Are Destroyers Worthless?

[Zenopath]

It seems that many experienced players believe that the optimal fleet mix is corvette + battleships, because corvettes, being cheap and having high (upto 90%) evasion can soak up a great deal of damage, and the sheer firepower of Battleships, which their X mounts and full large turret layouts can be devestating. If you don´t have battleships, you could go corvette and cruisers, to gradually phase out the cruisers later.

This leaves the obvious question, why would you ever build destroyers? With only a small firepower advantage as compared to 2 corvettes, and lacking the evasion and with less overall hp, people say they are worthless.

What are your thoughts on this, do you agree? And, if you do, could destroyers be fixed to make them worth building? If so how? Would be interested to hear your thoughts on topic.

 

[sillyrobot]

They're decent early-game artillery and corvette sweepers. By mid-game, they are best retired or at least relegated to small niches like part of a force delegated to taking undefended systems.

 

[Zardnaar]

Fairly useless imho. Not fast enough to compete with Corvettes not durable vs cruisers useless as escorts for BB.

 

[fodazd]

They have a use as 2*PD + L with picket computer, which is the counter for missile/torpedo corvettes. But yes, corvettes and battleships are better in general.

 

[Olinser]

They are useful in certain situations and strategies. While yes, in total 1 destroyer has less HP and damage than 2 corvettes, in combat corvettes will always take more casualties, which can add up over time.

They can be useful when fighting an early war where the enemy has stronger starbases - while yes, they don't have a big firepower upgrade over 2 corvettes, they will take less casualties killing upgraded starbases in the early game. Even with a large fleet advantage you're likely to lose 1 or 2 corvettes killing an upgraded starbase in the early game, while a pure destroyer force will not generally lose a ship. Over several fights/bases taking less casualties will add up to significant difference in alloys when your alloy income is still very low.

Less casualties can also be useful when playing an early aggressive Devouring Swarm, as the bonus regen to hull/armor means you don't have to repair after fights.

But they're pretty useless after that point. They have no purpose the second you unlock Cruisers, and certainly not after you have Battleships.

 

[Defiler99]

I only use them as an early platform for Cloud Lightning, and retire them as soon as possible.

 

[M@ni@c]

Aren't they useful against a fleet composing mostly of battleships? My reasoning:
Battleships have low evasion, so it's best to use large weapons against them.
Battleships often use large weapons, which have low tracking, meaning evasion is useful against them.
Destroyers are the smallest ship (meaning higher evasion) that can still equip large weapons, so they're useful as a battleship counter.

Right/wrong? How would a corvette or battleship fleet fare better against battleships?

 

[Zenopath]

Seems like maybe they could be buffed with an evasion boost, maybe. In my experience, at high tech levels it is possible to go over cap with evasion on corvettes, maybe at those tech levels you could go for destroyers instead. Like if they were only 20% less evasion than corvettes, they might make a late game resurgence that way?

 

[Zenopath]

Right/wrong? How would a corvette or battleship fleet fare better against battleships?

battleships will waste shots against the corvettes missing a fair %, when the corvettes are gone, you will start losing battleships. Corvettes are basically ablative armor in battleship duels.

So far as i have been able to tell, a pure battleship fleet of same tech and total command points will lose against a fleet with about 25% corvettes.

 

[Zardnaar]

Aren't they useful against a fleet composing mostly of battleships? My reasoning:
Battleships have low evasion, so it's best to use large weapons against them.
Battleships often use large weapons, which have low tracking, meaning evasion is useful against them.
Destroyers are the smallest ship (meaning higher evasion) that can still equip large weapons, so they're useful as a battleship counter.

Right/wrong? How would a corvette or battleship fleet fare better against battleships?

Why not just use Corvettes to counter BB's.

Counter fleets are really only good vs late game threats.

 

[Zenopath]

Why not just use Corvettes to counter BB's.

Counter fleets are really only good vs late game threats.

They dont do enough damage, 3 small mounts don´t compare to the 300+ dps of an X mount BB with all large turrets, so they wouldn´t be able to really hurt the battleships that easily at all. A fair number would die before getting into range.

Also while the evasion is nice, it actually gets countered by tracking and accuracy boots, so if you have 90% evasion but the enemy has teir 4 sensors and combat Ai artillery installed, they get to negate about half of that or more. Much of the usefulness of corvettes actually has to do with the problem of overkill, not raw evasion. When you hit a damaged corvette with your X mount you could well waste a great deal of the damage. But the lack of damage makes pure corvettes are pretty weak against high tech BB.

 

[M@ni@c]

Does that mean you should send battleships plus loads of corvettes without any weapons or armor into battle?

 

[Zenopath]

Does that mean you should send battleships plus loads of corvettes without any weapons or armor into battle?

well, assuming the enemy is using corvettes too, your corvettes will target the other corvettes, and help the BB kill them faster. Corvettes tend to not have much problem hitting other corvettes, with the built in tracking bonuses of small mounts.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

They dont do enough damage, 3 small mounts don´t compare to the 300+ dps of an X mount BB with all large turrets, so they wouldn´t be able to really hurt the battleships that easily at all. A fair number would die before getting into range.

Also while the evasion is nice, it actually gets countered by tracking and accuracy boots, so if you have 90% evasion but the enemy has teir 4 sensors and combat Ai artillery installed, they get to negate about half of that or more. Much of the usefulness of corvettes actually has to do with the problem of overkill, not raw evasion. When you hit a damaged corvette with your X mount you could well waste a great deal of the damage. But the lack of damage makes pure corvettes are pretty weak against high tech BB.

Repeat after me:

TOR-PE-DOES​

(Or any missiles, really). Corvettes are specifically intended to be able to wreck battleship face with their missile slots, and it might be the only "X is intended to counter Y" thing that *mostly* works the way the developers intend. Battleships can't mount nearly enough PD to soak up the massive waves of simultaneously-launched torpedoes a corvette fleet puts out, they sacrifice a bunch of their DPS to even try, and if the battleships go *really* heavy into PD to try and make it work then the corvettes switch to swarm missiles (which have both high HP so they take a lot of PD shots per missile, and have high fire rates so the PDs - which are otherwise very effective DPS/size weapons in their own rights - can never do anything else but try in vain to kill more than a tiny fraction of the missiles the corvette fleet spews out).

The only real hope battleships have against corvettes is either to kill them at long range with lucky shots (even maxxed out, battleship tracking is nowhere close to corvette evasion), which the corvettes counter by just being stupidly fast (especially if you have the precog computers), or to have escorting destroyers or corvettes of their own to get out in front of the battleships and distract the corvette swarm.

 

[Zenopath]

maybe one solution would be to allow destroyers to have hangers or a total of 3 missles. I imagine the sheer volume of missles from 3xdestroyers worth of missles would pose a problem to bb, even if they are using a screen of pd corvettes.

 

[Zenopath]

Repeat after me:

TOR-PE-DOES​

(Or any missiles, really). Corvettes are specifically intended to be able to wreck battleship face with their missile slots, and it might be the only "X is intended to counter Y" thing that *mostly* works the way the developers intend. Battleships can't mount nearly enough PD to soak up the massive waves of simultaneously-launched torpedoes a corvette fleet puts out, they sacrifice a bunch of their DPS to even try, and if the battleships go *really* heavy into PD to try and make it work then the corvettes switch to swarm missiles (which have both high HP so they take a lot of PD shots per missile, and have high fire rates so the PDs - which are otherwise very effective DPS/size weapons in their own rights - can never do anything else but try in vain to kill more than a tiny fraction of the missiles the corvette fleet spews out).

The only real hope battleships have against corvettes is either to kill them at long range with lucky shots (even maxxed out, battleship tracking is nowhere close to corvette evasion), which the corvettes counter by just being stupidly fast (especially if you have the precog computers), or to have escorting destroyers or corvettes of their own to get out in front of the battleships and distract the corvette swarm.

sure, but first time you see 80 corvettes with 1 missle each you will deploy a 40 corvette pd escort fleet and stop them cold. Current balance is one 1 pd slot counters 1 missle except swarmers, which have reduced damage output. (edit) So 1 pd corvette will win against 1 missle corvettes because it has 2 small mounts to 1.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

maybe one solution would be to allow destroyers to have hangers or a total of 3 missles. I imagine the sheer volume of missles from 3xdestroyers worth of missles would pose a problem to bb, even if they are using a screen of pd corvettes.

That would make sense, except that according to the devs, destroyers are supposed to be the counter to corvettes, rather than the counter to battleships. For example, corvettes have the most efficient missile mounts/ship size points ratio in the game; destroyers have the most efficient PD/size in the game (and even after the nerf to PD vs. armor, they still rip through shields and hull quite efficiently once you get into range, assuming there's no missiles or strike craft to distract them). The problem is, if DDs are going to counter corvettes, they need to be better than less-than-two corvettes worth of small slots glued together with less-than-two corvettes worth of HP (especially because they always lose to corvettes on evasion and speed).

Giving DDs the option to mount a hanger slot would also make sense, if strike craft were actually effective at anything right now; strike craft are (in theory) good against both small ships (high speed and tracking, skips shields) and large ships (high evasion and needs PD to kill them, skips shields), but right now the only thing they are effective against is red-colored piracy icons.

 

[Zenopath]

That would make sense, except that according to the devs, destroyers are supposed to be the counter to corvettes, rather than the counter to battleships. For example, corvettes have the most efficient missile mounts/ship size points ratio in the game; destroyers have the most efficient PD/size in the game (and even after the nerf to PD vs. armor, they still rip through shields and hull quite efficiently once you get into range, assuming there's no missiles or strike craft to distract them). The problem is, if DDs are going to counter corvettes, they need to be better than less-than-two corvettes worth of small slots glued together with less-than-two corvettes worth of HP (especially because they always lose to corvettes on evasion and speed).

Giving DDs the option to mount a hanger slot would also make sense, if strike craft were actually effective at anything right now; strike craft are (in theory) good against both small ships (high speed and tracking, skips shields) and large ships (high evasion and needs PD to kill them, skips shields), but right now the only thing they are effective against is red-colored piracy icons.

Ok, well, how much of a buff would destroyers need to be meaningful as corvette killers? because as they are, 2 corvettes of same tech will kill 1 destroyer.

 

[SeekingEtermity]

sure, but first time you see 80 corvettes with 1 missle each you will deploy a 40 corvette pd escort fleet and stop them cold. Current balance is one 1 pd slot counters 1 missle except swarmers, which have reduced damage output. (edit) So 1 pd corvette will win against 1 missle corvettes because it has 2 small mounts to 1.

Sure, if you're using mixed fleets (though note that one PD doesn't fully counter even one non-swarm missile, and swarm missiles are what you use if you see the enemy building lots of PD but you still want to be able to punch battleships). I was responding to the "corvettes can't throw enough DPS to kill battleships" claim. You never said anything about mixed fleets in the post I was responding to.

 

[Losttruppen]

I use them in my QRF fleets of destroyers and cruisers with afterburners, they end up with very similar speeds. I fit about 2/3 with M plasma, S plasma, S autocannon, and 2 PD and the others with Kinetic Artillery and 2 PD for extra anti-shield and some PD to hang with my Kinetic Artillery/Neutron Launcher Cruisers. The pickets rush in close to engage and give a small time buffer to get those extra L shots in. Have had good results so far, they evade enough that they don't die like my corvettes but are still much cheaper to replace than cruisers/battleships.