Cruisers Seem Good Again?

[Zardnaar]

In the current patch you probably don't want a major war early on. Around 2300 or 2320 your alloy production tends to reach the point where you can go get em. Often you don't have battleships so cruisers are your go to. I would also argue late cruisers with extra hit points are better than early BBs that lack end game weapons.

Generally I use 5 medium weapons and 2 small auto cannons or go with missile cruiser plus autocannons 1 kinetic and the best lasers/plasmas I have.

BBs if you can build them tend to be win more and are better late game and vs things like crisis and FE's/AFEs. Even then I have had fleets of missile cruisers soldier on and they have their uses. I build them for dps basically.

The change is AI failure in the economy combined with sub par ship designs. 150-200 alloys a month plus cruiser attack seems to work losses are minimal in most cases.

 

[Ariphaos]

Cruisers are significantly tougher than they were.

I tend to have destroyers and cruisers as part of my 'rapid response' fleets. They hang back and pelt with L weapons while vettes go swarm. In theory I keep them around for facing high-evasion fleets, but in practice the AI just doesn't make them.

 

[impspy]

I've found a mix of Missile-boat Corvettes, Disrupter Destroyers and Hanger Cruiser's are decent against most of my opponents/crises; so much armor penetration.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Eh, I will sometimes build a few with the artillery computer in SP games for RP reasons. In a competitive MP game it is a massive swarm of pure corvets backing a mixed battleship titan fleet. The only reason I would build a lot of cruisers is if I first built a massive swarm of corvets and my enemy then built a massive swarm of destroyers. This has never happened yet though.

 

[bobucles]

Cruisers had their "disengagement chance" buffed not too long ago. It's a hidden stat that determines how well they can avoid dying so cruisers can survive a lot better than before.

 

[Longprao]

Why not build full covettes with evasion and speed and wait for battleships

 

[Matoro_TBS]

Why not build full covettes with evasion and speed and wait for battleships

In wars with war exhaustion corvette fleets take a lot more casualties than other ships, so that brings your exhaustion up quicker. At least thats one reason.

 

[Nakkivene]

How do like missile/autocannon cruisers fare against corvettes? A cruiser has more HP than 4 corvettes but 4 corvettes shoot 4 torpedoes and autocannons at it.

 

[Zardnaar]

How do like missile/autocannon cruisers fare against corvettes? A cruiser has more HP than 4 corvettes but 4 corvettes shoot 4 torpedoes and autocannons at it.

AI doesn't build fleets like that so you win basically.

Corvette fleet has more firepower, cruisers take elss casualties. Its also why I put small and medium weapons on cruisers as I build for DPS and the ability to hit corvettes.

Cruisers are "good enough" and seem to use less resources in the long run. I messed up in one game by putting nanites on BBS and I did not have enough nanite to mass produce BBs and defaulted to missile cruisers and they did the job well enough for similar levels of losses vs the BBs.

I figured out my mistake later on and replaced the nanite parts on the BBs.

Comparison
Missile Cruiser (2342)
\lvl 3 shield
lvl IV armor


hp 1800
shields 860
armor 1100
total

3760

speed 206 (w/afterburners)
3 lvl missiles
3 plasma(lvl 3)
3 lvl 2 autocannons

minerals
661

Corvettes
170 minerals
armour 110
Shields 170
hull 300
1 missile
1 small autocannon

total 580

You need to build 4 corrvettes to hvae more FP than the cruiser. 4 corvettes cost 680 and gain +1 missile launcher over the cruisers. The cruisers however have almost 50% more defences so losses will be a lot lower. Weapons are 4 torpedos and 4 small weapons vs 3 missiles and 6 small weapons.

This might be different with normal wepaons comparing a missile corvette to a missile cruiser.

My early BB build has around 6500 defences and is armed with different weapons but it cost 1117 minerals and 2 motes, 1 gas. My early BBs are full of M and S size weapons though and only a few large ones but they seem to do the job. YOu can alsmot have 2 cruisers for a BB though and they have more defences.

 

[Nakkivene]

Yeah well against the AI not sucking works, but has anyone done corvettes vs. anti-corvette cruiser testing or MP gameplay?

 

[SirAlexius]

Right now in my game I am trying to run one fleet with 100 naval capacity of cruisers and a second one with 100 naval capacity of corvettes mostly for testing purposes but also to have two different fleets I can use for somewhat different purposes. May also add a third fleet of 100 naval capacity of battleships once I have those researched but it is almost 2300 and I want to be able to have fleets that can pack a punch even before I get battleships. The evasion and speed of the corvettes is mindblowing

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Yeah well against the AI not sucking works, but has anyone done corvettes vs. anti-corvette cruiser testing or MP gameplay?

No it would be suicide. The only way to reliably beat a corvette swarm is with another corvette swarm. Theoretically you can build a destroyer swarm to defeat the corvette swarm. Which in turn, theoretically, you would want to build cruisers to counter the destroyers. In practice this never happens, though sometimes I will see mixed fleets, light on destoyers/cruisers. They do not fair better than pure corvettes though.

 

[Nakkivene]

Er, so it has been tested? Is it that cruisers can't get enough S slot guns and missile/hangar is bad against corvette?

 

[ArmChairAttila]

Er, so it has been tested? Is it that cruisers can't get enough S slot guns and missile/hangar is bad against corvette?

It's a lot of factors. Targeting, evasion, simplicity. Why would you want to add cruisers if corvettes work just fine if not better? I have tried mixed fleets in a MP game with a friend who I am usually on par with. He destroyed my superior firepower rated mixed fleet with his 2 pure corvette swarms. It was my second MP game with this new patch and I was experimenting. Lesson learned.

 

[ArmChairAttila]

A little back story on that particular game which has proven to me why pure corvette and battleship fleets work. He was F. Spirtualist I was F. Materialist. We were allied most the game. The other MP players were not antagonistic so I was just building vs the AI. My friend had a F. Spiritual FE on his border. Around 2350 the FE Spiritualist demanded that my friend impose idealogy. My friend told me what was going on and he had no choice but to attack me years in advance. We had active sensor link. I knew what, how much and where he was comming. I knew his ship layout and fleet strength. I built my cruisers with small and medium autocannons and lasers with tracking computers. Destroyers small and medium same as cruisers. Corvettes with 2 autocannons and 1 plasma and tier 1 afterburners. He had a identical corvette setup as mine. The main advantage he had was manuverability. I could not defend my own territory because the destroyers and cruisers slowed down fleet movement too much, even with Gail admirals and rapid deployment. My only option was to force a decisive battle and the only way to do that was raiding deep in his territories. Which gives him another advantage, reinforcements. Going that deep into enemy lands against a highly mobile fleet cuts off your reinforcements while your enemy can reinforce at will. Anyway the battle happened, fleets were roughly equivalent in fleer power, I had a slight edge. He still overwhelmingly defeated me.

 

[PanzerMan7]

I use cruisers as pocket battleships that build faster. Their purpose is to take hits for BBs. At least I think they work that way.

I like to run mixed fleets.

Auto/plasma cannon corvettes, flak destroyers, L slot cruisers, L battleships, and 2 titans--1 for repair, 1 for lower enemy disengagement

I used to run torpedo corvettes but I think pdx is way buffed

If I need a quick reaction force, I put 2 afterburner on a cruiser--they will go destroyer speed. I would probably run the cruisers with L slots and the corvettes with torpedoes in a QRF

 

[Nakkivene]

No, like pure cruiser built to counter corvette. Cruisers are tougher and should lose less firepower over time unless they simply can't hit corvettes even when purpose-built to do so. Seems weird to me that they would lose.

 

[Gratak]

Corvettes being faster is still the only deciding factor for me... At least against AI, being faster where you want to be is the most important thing.