Early Fleet composition

[Waffenstein]

The year is now mid 2027 and I'm starting to think about my first defensive fleet.
I own Ceres, half of Mars.
I got NAP pact with Resistance and Exodus and they are starting to build small gunships with kinetics wrecking havoc among Initiative stations :)

Should I wait till I will get bigger ships like frigates and destroyers or quickly build a nimble fleet of smaller ships like missile escorts? What do you think is better? And early game what is better nimble small ships or more heavy with more armour? Is it possible to focus on combat acceleration and manover early game?

[corisai]

In early game you don't have any options but slow missile escorts (using Grid / Fission Frag / Helicon + torps, emergency option are chemical engines). Add a few Escorts with more armor, 40cm PD gun & Particle Beam PD so they will soak at least few shots from aliens to buy time for your missile boats.

Early-Midgame allow some very agile and fast missile ships (Molten Core fission, you need a Fission Spinner or better a Pegasus).

WIth better techs eventually you could use lasers / coilguns. But still - your defense fleets need to be faster then incoming aliens so that will require MUCH better engines.

Before 0.3.x first non-missile combat ship you could make was a Destroyer. Now (0.4.x) aliens get buffed a lot ... and I fear only Lancers (and above) could fight mid/lategame enemies efficiently. 4-slots nose weapons are very powerful (both Phasers and Coilguns Mk3 / Siege Coil Mk3).

P.S. At least nobody yet shared his success with using Battlecruisers with me

[Ericus1]

Go on the discord and ask for much better engine and ship design recommendations than you can find here. It is also much more difficult to do on steam because of how hard it is to post images.

https://discord.com/channels/462769550841348126/1326385261638193223

[axossk]

Early you only need a small feet (~10) of missile ships for a one time kamikaze mission against an alien ship.
Afterward you should avoid aliens retaliation until you can protect your spaceyards.

[Pawleus]

Originally posted by axossk:

Early you only need a small feet (~10) of missile ships for a one time kamikaze mission against an alien ship.

If you need 10 missile ships for 1 alien ship you are doing something seriously wrong.

[corisai]

Originally posted by axossk:

Early you only need a small feet (~10) of missile ships for a one time kamikaze mission against an alien ship.

2 Escorts with Artemis torps is enough for no-brain-involved victory against first Surveillance warship (still I would prefer 3 on Experimental for 100% safety).
3-4 of them is a reasonable for harder targets.

[axossk]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by axossk:

Early you only need a small feet (~10) of missile ships for a one time kamikaze mission against an alien ship.

2 Escorts with Artemis torps is enough for no-brain-involved victory against first Surveillance warship (still I would prefer 3 on Experimental for 100% safety).
3-4 of them is a reasonable for harder targets.

This is true, 10 is overkill but will 100% succeed even with the worst ships design.

[Waffenstein]

Well I want to try Escort wolfpack tactics first. 3-4 escorts will have 40mm autocannon + copperhead missiles combined with magazine. Dumbo drives with, overal 600-700 cbt acc. 5 frontal carbide-boron armor. I will later upgrade it to composite/nano and better engines/drive yet I prefer open-cooling drives because they negate the need for heavy heatsink systems.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

3-4 escorts will have 40mm autocannon

Autocannon is a big waste of space & combat potential, especially with very weak missile like copperhead. Make a dedicated "front-liner" design with it (and keep such ships at center of your fleet), but most of your missile boats shouldn't have it.

[Waffenstein]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

3-4 escorts will have 40mm autocannon

Autocannon is a big waste of space & combat potential, especially with very weak missile like copperhead. Make a dedicated "front-liner" design with it (and keep such ships at center of your fleet), but most of your missile boats shouldn't have it.

Well I thought it will be effective as a point defence weapon, since first lasers have shorter range and seem to be rather underwhelming. Generally I would like to avoid lasers on ships if possible in favor of railguns/coil guns design, more Expanse like weapons :)

[corisai]

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

Well I thought it will be effective as a point defence weapon

It's very effective but mostly against enemy mag shots (against missiles it's more like a final chance weapon). To counter enemy missiles you need Particle PD (or in late-game Phaser PD have similar stats so on laser boats with Advanced Laser Engines it became a better option).

I'm strictly against having 50/50 PD/missile mix because it's reducing your PD penetration ability even more then by 50%. Even best missiles (Artemis, Poseidon, any shaped nuclear) would struggle in that case.

But a few dedicated "frontliners" or "survivor" ships with 40mm or even 40mm & Particle Beam work pretty well. Just accelerate them a bit (seriously only a bit!) at start of the combat - that will make them a preferable target for AI in most cases.

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

in favor of railguns/coil guns design, more Expanse like weapons :)

Very strong option, Siege Coils Mk3 are near OP. Just ignore medium-sized mag cannons (and medium-sized ships) and go straight for 3/4 slot nose cannons.

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by Totenkopf:

Well I thought it will be effective as a point defence weapon, since first lasers have shorter range and seem to be rather underwhelming. Generally I would like to avoid lasers on ships if possible in favor of railguns/coil guns design, more Expanse like weapons :)

Early lasers and kinetics are bad. But lasers will eventually be the best way to kill small ships while coils the best to kill large ships. Early missile-based fleets can get away without them but as you transition to latter game designs you will want to use lasers. Green arcs and mk3 rails are the earliest non-missile weapons that can compete, and by UV arcs or green phasers and mk2 coils you can punch way above your weight class. You can try all coil fleets but they will be significantly less capable.

PD 40mms stay viable all game for ship self-defense against kinetics. PD Ions are best for antimissile but can't target kinetics. PD Phasers trade flexibility for range and effectiveness but if backed by large numbers of lasers engines can compete to round out PD capability, generally on PD-specialized screens.

[Sander]

the single hullslot rails/coils are actually okay in the PD role. their main drawback is that they suck when your ship is moving fast, the aim will be off.

in the early game, if you adopt a standing formation for overlapping PD or due to using Ion drives, they're absolutely great against alien kinetics and they do decent enough against missile clouds. since the kinetics keep going, missed shots can hit enemy projectiles or pressure enemy PD behind the ones you can target. the obvious upside of them is that they do the same thing other kinetics do: force the alien light escorts that are flanking you to focus on manouvering to dodge the shots, thus the aliens do not use their nose lasers on you at close range.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Sander:

the single hullslot rails/coils are actually okay in the PD role. their main drawback is that they suck when your ship is moving fast, the aim will be off.

Railgun Mk3 have a cooldown 10 sec, compared with 3 sec of Ion PD / Phaser PD. That mean it will be casually overwhelmed by missiles.

40mm cannon having much better RoF and weight less - try it, it's currently your best option against enemy kinetics even in late game.

[Sander]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Sander:

the single hullslot rails/coils are actually okay in the PD role. their main drawback is that they suck when your ship is moving fast, the aim will be off.

Railgun Mk3 have a cooldown 10 sec, compared with 3 sec of Ion PD / Phaser PD. That mean it will be casually overwhelmed by missiles.

40mm cannon having much better RoF and weight less - try it, it's currently your best option against enemy kinetics even in late game.

railguns open up at a much longer range than a 40mm autocannon ever could and their shots have a softening impact upon enemy salvos even beyond that range, in certain situations.

40mm is final point defense, it slaps harder there but fills a different use overall

[Sander]

by the way, i havent used 30mm in years but if it works now as it should have in the first place - it, too has a place all across the timeline of the Earth-Ayys war