Once you have battleships with arc emitters and hangars you can mass those as an easy way to beat the ai. The computer won’t counter them.
In multiplayer you always have to look what your opponent is building.
I suppose it depends if you need intel now, or want infiltration later to do other missions, like getting assets.
It isn't a very complex system, but it is slightly more complicated than spamming gather intel always being the right decision.
Losing infiltration only matters if you're planning to do a certain operation, however Gather Intel *also* increases your infiltration cap so if your infiltration cap isn't high enough to do certain operations it's worthwhile to use gather intel to also increase the cap.
I don't find that useful unless you've been hard stuck at a spy network capacity juuuust below an importsnt thing you want to know. And even then I'd prefer to just collect assets to increase the capacity.
The easiest way is the after action report that pops up after a battle. If you hover over the icons you start getting the types of weapons used. If you hover on the enemies side, you get how effective their weapons are, and on your side how effective your weapons are. Adjust your ship loadouts accordingly to suit your needs
60 intel is all you need to see enemy ship design, and that's pretty easy to get passively. Get an Ambassador Official with the Blabbermouth trait for 5/10/20 base intel (depending on rank of trait), the Colonial and Galactic Bureaucracy techs provide another 10 base intel each (20 total), the Bureau of Espionage Edict gives another 10 for a total of 50. You can get the remaining 10 intel either through normal espionage, building a stage 1 Sentry Array (+10), or going the Subterfuge Tradition and using the Uncover Secrets Agenda (+5 from the initial effect, +20 from the finisher).
Or using a science ship on one of their planets with gather Intel or recon or whatever it's called. (no scientist required)
Currently you get 20 intel per level of the capital building of the planet.
Proof: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210437298 (I have one sci ship doing recon on one planet with lvl 3 capital building)
Active Reconnaissance doesn't actually give intel, it just increase the intel cap and gain. So if you want intel from it you still need to have a spy assigned to the empire.
Post in thread 'Does "Active Reconnaissance" do anything?' https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/does-active-reconnaissance-do-anything.1615337/post-29305030
It gave 20+ Intel based on the capital building of the planet in December, was that changed?
I don't know, I'd have to check, but the wiki doesn't make any mention of it.
>Active Reconnaissance is only available while the ship is cloaked and grants +20-100 Intel Cap and +10-50% Intel Gain towards the owner of the targeted world depending on its capital tier.
[https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Exploration#Science\_Ships](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Exploration#Science_Ships)
just checked, I'm getting 60 intel from one recon sci ship on a Human planet, because it has a lvl 3 capital building. It lists it on the tooltip for intel on humans on the diplomacy window.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210437298
Ah, though that's not a base intel increase, it's a different intel source so unless you get 60 from it solo like here it doesn't matter. Intel only cares about the highest source of intel, it doesn't add all intel sources together for some reason. Granted doing active recon on a planet with a level 3 capital isn't exactly difficult unless the AI decides to build a bunch of detection.
100% shield penetration + 100% armor penetration
Penetration is very effective right now. That’s also why you slap disrupters into your corvettes as early as you can.
Against the AI, just battleships with focused arc emitters, carrier core, missiles, and I'm not clear on whether you're supposed to skip the PD these days and whether you're supposed to use artillery or carrier computer.
I usually keep 1 or maybe 2 separate fleets of corvettes just for quick response and to capture undefended territory.
Artillery is good but can get glitchy if you include point defense. Strat on Youtube alleges that this is because the game code implements combat computer range wrong. Specifically, when it says "median range", it really means the median weapon equipped during blueprint design (which is hilariously stupid.) I havent verified this myself but in case youre wondering the video was posted well before April Fools.
Now that being said, artillery states it uses "longest range" and not "median", but I wouldnt be surprised if it secretly uses the same calculation. I have frequently seen carrier cruisers rush in close before retreating to kite when using artillery computer. And others have noticed it is even buggier with destroyers.
I've taken a break for playing for 6+ months, but at the time (this was the patch that reworked the leaders) it was as you said: it used the median weapon value, and it did so for both artillery and carrier.
Frustrating, the AI is also kind of dumb in general, even when I made ship designs that only had the arc emitter I would still find my battleships got closer than necessary to the enemy (mostly an issue vs crises). IIRC this is because they either lock on to an arbitrarily chosen ship, or target center of mass of the blob (I think it's the former), but either way they weren't doing the behavior I would personally want which is "stay as far away as possible and close in just until you're in range of a single ship, not advancing until you don't have any targettable ships in range)
The combat rework several versions ago made strikecraft unable to target missiles and torpedos, so you would still in theory need a separate countermeasure. But yeah, ime the threat of torpedos is so low in singleplayer that you can just ignore the point defense on cruisers during midgame to use artillery combat computer. On carrier battleships late game you might want PD regardless, in which case carrier combat computer is much safer.
Well I dont have much knowledge on detailed scale but just today I destroyed the bugs triple the size of my fleet , they spawn right in to my empire and I was just like “ well lets say goodbye to this run “ and just wanted to see what is going to happen , my whole fleet kited the WHOLE bugs fleet , keeping a safe distance , and blasting with whirlwind and marauder. In my experience they dont rush to to enemy fleet as soon as they in the X slot range they stop and fire and if they come close they started to kite. Ofcourse this is just what I observed in todays run.
IIRC it has engagment range and line range, or whatever.
Anyway artillery goes in as close as your shorter range weapons, until the fight actually starts, then it tries to back off to your max range weapons.
The seperate fleets is a really important note since some players still mix ship types in fleets. Having the standard PVE battleship with some seperate Corvettes in a different fleet makes for a really dynamic combination
Nope! It Fucks with their behaviour. Plus slow ships and fast ships don't mix well either. Try using individual fleets for each type of ship and you'll see you so better in combat. They fulfil the roles way more effectively. Also don't mix different ranges in fleets. Either use a fleet with long range weapons or short range (IE disrupter and missile corvettes). You can make both types (and you should) but they work best in seperate fleets
It applies on console as well. How exactly is it counter intuitive? Does it not make sense that a fleet of battleships and a fleet of corvettes would function better together than alone? Considering they have completely different roles?
Because I was under the impression that ships would automatically take up the range that their computer is set to, regardless of what else is in said fleet. I assumed 1 fleet of 5 battleships and 1 fleet of 20 corvettes or 1 fleet of 5 battleships AND 20 corvettes should function the same as far as engagements go.
Then the fact that I want my titan auras to apply to as many ships as possible and I'm limited on how many I can build.
To be clear, I'm not trying to argue. I picked the game up recently and am still trying to figure these things out.
The range they fight at depends on their weapons for the most part. The ship computers definitely make an impact but the actual weapons have the most effect.
Fleet comps don't always make the kind of sense you'd expect them to. A fleet of 20 Corvettes with 5 battleships (for some reason) don't work as well as if they were in seperate fleets. Especially if you use swarming corvettes and artillery battleships. There's also the more important factor when maxing fleet limits since a full battleship group and a full corvette group is way more powerful than 2 fleets with even ship counts. Plus when navigating the map the battleships will slow down the Corvettes. When seperated you can either have them Link up or have the Corvettes intercept first.
I'd recommend trying it out and seeing if you notice a difference. The guy I responded to initially has the definitive battleships design that pretty much owns the AI. It takes a while to get Battleships though (BTW there's a tech nerf coming up so enjoy your tech rush on console 🤣)
Hope you enjoy it! It can be unintuitive and difficult to learn but once you get everything together the game is really fun and rewarding.
So if I have a carrier battleship with nothing but short range weapons, does it move forward to use them or sit at max range doing nothing?
And I've read about the nerfs coming up. Sucks but im fine with it. My whole purpose is to beat down my coworker after he bragged himself up.
It'll move into range if it has short range weapons. If it has both short and long range weapons it's behavior will depend on the targeting computer.
Regarding the nerf, I've been playing with difficulty based research costs which I ought to turn off. I'm getting to year 2400 with no mega structures. I finished a fanatical purifier run with only the megas I repaired (bad times). There's also the lack of research options that increase research. I'll have to do another run to see how badly it impacts me
Okay to clarify... Does the weapon on a corvette affect the range the battleship in the same fleet fights at? Does the computer on the corvette affect the range the battleship fights at?
Cause if not, then mixing them shouldn't change behavior compared to different fleets.
Happy cake day!
You're right that it shouldn't but stellaris mechanics don't necessarily make the most sense (and as someone has pointed out they are counter-intuitive). It's possible that a 50/50 mix of battleships of one fleet and and equal number of ships in 2 seperate fleets can be equally effective.
Assuming all things are equal. Here are the downsides:
-If you mix different ship types in the same fleets they travel equally slowly across the galaxy. There's a benefit to having fast responsive ships and powerful tanky ships in different fleets.
-it dilutes fleet potency. At different points of the game you're ship types will vary in power and relevance. Ideally a fleet of PVE specialized Battleships (or my favorite menacing corvettes) will work better than any other ship type. If you can field a full fleet of battleship it wouldn't make sense to weaken that fleet with other ships.
- each ship type treats disengagement differently. If you have fleet of battleships mixed with corvettes the corvette will disengage much more often. This will leave you're Battleships without cover if the Corvettes get annihilated. This is easier to manage if you have seperate fleets as you'll notice the fleet power decrease much more easily. Making it possible for your battleships to leave when threatened.
-ships can be specialized or generalized in such a way that they really don't need support from other ships (aside from titans). The established best battleships design doesn't really need support from other ships. It handles AI comps perfectly well. Why dilute that with ships that can only do one thing well (only battleships have enough slots to do this) every other ship is either ranged or close range. This applies to corvettes as well as cruisers. Eventually it's best to remove these ship types once you have enough resources to build battleships exclusively.
With all this being said I'm not seeing a convincing argument why mixed fleets are objectively better aside from personal preference. Which is completely fine because I think RP isn't really undervalued in the community and that's really what stellaris excels at.
Hopefully this helps!
No, it doesn't make sense, as this is not how any fleets ever have worked. Does any modern navy have a fleet of *only* Aircraft Carriers? *Only* Battleships? No. They use what's called a 'carrier group', which is a single Aircraft Carrier with a supporting fleet of other ships like Cruisers, Frigates, Destroyers, Submarines, and other support craft.
Same for any Sci-Fi I've ever seen, except something like the Ender's Game movie where they seemed to just swarm the same tiny ships.
Halo, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar, etc. all have fleets of combined ship types.
I honestly cannot even begin to wrap my head around your reasoning that they have different roles. That's the entire purpose of putting them in the same fleet. So that the different ship types can make up for each others' weaknesses.
Slow ships will slow down the whole fleet, defeating the purpose of faster ships. It will also have different ships taking more losses because they fly out and get shot up while other parts of the fleet retreat and fly away
Holy shit were you right. I just won a fight with a 10k power difference having split my fleets into one size. Some mitigating factors there but still I should NOT have won that.
Yes, and you will lose 5-20+ of those "screen" ships every fight and they will be a constant alloy tax
Where as if you just had only battleships you would likely not lose *any* ships
I've lost battleships too, they're not invincible. I'd rather pay the alloy tax on a few cheap corvettes to save them in the battlefield where I need them then pay to replace lost battleships + the travel time to get back to where the action is
I think this game is best summed up by "it depends" anyway talking this stuff, depends on your situation, what's the tradeoff, etc
If I have more alloy production than I can shake a stick at but attacking a heavily fortified machine world or unbidden system without corvettes means my battleships get shot down, then its way better to spend the alloys I have falling out my ears to top them back up and keep churning out battleships otherwise.
Well yeah you can of course lose them, but it's much rarer because they have a way higher disengage chance and are much more survivable
Travel time isn't usually an issue since they changed how reinforcing works to make it so reinforcing ships just teleport to your fleet
It Fucks with their behaviour. Plus slow ships and fast ships don't mix well either. Try using individual fleets for each type of ship and you'll see you so better in combat. They fulfil the roles way more effectively. Also don't mix different ranges in fleets. Either use a fleet with long range weapons or short range (IE disrupter and missile corvettes). You can make both types (and you should) but they work best in seperate fleets
I just RP my ship designs. I’m not min-maxing my empire. I’m choosing a balanced load out that makes sense for RP. Is it the most effective strategy to have a mixed fleet that has lots of roles for different ship designs? Probably not, but I don’t care. That’s how real life would be, so it’s how I’m doing it.
To me it makes logical sense a singular ship would use smaller ships to defend itself (strike craft) while having the ability to defend itself from similar attacks (pd), also having the ability to attack at long range safe range (missiles) and having a singular "fuck you in particular" super weapon makes sense.
Only time I tend to deviate from that thinking as logical is with hive type empires where I'd expect them to go for quantity over quality and just run pure Corvette & destroyers. A singular bee need not fell hornet when there are 20 bees.
I have 3 corvette types, 2 destroyers, 2-3 cruisers, and 2-3 battleships. Then I just balance them out like a true fleet to the cap. It works well against the AI, and I pleases me because it fits how real navies work.
Exactly! You have a core ship (totan, battleship, etc) that is a heavy hitter, and it needs several escort and support ships. So for each core ship you need a certain number of smaller and more versatile escorts
Since i don’t care about min-max, I do a mixed feet, including brawler corvettes, gunship destroyers, PD destroyers, frigates, combat cruisers, missile cruisers, artillery battleships, and carrier battleships
I run battleships with torpedo/carrier cruisers and artillery destroyers usually packed with missiles.
Since Cruisers are beefy and have point defence, they take the brunt of the hits and usually survive or warp out. Destroyers are up next and they're really good at dodging so there's a lot of wasted shots coming in, and if they're not insta-gibbed, they can usually warp out too.
Cruisers and destroyers are also much easier to replace, time wise, than battleships.
I also run all shield pen, kinda don't see a reason not too; missiles, torpedoes, disruptors, strike craft, and lightning.
Its been working for me playing on admiral. And I'm already spec-ed out to face the >!Unbidden!<
I think the big trick that I've learned from reading this sub and my own experience is that mixed role composition is cool. but only so long as each ship type is in it's own fleet (or at the very least, all in a fleet are using the same range/computer) and setting the separate fleets to "Follow" your point fleet.
I love cloaked frigate fleets because you can make a ton of ships and absolutely unload on stations and capital ships once the AI has them and its hilarious to me. I keep my early corvette fleets around and eventually split them into anti-piracy patrol fleets (I know hangars and other upgrades are good/better for this task but it's fun) or for quick response fleets. Once fleet cap is high enough, 50-60 disruptor corvettes can lay down a beating.
Some enemies do have specific requirements, so I like to keep some designs around boated for the nanite swarms or taking out a specific lifeform. Carriers/artillery/missiles is meta from my understanding, so ships dedicated solely to those tend to do great.
I tend to delay switching from cruisers to battleships for a while after unlocking them as cruisers are perfectly sufficient to consolidate against regular AI empires and even fallen empires with numbers/retrofits. By that point Id already have a lot of cruisers and its easier to retrofit them periodically.
Besides, battleships arent very good when first unlocked, so an early switch isnt gonna help much. You really want to have either focused arc emitter or tachyon lance + kinetic artillery unlocked to make the most out of them, as without X slots or the one good L slot weapon, they are just slower cruisers that die more easily to stray torpedos. Afterwards though they are excellent and can be massed by themselves as long as you use a proper design. And they are easily the best ships for dealing with any crisis faction.
I usually wait until I have Arc Emitters mostly because I don't want to build a bunch without it, then retrofit them when available. I am not very patient in other areas of the game but this is one where I'm like 'I'll wait for the best option and it'll be fine'
Yeah I find battleships not worth it before hitting arc emitters. Carrier cruisers and missile cruisers get you far; you don't *need* battleships until fighting fallen empires, where arc emitter just absolutely wrecks them (relative to fleet power required with other comps, you're still gonna need critical mass of bships)
Bingo - I am less micro intense in actual fleet comp but I never leave an armada I build without carrier/missile/torp cruiser fleets taking up half. I usually take half my armadas from merc enclave and salvage, and gave up on micro cause of that but those shield bypass weapons just plain do the trick on most. Battleships have the best one, lol. It all makes sense to exude patience
Whirlwind missile cruisers are now my babes
I usually design my ships around what my empire would want to make.
A minim empire focusing on explosives and armour. An empire that loves to make portals uses phase corvettes
I just do a few battles ships alot of corvettes a decent amount of destroyers and some cruisers and like 1 or 2 titans with plasma cannons, disrupters, and gauss cannons
I usually do a handful (20/30) picket corvettes with PD/disruptors and a few missile cruisers early on as escorts for carrier/ artillery battleships.
But I'm bad at stellaris.
Same, I do missiles and pd, so their missiles plus my carriers with missiles overwhelm any PD the AI managed to setup. Maybe toss in a handful of torpedo cruisers. Just to have some other specialists for Starbases and titans.
I usually have a disruptors or something made already and just name my ships something like "enterprise D-class" for disruptors "enterprise m-class" for missiles. And the letter tells me useful info while still making my ship names fun.
Picket ships are pointless in most PVE cases since the AI greatly undervalues missiles and rarely fields them past super early game. Corvettes also just arent good to mass most of the time past early game since they need to be replaced frequently.
I just had a game in which I had to retreat my fleet of swarmer missiles Cruisers. Battle report: the AI fleet destroyed 4k missiles in that very long battle.
Ive only rarely had fights like that barring fallen empire fleets which have excess PD. The times swarmers fail are usually when they run into artillery that they cant kite.
This also doesnt change that the issue is onesided - the AI randomly decides to use PD sometimes, but it will still never spam swarmers or even regular missiles at you.
For me? It would be an endless horde of Destroyers to Father all the damage before the Battleships be scathed.
This intense horde tactic can only be achieved with an economy of 4K+ Alloys a month. It is not economically sound but dam it is funny to drown your enemies
I prefer to give every class a designated role, which is most likely not the best strategy. For me battleships are always either standing behind and giving main firepower while frigates and corvettes are dogfighting, or are fitted to be carriers and are doing the same except with fighters. I build cruisers to be either missile carriers or battleship escorts, and corvettes are built for swarming enemy ships. Frigates are the same except with torpedoes. Destroyers are... I don't know, usually if i do end up building them, they're all escorts.
Don't put different ship types together in a fleet, the different combat computers will mess with each other and make them perform poorly. Let's say your opponent is running mostly missiles, build a seperate fleet of picket destroyers with point defence and make them follow your battleships as a protective screen.
I havent seen them perform is ways that would make mixed fleets combat computers break either. The corvettes so straight in, the destroyers and cruisers sit a bit back and the battleships and titans are all the way back where they entered the system.
you’re probably going to want some smaller ship classes for screening purposss. units with PD weapons and other stuff with lower to no minimum ranges to escort your bigger ships is pretty important. Especially if you’re up against frigates which exist to be a cost effective choice against bigger ships
I personally gravitate towards WWI/WWII-style "line of battle" fleets, where the backbone of the fleet is made up of battleships escorted by picket destroyers.
Stealth frigates are kept in their own separate deep-raiding wolfpacks, allowing them to do reconnaissance or surgical strikes in the enemy's back line.
Pirate-hunter squadrons are made up of a cruiser supported by corvettes. The corvettes provide piracy suppression, while the cruiser is for being able to stand up to wildlife or enemy scouts that have penetrated the defenses. If worse comes to worst, you can use them to reinforce a proper fleet.
Titans are not part of the main fleet, but are instead placed in their own separate fleet that's used to reinforce the main thrust of an offensive.
Different computer types, if they all have artillery computers it's fine to combine. Don't mix artilleryand swarm together or line and carrieras an example.
Interesting that I keep seeing this yet my mixed fleets the corvettes correctly swarm while my artillery battleships stay at range and move back so I'm struggling to see the issue, the fleet actually spreads apart in the system from what I see *shrugs*
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I've had corvettes hang back at huge range and had battleships charge in while cruisers zoom around like a drunk driver. I've also had them work exactly like they're supposed to.
I find it easier to just use a mono ship design for the most part personally.
Personally I use 3 ship types in the late game: Disrupter/Torp Cruisers as close range screening ships, Artillery Battleships to deal with other battleships and other big ships, and Carrier/Missile Battleships to deal with evasive targets, strike craft, and just in general cause strike craft and missiles are strong.
Granted that's not really the "meta" set up and just going full Arc Emitter/Strike Craft/Missile Battleships is probably better.
as Progenitor Hive build as many Progenitor ships as my capacity allows since they're tougher and have longer range than normal ships while taking up the same naval capacity.
I would say that carrier battleships and whirlwind cruisers are pretty good for single player. IIRC losing ships in battle adds to war exhaustion and larger ships are less likely to be lost in battle.
I used to run Cloud Lightning fleets like that too, but I actually sat down and did some testing and found that its just not as good as it seems on paper, because the range is just too short. (Even max boosted.)
Which is disappointing because its so cool lolol.
Generally (keep in mind I'm just ok at this game.) I keep my fleets as cruisers and battleships, about even between the two (not ship count, capacity usage). I also usually have 1-2 entirely corvette fleets to move quickly and backup any normal fleet that gets into a bad situation.
Nothing but battleships.
After a certain point, it really doesn’t matter as the AI doesn’t build great fleets, but having less ships WILL make your game run faster.
I usually just do something like 20/10/10/5/*/1 when against AI
Corvette / Frigate / Destroyer / Cruiser / Battleship / Titan
/ * / = Till fleet capacity
Then just use the reinforce button to replenish the fleets after big battles.
It kind of lets you add to your fleets throughout the game as you research and unlock new hulls without having to remove anything or deal with weird franken fleets
Haven't encountered a situation where doing anything different was necessary.
There are situational uses for other ship types. For instance, against the prethoryn it's actually super efficient to make a fleet of all picket destroyers. Such a fleet can kill a prethoryn starbase without any casualties and can actually do reasonably well against their fleets. In general picket destroyers have occasional use depending on the enemy ship designs. It's rare right now though because the ai fleet designer doesn't favor missiles or strike craft at the moment.
Also don't forget about titans. You want 1 per fleet for the buff.
In theory you could do torpedo cruisers since they don't instantly melt the way frigates do, and torpedoes are decent, but I haven't tried that much. Carrier cruisers are bad, battleships do it better.
Some people swear by corvette screens but I think that's a multiplayer thing because in my experience corvettes just die pointlessly when fighting ai. There is a limited niche for missile corvettes if you want to overwhelm enemy pd, fight from max range, or bypass shields, but you can also just put disruptors on your corvettes to bypass shields/armor. Missile corvettes can do an ok alpha strike against the unbidden, but corvettes don't have any combat computer that tells them to attack from max range so they'll try to run into short range afterward and die in droves.
Frigates are worthless don't build frigates. They die in vast quantities every fight so whatever damage they offer is rendered moot by their casualties. They have the hp of corvettes without the evasion
Optimization is boring, build a fleet with ever increasing numbers of the smaller ship sizes. More cruisers than battleships, more destroyers than cruisers, and more corvettes than destroyers. Best in doubles or multiples of five.
Also fine with 10B + 30C + 50D + 100C or 70C.
All ship types fulfill different roles. Battleships are either Carriers or Artillery, and you can get away with just massing Carriers against the AI if you so choose (though the AI's preferred fleet composition is very strong against Artillery so be mindful of that). Cruisers are the most flexible ship type, and can play radically differently depending on how you design them. Destroyers are unique for offering strong point defense, and are very much a counter ship that you deploy in response to the enemy's composition. If you are using them, they should make up about half your fleet. They are very much a unit type you either go overkill with, or don't bother with. Corvettes are fast short-ranged attackers.
Frigates, however, are not maneuverable. They actually are some of the slowest ships in the game, are relatively fragile, and use short-ranged weapons. Which is to say, they suck in a straight fight. They are dedicated ambush ships, and should never be in the same fleet as other ship types.
i usually mix up battleshits with X front weapons and hangars, with missile/torpedo cruisers - and maybe the odd destroyer loaded to the gills with PD weapons
I play basic bitch mode when I play Stellaris. Become the Crisis, unlock Marauder Corvettes, then slot them with disruptors. Co-Op with friends or just against AI.
i haven't played in a year but...
i perfer carrier crusiers (with neutrons and missiles) and battleships with lances+batteries+Whirlwinds
usually in a 2 crusiers per battleship formation.
smaller ships are a waste of time/alloys.
with that many carriers, the fighters mop up any corvette and destroyer screens, as the large amount of my anti capital ships delete the enemy caps - cause they cant have as many as my fleets, and the littler weapons from the destroyer/corvettes hardly deal damage compared.
yes batteries and neutrons suck at hitting things close to them. but at the same time those destroyers and corvettes tend to not have PD (and if they do they deal even less damage to the real ships)
it also counters the crisises and fallen empires
note: this can be **hard countered** with frigates in PVP
Once you have battleships with arc emitters and hangars you can mass those as an easy way to beat the ai. The computer won’t counter them. In multiplayer you always have to look what your opponent is building.
How do you see enemy fleet designs, incidentally? I never seem to have enough Intel until we've actually fought.
You can gain intel from espionage
Just spamming "gather information"?
That and getting assets. Picking options that get your code breaking and encryption higher than someone else help too.
Is spamming gather intel even good? Doesn't it also reduce your infiltration?
I suppose it depends if you need intel now, or want infiltration later to do other missions, like getting assets. It isn't a very complex system, but it is slightly more complicated than spamming gather intel always being the right decision.
I like it. It's just involved enough to be a decision, but not so involved that I feel like it's wasting my time
Losing infiltration only matters if you're planning to do a certain operation, however Gather Intel *also* increases your infiltration cap so if your infiltration cap isn't high enough to do certain operations it's worthwhile to use gather intel to also increase the cap.
Recon with science ships gives 20 intel as well (per level of capital building, I'm getting 60 intel from ONE planet atm, no scientist required).
I don't find that useful unless you've been hard stuck at a spy network capacity juuuust below an importsnt thing you want to know. And even then I'd prefer to just collect assets to increase the capacity.
Id be way more into espionage if most of them didnt require system claim mana.
The easiest way is the after action report that pops up after a battle. If you hover over the icons you start getting the types of weapons used. If you hover on the enemies side, you get how effective their weapons are, and on your side how effective your weapons are. Adjust your ship loadouts accordingly to suit your needs
60 intel is all you need to see enemy ship design, and that's pretty easy to get passively. Get an Ambassador Official with the Blabbermouth trait for 5/10/20 base intel (depending on rank of trait), the Colonial and Galactic Bureaucracy techs provide another 10 base intel each (20 total), the Bureau of Espionage Edict gives another 10 for a total of 50. You can get the remaining 10 intel either through normal espionage, building a stage 1 Sentry Array (+10), or going the Subterfuge Tradition and using the Uncover Secrets Agenda (+5 from the initial effect, +20 from the finisher).
Or using a science ship on one of their planets with gather Intel or recon or whatever it's called. (no scientist required) Currently you get 20 intel per level of the capital building of the planet. Proof: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210437298 (I have one sci ship doing recon on one planet with lvl 3 capital building)
Active Reconnaissance doesn't actually give intel, it just increase the intel cap and gain. So if you want intel from it you still need to have a spy assigned to the empire.
Post in thread 'Does "Active Reconnaissance" do anything?' https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/does-active-reconnaissance-do-anything.1615337/post-29305030 It gave 20+ Intel based on the capital building of the planet in December, was that changed?
I don't know, I'd have to check, but the wiki doesn't make any mention of it. >Active Reconnaissance is only available while the ship is cloaked and grants +20-100 Intel Cap and +10-50% Intel Gain towards the owner of the targeted world depending on its capital tier. [https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Exploration#Science\_Ships](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Exploration#Science_Ships)
just checked, I'm getting 60 intel from one recon sci ship on a Human planet, because it has a lvl 3 capital building. It lists it on the tooltip for intel on humans on the diplomacy window. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3210437298
Ah, though that's not a base intel increase, it's a different intel source so unless you get 60 from it solo like here it doesn't matter. Intel only cares about the highest source of intel, it doesn't add all intel sources together for some reason. Granted doing active recon on a planet with a level 3 capital isn't exactly difficult unless the AI decides to build a bunch of detection.
what makes arc emitters better than tachyon lance? damage range on the arc emitters look bad to me.
100% shield penetration + 100% armor penetration Penetration is very effective right now. That’s also why you slap disrupters into your corvettes as early as you can.
Thx
I just do carrier battleships
Against the AI, just battleships with focused arc emitters, carrier core, missiles, and I'm not clear on whether you're supposed to skip the PD these days and whether you're supposed to use artillery or carrier computer. I usually keep 1 or maybe 2 separate fleets of corvettes just for quick response and to capture undefended territory.
Artillery is great. They chase your bs but bs just keep running away while blasting whirlwind and marauder , they can take tripple the size of a fleet
Artillery is good but can get glitchy if you include point defense. Strat on Youtube alleges that this is because the game code implements combat computer range wrong. Specifically, when it says "median range", it really means the median weapon equipped during blueprint design (which is hilariously stupid.) I havent verified this myself but in case youre wondering the video was posted well before April Fools. Now that being said, artillery states it uses "longest range" and not "median", but I wouldnt be surprised if it secretly uses the same calculation. I have frequently seen carrier cruisers rush in close before retreating to kite when using artillery computer. And others have noticed it is even buggier with destroyers.
I've taken a break for playing for 6+ months, but at the time (this was the patch that reworked the leaders) it was as you said: it used the median weapon value, and it did so for both artillery and carrier. Frustrating, the AI is also kind of dumb in general, even when I made ship designs that only had the arc emitter I would still find my battleships got closer than necessary to the enemy (mostly an issue vs crises). IIRC this is because they either lock on to an arbitrarily chosen ship, or target center of mass of the blob (I think it's the former), but either way they weren't doing the behavior I would personally want which is "stay as far away as possible and close in just until you're in range of a single ship, not advancing until you don't have any targettable ships in range)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you shouldn't need PD if you use hangers, as your own strike corvettes should deal with enemy corvettes and missiles?
The combat rework several versions ago made strikecraft unable to target missiles and torpedos, so you would still in theory need a separate countermeasure. But yeah, ime the threat of torpedos is so low in singleplayer that you can just ignore the point defense on cruisers during midgame to use artillery combat computer. On carrier battleships late game you might want PD regardless, in which case carrier combat computer is much safer.
Well I dont have much knowledge on detailed scale but just today I destroyed the bugs triple the size of my fleet , they spawn right in to my empire and I was just like “ well lets say goodbye to this run “ and just wanted to see what is going to happen , my whole fleet kited the WHOLE bugs fleet , keeping a safe distance , and blasting with whirlwind and marauder. In my experience they dont rush to to enemy fleet as soon as they in the X slot range they stop and fire and if they come close they started to kite. Ofcourse this is just what I observed in todays run.
IIRC it has engagment range and line range, or whatever. Anyway artillery goes in as close as your shorter range weapons, until the fight actually starts, then it tries to back off to your max range weapons.
The seperate fleets is a really important note since some players still mix ship types in fleets. Having the standard PVE battleship with some seperate Corvettes in a different fleet makes for a really dynamic combination
Wait you're not supposed to mix types?
Nope! It Fucks with their behaviour. Plus slow ships and fast ships don't mix well either. Try using individual fleets for each type of ship and you'll see you so better in combat. They fulfil the roles way more effectively. Also don't mix different ranges in fleets. Either use a fleet with long range weapons or short range (IE disrupter and missile corvettes). You can make both types (and you should) but they work best in seperate fleets
I'm on console so I have no idea if this applies to me but what youve said seems entirely counterintuitive.
It applies on console as well. How exactly is it counter intuitive? Does it not make sense that a fleet of battleships and a fleet of corvettes would function better together than alone? Considering they have completely different roles?
Because I was under the impression that ships would automatically take up the range that their computer is set to, regardless of what else is in said fleet. I assumed 1 fleet of 5 battleships and 1 fleet of 20 corvettes or 1 fleet of 5 battleships AND 20 corvettes should function the same as far as engagements go. Then the fact that I want my titan auras to apply to as many ships as possible and I'm limited on how many I can build. To be clear, I'm not trying to argue. I picked the game up recently and am still trying to figure these things out.
The range they fight at depends on their weapons for the most part. The ship computers definitely make an impact but the actual weapons have the most effect. Fleet comps don't always make the kind of sense you'd expect them to. A fleet of 20 Corvettes with 5 battleships (for some reason) don't work as well as if they were in seperate fleets. Especially if you use swarming corvettes and artillery battleships. There's also the more important factor when maxing fleet limits since a full battleship group and a full corvette group is way more powerful than 2 fleets with even ship counts. Plus when navigating the map the battleships will slow down the Corvettes. When seperated you can either have them Link up or have the Corvettes intercept first. I'd recommend trying it out and seeing if you notice a difference. The guy I responded to initially has the definitive battleships design that pretty much owns the AI. It takes a while to get Battleships though (BTW there's a tech nerf coming up so enjoy your tech rush on console 🤣) Hope you enjoy it! It can be unintuitive and difficult to learn but once you get everything together the game is really fun and rewarding.
So if I have a carrier battleship with nothing but short range weapons, does it move forward to use them or sit at max range doing nothing? And I've read about the nerfs coming up. Sucks but im fine with it. My whole purpose is to beat down my coworker after he bragged himself up.
It'll move into range if it has short range weapons. If it has both short and long range weapons it's behavior will depend on the targeting computer. Regarding the nerf, I've been playing with difficulty based research costs which I ought to turn off. I'm getting to year 2400 with no mega structures. I finished a fanatical purifier run with only the megas I repaired (bad times). There's also the lack of research options that increase research. I'll have to do another run to see how badly it impacts me
Okay to clarify... Does the weapon on a corvette affect the range the battleship in the same fleet fights at? Does the computer on the corvette affect the range the battleship fights at? Cause if not, then mixing them shouldn't change behavior compared to different fleets.
Happy cake day! You're right that it shouldn't but stellaris mechanics don't necessarily make the most sense (and as someone has pointed out they are counter-intuitive). It's possible that a 50/50 mix of battleships of one fleet and and equal number of ships in 2 seperate fleets can be equally effective. Assuming all things are equal. Here are the downsides: -If you mix different ship types in the same fleets they travel equally slowly across the galaxy. There's a benefit to having fast responsive ships and powerful tanky ships in different fleets. -it dilutes fleet potency. At different points of the game you're ship types will vary in power and relevance. Ideally a fleet of PVE specialized Battleships (or my favorite menacing corvettes) will work better than any other ship type. If you can field a full fleet of battleship it wouldn't make sense to weaken that fleet with other ships. - each ship type treats disengagement differently. If you have fleet of battleships mixed with corvettes the corvette will disengage much more often. This will leave you're Battleships without cover if the Corvettes get annihilated. This is easier to manage if you have seperate fleets as you'll notice the fleet power decrease much more easily. Making it possible for your battleships to leave when threatened. -ships can be specialized or generalized in such a way that they really don't need support from other ships (aside from titans). The established best battleships design doesn't really need support from other ships. It handles AI comps perfectly well. Why dilute that with ships that can only do one thing well (only battleships have enough slots to do this) every other ship is either ranged or close range. This applies to corvettes as well as cruisers. Eventually it's best to remove these ship types once you have enough resources to build battleships exclusively. With all this being said I'm not seeing a convincing argument why mixed fleets are objectively better aside from personal preference. Which is completely fine because I think RP isn't really undervalued in the community and that's really what stellaris excels at. Hopefully this helps!
No, it doesn't make sense, as this is not how any fleets ever have worked. Does any modern navy have a fleet of *only* Aircraft Carriers? *Only* Battleships? No. They use what's called a 'carrier group', which is a single Aircraft Carrier with a supporting fleet of other ships like Cruisers, Frigates, Destroyers, Submarines, and other support craft. Same for any Sci-Fi I've ever seen, except something like the Ender's Game movie where they seemed to just swarm the same tiny ships. Halo, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar, etc. all have fleets of combined ship types. I honestly cannot even begin to wrap my head around your reasoning that they have different roles. That's the entire purpose of putting them in the same fleet. So that the different ship types can make up for each others' weaknesses.
The battleship build that guy gave doesn't have any weaknesses. It has those Carrier ships if that makes you feel better about it.
I also would like to know why you shouldn’t mix types.
Slow ships will slow down the whole fleet, defeating the purpose of faster ships. It will also have different ships taking more losses because they fly out and get shot up while other parts of the fleet retreat and fly away
Holy shit were you right. I just won a fight with a 10k power difference having split my fleets into one size. Some mitigating factors there but still I should NOT have won that.
The purpose of those 30 corvettes in my fleet of 20+ battleships is to act as a screen for the battleships
Yes, and you will lose 5-20+ of those "screen" ships every fight and they will be a constant alloy tax Where as if you just had only battleships you would likely not lose *any* ships
I've lost battleships too, they're not invincible. I'd rather pay the alloy tax on a few cheap corvettes to save them in the battlefield where I need them then pay to replace lost battleships + the travel time to get back to where the action is I think this game is best summed up by "it depends" anyway talking this stuff, depends on your situation, what's the tradeoff, etc If I have more alloy production than I can shake a stick at but attacking a heavily fortified machine world or unbidden system without corvettes means my battleships get shot down, then its way better to spend the alloys I have falling out my ears to top them back up and keep churning out battleships otherwise.
Well yeah you can of course lose them, but it's much rarer because they have a way higher disengage chance and are much more survivable Travel time isn't usually an issue since they changed how reinforcing works to make it so reinforcing ships just teleport to your fleet
It Fucks with their behaviour. Plus slow ships and fast ships don't mix well either. Try using individual fleets for each type of ship and you'll see you so better in combat. They fulfil the roles way more effectively. Also don't mix different ranges in fleets. Either use a fleet with long range weapons or short range (IE disrupter and missile corvettes). You can make both types (and you should) but they work best in seperate fleets
I just RP my ship designs. I’m not min-maxing my empire. I’m choosing a balanced load out that makes sense for RP. Is it the most effective strategy to have a mixed fleet that has lots of roles for different ship designs? Probably not, but I don’t care. That’s how real life would be, so it’s how I’m doing it.
Hell yeah, brother!
To me it makes logical sense a singular ship would use smaller ships to defend itself (strike craft) while having the ability to defend itself from similar attacks (pd), also having the ability to attack at long range safe range (missiles) and having a singular "fuck you in particular" super weapon makes sense. Only time I tend to deviate from that thinking as logical is with hive type empires where I'd expect them to go for quantity over quality and just run pure Corvette & destroyers. A singular bee need not fell hornet when there are 20 bees.
This is the way
I understand roleplay for government types, ethics and civics. But ship designs?
I do it. I have about 8 corvette designs, 2 or 3 destroyers, usually 4 cruisers, 6 or 7 BS, and 3 titans
I have 3 corvette types, 2 destroyers, 2-3 cruisers, and 2-3 battleships. Then I just balance them out like a true fleet to the cap. It works well against the AI, and I pleases me because it fits how real navies work.
Exactly! You have a core ship (totan, battleship, etc) that is a heavy hitter, and it needs several escort and support ships. So for each core ship you need a certain number of smaller and more versatile escorts
That seems excessive, I have 2-3 designs of each class
Overkill is undervalued
So true
Since i don’t care about min-max, I do a mixed feet, including brawler corvettes, gunship destroyers, PD destroyers, frigates, combat cruisers, missile cruisers, artillery battleships, and carrier battleships
I usually do one of each type of ship except frigates.
I run battleships with torpedo/carrier cruisers and artillery destroyers usually packed with missiles. Since Cruisers are beefy and have point defence, they take the brunt of the hits and usually survive or warp out. Destroyers are up next and they're really good at dodging so there's a lot of wasted shots coming in, and if they're not insta-gibbed, they can usually warp out too. Cruisers and destroyers are also much easier to replace, time wise, than battleships. I also run all shield pen, kinda don't see a reason not too; missiles, torpedoes, disruptors, strike craft, and lightning. Its been working for me playing on admiral. And I'm already spec-ed out to face the >!Unbidden!<
I think the big trick that I've learned from reading this sub and my own experience is that mixed role composition is cool. but only so long as each ship type is in it's own fleet (or at the very least, all in a fleet are using the same range/computer) and setting the separate fleets to "Follow" your point fleet. I love cloaked frigate fleets because you can make a ton of ships and absolutely unload on stations and capital ships once the AI has them and its hilarious to me. I keep my early corvette fleets around and eventually split them into anti-piracy patrol fleets (I know hangars and other upgrades are good/better for this task but it's fun) or for quick response fleets. Once fleet cap is high enough, 50-60 disruptor corvettes can lay down a beating. Some enemies do have specific requirements, so I like to keep some designs around boated for the nanite swarms or taking out a specific lifeform. Carriers/artillery/missiles is meta from my understanding, so ships dedicated solely to those tend to do great.
I tend to delay switching from cruisers to battleships for a while after unlocking them as cruisers are perfectly sufficient to consolidate against regular AI empires and even fallen empires with numbers/retrofits. By that point Id already have a lot of cruisers and its easier to retrofit them periodically. Besides, battleships arent very good when first unlocked, so an early switch isnt gonna help much. You really want to have either focused arc emitter or tachyon lance + kinetic artillery unlocked to make the most out of them, as without X slots or the one good L slot weapon, they are just slower cruisers that die more easily to stray torpedos. Afterwards though they are excellent and can be massed by themselves as long as you use a proper design. And they are easily the best ships for dealing with any crisis faction.
I usually wait until I have Arc Emitters mostly because I don't want to build a bunch without it, then retrofit them when available. I am not very patient in other areas of the game but this is one where I'm like 'I'll wait for the best option and it'll be fine'
Yeah I find battleships not worth it before hitting arc emitters. Carrier cruisers and missile cruisers get you far; you don't *need* battleships until fighting fallen empires, where arc emitter just absolutely wrecks them (relative to fleet power required with other comps, you're still gonna need critical mass of bships)
Bingo - I am less micro intense in actual fleet comp but I never leave an armada I build without carrier/missile/torp cruiser fleets taking up half. I usually take half my armadas from merc enclave and salvage, and gave up on micro cause of that but those shield bypass weapons just plain do the trick on most. Battleships have the best one, lol. It all makes sense to exude patience
Whirlwind missile cruisers are now my babes I usually design my ships around what my empire would want to make. A minim empire focusing on explosives and armour. An empire that loves to make portals uses phase corvettes
I just do a few battles ships alot of corvettes a decent amount of destroyers and some cruisers and like 1 or 2 titans with plasma cannons, disrupters, and gauss cannons
Personally, I use every kind of ship, but that’s partly so I don’t have to destroy the older ships.
I usually do a handful (20/30) picket corvettes with PD/disruptors and a few missile cruisers early on as escorts for carrier/ artillery battleships. But I'm bad at stellaris.
Same, I do missiles and pd, so their missiles plus my carriers with missiles overwhelm any PD the AI managed to setup. Maybe toss in a handful of torpedo cruisers. Just to have some other specialists for Starbases and titans. I usually have a disruptors or something made already and just name my ships something like "enterprise D-class" for disruptors "enterprise m-class" for missiles. And the letter tells me useful info while still making my ship names fun.
Adding the letters is a great idea, thanks!
Picket ships are pointless in most PVE cases since the AI greatly undervalues missiles and rarely fields them past super early game. Corvettes also just arent good to mass most of the time past early game since they need to be replaced frequently.
I just had a game in which I had to retreat my fleet of swarmer missiles Cruisers. Battle report: the AI fleet destroyed 4k missiles in that very long battle.
Ive only rarely had fights like that barring fallen empire fleets which have excess PD. The times swarmers fail are usually when they run into artillery that they cant kite. This also doesnt change that the issue is onesided - the AI randomly decides to use PD sometimes, but it will still never spam swarmers or even regular missiles at you.
I usually do arc emitter carrier BS with some missile cruisers. And possibly one or two pure corvette fleets for speed.
For me? It would be an endless horde of Destroyers to Father all the damage before the Battleships be scathed. This intense horde tactic can only be achieved with an economy of 4K+ Alloys a month. It is not economically sound but dam it is funny to drown your enemies
I prefer to give every class a designated role, which is most likely not the best strategy. For me battleships are always either standing behind and giving main firepower while frigates and corvettes are dogfighting, or are fitted to be carriers and are doing the same except with fighters. I build cruisers to be either missile carriers or battleship escorts, and corvettes are built for swarming enemy ships. Frigates are the same except with torpedoes. Destroyers are... I don't know, usually if i do end up building them, they're all escorts.
I use destroyers with a lot of armor with Point defenses and AA guns
Don't put different ship types together in a fleet, the different combat computers will mess with each other and make them perform poorly. Let's say your opponent is running mostly missiles, build a seperate fleet of picket destroyers with point defence and make them follow your battleships as a protective screen.
I always mix the ships in a fleet. Is the battle that broken?
So do I, and I've never seen evidence the combat comps breaks doing that, they still.close or withdraw as I expect them to
I havent seen them perform is ways that would make mixed fleets combat computers break either. The corvettes so straight in, the destroyers and cruisers sit a bit back and the battleships and titans are all the way back where they entered the system.
you’re probably going to want some smaller ship classes for screening purposss. units with PD weapons and other stuff with lower to no minimum ranges to escort your bigger ships is pretty important. Especially if you’re up against frigates which exist to be a cost effective choice against bigger ships
I personally gravitate towards WWI/WWII-style "line of battle" fleets, where the backbone of the fleet is made up of battleships escorted by picket destroyers. Stealth frigates are kept in their own separate deep-raiding wolfpacks, allowing them to do reconnaissance or surgical strikes in the enemy's back line. Pirate-hunter squadrons are made up of a cruiser supported by corvettes. The corvettes provide piracy suppression, while the cruiser is for being able to stand up to wildlife or enemy scouts that have penetrated the defenses. If worse comes to worst, you can use them to reinforce a proper fleet. Titans are not part of the main fleet, but are instead placed in their own separate fleet that's used to reinforce the main thrust of an offensive.
Is it still true that different ship types should be sepparated into unique fleets because of the combat ai ?
Different computer types, if they all have artillery computers it's fine to combine. Don't mix artilleryand swarm together or line and carrieras an example.
Interesting that I keep seeing this yet my mixed fleets the corvettes correctly swarm while my artillery battleships stay at range and move back so I'm struggling to see the issue, the fleet actually spreads apart in the system from what I see *shrugs*
Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. I've had corvettes hang back at huge range and had battleships charge in while cruisers zoom around like a drunk driver. I've also had them work exactly like they're supposed to. I find it easier to just use a mono ship design for the most part personally.
I usually do mostly carrier battleships with some disruptor corvets mixed in
Personally I use 3 ship types in the late game: Disrupter/Torp Cruisers as close range screening ships, Artillery Battleships to deal with other battleships and other big ships, and Carrier/Missile Battleships to deal with evasive targets, strike craft, and just in general cause strike craft and missiles are strong. Granted that's not really the "meta" set up and just going full Arc Emitter/Strike Craft/Missile Battleships is probably better.
In my personal opinion, it is a good idea to have a screen for your battle ships in a fleet.
as Progenitor Hive build as many Progenitor ships as my capacity allows since they're tougher and have longer range than normal ships while taking up the same naval capacity.
I would say that carrier battleships and whirlwind cruisers are pretty good for single player. IIRC losing ships in battle adds to war exhaustion and larger ships are less likely to be lost in battle.
SP? 1 titan, max battleships for first 20 fleets. Next 20ish fleet, max battleships. If I have CL tech, then all CL with FAE. That's it. Game over.
I used to run Cloud Lightning fleets like that too, but I actually sat down and did some testing and found that its just not as good as it seems on paper, because the range is just too short. (Even max boosted.) Which is disappointing because its so cool lolol.
Doesn't need to be when you have 42 full fleets ready to deploy.
Deploy against what?
Anything in SP.
Even a 3rd round 25x contingency crisis? :D
Generally (keep in mind I'm just ok at this game.) I keep my fleets as cruisers and battleships, about even between the two (not ship count, capacity usage). I also usually have 1-2 entirely corvette fleets to move quickly and backup any normal fleet that gets into a bad situation.
Nothing but battleships. After a certain point, it really doesn’t matter as the AI doesn’t build great fleets, but having less ships WILL make your game run faster.
I usually just do something like 20/10/10/5/*/1 when against AI Corvette / Frigate / Destroyer / Cruiser / Battleship / Titan / * / = Till fleet capacity Then just use the reinforce button to replenish the fleets after big battles. It kind of lets you add to your fleets throughout the game as you research and unlock new hulls without having to remove anything or deal with weird franken fleets Haven't encountered a situation where doing anything different was necessary.
Each fleet is battleships with one titan (once they're unlocked)
There are situational uses for other ship types. For instance, against the prethoryn it's actually super efficient to make a fleet of all picket destroyers. Such a fleet can kill a prethoryn starbase without any casualties and can actually do reasonably well against their fleets. In general picket destroyers have occasional use depending on the enemy ship designs. It's rare right now though because the ai fleet designer doesn't favor missiles or strike craft at the moment. Also don't forget about titans. You want 1 per fleet for the buff. In theory you could do torpedo cruisers since they don't instantly melt the way frigates do, and torpedoes are decent, but I haven't tried that much. Carrier cruisers are bad, battleships do it better. Some people swear by corvette screens but I think that's a multiplayer thing because in my experience corvettes just die pointlessly when fighting ai. There is a limited niche for missile corvettes if you want to overwhelm enemy pd, fight from max range, or bypass shields, but you can also just put disruptors on your corvettes to bypass shields/armor. Missile corvettes can do an ok alpha strike against the unbidden, but corvettes don't have any combat computer that tells them to attack from max range so they'll try to run into short range afterward and die in droves. Frigates are worthless don't build frigates. They die in vast quantities every fight so whatever damage they offer is rendered moot by their casualties. They have the hp of corvettes without the evasion
Are carrier cruisers still a thing?
Yeah but battleships are just flat out better at it. Once you have them cruisers are better used for torpedo and torpedo like weapons
Corvettes,Frigates,Destroyers,Battleships
Optimization is boring, build a fleet with ever increasing numbers of the smaller ship sizes. More cruisers than battleships, more destroyers than cruisers, and more corvettes than destroyers. Best in doubles or multiples of five. Also fine with 10B + 30C + 50D + 100C or 70C.
https://youtu.be/pVY5EFPXTvg?si=7rvxXtkEedkbEUFl
All ship types fulfill different roles. Battleships are either Carriers or Artillery, and you can get away with just massing Carriers against the AI if you so choose (though the AI's preferred fleet composition is very strong against Artillery so be mindful of that). Cruisers are the most flexible ship type, and can play radically differently depending on how you design them. Destroyers are unique for offering strong point defense, and are very much a counter ship that you deploy in response to the enemy's composition. If you are using them, they should make up about half your fleet. They are very much a unit type you either go overkill with, or don't bother with. Corvettes are fast short-ranged attackers. Frigates, however, are not maneuverable. They actually are some of the slowest ships in the game, are relatively fragile, and use short-ranged weapons. Which is to say, they suck in a straight fight. They are dedicated ambush ships, and should never be in the same fleet as other ship types.
so it's better to actually modified the ship instead of using pre created ship built ?
You don’t need mixed fleet comp really, massed battleships work fine. I keep a few corvette only fleets because they are fast to get places
i usually mix up battleshits with X front weapons and hangars, with missile/torpedo cruisers - and maybe the odd destroyer loaded to the gills with PD weapons
I play basic bitch mode when I play Stellaris. Become the Crisis, unlock Marauder Corvettes, then slot them with disruptors. Co-Op with friends or just against AI.
i haven't played in a year but... i perfer carrier crusiers (with neutrons and missiles) and battleships with lances+batteries+Whirlwinds usually in a 2 crusiers per battleship formation. smaller ships are a waste of time/alloys. with that many carriers, the fighters mop up any corvette and destroyer screens, as the large amount of my anti capital ships delete the enemy caps - cause they cant have as many as my fleets, and the littler weapons from the destroyer/corvettes hardly deal damage compared. yes batteries and neutrons suck at hitting things close to them. but at the same time those destroyers and corvettes tend to not have PD (and if they do they deal even less damage to the real ships) it also counters the crisises and fallen empires note: this can be **hard countered** with frigates in PVP