what's the new ship meta

[Protoindoeuropean]

haven't played since Federations, loaded up a new game on commodore, currently at 2310. Have 3 50k fleets w/ like 40-50 disruptor corvettes, 15-20 torpedo/disruptor cruisers, and like 4 tachyon/artillery battleships, 4 arc emitter/hangar battleships and the dreadnought.

I went and attacked a megacorp w/ weaker power, engaged his 100k fleet power citadel and got my butthole reamed. Like all the corvettes, cruisers, just BTFO.

What are the best ship builds and fleet compositions right now?

[Jack the Roamer]

Cruisers decked out with armor and lasers is a good option. I run armored cruisers with 3 burners and corvette swarms with disruptors. Frigates a separate fleet with cloaking. I don't run battleships unless there is a crisis I need to counter. If you become the crisis, nanite swam missiles with armored and ancient hardened shields on cruisers/destroyers/corvettes/ will obliterate everything. But so will corvette swarms with disruptors I guess, just slower.

Alternatively, 2ac+PD on corvettes. Battleships, tachyon lance and strike craft. This is the reason i carry around cloaked frigate assault fleets

[tracker947.gv]

Corvettes are a joke due to Hull HP nerfs. From my personal experience, Tachyon/artillery battleships are still best against the AI. Missile Cruisers are also very strong from what I've heard, but haven't tested them. Mixed fleets in my experience don't seem necessary or optimal against the AI. Mixing in a few carrier battleships or something to deal with smaller ships might be good, but I personally just throw the M slot missiles into the back of my artillery battleships (and also Psionic Ascension can give you +10 tracking if you're lucky). Generally, bigger alpha strike has done more to reduce the damage I take in fights than more point defense.

Against another player, I'd probably be more concerned about mixing it up or fielding carriers/point defense, as missile/torpedo designs from smaller ships can trade very cost effectively against artillery battleships.

[High Lord Pickle Pee]

The only mixed fleet that works is destroyer/frigate in the early game and BB/cruiser in late game. Notice how I said works and not optimal because BB monofleets work the best (in pve afaik) because their casualties aren't nearly as high as any smaller escorts and are therefore easier to replace.

In terms of loadouts, energy and kinetic weapons eat ♥♥♥♥ to disruptors, strike craft, and whirlwind missiles. Yes, you heard that right disruptors and whirlwind missiles are actually good now. But now the meta is high-speed kiting, where you're ships keep a distance and hit the enemy with missiles/strike/craft/arc-emitters. After extensive testing in cheat games, I've found that the best loadouts (again, monofleets) are s-slot missile and swarmer missile destroyers in early game, pure WW missile cruisers mid-game, and arc-emitter/hanger bay/WW missile Battleships in the late game.

So the meta is still pretty much just as rigid as it used to be, just different.

[corisai]

Originally posted by High Lord Pickle Pee:

Notice how I said works and not optimal because BB monofleets work the best (in pve afaik) because their casualties aren't nearly as high as any smaller escorts and are therefore easier to replace.

They don't work the best. Monofleet BB (with small corvette screen) are passable and not more.

Originally posted by High Lord Pickle Pee:

But now the meta is high-speed kiting, where you're ships keep a distance and hit the enemy with missiles/strike/craft/arc-emitters.

Early game combats, yes.

Don't even try against GA FE or x10-x25 crisis - missiles are both hit HARD by repeatables (once enemy have enough +energy damage it PD will one-shot missiles turning them into crap weapon) and don't capable to deal proper alpha strike.

Strike craft will hold much longer (you need really crazy bonuses to one-shot them by PD) but still vulnerable to alpha strike.

Kiting is working to some degree, but when many fleets are involved sometimes your ships will get caught even with incredible speed advantage.

Originally posted by High Lord Pickle Pee:

and arc-emitter/hanger bay/WW missile Battleships in the late game.

Yes, with some corvettes as fire magnets it's a best "universal" design against AI. Again, not that great vs AE or overbuffed crisis, so expect heavy losses here.

Tachyon lance + KA BB (with 3x enigmatic decoder) with support of NT-cruisers (THAT USING AN OBSOLETE ENGINE AND LINE COMPUTER!!! super important) are pretty murderours to everything but corvettes and much more efficient against x10-25 crisis (of course better to fine-tune their weapons&defenses against exact type crisis). Mixed with carriers they're pretty much universal solution even up to 2500+ date.

[Ryika]

Best fleets are mono fleets of Corvettes with no weapons on them. Sure, you'll not destroy anything without weapons, but by not adding and weapons you also reduce the ship costs, so you'll have more of them.

[DYNIA]

Originally posted by Cameron's Trenbolone Injections:

haven't played since Federations, loaded up a new game on commodore, currently at 2310. Have 3 50k fleets w/ like 40-50 disruptor corvettes, 15-20 torpedo/disruptor cruisers, and like 4 tachyon/artillery battleships, 4 arc emitter/hangar battleships and the dreadnought.

I went and attacked a megacorp w/ weaker power, engaged his 100k fleet power citadel and got my butthole reamed. Like all the corvettes, cruisers, just BTFO.

What are the best ship builds and fleet compositions right now?

this build you use can be easy rekt by armor hardening and armor stack also don't forget about PD, every battleship with carriers use it

[corisai]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Best fleets are mono fleets of Corvettes with no weapons on them. Sure, you'll not destroy anything without weapons, but by not adding and weapons you also reduce the ship costs, so you'll have more of them.

You're joking in era of 90% ship cost reduction, right? :)

Techinically - yes, in early game disruptor corvettes are countered only by mono-missiles corvettes, but AI isn't building them.

In late game mono-corvettes are meh, high casualities, low kill ration (even if they're winning). Really strong enemies usually have strike craft and strike craft will butcher vetes.

Originally posted by DYNIA:

this build you use can be easy rekt by armor hardening and armor stack also don't forget about PD, every battleship with carriers use it

I would also add - not very efficient brawler cruisers (they don't synerge well with BB) or battleships (same with cruiser & corvettes & carrier battleships).

I would fix that - either remove artillery battleships (turn them into carrier one) or reduce amount of corvettes & cruisers + remake cruisers into NT-one (again: very important to use Line computer on them AND obsolete thrusters - so they will fire only after battleships in any situation, that will make NT absolutely brutal weapon).

[MadArtillery]

Honestly pretty varied right now, disruptors got pretty crazy, hull damage reducing enemy ship stats now means every disruptor hit is a dps drop to the enemy, missles are way better with ship ai actually kiting meaning if you can get a speed advantage early with destroyers you can kill fleets without taking a single hit back. Got the early meta down pretty well but lategame still not 100% sure. Spamming torpedos does seem pretty lethal however. Be careful with minimum ranges as a corvette spam with maxed evasion can get into minimum range so spamming XL and L weapons can really screw you and leave them 100% helpless. Most interesting combat has been for awhile.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by corisai:

You're joking in era of 90% ship cost reduction, right? :)

90% cost reduction makes them even better: You can throw them at the enemy, lose all of them while not dealing any damage, almost instantly rebuild them and do the same again. It's wave after wave of ships that cannot attack until the enemy is so confused that it sues for peace.

[ScreamCon]

Originally posted by Ryika:

90% cost reduction makes them even better: You can throw them at the enemy, lose all of them while not dealing any damage, almost instantly rebuild them and do the same again. It's wave after wave of ships that cannot attack until the enemy is so confused that it sues for peace.

I think your confusing 100% ship cost reduction.

[DYNIA]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Honestly pretty varied right now, disruptors got pretty crazy, hull damage reducing enemy ship stats now means every disruptor hit is a dps drop to the enemy, missles are way better with ship ai actually kiting meaning if you can get a speed advantage early with destroyers you can kill fleets without taking a single hit back. Got the early meta down pretty well but lategame still not 100% sure. Spamming torpedos does seem pretty lethal however. Be careful with minimum ranges as a corvette spam with maxed evasion can get into minimum range so spamming XL and L weapons can really screw you and leave them 100% helpless. Most interesting combat has been for awhile.

laugh in armor hardening make your disruptors useless

[Banelord]

Originally posted by Cameron's Trenbolone Injections:

haven't played since Federations, loaded up a new game on commodore, currently at 2310. Have 3 50k fleets w/ like 40-50 disruptor corvettes, 15-20 torpedo/disruptor cruisers, and like 4 tachyon/artillery battleships, 4 arc emitter/hangar battleships and the dreadnought.

I went and attacked a megacorp w/ weaker power, engaged his 100k fleet power citadel and got my butthole reamed. Like all the corvettes, cruisers, just BTFO.

What are the best ship builds and fleet compositions right now?

close combat: disruptors, torpedoes, lasers are now OP as well for medium and long, and missiles are op for long range, generally.

best tier is ancient missile swarm, and disruptors

[xycotta]

Originally posted by Ryika:

Best fleets are mono fleets of Corvettes with no weapons on them. Sure, you'll not destroy anything without weapons, but by not adding and weapons you also reduce the ship costs, so you'll have more of them.

Just add a ram to the front of them(aka heavy armor to the front) and they work fine, low cost.

[Bumc]

Late game should still be artillery or carrier battleships.
Especially now that you don't have to waste slots on hardening because admirals.

Torpedoes sure, but frigates don't get to reach anything late game, and die like flies in prolonged combats. Corvettes getting close can be annoying, but with huge dispersed fleets it just means that they get sniped by something else, and evasion caps at 90% which is often not enough to beat top level sensors.

Ideal naval force late game would probably be something like
* A mass of long range battleships
* Some smaller fleets of mobile destroyers or cruisers with whirlwind missiles to raid and counter-raid
* Renewable meatshields of corvettes to delay enemies getting in fistfight range with battleships.

The stronger you are compared to the enemy the less diversity you need to use.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Bumc:

Late game should still be artillery or carrier battleships.
Especially now that you don't have to waste slots on hardening because admirals.

Torpedoes sure, but frigates don't get to reach anything late game, and die like flies in prolonged combats.

Try to add to your battleship fleets a small amount of cruisers with NT and:
a) Line computer (goal: reduce range of their NT).
b) engine one tier below then BB are using (goal: make them a bit slower then BB).
As result KA will strike first and even a first strike of NT will hit targets without shields :)

That's especially work well if you're using mods that reduce AI usage of corvettes & frigates in late game in favor of bigger ships.