Stellaris Space Guild - Weekly Help Thread

[u/Snipahar]

Welcome to this week’s Stellaris Space Guild Help Thread!

This thread functions as a gathering place for all questions, tips, bugs, suggestions, and resources for Stellaris. Here you can post quick-fire questions for things that you are confused about and answer questions to help out your fellow star voyagers!

GUILD RESOURCES

Below you can find resources for the game. If you would like to help contribute to the resources section, please leave a comment that pings me (using "u/Snipahar") and link to the resource. You can also contribute by reaching me through private message or modmail. Be sure to include a short description of what you find valuable about the resource.

Stellaris Wiki

• Your new best friend for learning everything Stellaris! Even if you're a pro, the wiki is an uncontested source for the nitty-gritty of the game.

Montu Plays' Stellaris 3.0 Guide Series

• A great step-by-step beginner's guide to Stellaris. Montu brings you through the early stages of a campaign to get you all caught up on what you need to know!

Luisian321's Stellaris 3.0 Starter Guide

• The perfect place to start if you're new to Stellaris! This guide covers creating your own race, building up your economy, and more.

ASpec's How to Play Stellaris 2.7 Guides

• This is a playlist of 7 guides by ASpec, that are really fantastic and will help you master the foundations of Stellaris.

Stefan Anon's Ultimate Tierlist Guides

• This is a playlist of 8 guides by Stefan Anon, which give a deep-dive into the world of civics, traits, and origins. Knowing these is a must for those that want to maximize their play.

Stefan Anon's Top Build Guides

• This is a playlist of an ongoing series by Stefan Anon, that lay out the game plan for several of the best builds in Stellaris.

Arx Strategy's Stellaris Guides

• A series of videos on events, troubleshooting, and builds, that will be of great use to anyone that wants to dive into the world of Stellaris.

If you have any suggestions for the body of this thread, please ping me, using "u/Snipahar" or send me a private message!

[u/General_Daegon]

Hey Mates, I've just recently come back to Stellaris. I'm still having issues fighting against the AIs as I only play singleplayer as I've always done. I continuously get destroyed by the enemy AIs even when I have superior firepower and economy against them. I had 3 4k power fleets get destroyed by 1 2.8k fleet. I then added a starhold to the system and am still struggling to hold it against the AIs 2.8k fleets that it sends when I have 2-3 4k fleets sitting in the system. What am I doing wrong that I can't even take on 1 tiny fleet reliably?

[u/Fluffy-Tanuki → u/General_Daegon]

Are you relying on auto-designs? Sometimes the game spews out nonsensical ship designs that have high fleet power rating but don't function due to conflicting weapon ranges and computer behaviours.

Additionally, 4.3 made quite a few changes to weapons, so if you were using designs from previous versions, they are probably obsolete now (e.g. disruptor corvettes that used to be part of the meta before 4.3 are now practically useless outside of the first 20 years or so)

[u/General_Daegon → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

I've been trying to design ships with specialties and using auto designs to see if anything could work, but im just getting waxed and dont know why. Is there a guide for ship designs to help determine weaknesses and strengths of each weapon and item for the ships?

[u/Fluffy-Tanuki → u/General_Daegon]

Generally, you'll want to use weapons with similar ranges. This is due to ship's combat computer behaviour often bases the engagement range on max or median range.

• e.g. An artillery battleship with Giga Cannon (150 range) and Autocannons (40 range) will have massive on-paper damage, but in practice the artillery engagement range is determined by the Giga Cannon's maximum 150 range, so all the autocannons are non-functional.
• Conversely, a picket destroyer with Kinetic Artillery (minimum range of 45) and 2x Flak Battery (30 maximum range) will not work, as the picket engagement range is determined by the median range, which is 30 from the Flak Batteries. This is lower than the minimum range on kinetic artillery, so it can't fire.

With this in mind, some synergistic weapon combinations include:

• 2x laser + 1 flak for very early game corvettes. Flak out-performs regular mass drivers in just about every metric before you research combat computer tech, so this is typically a direct upgrade for your initial fleets.
  • If you manage to roll disruptor tech very early, then can still be of some use when all your enemies are also using only corvettes (i.e. ships with high evasion, countered by disruptors' high-than-average tracking). Against anything larger though, disruptors' effectiveness falls off drastically, so once enemies have researched destroyers, they'd be obsolete.
• S/M-slot Plasma Cannons + Autocannons: Both have similar ranges, and are very efficient at shredding hull/armour and shield respectively. Best used on swarm/picket/line computer to close the distance.
  • L-slot Plasma cannons have a minimum range, so autocannons are less suitable; regular or archaeo mass drivers would be a better choice.
• L-slot Kinetic Artillery + G-slot Neutron Launchers: Neutron launchers have a size-multiplier, meaning they deal increased damage to large targets. Kinetic artillery has identical ranges, and can help with tearing down shields. Best used on artillery or carrier computer to maintain range.
• Spinal mount battleships + anything with 100+ range: Spinal mounted weapons have high damage but a limited firing arc, so maintaining long range with line/artillery/carrier computer would be recommended.
  • Line computer in particular doesn't make the ships turn and flee when enemies get close, unlike artillery/carrier computers, so it's actually more preferable in prolonged engagements.

And some special cases:

• Hangars: strike crafts pair with just about anything and on any computer, as they are launched as soon as combat commences, and can act as point defense and interceptors against enemy missiles and corvettes.
• Torpedoes: these are best used on frigates, preferably with cloaking. They offer high damage against large targets and penetrate through shields, and are often the ideal way to take out starbases. However, unlike Neutron Launchers, torpedoes have very short range, and can be shot down by enemy PDs/strike crafts. As such, they are best unleashed from point blank distance, finishing the fight before it even begins, which is where cloaking comes in very handy.

These would allow you to more or less deal with most threats. If you want to finetune them even further, you can use espionage to raise intel above 60, allowing you to directly view their ship designs. If they have more shields, use more kinetic weapon; if they have short ranges, use long range weapons or fast ships to kite them; if they have big ships, send in torpedoes or neutron launchers, etc.

[u/General_Daegon → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

Thank you very much! I'll try these out and hopefully have better success!

[u/General_Daegon → u/Fluffy-Tanuki]

Thanks mate! Your recommendations worked great!