PlanetsCentral

Hey

Now that the game is over I'm throwing in my two cents...

In my mind explore map does not interfere that much with the FLAK setup. It's always a risk to send ships into the unknown, no matter if you see your destination or not. Explore map requires more scouting which should always be done with small and/or cheap ships which ain't a great loss.

What does rather concern me is the tremendous change into the balance of the races. It was not visible in FLAK1, probably because the setup was so new that most players kept their usual strategies and tactics. But now after first experience has been gained I expect certain races to extremely benefit from FLAK. Cloaker races, especially those with cloaking battleships (PList) are able to affect the outcome of battles in their favour:

• Opponents are completely unable to calculate the battle result since they do not know about the strength of the cloaked fleet. In a regular battle you are able to predict that one carrier X will take down 2 cloakers Y before it gets knocked out on its own. Now all 3 cloakers will probably survive the fight and remain a threat.
• Cloakers are able to break up enemy fleets by towing away and destroying single ships without suffering any loss.
• Even without towing fleets apart cloakers are able to take out individual ships with intercept attack. 3 cloakers A fighting carrier X, 3 cloakers B fighting carrier Y and after intercept attack 6 cloakers A+B fight the remainder of the fleet (untested).
• The need to form big fleets plays to the Fascist self destructors. You can imagine the effect of D19s on a fleet of carriers which must stick together since they would be easy prey alone.
• The Pirate's main drawback was his ships' weakness against bases and big battleships. Now 3-4 of his bigger ships are able to take out each of them without any loss.

Don't get me wrong, I'm greatly thrilled by fleet combat and I'll be glad to join more games of this kind. However I believe that the next setups need to be adjusted, i.e. strengthening bases (tubes?) and carriers (strikes per fighter, bay recharge rate?).

Cheers,
Mike