Sounds about right for pre 1.3
It seems that they have been forgotten.
At Tier 3 you should expect to have tier 3 armour and shields, stick those on and it might be a different story.
Early game counter to corvettespam
- Thread starter Grubsnik
- 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.
It seems that they have been forgotten.
At Tier 3 you should expect to have tier 3 armour and shields, stick those on and it might be a different story.
Considering that Kinetics a bit OP early game, this does speak highly of the Lightning.
Essentially all techs are about being more space efficient at the cost of being more expensive. The problem arises when space inefficiency is punished by increased maintenance costs but at the same time compensated because maintenance costs are a function of your initial build costs.
This means that your ships need to become at least 41% (SQRT(2) to be exact) more combat effective if you double the costs of your ship configuration. Currently that doesn't actual seem to be happening in the tech tree
This means that your ships need to become at least 41% (SQRT(2) to be exact) more combat effective if you double the costs of your ship configuration. Currently that doesn't actual seem to be happening in the tech tree
What range do you start the fleets at? My anecdotal experience in the early game of my most recent game with destroyers was if I put large/medium mass drivers I could destroy corvettes by whittling them down while they closed the range.
Missiles and torpedoes currently suffer from a few issues. If the firing ship gets killed before their missiles hit, the launched missiles get cancelled. Also they may fire significantly more missiles at a target than is needed to kill it, due to travel time issues. Both of these, combined with kinetics doing too much damage means missiles get the short end of the stick in current fleet matchups.
I always start the sim outside of combat range and let them engage are max range. If you have a build you'd like me to test, just specify it in detail and I'll let you know how it works out. The main "catch" is usually that all those shiny upgraded weapons cost significantly more than their improvement warrants.
Try a combined fleet. Single ship/weapon fleets are suboptimal in almost all cases.
Give me the loadout you want me to test for you. 40 points fleetcap, mix and match. Give me the full rundown on each ship type and how many of each you want
Well, if you're offering, how do destroyers with a 1 large and 1 medium basic kinetic weapon (mass driver IIRC, but if that's not the tier one then I mean the tier one one) fare? And can they do a bunch of damage and then retreat (say as early as possible) and have, in the process, done more damage than they took even with emergency ftl damage?
EDIT: no armor plating or anythings else, just enough basic power plants to power weapons
What they gain on range they lose on tracking, so it's not a winning proposition against corvettes. If the fight had continued the destroyers would have gotten shredded even further.
Hmm, perhaps it was effective because I was both bigger (although not by that much) and had decent tech (tracking bonuses) so my larger destroyer force did loads of damage before closing without taking any, then the much reduced corvettes couldn't do much in return. So while corvette spam may be mineral efficient on equal footing, destroyers may be more effective at conserving your already sunk mineral costs against smaller enemies, or against divided enemy fleets that otherwise outnumber you.
I should really get to grips with the Stellaris console at some point so I can do these kinds of experiments myself.
This spam is a common strategy that dates back old games like Warcraft III, probably the best way to counter it is with more corvettes.
The most common "mistake" is to compare fleet cap and conclude that your significantly more expensive fleet outperformed the opponent. You can make a corvette that costs over 300 minerals, but despite costing nearly 6 times as much as a baseline corvette, it is no where close to being 6 times as powerful. It may deal 11 damage per day vs. the 7 a baseline corvette does, and it may have 210 extra hitpoints from shields, but just building a second baseline corvette offers both more firepower and more hitpoints than the end-game option.
You can always spam. That isn't what I would call a counter, more than just a race. A counter for regular corvette spam would be to drop a dozen max-armor cruisers in their path and watch the corvettes just fail to kill them while being obliterated themselves. If you have mining lasers available, that becomes are counter-counter move to the high armor cruisers.
Currently I'm less than impressed with the state of science in the game. It would seem like you get very little benefits from having a technological advantage. It would seem like having access to just mass drivers, basic torpedoes and mining drone lasers can outproduce much of what the tech-tree offers as benefits.
If you wait by the time you have the cruisers tech you already lost the game.
The corvette spam is actually one of the most annoying things in the game right now. Most RTS games allow you to have quick progression towards the 2nd type of unit. In Stellaris, this is not the case. Getting destroyers can sometimes take 30-40 years in game if you don't get good engineering systems nearby.
Also, playing hard/insane is quite laughable. The AI runs around with 70-100 corvettes at year 30 with nearly no investment because they ignore the fleet cap, while human players may be able to get 30-40 ships having a same size empire. I really hope they are planning on changing the flat bonus to the AI in early game. The difficulty forces players to be xenophiles so empires don't declare war on you before year 100 because you will never win at such a disadvantage.
I have an idea of how to change this that I will post in a new thread instead of being lost in the commentary here.
Also, playing hard/insane is quite laughable. The AI runs around with 70-100 corvettes at year 30 with nearly no investment because they ignore the fleet cap, while human players may be able to get 30-40 ships having a same size empire. I really hope they are planning on changing the flat bonus to the AI in early game. The difficulty forces players to be xenophiles so empires don't declare war on you before year 100 because you will never win at such a disadvantage.
I have an idea of how to change this that I will post in a new thread instead of being lost in the commentary here.
Single weapons are suboptimal, single ship type isn't. Mono fleet type tends to beat mixed fleet type.
I know. But people going around hinting about it. Best to just have data on hand so they move on
You guys must be finding destroyer tech in your tech choices alot earlier than me. From my experience, if your opponent wants to swarm you with corvettes, he's gonna do it long before you field many (if any) destroyers.
@Grubsnik , Well done!
Something to note, though. Currently mass driver series have about 27% more damage per day than their intended value (that is, dpd of laser / missile of the same level). Autocannons may have about 25% more, too. Would you mind to test when those weapons don't have such advantage? I expect most conclusions are un-changed, though cloud lightning may shine more than in your previous test.
Weapon data for "fair" mass drivers / autocannons:
Something to note, though. Currently mass driver series have about 27% more damage per day than their intended value (that is, dpd of laser / missile of the same level). Autocannons may have about 25% more, too. Would you mind to test when those weapons don't have such advantage? I expect most conclusions are un-changed, though cloud lightning may shine more than in your previous test.
Weapon data for "fair" mass drivers / autocannons:
Code:
type: damage, acc, avg dpd, avg dpd of comparable laser
s_md_1: 4 - 13, 74%, 1.797, 1.8
m_md_1: 8 - 27, 70%, 3.5, 3.513
l_md_1: 21 - 57, 65%, 7.243, 7.253
s_md_2: 5 - 14, 74%, 2.009, 2.04
m_md_2: 11 - 31, 70%, 4.2, 4.193
l_md_2: 25 - 67, 65%, 8.543, 8.533
s_md_3: 6 - 17, 74%, 2.431, 2.4
m_md_3: 13 - 35, 70%, 4.8, 4.76
l_md_3: 30 - 74, 65%, 9.657, 9.707
s_md_4: 7 - 18, 74%, 2.643, 2.64
m_md_4: 15 - 39, 70%, 5.4, 5.44
l_md_4: 36 - 81, 65%, 10.864, 10.88
s_md_5: 8 - 20, 74%, 2.96, 3
m_md_5: 17 - 42, 70%, 5.9, 5.893
l_md_5: 41 - 89, 65%, 12.071, 12.053
type: damage, acc, avg dpd
s_ac_1: 3 - 11, 82%, 2.443
m_ac_1: 6 - 22, 80%, 4.766
l_ac_1: 16 - 44, 75%, 9.574
s_ac_2: 4 - 13, 83%, 3.002
m_ac_2: 8 - 25, 81%, 5.687
l_ac_2: 21 - 49, 76%, 11.319
s_ac_3: 5 - 14, 84%, 3.396
m_ac_3: 10 - 28, 82%, 6.630
l_ac_3: 26 - 54, 77%, 13.106