Fleet Combat for Nonagressive Research Empires Sucks badly at this time

[Anubite51]

So I can't figure out how to make a new post but I have been having a bit of trouble dealing with an awoken ascendency who had subjugated me cause he had 5 fleets of 98k when I just had one fleet of 38k that I was pretty proud of at first :/ I can't get my fleet anywhere near any of his 5 fleets even tho I am psionic and have every tradition tree and ascension perk!! I feel like a race of superheros should be able to deal with some bugs.

 

[DeathSheep]

So I can't figure out how to make a new post but I have been having a bit of trouble dealing with an awoken ascendency who had subjugated me cause he had 5 fleets of 98k when I just had one fleet of 38k that I was pretty proud of at first :/ I can't get my fleet anywhere near any of his 5 fleets even tho I am psionic and have every tradition tree and ascension perk!! I feel like a race of superheros should be able to deal with some bugs.

For what it's worth, I'm a cautious player by nature who does like to turtle, and I didn't attempt to tackle the un-awakened Militant Isolationist FE who was my neighbor until I had six fleets of 65k and one of 20k, with two armies of 5k, against the FE's three fleets of 80k, 5 citadels of 48k and 12k strength outposts. I always kept the fleets in pairs (with different classes of Titans in each fleet in a pair) and had built support starbases near the frontier for fast reinforcement. By the time the FE capitulated following the invasion of Boundary (the moon of the FE's homeworld), I'd probably lost 15-20% of my fleet and 60% percent of my army.

I would have waited longer to build up the seventh fleet's strength and build more armies, but it was getting close to the endgame start date and I wanted to stomp the FE before it woke up.

 

[MAHak]

You can also just build an Target Uplink Computer on your starbase. The + 50% weapons range almost always ensures that AI fleets will be engaged by the station. That way you won't have to research FTL-inhibitors early on.

 

[Attitude Adjuster]

This happened in the stream and Martin said they'd look into having it always inhibit because it's just not fun to have your defenses be useless because you had bad luck drawing a tech.

Guess it went to the bottom of the world's biggest TODO list.

 

[KingAlamar]

So I can't figure out how to make a new post but I have been having a bit of trouble dealing with an awoken ascendency who had subjugated me cause he had 5 fleets of 98k when I just had one fleet of 38k that I was pretty proud of at first :/ I can't get my fleet anywhere near any of his 5 fleets even tho I am psionic and have every tradition tree and ascension perk!! I feel like a race of superheros should be able to deal with some bugs.

I assume you have played "tall". I play passively which looks like "tall done badly". The only thing that bails me out of it is:

• I like to role play BUT I need to Meta-Game and build to my military capacity [or beyond] during Mid and End game.
• This means I go for as many +Starbase techs & perks as I can. When desperate I've even used ascension perks to add +Starbases.
• Spam as many starbases with anchorages as you can
• Take as many +naval cap techs & perks as is reasonable
• As UNITY allows take the Grand Fleet unity ambition [edict]
• If time allows build mega structures to help. Dyson Sphere, Mineral Decompressor, and Strategic Coordination Center all help with building and maintaining a large fleet

Even with all of the above though I don't know if there is anything that can be done to play "passively" AND also be able to beat a Fallen / Awakened Empire if they wake up early. In my current game it's 2356, I've got 88K in combined fleets and just put in the order to build one more complete battleship fleet to take me to 110K fleets. While this is enough for the Khan I don't see how I can both play passively AND build a big enough fleet AND support it by 2400 [ish] to take out Fallen and/or Awakened Empires.

I've got more than enough alloys to support a fleet large enough. The lack of energy to support such a fleet though is the problem

 

[MechaThumper]

For what it's worth, I'm a cautious player by nature who does like to turtle, and I didn't attempt to tackle the un-awakened Militant Isolationist FE who was my neighbor until I had six fleets of 65k and one of 20k, with two armies of 5k, against the FE's three fleets of 80k, 5 citadels of 48k and 12k strength outposts. I always kept the fleets in pairs (with different classes of Titans in each fleet in a pair) and had built support starbases near the frontier for fast reinforcement. By the time the FE capitulated following the invasion of Boundary (the moon of the FE's homeworld), I'd probably lost 15-20% of my fleet and 60% percent of my army.

I would have waited longer to build up the seventh fleet's strength and build more armies, but it was getting close to the endgame start date and I wanted to stomp the FE before it woke up.

What you should be doing is goading the FE to attack you, particularly into a system with a high level fortress for some of extra system wide bonuses. (Neutron star systems are a favorite since they will have much higher shields than you) You can easily beat them back using a fleet of similar size that is specialized against them since they don't replenish their fleets after the battle. Heck, even use them to wreck your allies for allies and a little bit of damage to their fleets too. Use the first war to knock down their fleet sizes & do a white piece and the second war to actually invade them. You'll have the extra bonus of having their tech for attacking their citadels too so less losses in the second war.

They are also irrationally protective of you entering their space such if you send in a single ship into their space they will recall an entire fleet just try and kill it. You can indefinitely delay them from attacking you until you are ready, though it's a bit of a scummy move.

 

[M@ni@c]

For what it's worth, you can manage a poor-man's FTL inhibitor by keeping a minimal fleet near your defenses. Whenever the enemy comes in to skirt around, use that fleet to engage them in battle, drawing them in close enough for your defenses to join in.

Is that actually possible? You can't control of the movement of a fleet after it's engaged into battle, right?

 

[MechaThumper]

Is that actually possible? You can't control of the movement of a fleet after it's engaged into battle, right?

You can't but you have to hope to they engage.

 

[Less2]

"""mistake"""
You know, this is really getting annoying.
You realize that the tech cards you get are random, right?
There were games where I was randomly mandated to suck, because I couldn't for the life of me draw FTL inhibitor or naval capacity techs until 2280 or something.

It is annoying. I'm of the opinion that we should get at least 4 tech picks by default. There's a lot more techs now than there were in Stellaris 1.0.

This happened in the stream and Martin said they'd look into having it always inhibit because it's just not fun to have your defenses be useless because you had bad luck drawing a tech.

Guess it went to the bottom of the world's biggest TODO list.

That's some bad logic IMO because there are dozens of situations in which you can go 50+ years not drawing a critical tech you wanted to get by 2220. Better to just increase the number of tech options to greatly reduce the chances of continued bad draws.

 

[Tacticus101]

Increasing the number of tech options you get to reduce the change of continued bad draws would defeat the point of a tech card system in the first place.

 

[Pointyearedgit]

I assume you have played "tall". I play passively which looks like "tall done badly". The only thing that bails me out of it is:

• I like to role play BUT I need to Meta-Game and build to my military capacity [or beyond] during Mid and End game.
• This means I go for as many +Starbase techs & perks as I can. When desperate I've even used ascension perks to add +Starbases.
• Spam as many starbases with anchorages as you can
• Take as many +naval cap techs & perks as is reasonable
• As UNITY allows take the Grand Fleet unity ambition [edict]
• If time allows build mega structures to help. Dyson Sphere, Mineral Decompressor, and Strategic Coordination Center all help with building and maintaining a large fleet

Even with all of the above though I don't know if there is anything that can be done to play "passively" AND also be able to beat a Fallen / Awakened Empire if they wake up early. In my current game it's 2356, I've got 88K in combined fleets and just put in the order to build one more complete battleship fleet to take me to 110K fleets. While this is enough for the Khan I don't see how I can both play passively AND build a big enough fleet AND support it by 2400 [ish] to take out Fallen and/or Awakened Empires.

I've got more than enough alloys to support a fleet large enough. The lack of energy to support such a fleet though is the problem

For your energy woes, selling food and minerals on the market can go a long way. In the end though, your economy works and produces enough alloys from the minerals you can harvest ... or it doesn't and you die.

Watch out with the megastructures, they will sink a lot of your alloys, they can be a trap! It may be a better idea to get gateways going first, especially if you are sprawling and have multiple enemies.

Fortresses give a pretty decent amount of fleet cap, sure they cost some motes but can push some planets to 40/80 pops while providing FTL inhibitors. Crucially, they also don't cut into your early/mid game alloys like anchorages do (still, the motes *could* be used for more alloy foundries, so yea...)

Life really gets good when you can afford to have a single trade hub because your gateway network takes care of the rest Only anchorages, shipyards and the odd citadel from then on!