Trying something new: Dedicated Picket Ships

[Leigh]

Usually I whack one Titan and as many Battleships as possible in any given fleet, at least one section for point defence weaponary per craft and just load them out as I desire.

In my current playthrough I got both Arc Emitters and Cloud Lightning together for the first time so I'm giving them a try against the Prethoryn that have shown up.

As the Emitter is a "X" sized weapon my Battleships now lack PD, so I'm adding in a few Destroyers as dedicated picket ships, something I have never done before. Would it be best to not load weapons on them at all, so they stay back? I can imagine they get eaten petty soonish if allowed to lead the charge.

Or, should I make room for some Corvettes to evasion tank and hold them in place for the big boys to stay back and pew? Never used Corvettes in endgame before so I'm interested in peoples opinions.

[Subject_Zero]

I only use corvettes with max evasion and auto cannon and torpedoes. But dedicated fleets are cool and should work fine

[Leigh]

Originally posted by Subject Zero:

I only use corvettes with max evasion and auto cannon and torpedoes. But dedicated fleets are cool and should work fine

Not dedicated fleets, really, just ships within a fleet.

[HugsAndSnuggles]

Range ship stops at in combat depends on its computer. If you want destroyers to stay with battleships you'll have to use the same one for both. That said, destroyers are (usually) faster so they will take first shots regardless.

If you want dedicated picket ship, I'd look past corvettes: you'll need 1.5 times more of them to "counter" missiles (roughly 1:1 PD:missile ratio), thus reducing available DPS (provided you do have a finite naval capacity). I'd also not bother with battleships against scourge (L+PD destroyers should work just fine), but that's me.

[Shinzor]

My setup is for every single battleship I make 2 cruisers,4 destroyers and 8 corvets, when I get titans my first is always the regen one and I do not add a second titan till after my first 3-5 fleets have one when I do it's normaly the one that makes it harder for the other guys to disengage as higher losses mean higher war exhaustion for them, my corvest have pure dmg but no missles(two anti shield and one anti armor/hull) my destroyers are set with one large weapon and the back is PD, the cruisers are set with one large weapon or missles and the hanger bay so I can add PD and a medium turret, the battle ships are always lancer weapon with two anti armor/hull weapons and 4(I think) anti shield weapons, I adjust my weapons for whats needed like more armor/hull dmg for the Prethorens, this setup seem to give me more than enough PD while still giving me good evasion thanks to the corvets and good dmg thanks to the battleships/destroyers.
I forgot I also stack disengage as repairing is better than buying new ships and you can get a bonus 88% or something close to that when disegaging if you have starbase support with the right building on it

[tempest.of.emptiness]

I use cruisers as my picket ships, and then throw some M and S weapons on them so they can be taking care of enemy destroyers and corvettes. Picket Destroyers could work too, but as you noted your losses will be higher. Of course, they are just destroyers, so fast to rebuild. The important thing is that you aren't losing battleships.

[Leigh]

I just wanna say thatks for these comments here and I'll go over them when I'm not so short on time.

I do however want to state this is not a "How do I handle the Prethoryn?" thread, I've stomped them a few times already and did so easily last night. I just wanted to test out dedicated picket ships as my Battleships are now fitted with the X size Focused Arc Emitter, a weapon I have never used before, but has required me to lose the Picket Bow which is what I usually use.

I like the idea of Rocket Corvettes being "bait" essentially, but I've never needed them in the past. Enemy lines typically cumble by the time they reach my Titan/Battleship fleets.

Also, apologies that this post seems to have been posted twice, so I deleted the other one. Apologies to those that posted in that thread.

[TwoTonTuna]

Originally posted by lei07:

Usually I whack one Titan and as many Battleships as possible in any given fleet, at least one section for point defence weaponary per craft and just load them out as I desire.

In my current playthrough I got both Arc Emitters and Cloud Lightning together for the first time so I'm giving them a try against the Prethoryn that have shown up.

As the Emitter is a "X" sized weapon my Battleships now lack PD, so I'm adding in a few Destroyers as dedicated picket ships, something I have never done before. Would it be best to not load weapons on them at all, so they stay back? I can imagine they get eaten petty soonish if allowed to lead the charge.

Or, should I make room for some Corvettes to evasion tank and hold them in place for the big boys to stay back and pew? Never used Corvettes in endgame before so I'm interested in peoples opinions.

In my experience, destroyers tend to die far faster than corvettes when it comes to PD duties. End-game corvettes simply have so much evasion that they avoid most shots that would normally hit a destroyer. destroyers might present more point defense than their corvette counterparts, but they offer so little firepower and die way too quickly to be cost-effective.

I find it more efficient to mass battleships and titans that can alpha-strike enemy fleets even before they get into range. arc emitters work wonders against AI empire fleets, either destroying ships or forcing a premature jump--weakening the enemy fleets right before they get into brawling range. against the prethoryn, I prefer using tachyon lasers and photon torpedoes to melt them down before they even get within striking range.