think either one of them said you had stupid ideas, just that there are factors to take into consideration (coding most importantly, rebalancing etc)
If you check the numerous other threads involving SC/flak issues you might see there's more to it than simply being bored and shooting your ideas down, please be reasonable about people disagreeing or commenting on your ideas.
If it makes me a troll or a termite in your eyes you are entitled to your opinion of course...
... just like they and myself are.
jeremyshaw you apparently don’t know crap about defending a fleet. even though a modern day carrier has other cruisers and destroyers around it to defend a carrier. plus it has fighter craft that fly cap over a carrier. you have to come to terms that even those aircraft can and will get shot down and the possibility if a large naval battle ensues that those ships could be lost. Today’s carriers have anti missile and aircraft defense it’s know as a Seawiz, it’s a 20MM radar guided Gatling system. Even today’s carriers have flak defense. To say you have the support of the fleet to protect the carrier is only looking for trouble in the long run and would leave the carrier totally defenseless. Learn tactics and you might think a little differently about the way you protect your fleets.
Stop grandstanding and defend your ideas. If you have nothing to say in response but empty rhetoric about how everyone's out to get you, then perhaps you shouldn't be the one trying to draw attention to yourself.
e: or don't, I guess, but it makes you sound like you're 12 trying to get the neighborhood kids all riled up
e2: and to clarify I don't actually care that much either way, I was just amused at how little actual rationalization and gameplay discussion was present both in your OP and your responses, and how much of a hyperbolic chamber (pun intended) the thread became. this is not a movie, it is not about what "looks cool", and your arguing about putting more guns on spaceships in an internet video game is not a crusade against e-termites in order to defend the precious Science Fiction Genre or whatever. you still have not addressed my challenge to you, though others have attempted for you as you were too busy soapboxing: outline in one paragraph or less what the issue is with balance, and one paragraph about why you think flak on capitals would fix it and how this does not affect current gameplay. if you cannot do this relatively simple task, i wouldn't post threads about gameplay anymore (maybe you won't get "shredded" or whatever).
I think the core of the dispute is that you assume that these are undesirable outcomes -- that capital ships/star bases are either (a ) incapable of protecting themselves from strikecraft or (b ) incapable without investment -- and those who resist your proposal believe that these are desirable outcomes. To be convincing (to at least people like me) you need an independent argument for why these outcomes aren't desirable for the sake of game balance.
Also, it seems that the claims that capital ships/starbases are useless against strikecraft and that changing that wouldn't affect balance are inconsistent. (It would certainly affect the balance between capital ships/starbases and strikecraft).
CreditSuisse: I'm not a terribly big fan of the "it's in a lot of sci-fi shows, therefore EVERYBODY must do it!" type of logic.
If that's your biggest argument, forget it.
. . . and I find it amusing that you have a pic of Star Trek, a sci-fi show that has almost no flak anywhere .
Now who is making a Straw Man Argument. I don't play Entrenchment online, therefore I am limitting my scope to SoaSE, not SoaSE:Entrenchment.
I actually have less of an issue with flak on a starbase compared to a cap as
Carbon, you realize that quote was completely made up. You edited the code to make it look like I was being quoted. If you actually look at the real reply 14 it is not even one of my posts. Carbon now who is grandstanding? You're manipulating quotes and putting words into my mouth.
To everyone else, unfortunately I do have a pretty demanding Finance internship (BCG) and a full schedule for the next few days so obviously there will be periods of vicious accusations by Hack, Carbon and probably other cheap shots I will not be able to fully respond to. However as soon as I get a break I will. I'm actually typing this at 3 am EST.
Cobra, you obviously haven't read the full thread.
Hack tried to do a cheap shot argument like you're doing right now and completely failed. Both I and two other posters immediately replied that in Star Trek they have the equivilent of Flak because their main phaser arrays can target enemy fighters. Fighters die very quickly to caps in ST, and are much less prominent.
Also there is Flak in Star Trek, look up the Voyegar Episode with the Malon. Cobra if you read the thread, I dedicated most of the written portion to gameplay mechanics also a Rebuttal section. Did you even read it?
Cobra, it is cheap shot hacks like you I resent even more than Hack78. Hack at least gives semi-constructive arguments however desperate he might be to throw everything and anything he has at this idea.
Cobra it is you, that is amusing.
The mods aren't likely to intervene unless this gets a lot worse. Last I heard, it send an email to a dozen or so SD people, and they take it very seriously. Generally, don't use it unless there's something illegal or NSFW.
The fact stands, Carbon deliberately violated a forum rule.
Appriopritate action will be taken.
I'm sure.
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