A friend and I tested the effectiveness of flak. He chose tec, I chose vasari. I have seen it recommended to build 2 flak per squadron of strikecraft, so we tested 4 vasari sentinals against a tec light carrier (2 squadrons x 2 flak/squadron = 4 flak). No tech upgrades whatsoever on either side (no weapons, no armor).
The first test was with fighters. We simply parked our units on opposite sides of the grav well and stuck them on hold position. I put the sentinals in a tight cluster, and he let loose the fighters. The first observation I made is that a carrier can spam fighters for a LONG time. We didn't time it, but it was a hell of a long time. To be honest, I'm not sure that the carrier ever ran out of antimatter. The second observation is that all the squadrons of fighters from a SINGLE carrier (2 squads) cannot hurt a sentinal. They can't take the shields down fast enough.
All units were scuttled, and fresh units were deployed for the next test.
The second test was with bombers. The first observation is that bombers are MUCH more effective at denting a sentinal. Just two squadrons were taking the sentinal they were picking on down pretty fast. In fact, I'm guessing that they would have destroyed it, and perhaps destroyed even more sentinals, but the carrier's antimatter ran out. So I said "What? Bombers cost more antimatter to rebuild than fighters?" We scratched our heads for a while, before finally concluding that this carrier had lost all of its antimatter in the phase jumps to get to the asteroid we had picked for the testing. We inadvertently tested with a dry carrier, it seems. We did not repeat the test with a carrier with full antimatter.
For the third test, we wanted to see if sentinals were effective at destroying a carrier, so he took the dry carrier which had used bombers, and started kiting the grav well with it. My sentinals were actually able to catch the carrier. My sentinals eventually destroyed the carrier. I'm not going to say it was quick, but I will say that it was a little quicker than I expected, given my jaundiced eye for the effectiveness of flak.
For the fourth test, we wanted to test flak against a potential counter that an opponent would deploy to defeat flak. We tested 1 lrmf against 1 sentinal, duking it out to see who would win. The lrmf won quite easily.
The fifth test was against another potential counter - the light frigate. 1 cobalt kicked the ass of 1 sentinal quite easily.
For fun, we sent a scout against a sentinal and the sentinal shredded it easily.
CONCLUSIONS:
Enough flak can counter strikecraft in small engagements. This is absolutely true of fighters, and likely true of bombers. It remains to be seen whether a "critical mass" of strikecraft will overwhelm flak (i.e. large engagements).
Flak can be used to destroy carriers.
"Real" ships easily counter and destroy flak.
QUESTION / SPECULATION / CONJECTURE:
Do the counters to flak (lrms, light frigs, etc) counter flak easier, better, and/or more quickly than flak counter strikecraft? We have yet to investigate this scientifically. But if I had to bet in Vegas, I'd bet that they do.
If the above is true, then does this present a balance concern? In other words, if you want to counter strikecraft with flak, and your opponent wants to counter you countering his strikecraft, is it easier for him to counter you countering him (is it easier for him to counter your flak than it is for you to counter his strikecraft)? Plus - notice that he ends up with all the "real ships" in the end (carriers, light frigs, long range missle frigs) while you end up with all the flak?
