Standard Flak

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The Standard Flak is a flak gun used in FreeSpace 2. It has the highest rate of fire among all flak guns in the game, but it has the shortest effective range. Standard Flak is a ubiquitous weapon during the Second Shivan Incursion, used by the Terrans, Vasudans and Shivans, and mounted on a wide variety of ships ranging from gas miners to destroyers.

Primaries
Secondaries
Turrets

Weapon Comparison Table, FS1

Primaries
Secondaries
Turrets

Weapon Comparison Table, FS2


Performance

Statistics

Range 1050 m
Rate of Fire 6.67 s-1
Velocity 700 ms-1
Base Damage 30*
Armor Damage Full 30*
Shield Damage Full 30*
Subsystem Damage Poor 6*
Shockwave Radius 20 / 30 m


Notes

  • The shockwave doubles the damage against any target that takes a direct hit

Veteran Comments

Please read the Veteran Comments policy before editing this section.


The meat-and-potato point defense weapon in FreeSpace 2. It is used by every race and virtually every warship (GVC Aten doesn't count), and some non-warships (GTFr Triton); the GTC Aeolus actually makes most of its warship kills with flak rather than its two weak SGreens.


Flak is primarily a danger to a fightercraft with a breached shield quadrant, ANY breached shield quadrant, even if it's on the other side of the fighter from the flak gun. Pay close attention to your shields and equalize their strength often if under flak fire.


In relation to bombs, the problem with flak is that it rarely makes direct hits on anything smaller than a Seraphim. Bombs have to be hit directly in order to blow up, not by a shockwave.


Probably the worst problem with Flak guns is that they will prevent you from gaining aspect lock with your torpedoes if you are playing in first-person view (which is the default view). You could have your shields boosted all the way up and sit there for half an hour waiting for your Cyclops to lock if you have flak rattling you around. Pick the turrets off with Trebuchets, Stilettos or Maxims before you go for aspect lock or switch to Chase View, which isn't affected by the shuddering.


Flak can also be used on hostile warships, and it is considerably more effective in this regard than other point-defenses.


Note to modders: if standard flak is allowed to fire at its tabled rate (e.g. by removing $don't insert random turret fire delay: and $Hostile AI Fire Delay Scale:) it becomes insanely powerful, dealing 200-400 damage per second and destroying most strikecraft before they can escape.