best fleet design to beat FE's?

[The Founder]

Yes, the FE 'Gamma' escorts seem to be basically small cruisers with 1L + 4S + 2PD weapons.

Oh, i actually messed up thier guns. They only have 2 PD, not 1 Flak. Yeah, that one is even worse against small ships then the Flak.
They only have 1 large more then a normal destroyer. Wich is wasted against small ships. With the bonuses they might come up to the firepower of maybe 2 corvettes in small guns.

Aside from the Spiritualist and Fighters, Escorts are the only FE ships with decent weapons against small targets.
The Xenophobe does trade all thier medium slots for Flak 2. Does make them realy tought PD nuts to crack. But it makes their ability to kill Corvettes and Destroyers even worse then normal FE. That they actually go towards your ships does not help them either.

 

[zanaikin]

CL = Cruiser Light
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol

I think he's referring to the escorts.

They're bigger than destroyers and real-navy escorts (DDE) but smaller than capital cruisers, which makes them an screen/escort cruiser, in other words -- light cruiser. Figured that was the best hull classification.

I jsut checked:
Flak_2: 75% Accuracy, 50% Tracking, 4.41 DPS
Small_Autocannon_2: 83% accuracy, 65% Tracking, 3.53 DPS. But you can put in TWO for every medium slot you do not have instead.
4.41 DPS to 7.06 DPS with higher accuracy and tracking. I do no consider the Flak guns to be a huge danger.

Flak has AOE damage. Corvettes attack in swarms, and the more corvs you have, the more compact their formation becomes. 'nuff said.
Flak also doesn't suffer -100% shield damage; only regular PD has that.

 

[The Founder]

They're bigger than destroyers and real-navy escorts (DDE) but smaller than capital cruisers, which makes them an screen/escort cruiser, in other words -- light cruiser. Figured that was the best hull classification.



Flak has AOE damage. Corvettes attack in swarms, and the more corvs you have, the more compact their formation becomes. 'nuff said.
Flak also doesn't suffer -100% shield damage; only regular PD has that.

The sizes everyone understands are:
Escort (Destoyer according to game), Battlecruiser(Battleship according to game) and Titan. As you can see, throwing in new words only causes confusion

I do not know of any AoE damage being used by the game. I mean at all. And if it is used, propably not on the formation sizes of Corvettes. Wich also has a minimum size. And even then, I just realised the Escorts actually carry PD weapons, not Flak.

The core thing about any Fallen Empire Fleet are the XL weapons. They got 2 on thier Battlecruisers. With all the repeatable bonuses, it propably works like 3 player build one.
4 on thier Titan, plus it's titan laser.
Those Large/Medium guns? Chump change compared to that.

And Lances and Gigacannons can not hit a corvette and have serious issues with destroyers. Cruiser and battleship? Yeah, those are it's targets. That is what it should fight.
Only the Arc Emitters of the Spiritualist ones have relevant tracking (it basically ignores every defense right now).

 

[zanaikin]

I somewhat agree with you on the materialist FE. Double tachyon lances are an extreme threat to CAs/BBs whose main form of protection (as noted in the Best Battleship threads) is very high armor. That being said, given that on average, each FE battlecruiser is supported by 2 escorts, and all three times are bistling with M and S weapons, I wonder how much lower damage output vs smaller ships would actually be...

However, I agree much less with the kinetic (Giga-Cannon) equipped FEs:

CAs/BBs with max armor (90%) receives -45% damage from Giga-Cannon (50% armor-piercing) and -72% damage from the Kinetic-Artillery (20%AP) on those same ships. Sure, this isn't as good as a Corvette's high evasion rating against the Giga-Cannon. But 45% damage reduction is fairly comparable to what destroyers evasion can manage, and without the support of PD destroyers, a corvette fleet is defenseless against the 2 hangars per capital ship that all FE fleets equip.

Furthermore, a corvette fleet has no access to M/L weapons of their own. This means their best armor-piercing weapon is the triple S-plasma cannon with 60%AP. Compared to a capital-ship fleet's cruiser arsenal of M/L-plasma cannons (80-90%AP)

Combine this with the fact that both the small autoguns and medium flak batteries will tear thru corvettes but hardly scratch the paint of armored capital ships, I'd still rather go against the kinetic FEs with a capital ship fleet.

 

[The Founder]

I somewhat agree with you on the materialist FE. Double tachyon lances are an extreme threat to CAs/BBs whose main form of protection (as noted in the Best Battleship threads) is very high armor. That being said, given that on average, each FE battlecruiser is supported by 2 escorts, and all three times are bistling with M and S weapons, I wonder how much lower damage output vs smaller ships would actually be...

However, I agree much less with the kinetic (Giga-Cannon) equipped FEs:

CAs/BBs with max armor (90%) receives -45% damage from Giga-Cannon (50% armor-piercing) and -72% damage from the Kinetic-Artillery (20%AP) on those same ships. Sure, this isn't as good as a Corvette's high evasion rating against the Giga-Cannon. But 45% damage reduction is fairly comparable to what destroyers evasion can manage, and without the support of PD destroyers, a corvette fleet is defenseless against the 2 hangars per capital ship that all FE fleets equip.

Furthermore, a corvette fleet has no access to M/L weapons of their own. This means their best armor-piercing weapon is the triple S-plasma cannon with 60%AP. Compared to a capital-ship fleet's cruiser arsenal of M/L-plasma cannons (80-90%AP)

Combine this with the fact that both the small autoguns and medium flak batteries will tear thru corvettes but hardly scratch the paint of armored capital ships, I'd still rather go against the kinetic FEs with a capital ship fleet.

I will have to rethink the tactic vs Xenophobe empires.
Note that I did say to "mix in Large/point defense or Flak Destroyers", unless you are going up against bases. 50% accounting for fighter, 50% adding some large ship damage.
But overall I think you might be overstimating the ability of a medium and large gun to hit a corvette sized target.

I have not re-checked it after the reworks, but I think my slot theory still works. If so one XL weapons counts like 2 L Weapon slots.

 

[krios41]

60 corvettes
50 destroyers
40 cruisers
20 Batleships as carriers
20 Batleships loaded with Artillery

With this, try to jump as near to the FE fleet as you can. If you're fighting their fleets while also engaging their fortresses and spaceports it's absolutly crusial you jump right ontop of them.

 

[LordMagus]

Double tachyon lances are an extreme threat to CAs/BBs whose main form of protection (as noted in the Best Battleship threads) is very high armor.

That's the opposite of what I said in the battleship thread when testing on FEs. Heavy armour did WAY better against the keepers of knowledge than heavy shields.

 

[YagabodooN]

From my experience, flak guns are necessary on DDs to deal with the fighter spam and BBs with spinal mount guns are needed to deal with the massive armor on their stations / titan ships.

The only thing in common with all FE I notice is the pretty good point defense, especially those Xenophobe ones.

 

[Beestachtig]

Destroyers with Kinetic artillery are my biggest weapons against FE's.
Besides that, range is in their favour. Use snare trap.

 

[LordMagus]

Besides that, range is in their favour. Use snare trap.

Was how I mopped the floor with the military isolationists. Jump a single ship into a system adjacent to their homeworld, wait until they chase it and lure them into the snare with your fleet waiting.

 

[zanaikin]

That's the opposite of what I said in the battleship thread when testing on FEs. Heavy armour did WAY better against the keepers of knowledge than heavy shields.

I don't disagree. None of the materialists' other weapons are good against max armor capital ships. But it doesn't change the fact those tachyon lance volleys rip thru CA/BBs better than any other FE.

 

[indika_tates]

60 corvettes
50 destroyers
40 cruisers
20 Batleships as carriers
20 Batleships loaded with Artillery

With this, try to jump as near to the FE fleet as you can. If you're fighting their fleets while also engaging their fortresses and spaceports it's absolutly crusial you jump right ontop of them.

In older Stellaris versions I managed to trash an FE fleet with a 20% of the fleet you posted. Defense station with FTL near a spaceport, and a 12-13k fleet was enough.

 

[nfmarque]

No mods on equal numbers i use the following.
Spam cruiser with 1L (kinetic arty), 3M (plasma cannon), 1M (plasma cannon / flak cannon)
use corvettes as reactive shields for cruisers.

it goes something like this.
when fleets engage, cruises will blast the shields with the kinetic arty. When they get close they will start firing the plasma cannons and the enemy shields should be down or at least close to.

 

[krios41]

In older Stellaris versions I managed to trash an FE fleet with a 20% of the fleet you posted. Defense station with FTL near a spaceport, and a 12-13k fleet was enough.

No doubt that it's possible with 20% less, depending how you equip your stuff this turns up to 111K fleet power.

 

[LordMagus]

But it doesn't change the fact those tachyon lance volleys rip thru CA/BBs better than any other FE.

Actually, the military isolationists caused the most casualties in my testing, even though they were using kinetic weapons against armour. 29 BBs lost against MI versus 22 BBs lost against Keepers, and that's using heavy armour.