War - I never understand it...

[Sheriff Godwin Law]

Higher difficulty doesn't make the AI smarter, so it's still conceptually the same. It's just that the AI will have built-in advantages that require either more ships or more cheese to compensate for.

Conceptually maybe, but your advice was "build up your fleet until their fleet strength says inferior." Given the way the game calculates fleet strength, on those higher difficulties you're going to get into a point where you need to strike when their fleet strength says "equivalent."

 

[GamerSteve]

Don't just trust the strength scale in the UI. When possible (it's not with closed borders of course, but often borders will be open), try scouting them out. Send a science ship or a construction ship into the heart o their empire and look at what they've got. My friend and I do this all the time in co-op. If one of us has open borders on an empire we want to hit, we send in a scout ship to see just what they have in their core systems. It's prevented more than one major 'whoops'.

 

[WandererRTF]

Don't just trust the strength scale in the UI. When possible (it's not with closed borders of course, but often borders will be open), try scouting them out. Send a science ship or a construction ship into the heart o their empire and look at what they've got. My friend and I do this all the time in co-op. If one of us has open borders on an empire we want to hit, we send in a scout ship to see just what they have in their core systems. It's prevented more than one major 'whoops'.

Use of construction ships works fairly well even in wartime as well. Just make sure to fit them with something better than standard sensor set and you get yourself a scout that AI tends to ignore. Just make sure to park them off the usual highways (i.e. system entry points).

 

[GamerSteve]

Use of construction ships works fairly well even in wartime as well. Just make sure to fit them with something better than standard sensor set and you get yourself a scout that AI tends to ignore. Just make sure to park them off the usual highways (i.e. system entry points).

Yup.

They are also cheap and expendable.

 

[YagabodooN]

Sometimes its tricky but then again sometimes you encounter empires using exclusively missiles.

 

[The Founder]

Yup.

They are also cheap and expendable.

They cost one energy maintenacne per unit. All civilian ships do.
Especialyl early game, that 1 Maintenance will mater a lot.

 

[Grubsnik]

Couple of notes regarding wars, especially early on. As long as no one has developed PD guns the missile armed corvettes will tear other corvettes apart. Just in last game an AI declared war early on and literally wiped the floor with my corvette fleet despite that i had both superior numbers and fleet strength. Problem is that tables are quickly turned when PD/Flak armed ships are introduced. Also you may be able to destroy opposing stations even with corvettes by using somewhat 'questionable' tactics even early on like using 'portable hangars' & scouts.

As to the weapons & stuff. With larger fleets and capital ships (i.e. cruisers & battleships) it is often better to go with M/L plasma (but not necessarily S) since shields regardless of their strength will not last long - certainly not long enough to make all that big difference. Blink and they are gone. While you may be able to drop enemy's shields couple of heartbeats faster using disrupters and mass drivers the armor will have much larger effect. Given how (at least the unmodded) game invariably turns towards the use of doomstacks that is just how it is - with smaller fleets the correct weapon & equipment selection is important (bringing a fleet with nothing but armor to face an enemy packing nothing but plasma and tachyon lances may not yield the optimum result).

The note about missiles is objectively false. Missiles are broken in 1.4.1. Kinetics have too high damage numbers. That means for initial encounters you have Kinetics > Beams > Missiles.

Torpedoes have a niche, and can be used (spaceport busting or swarming non-pd battleships) , but regular missiles are just a waste of space

 

[WandererRTF]

The note about missiles is objectively false. Missiles are broken in 1.4.1. Kinetics have too high damage numbers. That means for initial encounters you have Kinetics > Beams > Missiles.

Usually, yes. However with only corvettes in game things are different since everything else tends to miss - missiles a bit less so. They suck on the damage department but if nothing else hits then they do have an edge and they tend to have adequate range too. Or so at least personal experience has shown.

 

[Grubsnik]

Usually, yes. However with only corvettes in game things are different since everything else tends to miss - missiles a bit less so. They suck on the damage department but if nothing else hits then they do have an edge and they tend to have adequate range too. Or so at least personal experience has shown.

You can test it with console commands. 30 mass driver corvettes against 30 missile corvettes result in complete destruction of the missile corvettes with only minimal losses for the mass driver fleet. In theory, a single missile corvette would go head to head against a single laser corvette, but once you go higher than that, missiles fall behind in every single encounter.

 

[Slynx]

You can test it with console commands. 30 mass driver corvettes against 30 missile corvettes result in complete destruction of the missile corvettes with only minimal losses for the mass driver fleet. In theory, a single missile corvette would go head to head against a single laser corvette, but once you go higher than that, missiles fall behind in every single encounter.

that's because mass corvettes have lower damage per shot. but they switch target right after they kill previous. (so little to no overkill)
and missiles need to fly first...and by that time target may be already dead. that results in a massive damage loss due to overkill

 

[Pavane]

War isn't that complicated. Build up a well-designed fleet (basically don't use missiles) until your fleet power is high enough for theirs to say Inferior, declare war on them, smash their fleet, then occupy planets until they cry uncle. There's not a whole lot for you to mess up while actually fighting the war if you brought a bigger fleet to it. Just don't get into war with a weaker fleet.

If you have a larger fleet then you can win the battle with missiles. I do it all of the time.

 

[The Founder]

If you have a larger fleet then you can win the battle with missiles. I do it all of the time.

You can also put a nail into the wall using the handle of a screwdriver. Yet you would propably prefer using a hammer 100% of the time, if avalible.

 

[Pavane]

You can also put a nail into the wall using the handle of a screwdriver. Yet you would propably prefer using a hammer 100% of the time, if avalible.

I think of it more like choosing between a manual screwdriver or an electric screwdriver for a job. Sometimes I just want to use the manual screwdriver even if the electric one is faster. Missiles are like that in that they are not as good as other weapon types, but they are serviceable if you outnumber the enemy.

 

[terrycloth]

You can test it with console commands. 30 mass driver corvettes against 30 missile corvettes result in complete destruction of the missile corvettes with only minimal losses for the mass driver fleet. In theory, a single missile corvette would go head to head against a single laser corvette, but once you go higher than that, missiles fall behind in every single encounter.

The game I'm playing now, I started out with missiles.

When it was just corvettes vs corvettes my missile fleet did fine as long as I went by fleet power instead of corvette count (and fought with a moderate advantage, eg 1.6k vs 1.2k). Early game fleets are small enough that overkill isn't an overwhelming factor, and torpedoes are actually pretty good against starbases and destroyers.

By the time cruisers came into play, though, missiles were UTTERLY USELESS. 9k of missiles vs. 5k of non-missiles resulted in complete destruction while inflicting negligible damage. I retreated something like 4k and refit them with level-1 kinetic weapons (dropping the displayed power to around 2.5k? because of the loss of torpedoes which really inflate the numbers), which did better until the enemy brought in the rest of the fleet and I had to run away again. x.x (Then just let the war be lost because I was a minor participant and there weren't any important war goals against me. 9.9)

Note that at the same time, armor stopped being a huge advantage because of the rise of plasma and I had to refit all my cruisers with shields.

 

[Slynx]

When it was just corvettes vs corvettes my missile fleet did fine as long as I went by fleet power instead of corvette count (and fought with a moderate advantage, eg 1.6k vs 1.2k). Early game fleets are small enough that overkill isn't an overwhelming factor, and torpedoes are actually pretty good against starbases and destroyers.

maybe thats because there was no PD-destroyers? iven few of them could turn the tide of battle (i had a battle where i had 26 corvettes with 3 coil and 3S shields and i were against 40 corvettes with missile 1... i lost. when i loaded the game and added 4 3pd-2scoil destroyers i've managed to kill them all and lost only 1 corvette (and all destroyers))

I think of it more like choosing between a manual screwdriver or an electric screwdriver for a job

pardon me, but why you wanna put nails into the wall with electric screwdriver?

 

[terrycloth]

maybe thats because there was no PD-destroyers? iven few of them could turn the tide of battle (i had a battle where i had 26 corvettes with 3 coil and 3S shields and i were against 40 corvettes with missile 1... i lost. when i loaded the game and added 4 3pd-2scoil destroyers i've managed to kill them all and lost only 1 corvette (and all destroyers))

Actually, no -- none of the enemies in that battle had researched PD yet. Once they do the computer tends to really go crazy with it, though.

As far as I could tell the problem was that their fleet was big enough to wipe out my corvettes and destroyers before their missiles or torpedoes could hit. The cruisers might have survived a little longer but I'd already lost most of my fleet at that point, and all they'd lost were a few corvettes (which drew all fire from the missiles because missiles have really good tracking and no AP).

 

[The Founder]

I think of it more like choosing between a manual screwdriver or an electric screwdriver for a job. Sometimes I just want to use the manual screwdriver even if the electric one is faster. Missiles are like that in that they are not as good as other weapon types, but they are serviceable if you outnumber the enemy.

Wiz indicated that Missiles will get some normal rebalancing buffs with 1.5, but no major overhaul.
After the buff they might get good enough to compare it to manual vs electric screwdriver.
Right now it is hammer and electric screwdriver.

 

[Andarus443]

I mean...even when the diplomacy window shows them as "equivalent" with a much smaller bubble than i have...when i attack them they usually have a much larger fleet that destroys my fleet while a smaller fleet of them conquers my planets.

am i missing something here?
im pretty much used to micromanaging fleets, which isnt possible here.
im also a player who uses a lot of intel, scout the enemy, see what he has and where he has it...which isnt possible either.

so...how does war work? how can i be victorious?

To answer your question, war is a funny mechanic in Stellaris to say the least. How it's used and why are extremely subjective from game to game, but in Stellaris it's fairly straight forward in being solely about conquest. Either you overpower your chosen enemy through military might or they you, the end result typically being either total victory or defeat.

If you're talking about "smaller bubble" as in borders then my best answer would be don't judge a book by it's cover. The number of systems a foreign empire controls can be very misleading. There's much you don't know or have access to in regards to assessing the enemy's make up. Which from a commander's stand point would make Sun Tzu weep in anguish. The number of mining stations fueling their war fleets, the efficiency of their population (affected by happiness), and the extremely broad and un-informative total fleet power comparison in the empire communication window. Then to top it all Stellaris has a fairly lopsided rock paper scissors triangle of missile, ballistic, and beam weapons where beam cuts armor, ballistic pierces shields, and missile just sort of foolishly crashes directly into whatever is being shot at. Then there's the giant killer torpedos designed to offer smaller ships an advantage over battleships and cruisers, hangar bays which have remarkably predictable flight paths for their fighters, and the shining glory of all spinal weapons in 1.3, the Tachyon Lance, scourge of the Prethoryn and bane of the AI uprising.

So to address the strategic side in outmatching your fleer there're... some things you can do? Re-balancing your fleet design... kinda helps? It's extremely limiting from the micro perspective (I play starcraft 2 off and on, I feel your pain not being able to control my fleet's behavior like kyting and concave advantage) but it does it's job for the most part. Instead of having diversified options for . I really wish there were a skirmisher option but with my limited time of play I haven't really found any.

 

[Pavane]

Wiz indicated that Missiles will get some normal rebalancing buffs with 1.5, but no major overhaul.
After the buff they might get good enough to compare it to manual vs electric screwdriver.
Right now it is hammer and electric screwdriver.

I have never disputed that missiles were under powered compared to other weapons, just that they were still playable. There are thematic and balance reasons to use missiles. You might want to use missiles exclusively instead of the Hard setting, for example. I look forward to the re-balancing in 1.5 as long as missiles are still unique when compared to the others. I am not happy with the FTL balancing that was done in 1.4 where the warm up time increased based on the distance from the capitol. That may have helped play balance, but it was difficult to rationalize with how the FTL drives work.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I have never disputed that missiles were under powered compared to other weapons, just that they were still playable. There are thematic and balance reasons to use missiles. You might want to use missiles exclusively instead of the Hard setting, for example. I look forward to the re-balancing in 1.5 as long as missiles are still unique when compared to the others. I am not happy with the FTL balancing that was done in 1.4 where the warm up time increased based on the distance from the capitol. That may have helped play balance, but it was difficult to rationalize with how the FTL drives work.

i hope that the size matters then, that they get some shield or armor piercing effects like Kinetics do