Corvette Battle AI

[gathomas88]

I've always kind of stuck my corvettes with "swarm" AI as a default. It seems to work, but the corvettes pretty much always seem to take appaulling casualties, especially in the late game.

I wonder... Would it be worthwhile, when dealing with "Torpedo Boat" corvettes, anyway, to equip them with picket or line AI, instead?

After all, torps have 80 range (possibly more after you factor in buffs), and missiles have 100. It should theoretically be possible for your vetts to simply hang back and firing missile volleys from a distance.

Has anyone tried this? Is it viable? Does it increase survivability at all, or is it more worthwhile to sacrifice your small ships on the frontlines so that larger ships in the back fare better?

 

[fuinril]

It all depends of what you face....

Swarm is very solid against kinetic and energetic large weapons, very weak against penetrating ones.

There is never ONE answer when dealing with fleet composition, it rather depends on the ennemy fleet composition, yours, what posture and weapons you equipped on your other ships...

However I do find your setup strange. When using swarm I tend to prefer penetrating weapons or a mix of kinetic / energetic ones.

 

[gathomas88]

It all depends of what you face....

Swarm is very solid against kinetic and energetic large weapons, very weak against penetrating ones.

There is never ONE answer when dealing with fleet composition, it rather depends on the ennemy fleet composition, yours, what posture and weapons you equipped on your other ships...

However I do find your setup strange. When using swarm I tend to prefer penetrating weapons or a mix of kinetic / energetic ones.

Eh. I tend to build my fleets in a pretty "standardized" fashion.

Early game, I use fleets of 20 or more interceptor, swarm AI, corvettes, backed by 5 or so destroyers. The destroyers are equiped with heavier weapons and some PD, and hang back with picket or line AI.

As the game rolls on, and the AI switches to building larger ship types, I usually refit the vetts to torpedo boats, maybe augmented by another 10 interceptors optimized for killing other small ships. I also beef the destroyers' numbers up to 10 or 15, refit them with artillery bows and PD sterns, along with line AI. Then, I add 5 or so cruisers and battleships a piece, all equiped to engage with artillery AI at the longest range possible.

The basic idea is that the corvettes suicide charge in for a nice alpha strike, while the rest of the fleet hangs back and pummels the enemy at range, behind a wall of PD. It works pretty well (though sometimes I do need to cut down on the vett spam and invest more heavily in battleships when it comes to fighting crisis fleets or particulalry heavily armed enemy empires).

I'd always just kind of taken it as a given that the torpedo vetts should keep the same "swarm" AI setting as their interceptor predecessors. It simply happened to occur to me the other day that it might be better to take advantage of the longer range of torpedo weapons and keep them farther away from the enemy.

 

[beckermt]

'vettes only can choose between Swarm and Picket, iirc. That means range 0 or range 30. Not much of a difference.

It would be nice if you could stick them on Artillery.

 

[gathomas88]

'vettes only can choose between Swarm and Picket, iirc. That means range 0 or range 30. Not much of a difference.

It would be nice if you could stick them on Artillery.

Ah, I gotcha. I tend to play with mods, so I can sometimes be hazy on the limits of vanilla. Lol

It'd be cool if you were able to use torpedo boat corvettes basically like horse archers in space. Firing volleys and falling back, using their speed and evasion to avoid incoming long-range fire.

 

[gathomas88]

'vettes only can choose between Swarm and Picket, iirc. That means range 0 or range 30. Not much of a difference.

It would be nice if you could stick them on Artillery.

Alrighty... Don't know if its due to mods or not, but I *can* put line AI on torpedo boat corvettes in my current game.

After a few dozen battles against various sorts of enemy fleets... The change seems to work "okay." I'm still winning, and the more cautious vetts definitely seem to take fewer casualties (interceptor vetts with swarm AI still account for most of my losses). However, I also get the sense that battles take a lot longer than they used to when all of my corvettes were set to swarm.

 

[Blurb]

Once you've gotten high-end tech you might as well (depending on your corvette layout) use picket computer.
Assuming you've got impulse thrusters and corvettes are at 75 evasion, you only need another +20% to hit the hard cap of 90 evasion.
If you're using upgraded afterburners (+10% evasion), you only need another +10% which the sapient picket computer conveniently provides.
In this case, the picket computer is strictly superior to the swarm computer as it also adds another +30 tracking, which'll be rather useful when facing corvettes or destroyers.

 

[Chthon]

I tend to run mixed fleets against threats 50% stronger than them and win. This is even in the battleship age. When I do so I have low casualties, maybe 3 corvettes and 3 destroyers, while they run screen for my own battleships and cruisers. In return I inflict maybe 2-3 battleships and a dozen cruisers in return. Dollar for dollar, I get much more out of my fleets.

However, if I were to just go battleships like some say, I'd have just as heavy casualties, if instead I went corvettes, I'd lose most of my fleet.

Right now, all I see are people comparing apples to oranges, and not looking at the possibilities mixed fruit bring. They only think that if you don't specialize in one, you're weakening your fleet as a whole, but up close corvettes are hard to hit by large mounts, and destroyers are good at screening for missiles. The fact that I have larger ships there to take the brunt of the initial attack allow them to get close with few casualties, and then the enemy is so occupied with them that they never get to shooting at my larger ships.

As far as corvette AI is concerned, their first focus is to get in close as fast as possible to the enemy. The theory is that in close, slow tracking turrets can't keep up. I don't know if that's actually how it works, but it seems to work fine for me. Once in close, they do one of two things. Swarm AI focuses on evasion as they try to orbit faster than the turrets can track. Picket AI focuses on intercepting threats before they can get away towards the capital ships. Choose the one that makes sense for you.