I was curious to see if anyone actually uses beam cannons in their late game fleet comps. I have never seen the point of using them, especially since Kenetics do such insane damage by the end of the game compared to them. I also wanted to give my fleet comp for games I play on Serious or higher difficulty, and see what ya'll think.



I have two different types of fleets:



1. Battle Fleets



These consist primarily of Battleships with a few destroyers as cannon fodder and a few with repair modules.



The battleships are equiped with kenetics and missiles, and have shields as their defense (since the AI loves beam so much later on).

The cannon fodder destroyers are equipped with health modules, shields and missile intercepton, as well as missiles.

The repair destroyers are equipped with health mods, repair mods, shields and beam.

All ships have tonnage mods (duh).



A typical 22/22 comp for me is 9 BS (18), 2 Cannon Fodder (20), and 2 Repair (22). In smaller battles (vs <10000 str) I lose mabye one cannon fodder, in larger battles (vs >10000 str) I lose all my destroyers and max 1-2 BS.



2. Invasion Fleets



These consist primarily of Cruisers with 2 dreadnoughts as escort. No repair ships around for these guys, I never expect them to get into fights with anyone except scouts and colony ships trying to flee. If they get into a larger tangle, the dreadnoughts can dish out some pain. Usually, that only happens if I plan incorrectly or forget to put one of my forward battle fleets on guard.



The cruisers are equipped with invasions mods and shields, with a few missiles each.

The Dreadnoughts are equipped with kinetics, shields and deflection.

Again, all ships have tonnage mods.



My comp is 8 Cruisers (16) and 2 dreadnoughts (22).



Lately, I've been hearing buzz about destroyer swarms and tried that in an impossible game I'm playing right now. It failed utterly. I wanted to know the comps for those, but whatever late game fleets work best for you in the higher difficulties, I'd love to hear it!

In my last game I was using beams and missiles heavily however by the end of that game there was such a tech disparity between me and the AIs that even missiles heavy designs by the AI were infective. Really it is a question do you like to take out the enemy quickly with destroyers like me or use battleships and close to "knife fight" range to shred the enemy with Kinetics



addendum: destroyer swarms work best if they are built slightly for survivability I have also found that one of the better builds is to use them as screens for Dreads or Battle ships as somtimes the enemy targets them and leaves the destroyers alone. Really the strength of this strategy is that it wins wars of attrition because if you trade one or two destroyers for a Dread you are considered to have "won" even if you louse the battle.

All my fleets are comprised primarily of Dreadnoughts, with whatever ships I can fill in then to max out my CP. I focus on missile and beam weapon mods and defenses, to end combat as quickly as possible. And from my readings around the forums, I seem to be one of the few that really use them...



A question to everyone else: What makes Battleships and Cruisers more prominent than Dreadnoughts? I know they had mod bonuses that the Dreadnoughts don't, but in terms of sheer tonnage, my Dread's always end up better. Am I missing something?

FinalStrigon wrote:
All my fleets are comprised primarily of Dreadnoughts, with whatever ships I can fill in then to max out my CP. I focus on missile and beam weapon mods and defenses, to end combat as quickly as possible. And from my readings around the forums, I seem to be one of the few that really use them...



A question to everyone else: What makes Battleships and Cruisers more prominent than Dreadnoughts? I know they had mod bonuses that the Dreadnoughts don't, but in terms of sheer tonnage, my Dread's always end up better. Am I missing something?

Production time if you have the economy to pump out Dreads that is the way to go but if you need ships quickly Cruisers and Battleships are better

stevenmc409 wrote:
Production time if you have the economy to pump out Dreads that is the way to go but if you need ships quickly Cruisers and Battleships are better

Alright, thanks for clearing that up for me.

stevenmc409 wrote:
In my last game I was using beams and missiles heavily however by the end of that game there was such a tech disparity between me and the AIs that even missiles heavy designs by the AI were infective. Really it is a question do you like to take out the enemy quickly with destroyers like me or use battleships and close to "knife fight" range to shred the enemy with Kinetics



addendum: destroyer swarms work best if they are built slightly for survivability I have also found that one of the better builds is to use them as screens for Dreads or Battle ships as somtimes the enemy targets them and leaves the destroyers alone. Really the strength of this strategy is that it wins wars of attrition because if you trade one or two destroyers for a Dread you are considered to have "won" even if you louse the battle.

It was more like my swarms went up against the dreadnoughts and got crushed. They might have killed one but I lost like seven destroyers. I was building them for surviveability to a certain degree, but more for damage (kenetics)...it's just they couldn't make it to melee. What was the build on the destroyers, offensively?

MiburosWolf wrote:
It was more like my swarms went up against the dreadnoughts and got crushed. They might have killed one but I lost like seven destroyers. I was building them for surviveability to a certain degree, but more for damage (kenetics)...it's just they couldn't make it to melee. What was the build on the destroyers, offensively?

Primarily beams and missiles especially missiles since they hardest to counter and do the most damage in phase one. Most of the posts on destroyer swarms say those are the builds to go with since the point of swarming is to take advantage of over-damage the dreadnaught targets a destroyer for 1 salvo the first 300 damage destroys the destroyer the other 3000 or so shoots harmlessly into the void or hits a dieing hulk meanwhile the at least 2-3 destroyers fires at the dreadnaught the result is the dread gets hit for every point of damage that doesn't miss or get countered (if you use missiles and Beams witch have the accuracy advantage at range that is a lot) but wasts most of its damage potential.



In short the point of destroyer swarm is to hit hard fast kinetics don't accomplish that.



P.S. It is important to note that certain enemy builds are more vulnerable to swarming Kinetic/Missile ships with no flack most vulnerable conversly Beam ships with Flak are the best counter.