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Hey man thanks for the insights and effort. I have a question tho you can only use recursive upgrades consistently for one type of weapon among exp, kinetic, scraft and energy. So how do you use this hybrid builds when they fall behind in late game without recursive upgrades?
Corvettes get owned by fast destroyers, try using missiles on destroyers with double afterburners, artillery computers. 50 corvettes va 25 destroyers of this build, you will hardly lose a destroyer while most the corvettes get destroyed.
Corvette spam IS dead. Destroyers and Cruisers with full disruptor weaponry will melt them. As your evasion will not do shit, its up to who has more Hull and firepower. Well DD and CC have... Corvettes were great, when it was full torpedo - neutrons meta. No more. In every MP game you want ot rush Cruisers to pass the mid game and survive. In late you transition into BB + DD 3 P (flak t3 or nanite Flak if you have).
@@suriil9875 cruisers are very strong. The main point of my video was to show how you beat disrupters when players spam corvettes. Destroyers are under used in most games, yet are more efficient and versatile then corvettes.
@@tachyonlance1969 If some one try to spam you corvette disruptors - spam them destroyers then cruisers disruptors :D. They will stop those spam if they are smart enough to see you melt them with only 1 ship lost. NOW! Here is something you still can cheese with corvettes spam.... Afterburners + high tier evade AI chip + skirmish doctrine in policies for disengage AND a trickster admiral. Now this shit with full fast corvettes hive is a dick move to deal with.
@@suriil9875 Basic destroyers with missiles and after burners wipes corvettes with disrupters. I work my designs on not having to have the best leaders or other stats as there are so many possible variables now.
Outstanding guide. As a probably fairly typical player who has bouts of coming to and going from the game over long stretches of time, it's great to have an up-to-date one-stop resource for shipbuilding in the current state of the game. I will be checking out the rest of your content too. Thanks a bunch!
No problem, glad it helped you. I have a whole heap of videos on ship combat, ship design, trying to do one every 1-2 days at the moment, so plenty of things to watch about the game and about the new Machine Age Expansion. Thanks for the comment.
Watching others youtubers I seen a few other designs for the crises: 1. the cluster missile cruiser performs well against the Unbidden, but only against the extradimensionals. 2. another one against them and Contingency is nearly naked cruiser. Kinetic art bow and torp core, using only energy torps. and 3 afterburners. Nothing else. Cheap and plentiful. 3. the general Battleship. Arc X bow, 3 kinetic art core, 2 cluster stern. Performs reasonable against all crises, just not specific one. I am curious how the new Synthetic Queen in Machine Age will go.
I do love point 3, Arty Battleships, they are normally the core of my fleets for everything, just such high DPS they can normally blast through anything. Interesting design for the Cruiser I like it, missiles will work against the unbidden as they only have short range weapons and are slow, so speed and range wins the day, so yea that design is good as well.
Oh, and yes, I am very excited for the Machine Age, looks like the best expansion for Stellaris in at least 2 years in my opinion, might be the best overall expansion they have ever done but will wait to see.
Not me meticulously taking notes to decimate my friends fleets to pieces when we play Multiplayer. (we are all pretty new) lmaooo I can't wait to hear the tears as I rush disruptors or counter their rush with destroyers. Excellent guide and now I feel I have a very solid grasp on ship design compared to where I was before. Thank you. Thank you. I'm thinking a Psionic rush year 30 with the early 10% extra damage and shield with leader focused to get a strong admiral before them. I love this channel.
Thanks for the kind comments, glad it helped you and hopefully you smashed your friends' fleets but then I'm sure they learnt a lesson from you and adapted, maybe :)
thanks a lot for this, it's flexible enough to let me figure out things on my own, and I even came up with personal designs which I found to be quite effective! i appreciate you explaining how things tie together rather than just giving us the image of the setup to copy paste it.
Great presentation. The content itself, visuals, your voice/method of delivery. Well done. If you were to present some sort of longer form/stream type video, we would surely tune in. ("We" being my colleagues and I, as we had this playing while working on a project as we all hobby stellaris off-hours.) Keep up the good work! Cheers from the USA.
Have a look in my live section on my channel, lots of multiplayer stellaris sessions to watch, have dozens of series there from the past 2 years to have a look through. We normally end up fighting 25 times crisis and multiple of them, all the crises.
i'd like to see a more in depth cloaking tactics vid, it's been a year+ since your last vid about cloaking and the rest of the game has changed while psionics and cloaking has largely stayed the same. would be good to see some early, mid and late game builds and tactics the same way you've presented this video. i think it can be super powerful if you're the first player to acquire the tech, and even more powerful if you build your empire around boosting those technologies (like fear of the dark origin for early access, psionic ascension for the +cloaking covenant and components, lvl 2 trickster admirals or that 1 guerrilla warfare admiral, enigmatic engineering AP, subterfuge tradition tree, etc)
I have been trying to test cloaking, problem is I can only use my own fleets and then order them to attack each other. Even with cloak on for one fleet as they are my own fleets the other fleet knows it's position and opens fire once in range and the cloak is broken. Only way is to use two different empires, but it is very hard unless you have humans to control the other empires as AI keeps moving fleets around prior to being able to test the battle. Will keep trying to see if there is a way to do it.
At 18:32 you mention that you'd have "two or three of these fleets" (talking about disruptor corvettes). Do you mean 2 or 3 of them in a single fleet? Or 2 or 3 fleets full of just disruptor corvettes? Thanks - I'm a newb and trying to figure out my fleet composition! I assumed you'd have 2 or 3 corvettes, then a bunch of all around cruisers, and a few arty/carrier battleships to round it all out?
What I mean is in the late game period, I would have 2-3 Corvette fleets to screen my main fleet of Cruisers and Battleships, I might have 10-15 other fleets and use 2-3 corvette fleets to screen them, meaning they charge in first, take the first hits (alpha strike) and swarm the enemy taking their fire while my Cruisers and Battleships stay at range and fire away. Corvettes are fast to replace while Cruisers and Battleships take much longer. Put in one PD or Flak with the Corvettes, have one fleet of each type so it takes care of missiles and strike as well.
I read that Stellaris calculates the 'median' weapon range according to the hull section placed and always left to right within a hull section. This means that you place the middle first, then the bow (x slot), then the rear. If you then leave out some short range weapons to place the x-slot in the median, you maximize the ship's initial range. According to the wiki, there is a initial range then a preferred range to stay once the initial range is reached. The initial range is based on the median weapon range, and the preferred range is set to the hangar range for carriers. This means that the carriers will tend to advance to medium range, then try to back off. Have you done any testing on this?
If I under you correctly, yes. I have seen many times ships use there longest range weapons first then move into a range where most of the weapons will fire. This is why it is good to put missiles with carriers as it means you will get DPS from the carriers why they stay at long range. In most battles though from mid game onwards there will be enemy fleets charging well within weapons range. Combat needs to use the median range of all weapons otherwise a lot of weapons would never be used in a fight until too late, so you are right from what I have seen countless times in battles.
Thanks for the guide, I was also hoping to see the starbase and platform designs because you showed us a lot of things on how to defeat a starbase (mostly torpedoes), but what about defending against it? Also I'd like to hear about a "AFK killing starbase" artillery setup where you send 10-20 ships to slowly conquer systems that don't have fleets, but you still need that system for claims/scoring/total war. So they slowly conquer all you want and take no damage because of range. Missles (0-120) and Hangars (125)? I did some testing myself and found out that speed is a bad stat for Battleships because when the ship enters the "aggro radius" it will go further and can get into the radius of the Starbase's weapons and never go back to leave it. This also works against FE empires. While your doomstack is hunting them down or bombarding the planet, some ships can destroy starbases with the help of Titans and Juggernauts (range buff).
To defend a start base try using platforms with one side with Neutron Launchers and the other with Kinetic Artillery, so one knocks down shields while the other will do damage to armor and hull. It is very effective. To take down stations are long range, I would use a similar setup, Battleships with Artillery and Cruisers with Neutron Launchers, they can go around and kill stations easy enough with only say 20 in total. Afterburners can be useful on BB's at times but most of the time it is more suited to smaller ships like Cruisers, Corvettes and such, speed can be life for those ships.
My go to battleship is FAE+hangar core. Its just so versatile and only lacks the raw power vs 25x crisis fleets. Even then it does well enough. I do mix in some artillery battleships with tachyon lances, and fill the rest with missile/hangar cruisers and destroyers.
Thanks for the comment, yea I should do some updated videos on this but not a lot has changes really in the combat side of things, it is really in the rest of the game that everything keep changing.
The plural of “crisis” is “crises.” Cris - eez It's a loanword from Latin and retains its original Latin plural noun form (similar "analysis" to “analyses” and "basis" to “bases”).
10x or 25x Contingency is the hardest for me to deal with. Where as swapping x slots is generally enough on my battleship/cruiser fleets for the other crisis; the sheer mass of contingency damage and shields/armor calls for me to add naked corvettes to screen those particle lances and I add a number of extra battleships with just arc emitters to save cost. By this point in the game hyper relays are everywhere and can seriously mess up your alpha strike plans on contingency bases, making sending your sacrificial corvettes a few days before your main fleet necessary if the hyper relay is within range of the contingencies particle lances. Is there a way to force not using the hyper relays besides jump drives?
Yes hyper relays have messed up more than a few of my battles. Try cloud lightning on all L slot weapons as it is another bypass weapon, very effective but need it in large numbers but range is not as good as kinetic arty.
It may be as human players tend to opt more for armor, against AI no. My testing was only against AI and Crisis fleets for which the Focused Arc Emitter had the highest damage output. How long do we need to wait to see in a PvP tournament a player goes all shields and wipe the floor with everyone as they went all anti-armor weapons.
Took a break from Stellaris for a while but getting back into it again. Great update and it appears not too much has changed. The tech changes has totally altered how the game plays for me and I am really struggling to keep up with the AI let alone surpass them.
Yes the tech changes in my opinion are good, I even slow the tech down more for the challenge, can’t just rush techs or skip say destroyers for cruisers you actually need to use early game tech to stay alive.
i heavily disagree on placing point defence on corvetes, because they already have high evasion vs missiles. Also, in earlygame the main threat to corvetes is usually other corvetes. So best weapons for early game fighters is high-aim+tracking weapons ie small lasers and mass drivers (top).
Point defense on corvettes is mostly as a screening force for your capital ship fleets. I often have 3-5 fleets of 250+ corvettes fleets screening my main fleets of Cruisers and Battleships, works great, give it a try. You mix in both PD/Flak as the corvettes swarm the enemy, they are shooting down all the missiles and strike craft as they launch. Meanwhile your capital ships are blasting away while all the focus is on the corvettes. Due to the high evasion of the corvettes the enemy waste the alpha strike on small ships mostly, meaning you suffer much less loses. It is a tried and proven method against AI and other Human Players, you will often see Top PvP players use corvettes fleets in this manner.
While true of you are caught in an early war going two red lasers and 1 flak or pd actually adds a lot of fire power as they will fire on other ships if no missiles or strike craft to shoot down.
Against the Gray Tempest, what cruiser design will perform better? Missiles or torpedoes+disruptors? I heard the gray tempest ships have short range so missiles could potentially be better? I can open the L-gate now. I want to be prepared before I open pandora's box.
Is there a reason you wouldn't go for the 2 small slots stern section on cruisers for the extra afterburner? I'd assume it'd be better both for kiting on a missile or carrier cruiser and closing the gap for torp cruisers, as well as giving you extra evasion. EDIT: just got to the late game section of the video, where you seem to be using the 2 small slot stern and extra afterburner.
I actually prefer to use to 2 slots for Afterburners if that is what you mean, extra speed is life. On BB's 3 slots of Afterburners, if speed is required to stay at range. Speed is now one of the most important parts of ship combat.
@@tachyonlance1969 Yeah, that's why I was confused a bit as your early/mid game cruisers all had the 1 medium slot stern with 2 auxilliary slots for afterburners instead of the 2 small slots/3 auxilliary slots
No, not that I know of, that would require saving to the cloud which should be possible but not sure how hard it would be to implement. Would be a great feature though to be able to save them like templates.
unless you're playing on difficulty where you can alpha strike anything, the best builds are the ones that work against grand admiral 25x crisis, and basically none of these do unless you play on easy mode vs AI empires, exploit them and scale into infinity. i always play with all AI empires advanced start, scaling off and bonuses from start. and ofc i still haven't won. with limited growth from such a universe you can't really alpha strike 15M contingency fleet, and as soon as their lances get in range with 3750% weapon damage bonus, your battleships get one shot no matter how much shields you have. their armor and shields also have 3750% bonus. so the best way is to use naked disruptor corvettes with as much energy weapon fire rate and damage technology as you can. but i got far enough to know that about 1M power naked disruptor corvettes destroy 6M contingency fleets with bearable losses.
I only ever play with 25 x Crisis with all Crisis (all 3 of them). I only play on grand admiral as well with no scaling, in some multiplayer games we do scale till year 25-50 depending on the skill of the other players otherwise they just get killed 30 years in or earlier. Kinetic BB's are great against Crisis ships, same as Carriers BB's with a mix of different X slot weapons to match the crisis and either shield/armor depending on what is best to counter each on. If you don't have an empire that can produce 15-20 million fleet power, you don't have much of a chance, you also need to be producing 5000 alloys a month minimum to be able to keep up with ship losses. Most of this video is about fighting other players or AI and at the very end I talk about Crisis designs and I have used them to great effect, most times I win. But it is not just about effective ship designs it is about an economy to produce a fleet big enough to fight them and sustain the losses and rebuild fast enough to keep up the fight. My corvette fleets against the Crisis are actually Cruiser fleets with devastator torpedoes, close to 30 range and unleash hell, yes you lose a lot, but they take the alpha shot rather than your BB's Titans and once you're done with the Swarm, put on Scourge missiles and maxes the other crisis much easier if you're lucky enough to get them 1st or 2nd.
@tachyonlance1969 that's exactly the thing, having max number of advanced AI empires means you'll never be able to fight, subjugate or greatly expand with outposts. Later, not even joining non aligned powers is an option because you'll get alloy exhausted by empires that joined awakened empires. Of course, being neighbour to purifiers and similar is automatic loss, but everything else is fair game if you know how to use envoys and defensive pacts to survive. But the main topic were fleet types. I mean, if 20M disruptor Corvettes could in theory fight 120M contingency, question in the end is could the 20M fleet which you prefer do the same?
Actually, the real question is what PC in the world could handle 20m fleet power of corvettes. :) If you are playing against all advanced empires and with the new tech systems, yes that is very hard. You would need to put the Crisis back to at least 2500 I would think to be competitive with a chance to win. I never use corvettes against Crisis. Corvettes are very inefficient to build when it comes to alloys compared to Cruisers and Battleships, only two ship classes you need against the Crisis. Perhaps become the Crisis yourself to beat up on all those advanced AI's.
@@tachyonlance1969 Unfortunately Im too stubborn to have any other setting besides mid and late crisis set to earliest year possible. Part of the reason is that I want AI empires to be weaker than crisis even when they're all united; god forbid they do the job in my place. So far its impossible as you can tell from the numbers i mentioned (i think my best alloys income was bit over +2k), so my next playthrough i will compromise with 0,75x and maybe even 0,5x tech modifier too see how doable it is.
Yea you are playing a very tough game setup, I like it. But not sure how it is possible for you to beat 25 x Crisis with it. I don't think any type of ship design can really make up for this. Only thing that might is some of the stronger META species builds.
Disrupters might win you the battle, but will you destroy any ships when the dmg on the hull for each hit is low. Especially when facing a player that understands the mechanic of disengagement . Your kills will be minimum to none(all cruisers). Enemy retreats and loses no ship and you losses some. He repairs and do it again.
True, but if have spies in your enemy, you should see their ships designs and adjust accordingly. I find lasers/plasma do a lot of high damage to kill ships so this doesn't happen, even from early in the game.
No, no real changes to combat. Only thing we can do now is become a fallen empire and build fallen empire ship which I just did a few videos on if you check out the rest of my channel. Thanks for the comment.
@@tachyonlance1969 OK, thank you. I just did a run going virtuality with the new become the crisis and it felt so broken it hurt. Thanks for the quick answer.
@tachyonlance1969 the gutted megacorp tall attempts and added a tall option that just breaks the game lol. I too really enjoy arc welders. Pretty powerful but not game breaking.
Nice video! Although I'm sad that my goto late game battleship design wasn't part of your collection (maybe it's not actually good lol). I would be happy if you could give me some feedback on it, what the weaknesses are that I fail to see. I use a battleship with Hangar Bow, Hangar Core, Broadside Stern filled with 2 Strikecraft, 7 Swarmer Missiles, even mix of armor and shields, Artillery or Carrier Computer and a random mix of Afterburners, Shield Hardening or Armor Hardening depending on what's available and whether I have any Genious Armorer on the council. This seems like a solid design to me, because all weapons have 100% shield penetration, all weapons have high range to allow kiting, none have a minimum range, so you can't be caught off guard at a hyperlane exit and it's not easily counterable by PD thanks to the use of swarmer missiles (not sure about this one). I've thought about adding an Arc emitter instead of the Hangar Bow, but the limited firing arc put me off, because my ships always approach to swarmer missile range and then turn sideways or start kiting, making the arc emitter mostly dead weight.
Yes it is a solid design. I did talk about having 3 strike craft bays for BBs and that was a strong option. Using missiles compliments strike craft nicely and helps to overwhelm PD and Flak defences. Great design.
Thanks for the great guide! I recently returned to Stellaris and your guide was very useful. Could you tell me what proportions of ships you use in the late game? Would it be normal to take 35% of corvettes, 15% of cruisers with a computer to rendezvous with missiles with corvettes fleet, 50% with battleships, half of which are artillery and half aircraft carriers and titans with them? Thank you in advance.
Alot of my fleet will be Battleships, I would say 60-70% at least, mix of Artillery and Carriers. You need that X slot firepower. Maybe 15-20% Cruisers, I like to use Torpedo Cruisers to rush in and unleash massive firepower with devastator torps. They also help to tank the damage from enemy fleets as they are much closer to them. The rest is Corvette fleets, disrupters with a mix of Flak/PD to swarm the enemy tank the alpha shots as they have 90% evasion so most miss, leaving your battleships free from too much damage earlier on. This also helps to reduce enemy strike craft, missiles, torps as the corvettes are swarming them shooting many down prior to reaching your Battleships.
My friend i loved your video. So much clarity. Can you make a video expaining and showing the different combat computers and how it affects the behaviour of the ships? Like swarm computer and interpector computer
I tend to use only armor for a few reasons 1 armor has more hp overall than shield do 2 it allows me to use my physics to buff my weopons (laser) while engineering focuses on the defense (armor) and 3 when u unlock armor hardening there really is no issue with being only armor 4 regen traits or just putting repair stuff like nanotechnology repair allows me to stay in the fight indefinitely normally. 5 it's kinda cool role-playing. if I don't go full armor I go full shield with kinetic or missiles for the same reasons except the repair stuff
Haven't been playing for too long but I use (for the most part" either the same amount of shield and armor or one more shield if it's an uneven amount of slots, is that viable or dumb. Ps, how does hardening work (if you don't feel like telling me because it takes long I'll just watch a video no worries)
@@Dryrubbersock armor hardening makes a percentage of the damage of bypass weapons (weapons that ignore shield/armor) hit ur defense and not ur hull so if I have only shields and they have missles which ignore shields I'd get destroyed but if I have shield hardening the damage actually hits my shields instead of completely ignoring them so the fight is fair again. and no that is not stupid but typically its best to have like 1 or 2 of armor either way
So with the machine age DLC coming and the Cosmo-genesis crisis path allowing for building fallen empire ships, are you going to do some testing? I am curious what the most optimal build for the escort and battlecruiser is going to be.
I will certainly try too, but I expect their ships will be way too powerful for most other ship designs. Probably need pure numbers of ships and fleets with empires combining to defeat them I think is how it would go. Will look into it though once it is released. Very excited for the new expansion, looks great.
So for mid to late game, go cruiser/destroyer prime and then move to Battleship/Destroyer prime? Or do you want to keep cruisers around? I tend to have survivability issues with cruisers after mid game so I abandon them.
I do like to keep cruisers as they are so versatile, fast to replace and cheaper than battleships, but I also like to build a balanced fleet. Watch a few of my recent videos from the last few days to see a well balanced fleet.
Depends on what you are fighting against. Early game Strike Craft are best to fight corvettes. If you don't have Strike Craft tech then make platforms with M slot weapons use mix of lasers and kinetic. Later game use long range torpedo's, missiles if you like to engage at longer range. Can also put on L slots and use lots of Kinetic Artillery. All depends on who you're fighting and at what time of the game. Early on always pick strike craft if you see the tech, using them on stations and defense platforms early to mid-game can save you from being rushed by corvette spam as you play on harder difficulty levels.
Strike Craft are great, so Carrier Battleships deal with strike craft spam well. You can also build missile destroyers with afterburners, use artillery combat computers as they kite them around and kill them pretty easily with minimal losses. Early game opt for hanger bays on your StarBase's, they are great for killing early game corvette spam, but you need defense platforms with these as well.
No I use a mix of fleets designs nearly all the time other than the start of the game. I also change my designs depending on who I am fighting, build spy networks for intel on ships designs, get intel agreements with other empires so you can see what weapons they use when they fight other empires and so on.
Is this still up to date or have things changed a lot since the video was made? I just came back to the game from a year-ish long hiatus and am a bit lost
If he's using all armor and disruptor corvettes vs laser corvettes he is going to win. The lasers go through armor fast but since he's attacking the hull immediately with disruptors the opponents ships become less effective from each point of damage to the hull done to them. Forcing them to either immediately disengage or get destroyed while putting out reduced damage and fire rate once the hull is attacked. That's my understanding of it. But also armor gives you slightly more points per slot at the cost of alloys compared to shields with less but cost more in power.
It Probably will, doesn't seem to be any changes to the combat system. I have not seen new weapons, types of ships in this expansion other than the new player become the Crisis ship.
Hey, returning player after a few years - this video helps a lot! But I was wondering why you only use armor in the early game or why disruptors are so heavily favoured instead of Laser/Kinetic? Edit: Or why Strike Craft seem so important Edit2: I probably should just have continued watching the video lol
Armor has more hit points, if you look at the hit points shields gives you compare it to armor you will see you simply get more protection from amour for the investment in tech and alloys, although armor costs more. Disrupters go through everything to directly hit the hull, perfect for killing small ships like Corvettes, Frigates and so on. So early game very powerful weapon until you get shield/amour hardening tech. Strike craft are like small early disrupters, they are great for killing large numbers of corvettes which is what the AI will typically use in the early game. Keep watching all my videos if you want to learn lots about ship/fleet combat :) but really just watch a few and learn. Watch more when you have learnt more as it is a lot to take in.
It can happen, hopefully some of the designs I have listed in this video can help you a lot. If you need help or have any questions just ask. Or join my discord as plenty of people around can help as well. Instructions to join in description of my videos.
@@tachyonlance1969 sounds fun id like more people to talk stellaris with. it seems like you never use lasers, that true? other things to just leave on the shelf?
@@jownbey Lasers, Kinetic, Plasma has their place, they are still good. Lasers have high tracking so can be good against Corvettes. You can get good results with combination of lasers/plasma/kinetic. Just they are not the most OP weapons at present. It really depends on who you are fighting and what type of weapons and ship design they have, which is why intel is so important.
@@tachyonlance1969 that seems to be my biggest problem is im so busy managing everything that im not paying attention to what the enemy is fielding. My fleets get made before i know who im fighting though, so ive been trying to have like three different weapons packages and spawn them equally per group
@@jownbey Yes, it is a good idea to spend time designing different ship classes. Artillery, Torpedo, Carrier's, screening fleets. I would have versions of Carrier & Artillery Battleship's, Torpedo Cruisers using both short range and long-range torpedoes. You can also have a Cruiser design with disrupters or other shorter-range weapons. Screen fleets of either Corvettes or Destroyers, maybe both with mix of disrupters with PD/Flak. This will give you a good all-round fleet and you might just need to adjust some weapons now and again depending on who you are fighting.
Doing better, getting stronger, hence why making more videos. Planning on starting up our Stellaris Multiplayer streams on the 8th of May my time about 7.30-8pm which is Perth Australia. This is when the new expansion is out, and I should be strong enough to sit and play for 3-4 hours at night by then. We play from 8-11pm and very hard for me to stay up that late since my surgery, hopping to be able to do it by then.
I did tests and it is in a video from last year and the Focused Arc Emitter did the most damage of all X slot weapons, I use it in a lot of my fleets. But it depends on who you're fighting. High shield and armor hardening could reduce a lot of that damage and make it nearly ineffective. So, if really pays to know what your enemy has, invest in spies and intel network if you're planning some big wars in the future against powerful enemies that you are not sure you can beat, but might with the right fleet design.
Not in my lobby it is not, as disrupters has counters, try going all missiles, artillery destroyers they wipe the floor with them. I think it is just a knee jerk reaction to ban disrupters but up to each group. Hardeners from mid to late game make them near useless. You can have destroyers by 15-20 years in the game, stick missiles on them and they counter disrupters, use StarBase's with strike craft, shred corvettes. Disrupters are strong but certainly not overpowered.
Torpedos and Neutrons are DEAD. Im ...suprised ytou call it 'meta' ship. On high diff and x10-25 crisis late game is all about BB Arty - Carriers with Destroyers x3 P anti missiles- aircrafts. I would still agree on disruptors , they melt early and mid game. And I like mid game Rocket Cruiser option ,I use it a lot as well. But torpedos and neutron launchers are dead. PS - USE , JUST USE HARDENING mods on your BB. Its fine to use afterburners on corvets and destoyers for dodge chance. BUT USE HARDENING ON BB. Trust me...
Test out the all round cruiser that has torps, missiles, strike craft. When it fights nearly any other equal fleet in terms of fleet cap it will normally win. You can switch out missiles for disrupters depending on the torpedoes and combat computer you’re using. I agree I normally use similar builds to what you have fighting 25xCruses. Go look in the live section on my channel at our multiplayer games, we always fight 25 x crises and I use fleets like you describe for the last year at least.
@@tachyonlance1969 Even in multiplayer , like a deathmatch with 10+ players , BB are kings to melt Cruisers I mean, it works like rock paper seizors , cruisers melt corvettes and destroyers , BB melts cruisers , mass corvette - DD spam melts BB. But here is a trick - you add DD to BB and here you have a meta compo for today.
Ah yes I know that build as I did a video on it about 6 months ago. Montu did a video showing how cruisers could not be beat and I cane up with a BB and DD combo that beats it. So yes I agree.
I went through the strong builds for early, mid and late game. If you have any questions or you are confused about something happy to clarify it for you.
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Hey man thanks for the insights and effort. I have a question tho you can only use recursive upgrades consistently for one type of weapon among exp, kinetic, scraft and energy. So how do you use this hybrid builds when they fall behind in late game without recursive upgrades?
Sovereign Guardianship seems to be removed or something.
This combat update was basically “corvette spam is dead, long live corvette spam”
Corvettes get owned by fast destroyers, try using missiles on destroyers with double afterburners, artillery computers. 50 corvettes va 25 destroyers of this build, you will hardly lose a destroyer while most the corvettes get destroyed.
Corvette spam IS dead. Destroyers and Cruisers with full disruptor weaponry will melt them.
As your evasion will not do shit, its up to who has more Hull and firepower. Well DD and CC have...
Corvettes were great, when it was full torpedo - neutrons meta. No more.
In every MP game you want ot rush Cruisers to pass the mid game and survive. In late you transition into BB + DD 3 P (flak t3 or nanite Flak if you have).
@@suriil9875 cruisers are very strong. The main point of my video was to show how you beat disrupters when players spam corvettes. Destroyers are under used in most games, yet are more efficient and versatile then corvettes.
@@tachyonlance1969 If some one try to spam you corvette disruptors - spam them destroyers then cruisers disruptors :D. They will stop those spam if they are smart enough to see you melt them with only 1 ship lost.
NOW! Here is something you still can cheese with corvettes spam....
Afterburners + high tier evade AI chip + skirmish doctrine in policies for disengage AND a trickster admiral.
Now this shit with full fast corvettes hive is a dick move to deal with.
@@suriil9875 Basic destroyers with missiles and after burners wipes corvettes with disrupters.
I work my designs on not having to have the best leaders or other stats as there are so many possible variables now.
this is so much easier to understand than montus vid about meta builds.
and its not split into 5 diffrend vids with 5 months delay.
Thanks for the comment and feedback. Much appreciated.
Outstanding guide. As a probably fairly typical player who has bouts of coming to and going from the game over long stretches of time, it's great to have an up-to-date one-stop resource for shipbuilding in the current state of the game. I will be checking out the rest of your content too. Thanks a bunch!
No problem, glad it helped you. I have a whole heap of videos on ship combat, ship design, trying to do one every 1-2 days at the moment, so plenty of things to watch about the game and about the new Machine Age Expansion. Thanks for the comment.
Exactly what I needed as a returning player in this new Meta. Thanks!
Glad I could help!
with all these new updates i’m glad you’re helping players with their builds. thank you for your work 👍
My pleasure! Glad my videos can help. I will be doing some new advanced guilds on a few strong builds to play as well soon.
Watching others youtubers I seen a few other designs for the crises:
1. the cluster missile cruiser performs well against the Unbidden, but only against the extradimensionals.
2. another one against them and Contingency is nearly naked cruiser. Kinetic art bow and torp core, using only energy torps. and 3 afterburners. Nothing else. Cheap and plentiful.
3. the general Battleship. Arc X bow, 3 kinetic art core, 2 cluster stern. Performs reasonable against all crises, just not specific one.
I am curious how the new Synthetic Queen in Machine Age will go.
I do love point 3, Arty Battleships, they are normally the core of my fleets for everything, just such high DPS they can normally blast through anything. Interesting design for the Cruiser I like it, missiles will work against the unbidden as they only have short range weapons and are slow, so speed and range wins the day, so yea that design is good as well.
Oh, and yes, I am very excited for the Machine Age, looks like the best expansion for Stellaris in at least 2 years in my opinion, might be the best overall expansion they have ever done but will wait to see.
Not me meticulously taking notes to decimate my friends fleets to pieces when we play Multiplayer. (we are all pretty new) lmaooo I can't wait to hear the tears as I rush disruptors or counter their rush with destroyers. Excellent guide and now I feel I have a very solid grasp on ship design compared to where I was before. Thank you. Thank you.
I'm thinking a Psionic rush year 30 with the early 10% extra damage and shield with leader focused to get a strong admiral before them. I love this channel.
Thanks for the kind comments, glad it helped you and hopefully you smashed your friends' fleets but then I'm sure they learnt a lesson from you and adapted, maybe :)
thanks a lot for this, it's flexible enough to let me figure out things on my own, and I even came up with personal designs which I found to be quite effective! i appreciate you explaining how things tie together rather than just giving us the image of the setup to copy paste it.
Great presentation. The content itself, visuals, your voice/method of delivery. Well done.
If you were to present some sort of longer form/stream type video, we would surely tune in. ("We" being my colleagues and I, as we had this playing while working on a project as we all hobby stellaris off-hours.)
Keep up the good work! Cheers from the USA.
Have a look in my live section on my channel, lots of multiplayer stellaris sessions to watch, have dozens of series there from the past 2 years to have a look through. We normally end up fighting 25 times crisis and multiple of them, all the crises.
i'd like to see a more in depth cloaking tactics vid, it's been a year+ since your last vid about cloaking and the rest of the game has changed while psionics and cloaking has largely stayed the same. would be good to see some early, mid and late game builds and tactics the same way you've presented this video. i think it can be super powerful if you're the first player to acquire the tech, and even more powerful if you build your empire around boosting those technologies (like fear of the dark origin for early access, psionic ascension for the +cloaking covenant and components, lvl 2 trickster admirals or that 1 guerrilla warfare admiral, enigmatic engineering AP, subterfuge tradition tree, etc)
That is a very good idea, I will look into it and plan to do something on this in the near future.
I have been trying to test cloaking, problem is I can only use my own fleets and then order them to attack each other. Even with cloak on for one fleet as they are my own fleets the other fleet knows it's position and opens fire once in range and the cloak is broken. Only way is to use two different empires, but it is very hard unless you have humans to control the other empires as AI keeps moving fleets around prior to being able to test the battle. Will keep trying to see if there is a way to do it.
At 18:32 you mention that you'd have "two or three of these fleets" (talking about disruptor corvettes). Do you mean 2 or 3 of them in a single fleet? Or 2 or 3 fleets full of just disruptor corvettes?
Thanks - I'm a newb and trying to figure out my fleet composition! I assumed you'd have 2 or 3 corvettes, then a bunch of all around cruisers, and a few arty/carrier battleships to round it all out?
What I mean is in the late game period, I would have 2-3 Corvette fleets to screen my main fleet of Cruisers and Battleships, I might have 10-15 other fleets and use 2-3 corvette fleets to screen them, meaning they charge in first, take the first hits (alpha strike) and swarm the enemy taking their fire while my Cruisers and Battleships stay at range and fire away. Corvettes are fast to replace while Cruisers and Battleships take much longer. Put in one PD or Flak with the Corvettes, have one fleet of each type so it takes care of missiles and strike as well.
I read that Stellaris calculates the 'median' weapon range according to the hull section placed and always left to right within a hull section. This means that you place the middle first, then the bow (x slot), then the rear. If you then leave out some short range weapons to place the x-slot in the median, you maximize the ship's initial range. According to the wiki, there is a initial range then a preferred range to stay once the initial range is reached. The initial range is based on the median weapon range, and the preferred range is set to the hangar range for carriers. This means that the carriers will tend to advance to medium range, then try to back off. Have you done any testing on this?
If I under you correctly, yes. I have seen many times ships use there longest range weapons first then move into a range where most of the weapons will fire.
This is why it is good to put missiles with carriers as it means you will get DPS from the carriers why they stay at long range.
In most battles though from mid game onwards there will be enemy fleets charging well within weapons range.
Combat needs to use the median range of all weapons otherwise a lot of weapons would never be used in a fight until too late, so you are right from what I have seen countless times in battles.
Thanks for the guide, I was also hoping to see the starbase and platform designs because you showed us a lot of things on how to defeat a starbase (mostly torpedoes), but what about defending against it?
Also I'd like to hear about a "AFK killing starbase" artillery setup where you send 10-20 ships to slowly conquer systems that don't have fleets, but you still need that system for claims/scoring/total war. So they slowly conquer all you want and take no damage because of range. Missles (0-120) and Hangars (125)?
I did some testing myself and found out that speed is a bad stat for Battleships because when the ship enters the "aggro radius" it will go further and can get into the radius of the Starbase's weapons and never go back to leave it.
This also works against FE empires. While your doomstack is hunting them down or bombarding the planet, some ships can destroy starbases with the help of Titans and Juggernauts (range buff).
To defend a start base try using platforms with one side with Neutron Launchers and the other with Kinetic Artillery, so one knocks down shields while the other will do damage to armor and hull. It is very effective.
To take down stations are long range, I would use a similar setup, Battleships with Artillery and Cruisers with Neutron Launchers, they can go around and kill stations easy enough with only say 20 in total.
Afterburners can be useful on BB's at times but most of the time it is more suited to smaller ships like Cruisers, Corvettes and such, speed can be life for those ships.
My go to battleship is FAE+hangar core. Its just so versatile and only lacks the raw power vs 25x crisis fleets. Even then it does well enough. I do mix in some artillery battleships with tachyon lances, and fill the rest with missile/hangar cruisers and destroyers.
You tha man doing the work! I appreciate ya.
I appreciate that. Thanks for the comment.
Oh how long I’ve awaited this
Glad the video helps you. Thanks for the comment.
Whenever i go back to Stellaris i literally just search your name on youtube to look at the ship meta as first thing :)
Thanks for the comment, yea I should do some updated videos on this but not a lot has changes really in the combat side of things, it is really in the rest of the game that everything keep changing.
The plural of “crisis” is “crises.” Cris - eez It's a loanword from Latin and retains its original Latin plural noun form (similar "analysis" to “analyses” and "basis" to “bases”).
Good to know, thanks.
10x or 25x Contingency is the hardest for me to deal with. Where as swapping x slots is generally enough on my battleship/cruiser fleets for the other crisis; the sheer mass of contingency damage and shields/armor calls for me to add naked corvettes to screen those particle lances and I add a number of extra battleships with just arc emitters to save cost. By this point in the game hyper relays are everywhere and can seriously mess up your alpha strike plans on contingency bases, making sending your sacrificial corvettes a few days before your main fleet necessary if the hyper relay is within range of the contingencies particle lances. Is there a way to force not using the hyper relays besides jump drives?
Yes hyper relays have messed up more than a few of my battles. Try cloud lightning on all L slot weapons as it is another bypass weapon, very effective but need it in large numbers but range is not as good as kinetic arty.
about XL weapons, wouldn't tachyon lance be best against players since everyone avoids shields?
It may be as human players tend to opt more for armor, against AI no. My testing was only against AI and Crisis fleets for which the Focused Arc Emitter had the highest damage output. How long do we need to wait to see in a PvP tournament a player goes all shields and wipe the floor with everyone as they went all anti-armor weapons.
Took a break from Stellaris for a while but getting back into it again. Great update and it appears not too much has changed.
The tech changes has totally altered how the game plays for me and I am really struggling to keep up with the AI let alone surpass them.
Yes the tech changes in my opinion are good, I even slow the tech down more for the challenge, can’t just rush techs or skip say destroyers for cruisers you actually need to use early game tech to stay alive.
why use all armour on quite a few of the late game ships?
i heavily disagree on placing point defence on corvetes, because they already have high evasion vs missiles. Also, in earlygame the main threat to corvetes is usually other corvetes. So best weapons for early game fighters is high-aim+tracking weapons ie small lasers and mass drivers (top).
Point defense on corvettes is mostly as a screening force for your capital ship fleets. I often have 3-5 fleets of 250+ corvettes fleets screening my main fleets of Cruisers and Battleships, works great, give it a try. You mix in both PD/Flak as the corvettes swarm the enemy, they are shooting down all the missiles and strike craft as they launch. Meanwhile your capital ships are blasting away while all the focus is on the corvettes. Due to the high evasion of the corvettes the enemy waste the alpha strike on small ships mostly, meaning you suffer much less loses. It is a tried and proven method against AI and other Human Players, you will often see Top PvP players use corvettes fleets in this manner.
@@tachyonlance1969 i mean earlygame. The pdd is clearly not the best choice
While true of you are caught in an early war going two red lasers and 1 flak or pd actually adds a lot of fire power as they will fire on other ships if no missiles or strike craft to shoot down.
Finally a video to scratch that itch in my min-max monkey brain
Haha yea you can certainly spend a lot of time trying to work out the best min/max for ship design.
Against the Gray Tempest, what cruiser design will perform better? Missiles or torpedoes+disruptors?
I heard the gray tempest ships have short range so missiles could potentially be better? I can open the L-gate now. I want to be prepared before I open pandora's box.
Is there a reason you wouldn't go for the 2 small slots stern section on cruisers for the extra afterburner? I'd assume it'd be better both for kiting on a missile or carrier cruiser and closing the gap for torp cruisers, as well as giving you extra evasion.
EDIT: just got to the late game section of the video, where you seem to be using the 2 small slot stern and extra afterburner.
I actually prefer to use to 2 slots for Afterburners if that is what you mean, extra speed is life. On BB's 3 slots of Afterburners, if speed is required to stay at range. Speed is now one of the most important parts of ship combat.
@@tachyonlance1969 Yeah, that's why I was confused a bit as your early/mid game cruisers all had the 1 medium slot stern with 2 auxilliary slots for afterburners instead of the 2 small slots/3 auxilliary slots
Just depends on if your ship design actually needs the extra speed or not, not all of the do. But speed is now a very very powerful weapon.
Great vid! really helpful
Glad it helped! Thanks for the comment.
Is there a way to save ship designs between games? I hate having to remake te exact same ones when playing solo.
No, not that I know of, that would require saving to the cloud which should be possible but not sure how hard it would be to implement. Would be a great feature though to be able to save them like templates.
unless you're playing on difficulty where you can alpha strike anything, the best builds are the ones that work against grand admiral 25x crisis, and basically none of these do unless you play on easy mode vs AI empires, exploit them and scale into infinity. i always play with all AI empires advanced start, scaling off and bonuses from start. and ofc i still haven't won. with limited growth from such a universe you can't really alpha strike 15M contingency fleet, and as soon as their lances get in range with 3750% weapon damage bonus, your battleships get one shot no matter how much shields you have. their armor and shields also have 3750% bonus. so the best way is to use naked disruptor corvettes with as much energy weapon fire rate and damage technology as you can. but i got far enough to know that about 1M power naked disruptor corvettes destroy 6M contingency fleets with bearable losses.
I only ever play with 25 x Crisis with all Crisis (all 3 of them). I only play on grand admiral as well with no scaling, in some multiplayer games we do scale till year 25-50 depending on the skill of the other players otherwise they just get killed 30 years in or earlier. Kinetic BB's are great against Crisis ships, same as Carriers BB's with a mix of different X slot weapons to match the crisis and either shield/armor depending on what is best to counter each on. If you don't have an empire that can produce 15-20 million fleet power, you don't have much of a chance, you also need to be producing 5000 alloys a month minimum to be able to keep up with ship losses. Most of this video is about fighting other players or AI and at the very end I talk about Crisis designs and I have used them to great effect, most times I win. But it is not just about effective ship designs it is about an economy to produce a fleet big enough to fight them and sustain the losses and rebuild fast enough to keep up the fight. My corvette fleets against the Crisis are actually Cruiser fleets with devastator torpedoes, close to 30 range and unleash hell, yes you lose a lot, but they take the alpha shot rather than your BB's Titans and once you're done with the Swarm, put on Scourge missiles and maxes the other crisis much easier if you're lucky enough to get them 1st or 2nd.
@tachyonlance1969 that's exactly the thing, having max number of advanced AI empires means you'll never be able to fight, subjugate or greatly expand with outposts. Later, not even joining non aligned powers is an option because you'll get alloy exhausted by empires that joined awakened empires. Of course, being neighbour to purifiers and similar is automatic loss, but everything else is fair game if you know how to use envoys and defensive pacts to survive. But the main topic were fleet types. I mean, if 20M disruptor Corvettes could in theory fight 120M contingency, question in the end is could the 20M fleet which you prefer do the same?
Actually, the real question is what PC in the world could handle 20m fleet power of corvettes. :) If you are playing against all advanced empires and with the new tech systems, yes that is very hard. You would need to put the Crisis back to at least 2500 I would think to be competitive with a chance to win. I never use corvettes against Crisis. Corvettes are very inefficient to build when it comes to alloys compared to Cruisers and Battleships, only two ship classes you need against the Crisis. Perhaps become the Crisis yourself to beat up on all those advanced AI's.
@@tachyonlance1969 Unfortunately Im too stubborn to have any other setting besides mid and late crisis set to earliest year possible. Part of the reason is that I want AI empires to be weaker than crisis even when they're all united; god forbid they do the job in my place. So far its impossible as you can tell from the numbers i mentioned (i think my best alloys income was bit over +2k), so my next playthrough i will compromise with 0,75x and maybe even 0,5x tech modifier too see how doable it is.
Yea you are playing a very tough game setup, I like it. But not sure how it is possible for you to beat 25 x Crisis with it. I don't think any type of ship design can really make up for this. Only thing that might is some of the stronger META species builds.
This guide got you a sub :) Thanks brother
Thanks for the sub and kind comment.
Disrupters might win you the battle, but will you destroy any ships when the dmg on the hull for each hit is low. Especially when facing a player that understands the mechanic of disengagement . Your kills will be minimum to none(all cruisers). Enemy retreats and loses no ship and you losses some. He repairs and do it again.
True, but if have spies in your enemy, you should see their ships designs and adjust accordingly. I find lasers/plasma do a lot of high damage to kill ships so this doesn't happen, even from early in the game.
Combat doesnt seem to have changed much in the newest update, but would much chance between this guide and the new update?
No, no real changes to combat. Only thing we can do now is become a fallen empire and build fallen empire ship which I just did a few videos on if you check out the rest of my channel. Thanks for the comment.
@@tachyonlance1969 OK, thank you. I just did a run going virtuality with the new become the crisis and it felt so broken it hurt. Thanks for the quick answer.
Yes I refuse to play that build as it is so OP. Once they balance Virtuality somewhat then I will give it a go. I enjoy arc welders.
@tachyonlance1969 the gutted megacorp tall attempts and added a tall option that just breaks the game lol. I too really enjoy arc welders. Pretty powerful but not game breaking.
Nice video! Although I'm sad that my goto late game battleship design wasn't part of your collection (maybe it's not actually good lol). I would be happy if you could give me some feedback on it, what the weaknesses are that I fail to see.
I use a battleship with Hangar Bow, Hangar Core, Broadside Stern filled with 2 Strikecraft, 7 Swarmer Missiles, even mix of armor and shields, Artillery or Carrier Computer and a random mix of Afterburners, Shield Hardening or Armor Hardening depending on what's available and whether I have any Genious Armorer on the council.
This seems like a solid design to me, because all weapons have 100% shield penetration, all weapons have high range to allow kiting, none have a minimum range, so you can't be caught off guard at a hyperlane exit and it's not easily counterable by PD thanks to the use of swarmer missiles (not sure about this one). I've thought about adding an Arc emitter instead of the Hangar Bow, but the limited firing arc put me off, because my ships always approach to swarmer missile range and then turn sideways or start kiting, making the arc emitter mostly dead weight.
Yes it is a solid design. I did talk about having 3 strike craft bays for BBs and that was a strong option. Using missiles compliments strike craft nicely and helps to overwhelm PD and Flak defences. Great design.
Thanks for the great guide! I recently returned to Stellaris and your guide was very useful. Could you tell me what proportions of ships you use in the late game? Would it be normal to take 35% of corvettes, 15% of cruisers with a computer to rendezvous with missiles with corvettes fleet, 50% with battleships, half of which are artillery and half aircraft carriers and titans with them? Thank you in advance.
Alot of my fleet will be Battleships, I would say 60-70% at least, mix of Artillery and Carriers. You need that X slot firepower. Maybe 15-20% Cruisers, I like to use Torpedo Cruisers to rush in and unleash massive firepower with devastator torps. They also help to tank the damage from enemy fleets as they are much closer to them. The rest is Corvette fleets, disrupters with a mix of Flak/PD to swarm the enemy tank the alpha shots as they have 90% evasion so most miss, leaving your battleships free from too much damage earlier on. This also helps to reduce enemy strike craft, missiles, torps as the corvettes are swarming them shooting many down prior to reaching your Battleships.
My friend i loved your video. So much clarity. Can you make a video expaining and showing the different combat computers and how it affects the behaviour of the ships? Like swarm computer and interpector computer
Why do you only use armor? You have no sheilds on your ships
I tend to use only armor for a few reasons 1 armor has more hp overall than shield do 2 it allows me to use my physics to buff my weopons (laser) while engineering focuses on the defense (armor) and 3 when u unlock armor hardening there really is no issue with being only armor 4 regen traits or just putting repair stuff like nanotechnology repair allows me to stay in the fight indefinitely normally. 5 it's kinda cool role-playing. if I don't go full armor I go full shield with kinetic or missiles for the same reasons except the repair stuff
Haven't been playing for too long but I use (for the most part" either the same amount of shield and armor or one more shield if it's an uneven amount of slots, is that viable or dumb.
Ps, how does hardening work (if you don't feel like telling me because it takes long I'll just watch a video no worries)
@@Dryrubbersock armor hardening makes a percentage of the damage of bypass weapons (weapons that ignore shield/armor) hit ur defense and not ur hull so if I have only shields and they have missles which ignore shields I'd get destroyed but if I have shield hardening the damage actually hits my shields instead of completely ignoring them so the fight is fair again. and no that is not stupid but typically its best to have like 1 or 2 of armor either way
So with the machine age DLC coming and the Cosmo-genesis crisis path allowing for building fallen empire ships, are you going to do some testing? I am curious what the most optimal build for the escort and battlecruiser is going to be.
I will certainly try too, but I expect their ships will be way too powerful for most other ship designs. Probably need pure numbers of ships and fleets with empires combining to defeat them I think is how it would go. Will look into it though once it is released. Very excited for the new expansion, looks great.
So for mid to late game, go cruiser/destroyer prime and then move to Battleship/Destroyer prime? Or do you want to keep cruisers around?
I tend to have survivability issues with cruisers after mid game so I abandon them.
I do like to keep cruisers as they are so versatile, fast to replace and cheaper than battleships, but I also like to build a balanced fleet. Watch a few of my recent videos from the last few days to see a well balanced fleet.
@@tachyonlance1969 Thank you kindly for the response. I will check them out.
No problem, hope they help.
Also, do you have any recommended designs for defense platforms?
Depends on what you are fighting against. Early game Strike Craft are best to fight corvettes. If you don't have Strike Craft tech then make platforms with M slot weapons use mix of lasers and kinetic. Later game use long range torpedo's, missiles if you like to engage at longer range. Can also put on L slots and use lots of Kinetic Artillery. All depends on who you're fighting and at what time of the game. Early on always pick strike craft if you see the tech, using them on stations and defense platforms early to mid-game can save you from being rushed by corvette spam as you play on harder difficulty levels.
Thank you, great guide 🙏
What would be a good solution to corvette spam?
Strike Craft are great, so Carrier Battleships deal with strike craft spam well. You can also build missile destroyers with afterburners, use artillery combat computers as they kite them around and kill them pretty easily with minimal losses. Early game opt for hanger bays on your StarBase's, they are great for killing early game corvette spam, but you need defense platforms with these as well.
@@tachyonlance1969 thanks man. Last time I did missiles vs corvettes, my ships got shredded...
So are neutron launchers back? I thought they were dead? lol The meta changes soooo much!
Does this mean you only use 1 ship design per fleet?
No I use a mix of fleets designs nearly all the time other than the start of the game. I also change my designs depending on who I am fighting, build spy networks for intel on ships designs, get intel agreements with other empires so you can see what weapons they use when they fight other empires and so on.
Is this still up to date or have things changed a lot since the video was made? I just came back to the game from a year-ish long hiatus and am a bit lost
It is still pretty good as combat has not changed much at all since the 3.6 update which was the combat revamp, and this is made after that.
Why are you using all armour on the early game ships? If the enemy use lasers they will just tear you apart?
If he's using all armor and disruptor corvettes vs laser corvettes he is going to win. The lasers go through armor fast but since he's attacking the hull immediately with disruptors the opponents ships become less effective from each point of damage to the hull done to them. Forcing them to either immediately disengage or get destroyed while putting out reduced damage and fire rate once the hull is attacked.
That's my understanding of it. But also armor gives you slightly more points per slot at the cost of alloys compared to shields with less but cost more in power.
Thank you.
No problem. Thanks for the comment.
this video is great, but it would help A LOT more with time stamps.
Yes, I forgot that with this video, I will try and fix that when I get some spare time soon. My videos normally have time stamps.
From the Atlantic to the Channel, my people will be free.
Awesome video. Do you think this will translate into the machine age?
It Probably will, doesn't seem to be any changes to the combat system. I have not seen new weapons, types of ships in this expansion other than the new player become the Crisis ship.
@@tachyonlance1969 thanks for the clarification! I look forward to testing this out in future playthrough!
Hey, returning player after a few years - this video helps a lot!
But I was wondering why you only use armor in the early game or why disruptors are so heavily favoured instead of Laser/Kinetic?
Edit: Or why Strike Craft seem so important
Edit2: I probably should just have continued watching the video lol
Armor has more hit points, if you look at the hit points shields gives you compare it to armor you will see you simply get more protection from amour for the investment in tech and alloys, although armor costs more. Disrupters go through everything to directly hit the hull, perfect for killing small ships like Corvettes, Frigates and so on. So early game very powerful weapon until you get shield/amour hardening tech. Strike craft are like small early disrupters, they are great for killing large numbers of corvettes which is what the AI will typically use in the early game. Keep watching all my videos if you want to learn lots about ship/fleet combat :) but really just watch a few and learn. Watch more when you have learnt more as it is a lot to take in.
Algorithm boost, thank you for the guide :)
You're welcome! Thanks for the comment.
Great vid 😊
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the comment.
Thanks. Good video.
No problem. Thanks for the comment.
Got my ass kicked in my last war and saw a 10k of theirs kill a 12.5 k of mine and said i clearly dont understand ship design lol
It can happen, hopefully some of the designs I have listed in this video can help you a lot. If you need help or have any questions just ask. Or join my discord as plenty of people around can help as well. Instructions to join in description of my videos.
@@tachyonlance1969 sounds fun id like more people to talk stellaris with. it seems like you never use lasers, that true? other things to just leave on the shelf?
@@jownbey Lasers, Kinetic, Plasma has their place, they are still good. Lasers have high tracking so can be good against Corvettes. You can get good results with combination of lasers/plasma/kinetic. Just they are not the most OP weapons at present. It really depends on who you are fighting and what type of weapons and ship design they have, which is why intel is so important.
@@tachyonlance1969 that seems to be my biggest problem is im so busy managing everything that im not paying attention to what the enemy is fielding. My fleets get made before i know who im fighting though, so ive been trying to have like three different weapons packages and spawn them equally per group
@@jownbey Yes, it is a good idea to spend time designing different ship classes. Artillery, Torpedo, Carrier's, screening fleets. I would have versions of Carrier & Artillery Battleship's, Torpedo Cruisers using both short range and long-range torpedoes. You can also have a Cruiser design with disrupters or other shorter-range weapons. Screen fleets of either Corvettes or Destroyers, maybe both with mix of disrupters with PD/Flak. This will give you a good all-round fleet and you might just need to adjust some weapons now and again depending on who you are fighting.
First of all how are you doing secondly when are going to stream stellaris
Doing better, getting stronger, hence why making more videos. Planning on starting up our Stellaris Multiplayer streams on the 8th of May my time about 7.30-8pm which is Perth Australia. This is when the new expansion is out, and I should be strong enough to sit and play for 3-4 hours at night by then. We play from 8-11pm and very hard for me to stay up that late since my surgery, hopping to be able to do it by then.
Looks like they changed the Arcemitter accuracy to be good again cuz I remember when it was 90% and it always missed
I did tests and it is in a video from last year and the Focused Arc Emitter did the most damage of all X slot weapons, I use it in a lot of my fleets. But it depends on who you're fighting. High shield and armor hardening could reduce a lot of that damage and make it nearly ineffective. So, if really pays to know what your enemy has, invest in spies and intel network if you're planning some big wars in the future against powerful enemies that you are not sure you can beat, but might with the right fleet design.
Nice
Thanks for the comment.
We need the same video without Disruptors since they are banned in every lobby now. And a solid fleet comp tips for early/mid/late in PvP.
Not in my lobby it is not, as disrupters has counters, try going all missiles, artillery destroyers they wipe the floor with them. I think it is just a knee jerk reaction to ban disrupters but up to each group. Hardeners from mid to late game make them near useless. You can have destroyers by 15-20 years in the game, stick missiles on them and they counter disrupters, use StarBase's with strike craft, shred corvettes. Disrupters are strong but certainly not overpowered.
Torpedos and Neutrons are DEAD. Im ...suprised ytou call it 'meta' ship.
On high diff and x10-25 crisis late game is all about BB Arty - Carriers with Destroyers x3 P anti missiles- aircrafts.
I would still agree on disruptors , they melt early and mid game.
And I like mid game Rocket Cruiser option ,I use it a lot as well.
But torpedos and neutron launchers are dead.
PS - USE , JUST USE HARDENING mods on your BB. Its fine to use afterburners on corvets and destoyers for dodge chance. BUT USE HARDENING ON BB.
Trust me...
Test out the all round cruiser that has torps, missiles, strike craft. When it fights nearly any other equal fleet in terms of fleet cap it will normally win. You can switch out missiles for disrupters depending on the torpedoes and combat computer you’re using.
I agree I normally use similar builds to what you have fighting 25xCruses. Go look in the live section on my channel at our multiplayer games, we always fight 25 x crises and I use fleets like you describe for the last year at least.
@@tachyonlance1969 BB with Arty + range increase Admiral will melt Cruisers
@@tachyonlance1969 Even in multiplayer , like a deathmatch with 10+ players , BB are kings to melt Cruisers
I mean, it works like rock paper seizors , cruisers melt corvettes and destroyers , BB melts cruisers , mass corvette - DD spam melts BB.
But here is a trick - you add DD to BB and here you have a meta compo for today.
@@suriil9875 It is strong, but it won’t beat all cruiser builds, some designs will beat them, I’ve tested it many times.
Ah yes I know that build as I did a video on it about 6 months ago. Montu did a video showing how cruisers could not be beat and I cane up with a BB and DD combo that beats it. So yes I agree.
Rome.
For The Glory Of Rome.
expected you to be mentioning the "good stuff"
yet you just went through everything
I am quite confused since the video seems a bit point less
I went through the strong builds for early, mid and late game. If you have any questions or you are confused about something happy to clarify it for you.