Apheirox wrote:
especially given the abundance of Titanium-70 meaning this particular level 1 flak almost always costs 60% less than it 'should'

Level 1 missiles require Titanium-70, but not flak.

haothehare wrote:
if you really want to use defense mods especially chaff I would get Optimal defense (+15% defense mod effectiveness) and then for chaff I would just make many mods... use the smallest mods (lowest tech) but use a LOT of them so even tho each mod has a low chance of interception if you increase the total number of chaff mods you're not going to leak much. Like 10 weak chaff can block 6 missiles a whole lot easier than 6 strong chaff due to statistical probability.

The problem I referred to was that from mid-game on, missiles are often one-hit kills even on battleships. It only takes one or two leaking through with missiles as they are now to take out the ship, which is why they'd need to be changed somehow if my 'ratio of intercept to avoidance' suggestion were ever implemented.

Taliesyn wrote:
The problem I referred to was that from mid-game on, missiles are often one-hit kills even on battleships. It only takes one or two leaking through with missiles as they are now to take out the ship, which is why they'd need to be changed somehow if my 'ratio of intercept to avoidance' suggestion were ever implemented.

missiles are just burst damage I guess... lasers work better than missiles because each round laser fire 4 times and so does ballistics. Missiles does less total damage but it does all 4 times that damage for the whole round in one strike. I think they need to make missiles strike faster and more often and nerf the damage/burst amount to make it more fair for defenders.

haothehare wrote:
missiles are just burst damage I guess... lasers work better than missiles because each round laser fire 4 times and so does ballistics. Missiles does less total damage but it does all 4 times that damage for the whole round in one strike. I think they need to make missiles strike faster and more often and nerf the damage/burst amount to make it more fair for defenders.

The same thread where I posted the ratio idea, someone else suggested missiles getting fired in swarms of low-damage warheads - MIRVs of a sort, if you will. That does, unfortunately, make the weapons feel awfully same-ey, as their primary reason for existing right now is honestly that massive punch. I actually kind of enjoy the whole 'get them get them get them' feeling you get when you watch a particularly gigantic launch closing in on one of your ships that may not have enough flak.



There's definitely no easy fix.

Taliesyn wrote:
The same thread where I posted the ratio idea, someone else suggested missiles getting fired in swarms of low-damage warheads - MIRVs of a sort, if you will. That does, unfortunately, make the weapons feel awfully same-ey, as their primary reason for existing right now is honestly that massive punch. I actually kind of enjoy the whole 'get them get them get them' feeling you get when you watch a particularly gigantic launch closing in on one of your ships that may not have enough flak.



There's definitely no easy fix.

lol yeah... and they're certainly good for suicide fleets of destroyers :P

Taliesyn wrote:
As far as I can tell from a ton of games using various levels of flak, the initial findings still hold true.

• Flak fires in rounds 2, 3, and 4 of each phase.
• With each flak shot, the modified Intercept of the flak is compared against the Avoidance of the missile.
• If intercept is higher, the missile is destroyed. If avoidance is higher, the missile survives the round.
• At the end of round four, all destroyed missiles are shown exploding before impact. The rest impact on the hull and apply damage.
• There is definitely a miss chance for missiles, as occasionally one will fly off to nowhere.
• Defense still adds to intercept, while offense still adds to damage.
  
  

One thing I would mention from this: while level 1 flak will counter level 6 missiles, you have no room to spare on intercept in that case. If the defender has no hero and the attacker successfully plays a card that lowers intercept, the defending fleet is going to get HAMMERED. That means it might be a good idea to give yourself some leeway just in case you get nailed and lose 20% of your intercept value to a card.

So, as I understand, one flak slot has chance to shot shot down up to 3 missiles.



And only way to actually overwhelm defenses is to have so many missiles that there are more then 3 missiles per enemy flak. And those extra missiles will hit, with no interception, while reminiscing missiles may or may not hit due to interception/avoidance.

player1 wrote:
So, as I understand, one flak slot has chance to shot shot down up to 3 missiles.



And only way to actually overwhelm defenses is to have so many missiles that there are more then 3 missiles per enemy flak. And those extra missiles will hit, with no interception, while reminiscing missiles may or may not hit due to interception/avoidance.

Right the first try!



There is a slight miss chance for missiles at long range, but it's on the order of 5% to 10%, so it's not much of a concern.

Taliesyn wrote:
Right the first try!



There is a slight miss chance for missiles at long range, but it's on the order of 5% to 10%, so it's not much of a concern.

Does the opposite hold true? Can you overwhelm missiles with large numbers of low level flak such that each missile has to dodge 3 or more flak before hitting the hulls?

Assuming Taliesyn is correct, I dislike the missile/flak implementation. Low-level flak is simply too powerful even if it is being argued some safety margin is recommended to prevent modifier battle cards nullifying the flak. There's simply too little incitement to research flak past level one, especially given the abundance of Titanium-70 meaning this particular level 1 flak almost always costs 60% less than it 'should'.



hao raises an interesting question in the post above mine because if multiple flak modules indeed increase the interception chance, the problem is even worse and there is even less reason to ever research high-level flak.

I really don't know if multiple flak can shoot at the same missile or not, but either way, right now it literally doesn't matter. Either the flak has higher intercept and automatically shoots down the missile, or it has lower intercept and the missile survives. This calculation is absolute, so it doesn't matter HOW many flak shoot at a missile: either they all hit and blow it up, or they all miss and the missile is going to impact.



The only conceivable situation where they would have different results is if they were different levels of flak, one some of which are too low to intercept the missile. As the calculation is a straight 'highest value wins', the flak STILL wins since at least SOME of them have higher intercept than the missile has avoidance.



If there's a mechanic to increase interception by combining flak, I have not heard of it. The only way to test that would be an MP game where you fire one missile at a ship with multiple flak whose intercept is just BARELY below the missile's avoidance. Preferably level 1 ships on both sides in order to remove all unnecessary modifiers.

Taliesyn wrote:
That would simply make flak worthless, as intercept is either/or: Either intercept is higher than avoidance and the missile gets shot down, or avoidance is higher and it doesn't get shot down. Halving intercept values would simply turn flak into zero-effect wasted space.



I suggested elsewhere that flak's chance to intercept should be based on the ratio of intercept to avoidance, but the drawback is that it would make flak incredibly 'leaky', meaning that missile damage would need to be toned way down, and they're already the lowest dps weapons in the game.

if you really want to use defense mods especially chaff I would get Optimal defense (+15% defense mod effectiveness) and then for chaff I would just make many mods... use the smallest mods (lowest tech) but use a LOT of them so even tho each mod has a low chance of interception if you increase the total number of chaff mods you're not going to leak much. Like 10 weak chaff can block 6 missiles a whole lot easier than 6 strong chaff due to statistical probability.





I don't like how the chaff works currently. Higher level chaff is less efficient tonnage wise. It takes more tonnage to intercept a missile with a higher level chaff.

I believe defense bonuses increase interception, do offense bonuses increase evasion?

Nope. That's the whole problem.

Yeah, offense increases damage, not evasion. That's a big reason that lasers are superior to KEWs and missiles - shields counter damage instead of shots, so offensive boosts and hero bonuses actually help lasers punch through their matching defenses.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
Level 1 missiles require Titanium-70, but not flak.

Yes, of course. I honestly have no idea where that came from. Sorry about posting garbage, I'm going to sleep. oO



In response to thread though: Looks like Amplitude has some rebalancing to do in this matter.

Taliesyn wrote:
Yeah, offense increases damage, not evasion. That's a big reason that lasers are superior to KEWs and missiles - shields counter damage instead of shots, so offensive boosts and hero bonuses actually help lasers punch through their matching defenses.

Gotcha. So basically a guy with low tier flak can take out super advanced missiles as long as he has a big enough defense bonus.

Stalker0 wrote:
Gotcha. So basically a guy with low tier flak can take out super advanced missiles as long as he has a big enough defense bonus.

Yup. Past a certain point, no missile in the game can beat the level 1 flak on a hero-led fleet's ships. (As a side note, the hero's defensive bonus ALSO increases the number of kinetic shots deflected by deflectors.)

I kind of agree that the missiles should adopt a more damage-based defensive model as opposed to number interception rates. Whilst I can understand kinetic deflection, I would have thought that the higher tier missile tech would either scatter, evade, or decoy enemy flak defense.



Currently missiles fuel the glass cannon effect during dreadnought takedown, and are rather often exploited by the AI.

I still don't get how interception works, so when interceptionAccuracy X 3 higher than interceptionevasion, the missile is 100% intercepted?

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
Nope. That's the whole problem.

Last time I checked my hero with offense interception evasion got buffed.