Fleets

[kcoleman5]

How do you try to match an enemy in fleet size. I have two fleets with about 25 ships and my enemy has about 80 ships. I have 6 shipyards but it takes a long time to build a ship.

[Mattrex]

Research technologies that increase your fleet capacity and fleet command limit. They're green (Society) techs.

Research new ship hulls (destroyers, cruisers, battleships). Each tech for these gives +10 fleet command limit.

Build starbases and fill them with anchorages. Research the technology that gives you the starbase building "Naval Logistics Office" and put that in your starbases with anchorages. Each anchorage is +4 fleet capacity, +6 if you have a Naval Logistics Office on their starbase.

Build fortresses on your planets. Each soldier job gives you +4 fleet capacity, +6 if you also have the technology Ground Defense Planning, an early green tech.

Six shipyards is fine for early game. The trick is to not wait until you need ships to start building them; start filling out your fleets as soon as you have the fleet capacity and alloys to do so.

[HappySack]

Build a mega-shipyard as your first mega-structure, alternatively build ships with nothing on them which is a lot cheaper and you can convert them if you ever need them, the plus side is that you get a lot of extra influence from power projection.

[bchrac]

Originally posted by kcoleman5:

How do you try to match an enemy in fleet size. I have two fleets with about 25 ships and my enemy has about 80 ships. I have 6 shipyards but it takes a long time to build a ship.

You have 6 shipyards to build 25 ships? I'm still gasping for air. :)

[Kalemenos]

Some tips might help, in addition to the ideas above, especially as you might not have a mega-shipyard this early in your game:

1. The numbers of ships isn't so important. 25 corvettes or 25 battleships are universes apart. But if you look at each fleet, there is a "power" number. Mouse-over the fleet, you'll see it's name, a little fire, and a number. That's a better measure for general comparisons.
2. Organize your economy to make alloy. Sell what excesses you have and buy alloy - then you can make more ships. More specialized weapons might need other things too, like motes or crystals. But pay attention to your economy to build lots of ships. A big part of stellaris is a. having a great economy and b. building tons of powerful ships.
3. There are techs that help build different kinds of ships faster and cheaper: those are good for what you seem to want. Leaders may also have qualities to help with speed and cost of shipbuilding.
4. Nothing is stopping you from building another starbase with more shipyards. Maybe you could do that now, if you can afford building it all, and later in the game re-design the starbase if you want to use it for something else.

[von_bock]

Originally posted by Kalemenos:

4. Nothing is stopping you from building another starbase with more shipyards.

The costs for going over the (entirely arbitrary and stupidly low) limit for upgraded starbases are ruinous, especially this early on.

[Ryika]

Originally posted by von_bock:

Originally posted by Kalemenos:

4. Nothing is stopping you from building another starbase with more shipyards.

The costs for going over the (entirely arbitrary and stupidly low) limit for upgraded starbases are ruinous, especially this early on.

Nah. If you just have a few starbases, the impact of going over the cap is going to be not very noticeable, because it just increases the starbase upkeep costs - which does not amount to much early on when your territory is small and starbases don't have many upgrades.

It's a much more significant problem when you have 30 starbases or so, because the penalty does not scale to how much you're actually over the cap. Being at 5/3 or being at 34/32 both mean +50% starbase upkeep.

[mss73055]

War costs.

"6 shipyards" sounds like you got Star Fortress tech. At this stage of the game 50 ships is too little. 6 shipyards will take you far into midgame, but you got to use them. Not only after war was declared when you have a look at your red laser corvettes.

If you are not a war monger you still got to invest in a fleet. After winning a defensive war this leaves you with an economy, unlike a defeated war monger losing his one card.