How strong should I be to fight a fallen empire?

[Admiral]

Currently I'm at around 50k fleet power, and researching enigmatic technologies. I have over 1,000 fleet capacity (FEs are listed as Inferior in that area) and have the economy to build up to it within a few decades.

In addition, would corvette swarms work best? The idea of a Titan Laser cracking my battleships open in one shot terrifies me, and considering my proximity to 2 FEs I was wondering if battleships should be foregone in favor of smaller vessels.

I was also considering the utility of building border fortresses and building up my army to defend my planets.

EDIT: To breakdown my question more specifically:
1. At what fleet power should I be at?
2. What ship and weapon types are best suited for fighting FEs?
3. Are more armies and defense stations worthwhile precautions, or should I put all my resources into fleet building?
4. Are there any technologies that one would consider essential to FE combat? I'm working on Enigmatic tech but there might be something I'm missing. What's the Genewarrio tech?

2nd EDIT:
I won, and can answer my own questions for future people who might ask them as well.
1. My fleet power was 76k and theirs was 75k. I thought I was going to lose, but their Escorts got torn to sheds because they advanced too far ahead of their battlecruisers and faced the full might of my fleet on their own. In the end I was down to about 45k fleet power after the battle.
2. I had been focusing on laser weapons and kinetics and this was adequate. As for ship types, I found that equipping every cruiser and battleship with at least 1 fighter squadron negated FE strike craft; the opening of the battle was a beautiful clash of two swarms of strike craft pouring towards each other. As for big ships vs. small ships, small ships are definitely better. I started with 40 battleships and had 17 when the battle was over, compared to losing only 20 of my original 160 corvettes.
3. Armies are almost costless in comparison to fleets (my entire army upkeep is 15 Energy a month for a few dozen armies, wheras fleet upkeep in port is usually 400-500) so building more of them is always a good idea. That being said, however, the much-feared genewarrior armies were nowhere to be found in FE territory. I didn't see any transports, and their planets were defended by standard defense and garrison armies, albeit with some significant buffs. I built some defensive stations along the border but this ended up being pointless as the entire war was offensive anyway on my part.
4. I had not actually finished any enigmatic techs by the time I fought, but I had tier 4 or 5 components and this seemed sufficient.

I would like to thank everyone for all their responses.

 

[henzington]

Fallen empire strength depends on map size

 

[Admiral]

Fallen empire strength depends on map size

I'm at max: 1,000 systems. Strangely, I expected Fallen Empires to be equivalent to the Byzantine Empire in CK2: a large, takes-up-a-quarter-of-the-map realm, but on my map they only have maybe 4-6 colonized systems. In fact I have to say that I didn't even know I was right next to two fallen empires until I went to their diplomacy screens (BTW, I'm playing with over 40 AI empires, so I had just assumed they were another 4-system t̶a̶r̶g̶e̶t̶ neighbor to eventually c̶o̶n̶q̶u̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶i̶m̶i̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶i̶t̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶c̶t̶a̶t̶o̶r̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶c̶e̶s̶s̶a̶r̶y̶ have good trade relations with.

 

[henzington]

I'm at max: 1,000 systems. Strangely, I expected Fallen Empires to be equivalent to the Byzantine Empire in CK2: a large, takes-up-a-quarter-of-the-map realm, but on my map they only have maybe 4-6 colonized systems. In fact I have to say that I didn't even know I was right next to two fallen empires until I went to their diplomacy screens (BTW, I'm playing with over 40 AI empires, so I had just assumed they were another 4-system t̶a̶r̶g̶e̶t̶ neighbor to eventually c̶o̶n̶q̶u̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶i̶m̶i̶l̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶y̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶i̶t̶a̶r̶y̶ ̶d̶i̶c̶t̶a̶t̶o̶r̶s̶h̶i̶p̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶c̶e̶s̶s̶a̶r̶y̶ have good trade relations with.

They are small but they have special buildings which provide large amounts of food, minerals, and energy

 

[Admiral]

They are small but they have special buildings which provide large amounts of food, minerals, and energy

Oh. Thanks.

 

[Pooks1]

Make sure you have lots of corvettes (2-3 different types, make sure at least one of the types has torpedoes), plasma + gauss canon cruisers and tachyon lance equiped battleships. With all that a 70-80k fleet should be able to tackle a FE, but 100k is on the safe side.

edit: of course high level shields and armour is a must have

 

[JMensch]

Careful, occupying a FE's system is a good way to "wake up" the other FEs in your galaxy.

 

[WandererRTF]

It is enough to reach a fleet strength that is actually capable of challenging a FE to hasten (or trigger) the wake up. Which makes it rather annoying since while you are preparing for such a war you may instead of facing a FE fleet that you can steadily reduce (and which is not replaced or replenished) face about 2x as strong fleet with ludicrously fast replenishment rate.

As to which weapons... FE ships have strong shields but they also have pretty much maxed out armor as well. Given how shields rarely last long in battle between doomstacks i usually load either kinetics or plasma depending on which tech tree i happen to specialize. Try to spy out the loadout of their fleets before the war if it is just in any manner possible - http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire#Ships . They often come with hilariously large numbers of fighters and bombers so make sure you have enough flak/PD with your fleet.

Defense stations are a must, just make sure to use mostly the bare bone snare model (1 per system) - no matter what type you build it won't last (nor will it make any dent) against their fleet and basic snare can be used to buy some time from the FE fleets chasing your fleets. I often try to build one or two 'fortress flower' systems with as many maxed out fortresses as i can squeeze in. With the bonuses from the forts your fleet may be able to face the FE fleets on slightly more even ground.

I would skip on building defensive armies however. FE's love top tier armies and will drop large number of those on your worlds after they have bombarded the fortifications away. Which means that even at top tier your defensive armies will lose and fast. Instead it is better to go on to offensive and/or recapture colonies. Early on it is often helpful to try to lure the FE fleet into a fools errand and then strike at FE worlds & transport fleets and win the war without actually facing the FE fleet in 'fair fight' at all.

 

[LordMagus]

I don't use corvettes or destroyers at all against FEs, the reasons being:
-They're too vulnerable against strike craft (crummy as they are)
-The strike craft damage inflicted can be modified by defence, or simply destroying FE battlecruisers fast
-I've found that the majority of casualties sustained are while the battlecruisers are alive
-Ships tend to fight their own ship size, so therefore battleships and cruisers will take down their battlecruisers faster
-You will then lose less ships because you blasted their battlecruisers down really fast.
-For best results, cruiser fleet engaging at point blank range will mitigate the 2XL slots the FEs get.

 

[Admiral]

It is enough to reach a fleet strength that is actually capable of challenging a FE to hasten (or trigger) the wake up. Which makes it rather annoying since while you are preparing for such a war you may instead of facing a FE fleet that you can steadily reduce (and which is not replaced or replenished) face about 2x as strong fleet with ludicrously fast replenishment rate.

As to which weapons... FE ships have strong shields but they also have pretty much maxed out armor as well. Given how shields rarely last long in battle between doomstacks i usually load either kinetics or plasma depending on which tech tree i happen to specialize. Try to spy out the loadout of their fleets before the war if it is just in any manner possible - http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire#Ships . They often come with hilariously large numbers of fighters and bombers so make sure you have enough flak/PD with your fleet.

Defense stations are a must, just make sure to use mostly the bare bone snare model (1 per system) - no matter what type you build it won't last (nor will it make any dent) against their fleet and basic snare can be used to buy some time from the FE fleets chasing your fleets. I often try to build one or two 'fortress flower' systems with as many maxed out fortresses as i can squeeze in. With the bonuses from the forts your fleet may be able to face the FE fleets on slightly more even ground.

I would skip on building defensive armies however. FE's love top tier armies and will drop large number of those on your worlds after they have bombarded the fortifications away. Which means that even at top tier your defensive armies will lose and fast. Instead it is better to go on to offensive and/or recapture colonies. Early on it is often helpful to try to lure the FE fleet into a fools errand and then strike at FE worlds & transport fleets and win the war without actually facing the FE fleet in 'fair fight' at all.

Swarms of fighters and bombers? Interesting, I guess I can drag out my old Carrier-Class Battleship.

 

[LordMagus]

Swarms of fighters and bombers? Interesting, I guess I can drag out my old Carrier-Class Battleship.

Please don't use carriers...unless you want to Role Play

 

[ColZimin]

The one time I beat the FEs in my galaxy, I used exclusively kinetic weapons (gauss cannons, a few kinetic batteries and giga cannons) and hyper shields, on roughly equal numbers of cruisers and battleships, I think. Totaled maybe 65K (the FE had very nearly the same, plus 10-20K in defense stations), though over the course of the first war I had to replace most of that at least once over. Make sure you have minerals to spare!
I had some destroyers and corvettes along in my first assault, but they evaporated almost instantly, so I stopped building them. Yes, my battleships suffer significant losses too, but my long-range X slot and artillery weapons took down their ships quite effectively.
It should be noted that there were only two FE's in that game, a xenophile and a materialist, and I had completely surrounded both before I attacked them - fairly ideal conditions, I'd say. One I annexed in a single war, the other in two - the second one was pretty helpless after I took its homeworlds.

 

[The Founder]

1. At what fleet power should I be at?
2. What ship and weapon types are best suited for fighting FEs?
3. Are more armies and defense stations worthwhile precautions, or should I put all my resources into fleet building?
4. Are there any technologies that one would consider essential to FE combat? I'm working on Enigmatic tech but there might be something I'm missing. What's the Genewarrio tech?

Why would you even attack the FE in the first place? The biggest danger of a FE is awakening and an attack has the danger of accelerating just that (at least for all the other FE's).
Awakening is based on any single Empire having a certain Fleetpower (like when you prepare to fight them). Or any Fallen Empire Planets being Liberated or conquered (as a result of fighting them).
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire#Awakened

1. As close to the awakening threshold as possible, without getting over it. Having a Federation can drastically affect that.

2. That depends on the FE you are fighting. Generally the Idea of using small, high Dodge ships is good. Only real exception would be the Spiritualist FE, they have Tracking without end. You should bring some PD against thier Battleship and Titan Fighters, but otherwise a large Corvette swarm can actually kill them slowly without taking much damage:
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Fallen_empire#Ships

3. Armies can prevent them from just dropping thier Armies on top of a fully fortified planet and winning. But generally Fleet is more important. You can not win a Stellaris War on the ground.

4. You need anti-Shield and anti-Armor weapons. The armor is tough, but thier shields tend to regenerate. A 1 Disruptor, 2 Plasma Corvette is a good start.

Fallen empire strength depends on map size

To clarifiy: Fallen Empires do not scale with Mapsizes. Wich means that on smaler maps they tend to be relatively more powerfull, due to the players having less room to expand.

 

[macd21]

I defeated an FE with a 50k fleet and defence stations in a flower arrangement (snare with short range weapons in the middle, mine fields with long range weapons surrounding it). Got the FE to fall into the trap twice, crippled their fleet, then moved on the ring worlds.

 

[FrosT37]

I defeated an FE with a 50k fleet and defence stations in a flower arrangement (snare with short range weapons in the middle, mine fields with long range weapons surrounding it). Got the FE to fall into the trap twice, crippled their fleet, then moved on the ring worlds.

It worked? I was considering this exact strategy in my last game.

 

[scaper12123]

When i'm fighting the fallen empire I try not to even deal with the enemy fleet. I lure them away with one or two ships while the rest of my navy pulls planet-snatching duty.

 

[EuropaCam]

Keep in mind that there's a big difference between fighting a Fallen Empire (FE) and the Awakened version (AE). The former aren't so bad, but the latter can be a real bear if they've had time to build up. Also, as others have pointed some FE/AEs fight rely on different weapon types, so you may need to tailor your ships differently.

For example, yesterday I was about to research Synths, so I decided to take out the slumbering Keepers of Knowledge to my north before they could complain. I used about 100K of ships -- battleships with tach lances and kin artillery, cruisers with kin artillery, plasma and one Flak, both sniping and anti-corvette destroyers and a whole lot of corvettes, the biggest group of which was energy torpedoes/mining laser. The FE collapsed quickly with minimal casualties on my side.

That conquest, however, woke up the Xenophilic FE on my western border. I decided to strike before it a) build its forces up to insane levels, and b) created a Federation encompassing much of the galaxy. I beefed up my forces for a few years, then declared hostilities with a modest war goal of humiliating the AE and claiming one system on our border.

To keep the story short, the AE had way more forces than I expected, baiting it into a trap failed, and we wound up facing off in the system I wanted to conquer with our main fleets: the AE's 130K to my 128K. At the start I was able to bring in 4K more...only to have another 18K AE fleet arrive right afterwards, followed by my 5K Dreadnought. What followed was a bloodbath as our forces brawled across the system, including taking out a space port and defensive port. I had my finger on the emergency FTL the whole time, but really wanted to see how it would turn out. In the end I won, but it was a Pyrrhic victory as all I had left was my mostly unscathed dreadnought and 10K of my regular fleet, with nothing larger than a destroyer surviving. I won that war, spent the next 10 years building back up (hoping other unfriendly neighbors wouldn't take advantage of my weakness), and then in the next war took on the AE's home system, his 40K of ships + several forts vs my 120K -- I won with only modest casualties.

So FE's: you're probably fine with 60K+ of ships, but make sure you have counters and the highest level of techs, if not repeating ones. AE's... hit them early, or bring friends. Lots of friends.....

 

[macd21]

It worked? I was considering this exact strategy in my last game.

Yep. They had about a 75k fleet. Oh I forgot, I also had a space station with synchronised defences. They lost about half of their fleet in the first battle, then I lured them back in to finish the job.

Something to remember when fighting FEs (or anyone with better tech than you) is that a good chunk of that fleet strength represents their range advantage. If you must fight them, make sure it's at point blank range (by using a snare station with your fleet parked next to it, or by 'fleeing' with your fleet to another system and then waiting for them to jump on top of you). Even if you don't beat them, you'll do a lot more damage than you will if you engage at range, which will cost you a lot of your ships before they even get to fire.

 

[TheBromgrev]

I like to get my end-game tech from salvaging a FE I wreck. All four have slightly different fleet and weapon compositions, but I've found a fleet composition/strength that reliably works for me against all of them. I'm normally ready to challenge them in an ironman game when I have the following techs:

Kinetic Battery (tier 1)
Plasma Accelerator (tier 2)
Antimatter reactor
Advanced Shields
Shield Capacitors
Barrier PD
Impulse Thrusters
(don't care about armor)

Plasma lances and Flak are nice, but not needed to reliably kill an FE's fleet. Their biggest advantage is range and fast-recharging shields, which is where the kinetic batteries come in. The flower-type defense station setup works as a lure if you want to use it, but I prefer to take the fight to them.

My fleet setup is to use only battleships and destroyers. I've tried using cruisers and corvettes in the past, but they die before they can get close enough to deal any damage. Destroyer setup is a kinetic battery and 2 PD. Battleships are 3 kinetic batteries and 3 plasma accelerators. 65k fleet strength is enough to take on the Xenophile FE, and I build the ships in a 1:1 ratio.

I've tried both fighting at range and entering a system right on top of the FE's fleets. I find that engaging at range lowers my losses, as the destroyers can kill their strike craft before they can do anything. If you drop in close, you negate their range advantage but will get wrecked by their strike craft.

I've used that setup in six recent ironman games to kill off the fallen empires before they wake up. The main thing to watch out for is getting that fleet built up before 2350. I normally target the Xenophile empire first, as it's normally the weakest in my games and will form an annoyingly big federation if it wakes up. I then move on to the materialist FE for their sweet ringworlds. I've noticed that the xenophobe FE has a stronger fleet in my games, requiring me to build up to at least 75k with those techs to win.

That probably isn't the most efficient setup, but it works for me early enough in the game to take out the FE's before they wake up and become annoyingly strong.

 

[Pchang]

A mostly Cruiser fleet of about 80K fleet strength (using L Kinetics and M Plasma) is good enough to do the job. They take out the battlecruisers first (and thus the strike craft) so PD is not really necessary. Shield and Armor level are not that important. The key is to close range as quickly as possible to make their XL Tachyon Lances useless (or other XL weapons). This can be done by clever maneuver, being lucky, or making use of properly placed FTL snare trap equipped Defense Platform/Station/Fortresses (I usually only have Stations at this time though). I always play with 4 FEs because they provide the most challenge/fun in the game for me.