Missile vs Torpedo Corvettes v2.2.2

[TehJumpingJawa]

That doesn't make sense in space, or even in the ocean. Why would small ships have a low top speed?

Why not?

This is a game about space craft with shields, shooting lasers, travelling at superluminal velocities through stationary star systems.

If you want to invent some pseudo-science to explain it:

- power generation increases linearly with mass.
- mass increases linearly with volume.
- surface area is a root of volume.

Thus, make the 'science' of your engines be dependent upon surface area and power output.
This is hardly revelationary thinking; Star Trek did exactly this with its concept of warp field geometry.

Incidentally, at the simplest level, ocean going ships DO tend to be faster the larger they are; precisely because of the relationship between volume & surface area.

All this gobbledygook aside, the real reason to do it in Stellaris, would be to give another balancing tool to help differentiate the ship classes.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

Why not?

This is a game about space craft with shields, shooting lasers, travelling at superluminal velocities through stationary star systems.

If you want to invent some pseudo-science to explain it:

- power generation increases linearly with mass.
- mass increases linearly with volume.
- surface area is a root of volume.

Thus, make the 'science' of your engines be dependent upon surface area and power output.
This is hardly revelationary thinking; Star Trek did exactly this with its concept of warp field geometry.

Incidentally, at the simplest level, ocean going ships DO tend to be faster the larger they are; precisely because of the relationship between volume & surface area.

All this gobbledygook aside, the real reason to do it in Stellaris, would be to give another balancing tool to help differentiate the ship classes.

We're talking about sublight speeds, not FTL. For FTL, whatever mumbo jumbo they want is fine. I don't even ask questions. But for sublight, I expect it to be a little bit more reasonable. I think that's what they already have. Big ships take longer to get up to fleet speed, but they do get there and then the fleet moves at the same speed. Seems reasonable to me.

 

[danfarnsy]

(assuming they get up to relativistic speeds).

Relativistic speeds would be entertaining. At 35% of the speed of light, their momentum would be 6% higher than the non-relativistic case (not much correction), and they'd cross the Sol system in 1 day. That's not the most fun for game play, of course. Since nothing in this game is physical (no gravity, orbits, line-of-sight, etc.) it's okay to leave Einstein out of it too.

 

[xsmilingbanditx]

People always seem to confuse weight and mass. An object might have zero weight but still have a huge mass. Mass needs to be handled, this is done with energy and thus, objects with a small mass need less energy to accelerate.

 

[Blurb]

Yeah, that's something I think could do with a reversal.

Small ships; high acceleration, low top speed.
Big ships; low acceleration, high top speed.

Adding acceleration is a pointless complication as ships stop at each FTL jump.
If you want to modify travel time of various ships, then you're better off doing it directly.

People always seem to confuse weight and mass. An object might have zero weight but still have a huge mass. Mass needs to be handled, this is done with energy and thus, objects with a small mass need less energy to accelerate.

To a layman, weight and mass are synonymous - that is if mass is even a familiar concept to that person.

 

[BalGu]

Hello there,

As a newbie to the game I read a lot about torpedo corvetts beeing the best, but most of the post are treating this subject with a direct comparaison between two fleets.

Therfor I would know if a torped corvette monofleet would be good against stations.
What would be a general good build against stations?
Because I have a hard time to beat some of them that can reach about 9k strength.

If it matter I play against AI only .

Thx for the help

 

[Pragmatic]

Based on what I read in the forums, missile corvette swarms was a few patches ago.

 

[manunancy]

In my opinion a speed limit in space comes is mostly a foctor of handling what little matters stills hangs around in space. Micrometorites, stray gazes nd other little crap don't makes much mass, but hen bumping into them at relativistic speed, they can hurt. Which means whatever's got the thoughest armor/shields can go the fastest (even it taking and age and half to acceltarate there...). Which would get you the high max speed battleships vs lower max speed corvettes

 

[Bankipriel]

So you are saying that corvette spam is not anymore the best build? So mixed fleets are better now?

I am not sure what the current best meta is. AFAIK, though, targeting rules haven't changed (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and as long as they haven't changed, mono-fleets are almost always better than mixed fleets because more of your fleet will engage at the same time, and they will target the same section of the enemy's fleet.

NB* I only play single player, so ignore everything that follows in regards to multiplayer unless confirmed by a MP expert (cause I don't know squat about MP).

So, for example, I begin game with a corvette only fleet. I call it my "Vanguard" fleet, and will fill it with whatever mix of corvettes I'm running until it eventually hits 100, maybe 150 late game if I've go the naval capacity. While this is my primary fleet early game, and a true vanguard fleet in mid game, for late game I will outfit it 1:4 or 1:5 of Point Defense : Disrupter-Torp, for cracking open enemy bastions with ignorable losses.

The next fleet I build is sometimes a secondary corvette fleet if for some reason my naval cap is way over my fleet capacity (but I will integrate this into my Vanguard fleet ASAP).

The second permanent fleet I build is a destroyer (DD) fleet. I will outfit my DD fleet as needed early game, but late game I always keep them outfitted a artillery ships with Cloud Lightning and Point Defense (PD). They are not for every engagement. They are optional back-up for my main Battleship (BB) Fleets in case heavy PD is needed. Even if I am not running Cloud Lightning on my BB, I like to have a serious fleet of it ready just in case I get surprised by a FE or AE and don't have time to refit my BB fleets before I am engaged. Having my DD fleet follow a BB fleet is also quite effective, as the Cloud Lightning will pick off enemy corvettes that get to close to the Battleships.

My subsequent fleets are all Battleships, unless for some reason I really need more corvettes or destroyers with PD (e.g. multiple strong enemies with missle/torp focused fleets).

I skip cruisers altogether because I find them to be strategically inferior to the above mentioned fleet compositions, but that's just my opinion. I'm sure there are ways to use them effectively.

So, there are some ideas for you. I'm not claiming the above is in any way superior or other ways, it's just how I generally build my fleets.

Two other things to keep in mind:

1) AFAIK, ships still target with all of their weapons (someone correct me if I'm wrong), meaning it is better to build 2 types of corvettes, one with all kinetic & one with all laser (if that's what you want to do). The weapon bonuses and penalties effect targeting ( or at least they used to), so mixing weapon types is less effective than mixing focused ship models.

2) In the short run, mixing your ship builds with different weapon types (kinetic/energy/explosive) is great (and necessary, because you've got to work with the research that pops up). But in the long run, you want to focus your repeatable technology research in one type of weapon (e.g. kinetic, or energy), and build your fleet around that. Don't try to pursue all the repeatables, it won't get you as far as focusing.

Good luck! And happy galactic exploring/conquering/saving/destroying/whatever-ing

 

[Terkhev]

Incidentally, at the simplest level, ocean going ships DO tend to be faster the larger they are; precisely because of the relationship between volume & surface area.

I'm not a spec on this topic, but iirc WW2 destroyers has speed of 30-40 knots, while battleships were 20-something. Bismarck, which was really fast for a battleship, could go 30 knots. No idea what you meant by "simplest level", but in practice bigger = slower. Tho I agree that there should be some mechanic making big ships better for long distance travels in Stellaris.

OT: With AI's PD spam I prefer missiles over torps. You can cheeze it a bit by using hangar module on starbase to stop enemy PD, but fleet vs fleet I'd just use SSS corvs until AI has different ships.

 

[anamiac]

I'm not a spec on this topic, but iirc WW2 destroyers has speed of 30-40 knots, while battleships were 20-something. Bismarck, which was really fast for a battleship, could go 30 knots. No idea what you meant by "simplest level", but in practice bigger = slower. Tho I agree that there should be some mechanic making big ships better for long distance travels in Stellaris.

In space, where there's no friction, our formulas become simpler. Instead of worrying about speed we worry about acceleration. Since f=ma, acceleration is dependant on mass of the ship and force of the engines. If you have a 1000kt spaceship with a 100kt engine outputting 100,000kN then it's going to have the same acceleration as a 2000kt spaceship with a 200kt enginge outputting 200,000kN. It might not turn the same, but linear acceleration would be the same.

The fact that battleships move slower than cruisers suggests to me that one of the following is true:

1. In the stellaris universe, doubling engine size results in significantly less than doubling of thrust, at least for the type of engines that spaceships use. Note: this runs counter to modern rocket engines, which are more efficient the larger they are.
2. In the stellaris universe, the relationship between ship size and engine size is not constant. A battleship is twice the mass of a cruiser but its engine is not twice as large. For some strange reason, it's not beneficial to build fighters with less than 50% of their mass devoted to their engine or battleships with more than 5% of their mass devoted to engines.
3. In the stellaris universe, Different types of ships have different types of engines. ie, Battleship engines are built for distance and reliability whereas smaller ships have faster, less reliable engines. This theory at least seems to run counter to the way engine technology is represented in the game.

 

[The Boz]

You will note that, in the Stellaris universe, ships tend to get longer more than taller or wider as they get bigger, and when they do get taller or wider, engine size doesn't seem to change. So if you have twice the mass at twice the length and half again the engine power, you end up slower.

 

[evilcat]

Right now AI really favours 1p2s design, so torpedoes are less good strategy.
Standard corvetas 2energy 1 mass + 3 armour + afterburner from quest is my way to go.

 

[Bankipriel]

Right now AI really favours 1p2s design, so torpedoes are less good strategy.
Standard corvetas 2energy 1 mass + 3 armour + afterburner from quest is my way to go.

I found that if I start by building 1p/2s corvettes myself, neighbor rivals often build 3s. I then build the second half of my fleet as 1s/1g, and have been fairing quite well against enemies with no point defense. Definitely doesn't work all the time.

 

[Astax]

I am new to the game and currently reading a lot about the mechanics of the game. Based on what i found on forums it came to my attention that a torpedo corvette fleet is the way to go.

Is it? The best fleet in the game is a fleet composed of corvettes with torpedoes and disruptors??

I think the torps are better vs starbases and platforms, which lack evasion. Otherwise missiles are better, even though the DPS has ot hit armor.

 

[Halapo]

Mostly just for the OP...

... and saying nothing about real world navy ships or physics...

... so purely in game mechanics...

Once in the past, the combination of cost to build, damage dealt, ability to replace and reinforce and fleet cap... 200 corvettes (thus a 200 fleet cap fleet) with torpedoes could deal with almost every other 200 fleet cap fleet. And if they lost, you could replace it for 1/4 the cost of the fleet they lost to. So you could just throw ships at the enemy and ware them down. Large weapons couldn't hit them as reliably while they had no problem dealing their full damage back.

You didn't need to...

... Scout their weapons or defenses, you used the same design every time

... build all shipyard sub-classes, there use to be 4 sizes of shipyards (gave a bonus to that type of ships build cost/speed), so you only needed one type of shipyard, you could have them spread over you space, meaning you could reinforce way aster then the enemy. It was also the first one unlocked

... Worry about your war-score, lost corvettes had far less of a negative effect

... Wreck you economy to build 2000 mineral battle ships, just have a steady stream of 100 mineral corvettes flowing to the front lines

... Spread you fleets around, you small ship fleets were so fast, they could cover two or three time the space as a fleet with a single battleship in it (fleets move at their slowest ships speed). Many wars could be won just by kiting the enemy around while a 2nd fleet hit critical targets

It was so broken, even in multiplayer, were everybody tries to min/max their game, even with everybody knowing what everybody else was doing (corvette spam) nobody had a reliable counter to it. You could either join them in the spam, or lose.

Since then and into Now...

A lot of effort has been made in making all the ship sizes relevant. Currently, no game breaking advantage has been found about one ship type of fleet composition. You can get some advantage out of pushing the cheap ships vs expensive, and spamming them down, but it can be countered by having well balance/designed ships/fleets.

In general, you either need a mix of ships, but maybe not all sizes in each fleet. I rarely have corvettes in with my battleships. But I do tend to have a mix ships-sub-type in my fleets. Like my Cruisers might have some anti-corvette destroyers with them, so my cruisers can focus on a larger weapon build, and the destroyers can carry the small guns. I am currently using a rule for only two ship sizes per fleet, corvettes/destroyers or destroyers/cruisers or cruisers/battleships. That way they are not hurting each other on movement speeds, and they cover each other’s weaknesses.

Now on the topic of the AI, currently the AI loves anti-missile/torpedo/strike-craft weapons (nearly 1/3 of all their weapons will be AA !?!), so I would strongly advise against using them yourself, as the AI is going to be ready for them. Maybe in the late game they stop putting point defense and flak on their ships, but I haven't seen it.

Which is too bad, because strike-craft look cool and have fun RP

 

[Sigma 582]

According to one older analysis, corvettes were more capacity-efficient and battleships were more mineral-efficient. I.e. if you take X capacity of corvettes and X capacity of battleships, the vettes win. If you spend Y amount of resources on vettes and Y amount of resources on battleships, the big ones win.

There were rather little changes to combat in 2.2., so I believe the principle still holds true, just with alloy replacing minerals.

In other worlds, if you are tight on naval cap but have lots of alloy, you'd better use corvettes (or better use excess alloy to pump naval cap). If you have lots of naval cap but not so much alloy - go for battleships. Also don't forget to scout enemy ships and use hard-counters whenever possible - good ol' rock-paper-scissors principle still works.

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

Now on the topic of the AI, currently the AI loves anti-missile/torpedo/strike-craft weapons (nearly 1/3 of all their weapons will be AA !?!), so I would strongly advise against using them yourself, as the AI is going to be ready for them. Maybe in the late game they stop putting point defense and flak on their ships, but I haven't seen it.

Yes, it seems like the "auto-generate" designs all lean heavily on PD, presumably in response to older Torpedo Corvette metas. The result is that there's not much point in being either PD (your enemies won't use missiles) or Explosive weapons (your enemy has a ton of PD) against AI opponents currently. That's a real shame, and I hope it's fixed.

 

[Halapo]

I have found that a mass of pure corvettes is still pretty good vs the AI, since they gimp themselves with AA/PD. AT the same time, my Destroyers filled with small weapons rip them apart and then do ok against the stations.

Once I can get cruisers, I typically only have corvettes as anti piracy. My Destroyers are there to have small weapons and PD while my cruisers are all medium weapons ( when enemy is still mostly destroyers themselves) or all large weapons when they also have cruisers.

I still haven't determined if Cruisers can out DPS Battleships and be cost effective. Since you can have 2 cruiser for every battleship there might be something there.

Seems that stats wise, ships didn't change much. The new issue is the econmy and the cost of replacing them. Economy takes a little longer to get rolling (the mineral to alloy part) and the conversion means that ships 'cost' more. So spamming out losses isn't as acceptable (unless you win the overall objective quickly I guess).

 

[Diettinger]

There are other ways to rebalance fleets.

Small vessels like corvettes have always punched above their weight and material cost with a counterweight of high losses in vessels and crews... which includes crew experience and the impact of personnel losses on war weariness. Admirals would not want to be on smaller vessels because of the risk of death (and impact on fleet effectiveness) plus the limited command support capabilities limited their ability to command effectively. Finally, smaller vessels typically were very austere and of limited range.

Larger vessels generally provided higher end functions which the smaller vessels could not. By adding auxillery components such as logistic modules as a feature there could be a way to limit how far ships can range from friendly supply points. Ie: able to operate 1 -2 systems from friendly bases, or farther with more log modules. Corvettes would have a small number of logistic spots, whereas Battleships could be effectively unlimited. A fleet collier may extend those ranges, but that fleet would be in severe trouble if that ship was destroyed!

An auxiliary component 'fleet bridge' could be added to larger ships and improve the total fleet performance, thus adding value to the larger ships. C3 computer modules might be added to improve pd effectiveness, etc.
These have always been the benefit of larger ships and would add new strategy and tactics to the game.