What weapons or ship build is good against rift stryder and other creatures

[gocdavies]

for ships builds. that are used purely against rift stryders and other creatures.

is there a good build for them? i want to build a fast fleet that can intercept them in squads.

how do i get a fleet to intercept enemy within a certain range like they did in distant worlds universe. i cant seem to see the option in this game for that

[Mozzy]

I mostly play humans so not sure if this design/tactic is good for all races, but that said, in general range is king for dealing with space creatures (*especially if using cheap, fast, relatively not so well armored ships).

1- make defense fleet (or attack but now devs made patch change for defense fleets to auto respond like attack fleets, shouldn't matter what type). Make sure military policy = auto (not manual or advisor), Fleet = auto and using fleet template for that intercept type (*whatever defend/attack fleet type you made)

key empire settings so fleets will auto react well:
A) Overmatch - do not set this too high, the default is 1.5 and sometimes even that is too high unless you make fleets of decently high attack power. If you make decent long range weapon designs, will find even 1.0 is easily enough to take on space creatures. Otherwise, if overmatch is too high, your fleets will sit scared, and not respond, thinking they aren't strong enough to auto defend/attack

B) key fleet reaction settings:
engagement range - up to you, but I don't like fleets go chasing off entire map, so I never use percent ratings like 33% of fuel, 50%, b/c as your fuel cells get better, that range gets huge. So I prefer setting 100M, 200M, and 300M setting. With slow hyper tech, 100M, then as it gets better, increase the fleet tactic setting to increase that engagement range.

position - this is not set by ship, only here, and imo very important for a long range stand off design. Set this to tight, or very tight. Otherwise, your missile swarm won't all fire off in one huge volley, but staggered. You want to kill the creature/enemy in one shot before they can damage you. If set to normal, your ships will be so dispersed, always 2-3 way up front that starts taking damage before fleet can get off the giant kill shot.

strength - up to you but I like to keep this retreat at 100 or higher. With decent missile design, even 2000 attack power fleets can take out 4k power space creatures (because often that red marker with 4k really means 4-5 space creatures around the star, and you can nuke each one separately most times

c) key ship design settings *(probably most important part)
-make sure to design each ship with: Engagement range = same system (so they chase after any creatures in system after getting there), both stronger and weaker = cautious, retreat = your pref, default is fine but if don't want to wait for internal dmg, using safer option isn't bad either

** if you do not set to cautious for both stronger/weaker opponents, your missile boats won't use their best strength, which is range advantage. All this 'cautious' means is they will try to move or evade around to keep at longer range. Which is what you want if making an all or mostly missile fleet.

-weapons: too hard to debate so no claims of best or whatever. I just prefer something like concussion missiles, easy tech, easy upgrade research (each v1, 2, 3 unlock increases power without needing to retrofit your ships). Even on the smaller ships, cram 1 Large missile launcher even if it uses up entire tonnage.

1L = better than 2M because of the much higher range advantage. Against AI ships, this may not always be best, but vs space creatures, range will never be a bad thing. Fire first, at longest range, and tiny swarm of frigates (cheapest ship that can mount a Large launcher) can take on 5-6k space creature rated encounters with half that fleet rating (although in this case you'd need to manually send the fleet since it won't go on auto unless overmatch setting dropped way low (which is bad vs AI attackers, so leave it on 1.0 or 1.5, and manually send some fleets vs creature locations fleets won't auto respond to

TLDR - make fleet of cheap missile boats (frigates usually b/c Large missile launchers), set to cautious, and space creatures are basically a nuisance pest.

[gocdavies]

so far i im finding a general dest-cruiser torp build with 2 med hive squadrons per ship does well. the bombers and fighters take up creatures focus and they kill it in 5 secs.

i was hoping to see if there was a better option as there are so many of these rift ones its annoying and i wanted to farm out 4x 10 fleets of frigs to see if that would work with a certain weapon.

the fleet setting info you gave was a help, ty

[voxdei20]

Fighters. The rift striders can't deal with fighters. I gave my mining stations a medium fighter bay and long range torps. They will take out the rift striders even though the striders have 10 times the combat rating. I've only lost a couple of mining stations when the striders jump right on top of the station. The striders are more of a pest to private ships.

[SgtScum]

Weirdly enough a single zenox derelict destroyer with concussion missiles has no issues taking out near any single space creature when set to cautious stance. It can even take out strong vordikar once you unlock fighters since it has a fighter bay. When I get a home system spawn with one in system I can hold off on building any type of warships for a very long time as that one destroyer will wipe out everything in its fuel range. But otherwise a few frigates with torp/missile or a destroyer with the same can kill most space creatures easily 1 v 1. Dunno about rift striders because I haven't played the expansion yet.

[gocdavies]

Originally posted by voxdei20:

Fighters. The rift striders can't deal with fighters. I gave my mining stations a medium fighter bay and long range torps. They will take out the rift striders even though the striders have 10 times the combat rating. I've only lost a couple of mining stations when the striders jump right on top of the station. The striders are more of a pest to private ships.

yep that is what i did. med hive fighter bay, long range torps, long range rail gun. all shields and augmented energy. they seem to be able to take care of themselves now. and ive put med hive or large hive and maxed out all hanger slots on all designs except my point defence ships. to ensure fighters and bombers overwhelm enemy. thats been the rick so far.

the most annoying aspact about the game is that the fleets dont position out of hyperspace where i asked them to. they are all over the place on the target and never as a group. even when i asked to be "tight". its cost me several ships that end up in the middle of creatures or fleets and die instantly.

they really need to sort that out about the game. it should never be an issue pin pointing where you want fleets to come out of hyperspace. because if it was a real thing. a % of ships would be lost when they ram into planets and other ships etc. so cant build in a issue like that and not have it replicated throughout game. all ships either need to come out of warp at the spot ive designated or non do.