I don't understand how to adapt my fleet.

[Siri]

I am notoriously bad at strategy games but I'm trying really hard to look at the information at hand and make the right decisions based upon what I see. Despite that it just doesn't seem to work out in my favour.

As an example I'm looking at the next enemy empire I intend to go to war with and I check the sensor readings for their ships and determine that their defences consists primarily of armour with a maximum of one shield equipped on each of their ships. So I shift my weapons to be primarily plasma cannons with some gauss cannons (probably something like a 2:1 ratio).

The fleet consists primarily, but not exclusively, of corvettes, so I make sure I have an ample amount of small weapon slots for the higher accuracy and tracking. This without neglecting the medium/large slots entirely since they do still have some of the bigger ships as well.

For their weapons they're using an even split of disruptors and plasma cannons, along with a large amount of point defence systems. In this instance I don't even know what I should be doing as a response to it seeing as their two primary weapon types are incredibly strong against both types of defences I have available to choose from. The first time I stuck with as much shielding as possible. After getting completely wiped while having a ~25% larger fleet I swapped it over to as heavy armour as possible but the result was pretty much the same in both cases. My fleet ends up getting eradicated and they lose about a third of theirs.

Basically I want as much as advice as possible in regards to how to tailor my own fleet towards a known enemy. I'd like to know what choices I should have made in the scenario I talked about here but I'd also want to know how to handle other hypothetical scenarios properly in the future. I just really badly want to be able to make the right decisions and not suck.

Thank you!

 

[nfmarque]

Post a screenshot or a save. Its a bit to vague what is your fleet composition vs your enemy. Cruisers, corvettes, destroyers , etc.

 

[iniudan]

If you are facing an enemy with balanced weapon set up, the best bet is to go balanced on your side also, for cruiser and battleship (corvette should always be all out shield, destroyer you only equip armor instead of shield, if you need to squeeze some power without putting an extra reactor, as reactor are the most expansive component), as armor soft cap at 75%, anything over that face diminishing return up to the hard cap of 90%. Also if facing mainly corvette, plasma actually a terrible choice, they have one of the poorest tracking, low base dps and corvette basically have no armor, even if you see armor equip.

For small slot, mining laser actually a better choice then any of the plasma, if you have it and still want something with excellent armor penetration, as they have 60% tracking instead of 40%, same range, same base damage and energy cost then the tier 1 plasma thrower, 100% armor penetration instead of 60%, no shield penalty, at the cost of 10% less accuracy (75% instead of 85%), that accuracy is the reason why it show to have lower dps then plasma, as dps only calculate average damage, fire rate and hit chance against a 0% evasion, 0 armor, 0 shield target.

Also an other thing about utility slots, it is better to put 2 shields in smaller slot then 1 shield in a larger one, as smaller shield have better recharge rate.

 

[The Founder]

Theoretically the best weapon against corvettes would be missiles. But missiles are terrible, full stop.
Wich leaves the 2nd best weapon: Small slot Kinetics. In particular autocannons.

Armor does not really mater below cruisers. In the Corvette and Destroyer age, only the spaceports have relevant amounts (about 50%).
Without in combat regen from Capacitors, Shields do loose a lot of power. Especially vs shield drain weaponry. Consider just leaving out defenses and building more ships instead.

What are teh Admirals and Ethos involved?
Militarist gives considerable weapons damage. And the Admiral can be a force to be reconed with.

 

[Siri]

Thank you for the insights, I will try to put them to good use! Lots of things I didn't know here so hopefully I'll be able to improve.

What are teh Admirals and Ethos involved?
Militarist gives considerable weapons damage. And the Admiral can be a force to be reconed with.

I was a fanatical spiritualist/collectivist and they were a fanatical spiritualist/individualist. My admiral was a higher level and with the evasion trait, I can't remember exactly what theirs was just that I noted that mine was higher levelled.

Edit:
Oh, and I'll try to grab screenshots if I have further inquiries in the future!

 

[LordMagus]

Against corvettes, you'll want destroyers using medium autocannons and small gauss cannons.

 

[tomstegmeier]

yeah, in my experience those destroyers with two autocannons carve through corvettes.
But Corvettes with one missle and 2 other weapons do a decent job too imo, in an 1/3 ratio to your normal corvettes.

 

[Blackplant]

If the enemy uses point defence, missiles are useless. I recommend spamming the shit out of autocannons. They're more effective in small slots than normal kinetic weaponry because AC have higher DPS and normal kinetic weapons get their second bonus damage only from M slot up. Autocannons also have more tracking.

 

[aprogressivist]

For their weapons they're using an even split of disruptors and plasma cannons, along with a large amount of point defence systems. In this instance I don't even know what I should be doing as a response to it seeing as their two primary weapon types are incredibly strong against both types of defences I have available to choose from.

I think defenses are a secondary concern in Stellaris. Since both shields and armour have hard counters, I don't consider defense to be particularly reliable. So your #1 focus should always be to have more firepower than the enemy; and more importantly, the correct kind of firepower.

If they're fielding primarily corvettes, you don't really need that much armour-piercing; corvettes have lousy armour. Unless they are fielding heavily-armoured cruisers and battleships, you probably don't need to bother with plasma. As others have said, autocannons are excellent against corvettes, but even with just straight gauss cannons, you should be able to out-shoot them.