FLAK... how to?

[HassenderZerhacker]

I got missions to shoot down aircraft, so I have been looking more closely at what my AA does.

 

Sometimes (well, rarely...) it does damage such as 2000-3000 one, two or three times in a row within a few seconds.

This happens rarely, so my question here is what can I do to make this kind of damage more often?

 

Second question: sometimes my flak stops doing damage. This happens for example when torpedo planes fly lower to launch torps. Why do these planes stop taking damage from AA ?

 

Third question, as I read attacking planes have options to avoid AA fire, what are my options to reduce their chances of avoiding it?

[PeteEarthling]

27 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

I got missions to shoot down aircraft, so I have been looking more closely at what my AA does.

 

Sometimes (well, rarely...) it does damage such as 2000-3000 one, two or three times in a row within a few seconds.

This happens rarely, so my question here is what can I do to make this kind of damage more often?

 

Second question: sometimes my flak stops doing damage. This happens for example when torpedo planes fly lower to launch torps. Why do these planes stop taking damage from AA ?

 

Third question, as I read attacking planes have options to avoid AA fire, what are my options to reduce their chances of avoiding it?

Play coop, and you can do those missions in a single game just by being present. At least this is what my Bismarck did.

[HassenderZerhacker]

1 minute ago, PeteEarthling said:

Play coop, and you can do those missions in a single game just by being present. At least this is what my Bismarck did.

shoot down 300 planes in a single battle? I'm in !

[Allied_Winter]

You just have to get lucky about several things:

 

1. Having a ship with strong AA (that you can influence to a certain degree)

2. Get in a battle with an enemy CV whose preferrably lower or equal tier to you (LUCK)

3. Get an enemy CV that attacks excluselively one ship (LUCK)

4. Get an enemy CV that is bad enough to eat all your FLAK clouds

 

 

[159Hunter]

Flak bursts are temporary and localized area of effect damage bubbles that spawn in a certain range around your ship. 

If an enemy CV misplays to fly in such an area at the wrong time you do dmg. So you see CV skill has everything to do with this as you can't place the flakclouds.

Now having a ship with more flakclouds will make evading harder. But, top players will still manage to evade most, if not all, flak clouds.

Lastly, going in attack mode seriously reduces the incoming damage planes take.

 

[floribe2000]

There are two types of AA damge: continuous damage (dps) and flak bursts. The flak bursts were already explained.

About dps: Your AA will always focus the last plane of the attacking squadron. But the first 2-3 planes of the squad are the ones who attack. So you won't damage the attacking planes until you shot down the rest of the squadron (except for damage by flak bursts of course).

[Jethro_Grey]

DIV with a CV, [edited]. You‘ll have plenty of planes to shoot down. 

 

Don‘t bother learning AA stuff, as AA is barely more then just a cosmetic feature, implemented to work against noob CV players. 

[lovelacebeer]

It will be far easier to do AA missions in Co-Op just get the attention of the bot CV and they will keep throwing waves of planes against you to no effect but fast build up plane kills. 

 

Either that or just try to get in a battle with me, I always get damn CV games and I always get useless CV teammates who either deliberately team kill or are so bad they might as well.

[Panocek]

Those 4 digit damage numbers you see comes from flak. And flak, just like dps is completely automated, you can't do anything about it if enemy CV figured out purpose of WSAD keys.

[HassenderZerhacker]

1 hour ago, lovelacebeer said:

It will be far easier to do AA missions in Co-Op just get the attention of the bot CV and they will keep throwing waves of planes against you to no effect but fast build up plane kills. 

 

Either that or just try to get in a battle with me, I always get damn CV games and I always get useless CV teammates who either deliberately team kill or are so bad they might as well.

I can't do these missions in co-op as they are campaign missions

[El2aZeR]

3 hours ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

This happens rarely, so my question here is what can I do to make this kind of damage more often?

 

You don't. The CV player is in full control over where and how flak spawns.

[HassenderZerhacker]

1 hour ago, 159Hunter said:

Flak bursts are temporary and localized area of effect damage bubbles that spawn in a certain range around your ship. 

If an enemy CV misplays to fly in such an area at the wrong time you do dmg. So you see CV skill has everything to do with this as you can't place the flakclouds.

Now having a ship with more flakclouds will make evading harder. But, top players will still manage to evade most, if not all, flak clouds.

Lastly, going in attack mode seriously reduces the incoming damage planes take.

 

ok... as I'm hunting planes in a destroyer (Öland), I mostly have my flak off until I switch it on - so that moment I control... is there an optimum range for switching on the flak to get flak clouds to surprise the planes with?

[quickr]

4 hours ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

what my AA does

It makes GPU render some additional images

[HassenderZerhacker]

if anyone feels like teaming up with me in his tier 8 CV so that I can hunt the enemy planes, you will find me online at about 20:00 - 01:00 Thai time (approx. 15:00 to 20:00 European time in Summer, we don't have DST)

[RenamedUser_92906789]

11 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

 

You don't. The CV player is in full control over where and how flak spawns.

Erazer, do you have a detail video / tutorial how to best avoid flak?

Sometimes it feels so random. I try to wiggle based on flak (it usually spawns in lines) but in other cases my planes just go BLAM ... entire squad yello/red.

What about when you attack? When planes go into the automated dive mode ... can you avoid flak then?

 

I would really like to see a detailed video about it.

[rnat]

On that point is there any way to avoid the occasional Flak that spawn low enough to hit TBs during their attack-run (i.e. flying at their lowest) other than swearing and sending up the next planes ?

[El2aZeR]

13 minutes ago, nambr9 said:

I would really like to see a detailed video about it.

 

I can refer you to a clip from Noc:

https://clips.twitch.tv/DelightfulObedientKoalaFloof

 

Basically what he does here is he is misdirecting the first two flak walls into a direction he didn't want to go anyway by flying in at an angle, then dodging the other remaining two via attacking.

It is the most comfy way of dodging flak - not having to dodge it at all.

 

Just now, rnat said:

On that point is there any way to avoid the occasional Flak that spawn low enough to hit TBs during their attack-run (i.e. flying at their lowest) other than swearing and sending up the next planes ?

 

Go fast, then slow down on your final approach. Flak is programmed to hit you towards the end of its "life span" and it always spawns so that it gives you the same time before you hit it regardless of how fast you go, so if you go fast, allow it to spawn then slow down you auto dodge it.

[rnat]

7 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

Go fast, then slow down on your final approach. Flak is programmed to hit you towards the end of its "life span" and it always spawns so that it gives you the same time before you hit it regardless of how fast you go, so if you go fast, allow it to spawn then slow down you auto dodge it. 

God I feel like a complete moron right now.

2nd most common tactic would work and I consistently fail to use it cuz I'm too used to attacking TBs being "immune" and boosting in on the end-run.

Thank you very much :)

[HassenderZerhacker]

45 minutes ago, nambr9 said:

Erazer, do you have a detail video / tutorial how to best avoid flak?

Sometimes it feels so random. I try to wiggle based on flak (it usually spawns in lines) but in other cases my planes just go BLAM ... entire squad yello/red.

What about when you attack? When planes go into the automated dive mode ... can you avoid flak then?

 

I would really like to see a detailed video about it.

 

32 minutes ago, rnat said:

On that point is there any way to avoid the occasional Flak that spawn low enough to hit TBs during their attack-run (i.e. flying at their lowest) other than swearing and sending up the next planes ?

 

32 minutes ago, El2aZeR said:

 

I can refer you to a clip from Noc:

https://clips.twitch.tv/DelightfulObedientKoalaFloof

 

Basically what he does here is he is misdirecting the first two flak walls into a direction he didn't want to go anyway by flying in at an angle, then dodging the other remaining two via attacking.

It is the most comfy way of dodging flak - not having to dodge it at all.

 

 

Go fast, then slow down on your final approach. Flak is programmed to hit you towards the end of its "life span" and it always spawns so that it gives you the same time before you hit it regardless of how fast you go, so if you go fast, allow it to spawn then slow down you auto dodge it.

 

24 minutes ago, rnat said:

God I feel like a complete moron right now.

2nd most common tactic would work and I consistently fail to use it cuz I'm too used to attacking TBs being "immune" and boosting in on the end-run.

Thank you very much :)

 

what a threadf*ck ... this thread has totally derailed.

it was about improving FLAK, not how about to avoid it!  shame on you!

[Rautainen_Biisoni]

36 minutes ago, nambr9 said:

Erazer, do you have a detail video / tutorial how to best avoid flak?

Sometimes it feels so random. I try to wiggle based on flak (it usually spawns in lines) but in other cases my planes just go BLAM ... entire squad yello/red.

What about when you attack? When planes go into the automated dive mode ... can you avoid flak then?

 

I would really like to see a detailed video about it.

Anticipate Flak. Don't wait for flak to splash in your screen but make your hard turns before flak is even arriving. You can attack heavy AA cruisers like this.

When you see "incoming flak" sign that means AA shots are already incoming but not visible. This is the moment when you are already making your hard turn and flak will completely miss. You obviously anticipate the next flak salvo seconds before it even arrives in your screen to completely dodge it. If you make too light turns the flak will appear in your face. Go to training room to practice. Hard turns my friend, hard turns.

 

Same goes for the topic starter. Buy a CV and see how it works in training room. When you see huge damage numbers from your AA it means enemy has flown into your flak salvoes.

Ships with low flak amount will be very easy to strike. Some unicum players know how to dodge even ships with heavy flak.

 

[RenamedUser_92906789]

6 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

what a threadf*ck ... this thread has totally derailed.

it was about improving FLAK, not how about to avoid it!  shame on you!

 

well ... I am an opportunist :) And besides .... if you want to defeat the enemy, you have to know the enemy :D

[Purnylla]

5 hours ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

I got missions to shoot down aircraft, so I have been looking more closely at what my AA does.

 

Sometimes (well, rarely...) it does damage such as 2000-3000 one, two or three times in a row within a few seconds.

This happens rarely, so my question here is what can I do to make this kind of damage more often?

 

Second question: sometimes my flak stops doing damage. This happens for example when torpedo planes fly lower to launch torps. Why do these planes stop taking damage from AA ?

 

Third question, as I read attacking planes have options to avoid AA fire, what are my options to reduce their chances of avoiding it?

 

First answer; there's modules and captain skills to increase AA. You could use priority sectors to increase AA on one side of your ship. Not much else you can do. Obviously some ships have better AA than other ships. And there's some ships with AA consumables. I doubt killing planes with fighter planes count towards your mission though. 

 

Second answer: flak only works on long and medium ranges. On short range there'll be no flak. 

 

Third answer; not much, priority sectors is one thing. You could temporarily disable AA so they don't see you until they get close. Staying close with other ships can give a huge combined AA, but you'd have the share the kills, and enemy CV might decide to avoid you. Much easier to attack a lone target. In coop the enemy CVs aren't so smart though. But not every coop game has a CV, unless you queue up with a CV of your own (CVs do have good AA). 

 

Note that it's not just CV planes you can shoot down. Spotter planes and fighter planes count too. 

 

Not sure what other missions you may have. Shooting down planes might be one of those objectives you can complete while focusing on other objectives. 

[rnat]

18 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

what a threadf*ck ... this thread has totally derailed.

it was about improving FLAK, not how about to avoid it!  shame on you!

Flak by default spawns in a semi-random pattern at a distance in front of the planes.

So obviously the CV is the one that controls where it spawns by just pointing his planes nose that way before the barrage goes up.

Nothing you can do as the ship under attack to influence the pattern.

 

The only think you can conceivably do is what you're doing in the Öland. Wait until the planes are either too close to you to strike or are engaging another target in your AA range then send your full AA against them and turning it off right afterwards. For that to work anywhere near well you'd need a Halland or Smaland though or a untalented T6 CV (or particularly rubbish T8 carrier) against your Öland.

[krfsm]

11 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

what a threadf*ck ... this thread has totally derailed.

it was about improving FLAK, not how about to avoid it!  shame on you!

This does give some input to you, though: Many CV players will dodge your flak if they're attacking you. The best way do hit with flak is when they're attacking other targets.

 

So, to maximize your chances of downing planes, specifically with flak:

• Use a ship which has good AA, and preferably low detection (near your AA range). Something like a Baltimore.
• Equip DFAA even if it's not super effective. It increases the chances of flak actually killing planes if it hits.
• Div up with a CV of same or lower tier so you're guaranteed CVs in the game, and so that you don't get a higher tier CV.
• Identify potential targets of the enemy CV (dds which aren't Hallands, cruisers and bbs known to have bad AA). Ask your CV buddy if you don't know, or get a side panel mod which can tell you AA values.
• Sail 3-4 km from those potential targets, so that when the enemy CV goes in for the strike their planes are still in your long range AA.
• When the enemy planes are gone, press P twice to reset the cooldown on DFAA.
• If the enemy CV leaves fighters to spot, sail towards them so you can shoot them down, since they're easy kills.

[krfsm]

Ah, the 300 planes is a European DD only task. Then you should clearly employ rnat's trick.
Also, try to get to Halland as soon as possible, and until then div with a T8 CV.