How do you build a good endgame fleet?

[Robin]

My first game is coming to an end, and while I'm quite happy overall, one thing I don't seem to understand is how to make a strong endgame fleet. I see enemies with 350k fleets and the highest I can manage is around 150k (with titans, so all my other fleets are around 80k-120k). I have maybe around 650k in total if I sum it all up, but recently one of the dormant empires has started back up and is now producing again and it's amassed about 1million of fleet power.

So I guess I've no idea how to scale into endgame with my fleet. Up until that point I've always been ahead or even with the normal empires, but I feel I'm missing something here

[BlazingAngel86]

Its been a while since I played, about a year now, but I always did a mix of all the ships each with a different load out to accommodate whatever the enemy would throw at me. I loved messing with the ship designs. Your FFs are easy to replace, and fast and can take out Capital ships pretty quick if they are set up right, DDs I used to protect arty BBs, and then a some to back up the FFs, can also use them to as PD, Point Defense, CLs, I would make mini aircraft carriers, PD variant, and torpedoes with Kinetic Drivers, BBs I would do a variant of all the mega weapons, Heavy Carrier bombers/fighters. Titans I don't really remember what I did with them, they had just been added when I started playing again lol. Max fleet power was around 2 mil or so. I would check but I can't get into my game since it keeps crashing on me.. Then again the save probably isn't viable anymore. Just have fun with it and try a bit of everything til you find what works for you. Glad to see the community still standing, and going strong.

[corisai]

Messaggio originale di BlazingAngel86:

but I always did a mix of all the ships each with a different load out to accommodate whatever the enemy would throw at me.

It always was a RP approach, weak compared to mono-fleets (and in very rare moments - duo-fleets).

I don't try to offend you - but IMHO people could RP without advices from community :) So community usually suggest strongest current meta fleets: like all-arounder cruisers (OP early, good in endgame just weak against most deadly enemies in vanilla), or artillery/carrier mix of battleships.

[CrUsHeR]

Messaggio originale di Robin:

why would ringworlds change the output so drastically though? Do they have modifiers the triple the science output of those scientists or something?

Ring Worlds get literally all their bonuses from their designation. These include pop growth speed, pop assembly, and raw research output.

Since planetary ascension boosts the designation effect, it is the most powerful when used on Ring Worlds.

Also there is no other place where you can have as many researchers in one place.



Example: All RW designations give 10% pop growth speed and assembly; With a lvl 10 planetary ascension you get a +250% to the desination, so now you're at +35% pop growth speed AND assembly.

For comparison, an Ecumenopolis only has +15% which never changes with ascension.


Also you get +15% research output from the Research RW designation, which is pretty weak but becomes 52.5% at lvl 10. If you also have Harmony traditions, this even becomes 63.225%.

For comparison, the Ecumenopolis is fixed at +20%, or +30% if it is a "former relic world". The designation only reduces researcher upkeep, at the same time it can only take about half as many reseachers.




TLDR; Ring Worlds are best for research, and best to spend unity on for planetary ascension. Nothing comes even close to being the same league.

[CrUsHeR]

Also lol@corisai still preaching the Artillery BBs with lance + kinetic artillery.

Dude, the reason why you think GA is so strong is that you're using inefficient designs.

I actually built a fleet yesterday with the 20 corvettes i still had, added 15 battleships with lances and kinetic artillery. Sent them against the Star Devourer.




Result was that the battle took like 1 year ingame because the battleships just fly in circles and only fire the kinetic artillery. The corvettes instantly died as expected, 5 battleships destroyed or at like 1 hp after battle.



Meanwhile the same battle with the Hangar+Hangar+Broadside only using WW missiles and strike craft; leviathan dead in mere seconds, no ships lost, almost everyone at full hp.

And it actually gets better and better because the repeatables for strike craft give 10% instead of only 5%. Your math about strike craft and missiles getting oneshot is pure ivory tower theorycrafting, because if all your fleets use only this design, you have so many of them that no AI-controlled opponent can even remotely counter them.

[corisai]

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Example: All RW designations give 10% pop growth speed and assembly; With a lvl 10 planetary ascension you get a +250% to the desination, so now you're at +35% pop growth speed AND assembly.

Or +47% if you'd completed Harmony tradition.

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Also you get +15% research output from the Research RW designation, which is pretty weak but becomes 52.5% at lvl 10. If you also have Harmony traditions, this even becomes 63.225%.

Actually +71% in my current game.

[CrUsHeR]

PS:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899720030

Basically you only need this design, put all your repeatables into this.
Ship computer has to be Artillery.

Having 1 Titan in each fleet is pretty good for convenience; you can have the Titan Aura, and your Admiral is much less likely to get killed as long as the Titan is keeping its max range with the regular Perdition Beam (the Ruination Glare is actually bad for this)

[CrUsHeR]

Messaggio originale di corisai:

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Example: All RW designations give 10% pop growth speed and assembly; With a lvl 10 planetary ascension you get a +250% to the desination, so now you're at +35% pop growth speed AND assembly.

Or +47% if you'd completed Harmony tradition.

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Also you get +15% research output from the Research RW designation, which is pretty weak but becomes 52.5% at lvl 10. If you also have Harmony traditions, this even becomes 63.225%.

Actually +71% in my current game.

Maybe you're right, i just hacked some numbers into the calculator and it seemed legit

[corisai]

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Result was that the battle took like 1 year ingame because the battleships just fly in circles and only fire the kinetic artillery.

O_O
Something is broken with your mods / game. My battleships and titans just fire pretty beams all around and never try to kite enemy.

But honestly I never used them in mid-game like you did :) Not worth it, guardians & Nanites will kill too much of them while you don't have all cost-reduction & build-speed stuff you're planning to have.

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Your math about strike craft and missiles getting oneshot is pure ivory tower theorycrafting

Sigh. Okay - go and win against FE on 1k map with scaling GA using your missile&hangar ships (almost zero repeatables, right after you get T5 stuff researched). Show me your losses, lol.

I tried once to get rid of them with Whirlwind cruisers & strikecraft - never will try again

[CrUsHeR]

Messaggio originale di corisai:

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Result was that the battle took like 1 year ingame because the battleships just fly in circles and only fire the kinetic artillery.

O_O
Something is broken with your mods / game. My battleships and titans just fire pretty beams all around and never try to kite enemy.

But honestly I never used them in mid-game like you did :) Not worth it, guardians & Nanites will kill too much of them while you don't have all cost-reduction & build-speed stuff you're planning to have.

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Your math about strike craft and missiles getting oneshot is pure ivory tower theorycrafting

Sigh. Okay - go and win against FE on 1k map with scaling GA using your missile&hangar ships (almost zero repeatables, right after you get T5 stuff researched). Show me your losses, lol.

I tried once to get rid of them with Whirlwind cruisers & strikecraft - never will try again

Seems like we're playing different games. Also i only play GA, crisis currently at 5x but can't remember the last time i actually played until the crisis spawn.

Basically if you have 30, 40+ repeatables, all empires in the galaxy vassalized, all FE dead, you cannot lose anyways. Like the last time i waited for the crisis (Prethoryn), i had gateways all over the galaxy, parked my 3000 or so naval cap at the spawn locations, instant win. Not really worth waiting like 100 years for.


The question is just how you get there, and for me it's always been the Hangar+Hangar+Broadside as posted above. Ever since the ship component rework in patch 3.4 or 3.5.

[corisai]

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Not really worth waiting like 100 years for.

Why wait? Change mid-game date to 2250-75 and lategame to 2300-2325.

Or play mods. Something like ACOT - FE start with ~3M navy, 600k+ defensive armies and reduced efficiency of bombardment

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

The question is just how you get there, and for me it's always been the Hangar+Hangar+Broadside as posted above.

Cruiser would be better in everything for such design.

[CrUsHeR]

Messaggio originale di corisai:

Cruiser would be better in everything for such design.

They are not, the exact opposite is the case:



1) Cruisers have a bit more hull per ship cap - 1800 vs 3000 for a battleship.

However there are no hull repeatables, and the per-ship hull of the battleship is still much higher where necessary. Which means the chance for a ship having to retreat or get destroyed is almost halved for the battleship fleet. Making the Battleship-only fleets significantly more durable.


2) The L-size armor and shields however have well over 200% more defenses than the M-size version. Same like the hull, this greatly affects how much a single ship can take in damage.

And this really really counts when you have e.g. psionic shields, and put literally all your physics research into shield repeatables. Of course you can also research armor repeatables at the cost of explosive repeatables, and this is actually viable because the strike craft repeatables in society are the most efficient anyways.

Note that society repeatables are completely blank for ship combat if you don't utilize strike craft.


3) Then you need to compare what's possible inside the weapon slots.

The Cruiser comes with 1x Hangar and 2x PD, which would translate into 2x Hangar and 4x PD - a complete overkill for the PD weapons, they can only attack missiles. Meanwhile the Battleship in the posted design only has 2x PD aside its 2x Hangar which is more than enough.

Ultimately the battleship can carry 7x WW missiles where the cruiser only has 3 (equivalent of 6 on the battleship).


4) The Battleship also gets 3 auxiliary slots where the cruiser only gets 2, making it about the same speed as the cruiser (if used for afterburners, otherwise increased potential here as well)

5) IIRC the Battleship also should get a greater reactor power surplus due to using proportionally more of the cheapest weapon, can't check ingame right now

[Sea Base]

Messaggio originale di corisai:

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Result was that the battle took like 1 year ingame because the battleships just fly in circles and only fire the kinetic artillery.

O_O
Something is broken with your mods / game. My battleships and titans just fire pretty beams all around and never try to kite enemy.

But honestly I never used them in mid-game like you did :) Not worth it, guardians & Nanites will kill too much of them while you don't have all cost-reduction & build-speed stuff you're planning to have.

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

Your math about strike craft and missiles getting oneshot is pure ivory tower theorycrafting

Sigh. Okay - go and win against FE on 1k map with scaling GA using your missile&hangar ships (almost zero repeatables, right after you get T5 stuff researched). Show me your losses, lol.

I tried once to get rid of them with Whirlwind cruisers & strikecraft - never will try again

Just ignore them at this point, other forum users have already pointed out how that design doesn't actually work outside of already having overwhelming power, at which point pretty much ANYTHING works.

I even ran that exact build to double check since they gaslit me so much into double checking, and it's garbage. On GA, any reasonably sized advanced civ will have enough PD and flak to drastically reduce your damage output and battleships even with best speed cannot out run the mixed enemy fleets in combat.

[CrUsHeR]

^

Says the guy using Cloud Lightning and Arc Emitters

[Sea Base]

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

^

Says the guy using Cloud Lightning and Arc Emitters

Works better than WW spam.

Lemmi break it down mathematically for those that come across this, and you can go look up the relevant values and equations to double check yourselves.

Attack speeds cancel out and don't have large differences in effect when they are not the same. Damage on the other hand...
Whirlwind Missile health does NOT increase with technology and their armour is so low, even large amounts armour repeatables doesn't effect the calculation much. Thus, the amount of damage PD does scales quickly past WW ability to over come them.

Specifically, at +0% damage bonus:
It takes 5-9 hits to kill one WW missile, equating to one PD handling 0.67-1.2 WW slots. So, for every one of those WW Battleships, an opponent needs an average of 4.06 PD Destroyers to largely negate you.

At +50% damage bonus, very doable in the first 100 years for the AI:
It takes 4-7 hits to kill one WW missile, equating to one PD handling 0.86-1.5 WW slots. So, for every one of those WW Battleships, an opponent needs an average of 2.91 PD Destroyers to largely negate you.
The AI starts to have Command limit to spare.

At +100% damage bonus, something advanced AI can very well achieve within mid game:
It takes 3-5 hits to kill one WW missile, equating to one PD handling 1.2-2 WW slots. So, for every one of those WW Battleships, an opponent needs an average of 1.75 PD Destroyers to largely negate you.
This starts to closely approach the actual numbers of destroyers and other PD ships the AI will just throw into their fleets, especially fed fleets.

At +150% damage bonus, late game AI can get to eventually, especially the advanced AI:
It takes 2-4 hits to kill one WW missile, equating to one PD handling 1.5-3 WW slots. So, for every one of those WW Battleships, an opponent needs an average of 1.75 PD Destroyers to largely negate you. Visually seeing one taps becomes common hear due to the way the game displays battles and the over damage the PD does.

[DYNIA]

Messaggio originale di CrUsHeR:

PS:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2899720030

Basically you only need this design, put all your repeatables into this.
Ship computer has to be Artillery.

Having 1 Titan in each fleet is pretty good for convenience; you can have the Titan Aura, and your Admiral is much less likely to get killed as long as the Titan is keeping its max range with the regular Perdition Beam (the Ruination Glare is actually bad for this)

this will be rekt so bad vs battleships with arty lol