Any advices against AI doomstacks?

[Monarch]

Title^

[CthuluIsSpy]

Build one of your own. Or just don't engage them and gut their empire while all of their fleets are attacking a fortress world at a choke point. Ideally you should be having doom stacks of your own, either through having a massive empire, a bunch of vassals or a federation.

[ChrisK(Germany)]

My solution to ai doomstacks was, since i play nonagressive = if ai declares war they think they can win, to stay with my fleets massed in their direction of attack in a prepared fortress system. A fortress system for me is a system with either a habitat or planet or multiple of those dedicated to ground defense armies together with Orbital Rings and a powerful system starbase build to be a massive defensive Bulwark. Even without fleet support that system broke ai doomstacks on their own - BUT - you really shouldnt do this without fleet support of either same strenght or about 35% less ships than the enemy whos attacking the system if he has superior tech, especially if you play with mods that add powerful weapon and shield modules. If you are far behind in tech you will need to field atleast the same amount of ships your enemy has even if they are inferior since your defense station/ Orbital Rings + their defense stations you can build there will add firepower, debuffs to the enemy with the right modules and extra targets to divert firepower.

[ChrisK(Germany)]

To get them to attack those fortress systems just have those as the only way to enter your space.

[ChrisK(Germany)]

Or if the enemies vessels are mostly bigger ships like cruisers or battleships like they massproduced in some of my games then use cloaking frigates with the best torps you can fit them with and park them infront of the hyperspace exit they have to go through, when they hyperspace in you uncloak when they right in the middle of your fleet and watch as your torps make the big ships go boom. DO NOT try this against destroyers/ corvettes, this wont work well against them and isnt worth the frigates cost

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Monarch:

Title^

Federation fleets are good practice for it, because they are the doomstack.

If you're on the offensive against one, bring more firepower.

If you're on the defensive because some federation keeps throwing its megafleet at you, then you're gonna need to mass your fleets to face it.

I'm not sure how well it works right now, but when planetary FTL was still a thing, you could build fleet traps with your fortresses. in general you want to focus your defense on a chokepoint where you can rapidly mass your fleet. As they progress inward, you close in with rear fleets to shred any hyperlane network they might want to use. Leave a force sizeable enough to take down a normal AI fleet patrolling the border. If you maim but don't kill the megafleet, the AI will keep trying to reinforce it,. Then you can cut off its line of supply and watch it wither until you can overwhelm it.

[Bermag]

If your doom stack is smaller than theirs then try to make them split their fleet which they do sometimes. usually when they are past your choke point they might split up and attack different planets/fleets

[Eldrin]

Spy on them, find out their ship designs and counter it. Or send some ships to suicide to find out the designs.

Countering ship designs and win you fights where you are 1:4

[ChrisK(Germany)]

Depends on your enemies tech level, if they are very far ahead of you the odds go from 1:4 to 1:2, i had a modded game once there was a hive mind with the better modded weaponry and defense modules and even with me having a 6:1 advantage i lost, i took half their fleet with me thanks to it being my fortress system but still.

[ChrisK(Germany)]

The weapons were like gamma laser + or better neutronium armor, nothing completely ridiculous

[ambershee]

One suggestion I've not seen here, is that you can just give them the run-around. If you are outgunned, it can make sense to break your fleets down into multiple smaller fleets, so that you can attack more targets at once - if their big fleet gets within a few systems of your smaller one, keep moving it away. This works best if you're on the defensive, as you can take their territory much faster than they will take yours, and break them economically.

[GM Pax]

Turtle.

Find a chokepoint system. Build the starbase up for pure military might, max out the Defense Platforms.

Then park a strong fleet in orbit of that station.

Let the waves of their attack crash and shatter against the rock of your fortified system. :)