So patch 1.3 rolled out with a major combat rework. At first I was excited, but as time passed by I started noticing the large flaws in the new combat system. Today i'll write about them for two reasons:
1. Help you create the ultimate fleet comp against the AI and other players
2. Help Paradox (finally) create a good balanced system
A moment to remember - pre 1.3
What is new in 1.3
General consideration on how combat works.
Lets talk about the importance of weapon slot size
Best weapon types to use
Why no missiles, torpedos and small craft
Advice for Paradox
TLDR:
Against AI use a lot of corvettes, 1M+2S+2PD destroyers and 6M crusers without afterburners to shoot from the back. Battleships and L sized weapons are terrible. The same applies for missiles, torpedos and strike craft. Press "Retreat" as soon as your corvette screen is mostly dead and your capital ships start taking damage, unless you are massively winning and finishing enemy fleet already.
1. Help you create the ultimate fleet comp against the AI and other players
2. Help Paradox (finally) create a good balanced system
A moment to remember - pre 1.3
I took the time to write a more comprehensive guide for 1.1 here. In short - max fleet size with 1xLance 2xPD destroyers and Max Lance battleships using Hull Plating on all slots.
What is new in 1.3
Now corvettes work like real screening ships with really high base evasion with destroyers, having a much lowered evasion followed by next-to-nonexistant evasion on cruisers and battleships. All weapons have a tracking value, which reduces the evasion of targets. Size S weapons have enough tracking to completely or almost completely eliminate evasion, while M sized weapons have much reduced tracking and L sized weapons have almost no tracking at all. The idea here is to force the use of all ship types, where Destroyers are good against missiles and corvettes, corvettes are good as meat shield against capital ships and capital ships are good against everything. This actually works, but for all the wrong reasons.
General consideration on how combat works.
In Stellaris ships like to shoot at the closest target available. There are some special considerations for some weapons (PD and Fighters prefer to shoot at other small craft and missiles), but apart from that it's all shoot at the closest enemy. This oversimplification of the game engine causes CONSIDERABLE PROBLEMS with the new combat balance, because M and L sized weapons are really bad at shooting corvettes, while corvettes are quite capable of wrecking bigger ships with the proper loadout.
Also - at some point someone at paradox realized to an extent how they fucked up combat balance so they switched position of your ships. Atm cruisers come first, followed by corvettes destroyers and battleships. This means it is VERY important to use afterburners on Destroyers/Corvettes. Otherwise your cruisers will become scrap metal if they start taking fire from M/L weapon slots.
Also - at some point someone at paradox realized to an extent how they fucked up combat balance so they switched position of your ships. Atm cruisers come first, followed by corvettes destroyers and battleships. This means it is VERY important to use afterburners on Destroyers/Corvettes. Otherwise your cruisers will become scrap metal if they start taking fire from M/L weapon slots.
Lets talk about the importance of weapon slot size
Your average S sized weapon slot has 60 tracking, M sized has 30 tracking, while L sized have 5 tracking.
The base evasion is 60 for Corvette, 25 for Destroyer, 10 for Cruiser and 5 for Battleship.
This means that S sized weapons are good for shooting at everything, M sized are bad for shooting at corvettes and L are utterly incapable of shooting at corvettes and somewhat bad in shooting at Destroyers.
Now this is where it gets stupid -> they kept the damage ratio for upgrading slots!
Bigger weapons do more damage with less accuracy (but keep the 2:1 damage ratio compared to previous sized slot). This means that they are hurt even more when the target reduced their accuracy with it's (positive) evasion. Simple math:
100% accurate weapon that does 100 damage and fires 1 sec does 100 DPS
50% accuracte weapon that does 200 damage and fires 1 sec does 100 DPS as well
But when you reduce the accuracy of both by 25:
75 accuracy with 100 damage is now 75 DPS
25% accuracy with 200 damage is now 50 DPS
All of this means that corvettes takes very little damage from M weapons and almost no damage from L sized weapons! At the same time L sized weapons are by now means better then M sized weapons and the same applies for M sized compared to S size. Your only consideration for using bigger sized weapon slots in the end game is range. End game fleets become so big that ships from the backside take much longer to come into effective range, thus using at least some M and L sized weapons makes sense.
It should also be noted that M and L sized weapons also get bonus armor penetration, but that's mostly useless. When your corvette screen is dead you should be pressing Retreat, not staying to lose all of your fleet. Ships bigger then corvettes are hideously vulnerable to damage, especially if Laser and Plasma is involved.
Now when we also consider that ships is stellaris like to shoot at the closest enemy it becomes really obvious why L sized weapon slots are crap and why using a Corvette mass is crucial. As long as you have Corvettes in the front line enemy L sized weapons will be completely ineffective as they try shooting down the corvettes and do nothing. M sized weapons are able to shoot down corvettes, but with much reduced effectivness. The first fleet which manages to dispatch the enemy corvette screen faster will win the combat, because then it will be able to bring it's M and L sized weapons to bear on the remaining capital ships and turn them into shreds, while the capital ships will still be forced to kill corvettes and do very little.
Why no all corvette spam?
You may be thinking that corvette is the best hull type and should be used in large numbers and that is absolutely true. However, a 100% corvette spam doesn't work. There are two reasons not to use a full corvette fleet:
1. Destroyers
2. Weapon Ranges
Destroyers have inherent bonus to tracking which applies to all weapon slots, meaning that Destroyer M guns are somewhat better at killing Corvettes. Further, Corvettes can't carry M sized slots at all and having many corvettes will make your fleet triangle size very big. Corvettes from the back won't start firing until much later into the fight. A full corvette spam will lose to a properly built mixed force that uses a lot of S weapons.
The base evasion is 60 for Corvette, 25 for Destroyer, 10 for Cruiser and 5 for Battleship.
This means that S sized weapons are good for shooting at everything, M sized are bad for shooting at corvettes and L are utterly incapable of shooting at corvettes and somewhat bad in shooting at Destroyers.
Now this is where it gets stupid -> they kept the damage ratio for upgrading slots!
Bigger weapons do more damage with less accuracy (but keep the 2:1 damage ratio compared to previous sized slot). This means that they are hurt even more when the target reduced their accuracy with it's (positive) evasion. Simple math:
100% accurate weapon that does 100 damage and fires 1 sec does 100 DPS
50% accuracte weapon that does 200 damage and fires 1 sec does 100 DPS as well
But when you reduce the accuracy of both by 25:
75 accuracy with 100 damage is now 75 DPS
25% accuracy with 200 damage is now 50 DPS
All of this means that corvettes takes very little damage from M weapons and almost no damage from L sized weapons! At the same time L sized weapons are by now means better then M sized weapons and the same applies for M sized compared to S size. Your only consideration for using bigger sized weapon slots in the end game is range. End game fleets become so big that ships from the backside take much longer to come into effective range, thus using at least some M and L sized weapons makes sense.
It should also be noted that M and L sized weapons also get bonus armor penetration, but that's mostly useless. When your corvette screen is dead you should be pressing Retreat, not staying to lose all of your fleet. Ships bigger then corvettes are hideously vulnerable to damage, especially if Laser and Plasma is involved.
Now when we also consider that ships is stellaris like to shoot at the closest enemy it becomes really obvious why L sized weapon slots are crap and why using a Corvette mass is crucial. As long as you have Corvettes in the front line enemy L sized weapons will be completely ineffective as they try shooting down the corvettes and do nothing. M sized weapons are able to shoot down corvettes, but with much reduced effectivness. The first fleet which manages to dispatch the enemy corvette screen faster will win the combat, because then it will be able to bring it's M and L sized weapons to bear on the remaining capital ships and turn them into shreds, while the capital ships will still be forced to kill corvettes and do very little.
Why no all corvette spam?
You may be thinking that corvette is the best hull type and should be used in large numbers and that is absolutely true. However, a 100% corvette spam doesn't work. There are two reasons not to use a full corvette fleet:
1. Destroyers
2. Weapon Ranges
Destroyers have inherent bonus to tracking which applies to all weapon slots, meaning that Destroyer M guns are somewhat better at killing Corvettes. Further, Corvettes can't carry M sized slots at all and having many corvettes will make your fleet triangle size very big. Corvettes from the back won't start firing until much later into the fight. A full corvette spam will lose to a properly built mixed force that uses a lot of S weapons.
Best weapon types to use
Stellaris combat be spread into three time tiers - ealy, mid and late combat.
Early fleets are small, composed of mainly corvettes with maybe the odd destroyer.
Mid combat fleets are mostly corvettes, with a lot of destroyers and maybe a cruiser or two.
Late combat fleets include a lot of corvettes, destroyers and cruisders.
Battleships in 1.3 are largely useless, because they are slow and carry a lot of shitty L sized weapon mounts. However, battleships may eventually become useful in the very late game against the AI when it starts building less corvettes in favor of more capital ships in order to maximize firepower. Battleships are also good if you plan to fight a fallen empire, since they have a lot of capital ships. For all other intents and purposes battleships should be avoided. The best X sized weapon is the Arc Emitter due to 100% accuracy 100% tracking good at zapping corvettes. GigaCannon is 2nd best due to 90% accuracy and bonus shield damage. Lances are utterly useless.
==========================================
The ultimate starting weapon is missiles, but they quickly fall-off in usefullness as the game progresses.
The best early game weapon is the Autocannon. It has the highest DPS of all weapons against pure hull. If you are planning a very early war start with Lasers and research Autocannons as soon as you see them. You are going to need some lasers to kill Space Stations, while Autocannons take care of enemy ships.
If you don't plan on waging early wars you have two viable options:
Lasers + (Disruptors/Autocannons)
or
(Kinetics/Autocannons) + Plasma
In general Laser higher base accuracy makes them better than most other weapon types for shooting Corvettes on M sized weapons, despite the loss of damage against shields. Disruptios also have very high accuracy and low damage, unless they are shooting at Shields. Use a lot of lasers and a few disruptors in your fleet. Alternatively yo9u can try Autocannons instead of Disruptors - they have excellent base damage and tracking, which also makes them good against shields and corvettes. If you use Autocannons consider using 1xAfterburners on your ships to close the range faster
Kinetics have larger range then Lasers and their higher based damage coupled with bonus shield damage makes them an excellent overall weapon. Unfortunately M sized Kinetics are somewhat bad against corvettes. Plasma MELTS armor even on S sized weapon slots. Again if you use autocannons add Afterburners.
Depending on your enemy change the amount of weapons on your ships. Against fallen empires and very late game AI use more anti-armor. Autocannons also become progressively worse as the game progresses. In the late game high range is king, in the early game high DPS is kind.
Ideal loadout per ship hull for the late game:
Corvettes:
(Use Afterburner if using Autocannon)
2S Kinetics/Autocannons + 1Sx Laser/Plasma
Destroyers
(Use 1 Afterburned to keep up with corvettes and shoot down missiles, Use 2 afterburner if relying on Autocannons)
1M Laser 2S Kinetics/Autocannons + 2PD
Against human opponents without missiles replace 2PD with another M laser
Cruisers
(don't use afterburner - rely on range to shoot from backside, accuracy bonus also helps)
3M Lasers 3M Disruptors
Battleship:
(Avoid )
or
(1X Arc Emitter + 4L Lasers in extremely late game/against FE)
Early fleets are small, composed of mainly corvettes with maybe the odd destroyer.
Mid combat fleets are mostly corvettes, with a lot of destroyers and maybe a cruiser or two.
Late combat fleets include a lot of corvettes, destroyers and cruisders.
Battleships in 1.3 are largely useless, because they are slow and carry a lot of shitty L sized weapon mounts. However, battleships may eventually become useful in the very late game against the AI when it starts building less corvettes in favor of more capital ships in order to maximize firepower. Battleships are also good if you plan to fight a fallen empire, since they have a lot of capital ships. For all other intents and purposes battleships should be avoided. The best X sized weapon is the Arc Emitter due to 100% accuracy 100% tracking good at zapping corvettes. GigaCannon is 2nd best due to 90% accuracy and bonus shield damage. Lances are utterly useless.
==========================================
The ultimate starting weapon is missiles, but they quickly fall-off in usefullness as the game progresses.
The best early game weapon is the Autocannon. It has the highest DPS of all weapons against pure hull. If you are planning a very early war start with Lasers and research Autocannons as soon as you see them. You are going to need some lasers to kill Space Stations, while Autocannons take care of enemy ships.
If you don't plan on waging early wars you have two viable options:
Lasers + (Disruptors/Autocannons)
or
(Kinetics/Autocannons) + Plasma
In general Laser higher base accuracy makes them better than most other weapon types for shooting Corvettes on M sized weapons, despite the loss of damage against shields. Disruptios also have very high accuracy and low damage, unless they are shooting at Shields. Use a lot of lasers and a few disruptors in your fleet. Alternatively yo9u can try Autocannons instead of Disruptors - they have excellent base damage and tracking, which also makes them good against shields and corvettes. If you use Autocannons consider using 1xAfterburners on your ships to close the range faster
Kinetics have larger range then Lasers and their higher based damage coupled with bonus shield damage makes them an excellent overall weapon. Unfortunately M sized Kinetics are somewhat bad against corvettes. Plasma MELTS armor even on S sized weapon slots. Again if you use autocannons add Afterburners.
Depending on your enemy change the amount of weapons on your ships. Against fallen empires and very late game AI use more anti-armor. Autocannons also become progressively worse as the game progresses. In the late game high range is king, in the early game high DPS is kind.
Ideal loadout per ship hull for the late game:
Corvettes:
(Use Afterburner if using Autocannon)
2S Kinetics/Autocannons + 1Sx Laser/Plasma
Destroyers
(Use 1 Afterburned to keep up with corvettes and shoot down missiles, Use 2 afterburner if relying on Autocannons)
1M Laser 2S Kinetics/Autocannons + 2PD
Against human opponents without missiles replace 2PD with another M laser
Cruisers
(don't use afterburner - rely on range to shoot from backside, accuracy bonus also helps)
3M Lasers 3M Disruptors
Battleship:
(Avoid )
or
(1X Arc Emitter + 4L Lasers in extremely late game/against FE)
Why no missiles, torpedos and small craft
There is an entire thread explaining why missile weapon types are terrible. To summarize:
And now we arrive at smallcraft. Smallcraft would be OK if missiles weren't so bad. If you use smallcraft without missiles enemy PD will make short work of your smallcraft and your hangar slots will stop doing and damage. If you do use missiles then you are going for a missile heavy fleet and the enemy can mass Destroyer PD wall and completely hardcounter you. Plus missiles and torpedos fail to work against corvettes and big ships as advertised. Another problem with Hangars is that hangar slots always come with PD slots. PD slots on your capital ships that stand on the backside and never get targeted with missiles and have no actual range to take on missiles. If they replaced those shitty P slots with S slots for missiles small craft may finally become viable...
Missiles + Hangar mass CAN work against AI! Try it if you want, it's just less effective compared to regular layout. DON'T EVER USE AGAINST HUMANS WITH BRAIN! Massed PD will just wreck you.
- Missles are supposed to be good vs corvettes, but they massively overkill targets due to lack of retardeting
- PD is very strong
- M and L sized missiles have the same hp as S sized missiles and PD is too good
- Missiles take time to do damage, ships killed while missiles are in flight will also destoy the missile
And now we arrive at smallcraft. Smallcraft would be OK if missiles weren't so bad. If you use smallcraft without missiles enemy PD will make short work of your smallcraft and your hangar slots will stop doing and damage. If you do use missiles then you are going for a missile heavy fleet and the enemy can mass Destroyer PD wall and completely hardcounter you. Plus missiles and torpedos fail to work against corvettes and big ships as advertised. Another problem with Hangars is that hangar slots always come with PD slots. PD slots on your capital ships that stand on the backside and never get targeted with missiles and have no actual range to take on missiles. If they replaced those shitty P slots with S slots for missiles small craft may finally become viable...
Missiles + Hangar mass CAN work against AI! Try it if you want, it's just less effective compared to regular layout. DON'T EVER USE AGAINST HUMANS WITH BRAIN! Massed PD will just wreck you.
Advice for Paradox
You need to improve the targetting code for torpedos and missiles
M and L sized missiles need double/quadriple HP compares to S sized missiles.
L sized weapons need a reason to exist since Lasers, Plasma and M sized weapons already shred armored ships.
Replace P slots on S slots on all hangar designs. Small Craft need missiles to confuse enemy PD or they are useless.
- Torpedos favor Battleships, then Cruisers, then Destroyers over standard targetting based on proximity with enemy ships.
- Missiles retarget when target dies and don't explode when firing ship is dead.
M and L sized missiles need double/quadriple HP compares to S sized missiles.
L sized weapons need a reason to exist since Lasers, Plasma and M sized weapons already shred armored ships.
Replace P slots on S slots on all hangar designs. Small Craft need missiles to confuse enemy PD or they are useless.
TLDR:
Against AI use a lot of corvettes, 1M+2S+2PD destroyers and 6M crusers without afterburners to shoot from the back. Battleships and L sized weapons are terrible. The same applies for missiles, torpedos and strike craft. Press "Retreat" as soon as your corvette screen is mostly dead and your capital ships start taking damage, unless you are massively winning and finishing enemy fleet already.
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