Shredding and Flak

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Flak and Shred / Shredding Basics:

• Shredding 5 means the weapon needs to deal 5 hull damage to inflict 1 Shred stack. 10 damage would deal 2 Shred. Most Flak weapons do randomized damage, and the base attacks are really bad at inflicting Shred.
  • Most weapons will realistically only inflict one shred stack per attack.
  • Example: Light Barrage is 2-5 damage, Shredding 5, so without any shred stacks applied to the enemy, it only inflicts a Shred stack if it rolls the max damage of 5, which is really bad odds. (only 25% chance at base)
• In terms of actual gameplay with the starting Marauder deck, what you're supposed to do is this.
  • Fire Opening Shot, which has guaranteed Shred 1 on hull damage, if the enemy ship has no shred stacks.
  • Twin Barrel is 2-6, so with Shred 1 the damage range is now 3-6. So firing it is a 50% chance to apply 1 stack of Shred, if you roll either 5 or 6 on the damage.
  • Light Barrage would still only be a 33% chance to Shred, since a damage roll of 3 or 4 would still fail to Shred, only 5's work. So when available, always fire Twin Barrel first, as it has a higher chance to Shred than Light Barrage.
• Ideally you want to grab some other good Flak cards .
  • Flak Barrage is a staple card, 3R1B for 3-7 damage.
    • At Shred 0, rolls of 3-4 will fail to Shred, while a 5, 6, or 7 will Shred. This results in a 3/5 => 60% chance to Shred.
    • With Shred 1 already applied, it's 4-7 damage. So only a 1/4 chance to roll a 4 and not shred. 3/4 => 75% of the time, it'll Shred.
    • At Shred 2, the damage range is 5-7 which means it's guaranteed to Shred. Once you've got Shred 2, your odds that every attack is going to Shred is quite high, and it just snowballs from there.
• Keep in mind you can also use crew powers to help. The Marauder Gunner Crew power +25% Flak damage this turn turns 4 damage into 5. So with Shred 1 applied, that would push Twin Barrel to 75% chance to Shred, or Flak Barrage is guaranteed Shred.
• As of the current patch, there are also some weapon augments that help with this by effectively improving Flak minimum damage. +1 damage to attacks is like having an extra stack of Shred applied.