The recommendation I usually saw in 1.4 was that if you're using Neutron torps you should only have about 1 torp corvette out of 6 total so that they just kill shields and the other 5/6 do the ship killing.
Arc Emitters insanely powerful vs Corvettes
- Thread starter Wyrm
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I decided to move my fleet into the realms of the weaker of the two empires at war with me and crushed their puny fleet and occupied their three last worlds to get me some warscore.
Then with 200 corvettes and a few dozen destroyers I managed to finally pummel the enemy battleship fleet into dust. 140 corvettes and one destroyer survived the battle, then they sued for peace, reducing my demands for three systems to one system and I decided it was good enough for now.
I had just exited another war when these two declared on me and hadn't had time to rebuild my fleet.
Well, I have cruiser-tech now and intend to build up a few dozen artillery-cruisers to keep handy for these type of engagements.
it is funny, I have only fought one agressive war, and that was over one system that an empire colonized while my colony-ship was enroute. Other than that, others have attacked me. I've always prevailed, despite sometimes taking immense losses, but since I have spread out so quickly, I have a steady mineral income and can recover with relative ease.
Then with 200 corvettes and a few dozen destroyers I managed to finally pummel the enemy battleship fleet into dust. 140 corvettes and one destroyer survived the battle, then they sued for peace, reducing my demands for three systems to one system and I decided it was good enough for now.
I had just exited another war when these two declared on me and hadn't had time to rebuild my fleet.
Well, I have cruiser-tech now and intend to build up a few dozen artillery-cruisers to keep handy for these type of engagements.
it is funny, I have only fought one agressive war, and that was over one system that an empire colonized while my colony-ship was enroute. Other than that, others have attacked me. I've always prevailed, despite sometimes taking immense losses, but since I have spread out so quickly, I have a steady mineral income and can recover with relative ease.
Possibly because, like other anti-shield weapons, they spread their damage out by moving from active shield to active shield instead of focusing down the hull afterwards like anti-armor weapons and weapons without bonuses against shields or armor. You might have better luck if you mix them with lasers or plasma cannons or lances, which will prioritize the unshielded ships as targets.Ah, then why do they always seem to disappoint me deeply as weapons then though?
Use 2x Mining Lasers 1x Disrupter/Kinetics if you can. Mining Lasers destroy almost all capital ships remarkably fast.
Thanks for the info re. energy torps. In my current game my corvette screens are entirely neutron torp/plasma 3 boats. After reading this I may retool 75% of them to pure plasma or 2 plas/1 dis boats. Thanks gents!
for a couple of patches i have been saying that arc emitters are awesome, finally someone else picked up on them
Arc Emitters are quite strong against corvettes. That said corvettes still > all, at least according to the tests I ran.
Edit: To specify I don't think there is one corvette template that beats _everything_ else there is on even numbers. But I think that between plasma and kinetic corvettes you can counter every player-fleet there is. Because plasma corvettes beat almost everything and what they lose to kinetic corvettes beat.
All the following tests had in common: Fleets always engaged at full range. No bonuses from starport, admirals, resources, ... .
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 3 Battleships survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 68 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 94 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 8 Battleships survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Armor and Arc Emitters: 113 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Armor and Arc Emitters:18 Battleships survived.
80 Corvettes with Plasma + 80 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 63 Corvettes survived.
120 Corvettes with Plasma + 40 with Disruptors vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 86 Corvettes survived.
If required I can provide the ship templates I used.
Edit: To specify I don't think there is one corvette template that beats _everything_ else there is on even numbers. But I think that between plasma and kinetic corvettes you can counter every player-fleet there is. Because plasma corvettes beat almost everything and what they lose to kinetic corvettes beat.
All the following tests had in common: Fleets always engaged at full range. No bonuses from starport, admirals, resources, ... .
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 3 Battleships survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 68 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 94 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 8 Battleships survived.
160 Corvettes with Plasma vs 20 Battleships with Armor and Arc Emitters: 113 Corvettes survived.
160 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Armor and Arc Emitters:18 Battleships survived.
80 Corvettes with Plasma + 80 Corvettes with Kinetic vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 63 Corvettes survived.
120 Corvettes with Plasma + 40 with Disruptors vs 20 Battleships with Shields, Capacitators and Arc Emitters: 86 Corvettes survived.
If required I can provide the ship templates I used.
Last edited:
Not to be a dick, but from your initial post it sounds like your enemy had a tech advantage like you wouldn't believe - battleships, arc emitters and shield capacitors vs corvetted with photon torps isn't even a contest. Photon torps fire slowly - they do a lot of damage and are intended to be mounted on your corvettes so they can strip away enemy shields, allowing your big guns with + armor modifiers to go to work on their hull.
They get rid of the shield but the shield capacitors immediately start recharging them.
Now it seems that this is where your auto cannons are supposed to come in, but autocannons are horrible vs battleships in any size, but most importantly in the size a corvette can mount. They're close in flyswatter weapons designed to get rid of corvettes.
So your torps clear away the shields (that's why they spread damage, by the way - they're programmed to prioritise hitting targets that still have shields left over ones with fully or mostly stripped shields), but your auto cannons do so little damage that they likely didn't even manage to penetrate through whatever tiny amount the shield capacitors regenerated. Meaning the battleships took insanely long for your corvettes to wear down, whereas the enemy was probably blowing away a good hand full with every salvo because his arc emitters ignored the shield and evasion of your corvettes and hit them right in their tiny hull pool where it counts.
You would have been better off mixing them 1 to 3, 1 being photon torps and 3 being plasma, or better yet with normal torps as the poster above said - your ships were simply hard countered.
Going by what you wrote, you likely didn't have better tech in sensors/armor/shield modules either - can't imagine an enemy just so happening to outtech you only in hull size.
They get rid of the shield but the shield capacitors immediately start recharging them.
Now it seems that this is where your auto cannons are supposed to come in, but autocannons are horrible vs battleships in any size, but most importantly in the size a corvette can mount. They're close in flyswatter weapons designed to get rid of corvettes.
So your torps clear away the shields (that's why they spread damage, by the way - they're programmed to prioritise hitting targets that still have shields left over ones with fully or mostly stripped shields), but your auto cannons do so little damage that they likely didn't even manage to penetrate through whatever tiny amount the shield capacitors regenerated. Meaning the battleships took insanely long for your corvettes to wear down, whereas the enemy was probably blowing away a good hand full with every salvo because his arc emitters ignored the shield and evasion of your corvettes and hit them right in their tiny hull pool where it counts.
You would have been better off mixing them 1 to 3, 1 being photon torps and 3 being plasma, or better yet with normal torps as the poster above said - your ships were simply hard countered.
Going by what you wrote, you likely didn't have better tech in sensors/armor/shield modules either - can't imagine an enemy just so happening to outtech you only in hull size.
The only problem with this is that the AI doesn't rebuild weaker ships after the mid game is over. Most AI fleets are heavily battleships and cruisers with few destroyers or corvettes at late game. So going hard into arc emitters isn't going to be that great. You need to maximize your range with heavy hitting weapons like Kinetic Artillery and Torpedoes.
AIs tend to rush hull size. I've been in this situation before where they have battleships and I never got around to researching cruisers, but overall tech levels were similar. A fleet of all battleships from an AI usually means that they just lost a battle where everything smaller was killed, though. They go for mixed fleets.
BBs rarely move without cruisers and often they have DDs and corvettes with also, which all are better corvette killers than BBs. I don't think your plasma corvettes could win any other fleet than those arc emiter BBs.
Also all bonuses help more BB fleet than corvettes, because they start shooting first => removing them is boost for corvettes.
Just think if we have had Arc Emitters back when Lances were still a large slot. Schocking. Positively Schocking.I miss my absurd Lance Destroyer doom fleets.
You're right and I'm wrong. I just assumed that the Arc Emitters aside everything still worked more or less then the last time I tested (1.4 I believe). Turns out that's not true and cruisers now win against corvettes, as do destroyers, both of which wasn't the case the last time I tested.
Those were Void Cloud Lightning. Strong vs Armor, Weak vs Shields.
It is easy to get them Confused
Pretty sure there were Arc Emitters in 1.2.Those were Void Cloud Lightning. Strong vs Armor, Weak vs Shields.
It is easy to get them Confused
meanwhile i wish that they would arc between targets to cause even more destruction...
It seems most of my errors where due to a fundamental missunderstanding in how weapons would work.
My intent was for autocannons to shred the smaller ships while the torps killed off the battleships and cruisers. That they automatically always target ships with their shields still up was not something I anticipated. Since no matter what, they would have done a lot more damage to armor than my autocannons if they had targeted ships with shields down.
I am now rethinking my fleets design.
I've been researching plasma weapons and kinetic artillery. I will use plasma on my corvettes and artillery on my cruisers.
Due to RP-reasons I will still rely mostly on corvettes, but the cruisers will be in a secondary support-fleet that I can call in when needed.
My intent was for autocannons to shred the smaller ships while the torps killed off the battleships and cruisers. That they automatically always target ships with their shields still up was not something I anticipated. Since no matter what, they would have done a lot more damage to armor than my autocannons if they had targeted ships with shields down.
I am now rethinking my fleets design.
I've been researching plasma weapons and kinetic artillery. I will use plasma on my corvettes and artillery on my cruisers.
Due to RP-reasons I will still rely mostly on corvettes, but the cruisers will be in a secondary support-fleet that I can call in when needed.