What is a good fleet repartition early/mid/late game ?

[Lord Sankari]

I'm still learning the game, 72 hours put in so far.

As I am not comfortable yet for the military ship optimization yet, I wanted to know what is a good balance of fleet tier including corvets, destroyers and cruisers ? With 20/30/40/50 squad capacity ?
thanks in advance

[Breakingzap]

Late game you can do just battleships or corvettes I useally don'y bother with destroyers or cruisers

[Lord Sankari]

Originally posted by Breakingzap:

Late game you can do just battleships or corvettes I useally don'y bother with destroyers or cruisers

thanks for the answer. yeah I see, so corvettes are that strong ? A friend of mine explained me the 50% evasion bonus, stackable with other bonus, is op for them. Is your army mainly corvettes then ?

And when you are mid game, is it better to build full corvettes anyway or adding destroyers, cruisers makes sense ?

[prime_resistor]

Unfortunately, bigger ships are pretty much always better, so there's not much room for varying strategy in ship composition.

By late game, you'll probably just want battleships and titans. Torpedo corvette swarms can counter artillery battleships, but hangars counter corvettes, so a fleet of 70% artillery battleships and 30% carrier battleships will counter corvettes and have a lot of firepower for anything else.

Another possibly strong strategy is going pure destroyers. Destroyers can get to high evasion stats if you stack a lot of modifiers, and have a better chance of disengaging from combat than corvettes when they are on low hull points. Destroyers can equip large weapons, which is key for competing in the late game artillery meta, but in early/mid game often better to give them small and medium weapons since those are better against corvettes and destroyers.

Cruisers are good mid game, but become obsolete when battleships come into play, since they just can't compete against X-slot weapons.

I think you'll like the YouTube channel Montu Plays. He's made a lot of good videos about fleet composition where he tests different strategies and analyzes the results.

[Rtas Vadumee]

Originally posted by Lord Sankari:

I'm still learning the game, 72 hours put in so far.

As I am not comfortable yet for the military ship optimization yet, I wanted to know what is a good balance of fleet tier including corvets, destroyers and cruisers ? With 20/30/40/50 squad capacity ?
thanks in advance

It depends what fleet you are facing but battleships usually are the best but expensive, if you are facing corvettes just use hangerbase battleships, if the target is bigger use L sections. Against the crisis (x5 or less) I go full battleships with maximum range weapons (shield+kinetic for the unbiddens and armor+energy against the scourge), combined with the dreadnought bonus to range you can deal a lot of damage before the enemy even reaches you and have minimal losses

[RawCode]

playing PVP and PVE are completely different in stellaris.

in case of PVE, all you need is to rush carrier cruisers ASAP ignoring everything else and snip capitals from nearby AIs.

2-3 capitals ensure that you will be much much stronger and snowball out of control, reaching FE level by 2300.

in PVP rules are completely different and snipping capital not an option (if you are not playing vs random noobs), mostly because you will need FE level ground forces for this, especially if everyone knows meta and goes "bunker necromancer".

[Lord Sankari]

Thanks guys. If I sum this up, you would agree it's always best to invest on next tier ships until battleships, and low tier ships only used for some specific counter ? And maybe the full destroyer build ?

Btw I play mostly PVE but with a friend and we allow fighting each other if game state allow it.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Lord Sankari:

Originally posted by Breakingzap:

Late game you can do just battleships or corvettes I useally don'y bother with destroyers or cruisers

thanks for the answer. yeah I see, so corvettes are that strong ? A friend of mine explained me the 50% evasion bonus, stackable with other bonus, is op for them. Is your army mainly corvettes then ?

And when you are mid game, is it better to build full corvettes anyway or adding destroyers, cruisers makes sense ?

The evasion cap is 90%. That makes them almost impossible to hit with larger weapons in early game but later on, better computers make tracking a lot better (To hit = Hit% - (Evasion - Tracking) so tougher ships become more important since you can't dodge as well any more. As for climbing the ship class ladder, it really depends on how much pressure you are feeling. Sometimes you can go directly from corvettes to battleships, sometimes you are under pressure to build tougher ships to resist your enemy. But eventually, the meta is all big guns battleships, with good computers, they got a 75%-85% chance to hit even with large guns like the Giga Cannon which can vaporize any corvette in a single hit, so the smaller ships become functionally useless other than as anti-piracy patrols.

[Half Phased]

Late game, the ultimate meta is FAE battleships. And then either carrier core or artillery core.

With the carrier core, that gives them 2/3rds of the hangar capacity of a full carrier fleet and the FAE that ignores all defences (which can mean a 1 shot against most targets). Even evasion maxed corvettes are going to take losses from FAEs on approach, before hitting the fighter swarm.

Artillery core just backs up the FAE with more guns such as neutron launchers and kinetic artillery. Meaning more chances to score hits. Sure, you have to actually break through the enemy defenses (unlike the carrier build that skips shields) but that’s countered by MOAR DAKKA and the fact that guns start shooting before fighters do.

Ultimately, both builds are capable of defeating corvette swarms by stacking hit chance and tracking modifiers (an FAE can easily hit 35% hit chance against corvettes without titan or computer effects (55 - 60% with computer effects, depending on whether or not the ship is using precognitive computers and 65-70% with a titan tracking aura)) and thanks to FAEs being 1 hit kills for a corvette 90% of the time, alongside fire rate increases from admirals, computers and techs, a corvette rush into a battleship fleet can only win one way, catching it point blank at a jump point.

[Lord Sankari]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by Lord Sankari:

thanks for the answer. yeah I see, so corvettes are that strong ? A friend of mine explained me the 50% evasion bonus, stackable with other bonus, is op for them. Is your army mainly corvettes then ?

And when you are mid game, is it better to build full corvettes anyway or adding destroyers, cruisers makes sense ?

The evasion cap is 90%. That makes them almost impossible to hit with larger weapons in early game but later on, better computers make tracking a lot better (To hit = Hit% - (Evasion - Tracking) so tougher ships become more important since you can't dodge as well any more. As for climbing the ship class ladder, it really depends on how much pressure you are feeling. Sometimes you can go directly from corvettes to battleships, sometimes you are under pressure to build tougher ships to resist your enemy. But eventually, the meta is all big guns battleships, with good computers, they got a 75%-85% chance to hit even with large guns like the Giga Cannon which can vaporize any corvette in a single hit, so the smaller ships become functionally useless other than as anti-piracy patrols.

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Late game, the ultimate meta is FAE battleships. And then either carrier core or artillery core.

With the carrier core, that gives them 2/3rds of the hangar capacity of a full carrier fleet and the FAE that ignores all defences (which can mean a 1 shot against most targets). Even evasion maxed corvettes are going to take losses from FAEs on approach, before hitting the fighter swarm.

Artillery core just backs up the FAE with more guns such as neutron launchers and kinetic artillery. Meaning more chances to score hits. Sure, you have to actually break through the enemy defenses (unlike the carrier build that skips shields) but that’s countered by MOAR DAKKA and the fact that guns start shooting before fighters do.

Ultimately, both builds are capable of defeating corvette swarms by stacking hit chance and tracking modifiers (an FAE can easily hit 35% hit chance against corvettes without titan or computer effects (55 - 60% with computer effects, depending on whether or not the ship is using precognitive computers and 65-70% with a titan tracking aura)) and thanks to FAEs being 1 hit kills for a corvette 90% of the time, alongside fire rate increases from admirals, computers and techs, a corvette rush into a battleship fleet can only win one way, catching it point blank at a jump point.

Thanks for your answers.

Sorry I am not used to acronymes in this game, what is FAE ? a tech from what branch ? What does it cost to use it ? (from rare resource I mean)

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by Lord Sankari:

Thanks for your answers.

Sorry I am not used to acronymes in this game, what is FAE ? a tech from what branch ? What does it cost to use it ? (from rare resource I mean)

FAE stands for Focused Arc Emitter. The regular Arc Emitter can do the job as well, but the Focused Arc Emitter is just better. And typically is available 5-10 years later, so it can be common to not even use the Arc Emitters and skip straight to FAEs. Rare resource cost? neglible compared to everything else on a battleship.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Originally posted by Lord Sankari:

Thanks for your answers.

Sorry I am not used to acronymes in this game, what is FAE ? a tech from what branch ? What does it cost to use it ? (from rare resource I mean)

FAE stands for Focused Arc Emitter. The regular Arc Emitter can do the job as well, but the Focused Arc Emitter is just better. And typically is available 5-10 years later, so it can be common to not even use the Arc Emitters and skip straight to FAEs. Rare resource cost? neglible compared to everything else on a battleship.

Actually, the Arc emitter line of weapons has a very big flaw, they have such a wide range of damage values that you have a chance of doing 1 damage on a hit. Things like the Gigas and the Tachyons might have to chew through shields and armor but their damage potential is much more reliable. Go check the damage range of the Arc Emitter line of weapons, they all have a minimum damage of 1. Which means that their damage is very luck based.

[Half Phased]

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Originally posted by Half Phased:

FAE stands for Focused Arc Emitter. The regular Arc Emitter can do the job as well, but the Focused Arc Emitter is just better. And typically is available 5-10 years later, so it can be common to not even use the Arc Emitters and skip straight to FAEs. Rare resource cost? neglible compared to everything else on a battleship.

Actually, the Arc emitter line of weapons has a very big flaw, they have such a wide range of damage values that you have a chance of doing 1 damage on a hit. Things like the Gigas and the Tachyons might have to chew through shields and armor but their damage potential is much more reliable. Go check the damage range of the Arc Emitter line of weapons, they all have a minimum damage of 1. Which means that their damage is very luck based.

1-1700 for a focused arc emitter. Which means an average of 850 per shot.

And while, yes, 1 shot can roll 1 damage, the objective is to have as many arc emitters as possible such that one rolling 1 damage is balanced out by one rolling 1700 damage. Large averages balance themselves out, so unless you’ve somehow upset RNGesus and roll statistically improbably, assume that the 108 damage per day of the FAE is reliable.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Half Phased:

Originally posted by Mistfox:

Actually, the Arc emitter line of weapons has a very big flaw, they have such a wide range of damage values that you have a chance of doing 1 damage on a hit. Things like the Gigas and the Tachyons might have to chew through shields and armor but their damage potential is much more reliable. Go check the damage range of the Arc Emitter line of weapons, they all have a minimum damage of 1. Which means that their damage is very luck based.

1-1700 for a focused arc emitter. Which means an average of 850 per shot.

And while, yes, 1 shot can roll 1 damage, the objective is to have as many arc emitters as possible such that one rolling 1 damage is balanced out by one rolling 1700 damage. Large averages balance themselves out, so unless you’ve somehow upset RNGesus and roll statistically improbably, assume that the 108 damage per day of the FAE is reliable.

Exactly on the "many guns" so IMO penetrating weapons are better on smaller slots where there are more of them while X slots are better filled with more conventional weapons due to lesser numbers. Or unless your enemy has a ♥♥♥♥ ton of armor/shield upgrades since it takes all that out of the equation.

[Kiethoo]

DON'T LISTEN TO THESE MIN MAXERS!

Run a Balanced Fleet, Carriers, Battleships, Torpedo Cruisers with Swarm AI, Corvettes with LINE Ai spamming Flak and Autocannon fire. Destroyers, Lots of Destroyers with Cloud Lightning set to Artillery.

EARLY GAME - DISRUPTORS. LOTS OF DISRUPTORS AND NOTHING ELSE. Just make sure you try to engage the enemy in blackhole systems as much as possible if you can help it.