I am no expert in combat calculus. But these two threads both recommend destroyer missile spam:



/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14003-combat-order

/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14004-attrition-combat-the-defenseless-destroyer-rush-why-and-how-to-address-it



So, I will continue with my "silly" build unless you can explain why both those guys are wrong.

I personally think that while destroyer spam is useful not only is the above build silly, there is a better option. Most certainly you can get away with nothing but destroyer spam, and on the easier difficulties you can get away with nothing but kinetics Battleships have the most useful reduction in the game, with a 20% tonnage reduction on defensive modules, they can wreck enemy ships AND not die. I usually fit my tonnage on a bs out something like 10% for each weapon type (30% total) 70% defensive modules. Obviously there is room to counter build and focus on certain weapons and resistances in the fitting, but for the most part the countering should be done in research.



About the above suggestion being silly. Missile destroyers are probably the least useful destroyer in the game. Besides dieing easily they simply will not trade for battleships or dreadnaughts which have any decent level of flak upon them. While this isn't an issue at lower difficulties it isn't uncommon to run into dreadnaughts with 700MP or more worth of flak on them. That said the real benefit of destroyer spam is the ability to create both kinetic and laser boats cheap which find the enemies resist holes.

That is a good question. There are many different answers in the "game2gether design" sub-forum. This is probably the best thread:



/#/endless-space/forum/33-strategy-guides/thread/14004-attrition-combat-the-defenseless-destroyer-rush-why-and-how-to-address-it



But for a quick answer, which is my opinion and not optimal, you should have two ship types: a destroyer loaded with weapons and nothing else, with all three weapons 10% laser, 10% kinetic, 80% missile; and a cruiser with nothing but your best ground attack module. Some people may suggest a corvette with flocking engines (speed boosts stack) instead of a destroyer; but this may be an exploit.

Scaling empire-wide HP bonuses with empire-wide tonnage bonuses is also a good way to go.

Draco18s wrote:
My current design strategy is all beam battle ships all the time. If and when the AI decides to start using missiles, add flak.

How is that working out?

My current design strategy is all beam battle ships all the time. If and when the AI decides to start using missiles, add flak.

Wilson212 wrote:
So mixing ships is a good strategy? Sorry i really suck at ship building

I think it's really more that hitting something they don't have defenses for is a good strategy, especially if you want to kill their ships quickly... and, if you don't get a choice about which fleets are attacking, you'll want to make sure to be fielding more than one weapon type. I'd be curious to find out how often the kinetics in the above example mattered, actually. (Not that mid-tier kinetics are necessarily bad, really... just that you have to suffer through one or two combat phases of getting pummeled before they really matter.)



Oh... and my real point... if you're defending against hordes of enemy ships, you have to figure that you're going to have to fight ships with both varied offenses and varied defenses.

Blackmantle wrote:
Just went through an Endless difficulty game in a huge Galaxy, insane pirates with 8 players (vs. all AI Tech-Victory at turn 188) and the battles where a breeze when I got the composition right. Big ships are a huge boon in endless due to the AI bombarding the player with fleets like there is no tomorrow when at war (woe to he who forgets to blockade the chokepoints).



Usually a good Fleet which was nearly destruction-proof consisted of 1 Dreadnaught (Mix of Missiles, Lasers and Kinetics with big hull as well as defense relay and also very thick anti laser and anti-missile defenses with a bit of kinetics, second repair kit), 1 Tank (Battleship with very strong defenses and defense relay as well as a few missiles and later Lasers, second repair kit), 2 Cruisers (Mix of Weapons, Mix of defenses against lasers and missiles, huge hull, defense relay, second repair kit) , 1 corvette (sensors, best repair, critical hit relay some defenses and missiles if they fit in) rest offensive destroyers or corvettes (with strong focus on lasers and offense relay always a few missiles in the mix though).



All with tonnage upgrades when available and best engines (3 upgrade) when enough space was left.



When fielding the above (at about 15-20k battle strength) the AI couldn't even scratch my fleet in manual and did minor damage if at all in Auto. Basically all battles end in Long-Range in Manual (hence me getting away without much focus on kinetics).

The AI reacted though and fielded lots of missiles midgame when I massed small destroyers with a few cruisers.

until I fielded solid anti-missile defenses at which point it switched to lasers. All to no avail.

What was obviously lacking was a solid defense pick. Weaopon-Wise it was ok (AI should have ditched Kinetics though both in defense and offense. The missing shields and to a degree missile was the much bigger and consistent lack though...)



Just going with a glass-canon fleet just leaves you losing ships of your destroyer fleet letting you lose the war of attrition (doesn't help if you kill off 3 fleets losing a destroyer each when there are 3-7 more fleets coming...). 3 capital ships are the minimum in My experience to stem the tide...



The broadly spread missiles work out nicely by finishing up the rest of even tougher fleets allowing for a mid-range phase repair just before the battle ends in the battles where I most likely do need the repair.



And the dreadnaughts do make a very tangiable difference. Especially in Auto. From having to use Hero skills and fight manually (with just battleships and cruisiers) to fighting 10 Fleets of 10 K value in a row in Auto without much a scratch. Not strictly neccessary but sure a huge convenience...



Since if the AI is in smaller numbers than your fleet it will first target the big ships (making a dreadnaught +2 or 3 middle size other ships basically an immune fleet. The rest you field is more or less immune and the AI will usually not go for the command points for ship classes and other command upgrades)



Did play custom sophons with huge hull size (+30%) though so had that extra space I needed and probably the AI was just at a non surmountable disadvantage (Anarchist and expensive either though but the Fleet size just came into play at a point when it was big enough to field the above + some small aggressive guys. Hell those big pots where expensive though for my anarchist shipwright perfectionists. The middle ships for 2 K industry while a dreadnaught for a whopping 4k for the final designs...)

10 of good laser and missile defenses (of the type right before the weapon trees plateau) + about 15 Hulls of the 115 +8% type is just to much for the AI to chew through... (4 K HP on the cruisiers and about 8 K HP on the dreadnaught...)

So mixing ships is a good strategy? Sorry i really suck at ship building

Just went through an Endless difficulty game in a huge Galaxy, insane pirates with 8 players (vs. all AI Tech-Victory at turn 188) and the battles where a breeze when I got the composition right. Big ships are a huge boon in endless due to the AI bombarding the player with fleets like there is no tomorrow when at war (woe to he who forgets to blockade the chokepoints).



Usually a good Fleet which was nearly destruction-proof consisted of 1 Dreadnaught (Mix of Missiles, Lasers and Kinetics with big hull as well as defense relay and also very thick anti laser and anti-missile defenses with a bit of kinetics, second repair kit), 1 Tank (Battleship with very strong defenses and defense relay as well as a few missiles and later Lasers, second repair kit), 2 Cruisers (Mix of Weapons, Mix of defenses against lasers and missiles, huge hull, defense relay, second repair kit) , 1 corvette (sensors, best repair, critical hit relay some defenses and missiles if they fit in) rest offensive destroyers or corvettes (with strong focus on lasers and offense relay always a few missiles in the mix though).



All with tonnage upgrades when available and best engines (3 upgrade) when enough space was left.



When fielding the above (at about 15-20k battle strength) the AI couldn't even scratch my fleet in manual and did minor damage if at all in Auto. Basically all battles end in Long-Range in Manual (hence me getting away without much focus on kinetics).

The AI reacted though and fielded lots of missiles midgame when I massed small destroyers with a few cruisers.

until I fielded solid anti-missile defenses at which point it switched to lasers. All to no avail.

What was obviously lacking was a solid defense pick. Weaopon-Wise it was ok (AI should have ditched Kinetics though both in defense and offense. The missing shields and to a degree missile was the much bigger and consistent lack though...)



Just going with a glass-canon fleet just leaves you losing ships of your destroyer fleet letting you lose the war of attrition (doesn't help if you kill off 3 fleets losing a destroyer each when there are 3-7 more fleets coming...). 3 capital ships are the minimum in My experience to stem the tide...



The broadly spread missiles work out nicely by finishing up the rest of even tougher fleets allowing for a mid-range phase repair just before the battle ends in the battles where I most likely do need the repair.



And the dreadnaughts do make a very tangiable difference. Especially in Auto. From having to use Hero skills and fight manually (with just battleships and cruisiers) to fighting 10 Fleets of 10 K value in a row in Auto without much a scratch. Not strictly neccessary but sure a huge convenience...



Since if the AI is in smaller numbers than your fleet it will first target the big ships (making a dreadnaught +2 or 3 middle size other ships basically an immune fleet. The rest you field is more or less immune and the AI will usually not go for the command points for ship classes and other command upgrades)



Did play custom sophons with huge hull size (+30%) though so had that extra space I needed and probably the AI was just at a non surmountable disadvantage (Anarchist and expensive either though but the Fleet size just came into play at a point when it was big enough to field the above + some small aggressive guys. Hell those big pots where expensive though for my anarchist shipwright perfectionists. The middle ships for 2 K industry while a dreadnaught for a whopping 4k for the final designs...)

10 of good laser and missile defenses (of the type right before the weapon trees plateau) + about 15 Hulls of the 115 +8% type is just to much for the AI to chew through... (4 K HP on the cruisiers and about 8 K HP on the dreadnaught...)

A game I just played I used:



1 Dreadnought (unnecessary) - 60% bullets, 30% lasers, 10% missiles (for weapons), 1-2 of each defense (3 for missile), 8 armor, power upgrade, +tonnage

1 Battleship - 40% bullets, 40% lasers, 20% missiles (for weapons), Tons of defense, armor, power upgrade, +tonnage

1 Cruiser - 100% bullets (for weapons), minor defense, lots of armor, power, +tonnage

6 Destroyers - 50% bullet, 40% lasers, 10% missile (for weapons), +power, +tonnage

1 Corvette - minimal bullet weapons, defense, armor, repair, speed



I enjoyed having a diverse fleet. It did me justice. Weapon and defense types were dictated by what my enemies were doing.



I can't for the life of me understand why you would want to be stacked for missiles. I destroyed multiple (sometimes most) enemies before 1st wave of missiles ever got to the enemy. If I would have stacked my army with missiles I would have lost far more ships waiting for the stupid missiles to get to their target. It just doesn't make much sense to me.



Stacking a bunch of destroyers is definitely a solid plan. I would at least have 1 or 2 big ships in the mix always to add high defense cannon fodder.

Unfortunately this thread is out of date. The combat system has changed significantly since the original post. We do not know the current equations. Many players now believe that the best ship is about half "omni-tank", that is equal numbers of each of the three defenses, and about half beam weapons. Partly, this is because beam weapon techs also grant deflectors (kinetic defenses). The AI likes kinetics and doesn't seem to like shields, so this tech line seems to have an advantage. At least against the current AI.

GC13 wrote:
this is a little silly.

Seems sad and silly to me that missle boats with no defense are the best "fleet" - kind of makes a large part of the game a joke and hopefully they do something to address it.

Evil4Zerggin wrote:
Fleet bonus modules could get even further out of hand too. A 20-destroyer fleet already travels far faster than 10 cruisers or 5 dreadnoughts due to engine fleet speed stacking, and once you hit late game, you can get +200% bonuses to fleet damage from stacking modules. If defenses become viable, it could be another module stacking advantage to destroyers in late game.

The whole fleet bonus system needs to change. There's no way a single corvette can service ten destroyers as well as it could service just one, unless the crew was lazy and being held back by regulations about how much work they can do on a single ship. Unless we're turning Endless Space into a Dilbert-style mockery of the bureaucratic machine required to run an empire, this is a little silly.

As a new player I was wondering what is the best strategy for fleet types? I am already familiar with the "Kamikaze destroyer" strategy where you build a lot of offensively powered destroyers with no defense but is that really the best strategy or are there others?

This glass cannon dominance situation is certainly not a good thing, but I think there will still be problems even if battles stop being decided in a single volley. As bad as it is, it does have one positive effect, which is keeping fleet size advantages from getting out of hand. Specifically:



If defenses become viable, fleet tonnage advantage could be massively multiplied. For example, if you have 100 tons of weapons and 50 tons of defenses, and your enemy has 80 tons of weapons and 40 tons of defenses, and weapons and defenses cancel 1:1, then 60 tons of your damage is getting through to only 30 of your enemy's. You're doing twice as much damage, even though you only have a quarter advantage in tonnage. If we do move away from single-volley battles, this could apply to fleet sizes as well.



Fleet bonus modules could get even further out of hand too. A 20-destroyer fleet already travels far faster than 10 cruisers or 5 dreadnoughts due to engine fleet speed stacking, and once you hit late game, you can get +200% bonuses to fleet damage from stacking modules. If defenses become viable, it could be another module stacking advantage to destroyers in late game.

ArrowLance wrote:
This is really only true when it comes to fighting against the AI at the moment. However it is still more cost efficient to use a battleship fleet as you have much fewer losses.

True, when playing against AI. Against a human using glass cannon DD swarm, the BB fleet will take twice as many losses in terms of industry. At the same tech level, I have yet to arrive at a design that can counter DD swarms--the only thing I can think of is a cheaper DD swarm. If you have higher tech level, then for sure BB can survive no problem.



With DD designs, if it has some defenses then that forces the BB to install more weapons resulting less deflect. There may be some point optimal point where DD swarms start taking less losses, but I haven't done the math on that.



EDIT 2: LETS DO MATH FOR SOWERS!



YEaAAH! It's that time again. da Soka is going to do mo mat for u.



Now at the release of Beta v0.42.0, the Sowers have +15% base defense. So lets defend against glass cannon DD swarms with Sower BBs.



*** Everything remains the same until Round 1. ***



****************



Actually, there is no point, because of the following



- From the Cravers calculation above, there is x2.04 on defense with 8000 base defense

- Sowers on the other hand, only get upto x2.03 on defense with base 6750 base defense



So, no need to do more math: glass cannon DD swarm still rules supreme. Or Cravers



****** Below: trying to find a happy game balance to prevent glass cannons swarms.



EDIT:

Did the math, for 2 situation:

1. remove DD weapon tonnage bonus

2. increase CP for DD to 2 and BB to 3 (maybe CA to 3CP also) Without getting the equivalent HP and Available Tonnage increase.



At first glance this post looks like a previous post, but this post is different.

I am trying to establish at what -%WeaponTonnage DD swarm becomes average and not super-uber.



Assumptions:

* no crits and no miss for simplicity. maybe do analysis later with crits and miss



Situation:

* Laser and Shield only.

* 22 DD vs 11 BB

* both sides without racial combat boosters like +%O/D, +%tons, +CP, etc

* Full research available

>> ie., (baseTonnage + 50) * 2 => 300ton DD, 500

* Build BB without overkill as much as possible

* Build DD with only weapons

* Weapons and defense:

>> Gluon Disruptor: 20tons, 220 MaxDmg, 75gears

>> Ablative Wave Shield: 20tons, 250 absorb, 75gears

>> Neutrino Pulsion: 24tons, +12% dmg to fleet, 42gears

>> Neutrino Capture: 22tons, +8% all defense to fleet, 64gears

* Ships:

>> DD: (100 + 50)*2 = 300tons; -20% weapon tons; 300hp

>> BB: (200 + 50)*2 = 500tons; -20% defense tons; 600hp



Let's see what happens when the DD weapon tonnage bonus is lowered to -0%



Loadout:

* DD: 342HP, 3470dmg/salvo, 0 def, 1317gears

300 - 24 = 276tons for lasers;

>> 276/(20*1) = 13 R16 => can add 1xReflectiveHull: +42HP;

13 * 220 = 2860



* BB: 600HP, ~dmg, 6750absorb, 2239gears; (Stays the same as earlier post)

need 2x weapon to kill DD in one salvo

500 - 22 - 2x20 = 438tons for shields

>> 438/(20*0.8) = 27 R5 => no additional possible

27 * 250 = 6750



Round 1: remember 2DD attacks 1BB

22 DD => x3.64 dmg => 20820.8 max dmg before block for 2 DD

11 BB => x1.88 absorb => 12690 dmg blocked on each BB

>>> insta kill ALL BBs doh. 11/11 BB dead, 11/22 DD dead



******** Ok lets try figuring out what per DD weapon dmg has to be for BB at 1hp after round 1

(20820.8 - 12690 - 599)/2/3.64 = 1035 less damage from each DD

1035 / 13 = 80 damage less per weapon => NOT possible as 200dmg is min for weapon.





******************************



Let's try a different tact to this issue:

>> BB 3CP

>> DD 2CP, -20% weapon bonus



* DD: 300HP, 3470dmg/salvo, 0 def, 1317gears

300 - 24 = 276tons for lasers;

>> 276/(20*0.8) = 17 R4 => no additional possible;

17 * 220 = 3470 dmg per salvo before +%





Round 1: remember 4 BB haave 2 DD attacking it

11 DD => x2.32 dmg => 8676.8 maxDmg per ship; 17353.6 for 2 ships

7 BB => x1.56 absorb => 10530 dmg blocked on each BB

>>> 4 BBs will have 2 DD attacking it, and 3 BBs only 1 DD attacking it.

>>> Results: 4/7 BB dead, 7/11 DD dead; all other ships at full health



Round 2: remember 1 BB haave 2 DD attacking it

4 DD => x1.48 dmg => 5135.6 maxDmg per ship; 10271.2 for 2 ships

3 BB => x1.24 absorb => 8370 dmg blocked on each BB

>>> 4 BBs will have 2 DD attacking it, and 3 BBs only 1 DD attacking it.

>>> Results: 1/4 BB dead, 3/4 DD dead



Final results after 3rd round: 2/7 BB remain and no DDs remaining.



** CP changing really alters the essence of Endless Space, so is not to be taken lightly.



Also, for the first set of calculations in this post note the following:

- Damage needed to destroy a BB 13290

>> that is can be achieved at >= 64% accuracy on the BBs



Final thoughts: DD does not need to have weapon tonnage bonus to be deadly useful.

Ketobor wrote:
An equivalent DD swarm that just has a small number of weapons and costs a quarter as much(or even less) will trade with them almost every time.



The trick about being a glass cannon is that it only takes a very tiny cannon to kill you. That said, it is still probably too good, and we can probably do better.

This is really only true when it comes to fighting against the AI at the moment. However it is still more cost efficient to use a battleship fleet as you have much fewer losses.

An equivalent DD swarm that just has a small number of weapons and costs a quarter as much(or even less) will trade with them almost every time.



The trick about being a glass cannon is that it only takes a very tiny cannon to kill you. That said, it is still probably too good, and we can probably do better.

Please note, at the same tech level NOTHING works against pure non-missile weapons DD swarm at this time, except maybe the Cravers and their own DD swarm: 22DD + 2BB.



At this point, the only thing that makes intuitive sense is to reduce the DD's weapon tonnage % to something like -10% to -15% max. I will do the math when I have some time.

supersoaker9 wrote:
Also, smart money is on mixing in a few DD with the BB to offset your numerical deficiency, but that analysis will have to wait until later.

So the strategy that I have been using for weeks is probably the the best a few big ships surrounded by destroyers.