Which is better?

[Darkner]

- A fleet which has a few different classes per ship type(i.e. corvettes, destroyers etc.) where each of the ship classes sppecialize in certain weapon types(carrier, lasers, rockets, picket etc.)

OR

- A fleet with one all-round class for each ship type, with a variety of weapons on every class, but it is also taking the ship type into consideration to maximize the effictivity.

Note: I am not taking any other empire weaponry into consideration for advantages and stuff. This is about fleet combat in general.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Technically it's former; but there are two roles in the fleet rithg now: PD and DPS. You, obviously, don't want to go overboard with DP (if you bother at all), so the only way to utilize it, is to make an anti-shield destroyer and mix it with some anti-armour/hull ship (using proper proportion). Guns are the only weapon system worth the bother, so, by the end of the day, battleship fleets with L guns rule supreme (maybe, with an odd titan mixed in).

[Meewec]

i personally go for a mixed fleet with generalized weapon setups and it works for me. i only specialize if i'm going to be dealing with a crisis soon or if it's a support fleet for a pulsar fortress.

my fleets are:
40 corvettes(interceptor) - 1 plasma, 2 autocannon, 1 shield, 2 armor and afterburners
20 destroyers - 2 laser(1m 1s), 2 mass driver(1m 1s), even split of armor/shield
10 cruisers - even mix of laser and mass driver(broadside parts), even split armor/shield
8 battleship - particle lance and kinetic artillery, even on armor/shield
1 titan - basically the same as battleship setup



is it ideal, who knows, is it perfect, i doubt it but it works for me. i tend to see my corvette swarm get in and destroyers/cruisers follow while my big ships sit back relatively unmolested

[Mistfox]

The problem is that if you generalize a fleet, some builds need mass to get through, for example throwing 10 missiles at an enemy fleet isn't likely to get through while 100 has a chance to overload their PD. Then there is the obvious error of not focusing on specific penetration if you are using penetrating weapons. What is the point of having 1 weapon hitting hull when the rest are stuck still chewing through shields vs going either all anti-shield to blast through the protection or going all penetrating to max damage to the enemy hull?

Specializing damage types give the best results. As for ship hulls, it depends on the time period. Early game, tracking is low, corvettes work wonderful in harassing enemy fleets without getting killed while the big guns blast holes in the enemy but late game, tracking makes even the 90% evasion unable to avoid damage, so tough ships like battleships become more important.

[Terminus]

Yeah I go 1-2-4-8-16 starting with the highest ship type I can build. And then change the weapon for whatever enemy you are facing, or just load with the best weapon you have.

[Gafwmn]

I guess the real question is.......modded or not . That will change your ship / weapon load-out depending on what you have running . And lets not forget this chap....Murphy's laws on combat operations .

Just inset ship where it says person . Now....if they could just get carriers working like they are supposed to.....invasion armies need love / close air support too................

[RhyoliTe]

I personally don't even bother with ship designs, I just build as many of the highest tier ships as I can, fill a fleet to max CP and it whipes pretty much all (presumed) well rounded ships the AI has around. If needed I'll make multiple such deathstacks.

Maybe its the auto-designer but I have noticed that filling a stack with destroyers or even some cruisers you just get less power per stack and they aren't more effective in combat by any means. Plus losses will be higher which requires you to replenish them constsantly. If I lose 1/20 battleships after a difficult fight that stack just needs to repair real quick and then is back in the fight w/o needing to wait for replenishments.

[MaGicBush]

Mixed fleets work just fine in sp. I tend to use missiles and lasers mostly unless a crisis requires something else.

[Nightmyre]

Mixed fleets have one major disadvantage that you guys aren't really getting in to - their overall movement speed is capped at the slowest ship, which means your corvettes will be travelling significantly slower because of the battleships in that fleet.

There also isn't really any significant reason to use destroyers or cruisers into late-game. Destroyers' main advantage is to be anti-corvette and anti-cruiser, but your corvettes can do the anti-corvette job just fine, and your battleships can do the anti-cruiser role. Likewise, cruisers are anti-destroyer and anti-battleship, but your corvettes can do the anti-destroyer and your battleships can do the anti-battleship.

But the main reason why mixed ships isn't ideal is just because by far the best approach is to kill your enemy before they can fire back - and having pure battleships just does that better.

If the AI were running a pure corvette fleet, sure, you wouldn't want to be running battleships, because you'd miss too often. But since the AI does mixed fleets, your battleships will simply wipe theirs out, along with their cruisers, which will leave them at half strength - at which point it's easy enough to force the rest out.

And so in late-game I pretty much run only battleships, with maybe one or two corvette fleets for fast response.

[uni790]

I pretty much don't use anything larger then the Corvettes myself. Always preferred swarm tactics over a few large ships :)

Usually built with an autocannon, and a missile.

[Nightmyre]

Originally posted by uni790:

I pretty much don't use anything larger then the Corvettes myself. Always preferred swarm tactics over a few large ships :)

Usually built with an autocannon, and a missile.

Where the corvette fleets fail is when you're up against the endgame crisis on higher crisis-strength games.

The problem is that the crisis fleet respawn is too fast for you to fight a war of attrition. Your only real chance of winning is to have fights where you simply don't lose any ships - and to accomplish that, you can't use corvettes.

With corvette fleets, even though you'll probably win, you'll end up losing a chunk of them each time, and constantly have to reinforce them. With battleships, you'll kill them without suffering any losses, if you have enough ships.

[Energist]

Originally posted by Darkner:

- A fleet which has a few different classes per ship type(i.e. corvettes, destroyers etc.) where each of the ship classes sppecialize in certain weapon types(carrier, lasers, rockets, picket etc.)

OR

- A fleet with one all-round class for each ship type, with a variety of weapons on every class, but it is also taking the ship type into consideration to maximize the effictivity.

Note: I am not taking any other empire weaponry into consideration for advantages and stuff. This is about fleet combat in general.

If it's a general combat fleet, a mix is fine. However, I think specialized fleets have their place.

Interceptor fleets require specialized corvettes only. These are your tacklers. Cheap and fast. They can engage while your main fleet catches up.

Multiple interceptor fleets can be used with high disengage chance to harass much larger/costlier fleets. If you have 3 tackler fleets, you can do some really consistent hit and run tactics.

Separate specialized fleets can engage together to create the benefits of a mixed fleet for the most part. The plus here is that after the fight, they're still separated into their specific fleets.

[happyscrub]

Mix fleets are worst because of the A.I. . Just web search "stellaris mono fleets". This subject has been talked about since stellaris was released. Mono fleets do better because mono fleets focus fire ships down more where as mixed fleets spread their damage out.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by RhyoliTe:

Maybe its the auto-designer but I have noticed that filling a stack with destroyers or even some cruisers you just get less power per stack

Because the autodesign slaps in point defence guns. Lower power per gun.

[Lady Crimson (RIP)]

I always do the later, I tend to favor focusing on hull damage weapons, and mixing up anti shields and anti-armor.

For example small weapons favor kinetic anti-hull, and larger favor anti-armor anti-hull.

[Nightmyre]

Originally posted by Lady Crimson:

I always do the later, I tend to favor focusing on hull damage weapons, and mixing up anti shields and anti-armor.

For example small weapons favor kinetic anti-hull, and larger favor anti-armor anti-hull.

I mean, that's not really true. Small weapons have all three options - for the even mix you have lasers and coilguns, for the anti-hull you have plasma and autocannon, and for the straight-to-hull you have disruptors. Large weapons have the same mix - you have lasers and coilguns for even mix, you have neutron / kinetic battery for the anti-hull, and you have arc emitters and cloud lightning for the straight-to-hull.