WTF to do about Awakened FEs?

[Pchang]

DD is destroyer and BB is battleship. These are standard US Navy abbreviations. Destroyers are that bad. But it is also about necessity. You only need them for the PD to take out the Fallen Empire strike craft. This is why you do not need that many.

BTW - Cruiser is generally CA and Corvette is just K

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

Also, I don't know the abbreviations used around here, what is a DD and BB? Destroyer and Battleship? Except then why DD or BB?

I was confused at first, too. After some research, the gist I got was that they are official Navy designations. The logic behind the symbols they use were to double up on the first letter for the default designation of each ship's class, and change the second latter based on different designations/second line etc.

I imagine some of the letter choices may be taken with consideration with telegram or general screaming over the radio in the heat of battle to avoid relaying the wrong information.

And also, the proper ratio for ships largest to smallest is 2:2:1:4??? Are destroyers really that bad?

The Destroyer Problem [Analysis]

 

[MechaThumper]

Almost 70 planets is a lot.

Awakening conditions for a FE are I think 50 years MTTH times the # of FEs (so 2 in this case) once someone acquires 40k in Fleet strength (if it happens early you're better off vassalizing yourself and then hopefully initiating a revolt later), MTTH is modified by 1/2 if you have over 60k in Fleet Strength (if you're attacking a FE you're probably over this) and taking over a FE planet reduces the event MTTH by 1/10 (likely this is what triggered them as it sounds like you've been over 40k for a while). You probably did not come across them, the Awakening send a notification to everyone and puts everyone into contact with the AE. They don't always go to war with you immediately. Their criteria for war are similar to other empires, it's likely that you were the most threatening however, after taking the other FE planets.

Depending on the fallen empire they will have their own seperate style of ship, however in every case theirs is a better version of anything you can build do to having more slots.

Edit: What kind of FE is it?

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

Edit: What kind of FE is it?

He already answered, it was Holy Guardian, which is corroborated by the fact that they got pissed off from him colonizing tomb worlds, which is admittedly not something someone dealing with spiritualist FE the first time would know, not that I had expected the game to outright flag you about Holy Worlds.

IIRC Spiritual FE uses Arc Emitters primarily, which ignores armor, shields, and evasion, but has high randomization in damage output.

 

[JuliaArcher]

Almost 70 planets is a lot.

Awakening conditions for a FE are I think 50 years MTTH times the # of FEs (so 2 in this case) once someone acquires 40k in Fleet strength (if it happens early you're better off vassalizing yourself and then hopefully initiating a revolt later), MTTH is modified by 1/2 if you have over 60k in Fleet Strength (if you're attacking a FE you're probably over this) and taking over a FE planet reduces the event MTTH by 1/10 (likely this is what triggered them as it sounds like you've been over 40k for a while). You probably did not come across them, the Awakening send a notification to everyone and puts everyone into contact with the AE. They don't always go to war with you immediately. Their criteria for war are similar to other empires, it's likely that you were the most threatening however, after taking the other FE planets.

Depending on the fallen empire they will have their own seperate style of ship, however in every case theirs is a better version of anything you can build do to having more slots.

Edit: What kind of FE is it?

Yeah, way over. I had 100K when taking out the first FE. And I was definitely the most threatening, as every other power is pathetic. If they hadn't declared war on me right away, I was ready to mop up the galaxy.

He already answered, it was Holy Guardian, which is corroborated by the fact that they got pissed off from him colonizing tomb worlds, which is admittedly not something someone dealing with spiritualist FE the first time would know, not that I had expected the game to outright flag you about Holy Worlds.

IIRC Spiritual FE uses Arc Emitters primarily, which ignores armor, shields, and evasion, but has high randomization in damage output.

I'm a she, actually. And yeah, the first one had arc emitters, which don't look that good due to the high RNG nature of it. So yeah, it sounds like me taking over the FE triggered the awakening, which would make sense since it happened like right after the first war finished. I also happened to be relatively close, with only the other Human civilization (there were two Sol systems in the game) being the other one right next, but pathetic compared to me. And some of their war demands are that I cede the previous FE worlds over to them.

 

[JuliaArcher]

Update: Well, yeah, y'all were right. I was quick to panic. Used to the typical "numbers always win" thing in CK2 and EU4 lol.

I tried to run and do that tactic, but they were faster than me and caught me.

I made them wish they hadn't and completely smacked the crap out of their fleet and proceded to steamroll them. Guess rather than a game over, I might just have game won unless a crisis triggers before I finish off my competitors.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

I made them wish they hadn't and completely smacked the crap out of their fleet and proceded to steamroll them. Guess rather than a game over, I might just have game won unless a crisis triggers before I finish off my competitors.

I haven't had AI rebellion yet. Scourge sucks right now, and chances are you will get unbidden.

At 70+ planets and your soon-to-have psi/jump drives, as soon as you get the power surge messaging, pause the game, jump your fleet to the system where they spawn, the crisis will be over in a few months. They're only scary if you let them grow unimpeded, which couldn't be helped if you were more like 30 planets range.

I'm a she, actually. And yeah, the first one had arc emitters, which don't look that good due to the high RNG nature of it. So yeah, it sounds like me taking over the FE triggered the awakening, which would make sense since it happened like right after the first war finished. I also happened to be relatively close, with only the other Human civilization (there were two Sol systems in the game) being the other one right next, but pathetic compared to me. And some of their war demands are that I cede the previous FE worlds over to them.

Oops, I don't pay much attention to poster names, just enough to vaguely recognize who posted what but not mentally register what the name actually is. I suppose that should have been obvious

 

[ranma100]

DD and BB is standard US military for destroyers and battleships. Cruisers are CA and carriers are CV. I think corvettes are CT.

 

[GloatingSwine]

DD and BB is standard US military for destroyers and battleships. Cruisers are CA and carriers are CV. I think corvettes are CT.

Corvettes have never actually had a standard designation.

 

[General Retreat]

Corvettes have never actually had a standard designation.

Probably because the US Navy doesn't really use corvettes in the traditional sense. These fill a similar role though:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship

LCS isn't such an intuitive abbreviation though, and definitely doesn't make sense for spaceships.

 

[Almond_Brown]

Darn, I was going to give some very sound advise and say,

Step #1 Place a Science Ship on Research Assist over your Home Planet.

But...anyways. Carry on.

 

[krios41]

and i'm sitting here with a fleet of roughly 70K strenght while having fought 2 Awakend Empires (and completly conquered them) that had half the galaxy practiclay enslaved.
Was i jsut lucky?

 

[Pchang]

Maybe a little. Fleet strength is misleading. Search for a thread with something like "strength is a lie" in the title.

 

[scaper12123]

I'd say you have three possibilities here, one of which I have done myself and succeeded at:
1) attack them immediately upon their awakening, preferably alongside one or two large empires. The sooner, the better.
2) take advantage of circumstances to defeat them, such as a galactic crisis.
3) submit to them, gain power alongside them, and then take them out when you're eventually able to surpass them (which WILL happen eventually, if you keep pressing forward).

The first one was the one I did the first time I had to take them on, and it worked out surprisingly well! In actuality though, I was in a defensive pact with a large xenophilic empire (ironic since I was a xenophobe) and I got pulled into the war by the FE. What I did was thus: Set my fleet to be point, and waited. The FE is a bit dopey sometimes and doesn't often make the first move, which some would consider to be a smart move. I kept a scout near their three fleets and waited for just one of them to move. I goaded a fleet out using surgical strikes, and then our ships swooped in and took them out. Bish bash bosh, a third of their navy destroyed. One climactic battle with the remainder of their navy later and we'd cut them down to a size they could not recover from.

I personally think the doomstack is what makes FEs so imbalanced. Hopefully Wiz will be looking into this issue in the near future, for as cool as the supermassive fleet is it's really imbalanced and annoying to have to fight.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

Personally I think the solution to doom stacks is to make missile weapons do splash/aoe damage, the larger the fleet, the more total damage suffered - BAM! Two problems solved.

 

[General Retreat]

Personally I think the solution to doom stacks is to make missile weapons do splash/aoe damage, the larger the fleet, the more total damage suffered - BAM! Two problems solved.

Alternately, give fleets a rear 'flank' which provides an accuracy and damage boost to the attacker and evasion malus to the defender. Bonuses would be applied on the fleets engaging - how the ships visually get mixed up after the fact is irrelevant. One doomstack which is pinned in place could be handily taken to bits by an equal force split into two sections.

 

[Beyond Disbelief]

Alternately, give fleets a rear 'flank' which provides an accuracy and damage boost to the attacker and evasion malus to the defender. Bonuses would be applied on the fleets engaging - how the ships visually get mixed up after the fact is irrelevant. One doomstack which is pinned in place could be handily taken to bits by an equal force split into two sections.

While I would like to see flanks, formations, positioning tactics etc. in Stellaris, I'm not following how the proposal addresses the issues specific to doomstacks. You even stated yourself that the proposal enables equal force to counter.

When you're fighting at equal force, the fact that it is a doomstack is irrelevant.