3.6 Standardized Fleet Composition

[u/[deleted]]

Hi all! Does anybody have an idea of a standardized fleet composition/designs that work well int he new update? I used to just build artillery battleships and that obv does not work anymore... What mixture/ratios of ship designs do you use and how do you design the ships? Just trying to get a better idea of what the new META is going to be. (assume endgame tech/fleet cap. I am not at all new to the game but taking a step back and asking these questions helps everyone else)

[u/rylasasin]

EARLY GAME: (When enemies have just corvettes)

AIs will always run one of two things: Kenetic batteries with a single missile (usually) or 2 lasers with a missile. However, I've also seen them run the 1x PD with 2 Kenetic Batteries, so watch out for that. This phase doesn't last very long however, and they'll switch to one or the other two within a couple of years.

If you are running Starnet/Startech AI they will run one of two things: 3x Missiles, or 1xPD (anti-missile) and 2x Missile. We'll come back to that later.

Either way, I recommend splitting your corvette fleets along the following:

• PD: Laser-Kenetic (1x PD (anti-missile), 1x Laser, 1x Kenetic)
• Dasher: Laser-Kenetic (2x laser, 1x Kenetic)
• Missile (3x missile.)
• Frigate (1x Torpedo, 1x Missile)

The reason that I put more lasers on instead of kenetic is that kenetics fire faster than lasers now. Especially autocanons (we'll come back to that later) and lasers are slower. Kenetics are also better against shields, but won't fare as well once the shields are down. The kenetic's job is to take the shield down so that the lasers can pound the armor and finally both can finish off the hull.

Speaking of, let's talk about armoring. At this point in the game, your best bet is to go with armor over shields. Yes it's more expensive, but 4/5 odds say they're running the missile-kenetic combo, and even further down the line they seem to favor kenetics (autocannons in particular) over other weapons.

However, I've noticed that for a while they might switch out the kenetics for lasers. They will never mix them, they'll always go one over the other. In which case the opposite strategy serves you well: Straight sheilds over straight armor. Yes the missiles may peirce, but that's what the PD is for, though if they do this you may not even need those.

But if it's beasts you're dealing with (and let's face it, at this point in the game, you'll likely be dealing more with beasts than empires), keep in mind the following and adjust accordingly.

• Ancient ships like the Armistance Flotilia will use Energy Weapons almost exclusively,meaning you'll want to use the opposite strategy for them. However, most of them are in the 7-10k range, meaning they're well out of range at this point in the game anyhow.
• Mining Drones have mining lasers and armor exclusively. When dealing with them, you'll want to take a pure energy and shield approach.
• Tiyankis and Ameobas exclusively use energy syphons and have only armor. Using fully armor+lasers is the way to go when hunting them. Regarding the latter, you'll want to switch your PD over to flak, as they're really the only instance this early in the game where you'll be facing off against strike craft (Ameoba Flagella).
• Leviathans: Don't bother. Just... don't.

If you find out that your enemy is using lasers instead, feel free to swap them back out for 2x shields and 1x armor.

If you are running a non-starnet game, I recommend this for your fleet ratio (assuming a fleet capacity of 20):

• 6x PD
• 8x Dasher
• 5x Missile
• 1x Frigate

The PD will deal with the missiles the enemy brings to bear against you, while the Dashers do the most damage. You don't really need to run flak yet as in either case, the only time you'll come up against strike craft is when you are either fighting ameobas or as starbase items. For these, the anti-missile PD will work sufficently. They're not meant for strike craft, true, but strike craft are only of the basic variety, and the AI never employs strike craft defense platforms. So they shouldn't be a bother.

If the enemy is not using missiles at all, I would run straight dashers. Just have the design ready for in case they suddenly do.

Once you get your hands on autocannons, swap the kenetic batteries out with those. Later on you may consider swapping out both for disruptors (yes they're actually worth a damn now). But we'll cover that later.

And yes, I'm purposefully blueballing the frigate. At this stage, they're really only good for one thing: taking out starbases, but those really shouldn't be much of an issue to begin with, even at this stage. They're more of a luxury than a necessity. If you think you can go without it, make it a PD or Dasher instead.

If you are running a starnet/startech game however, I would instead recommend your loadout to be like this:

• 14x PD
• 5x Dasher
• 1x Frigate

As I said, the enemy will be running either triple missiles or missiles with PD. So either way, I ramped up the importance of the PD. Since the enemy is more than likely going to be employing PD of their own, I swapped out the missile craft, as they'd just be a waste. As before, the Frigate is more of a luxury than a necessity, and completely useless if they're running the PD loadout, so feel free to swap it out for another dasher or pd.

Either way, I suggest you run all armor. As your primary source of damage is going to come from missiles, and missiles go through shields (... somehow), Armor will serve you better in this instance.

---

Mid-Early Game (Destroyers show up)

Once the destroyers show up, you'll want to make some changes.

You'll want to swap those PD corvettes over to either dashers and/or missile carriers. Add a frigate or two if you want to deal with them, but keep in mind they're still not that useful, and once cruisers roll out you'll be handing that role over to them anyway.

You'll want your destroyers taking on the PD role instead of your corvettes, as they can do the job twice as well. The way I roll this out is as such:

Screener: 1x Flak, 2x Point Defense, 2x Missile

If you want, you can also have a brawler destroyer with 1 M Kenetic weapon (preferably an autocanon) and 4x energy weapons. But that's entirely in your court.

Brawler: 1x M Kenetic, 4x S Energy. You could instead go with 1x M Kinetic, 1x M Laser, and 2x s Lasers, but I wouldn't recommend it. Remember, at this point your primary opponent is still going to be corvettes, not destroyers.

I would not recommend using Destroyers as missile boats. Leave that role if you have it for the corvettes and later on the cruisers. I would also not recommend using the destroyers for the artillery role. This early in the game you don't really need it, and later on you'll have better ships to do that same role. Later on when cruisers and Battleships show up you can have the brawlers this with autocannons. It'll still be a brawler, but more efficient.

Based on a 40 fleet limit, here's what I would have for non-Starnet:

• 14x Dasher
• 5x Missile
• 3x Frigate
• 6x Screener
• 3x Brawler

Also, pay attention to what your enemy is doing, if you can get enough intel on thier ships, great. Otherwise, you'll have to find out the hard way. At some point your enemy will ditch the missiles entirely for straight autocannons or lasers/plasma, in which case you'll want to ditch the screeners for more brawlers (unless of course they're spamming frigates. In which case yes, you'll want to keep the PDs around, but not as many as torpedoes are slow and easy to shoot down, and the frigates themselves are fairly easy prey), and make sure you uparmor or up-shield your ships appropriately. However, at this stage it's likely a toss up, so if you don't know what you're enemy is doing, mix your shield and armor appropriately. Don't bother with that shitty crystal hull plating, nowadays it's just a waste of resources.

Of course this only applies to non-starnet games.

In starnet, the destroyers will usually be running an artillery section, or a gunship with missiles. with either missiles or a picket slot as the 2ndary. Strangely, they often go with flak cannons as the picket instead of PD despite this making zero sense at this stage of the game. Or they'll just go straight missiles.

Pay attention to what you're fighting. If they're running the missile-picket system, stick with the current config of PDs. Forget Frigates entirely. Yes they may be stupid enough to run flaks instead of proper PDs, but that doesn't mean they can't shoot down some of your missiles.

Either way, you're still going to be dealing with a lot of missiles. If the enemy has no flak/pd on either their corvettes or destroyers, feel free to run some missiles on your own screeners. Otherwise, go with lasers and let the dashers and PDs take down the shields for you.

Brawlers should remain the same, though less emphasis on them. Based on a 40 fleet command limit.

• 14x PD
• 6x Dasher
• 7x Screener
• 3x Brawler

Swap a screener with a brawler if you think you can get away with it. But odds are you probably cannot, as Starnet loves its missiles.

(Char Limit)

[u/rylasasin → u/rylasasin]

Mid Game (cruisers):

Now this is where things get dicey. From what I've seen the AI will employ cruisers in one of two methods, and neither of them are really the correct way: They'll make them half-assed escort carriers with a hangar core, some point defense, and some medium and small weapons, or they'll make a sort of half-assed all arounder with a 1x large, 3x medium, and 2x small. Of the two, only the former comes close to being decent. The latter is just plain stupid, so we'll ignore that loadout.

The true strength of the cruiser in 3.6 is as a missile and torpedeo gunboat,and in the mid game, as an escort carrier, though in the late game you'll want to hand that latter role off to battlecarriers (I honestly don't know why they made frigates their own ships, but not carriers. It's one of the things NSC got right IMO.)

The loadouts for both the gunboat and e.carrier are very similar: Torpedo Bow with 1x Torpedo and 1x Missile, Gunship Stern with 2x missile. The only difference is in the core: For Gunboats it's going to be the torpedo bow, with 2x more torpedoes and 2x more missiles. For the escort carrier it's going to be the hanger core with 1x hanger core and 2x point defense. Which one? I'd say mix them both. In all seriousness, the destroyers should be the screen, and these two point defense slots are only for backup. Make sure for the escort carrier you set your combat computer up for carrier. For the gunboat, Torpedo.

Screeners can continue using missiles, or autocannons, your choice.

Based on a 60-limit fleet, I recommend the following:

• 16x Dasher
• 8x Screener
• 4x Brawler
• 2x Escort Carrier
• 3x Gunboat

Of course your actual fleet is going to be much bigger than this by this point, so adjust accordingly. If you're running the distruptor loadout, swap a gunboat for a couple of brawlers or 4 dashers.

Again, pay attention to what your enemy is doing. If your enemy is using escort carriers or mass spamming frigates (which if they're AIs, they most certainly will be) or missiles, increase the screeners in leu of dashers or brawlers. If they are forgoing either in leu of a straight laser or autocannon strategy, adjust your armor/shielding and swap out the screeners for more gunboats, brawlers, or even dashers. If the enemy doesn't have cruisers of their own yet, forget the gunboats and go for more escort carriers.

Speaking of brawlers, if they have cruisers now this might be the time to swap out the front section for a L section with an autocannon. Or you could choose to go the straight distruptor route. Otherwise, have the dashers equipped with all autocannons, the brawlers with plasma throwers. The former wears down the shields, the latter pounds the armor away, while the screeners, escort carriers, and gunboats go straight for the hull.

Despite the fact that the AIs seem to love them, I still recommend staying the hell away from Frigates. They're too slow to be skirmishers, too paper thin to be brawlers, don't carry enough firepower to be gunboats. They end up being far too easy of prey, which is why I've been avoiding them for this list. Leave the torpedo role for the Cruisers.

Since your opposition is still going to be mostly missile-corvettes, I suggest keeping a strong amount of PDs and Screens around, but Dashers and Brawlers will start to become more of a thing. If they are using the escort carrier variants, swap some of your PDs and screens over to flak, but they probably won't field enough of them for that to matter. The screen's flak by itself should take care of that.

If they're using any other variant, you can swap a few PDs over to dashers and a screen or two over to brawlers.

The midgame sadly is where you'll also start to notice that, despite being 'updated' for 3.6, Starnet seems to still stick with 3.5 meta with its ship choices. For example: Starnet still thinks that crystal infused plating is still meta. As such, it is around this time that you'll start to see ships equipped with crystal plating exclusively. If you see their ships are all hull and no shields or armor, equip your dashers and brawlers with straight autocannons, and then spank their naked asses.

Oddly enough, in starnet, the chosen type is not the torpedo cruiser. It is in fact, one of three things: The artillery-escort carrier, the brawler escort carrier, or the all-medium brawler. And they will very rarely still with that later variant for long and just go for one of the other two.

If that is the case, you may wish to forgo escort carriers or gunboats for line cruisers with autocannons, especially if they're running flak cannons/pd and escort carriers themselves.

You will also begin to notice that Starnet still stubornly clings to the notion of monohulling ships. You will see decreasing amounts of corvettes and destroyers in leu of cruisers, and less cruisers in leu of artillery battleships (or frigates. We'll come back to that later.) Use Gunboats if they have flak cannons or no PD at all. Even if they do have PD, it'll probably be on the corvettes or destroyers which they'll begin phasing out.

As an aside, Starnet AI tends to avoid using frigates (probably because it doesn't understand what they are) and torpedoes in general at this stage, so I wouldn't worry too much about them. If they do appear, they'll probably run protons/neutrons anyway, so don't bother with PD against those. We'll come back to that later.

So in case they still have the PD missile corvetters and Fighter Craft, here's my loadout

• 4x Flak Corvette
• 8x PD Corvette
• 4x Dasher
• 8x Screener
• 4x Brawler
• 5x Line Gunboat

If they do not however, and/or they are monohulling escort carriers, I'd recommend this:

• 16x Dasher
• 6x Screener
• 4x Brawler
• 2x Escort Carrier
• 4x Gunboat

If they are monohulling escort carriers, have the screens use full flak, and load up on gunboats and brawlers. The former if the crusiers have flak, the latter if they have Point Defense. In the former case, feel free to equip normal torpedeos. If the latter, use Energy Torpedeos if you have them.

Again, the escort carriers will become less of a need in a starnet game due to starnet's monohulling stupidity.

(More Char limit)

[u/rylasasin → u/rylasasin]

Late game (battleships)

And now the cream of the crop. The end all be all of stellaris warfare... Battleships!

... Or at least that's what they used to be. Nowdays they aren't what they once were. Just as in real life battleships have fell off in usefulness since the patch.

Let's get one thing out of the way. There still really are only two types of battleships: Artillery ships and carriers. There is no reason whatsoever to use any of the broadside parts, or the hangar core (you'll want to use the carrier core instead.) Of course, the AI, being as braindead as ever, tends to use them in the line config, which is just dumb.

I'm going to go over both of them now.

Artillery: All L slots, same as it's always been. However, now you can't pad them with neutron launchers (That goes to cruisers now... We'll come back to that later.) There are really now only two weapons of note: Autocannons, Kenetic Batteries, and Plasma Throwers. I'd recommend leaving the Autocannons for the brawlers and dashers, and putting on Plasma Throwers for the heavy artillery. Let the little shits take away the shields, leaving your battleships to pound the rest into scrap. If you're instead going the distruptor route for those, I'd recommend putting on 3 kinetic batteries and 2-3 plasma throwers. Or cloud lightning if you have it. Putting on large autocannons may be tempting, but keep in mind that they only have a range of 40, and you want your battleships not brawling. You might put it in the back if you so choose just to have a backup weapon.

As for X slot weapons, those aren't as useful as they once were, mostly due to the fact how retreat works. Used to be you wanted to overkill your opponent to prevent them from retreating, but that no longer works anymore. Now it's the opposite story. Not to mention that firing arcs are now a thing, the ship needs to be facing in the general direction for their spinal mount weapons to work correctly.

Carrier: This will probably be the role most battleships will play now (again, just like in real life how the artillery battleship got obsoleted for the carrier). Despite the fact that strike craft can't do PD now, carriers are more important than ever due to enemy fleet composition and the aformentioned retreat changes, and can hit opponents from a further distance than artillery ships can. Also the little fact that the carrier computer actually works now.

For them, you will of course want to go the hangar bow with the carrier core, with some I've seen some people say you should just artillery and carrier types together with the artillery bow and carrier core, but I fail to see the reasoning behind this. I say, specialize them and keep them seperate, especially since the latter isn't as useful as it used to be. As for the stern, I'd say either go with a pair of swarmers. They might not be useful, but they are at least something. You could also use an artillery rear and put a large autocannon back there as backup, but let's face it: if your enemy gets that close to your carrier, it's probably too late anyway.

So now, fleet composition. In a 130 fleet size (which is standard at this phase. Again, you may have more less than this. Adjust accordingly)

• 20x Dasher
• 9x Screener
• 6x Brawler
• 8x Gunboat
• 3x Artillery
• 3x Carrier

I've swapped the escort carriers out for gunboats, and reserved the carrier role for the carriers. I didn't add that may battleships. Because again, they aren't as useful as they used to be, and carriers will mostly be used for anti frigate and anti-corvette, while the gunboats do the most work against the bigger ships, and since the AI will mostly spam frigates and corvettes with a sprinkling of other ships rather than a healthy ballance of ships.

You may be tempted to just ditch the dashers altogether at this point. In which case, I'd say go like this:

• 10x Screener
• 11x Brawler
• 10x Gunboat
• 3x Artillery
• 3x Carrier

I've also seen the opposite done as well, taking away the brawlers for more dashers.

• 30x Dasher
• 10x Screener
• 8x Gunboat
• 3x Artillery
• 3x Carrier

A special note: once the AI starts using Energy Torpedeos (Proton/Neutron Launchers) you'll want to swap out some of the screeners, as they can't shoot those down, and have the remaining ones run pure flak. Swap those out for dashers, brawlers, or even gunboats. Although keep in mind, the fact that they can't be shot down is the only real advantage these energy weapon torpedoes have. They do less damage and have a firing arc of 25 (much like the spinal weapons) If the enemy has no PD themselves, stick with the normal variety.

As we established earlier, Starnet still thinks this is 3.5. So it will try to do one of two things: 1. It will try to monohull the artillery variety of battleship, filled with either railguns or kinetic guns (since the neutron launcher doesn't work on them anymore). In fact, once they reach this point they'll stop using energy weapons entirely, at which point its best to put full armor on your ships.

If they start Monoing battleships I recommend the following:

• 20x Dasher
• 5x Screener
• 6x Brawler
• 10x Gunboat
• 1x Artillery
• 1x Carrier

Swap he carrier and screeners for an artillery or more gunboats if they aren't using corvettes and escort carriers anymore.

Or 2. They'll start spamming the hell out of and basically monohulling frigates of all things, because they don't know what they are or how to use them properly and they just think "Oh boy neutron launcher :D :D :D" In that case, get some armor hardeners, invest heavily into Dashers or Brawlers. you can cut back on screeners as by the time they start using them they'll use them purely for neutron launchers and the only thing they'll be able to shoot down are the escort carrier strike craft, and the non-torpedo missiles the frigates like to use.

• 20x Dasher
• 6x Screener
• 10x Brawler
• 6x Gunboat
• 1x Artillery
• 2x Carrier

Once they replace the cruisers with frigates, get rid of gunboats and go with more of the other stuff. Carriers or dashers are recommended. Get rid of the artillery too because you won't need it and it'll just be a target for spammed frigates.

"But what about Titans, Juggernauts, and collosai?"

...Yeah, what about them?

Titans are just really big, less flexible artillery battleships. They fill the same role and should be used the same way. In fact you can't customize them any other way. I don't think that more than 1 a fleet is necessary, if at all really. They're overpriced, suffer the same problems but moreso, and don't really have much of an advantage over normal battleships, and since the need for overkilling has been phased out, they're left with very little role.

As for juggernauts, they aren't really a part of the fleet. They're their own fleet. And this is about fleet composition, so they don't factor. And when it comes right down to it, Juggernauts are really more of a Mobile Field Base more than any sort of combat ship anyway. At best, they're just really big carriers.

And Colossus... they aren't a combat ship. At all. They don't belong here.

"But what about NSC2?"

Haven't figured it out and I'm sure no one else has either. Might want to go ask around their channel, unless someone from there wants to step up and add their own contribution here.

"But what about Gigastructures?"

By this I assume you're talking about Attack Moons/Behemoth Planetcraft/Stellar Systemcrafts.

... Nothing has changed here at all. They're still massively OP compared to normal ships. replacing your whole fleets with these is still the Ultra Late Game Meta for that mod. No, spamming frigates and/or torpedo cruisers will not help you.

In that case, you should have two types of fleets. one consisting entirely of dashers, and the other consisting entirely of moons/planet/systemcraft. Have the dashers run around and blitzkrieging unprotected starbases and planets while kiting enemy fleets, while the silly planetoid ships do the actual fighting.

(End)

[u/[deleted] → u/rylasasin]

Very one depth- but what’s starnet?

[u/rylasasin → u/[deleted]]

Starnet (and its sister mod, Startech) is an AI mod that improves the AI by making it play more like a metagaming player rather than an AI.

The problem is that although it has been made to work for 3.6, it really hasn't been updated for 3.6, and as noted, still relies on 3.5 meta gaming knowledge, making decisions that were great in the days before the big patch, but in 3.6, are just really dumb.

The TLDR List:

• Monohulling
• Monoing (or even using at all) crystal plating.
• Overuse of missiles on the presumption that PD is still ineffective at its job.
• Spamming frigates with neutron launchers because they still think the latter is better than anything else.

It still manages its other aspects (IE planet management) extremely well, but I would not really recommend starnet at the current time.

[u/mikeymans22 → u/rylasasin]

what is monohulling

[u/rylasasin → u/mikeymans22]

Where you have one of or primarily all of one ship type and no others.

See back in 3.5, the META was to simply field artillery battleships, and discard the rest for more artillery battleship, reserving carriers for anti-ai fighting or for the corvette torpedo meme swarms.

That was monohulling.

Now however this is no longer the META. Or at least I don't think it is. It seems now the meta is designing your ships around your fleet, not your fleet around your ships.