Albion Prelude FLak Artillery Array v's Xenon

[Majick]

I seem to be having trouble with this weapon against Xenon fighters. Lots of loud bangs and explosions but extremely little damage - usually none. Is this usual?

Regards

Jon

[p00fer]

Faa is best used in groups. I have an m2 equipped with flak on up and down turrets, they take a couple of shots but they do their job. You might consider pbg.

[Typee]

Do you use the FAA on the same turrets than other weapons?
If so, you need to put only FAAs on one single turret, as the turret's rotation speed is always the lowest one.

[Majick]

I'm using a Panther Raider and I have the FAAs mounted in 4s on the upper lower and rear turrets. In the time we have been posting I've been stuck in the same battle!

Sometimes they seem to hit and do big damage but it's very rare and I can't be 100% certain something else isn't doing the damage ....

Maybe I am just a worse shot with this weapon than others although I even tried auto aim on and it made no difference. I can take down capital ships faster with the incendiary bomb launchers than I am taking fighters out with the flaks.

Is it considered the best frigate weapon v's fighters? I had that impression (until now ofc)

[Morkonan]

I've never had an issue with them and they always have seemed to do the job for me. But, I never manually control them, either. I just roll the side that has the FAA turrets towards the enemy and they take care of the rest.

It may take a little while, with a swarm of fighters, though. Just let them do their work and keep rolling the ship so they're positioned correctly. I use a third-person view for this, zoomed out, and it helps immensely. I wouldn't recommend using FAA any other way if you're trying to focus on fighter swarms. (Maneuvering while in the cockpit view and trying to get your FAA on target is far less efficient than slipping out to a third-person view. You can easily control your ship to get maximum coverage that way.)

[Majick]

I never manually control them, either. I just roll the side that has the FAA turrets towards the enemy and they take care of the rest.

But I want to kill the little fu......fellas myself!

[devilsad]

Flak are for firing at things that move too fast and erratically to aim at them, so the enemy will fly into your shots. In this case they're better left in the hands of the AI. If you want to go in a turret and shoot fighters, Star Wars style, swap to EBCs or maybe CIGs if you've got lots of M3s.

[MaximumBullfrog]

Flak isn't supposed to be the bread and butter of your ship as far as I can tell. Flak in real life generally serves the role of making it so the immediate airspace around a defended area isn't a happy zone for enemy fighters, while other weapons do the coordinated damage. In game Flak works the same way, forming a defensive barrier of sorts within which unwanted ships are going to get a firework festival dropped on their head. In fact, the term "Flak" is derived for the German word for "air defense cannon."

[JackKiller2266]

in my M7(Cerberus AP) i am using CIG's as my main wep. and my turrets have a mix of HEPT and FAA and CLA and it and so far this set has worked well with me