Understanding the battle logs?

[Beat Wiz Spider]

Hello there, spacies! I hope this question hasn't been elaborated on already. I tried searching for an explanation of how to read the spaceship post-battle logs, but I couldn't find anything.

I really want to enjoy Stellaris, and I started playing again after buying the Apocalypse expansion. I'm getting attacked by a lot of pirates, and I'm tired of losing my ships (corvettes cost so much!) to these raiders. So I figured it's time to learn how to read the reports and respond to the enemy's composition.

I followed the tutorial for a bit until it eased up. It didn't really give any detail on battle or building ships (I haven't even touched shipbuilding yet to avoid getting lost.)

Essentially, how do I read the bottom percentages? I'm not sure if the percentages tell me if my side was doing x% damage or taking x% damage. How should I refit my ships based on what the data shows?

Thanks for being patient with me!

[Elitewrecker PT]

Okay to begin with, it's easier to refit based on inspecting the enemy ships rather than the logs, since this allows you to design/retrofit ships BEFORE the first fight, giving you already an advantage.
The logs themselves aren't CRITICALLY useful but basically:

Beneath the left side it details YOUR damage output;

Detailing your average efficiency against the three defensive "barriers" as well as the efficiency against each separately, namely Hull, Armor and Shields as well as enemy missiles/strike craft shot-down by your Point Defense. After that it shows your hit ratio (100% - (enemy evasion + misses) so how many of your shots hit.

The efficiencies have to do with the fact that specific weapons have bonus damage against one type of defense and penalties against another. Simple version: energy weapons have bonus damage against hull and armor but less damage while the enemy has shields. Inversely: kinetics have bonus against shields but less against armor (autocannons have bonus against hull as well to make up for shorter range. Explosives are different in that they completely ignore shields (but can be shot down by point defense)



Right side is the same but for the enemy, so the damage dealt (and it's efficiency) against Hull, Armor, etc. against your ships, as well as its hit ratio and evasion.



Again, the only thing different between reading the logs and inspecting the ships, is the difference between an empirical test and a theoretical test. By inspecting beforehand you can design ships specifically against your enemy. In this case, pirates use only kinetics so you're better off filling your ships with armor, and they use a mix of shields with armor with more armor than shields, IIRC, I think you can see what to do.

[Beat Wiz Spider]

Oh dude, thank you so much for the explanation AND practical advice! This will help me out in the early game. I'll have to be sure to pay attention to the outfits of other enemies other than pirates, since I imagine each empire probably has a weapon and defense preference. :)

[Elitewrecker PT]

AI will usually have an equal mix of shields and armor, but do favour a certain type of damage (still has every kind though)