This is only applicable if the damage is being applied against hull not armor. If 'residual armor' still counts as armor the Flak will be reduced to 25% before the damage reduction from the residual armor is even applied. This is where my confusion lies, everything seems to point to 'residual armor' still counting as armor and not hull, so Kinetic and Flak damage types can never deal full damage to a target because they're never hitting 'hull'.
Base damage is multiplied by damage reduction that uses anti-armour values. As in my example:
100 is the base damage of a frag weapon, 25 is the residual armour
100 x (100/4) / ((100/4) + 25) = 100 x 25 / (25 + 25) = 100 x 25 / 50 = 100 x 1/2 = 50
50 is the damage dealt to hull
In comparison, against actual armour of 25, the damage dealt would have been instead:
(100/4) x (100/4) / ((100/4) + 25) = 25 x 25 / (25 + 25) = 25 x 25 / 50 = 25 x 1/2 = 12,5
That's not how it works. Residual armor doesn't "count as armor" before the damage reduction is applied. Read my post above. There's never a way to deal "full" damage to hull, but frag hitting hull with residual armor is much better than frag hitting actual armor. In the first case, you are only penalized by the armor damage reduction modifier, in the second, you get that ON TOP of the 25% base efficiency.
You guys are throwing a lot of numbers at me and assuming I understand where you're getting these numbers from and that I understand the minutia of the game's armor mechanics. I'm sure you're well meaning, but it's not answering my question in a way that I understand. Perhaps the nature of the armor reduction mechanics in the game being as arcane as they are is part of the issue. Another issue is likely that we're having some sort of miscommunication around the terms 'hull', 'armor', and 'residual armor' because you both seem to have a much deeper understanding of things than I do perhaps I'm misusing a term?
My understanding of things is that Kinetic and Flak weapons have their damage reduced to 50% and 25% respectively when hitting Armor and then the Armor's damage reduction is applied. The value of the damage reduction from the armor is immaterial to my question because my question is whether or not that initial damage reduction to 50% or 25% is still being applied once the armor is stripped and the weapon is hitting Hull.
The person on the discord and the wiki both seem to indicate that even once the Armor is removed and only 'residual armor' is remaining that the weapon is still being treated as if it's hitting Armor and the 50% or 25% initial reduction is still being applied before any damage reduction from 'residual armor' takes effect, in essence making it impossible to deal damage directly to the Hull and thus never getting full damage application. If this is the case then even a Talon Fighter with only 25 armor will only ever take 25% of Flak damage even after that armor is stripped away. This would make Flak weapons essentially pointless against anything with even a minimal armor value because they'd always be reduced to less than 25% damage unless the target had no armor to begin with, like missiles.
Your answers seem to be answering a much more detailed question than the one I'm asking. I just want to know if I'm interpreting the wiki correctly in its implication that 'residual armor' still counts as Armor not Hull.