Excluding the current corvette evade exploit (/bug) ship types currently becomes instantly pointless the moment the next size up is available.
Battleship > 2 Cruisers > 4 Destroyers > 8 Corvettes
The reason is simply that while the amount of firepower in each class doubles, at the same time HP and armor doubles and larger ships fit larger guns.
So what we end up with is:
+Smaller: Better evasion
+Bigger: More effective HP as a result of better default armor
+Bigger: Longer range on the larger guns. As mid game L mounts (lance/arc) offer up to 90/100% accuracy there is no benefit to smaller mounts
Lets assume that those two balance each other out (for small scale battles).
Now a single BB will maintain it's full firepower up until the moment it is destroyed. This cannot be said for groups of smaller ships. Half way through a battle between a BB and 4 x DD the BB is still putting out 100% of it's firepower but the DD fleet is now only fighting with 50% of its original strength. By the end of the battle the 4 x DD will be destroyed but the BB will still be on ~30% of it's original health. End result is that the BB side has lost absolutely nothing while the DD side has lost all it's ships.
Larger numbers of ships actually result in even worse losses for the side with the smaller ships especially if they have shorter range weapons than the BB's. The range of the BB weapons mean that by the middle of the engagement all of the BB's are firing while a smaller portion of the smaller ship fleet are in weapon range.
End result is that an all BB fleet with arc throwers or lances will decimate anything in the game and will often take absolutely no losses. Even against the unbidden a single 30k stack of all BB's wiped their spawning system clean along with all 4 of their fleets than came to help and I lost only 5 ships (typically the one at the front of my flying V in each fleet combat)
It's a simple bigger = better and that = bad.
What I suggest is that ships are specialized for certain roles. In most cases ships can be fitted to counter classes above or below their level but in either case they need to become ineffective against the option not chosen:
Battleships (BB) are deep space battering rams. Most of their weapons are only effective against stationary structures such as starbases and defense stations.
Cruisers (CA) have survivability and firepower but lack the ability to cope with smaller targets if unsupported and will struggle with large structures such as starbases (assuming stellaris stops building starbases out of wet bog roll) and defense stations.
Destroyers (DD) are the bread and butter of a fleet but are also stuck between a rock and a hard place. If fitted for anti-FS duty they will be at a disadvantage against cruisers but as they mount more weapons that are effective against cruisers they become vulnerable to corvettes
Corvettes (FS) are designed to engage other corvettes and destroyers. While not individually powerful if a fleets destroyers and corvettes are able to gain supremacy over the other fleet FS/DD's then they are able to attack the remaining enemy ships (CA/BB) with impunity.
To achieve this you need to place weapon sizes between ship sizes so that each class only has two options. Up or down. If something is poor against another class the reason is either accuracy (acc) or very low damage (dmg):
Battleship
Cruiser
Destroyer
Corvette
All classes
Now we have a situation where every ship has a role and every ship is needed but the importance is bottom up. A fleet can still be extremely effective (in fleet on fleet engagements) without battleships but a fleet without corvettes will be massacred.
A fleet must have corvettes because if one side loses the battle at the FS level then their DD's will now be fighting the other fleets destroyers and corvettes. They will probably lose shortly thereafter and so on up the food chain until the BB's are swarmed and dont have the weapons to hit back.
Ships can be fitted to counter those below it but on the whole this is slightly less effective than spending the money on more of the lower tier ship. As an example 10,000 minerals spent on CA's fit out to destroy DD's will be slightly less effective than 10,000 minerals spent on DD's fit out to destroy DD's. This doesn't mean that higher tier ships are useless though. Your CA's will still be needed as if the enemy fleet contains BB's masquerading as CV's (Carriers) then without CA's you wont have the punch to kill them.
This means that fleets will usually consist of mostly corvettes and destroyers, some cruisers and only a very small number of battleships - just the way it should be. Battleships will be needed predominately for breaking enemy strong points, or as carriers. In defense a fleet that forgoes battleships and focuses more on corvettes and destroyers would be more effective.
A lot of this could probably be handled through changes to the ship cores, hit points, damage and accuracy of various ships, modules and weapons. It could almost be modded in except that in order for this to work the battle AI has to pick targets much better than it currently does. The whole thing falls down if a CA is constantly shooting it's L mount weapons at corvettes with a 1% chance to hit.
Anyway - I'm going to stop writing because I've spent way to long on this
Battleship > 2 Cruisers > 4 Destroyers > 8 Corvettes
The reason is simply that while the amount of firepower in each class doubles, at the same time HP and armor doubles and larger ships fit larger guns.
So what we end up with is:
+Smaller: Better evasion
+Bigger: More effective HP as a result of better default armor
+Bigger: Longer range on the larger guns. As mid game L mounts (lance/arc) offer up to 90/100% accuracy there is no benefit to smaller mounts
Lets assume that those two balance each other out (for small scale battles).
Now a single BB will maintain it's full firepower up until the moment it is destroyed. This cannot be said for groups of smaller ships. Half way through a battle between a BB and 4 x DD the BB is still putting out 100% of it's firepower but the DD fleet is now only fighting with 50% of its original strength. By the end of the battle the 4 x DD will be destroyed but the BB will still be on ~30% of it's original health. End result is that the BB side has lost absolutely nothing while the DD side has lost all it's ships.
Larger numbers of ships actually result in even worse losses for the side with the smaller ships especially if they have shorter range weapons than the BB's. The range of the BB weapons mean that by the middle of the engagement all of the BB's are firing while a smaller portion of the smaller ship fleet are in weapon range.
End result is that an all BB fleet with arc throwers or lances will decimate anything in the game and will often take absolutely no losses. Even against the unbidden a single 30k stack of all BB's wiped their spawning system clean along with all 4 of their fleets than came to help and I lost only 5 ships (typically the one at the front of my flying V in each fleet combat)
It's a simple bigger = better and that = bad.
What I suggest is that ships are specialized for certain roles. In most cases ships can be fitted to counter classes above or below their level but in either case they need to become ineffective against the option not chosen:
Battleships (BB) are deep space battering rams. Most of their weapons are only effective against stationary structures such as starbases and defense stations.
Cruisers (CA) have survivability and firepower but lack the ability to cope with smaller targets if unsupported and will struggle with large structures such as starbases (assuming stellaris stops building starbases out of wet bog roll) and defense stations.
Destroyers (DD) are the bread and butter of a fleet but are also stuck between a rock and a hard place. If fitted for anti-FS duty they will be at a disadvantage against cruisers but as they mount more weapons that are effective against cruisers they become vulnerable to corvettes
Corvettes (FS) are designed to engage other corvettes and destroyers. While not individually powerful if a fleets destroyers and corvettes are able to gain supremacy over the other fleet FS/DD's then they are able to attack the remaining enemy ships (CA/BB) with impunity.
To achieve this you need to place weapon sizes between ship sizes so that each class only has two options. Up or down. If something is poor against another class the reason is either accuracy (acc) or very low damage (dmg):
XL - Good vs stations, average vs BB (acc), useless vs CA/DD/FS (acc)
L - Good vs BB, average vs CA, poor vs stations (dmg), useless vs DD/FS (acc)
H - (Hanger) Use depends entirely on whats in there
H - (Hanger) Use depends entirely on whats in there
M - Good vs CA/DD, poor vs BB (dmg) & FS (acc), terrible vs stations (dmg)
S - Good vs FS, average vs DD, poor vs CA (dmg), terrible vs BB (dmg), useless vs stations (dmg)
All classes
PD - Good vs FS/Fighters, poor vs DD (dmg), useless vs CA/BB/stations (dmg)
Now we have a situation where every ship has a role and every ship is needed but the importance is bottom up. A fleet can still be extremely effective (in fleet on fleet engagements) without battleships but a fleet without corvettes will be massacred.
A fleet must have corvettes because if one side loses the battle at the FS level then their DD's will now be fighting the other fleets destroyers and corvettes. They will probably lose shortly thereafter and so on up the food chain until the BB's are swarmed and dont have the weapons to hit back.
Ships can be fitted to counter those below it but on the whole this is slightly less effective than spending the money on more of the lower tier ship. As an example 10,000 minerals spent on CA's fit out to destroy DD's will be slightly less effective than 10,000 minerals spent on DD's fit out to destroy DD's. This doesn't mean that higher tier ships are useless though. Your CA's will still be needed as if the enemy fleet contains BB's masquerading as CV's (Carriers) then without CA's you wont have the punch to kill them.
This means that fleets will usually consist of mostly corvettes and destroyers, some cruisers and only a very small number of battleships - just the way it should be. Battleships will be needed predominately for breaking enemy strong points, or as carriers. In defense a fleet that forgoes battleships and focuses more on corvettes and destroyers would be more effective.
A lot of this could probably be handled through changes to the ship cores, hit points, damage and accuracy of various ships, modules and weapons. It could almost be modded in except that in order for this to work the battle AI has to pick targets much better than it currently does. The whole thing falls down if a CA is constantly shooting it's L mount weapons at corvettes with a 1% chance to hit.
Anyway - I'm going to stop writing because I've spent way to long on this
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