Kinetic Altilery + Plasma Cannons + Tachyon Lances work best. Altilery for the shields and plasma for the armor. As far as ship classes go, I think Battleship and Cruiser heavy fleets are the best, but I am not sure because I don't use them myself.
Is this even possible to beat an Awakened Empire?
- Thread starter Gwynblade
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Kinetic Altilery + Plasma Cannons + Tachyon Lances work best. Altilery for the shields and plasma for the armor. As far as ship classes go, I think Battleship and Cruiser heavy fleets are the best, but I am not sure because I don't use them myself.
If you don't feel confident you can propably afford to wait and build up your fleet just a little bit more, maybe even go over your naval capacity to ensure victory.
Watch the stream from last week. I'm not going to waste time to tell you the timestamp for it. You said "anyone" for "more than ten seconds". In the stream, cKnoor's sector defense station (fortress? does it matter?) stops an enemy fleet dead.
Start using real numbers and actual scenarios, or don't bother making blanket general statements that are easily disproven by the most casual observations of gameplay. Or both.
I had an awakened spiritualist fallen empire next to me. I had a fleet of 50k strength. I got severely thrashed. They had a titan and two 50k fleets. For me it was a gameover. I play on normal difficulty, so I better don't think on what happens when you are on hard or insane.
Can you put a link to the stream? I'm interested on seeing how other players manage to beat an awakened FE.
Can you put a link to the stream? I'm interested on seeing how other players manage to beat an awakened FE.
Try reading. I was merely pointing how obvious and readily accepted the hyperbole was in the discussion, with zero supporting data. It would take the FE even longer than 10 seconds to jump out of the system from the center, assuming there's a station with a FTL Snare in the center, surrounded by other defense stations. It won't even hurt them in all likelihood, but it'll slow them down.
Exploiting the AI by making it chase a worthless tiny fleet halfway across the galaxy, while another big fleet snipes their planets, is probably the best method if you're outnumbered. The obvious best method is to be bigger than the AFE, or simply conquer it before it awakens, but sometimes that isn't always an option.
The strategy proposed was to have the AFE high tail it after a decoy fleet through a bunch of Maginot Spheres with cheap defense stations to chew through. It would probably work because the AI tends to jump on the first thing it sees.
It's easy enough to make a fleet that can step on AFE defense stations and fortresses, which means the decoy matters more than the forts, but once you've taken their maybe 5-6 planets (assuming they haven't conquered anyone else) then you basically win.
Cruisers are probably the best.
Battleships seem to be a red herring aside from the lances, which seem somewhat suspicious. Cruisers have the highest defense buff benefits and mount all weapons that battleships do, plus torpedoes.
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re-watching it to try and find it
"Military station under attack" followd up within a second by "military station, lost" and that was done by a 4.3K fleet. So unless you want to tell me i'm wrong, you're gonna have to give me the timestamp of where it happens.
I have played stelalris for 330 hours, lote of time for observation. I think it's clear to say i'm not pulling shit out of my arse when i say you that a 2.9K fortress isn't even a pebble on the road for a 200K+ Awakend empire fleet.
It's whenever cKnoor starts talking about his sectors building defense stations because he never does. A little defense station kills a couple corvettes that try to attack the system. If you want big fleets getting ganked by fortresses outright, you need to return to 1.2.x.
Anyway, that's not the point. It slows them down for a couple of days as they disperse to fleet formation and speeds. Which slows them down as they chase your decoy fleet. Which buys more time to snipe their planets.
A perfectly legitimate method of gaming the AI that actually works when it's done properly, supplemented by speedbump systems with fortresses. If it works with normal AI there's no reason it won't work with AFE, with the exception that there are more severe consequences if it fails I guess.
330 hours counts for nothing. The only thing that matters is you've yet to post data to support your claim that "anyone" would be able to roll over "a system with the best defense fortresses" in "10 seconds", which is a fairly specific claim as far as these threads go. Until then, my first impression of your statements remains: you make hyperbolic statements that sound accurate without supporting them. I imagine a "trap system" or three which an AFE fleet is forced to travel through would slow them down by several real life minutes.
More than enough time to fly in and nuke an AFE homeworld with a snipe fleet, assuming you're not using a bad FTL like Warp or Hyperlanes.
@OP: With 120K fleet power and barely over 700 capacity, you're probably boned at this point. Consider the concept of Fun.
Anyway, that's not the point. It slows them down for a couple of days as they disperse to fleet formation and speeds. Which slows them down as they chase your decoy fleet. Which buys more time to snipe their planets.
A perfectly legitimate method of gaming the AI that actually works when it's done properly, supplemented by speedbump systems with fortresses. If it works with normal AI there's no reason it won't work with AFE, with the exception that there are more severe consequences if it fails I guess.
330 hours counts for nothing. The only thing that matters is you've yet to post data to support your claim that "anyone" would be able to roll over "a system with the best defense fortresses" in "10 seconds", which is a fairly specific claim as far as these threads go. Until then, my first impression of your statements remains: you make hyperbolic statements that sound accurate without supporting them. I imagine a "trap system" or three which an AFE fleet is forced to travel through would slow them down by several real life minutes.
More than enough time to fly in and nuke an AFE homeworld with a snipe fleet, assuming you're not using a bad FTL like Warp or Hyperlanes.
@OP: With 120K fleet power and barely over 700 capacity, you're probably boned at this point. Consider the concept of Fun.
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There's no reason you can't use a network of fortresses with FTL snares to drag the AE fleet into kinetic range with your ships.
Build a network of, say, 5-6 fortresses in the middle of a system. Build the first one in the middle of the proposed network, then build the others in a pattern around it. Then lure the AE fleet to that system and fight them instantly at close range when they jump in. With any luck, the AE fleet with spread its weapons fire around to the fortresses while your ships go in the for the kill.
It buys you a chance of winning. But the fortresses aren't there to stop the enemy fleet themselves. They are just an FTL snare to get them into close range of your ships, and they are there to draw fire away from your ships.
Build a network of, say, 5-6 fortresses in the middle of a system. Build the first one in the middle of the proposed network, then build the others in a pattern around it. Then lure the AE fleet to that system and fight them instantly at close range when they jump in. With any luck, the AE fleet with spread its weapons fire around to the fortresses while your ships go in the for the kill.
It buys you a chance of winning. But the fortresses aren't there to stop the enemy fleet themselves. They are just an FTL snare to get them into close range of your ships, and they are there to draw fire away from your ships.
Well, if you are a crazy materialist, you can outscience them. Although it may be rough. I've done repeating tech 21 times and it is only enough for my fleet to stand SOME chance against them.
Oh, COME ON! You are the one making completely outrageous claims here. And it's extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence.
It is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT that a 250k+ (500k+? op's claims have been inconsistent) AE fleet will chew through even the hardiest defense stations very, very quickly. '10 seconds' might be somewhat off, but not by fucking much.
No, a 4k fleet having trouble with one defense station in the early-mid game is not evidence; it's completely irrelevant. The difference is overwhelming. Earlier-game fleets can have trouble with big, strong targets; that's not in any way comparable to the situation late-game. Have you ever fought an FE, let alone an AE? If so, you KNOW you're blatantly lying.
Even with perfect timing, if the AE fleets were all lured into the trap, and the OP launched attacks on all the AE worlds simultaneously right as the trap was sprung, it's ridiculous to claim that it would take the huge AE fleet so long to wipe out the defense stations that the OP would be able to destroy every spaceport (and any smaller defense fleets), bombard all the worlds, and invade them all before the AE fleet finished off the stations, jumped out, and returned to defend their core worlds. And AEs DO respond very quickly when their home systems are being attacked; the instant the 'trapped' fleet finished its combat, it would start to jump back and smack down the attempted invasion force.
Best way to fight an AE is to actually not fight them at all.
Make a corvette blueprint that is as cheap as possible. Then set a ralley point to one of the AE's planets and mass produce these cheap corvettes in one of your spaceports. The AE KI will send their doomstack to defent their planet from your incoming corvettes. As long as you don't stop producing corvettes or they are intercepted on the way, this will effectively bind the AE's fleet to that specific system. Before they are able to jump away, your next corvette will engage them.
Meanwhile, you take one planet after the other with your main fleet and only have to worry about their spaceports and their allies.
I won a War in Heaven on hard as the leader of the league of non aligned powers this way. My fleet was about 200k, each AE had around 400k. Trapped their fleets and then took their empires apart.
And because a single corvette a time is so weak, it wont even cost you any warscore.
Making them chase a small fleet requires a lot of management, and in my experience they might just turn around to defend their planets.
Make a corvette blueprint that is as cheap as possible. Then set a ralley point to one of the AE's planets and mass produce these cheap corvettes in one of your spaceports. The AE KI will send their doomstack to defent their planet from your incoming corvettes. As long as you don't stop producing corvettes or they are intercepted on the way, this will effectively bind the AE's fleet to that specific system. Before they are able to jump away, your next corvette will engage them.
Meanwhile, you take one planet after the other with your main fleet and only have to worry about their spaceports and their allies.
I won a War in Heaven on hard as the leader of the league of non aligned powers this way. My fleet was about 200k, each AE had around 400k. Trapped their fleets and then took their empires apart.
And because a single corvette a time is so weak, it wont even cost you any warscore.
Making them chase a small fleet requires a lot of management, and in my experience they might just turn around to defend their planets.
Whether or not fortresses are relevant in the meta is irrelevant to the discussion. What is relevant is the actual timing of fortresses in slowing a "typical" AE or FE fleet when pulled around on a leash by corvettes. Or in this case, defense stations with fighters. This is mostly a matter of travel times across a system with intermittent combats adding time, which is ideally enough for a decoy fleet to wind down from jump and escape to the next system to repeat this multiple times.
Clearly "10 seconds" is not "somewhat off". It's bullshit. If it's anywhere near correct, it's purely coincidental. There's clearly no evidence or data behind the assertions being made with regards to that quite specific scenario. It would probably be an order of magnitude off, or more, in travel times alone.
The point is to drag around the AI with a decoy fleet. The speedbump systems reduce the amount of micromanagement, nothing more. You don't even need the speedbumps in the grand scheme of things, they're just an interesting mix to the tried and true "drag the AI around on a corvette leash" tactic. The only disadvantage is that they might suddenly turn around if you start bombing their homeworld.
Hopefully you can force a white peace before that, though. Then just build up your fleet for ten years and don't lose next time.
If you can't beat the AE in a fistfight, you do the next best thing and exploit the AI targeting by making them chase a useless fleet while you bomb their planets. Sure it's "gamey" but that's the only way the OP can survive a war with the AE for the moment, or anyone else who isn't strong enough in fleet power to go toe-to-toe with an AE.
This is a much more elegant solution than decoy fleet in a micro sense TBH. I'd be worried about having the AE fleets not getting lured out of their own space, though.
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As long as your corvettes come in frequently, they can't get away because you engage them again before their wind-up time is over. But you can get a problem if one of your corvettes is intercepted by an ally of the AE.
If you are in a WiH, you can also conquer the AE's allies's planets to get the warscore you need. That way you could keep the distance between your and the FE's fleet greater than one jump. They won't make more than one jump away from their space, because even if one of your corvettes is intercepted, you can send the next one on another route and "attack" their planet before they can make a second jump.
Optimally you have a spaceport just one jump away from one of their planets, so your corvettes cant be intercepted. Or you have a second fleet to secure their route.
What gets quite annoying thou is the constant "hostile fleet engaged" messages you get, especially if you do this with two AE at the same time.
Allow me to give you my recipe for domination over AE.I play as militarist,materialist,individualist,and military junta as government,thus giving me science,energy,damage,fleet upkeep and upgrade boost.This allow me to exceed fleet capacity without significant resource shortage,and have fleet that bigger,and more advanced that my neighbors have(unless its an SA).Its also important to have extreme adaptation trait,that gives you the ability to quickly expand borders and colonize all planets inside it(except tomb worlds)in early game without the nned or terraforming or genetic adaptation.When you colonize all "free space",just sit peacefully inside your empire,gathering resources,killing native alien fllets,and keep others fllet power as "inferior" compared to yours so nobody dare to declare war on you(aside from some crazy purifiers).And when the time comes,and by the time i mean crisis/awakening or both,you will have fleet of about 250-350k to welcome them.
Few words about fleets.I am using two types-corvette swarm and battleship line.A large swarm of corvettes(200-300)will just "eat alive" fallen empire fleets and leviathans while evading from most of its attacks.100 Batlleships with giga cannons,one KA,two bomber and one fighter squad wil just kill enemies from save distance(works best with the unbidden)
Few words about fleets.I am using two types-corvette swarm and battleship line.A large swarm of corvettes(200-300)will just "eat alive" fallen empire fleets and leviathans while evading from most of its attacks.100 Batlleships with giga cannons,one KA,two bomber and one fighter squad wil just kill enemies from save distance(works best with the unbidden)
If you play on hard most AEs will have at least 400k Fleetpower and easily more than 500k if they conquered some planets. Even if you have enough fleetpower and hardcounter their ships, you will loose a lot of battleships because of their dual x-slot weapons.
I prefer winning without fighting, not only because of RP, but also because the chance of another empire falling in your back is lower if your fleet stays powerfull.
Mega and giga cannons have the most range so you can use hit'n'run tactics.
But you have to get through their shields first and deal more damage than they can regenerate before you engage them again. Giga cannons spread their fire across the enemy ships and don't focus, so they will be in range and deal damage to you before you can deal enough damage.
Well there are 150+ battleships in line,they engage almost simultaneously and deal LOTS of damage untill AE fleet get in range plus there can be used aditional 50+ corvetes to divert enemy fire.
The difference is my tacticts actually worked out)