Going Over Naval Cap

[Lightning Kachowski]

Hey guys so I'm rather new to Stellaris and I'm loving it. I'm pretty stumped when it comes to war. I have right now a 20k navy, but all of a sudden the AI has a 40k! At this point I'm thinking that the naval cap is just a "suggestion" and you might as well go over the cap if you can handle the penalty. Now I know there's an acension that gives you +200 and I'm noticing now it was a mistake not to get that first... rip. Anyway am I correc that it's only a suggestion? Or am I doing something wrong. I know that the AI cheats to not get stomped too.

Edit: Actually I shouldn't say cheat, but more... gets boosted?

[Radene]

Yeah it's more of a suggestion. As long as you have the economy to support a larger fleet, go for it. All going over does it increase the upkeep faster.

[Lightning Kachowski]

That's what I was starting to think. Thanks!

[Bapkat]

Yeah Naval Capacity is a soft cap. The AI know that they can go over a certain point and still handle all the penalties to their upkeep. Just play it smart, Go over your cap but not to ap oint where you can't sustain it, or you'll lose strength.

[Radene]

Originally posted by Azua:

Yeah Naval Capacity is a soft cap. The AI know that they can go over a certain point and still handle all the penalties to their upkeep. Just play it smart, Go over your cap but not to ap oint where you can't sustain it, or you'll lose strength.

The most devious trap is skirting the line when your fleets are anchored. Once you deploy them, you won't believe just how fast your stockpiles start to drain.

[Peter34]

Yes, you can go over the Naval Cap. In fact, you often should go over it. Not just for offence, or active defence, but also to deter hostile empires from declaring war on you. If you look weak, they'll war dec you. If you look strong, they won't.

But beware of that Ascension Perk. It's a flat bonus. Although it does synergize with the +10 NavCap Techs, and with the Grand Fleet Edict, it's a Perk that's very well suited to "Tall" empires, and very poorly suited to "Wide"-type empires.

To get more Naval Capacity, grow more POPulation units (including Robots, Droids, Slaves, etc), build and upgrade Space Stations, and build Habitats. And get those +10% Techs.

[Immortalits]

Honestly, I realy don't know why there is a naval cap in the game, that works in this way, it's either a hardcap ir should not exist, this 50-50 version is a good-for-nothing stuff.
Not to mention, fleet power doesn't even show the real power of a fleet.

[Peter34]

I disagree *very* strongly.

Hard caps are inferior IN ALL WAYS to soft caps. They’re bad game mechanics design.

[Cerebral Daemon]

Originally posted by Immortalits:

Honestly, I realy don't know why there is a naval cap in the game, that works in this way, it's either a hardcap ir should not exist, this 50-50 version is a good-for-nothing stuff.
Not to mention, fleet power doesn't even show the real power of a fleet.

Umm... if there were no cap, you'd end up with players with millions upon millions in fleetpower roflstomping endgame crises without a single sweat, and if it was a hardcap, you'd end up with players with full stockpiles of resources still losing wars because an enemy has a bigger fleet than theirs and there's nothing they could do about it, no matter their excessive resources (and let's not mention it'd also kill tall play, on top of giving doomstacks a pretty severe buff (as if that wasn't enough of a problem already... -.-) ).

[Lightning Kachowski]

Originally posted by Peter34:

Yes, you can go over the Naval Cap. In fact, you often should go over it. Not just for offence, or active defence, but also to deter hostile empires from declaring war on you. If you look weak, they'll war dec you. If you look strong, they won't.

But beware of that Ascension Perk. It's a flat bonus. Although it does synergize with the +10 NavCap Techs, and with the Grand Fleet Edict, it's a Perk that's very well suited to "Tall" empires, and very poorly suited to "Wide"-type empires.

To get more Naval Capacity, grow more POPulation units (including Robots, Droids, Slaves, etc), build and upgrade Space Stations, and build Habitats. And get those +10% Techs.

Interesting. Why is it not really suited for wide empires? Is it cause it sort of a "waste" to pick that perk up when there are probably other perks that would benefeit more?

Also, does that exploit of getting a single corvette and going near the opponents capital world still work?

[Army Pea]

When I plan on going to war I will build past my fleet cap by as much as 30%.

Even if that puts me in an energy deficiency.

Then when I get into a massive fleet battle my loses will drop me down to fleet cap

[Peter34]

You get raw NavCap from POPs, Space Stations and Habitats.

This raw NavCap is then multiplied by a multiplier value, such as the +10% Techs. I think there are five of those.

The Perk adds to your raw NavCap value, but the problem is that if you’re playing a “wide” empire then you might already have a raw cap of 500 or 600. Taking the Perk would increase that value to 700 or 800.

You spend something precious - you only get to choose *eight* Perks in a game *ever* unless you use mods - to gain a relatively small bonus.

A “tall” empire might have a raw cap of 300 or 350. For that empire, the Perks additional 200 is a significant boost. It’s worth it to gain a permant 33% or so boost to NavCap.

Even more so for a *very* tall empire, and extremely so for a One Planet Challenge empire.

[Senior Locos]

With larger galaxies 200 fleet cap is chump change. Colonize everything you can and put maxxed out spaceports on every backwater. Spaceports, pops and vassals (in descending order, with the right traditions) add the most to fleet capacity. Assuming you've maxxed out the fleet cap techs that is.

I've been at ~1700/900 fleet cap when dealing with the onset of a crisis, and up to 2100/1500 when getting around to conquoring Fallen Empires/the galaxy for a victory condition on a 800+ star galaxy.

Go over as much as needed, if you can. A dyson sphere may be required for obsence overages though. 1700/900 worked out to about +130% to fleet upkeep costs. That is 1700 in ships, with 900 capacity. Once fleets left port I operated close to a deficit energy-wise even with a fully operational dyson sphere (and Machine empire), but losses quickly put me back into the positive. At that point late-game minerals shouldn't be an issue, the time to replace ships and get them with your fleets is more precious.

[Lightning Kachowski]

Okay I see. Yeah I've been trying to build up my pop as much as I can and I've upgraded all my stations so far. Though how do you build habitats

[Tewa]

Habitats are a late-game item that requires the Voidborne Ascendance Perk.

[Lightning Kachowski]

Okay that makes sense. I guess I know my mistake... I saw the most ridiculous deathstack of 222k... Looks like I gotta doomstack it up.