What is the fleet meta right now in stellaris?
- Thread starter HGD3ATH
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I don't see the point of asking what the "fleet meta" is now. Just try by yourself, you'll find what work best for you.
Some of the meta will depend on what is out there in your galaxy - different leviathans for example can require almost full refits.
The same if you get time to adapt to the end game crisis.
Alternatively "enormous fleets of battleships" and being "superior" to everyone else seems a good general purpose solution. (Not that that is the most helpful answer when trying to get there).
The same if you get time to adapt to the end game crisis.
Alternatively "enormous fleets of battleships" and being "superior" to everyone else seems a good general purpose solution. (Not that that is the most helpful answer when trying to get there).
Battleship artillery, ideally with a screen of picket corvettes and tanky missile cruisers.
In terms of ship types, bigger is better in straight fights, which is the only concern in Stellaris' warfare.
For the cost (whether its alloys, energy or naval capacity), larger ships are more durable and carry more firepower than their smaller counterparts. The only caveat is sublight speed, which translates into the ability to move around your empire - you may want pure corvette fleets around as a rapid response force, even many years after you unlocked battleships.
In terms of weapon loadouts, there are two main schools I'm aware of, the one stacking full penetration and the one going for brute DPS.
Full penetration is rather straightforward, and involves equipping your fleets with disruptors, cloud lightning and arc emitters.
Brute DPS is usually achieved with autocannons and lasers in the early game, and later on with a mix of kinetic artillery and neutron launchers in the late game.
Missiles are still effective against enemies with insufficient PD, but the AI has a tendency to really spam it, making missiles rather useless - PD is similarly useless as strike craft are too weak to bother countering and the AI almost never uses missiles.
For the cost (whether its alloys, energy or naval capacity), larger ships are more durable and carry more firepower than their smaller counterparts. The only caveat is sublight speed, which translates into the ability to move around your empire - you may want pure corvette fleets around as a rapid response force, even many years after you unlocked battleships.
In terms of weapon loadouts, there are two main schools I'm aware of, the one stacking full penetration and the one going for brute DPS.
Full penetration is rather straightforward, and involves equipping your fleets with disruptors, cloud lightning and arc emitters.
Brute DPS is usually achieved with autocannons and lasers in the early game, and later on with a mix of kinetic artillery and neutron launchers in the late game.
Missiles are still effective against enemies with insufficient PD, but the AI has a tendency to really spam it, making missiles rather useless - PD is similarly useless as strike craft are too weak to bother countering and the AI almost never uses missiles.
It's about where it was after torpedo corvettes got nerfed enough to no longer be WE- and alloy-efficient (they're still powerful, but the losses end up not being very helpful in a long war.) Battleship monofleets, built for alpha strikes with long-range weapons, so neutron launchers and either lances or cannons in the X slot. (Kinetic artillery hasn't tested as well as a lot of people thought it would; I'm not really up on why.) Against FEs and most Crisis factions, go for penetration.
Yeah, it's like saying "I'm to lazy to play the game myself and work it out, please can someone tell me the best way to win?" despite half the fun of any game is working it out for yourself, surely? Although I suppose its just the same as people watching walkthroughs, which also baffles me - why even bother playing at all?
But then I'm an old fart from a different generation, where we didn't have the internet to tell us how to play the game exactly the same as everyone else. We had to, you know, learn for ourselves and develop our own playstyles, instead of all becoming uniform robots.
The absolutely strongest fleet is only BBs with Focused Arc Emitters + Cloud Lightnings. They are the undisputed champions.
Something tells me you never ever set foot in a chess club nor played MTG with your schoolmates.
People have always liked discussing strategy in games they enjoy.
Wait, since when are big ships slower?
I thought it was the opposite because big ships have more slots to put speed boosters.
Battleships with Focused Arc Emitters and Cloud Lightning.
(Prior to that I use Disruptor Corvettes.)
(Prior to that I use Disruptor Corvettes.)
There's discussing strategy, then there is homing in on one homogeneous playstyle, which is what all these people wanting to know "the meta" seem to want - what is the "best" so they can religiously follow it.
I was never a Chess player, though - I'm a 40k player and did run a club when I was at school, which was 21 years ago now! But even in the 40k club I go to now as an old fart, sure there is discussion of strategy but there isn't a "one strategy fits all" . If there was, I wouldn't play - it would be boring. Your strategy should always be flexible and in Stellaris, my fleets are built to be just so, not according to what some number-crunching neck beard telling me is "the best" and it hasn't failed me yet.
But then, I'm not some min-maxing OCD type
Stellaris ship balance is notoriously lopsided at any given patch. The question of "why have multiple ship sizes at all" is one that arises in every single space strategy game. Sometimes there is a legitimate reason, and sometimes the game is made in such a way that the only reason is to roleplay. In Stellaris, the concept of having picket ships and line ships and artillery ships and so on is mostly just fantasy. Unfortunately not every strategy game can be Wargame and make combined arms strategies legitimate.
Any fleet design works if you play the macro game. Even leaving automation on.
I intend this reply with as much respect as possible. Not trying to be smartass or disrespectful.
I love Stellaris. I love figuring out its economy. I love sending ships to explore, finding worlds to exploit. I love getting random awesome events.
I don't really love wasting 2 hours of gameplay accumulated alloy go out in smoke because I misunderstood how the evasion /tracking mechanic work.
Big ships have always been slower. They might be able to have more things boosting speed but they also have to power a much bigger ship. Corvettes are far faster than any of the other ship types.
Corvettes' base speed is 60% faster than battleships and 33% faster than cruisers. One extra afterburner isn't enough to match them. With level 5 thrusters and max afterburners the speed difference 392 vs. 265 and 318 (not counting any other modifiers).
EDIT: And as said above, this isn't new; even in 1.9 corvettes were faster (back then afterburners didn't affect normal sublight travel though, only combat).
To elaborate on this. Arc emitters and Cloud Lightning penetrate 100% of shields and armor, which means the only thing that matters is hull. Shields and Armor keep growing late game, due to repeatable technologies, while the hull repeatable technology was removed so hull remains static all game. Long story short, it completely nullifies enemy shields and armor, which is immensely useful since a vast majority of the opponents you will fight depend on either one or the other as their primary source of HP. The few that do not are either Leviathans or endgame crisis, which you will see coming from lightyears away and you can retool your fleet accordingly.
I see the arc emitter/disruptor/cloud lightning meta as being the next thing smacked down by Paradox's balancing department, when they get around to it. Having something that completely nullifies shields and armor without crippling drawback is not really good design.
Although whether repeatables are important or not depends on other factors. In my games it's unusual that there's any fighting of consequence to be done by the time repeatables come along, crises excepted.
In SP against the AI it mostly doesn't matter a lot. Almost any complimentary set of weapons & defenses work well enough ...
For the most part I've found that Corvettes pack a good punch and seem tough enough to get the job done up close. They're my go-to ship most of the game. Because the AI spams PD like it's going out of style I find that mixed Kinetic + Energy is good enough. 1 shield & 2 armor also work fine to help balance out energy requirements.
I haven't had the same luck with Destroyers & Cruisers. The "on paper" numbers look pretty good but they don't seem quite as efficient. Maybe that's more of a "me-problem"
In the end game I like adding BBs as the backbone of my fleet. Usually GC+4NL and leave my 400 rapid response corvettes with mixed energy + kinetic. IF I have all the right techs and esp. if I expect Unbidden or Contingency I like going full bypass on all ships. Either way the BBs are my goto-warship as they strike from huge distances and don't seem to take tons of losses [compared to other ship types].
For the most part I've found that Corvettes pack a good punch and seem tough enough to get the job done up close. They're my go-to ship most of the game. Because the AI spams PD like it's going out of style I find that mixed Kinetic + Energy is good enough. 1 shield & 2 armor also work fine to help balance out energy requirements.
I haven't had the same luck with Destroyers & Cruisers. The "on paper" numbers look pretty good but they don't seem quite as efficient. Maybe that's more of a "me-problem"
In the end game I like adding BBs as the backbone of my fleet. Usually GC+4NL and leave my 400 rapid response corvettes with mixed energy + kinetic. IF I have all the right techs and esp. if I expect Unbidden or Contingency I like going full bypass on all ships. Either way the BBs are my goto-warship as they strike from huge distances and don't seem to take tons of losses [compared to other ship types].