How to Make the Flak Gun not OP

[KeronCyst]

It's too amazing. It can butcher enemy defense drones (like a real flak cannon!) and puts all beam weapons to use. And from my experience, very few enemies have it, which is kind of unfair if you're lugging it all around and blasting everyone else left & right. I always buy it whenever I see it, because it's so awesome.

So: -1 scrap per shot. Which makes more sense about where its ammo comes from, anyway.
Metro 2033/Metro: Last Light! (Just a reference to a survival-horror FPS in which your ammo is your currency.)

[Ghaleon]

After clearing the game like 8 times in advanced i e yet to see a single flak 2, and only got a flak 1 twice (incidentally ive gotten burst 2s 3 times).

Yes burst 2 is one of the best, but i still think flak 1 doesnt really have anything over it. It is cheaper and shoots slightly more frequently yes, but the miss rate on it is very noticeably worse, it is NOT op imo.

Flak 2 might be, but seems rare as fuu for me, id write off its power balanced by its rarity much like a glaive beam... Assuming my 8 clears are not misleading me for actual rates.

[karadoc]

The flak weapons are quite powerful, and I think the 1-scrap suggestion is an interesting idea.

But I've been thinking about it, and although I think it would probably be fair on easy mode and probably on normal, I think it would be overnerfed to the point of uselessness on hard mode. The issue is that on hard mode the scrap rewards are so small that 1-flak per shot will become quite a large proportion of the total income.

It's a bit like the idea that in real life, fixed $ fines are a much bigger penalty for poor people than they are for rich people, because for poor people the cost can be a huge proportion of their disposable income - forcing them to make sacrifices to pay for it - whereas for rich people the cost is small compared to their other luxuries.

A prolonged fight using 1-scrap-per-shot flak cannons could be a disaster. ... Anyway, maybe it doesn't matter that flak would become useless on hard, or that it would be bad in long fights - maybe that just adds to the flavour. But I'd be inclined to consider some other nerf instead, if it even needs to be nerfed; perhaps just a slower firing rate.

[Elhazzared]

Wouldn't make sense for the flak cannon to actually fire scrap. The scrap is what useful material you collect from a fight against some ship which is kept as cargo and assumed at some point traded for scrap (scrap being a currency name). Now that was the useful stuff. There is nothing to say you can't colect a ton of useless junk from an enemy ship to use in the flak cannon so your ammo comes from there. Similarly it doesn't makes sense to make it use ordenance since it's not even an explosive.

[KeronCyst]

It's not explosive ordnance; don't you hear the flat scraping sound that it makes when it finds its mark? It damages simply by its mass and velocity alone, and never explodes (that's why it continues flying off after it rubs against its target). There is nothing in the game that suggests that the player goes around collecting useless metal just in case the player happens to obtain a flak gun (and, uh, isn't useless metal called "scrap?").

B.L. II is the best all around weapon indeed, but I speak about the Flak Gun being overpowered in terms of comparison to all other support weapons, to not really be used as a direct hitter/hull-destroyer.

I've found Mk. I a few times, and II once (I didn't bother to buy it since I had Mk. I at the time). It's not the direct hull-hitting that makes it OP so much as its
- ability to damage multiple systems, its
- ability to frag enemy defense drones easily, and its
- ability to knock out all shields for any other weapons to then pitch in.

This is why it's OP. It can do all these things in one blast, while other weapons require at least two volleys (and targeting of different systems) to do so. To take down shields, all ion guns take a while, and the Ion Bomb and all shield-evading weapons (missiles) require ammo. So that's why I think the Flak should use up "ammo" via scrap. And yes, that could in fact be a solid deterrent for Hard Mode.

Or, yeah, a slower firing rate, or one more power bar for use. I just think this kind of ammo nerf would make it really unique and just as interesting as itself.

Either this, or allow all other multiple-shot weapons to do random room-targeting, in the way that an enemy's burst laser shoots all over the place.

[Ghaleon]

I just don't see why people feel flak 1 needs a nerf and not burst 2 as well. I don't see how flak 1 is any better at taking out shields than burst 2 (in fact I find it worse since it misses so much more often, far more significantly a degree than its fire rate is better than burst 2's). As for being able to damage multiple systems, you can't control that for 1, 2 many systems are neighbored by empty rooms, 3, managing to completely disable a system like weapons pretty much hands you victory already, being able to damage another system in one shot for the MINUTE chance that 2 hits was enough more than 3 and your 3rd hit magically hit what you wanted to instead of guaranteed focus damage on where you need it done most (at greater accuracy to boot) just sounds like such a small boon.

Oh yeah, and the projectiles are slower, which kinda counter-balances its faster recharge unless you happen to have an all-flak arsenal or something that does not need to be fired in coordination with it.

I'm not arguing it definitely does not need a nerf (even though I really don't think it does), but I think people are being presumptuous to act like it's a given that it flat out is no questions asked. Even if it was op now, it's nowhere near as op now as burst 2 was before advanced mode, and nobody was demanding burst 2 nerfs then.

[OnyxShadow]

Having Flak cost scrap is perfect. In a way, its probably even still too small a nerf. After all, missiles are far more expensive (unless you are firing off 1 scrap per flak projectile) and I think most players would agree that Flak weapons are far superior to missile weapons from a performance perspective, too.

[5thHorseman]

I personally don't think it needs a nerf. So it's better than the other guns. You can't just buy one any time you want and the bad guys have 'em too. That's enough balance for me.

Sometimes you get 2-4 of them and you own every encounter. Sometimes you never find one and have to do something else. That's the charm of the game for me.

[r543]

I don't think that the Flak weapons are too op.
Sure, they bypass shields and hit multiple systems, but you can't aim them that well and they have a higher chance to miss/can miss on ships with no evasion. The "no aiming" can be a problem if you need to hit the ship's engines so it doesn't escape, or if the ship doesn't have that many rooms or only a few small rooms(for example the auto scouts/auto drones).

[Meevious]

I think it'd make more sense and be more interesting if it were to use scrap (one for each broken up projectile), but in the aftermath, add that scrap to the scrap reward if there is one.