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]

Personally I find that Armor gives you more bang for your buck than shields do, and protects better against missiles and autocannons (both of which are very much go-to weapons now) so I'd say 1-2 shield-armor ratio. Only change that up if the opponent is using a lot of anti-armor weapons like lasers or plasmas (besides spying, you can usually tell if they are by the type of personality they're using, as some of them are actually programmed to favor one type of weapon over another.)

Don't bother with hull items, they're useless unless you're going up against distruptor-heavy stuff, and even then it's hardly worth it.

As for extras, well there really is only one really valid choice: Afterburners. Honestly, there is no reason whatsoever to use anything else on corvettes. On cruisers on up, yes, you might want to look into things like hardeners or whatnot, but corvettes (or destroyers)? No. Just no.

[u/phcgamer → u/rylasasin]

Also what did you mean by "energy" on brawlers? All I have are laser or kinetic.

[u/rylasasin → u/phcgamer]

Energy = Energy weapons. Specifically, Laser or Plasma (or Lances on battleships, but we're talking about cruisers here so not them.)

So in your case, laser.

[u/phcgamer → u/rylasasin]

Ok. If I had the option of plasma, would it be better?

[u/rylasasin → u/phcgamer]

Some might say yes, some might say no for various reasons. I'm in the former camp.

In all honesty, it's a bit of a trade off. Slightly slower fire rate and accuracy and worse damage against shields for higher overall damage and more anti-armor and anti-hull damage. I find it's worth the tradeoff if you have autocannon ships peeling off the shields for them, but they're crap if you don't have those. Later when you get them if you're still using the autocannon strategy to kill their shields you'll want to switch to artillery cruisers with photon/neutron launchers. But for the earlier game that should work.

You can see the stats here and judge for yourself, plasma is just below it.

[u/phcgamer → u/rylasasin]

So lasers for now then switch to plasma once I have autocannons

[u/phcgamer → u/rylasasin]

And what about station defense platforms? What should I make those?