Information about the fleet size of enemy empires is incorrect

[timofeigel82]

I have had this topic several times, but it was always explained how the fleet strength is calculated but not why it is stated incorrectly. I just want to know why an enemy empire's fleet strength is stated to be "pathetic" even though each fleet is stronger than all my ships combined.

So that the last person understands it, I'll give you an example from real life. Imagine you are on a dating platform and have a match. But you only want to be with people who are smaller than you. So you ask your match how tall he is. He asks you back and you answer "1.78 meters." Then your match says "I'm much smaller than you" and you want to meet. When you meet, it turns out that your match is 2.59 meters tall.

I just want to know why the enemy fleets often come with such false information. They are often empires that cannot have allies because they are all xenophobic exterminators. There is only their fleet in the empire, nothing else. If I attack with three fleets and each fleet has a fleet strength of 5,000, it's strange when the opponent then comes with 4 fleets and each fleet has a strength of 10,000. But he has a pathetic fleet towards me.

I have a total fleet strength of 15,000, but the enemy has 40,000. If that's supposed to be "pathetic", an elephant is tiny compared to a mouse.

[nilfiry]

Do Starbase count?

[Geoff]

Originally posted by timofeigel82:

I just want to know why the enemy fleets often come with such false information.

The formula used to calculate that is on the wiki. I'm not sure if you're contending that the results don't actually match the formula, or if you just feel that the formula yields misleading results.

But maybe this answers your question: https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Empire#Relative_power

Relative Power is a measure of how much empires are ahead of one another in terms of resource production, fleet power or researched technologies. A Relative Power of Superior/Inferior means that an empire has 50% more (1.5x) resource production, fleet power or researched technologies and a Relative Power of Overwhelming/Pathetic means that an empire has 150% more (2.5x) resource production, fleet power or researched technologies.

Relative Power is split into three categories: Fleet Power, Economic Power and Technology Level.

Fleet Power: The combined fleet power of every owned fleet.

+1 per 1 Fleet Power

Economic Power: A weighted sum of all monthly income, including income from trade agreements. Monthly spending is not part of this score. The various resources are weighted the same as their base market price (base energy price for 1 unit):

+1 per Minerals or Food
+2 per Consumer Goods
+4 per Alloys
+10 per common strategic resources
+20 per rare strategic resources

Technology Level: 60 + the combined base Tech Cost of all researched technologies, divided by 100. Repeatables only count 0.33x as much as regular technologies.

The formula to calculate the overall power of an empire is:
Overall Power = Fleet Power ∗ 2 + Economic Power ∗ 3 + Technology Level ∗ 1

[Geoff]

Originally posted by nilfiry:

Do Starbase count?

No.

[Protocol7]

That's odd, the Fleet Power metric has been accurate enough for me to know whether or not a war will end in my favor. It's important to note that fleet strength is not the only determinant of a battle's success, your ship and fleet composition is almost equally as important.

[monkeypunch87]

Originally posted by timofeigel82:

I have a total fleet strength of 15,000, but the enemy has 40,000. If that's supposed to be "pathetic", an elephant is tiny compared to a mouse.

Your information could be outdated due to low intel. Or your enemy hired mercenary.

[Protocol7]

Or they could be a vassal of a larger empire. I've been burned by not paying attention to that in the past.

[Immortalis]

Keep in mind that nowdays it is rather trivial to get a big enough fleet from scratch as to make the "fleet power" intel you got before the war completely irrelevant.

Mercenary enclaves, marauders and the salvagers each provide options to actually purchase / loan fleets that are quite powerful on their own. And naturally, the correct moment to make such purchase / hire those fleets is whenever another empire attacks you; do that before that moment and you're simply wasting resources.


Plus, there are of course plenty of additional modifiers that impact on the strength of individual fleets, from commander's traits to empire wide buffs / debuffs (including some that might apply only inside one's own borders) and even individual star systems buffs.

It's not so much that the information is incorrect, but rather that it doesn't take into account what the enemy will do after you declare war on them.

[talemore]

Galactic doorstep is promoted for giving superior military tactics.

Invade my capital and the abyss will stare back at you.

[IrishMustang]

I actually ran in to this as well, but I think its more due to 'lack of information.'

I always run some additional intel and set up a spy network on my opponents to confirm the actual fleet size, and what I'm up against. Too many times I've had opposing empires "Hide" their true strength. - Monkeypunch mentioned this in post #5 as well.

[timofeigel82]

Combination and fleet composition is a good keyword. The enemy has 40 corvettes of the same design and 20 destroyers of the same design in a fleet. He has 4 fleets, although I have to say that I can have a maximum of 80 ships. I often have 120 ships, but that's a drain on resources. But if he has 4 fleets with 40 corvettes and 20 destroyers each, that means he has a total fleet of 320. 320 is a little more than 120, but only a little. So this is considered “pathetic naval strength.”

[Immortalis]

Originally posted by timofeigel82:

Combination and fleet composition is a good keyword. The enemy has 40 corvettes of the same design and 20 destroyers of the same design in a fleet. He has 4 fleets, although I have to say that I can have a maximum of 80 ships. I often have 120 ships, but that's a drain on resources. But if he has 4 fleets with 40 corvettes and 20 destroyers each, that means he has a total fleet of 320. 320 is a little more than 120, but only a little. So this is considered “pathetic naval strength.”

Combination and fleet composition are completely irrelevant to the information you get when you compare fleet power.

Early game I produce corvettes up to my maximum allowed navy size but they are completely stripped of any component because I use them to gain more influence and are way cheaper this way.
Despite having 20 or 40 corvettes, my fleet power is 0 because they do not have any weapon, shield or armor slapped on them; as a result an empire with 10 corvettes is actually classified as "overwhelming" when we compare our fleet power.

Likewise if you had a single battleship with a rating of 40k fleet power, despite owning just one ship versus 100 of the enemy, they'd be classified as "pathetic".

And as above, the fact that you put all of your ships in a single fleet or in a hundred different task force has absolutely no impact on the evaluation either (outside of the few bonus points you get from your admirals' traits).

The game considers the fleet power of an empire by making a sum of all its combined fleet power, regardless of where it comes from or how it is organised.

And we go back to what was already mentioned: it's not broken, you simply did not have 100% accurate information; the game was giving you the correct evaluation based on the data you had available.
Data which might simply be outdated because the enemy produced more ships / hired mercenaries etc