The Large Fleet Collider - 2.0 Fleet Balance

[GloatingSwine]

This problem is compounded by the fact that both destroyers and cruisers have bad defensive mechanics. They neither have 90% evasion nor the most armor/hull. Having a bit of evasion is fairly useless - making hull choice a bit of a binary choice. You either build an evasion fleet or an max combined hp pool fleet.

To be honest, evasion overall isn't very good. Part of the strength of Devastator Corvettes is that even against other corvettes those devastator torpedoes will be hitting at least 65% of the time because 90% is the evasion cap, they have 10 tracking, and you get 45 from picket computer and sensors (which there's no reason not to use on corvettes because they reach evasion cap with it).

Also why the difference between torpedoes and missiles is so fine you can barely see it, because it's just trading alpha for 15 tracking. (Alpha causes casualties though by not letting things disengage)

 

[vonriel]

Shields do not regenerate in combat. Period. Ever.

I'm rather late on this, but when I first read it, I didn't have any proof.

This is a screenshot of my fleet taking on a pirate outpost in the 2.0.2 beta. Each of these ships is built the same way: 2 tier 1 armors, 1 tier 1 shield. The important things to look at here are: The pirate station has dealt 194 damage to shields, but there's only 150 maximum shields to be damaged, if shields don't regenerate in combat ever. Also, the highlighted corvette is missing 42 armor, but has 8 shields still, which can't happen from a pirate station as they only have small mass drivers as weapons.

By the 99 armor and 0 damage dealt to hull, you can see that I entered the fight with these three corvettes at full health and armor.

Some amount of shield regeneration must be happening in combat. I don't know what governs it, or how much, but it has to be happening. Or, hell, maybe my install is just glitchy, since I don't seem to be getting the same results as anyone else when it comes to half these tests anyway. But I thought it warranted sharing.

 

[BenBri]

So what is the takeawy from this thread? I'ms sorry I just don't have the time right now to reaad every post.

So use monofleets of corvs, dests, cruizers and battleships that people call BBs?

 

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

So what is the takeawy from this thread? I'ms sorry I just don't have the time right now to reaad every post.

So use monofleets of corvs, dests, cruizers and battleships that people call BBs?

TL;DR of thread:

- Against conventional fleets, use Corvettes with Devastator Torpedoes. They are more or less the best option.

- Against FE fleets, use BBs with an Arc Emitter, 2 Cloud Lightning and 4 Disruptors.

- Tailor defenses according to what weapons you see on the enemy ships (as always).

- Use mono-fleets. Mono-fleets, sadly, are still orders of magnitude more powerful than any mixed fleet.

 

[BenBri]

TL;DR of thread:

- Against conventional fleets, use Corvettes with Devastator Torpedoes. They are more or less the best option.

- Against FE fleets, use BBs with an Arc Emitter, 2 Cloud Lightning and 4 Disruptors.

- Tailor defenses according to what weapons you see on the enemy ships (as always).

- Use mono-fleets. Mono-fleets, sadly, are still orders of magnitude more powerful than any mixed fleet.

Thats what I do okay.

I always used a Jagdflotte and whatever (Yaeger class with Torpedo boats, mono corvs) and the rest according to enemy type

 

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

Can we please get a mod which makes the ship hulls do what they are ACTUALLY meant to do as roles?
Vettes kill cruisers and BBs in swarm and kill each other in PD.
Destroyers kill vettes in picket/line and kill BBs, then cruisers, then Arty destroyers inn artilery.
Cruisers kill destroyers in picket, then cruisers in line.
BBs kill cruisers and each other.

Those are the actual roles of ships! There aren't different hulls simply to pummel at each other, there are different hulls to counter each other- like in EVE!

Once 2.0 is fun for me to play, I'll see what I can do for modding (I'll probably code anything I build as an extension of NSC, though, because NSC is so good).


My initial thought is to use targeting priority to create screening roles for certain hulls vs other hulls. For example:

Gives corvettes a damage bonus vs BBs, and have them prioritize DDs first, then BBs. So, at least in theory, you'll want to have DDs in your fleet to screen your BBs from damage-boosted torpedo hits from Corvettes.

Have BBs prioritize first CAs then BBs, so at a minimum you'd want some CAs in your fleet to serve as an HP buffer for your BBs.

CAs probably need something like an aura that kills enemy evasion, with targeting preferences first for DDs, then for CVs, then BBs.

DDs gun for CVs, then DDs, then BBs.


Battleships anchor everything, because they are your biggest damage source. A mixed fleet composition's purpose is ultimately to protect your BBs while opening-up opportunities to attack the enemy BBs.

 

[EndlessTest]

Once 2.0 is fun for me to play, I'll see what I can do for modding (I'll probably code anything I build as an extension of NSC, though, because NSC is so good).


My initial thought is to use targeting priority to create screening roles for certain hulls vs other hulls. For example:

Gives corvettes a damage bonus vs BBs, and have them prioritize DDs first, then BBs. So, at least in theory, you'll want to have DDs in your fleet to screen your BBs from damage-boosted torpedo hits from Corvettes.

Have BBs prioritize first CAs then BBs, so at a minimum you'd want some CAs in your fleet to serve as an HP buffer for your BBs.

CAs probably need something like an aura that kills enemy evasion, with targeting preferences first for DDs, then for CVs, then BBs.

DDs gun for CVs, then DDs, then BBs.


Battleships anchor everything, because they are your biggest damage source. A mixed fleet composition's purpose is ultimately to protect your BBs while opening-up opportunities to attack the enemy BBs.

I would very much like a mod like this! (altho i dont know how i feel about it being just an extension to nsc )

It saddens me to see the outcome of this thread be that mono fleets are still king and vettes or BB is the goto ship leaving dessies and cruisers on the sidelines.

I still use mixed fleets in my games because its fun to make fleets like this but i always have this thought in the back of my head that i could probably do much better with mono fleets (but thats cheesy imo and breaks immersion) ...

 

[Fa1nan]

IMO the primary problems right now are targeting and the fact that destroyers and cruisers don't fill any niche. Mixed fleets do not work because targeting is wonky; you ultimately have no control over what gets shot at with what. The combat behaviour needs to be expanded so that we can tell specific designs to at least focus on specific hulls. This should already slightly help with destroyers and cruisers, but there's still the problem that these don't have anything specific to them. Destroyers have roughly two builds, the picket one against corvettes and the artillery one. But you can already slap Autocannons and PD on corvettes and the artillery build works better on BBs. Cruisers are similar, either go for missiles which corvettes are better at or use them as discount BBs.

So I guess there is enough of a consensus now that I could condense this thread into a fleet guide?

 

[President Jyrgunkarrd]

IMO the primary problems right now are targeting and the fact that destroyers and cruisers don't fill any niche. Mixed fleets do not work because targeting is wonky; you ultimately have no control over what gets shot at with what. The combat behaviour needs to be expanded so that we can tell specific designs to at least focus on specific hulls. This should already slightly help with destroyers and cruisers, but there's still the problem that these don't have anything specific to them. Destroyers have roughly two builds, the picket one against corvettes and the artillery one. But you can already slap Autocannons and PD on corvettes and the artillery build works better on BBs. Cruisers are similar, either go for missiles which corvettes are better at or use them as discount BBs.

So I guess there is enough of a consensus now that I could condense this thread into a fleet guide?

Some of the early posts in the thread suggested that DDs with arty actually out-shot BBs, and could even cream CVs because of their tracking.

Is that not the case?

 

[Fa1nan]

Some of the early posts in the thread suggested that DDs with arty actually out-shot BBs, and could even cream CVs because of their tracking.

Is that not the case?

I skimmed the entire thread and there seem to be two tests comparing BBs and DDs. The first pitches both against a mixed fleet and both perform about equally well. The next pitches them against each other and while the BBs flee the battle, they suffer less attrition. This leads OP to the conclusion that if retreat is forbidden, the DDs may win. But in general BBs will deal more damage per resource invested and actually survive by retreating in time, which DDs do not. And cutting your own losses is more important now with the war attrition mechanic.

Furthermore, against FE/AE and probably crises (which we really need some tests against I guess), which the endgame is about, BBs seem to outperform everything else by a large margin, hence you want a BB main fleet around in time. But BBs do actually get countered by corvette swarms themselves and are rather slow, thus you want to keep your corvette swarms from early game around as a quick response force and to counter enemy corvette swarms and BBs.

What I'm taking away from this thread for the flow of a game is to spam corvettes until you can build BBs; once you can build a main BB battle force. Default go-to loadouts should be torp + autocannon/gauss on the 'vetts and Giga Cannon with one artillery and three Neutron Launchers (I think no one actually tested these against mixed fleets, but they seemed to perform better against FE than the Lance setup with only one Neutron Launcher) on the BBs with switches to Cloud Lightning/Disruptor builds against FE and probably Contingency. Against Unbidden the go-to loadout will probably work best (again, need tests) and against Scourge no idea.

 

[Jmes Snowscoran]

Looking at this tread I'm not surprised to find the torpedo corvettes so dominant, because that's the design I settled on myself after much trial and error in my 2.02 game.

What I'm curious about is why people seem to prefer the stormfire autocannon to go along with the torpedoes. I settled on the disruptor myself, figuring that if the torps penetrate shields it's nice to have a complementary weapon that does the same. I haven't tried the autocannons and I'm open to the notion that I could be wrong here though.

 

[Desolator_X]

Because the autocannon shreds shields and does well against hull. the idea is that you have the torps for armour and cannon for shields. The effectiveness of this rises when mixed with other ships. Mono swarm could do with disruptors like you said.

I'm wondering, would the old school BB design of hangar front (1x strike craft, 2x PD (probably anti missile), 1M (probably plasma?), 2x artillery (all KA or all neutron?) still work well? I can't test it atm, but maybe someone else could?

 

[mammothhunter]

I found strike craft performance quite terrible in 2.0, though I only seen it in mixed fleets. The bug when they fly in the opposite direction is still there, so in most fights they don't even engage. In those where they do however they occupy the last line in the damage breakdown log. First lines are occupied by tachyons/neutron/KA and missiles or torps, whichever are there in the fleet. Kinetic/laser/plasma in the middle. And strike craft at the bottom. Thats from battleships with 2 hangars hull and an X front.

 

[Fa1nan]

I'm wondering, would the old school BB design of hangar front (1x strike craft, 2x PD (probably anti missile), 1M (probably plasma?), 2x artillery (all KA or all neutron?) still work well? I can't test it atm, but maybe someone else could?

No, it lost horribly in my FE tests and I cannot really imagine it working any better against other stuff. Actually, I guess that one of the reasons BBs are so efficient is because their XL weapons are so good. Both in 1.9 and in 2.0 designs without the XL slot always seem to perform worse.

 

[Jmes Snowscoran]

Because the autocannon shreds shields and does well against hull. the idea is that you have the torps for armour and cannon for shields. The effectiveness of this rises when mixed with other ships. Mono swarm could do with disruptors like you said.

That's the thing though- in my experience (and this seems to be backed up by the thread) the torpedo corvettes don't really play well with others, but rather thrive in a monofleet where they overwhelm point defense with mass torpedo waves.

Also, wouldn't the autocannon's rapid fire give ships a lot more opportunities to trigger disengagement?

 

[Raithnor]

I'm thinking maybe the other classes might need increased firepower in each section to make them worthwhile. Take a destroyer: Your options are 1L, 1M/2S, or 1PD/2S and 1M , 2PD, or 2S. Meanwhile the corvette is 1S/1G, 3S, or 1PD/2S. There's no way you can get 2 Corvettes worth of firepower from 1 destroyer. Even if you did a Neutron Launcher (closest thing to a Torp launcher) and 2 Stormfire, you're only 1S weapon better than 1 Corvette.

Right now a common them through the post is "Why build Destroyers and Cruisers when I can build more Corvettes?"

 

[Talamare]

I'm thinking maybe the other classes might need increased firepower in each section to make them worthwhile. Take a destroyer: Your options are 1L, 1M/2S, or 1PD/2S and 1M , 2PD, or 2S. Meanwhile the corvette is 1S/1G, 3S, or 1PD/2S. There's no way you can get 2 Corvettes worth of firepower from 1 destroyer. Even if you did a Neutron Launcher (closest thing to a Torp launcher) and 2 Stormfire, you're only 1S weapon better than 1 Corvette.

Right now a common them through the post is "Why build Destroyers and Cruisers when I can build more Corvettes?"

Corvette = 3 Slots of Weapons
Destroyer = 6 Slots of Weapons (unless you choose the Picket Bow which makes it 5 slot, this needs to be fixed)
Cruiser = 12 Slots of Weapons

They are all effectively equals. Tho, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to see Destroyer have 7 Slots and Cruisers having 14 or 15 Slots.

Edit - What if the solution was simpler?
What if Corvettes had 1 less Aux Defense Slot, and Cruisers had 2 more Aux Defense Slots.

 

[EntropyAvatar]

To be honest, evasion overall isn't very good. Part of the strength of Devastator Corvettes is that even against other corvettes those devastator torpedoes will be hitting at least 65% of the time because 90% is the evasion cap, they have 10 tracking, and you get 45 from picket computer and sensors (which there's no reason not to use on corvettes because they reach evasion cap with it).

You'd think the cap would be on (evasion-tracking), not on evasion itself. So you can't stack evasion to be literally untouchable, but you can stack evasion to counter tracking.Small differences in combat formulas have such huge consequences on overall balance.

 

[Defiler99]

Corvette mono-fleet utterly wiped the floor with the Unbidden for me yesterday. All hail evasion.

 

[Raithnor]

Corvette = 3 Slots of Weapons
Destroyer = 6 Slots of Weapons (unless you choose the Picket Bow which makes it 5 slot, this needs to be fixed)
Cruiser = 12 Slots of Weapons

They are all effectively equals. Tho, I suppose it wouldn't be so bad to see Destroyer have 7 Slots and Cruisers having 14 or 15 Slots.

Edit - What if the solution was simpler?
What if Corvettes had 1 less Aux Defense Slot, and Cruisers had 2 more Aux Defense Slots.

Not sure if it still the case in 2.0, but the Picket Bow had an extra defense slot which is... meh. Destroyers currently don't have access to missiles and point defense seems really inadequate right now.