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Don't build your defenses in pulsar systems. Build up your base in the next system after pulsar. This way, when enemy fleet enters, it's still at 0% shield, while your uncustomizable space station core is at 100% shields.
I never thought of that. If I choose a pulsar as a bastion system I would always design defense platforms specifically for the pulsar- so all armour and all lasers. I thought it was a good idea bc the ai ships would lose all their shields an vulnerable, while I had tailored my defences to the system. Never occurred to me that if I move it over one system the enemy shields will still be recharging and I still get to fight enemies who have no shields.
@@louiswinterhoff334that also isnt a bad idea especially if the system has speed reduction too add in the module for more speed down load it w cannons and stuff for armor/hull dmg and watch them get chunked hard before ever getting close to the station also if you build fortress world in a system as a choke point load its orbital ring w stuff ontop of the station for extra defensive capabilities especially if the planet is close to the incoming warp lanes the enemy will mess with it first before your station letting the station just volley incoming enemies while they focus the orbital ring defenses first essentially you are doing a scaled down version if how the game sets up the marauders w multiple defense stations per system so multiple small fortress worlds mean the enemy cant leave till they fall cuz ftl jamming and thats multiple rings worth of defenses they gotta deal w draining them even harder and forcing them to then deal w the nearly unkillable worlds if you build them right
@@Nomadic_Gaming 100%. I always try to pick systems with at least one planet. You get the extra defences in space from the orbital ring, and an FTL inhibitor on the planet to slow enemies down and keep them in the system
agreed this is a massive oversight as once a base is fully upgraded certain modules wont have their weapons upgrade past a certain point (missiles and strike craft not using the relic or crisis weps once you have them despite them being a tier above your current starbases current setup best you can do is dismantle them rebuild and modules and pray the base actually uses your stuff ive had it do this w psy/dark matter shields and dragon scale where maxed citadels wouldnt upgrade to it but ones upgrading to citadel would
I want science and construction ships as well. Just make these components some sort of modules something you put on ships. Thus we can make armed scientific vassals and stop fearing abductions of our science personal. Considering construction speed could easily be turned into a bigger mechanic, battleship sized build-it-bots could become feasible late game to speed up forward colonization or a critical megastructure. Just make a 'civilian' type of ship that is the smallest and weakest, but doesn't add to your ship total....
I find it absolutely hilarious that paradox aded whole espionage system thats only use is getting vision on enemy empries and then made it worthless in next update by adding cloaking.
I use it to steal tech early game. I focus economy early game and use the spies to steal mil tech while having massive fuck off starbases. I use NSC so it’s much easier to actually have an effective starbase defense
12:26 If you surrender to the Khan you can set your fleets to follow so his follow yours. Then you can lure him far away from attacking fleets. This is a funny oversight by the Stellaris devs at Paradox Interactive.
Some things that might be worth noting about Trade Stations and Detection station that it took me a long time to realize: - Detection Stations can use that cloaking detection on anything the station can see, and at Citadel level with the Appropriate upgrade, a station can see nearly 15-20 hops away from it. It some empires this is your ENTIRE empire for only one detection station. - The same applies for a trade station, at max level their collection range can be massive AND it will apply through a gateway, so if you set a gateway (or L-Gate) next to it, that range will also reach out over that. So far as I can tell, the same applies for Detection stations. - So built correctly, you should in theory only really need one of each even for a fairly decent chunk of territory, and certainly once you have gateways up and running.
Yeah, gateways definitely work like that. As soon as you get them, you can cut back to one station for detection and one for trade, and the rest just become anchorages. Once you open the L-gates, setting up near an L-gate is ideal since those can't be closed even while at war.
When using raiding bombardment, set the default rights of all aliens to domestic servitude so that all unemployed pops work as servants and produce amenities. Actually I do that by default because I actually know how to manage slaves. In an ideal world all jobs except for rulers can be run by slaves. At most all you need is indentured servants, domestic servants, and battle thralls.
Regarding research stations: there was a point where they were worth it early in Stellaris' life cycle. As a result of the many DLCs and patches, they're a feature that doesn't make much sense anymore. The downside of a game that receives drastic reworks. Some parts of the game are just there, leftover from earlier builds of the game where they served some purpose.
@@mburg8345 By the time you reach early mid-game, research stations are dwarfed by your researcher pops. Yes, you may be getting around 80 society research (even with techs) from stations, but your researchers are doing 1k society research. Not to mention, those researchers are likely giving 1k engineering and physics research, too. The point is to build research stations last. Build ones for alloys, minerals, and energy in this order (once you get the materials for rare materials like rare crystals, exotic gases, dark matter, etc., you will want to prioritize those more). Those materials are better spent building your worlds, using the nutritional plentitude edict, etc. I will admit I build stations once I have over a +100 mineral income per month. By that point, I am usually waiting for pops to grow, so I end up asking my construction ships to help.
@@hatemf23 It's just a comparison. Yes, 100 years down the line on +80 society research, you will gross 8k. 100 years down the line, your researchers are going to be doing 2k (or more) research a month.
I think they still have some purpose because they don't need pops. In the early game, pop growth is your worst enemy, and if you have already 10 free jobs, you might as well build a research station instead of waiting years till you have enough pops to fill your next planetary science building. So they are kind of a good mineral sink if you got too many at any point
I know this video is a few months old, but here's a pro-tip: You can use Raiding bombardment stance on pre-FTL civilizations and ERASE THEM FROM THE GAME. Yes, you read that right: you can steal pops from pre-FTL civilizations, ranging from 20-40 pops in most cases, and even free the planet up. At the last pop for a pre-FTL planet it says that you've raided them to near extinction and ruined their civilization, erasing the final 1 pop and immediately opening the planet for colonization. You can use this as a Necrophage, Devouring Swarm or an Assimilator for their pop/ bonuses without going to war with another nation.
I will disagree about starbases. Swarm missile defence platforms are insane, cause if you combine them with target link they will wreck most of the enemy ships even before they hit your starbase.
If you build things correctly, defense platforms can carry you militarily up until roughly the start of the lategame. The problem with DPs is that they just get outscaled as the game progresses. Fleets will *always* end up being too strong for Starbases to do anything against as the game goes on - so you eventually *have* to switch to a fleet based strategy. But early game especially, if you have the right set up, you can totally lock out enemy empires. Fortress Habitats / planets (when they're in a strategic position) are still the best option for defending choke points - up to the time in which chokepoints can be bypassed by jump drives at least. Once you reach that point, things get messy. But honestly, most games of Stellaris don't make it to that point in so far as the AI being a viable enemy is concerned, and from what I understand, PVP is usually decided LONG before even that. Basically, any player that knows what they're doing is going to have snowballed so hard on the AI by the time jump drives are in consideration, that they could probably just conquer the entire galaxy if they could be asked to bother with it.
i need a guide on astral bodies, because the interfere with combat. I know that, black holes reduce sublight speed, and neutron stars nullify shields. So I'd like a guide on how to proceed on each star, or how to choose the best chokepoint for a buff starbase. Thanks already, Strat.
Don't build your defenses in pulsar systems. Build up your base in the next system after pulsar. This way, when enemy fleet enters, it's still at 0% shield, while your uncustomizable space station core is at 100% shields.
I second this. There is a symbol next to the name of the system but it often seems to have different debuffs then what everyone else talks about. This has always made me wonder if some information wasn't being displayed on the little icon properly. For I am very shield heavy and would like to avoid certain systems if I can help it.
In my first game auto design really messed with me, i was upgrading ships just to upgrade them again next month. And currently its utterly ridicilous while designing ships.
I am going to disagree wholeheartedly with the starbase thing. I have had starbases wipe out fleets twice the power of themselves. (Grand admiral) From what I was watching you put NO defensive platforms on them, which is why it lost. Like of course a bastion with no defensive platforms is going to lose.
yeah I was just thinking this. Defense platforms are where the combat power of bastions actually comes from. The gun and missile batteries are just an added bonus. Honestly, I would fill the bastion with hangers and put guns on the defense platforms. With the defense super computer and the archaic defense field or whatever that tech is you can have a ton of defense platforms around your starbase making it a tough nut to crack. It can still be beaten but if you are playing a pacifist or tall you can get away with parking a small navy over a bastion like that and weathering almost anything. It makes weak navy defensive races actually viable
I kinda wish soldier jobs were more realistic in Stellaris. I wish they prioritized free pops rather than chattel slaves. Realistically speaking only battle thralls should be allowed to be soldiers. But I bet most people don’t even know those exist because they and the AI only use indentured servitude. That’s right, even if the AI is the most fanatical of xenophobes (unless fanatic purifier of course) or the most authoritarian of tyrants they will only shackle xenos to debt.
Slave army were a real thing in history. Like China up to 1800-1900 fielded thousands of slave, prisonners and other things likes that to fight wars. India was mainly controled by Indian soldier when England colonized it. (Ok they werent really slave, but they werent equals to englishman in right. Also check the bullet incident between India and England its an hilarous piece of xenophobia) Or the whole Mameluks order. It was a buch of slaves that defended the islamic califat in muslim golden age in 1200. They notably served Saladin and was the elite force that repelled the crusade.
HOLY FUCK THANKS FOR THE RETREAT POINT. So often have retreated ships redeployed directly in a system that was (close to) being attacked by a crisis or a super strong opponent. I was tearing my hair out a few times, figuratively
I find this hilarious considering the video just came out after I was steamrolled by an ai determined exterminator empire that became the crisis and swept half the galaxy off the map while I was focused on my own empire because I have 0 situational awareness when it doesn't actively concern me That ai crisis just magically pulled 600k fleet power out of thin air in the mid game just after the great khan spawned
@@philkim8297 Not really but in higher difficulties AI gets buffs so it makes them start strong. If Stellaris had a very good AI program running behind, the majority of the players would likely play the game in Cadet mode to enjoy it. Hardcore AI + Buffed start results in bad taste for the game.
Regarding the shields vs armor thing, I think regeneration needs to be factored in. While shields are the only defense/hp type with built-in regeneration, that regeneration is point-based while hull and armor regeneration you can gain from various sources is exclusively percentage based. This means that shields will *always* regen their health at a fixed rate no matter what, while a specific armor regen value will *always* result in fully depleted armor being fully restored in a set number of days whether it's 100 armor or 10,000. This gives armor more potential endurance compared to shields if you have regenerative hull tissue, nanite repair systems, mark of the composer, or an engineer admiral. This gap only widens once you reach repeatable techs since increasing max shields by 5% means that it takes 5% longer for depleted shields to be fully restored while the same isn't true for armor.
I swear to god I have no clue if I are playing the same game as everyone else, there isn't a point in any game where I am not trying to escape being capped on minerals. And I'm constantly building more and more alloy producing colonies.
For 21 it would seem armor is better than shields, but as soon as someone brings in plasma, shields are more valuable. If you run low shield and high armor, with anti armor weapons, you will lose to a full shield + anti armor weapons So say 6 L Neutronium Armor give a total of 10440 armor 6 L Hyper Shields give a total of 7920 shield + 52,2 daily shield regen So given if the battle takes say 30 days The shields will cover for 9486 The armor will cover for 10440 If you include 3 shield capacitors then The shields will cover for 11862 The armor will still cover for 10440 What actually matters is, if you can counter their ship design, you will win.
true, that is a very fair point countering the enemy is much more important now, but i was just making a point that most of the really REALLY good weapons now just ignore shields entirely Armor may not be the best in all situations, but it certainly is a very safe bet for MOST situations
I think mixing weapon types can work when the weapons have certain commonalities. I stand by disruptors and torpedoes being a pretty potent combination for fighting the AI since they have basically the same range
This video is okay strat, your content has steadily gotten better as time has gone on. I personally would recommend more minecraft parkour in the corner or maybe some other sensory videos, and definitely some goofy cartoon sound effects would increase retention rates as well as increasing your potential audience to younger, less attentive individuals Honesty excited to see the next one, keep up the amazing work strategizer
yes, those are some very good suggestions ms. biv, i'll think about implementing subway surfers on the corner of the screen when i'm explaining something that involves big numbers as it seems people do indeed lose attention the most in those types of scenes, so this is very helpful
Forge worlds should be always the safest one, deep inside empire. It's cheaper to buy energy, food and minerals compared to goods and alloys from market
Districts are completely immune to planetary bombardment, so build only city districts on your every fortress world. They increase its stability and efficiency of soldiers, but will not provide any resources to enemies if the planet is conquered.
corvettes are amazing missile sponges. simply make a small fleet of a only disrupter fit picket hulls with point defense and afterburners. missiles track the closest target first, so if you use battleships or cruisers from a distance, a suicide corvette fleet used as a missile screen against other players, or, you could go with picket destroyers with flak and point defense. i never had issues murdering fleets that use missiles and fighter spam. just remember that missiles have travel time, where as turrets hit/miss the target instantly. also, if the 'target' a missile was going after dies, it will acquire a new target and turn towards it. also, due to how targeting works, some larger ships using shields will have more effective HP in the battle then armor, due to the recharge rate. just remember, there is always a hard counter to everything, even if that hard counter does 25% of the damage you could put out. 25% beats 0%. so stay flexible. not going to say to avoid the meta, but just be aware that the meta is the 'average good fit' not the all time winner.
I do love huge Corvette stacks in the endgame to mob up the systems of the crisis or awakened FEs that my main fleet would be too slow to catch. If my economy is doing great than I don‘t even have to care about reinforcing my stupid corvette swarm.
The Thing with the Federation fleet i didnt know , but if you know its so natural to put your naval cap down because federation fleet is capped at 600.
I think it'd come down to whether you're using that particular titan for it's friendly buffs, or as part of an alpha strike artillery battery. Might not be a bad idea to give your short-range fleet titans a more suitable build for it's job, for example L lasers with no minimum range or the relic X slot weapon (if i recall correctly, the relic version has less range but greatly increased fire rate)
I was thinking of mostly focusing on shields for my ships, because I assume the AI would only use the laser weapons as their primary weapons, since the auto generations I got gave my ships laser weapons (It still generates some ships for me, but I use my own designs) and if AI can't make their own custom ships (probably, god forbid) I can just focus on shields, especially early game. I am a Noob :/
I think in the wiki it says AI empires with different focuses (evangelizing zealots, spiritual seekers, ruthless capitalists, etc.) may favor different weapons. I haven't checked enough to confirm this though
Missle batteries are quite useful at the beggining they can destroy low lvl fleets amd will take q couple ships down before they get to engage the station
This video is very useful and informative. Unfortunantly i still struggle to understand. I do want to get better at the game but the combat is where i struggle the most.
Sorry, but corvettes in Late Game are pretty strong in defending your homespace.... against battleships they shine supreme... But the best ships is allways the cruiser
MontuPlays would disagree with many of these advises., specially thr ones where he actuakly had tried and tested and documented (Weaoon type vs shield vs armor, starbases etc.)
why do you talk like that sounds like a minecraft video from 2010 xD I cant help but imagine him talking to his friends normally like this all day cracking me up
@@trevorgoretski The only hit points that really matter on a ship is its hull points, when hull points reach 0 it is dead. Shields and armour give you extra hit points to act as a buffer, however armour points and shield points don't necessarily stop all weapons. What he means by different "types" is what they are stopped by: -Energy and kinetic weapons must wear down all hit points. -Missiles, torpedos, and fighters completely by pass shield points and only need to go through armour points and hull. -Disruptors and arc emitters ignore armour and shield points and damage hull points directly. If you mix these weapons you will damage the targets shields armour and hull at about the same rate, meaning the armour and shield damage you dealt is pointless as they die to the loss of hull points. So if you instead only use weapons from one of these types then you can take out ships faster because: -Energy and kinetic weapons typically have higher base damage and damage bonuses against particular types of hit points and when focused can burn though shield, armour, then hull faster than a mixed ship will take out it's target. -Missiles and fighters have much longer range and can kite other ships forcing them to only use their missiles and fighters and will once again stripe a ship of armour and destroy it's hull before a mixed ship can take out it's hull points. -Torpedos are a bit strange as they just have crazy high damage and short range, but you'll generally want them paired with missiles and fighters to give enemy point defense something else to shoot at because every torpedo shoot down is a significant loss in damage. -A pure disruptor ship will take out a targets hull points faster than a mixed ship just because it has more disruptors than the mixed ship Thank you for reading my novel, I hope it helped.
Worst would be a mix of missiles, plasma, and disrupters. Potentially you could have a situation where the plasma only damages the shield, the missiles only damage the armour, and the disrupters are the only thing that actually matters. It isn't so much the weapons as the tactics. If you are committing to winning without breaking their shields then any effort to break shields is a waste. Does that make sense?
And just to say it one more time Turn off the auto design Even if you don’t think you can design a ship you will do a better job than the auto designer
+100 armor and +100 shields on a cruiser provides 100 more of both but on the 10 corvettes that cost as much as a cruiser provides 1000 armor and 1000 shields
For 2 rather than disabling it, you can just build your own ships (and just have it on to see what the AI thinks is best with your current tech) Now you get best of both worlds.
most of the time, you won't be lucky enough to be neighboring the Crystal System that has them tip number 1 is useful if you have no hardening modules due to low tech + not lucky enough to be next to Crystal Entities
What is this about separating fleets by ship type? For example, all my missile cruisers and kinetic artillery battleships in one fleet? My disruptor corvettes and pd destroyers in another? I'm struggling with how to setup my fleet composition. And corvettes are useless?!
Corvettes are not useless thats bade advice. But unless you have a specific build and purpose for them to perform they fall off once cruisers can be built. So for example only use corvettes in seperate fleets as missile sponges with only disruptor weapons to waste the enemy ships time for your more powerful longer range ships to fire. Or don’t use them once you can have the higher tier ships.
No. Hull, Armour, and Shields all have 3 different HP pools. Say you get hit by weapons that do not ignore any defences, HP starts being taken from shields, then after they are depleted armour, then finally Hull. When the Hull runs out, regardless of how much the other HP pools have left, the ship is destroyed. The reason why Disruptors are so good is because they ignore Shields and armour without hardening completely , damaging the hull directly, effectively ignoring 2/3 of its defences completely. Furthermore, damaging a ships Hull reduces it's effectiveness in battle, so not only are disruptors ignoring defences, they are also crippling their target and making them weaker while they do that.
I can't mix different weapon type.... on the same ship, right? I can totally use kinetic and energy weapon AND have frigates rushing with missiles and torpedo, right?
not optimal, but is not that bad in general it's advised to not mix them as again, damage is spread out so only do so if you're fighting specifically big ships and you NEED the extra bonus damage against them
Not true. Energy is same as Minerals with converted price as 1.3 from market. So If its 3energy and 2 minerals, ill build energy base. Coz its give me 2.3 minerals from market.
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Raid isn’t free lol. It’s pay to win.
Dude, just put some of the crystall plating on the ships to increase the hull points
some of my frends dont care about rule 3:(
cloacking?? sound like sombody is scared:)
corvet svarm is fun tho
Don't build your defenses in pulsar systems. Build up your base in the next system after pulsar. This way, when enemy fleet enters, it's still at 0% shield, while your uncustomizable space station core is at 100% shields.
smart point!
I never thought of that. If I choose a pulsar as a bastion system I would always design defense platforms specifically for the pulsar- so all armour and all lasers. I thought it was a good idea bc the ai ships would lose all their shields an vulnerable, while I had tailored my defences to the system.
Never occurred to me that if I move it over one system the enemy shields will still be recharging and I still get to fight enemies who have no shields.
@@louiswinterhoff334that also isnt a bad idea especially if the system has speed reduction too
add in the module for more speed down load it w cannons and stuff for armor/hull dmg and watch them get chunked hard before ever getting close to the station
also if you build fortress world in a system as a choke point load its orbital ring w stuff ontop of the station for extra defensive capabilities especially if the planet is close to the incoming warp lanes the enemy will mess with it first before your station letting the station just volley incoming enemies while they focus the orbital ring defenses first
essentially you are doing a scaled down version if how the game sets up the marauders w multiple defense stations per system
so multiple small fortress worlds mean the enemy cant leave till they fall cuz ftl jamming
and thats multiple rings worth of defenses they gotta deal w draining them even harder and forcing them to then deal w the nearly unkillable worlds if you build them right
@@Nomadic_Gaming 100%. I always try to pick systems with at least one planet. You get the extra defences in space from the orbital ring, and an FTL inhibitor on the planet to slow enemies down and keep them in the system
Do both
*I see the Raid advert*
*Uses Obi-wan's voice* WHAT HAVE YOU BECOME?!
*Darth Vader voice* I am what you made me
@@Strategiser2
*runs away*
Was a smooth transition, can't lie haha
rich
PARADOX PLEASE LET ME DESIGN SSTARBASES ALREADY SMH MY HEAD
agreed this is a massive oversight as once a base is fully upgraded certain modules wont have their weapons upgrade past a certain point (missiles and strike craft not using the relic or crisis weps once you have them despite them being a tier above your current starbases current setup
best you can do is dismantle them rebuild and modules and pray the base actually uses your stuff
ive had it do this w psy/dark matter shields and dragon scale where maxed citadels wouldnt upgrade to it but ones upgrading to citadel would
I want science and construction ships as well.
Just make these components some sort of modules something you put on ships. Thus we can make armed scientific vassals and stop fearing abductions of our science personal. Considering construction speed could easily be turned into a bigger mechanic, battleship sized build-it-bots could become feasible late game to speed up forward colonization or a critical megastructure. Just make a 'civilian' type of ship that is the smallest and weakest, but doesn't add to your ship total....
@@lostbutfreesoul no gaurd ur ships or abduct ur neighbors first the universe is cruel only the warry survive
My head my head...
2 heads? Xeno scum
i always loose 50 IQ whenever i see plasma launchers with disruptors on a citadel.
I find it absolutely hilarious that paradox aded whole espionage system thats only use is getting vision on enemy empries and then made it worthless in next update by adding cloaking.
I use it to steal tech early game. I focus economy early game and use the spies to steal mil tech while having massive fuck off starbases. I use NSC so it’s much easier to actually have an effective starbase defense
12:26
If you surrender to the Khan you can set your fleets to follow so his follow yours.
Then you can lure him far away from attacking fleets.
This is a funny oversight by the Stellaris devs at Paradox Interactive.
lmao, that's a genius way to abuse that mechanic yes
ok thats hilarious
Yes. Once I could steel ruined Dyson Sphere and ongoing building Science Nexus from not so friendly empire by this method.
Some things that might be worth noting about Trade Stations and Detection station that it took me a long time to realize:
- Detection Stations can use that cloaking detection on anything the station can see, and at Citadel level with the Appropriate upgrade, a station can see nearly 15-20 hops away from it. It some empires this is your ENTIRE empire for only one detection station.
- The same applies for a trade station, at max level their collection range can be massive AND it will apply through a gateway, so if you set a gateway (or L-Gate) next to it, that range will also reach out over that. So far as I can tell, the same applies for Detection stations.
- So built correctly, you should in theory only really need one of each even for a fairly decent chunk of territory, and certainly once you have gateways up and running.
Gateways are so broken
technically if you build gateways all over(which is a good thing to have anyways) you can have just 1 trade station lmao
Yeah, gateways definitely work like that. As soon as you get them, you can cut back to one station for detection and one for trade, and the rest just become anchorages.
Once you open the L-gates, setting up near an L-gate is ideal since those can't be closed even while at war.
Good to know I am not the only person who likes to build trade stations, phew!
20 systems away..
i presume this is defo the unmooded tiny sizes of galaxy maps then
As a Barbaric Despoiler, I approve of #9
When using raiding bombardment, set the default rights of all aliens to domestic servitude so that all unemployed pops work as servants and produce amenities. Actually I do that by default because I actually know how to manage slaves. In an ideal world all jobs except for rulers can be run by slaves. At most all you need is indentured servants, domestic servants, and battle thralls.
Barbaric despoiler necrophage is just peak
As a rogue servator, I approve this message and grabbing Mechromancy for those pesky undesirables.
@@alecneal8335
Do pops on Necrophage purge become your primary pops on abduction?
@@PerfectAlibi1 yes sir with the necrophage purge type
Regarding research stations: there was a point where they were worth it early in Stellaris' life cycle. As a result of the many DLCs and patches, they're a feature that doesn't make much sense anymore.
The downside of a game that receives drastic reworks. Some parts of the game are just there, leftover from earlier builds of the game where they served some purpose.
New player - your saying not to build research stations in any system? Even ones with a resource boost?
@@mburg8345 By the time you reach early mid-game, research stations are dwarfed by your researcher pops. Yes, you may be getting around 80 society research (even with techs) from stations, but your researchers are doing 1k society research. Not to mention, those researchers are likely giving 1k engineering and physics research, too.
The point is to build research stations last. Build ones for alloys, minerals, and energy in this order (once you get the materials for rare materials like rare crystals, exotic gases, dark matter, etc., you will want to prioritize those more). Those materials are better spent building your worlds, using the nutritional plentitude edict, etc. I will admit I build stations once I have over a +100 mineral income per month. By that point, I am usually waiting for pops to grow, so I end up asking my construction ships to help.
Don't they pay off long term or something?
@@hatemf23 It's just a comparison. Yes, 100 years down the line on +80 society research, you will gross 8k. 100 years down the line, your researchers are going to be doing 2k (or more) research a month.
I think they still have some purpose because they don't need pops. In the early game, pop growth is your worst enemy, and if you have already 10 free jobs, you might as well build a research station instead of waiting years till you have enough pops to fill your next planetary science building. So they are kind of a good mineral sink if you got too many at any point
I know this video is a few months old, but here's a pro-tip:
You can use Raiding bombardment stance on pre-FTL civilizations and ERASE THEM FROM THE GAME. Yes, you read that right: you can steal pops from pre-FTL civilizations, ranging from 20-40 pops in most cases, and even free the planet up. At the last pop for a pre-FTL planet it says that you've raided them to near extinction and ruined their civilization, erasing the final 1 pop and immediately opening the planet for colonization.
You can use this as a Necrophage, Devouring Swarm or an Assimilator for their pop/ bonuses without going to war with another nation.
I will disagree about starbases. Swarm missile defence platforms are insane, cause if you combine them with target link they will wreck most of the enemy ships even before they hit your starbase.
(Takes notes) I think I'll try that out in my next game.
If you build things correctly, defense platforms can carry you militarily up until roughly the start of the lategame.
The problem with DPs is that they just get outscaled as the game progresses. Fleets will *always* end up being too strong for Starbases to do anything against as the game goes on - so you eventually *have* to switch to a fleet based strategy. But early game especially, if you have the right set up, you can totally lock out enemy empires.
Fortress Habitats / planets (when they're in a strategic position) are still the best option for defending choke points - up to the time in which chokepoints can be bypassed by jump drives at least. Once you reach that point, things get messy. But honestly, most games of Stellaris don't make it to that point in so far as the AI being a viable enemy is concerned, and from what I understand, PVP is usually decided LONG before even that. Basically, any player that knows what they're doing is going to have snowballed so hard on the AI by the time jump drives are in consideration, that they could probably just conquer the entire galaxy if they could be asked to bother with it.
i need a guide on astral bodies, because the interfere with combat. I know that, black holes reduce sublight speed, and neutron stars nullify shields. So I'd like a guide on how to proceed on each star, or how to choose the best chokepoint for a buff starbase. Thanks already, Strat.
Black holes don't slow ships down, they reduce chances of retreating.
Pulsars slow down ships. They look like neutron stars, just pulsier
Don't build your defenses in pulsar systems. Build up your base in the next system after pulsar. This way, when enemy fleet enters, it's still at 0% shield, while your uncustomizable space station core is at 100% shields.
I second this.
There is a symbol next to the name of the system but it often seems to have different debuffs then what everyone else talks about. This has always made me wonder if some information wasn't being displayed on the little icon properly. For I am very shield heavy and would like to avoid certain systems if I can help it.
In my first game auto design really messed with me, i was upgrading ships just to upgrade them again next month. And currently its utterly ridicilous while designing ships.
I am going to disagree wholeheartedly with the starbase thing. I have had starbases wipe out fleets twice the power of themselves. (Grand admiral) From what I was watching you put NO defensive platforms on them, which is why it lost. Like of course a bastion with no defensive platforms is going to lose.
Defensive platform and a defense super computer to stack up 8 of them.
yeah I was just thinking this. Defense platforms are where the combat power of bastions actually comes from. The gun and missile batteries are just an added bonus. Honestly, I would fill the bastion with hangers and put guns on the defense platforms. With the defense super computer and the archaic defense field or whatever that tech is you can have a ton of defense platforms around your starbase making it a tough nut to crack. It can still be beaten but if you are playing a pacifist or tall you can get away with parking a small navy over a bastion like that and weathering almost anything. It makes weak navy defensive races actually viable
I kinda wish soldier jobs were more realistic in Stellaris. I wish they prioritized free pops rather than chattel slaves. Realistically speaking only battle thralls should be allowed to be soldiers. But I bet most people don’t even know those exist because they and the AI only use indentured servitude. That’s right, even if the AI is the most fanatical of xenophobes (unless fanatic purifier of course) or the most authoritarian of tyrants they will only shackle xenos to debt.
Slave army were a real thing in history.
Like China up to 1800-1900 fielded thousands of slave, prisonners and other things likes that to fight wars.
India was mainly controled by Indian soldier when England colonized it. (Ok they werent really slave, but they werent equals to englishman in right. Also check the bullet incident between India and England its an hilarous piece of xenophobia)
Or the whole Mameluks order. It was a buch of slaves that defended the islamic califat in muslim golden age in 1200.
They notably served Saladin and was the elite force that repelled the crusade.
crystal plating, while not necessarily always available, should still work against disruptors at least
they do, but they got nerfed in the rework HEAVILY, thus becoming REALLY bad against anything but Disruptors
i cannot comprehend how you can micromanage the damn ship creation, thats way too much to keep track of
HOLY FUCK THANKS FOR THE RETREAT POINT. So often have retreated ships redeployed directly in a system that was (close to) being attacked by a crisis or a super strong opponent. I was tearing my hair out a few times, figuratively
"Keep all the slots empty when facing disruptors"
Meanwhile the minor corvette fleet they got from a vassal wiping your entire navy:
I find this hilarious considering the video just came out after I was steamrolled by an ai determined exterminator empire that became the crisis and swept half the galaxy off the map while I was focused on my own empire because I have 0 situational awareness when it doesn't actively concern me
That ai crisis just magically pulled 600k fleet power out of thin air in the mid game just after the great khan spawned
600000?! Does the difficulty you're playing on affect the fleet size of ai?
@@philkim8297 To my surprise, Captain difficulty. Not even Grand Admiral.
@@philkim8297 Not really but in higher difficulties AI gets buffs so it makes them start strong. If Stellaris had a very good AI program running behind, the majority of the players would likely play the game in Cadet mode to enjoy it. Hardcore AI + Buffed start results in bad taste for the game.
Auto generate designs doesn't prevent you from making new ships, it just means you need to specifically create a new template to work from.
I love the surviving mars music lmao I'm glad you gave it love in this video
Regarding the shields vs armor thing, I think regeneration needs to be factored in. While shields are the only defense/hp type with built-in regeneration, that regeneration is point-based while hull and armor regeneration you can gain from various sources is exclusively percentage based. This means that shields will *always* regen their health at a fixed rate no matter what, while a specific armor regen value will *always* result in fully depleted armor being fully restored in a set number of days whether it's 100 armor or 10,000. This gives armor more potential endurance compared to shields if you have regenerative hull tissue, nanite repair systems, mark of the composer, or an engineer admiral. This gap only widens once you reach repeatable techs since increasing max shields by 5% means that it takes 5% longer for depleted shields to be fully restored while the same isn't true for armor.
I swear to god I have no clue if I are playing the same game as everyone else, there isn't a point in any game where I am not trying to escape being capped on minerals.
And I'm constantly building more and more alloy producing colonies.
For 21 it would seem armor is better than shields, but as soon as someone brings in plasma, shields are more valuable. If you run low shield and high armor, with anti armor weapons, you will lose to a full shield + anti armor weapons
So say 6 L Neutronium Armor give a total of 10440 armor
6 L Hyper Shields give a total of 7920 shield + 52,2 daily shield regen
So given if the battle takes say 30 days
The shields will cover for 9486
The armor will cover for 10440
If you include 3 shield capacitors then
The shields will cover for 11862
The armor will still cover for 10440
What actually matters is, if you can counter their ship design, you will win.
true, that is a very fair point
countering the enemy is much more important now, but i was just making a point that most of the really REALLY good weapons now just ignore shields entirely
Armor may not be the best in all situations, but it certainly is a very safe bet for MOST situations
If you use all armor and anti armor weapons, let me bring full shield ships to this fight xd I'm prob gone just wreck your fleets kek@@Strategiser2
Who that cancel follow move is such a dick move... And I appreciate that.
It might be worth mentioning that this a video primary focused on multiplayer. In single player, a few of these tips aren't really relevant I feel.
I like to keep one Corvette fleet as a fast response unit. Their sublight speed is awesome
great videooooo, really helpfulllll, gave me some new insight into the combat of this gaaaaame
One of the most under rated feature in stellaris is that your fleets can follow enemy fleets.
I think mixing weapon types can work when the weapons have certain commonalities. I stand by disruptors and torpedoes being a pretty potent combination for fighting the AI since they have basically the same range
This video is okay strat, your content has steadily gotten better as time has gone on.
I personally would recommend more minecraft parkour in the corner or maybe some other sensory videos, and definitely some goofy cartoon sound effects would increase retention rates as well as increasing your potential audience to younger, less attentive individuals
Honesty excited to see the next one, keep up the amazing work strategizer
yes, those are some very good suggestions ms. biv, i'll think about implementing subway surfers on the corner of the screen when i'm explaining something that involves big numbers
as it seems people do indeed lose attention the most in those types of scenes, so this is very helpful
Hearing this video with such a voice, made me think that these tips may be made by either the prikkiki-ti or the robot fallen empire
When do the defense stations around starbases become worth the cost of alloys? Only when going over naval cap would seriously hurt your economy?
pretty much, yeah
this raid shadow legends ad integration is just a piece of art
Forge worlds should be always the safest one, deep inside empire. It's cheaper to buy energy, food and minerals compared to goods and alloys from market
Districts are completely immune to planetary bombardment, so build only city districts on your every fortress world. They increase its stability and efficiency of soldiers, but will not provide any resources to enemies if the planet is conquered.
corvettes are amazing missile sponges. simply make a small fleet of a only disrupter fit picket hulls with point defense and afterburners. missiles track the closest target first, so if you use battleships or cruisers from a distance, a suicide corvette fleet used as a missile screen against other players, or, you could go with picket destroyers with flak and point defense. i never had issues murdering fleets that use missiles and fighter spam. just remember that missiles have travel time, where as turrets hit/miss the target instantly. also, if the 'target' a missile was going after dies, it will acquire a new target and turn towards it. also, due to how targeting works, some larger ships using shields will have more effective HP in the battle then armor, due to the recharge rate. just remember, there is always a hard counter to everything, even if that hard counter does 25% of the damage you could put out. 25% beats 0%. so stay flexible. not going to say to avoid the meta, but just be aware that the meta is the 'average good fit' not the all time winner.
Nice. #25 blew my mind!
I do love huge Corvette stacks in the endgame to mob up the systems of the crisis or awakened FEs that my main fleet would be too slow to catch.
If my economy is doing great than I don‘t even have to care about reinforcing my stupid corvette swarm.
The Thing with the Federation fleet i didnt know , but if you know its so natural to put your naval cap down because federation fleet is capped at 600.
I love how cloaking can basically allow space guerilla warfare to be easier
7:50 does this include separating titans from , let's say, disruptor cruiser fleets? Won't the titans just die way more easily if you do that?
I imagine you can group different ship classes together as long as their combat AI is the same
combat AI behaves differently depending on the weapons used, so it's generally advised to not mish mash different ship designs
I think it'd come down to whether you're using that particular titan for it's friendly buffs, or as part of an alpha strike artillery battery. Might not be a bad idea to give your short-range fleet titans a more suitable build for it's job, for example L lasers with no minimum range or the relic X slot weapon (if i recall correctly, the relic version has less range but greatly increased fire rate)
I was thinking of mostly focusing on shields for my ships, because I assume the AI would only use the laser weapons as their primary weapons, since the auto generations I got gave my ships laser weapons (It still generates some ships for me, but I use my own designs) and if AI can't make their own custom ships (probably, god forbid) I can just focus on shields, especially early game. I am a Noob :/
I think in the wiki it says AI empires with different focuses (evangelizing zealots, spiritual seekers, ruthless capitalists, etc.) may favor different weapons. I haven't checked enough to confirm this though
YOOOO SURVIVING MARS MUSIC
(I have been reminded of that game‘s existence and shall play hundreds of hours more of it)
The transition into the ad was there impressive
This dude makes fantastic vids but that voice KILLS me I can’t get over it. 😂 Is it a bit or is that really his speaking voice?
Wow. Great details in your videos. Very great.
Missle batteries are quite useful at the beggining they can destroy low lvl fleets amd will take q couple ships down before they get to engage the station
This video is very useful and informative. Unfortunantly i still struggle to understand. I do want to get better at the game but the combat is where i struggle the most.
Paradox, when collab with Gaijin for a April fool's naval event?
Sorry, but corvettes in Late Game are pretty strong in defending your homespace.... against battleships they shine supreme...
But the best ships is allways the cruiser
Cruisers are awesome... they die so that my battleships can survive.
Raid advert segue:
/Obiwan voice
"You were the chosen one! You were supposed to bring balance to Stellaristube, not destroy it!"
/end Obiwan voice
Very helpful!
I did not understand 7. (Don't Rush Space Extraction), so shouldn't build any research stations?
I wish auto-design was off by default.
MontuPlays would disagree with many of these advises., specially thr ones where he actuakly had tried and tested and documented (Weaoon type vs shield vs armor, starbases etc.)
using automated ship designs is so nice because i hate using my brain to win games i just want to spam and abuse leader perks
Love the surviving mars music, such a nice game, definitely my favourite game from paradox apart from stellaris
why do you talk like that sounds like a minecraft video from 2010 xD
I cant help but imagine him talking to his friends normally like this all day cracking me up
Wait why should you not mix weapon "Types"? I didn't quite understand from the snippet in the video
because it would spread out the damage evenly on a ship's Shield, Armor and Hull
instead of focusing down on one "aspect"
@@Strategiser2 ig I did not completely understand how armor and shields function, I thought it was good to have all bases covered
@@trevorgoretski The only hit points that really matter on a ship is its hull points, when hull points reach 0 it is dead. Shields and armour give you extra hit points to act as a buffer, however armour points and shield points don't necessarily stop all weapons.
What he means by different "types" is what they are stopped by:
-Energy and kinetic weapons must wear down all hit points.
-Missiles, torpedos, and fighters completely by pass shield points and only need to go through armour points and hull.
-Disruptors and arc emitters ignore armour and shield points and damage hull points directly.
If you mix these weapons you will damage the targets shields armour and hull at about the same rate, meaning the armour and shield damage you dealt is pointless as they die to the loss of hull points. So if you instead only use weapons from one of these types then you can take out ships faster because:
-Energy and kinetic weapons typically have higher base damage and damage bonuses against particular types of hit points and when focused can burn though shield, armour, then hull faster than a mixed ship will take out it's target.
-Missiles and fighters have much longer range and can kite other ships forcing them to only use their missiles and fighters and will once again stripe a ship of armour and destroy it's hull before a mixed ship can take out it's hull points.
-Torpedos are a bit strange as they just have crazy high damage and short range, but you'll generally want them paired with missiles and fighters to give enemy point defense something else to shoot at because every torpedo shoot down is a significant loss in damage.
-A pure disruptor ship will take out a targets hull points faster than a mixed ship just because it has more disruptors than the mixed ship
Thank you for reading my novel, I hope it helped.
Worst would be a mix of missiles, plasma, and disrupters. Potentially you could have a situation where the plasma only damages the shield, the missiles only damage the armour, and the disrupters are the only thing that actually matters. It isn't so much the weapons as the tactics. If you are committing to winning without breaking their shields then any effort to break shields is a waste. Does that make sense?
This is why auto station construction is a must. Don’t spend a year on each system
That last tip is pretty nice heh
is strat a robot? anyone notice he ends his sentences on a low slow note?
Casually using Surviving Mars music for a Stellaris video. The music is good, no hate intended.
And just to say it one more time
Turn off the auto design
Even if you don’t think you can design a ship you will do a better job than the auto designer
Master armorer councilor is good on corvettes.
+100 armor and +100 shields on a cruiser provides 100 more of both but on the 10 corvettes that cost as much as a cruiser provides 1000 armor and 1000 shields
3:49 how did I know😂
7:30 but, but! my swarms!
your way better and time saver straight to point then the time waster Montu .,.. so i sub you
When I Initial jumped away the enemys were to close or something and got warped with this was 3.9
very little explanation to why you shoudnt do x thing
I've barely made it to the ⅓ of this video and couldn't tolerate more of the creator's goofy speech.
Ancorages are just not good enough on their own endgame, eventually you need soildairs.
How do you use jump drives? I researched the special tech but can't use it why?
random question, do cloak detectors on star bases only work for the system it is in or the sensor range of the star base?
in the sensor range of the starbase
Building mining stations on mine deposits are no worth it? As minerals are so good early on
Haven't played this game for over a year and now there is cloaking????? Thats sick
For 2 rather than disabling it, you can just build your own ships (and just have it on to see what the AI thinks is best with your current tech)
Now you get best of both worlds.
... You CAN'T design your own ships if its on.
You can in fact, just not change the auto designs.
well no you fill the slots with cystal armour that ups hull points thats the counter
1. crystal plating isnt better than empty?
most of the time, you won't be lucky enough to be neighboring the Crystal System that has them
tip number 1 is useful if you have no hardening modules due to low tech + not lucky enough to be next to Crystal Entities
Miss playing turtle ngl
What is this about separating fleets by ship type? For example, all my missile cruisers and kinetic artillery battleships in one fleet? My disruptor corvettes and pd destroyers in another? I'm struggling with how to setup my fleet composition. And corvettes are useless?!
Corvettes are not useless thats bade advice. But unless you have a specific build and purpose for them to perform they fall off once cruisers can be built. So for example only use corvettes in seperate fleets as missile sponges with only disruptor weapons to waste the enemy ships time for your more powerful longer range ships to fire. Or don’t use them once you can have the higher tier ships.
14 Is a lie why waste alloys on ships that take forever to build my Hyperstructural-Assembly-Yard spits hundreds of corvets out in a few days.
Not everyone got that
@@Dylan-cv7kj geringverdiner
iknow i wont get an sasnwer for this but why shouldtn i mix weapon "types" whats wrong with hybrid ships?
I play with giga engineering, so anchorages aren't needed.
Why does this dude sound like Jar Jar Binks if he spoke with an American accent?
lmao i've never heard that one before
@@Strategiser2 Loved the video, you and Montu are my best stellaris teachers. Thank you.
On the 1st tip, doesnt armor contribute to hull? Idk if its extra hull points and/or I could be completely mistaken
No.
Hull, Armour, and Shields all have 3 different HP pools. Say you get hit by weapons that do not ignore any defences, HP starts being taken from shields, then after they are depleted armour, then finally Hull. When the Hull runs out, regardless of how much the other HP pools have left, the ship is destroyed.
The reason why Disruptors are so good is because they ignore Shields and armour without hardening completely , damaging the hull directly, effectively ignoring 2/3 of its defences completely. Furthermore, damaging a ships Hull reduces it's effectiveness in battle, so not only are disruptors ignoring defences, they are also crippling their target and making them weaker while they do that.
Anchorages? Nah man, Pirate Free Haven is the shit 😎
I can't mix different weapon type.... on the same ship, right?
I can totally use kinetic and energy weapon AND have frigates rushing with missiles and torpedo, right?
not optimal, but is not that bad
in general it's advised to not mix them as again, damage is spread out
so only do so if you're fighting specifically big ships and you NEED the extra bonus damage against them
8:00 but doesn’t this make it easier for a fleet to simply die when it would have survived better if they were together?
Ey, soundtrack of Surviving Mars?
quick question is there a good way for me to win battles without mixing different weapon types.
im kinda confused.
You can design defense platforms at least
Is number 15 correct? It seems to work for me. Curious if I’m missing something.
yes, they do work, but not as well as if things are always separated
Why are trade hubs useless? I always build one or two
this guy def an alien
Not true. Energy is same as Minerals with converted price as 1.3 from market. So If its 3energy and 2 minerals, ill build energy base. Coz its give me 2.3 minerals from market.
Sensor array go brrrr 5:29
Is there any point in having PD/flak destroyers escorting my BBs? Or should be on a different fleet?
different fleet and make them follow the battleships, so theres no speed difference
I assume it's because of the combat computers? Is it more efficient to put PD on the BBs? @@Strategiser2
@@rakaman27 yes, it is because of the combat computers
also you can't put Picket computers on Battleships lol
you can add carrier sections and PD though.@@Strategiser2
@@Strategiser2 : the battleship carrier segment has P slots. You can't set the picket combat computer but you can put flak or PD on.