This. Is. Ridiculous.

[Larknok1]

150 Corvettes with Neutron Torps / Plasma

vs.

50 Cruisers with: 1 Kinetic Artillery / 3 Medium Plasma / 1 Flak

These fleets are of equal mineral cost.

Sounds like a fair fight, right?

Wrong.

This is ridiculous.

The corvettes spread their damage out across every single enemy Cruiser and secured -- get this -- ZERO kills.

Why?

 

[GloatingSwine]

Shield damage bonus.

Shield damage bonus makes them shoot at high shields, so they fail to focus fire.

Like when I tested 6x Kinetic Artillery battleships vs. 1Lance/2Arty/4MPlas, the kinetic artillery ships just spread all their damage out and in a 50v50 only caused three casualties in one fight and four in the other. Whereas the ships with lances whenever the lances were ready to fire they picked a ship with low shields and focused them down.

 

[Anschau]

Aren't corvettes with topredoes suppose to chew up cruisers and battlecruisers? I thought other corvettes and destroyers were the only way to kill a swarm of corvettes.

 

[DukeLeto42]

Additionally, consider that the corvettes had to keep stripping cruiser shields. Both groups spread their damage fairly equally, but small RNG variance led to the immediate death of corvettes as shields were overwhelmed easily and damage done to hulls by the large cruiser weapon slots, while a few favorable focus-fire results for corvettes were insufficient to load up the damage to take down cruisers. Cruisers and their L and M slots would have dealt damage enough to kill at least a few before even reaching range. Plus, at a general figure (the breakdown in fleet capacity and general performance) of 2:1 in success for moving up a ship class, so you'd need around 200 corvettes to stand a chance of winning.

Finally, while all Stellaris weapons are something of a rock/paper/scissor system, the hard counter of flak would make few neutron torps get through, so even the hull damage weapons would be spent stripping shields..

 

[GloatingSwine]

Aren't corvettes with topredoes suppose to chew up cruisers and battlecruisers? I thought other corvettes and destroyers were the only way to kill a swarm of corvettes.

With ordinary torpedoes they might. If point defence didn't stop them. (Cruisers with ordinary torpedoes not so much. No synergy with their other weapons meaning that gun cruisers will beat torpedo cruisers.)

Energy torpedoes, and lesserly weapons with shield damage bonus, are not so lucky though. The shield damage bonus makes them switch targets often to things with high shields, so if there isn't something ready to take advantage of the downed shields they simply don't get the job done.

Additionally, consider that the corvettes had to keep stripping cruiser shields. Both groups spread their damage fairly equally, but small RNG variance led to the immediate death of corvettes as shields were overwhelmed easily and damage done to hulls by the large cruiser weapon slots, while a few favorable focus-fire results for corvettes were insufficient to load up the damage to take down cruisers. Cruisers and their L and M slots would have dealt damage enough to kill at least a few before even reaching range. Plus, at a general figure (the breakdown in fleet capacity and general performance) of 2:1 in success for moving up a ship class, so you'd need around 200 corvettes to stand a chance of winning.

Finally, while all Stellaris weapons are something of a rock/paper/scissor system, the hard counter of flak would make few neutron torps get through, so even the hull damage weapons would be spent stripping shields..

The cruisers didn't spread their damage nearly as much though, because they only have one weapon with shield damage bonus and when their plasma weapons looked for targets they picked things that had already had their shields brought down, so they focus fire effectively whilst the corvettes don't.

I've done a similar test with battleships, and although they performed worse (no flak, had XL weapons, etc) they still fought off a corvette swarm they should have lost to (and did handily if the corvettes had 2plas with one anti-shield weapon each).

 

[Anschau]

Christ is there a graphic that shows what counters what? The Stellaris wiki is uniquely unhelpful with this.

 

[Larknok1]

With ordinary torpedoes they might. If point defence didn't stop them. (Cruisers with ordinary torpedoes not so much. No synergy with their other weapons meaning that gun cruisers will beat torpedo cruisers.)

Energy torpedoes, and lesserly weapons with shield damage bonus, are not so lucky though. The shield damage bonus makes them switch targets often to things with high shields, so if there isn't something ready to take advantage of the downed shields they simply don't get the job done.

So what's the conceivable counter to full Cruiser stack?

Half cruiser stack and half Neutron torp + plasma?

EDIT:

Just tried it. Doesn't work:

 

[Larknok1]

Here's the challenge: Name anything you think can beat this, pound for pound (mineral for mineral):

I will test this Cruiser stacked 50 times against anything you think can beat it (of the same mineral cost).

I've been pulling my hair the last two hours trying to find ANYTHING that can beat this.

(You can't suggest another Cruiser stack)

 

[Larknok1]

Finally, while all Stellaris weapons are something of a rock/paper/scissor system, the hard counter of flak would make few neutron torps get through, so even the hull damage weapons would be spent stripping shields..

Flak doesn't have any effect on Neutron torps. Hence the 200 THOUSAND damage done to shields by Neutron Torps.

 

[SuperGeek89]

Flak doesn't have any effect on Neutron torps. Hence the 200 THOUSAND damage done to shields by Neutron Torps.

Aren't corvettes valid targets for flak cannons too?

 

[DukeLeto42]

The cruisers didn't spread their damage nearly as much though, because they only have one weapon with shield damage bonus and when their plasma weapons looked for targets they picked things that had already had their shields brought down, so they focus fire effectively whilst the corvettes don't

The problem is that it's a lot easier for a mix of intelligent targeting (high vs low shields) and RNG to take out a ship when it takes a fraction as many shots to get a kill.

Christ is there a graphic that shows what counters what? The Stellaris wiki is uniquely unhelpful with this.

Weapon tooltips will generally give you a good idea. Each weapon type has ones that give bonus damage to shields, some with bonus to armor, and some general high damage output weapons. However, missiles have an additional counter of Point Defense (which is a crucial component type for weapons feeling accurate), which also hard-stops strike craft, making them a component in any good fleet and, as currently balanced, making missile weapons not viable as a primary weapon past a certain point in the game. They also lack XL weapons (not that I'm sure what an XL missile weapon would be), so if you want to stack repeatable bonuses, your missiles have an entire weapon size category with nothing to offer.

Flak doesn't have any effect on Neutron torps. Hence the 200 THOUSAND damage done to shields by Neutron Torps.

Since when does PD not stop missile-type weapons? Or do torpedoes now function differently since 1.3, which is when I abandoned missile usage?

 

[DukeLeto42]

Aren't corvettes valid targets for flak cannons too?

I believe they are. I'm not sure if there's any real limit to what they can't target, but their low range and small vessel / missile target priorities would keep them off most ships. I can't be at all certain of this, however.

 

[SuperGeek89]

Since when does PD not stop missile-type weapons? Or do torpedoes now function differently since 1.3, which is when I abandoned missile usage?

Proton torpedoes, and their upgrades, are energy based weapons. They lose out on the ability to penetrate shields and I believe also lose the armor bonus and instead get bonus damage to shield and cannot be intercepted by point defense.

 

[MechaThumper]

The counter to a cruiser stack is a bigger cruiser stack.

Someone has to be on top

 

[SuperGeek89]

The counter to a cruiser stack is a bigger cruiser stack.

Well that or a battleship stack.

 

[MechaThumper]

Well that or a battleship stack.

Cruisers beat out battleships on a per fleet limit level. Not sure about mineral costs.

 

[Ashantai]

Energy and neutron torpedoes are not affected by flak/PD.

I suggest that @GloatingSwine is correct and the reason is that they are targetting ships to bring down their shields, hence the spread.

I suggest retrying the simulation with regular level 3 ENG torpedoes and seeing the result. In that case the single flak cannon on the cruisers will not be good enough to stop all the torpedoes so you will get some kills for sure.

 

[Larknok1]

Energy and neutron torpedoes are not affected by flak/PD.

I suggest that @GloatingSwine is correct and the reason is that they are targetting ships to bring down their shields, hence the spread.

I suggest retrying the simulation with regular level 3 ENG torpedoes and seeing the result. In that case the single flak cannon on the cruisers will not be good enough to stop all the torpedoes so you will get some kills for sure.

They didn't spread targets, but they still lost in a land-slide.

It appears 1 flak per Cruiser was, in fact, enough PD (that, or Devastator torps just suck)

 

[Larknok1]

At last! I have found a stack to beat the Cruiser stack!

A Battleship stack! (this one):

Of 29, 11 of them survived.

Now I wonder if a Corvette stack can beat these guys.

 

[GloatingSwine]

So what's the conceivable counter to full Cruiser stack?

Half cruiser stack and half Neutron torp + plasma?

You can test that if you want. My prediction is the full cruiser stack focuses the cruisers in the mixed stack and then the corvettes produce a similarly dismal performance as above, with slightly better outcomes because the cruisers will have done some damage so they won't be fighting a full stack.

Aren't corvettes valid targets for flak cannons too?

Yes, but Neutron Torpedoes are not. They count as energy weapons and so point defence does not try and shoot them.

The problem is that it's a lot easier for a mix of intelligent targeting (high vs low shields) and RNG to take out a ship when it takes a fraction as many shots to get a kill.

The same thing happens in battleship v battleship though. Battleships with all kinetic artillery spread their fire horribly, battleships with a couple of kinetic artillery and the rest lance or plasma will not, becuase the plasma/lance chooses targets with low shields and all choose the same target (barring the overkill avoidance, so actually they spread between 3-4 at once).

Here's the challenge: Name anything you think can beat this, pound for pound (mineral for mineral):

That battleship. Comes out as a 50vs28, the battleships will take somewhere either side of 50% casualties at equal minerals and just squeak a win at equal fleetcap. If the cruisers were 4x plasma instead of having flak the battleships will squeak a win at equal minerals and get minced at equal fleetcap. Almost any other battleship design will lose though. That battleship will lose to this battleship:

But that one would lose badly to the cruisers.

If you want to optimise your cruiser further, change it to be 3x Medium shield instead of 1M1L. You'll get an extra 7.2 shield regen per day that way. If you want to optimise it yet further you can squeeze a fourth medium shield on and 2 medium armour, with 3x Large power. 210 shields plus an extra 11.2 per day regen is worth more than the 8% armour even against weapons that have no AP.

Dropping one of the shileds to tier 4 lets you mount 4x MPlasma.