Disruptor corvettes are amazing against Contingency. At least as long as you have enough damage coming elsewhere that you are winning the war of attrition.
If you’re going against a x25 crisis, I find that the only safe bet is to throw a billion of the longest-range battleships you have at it, kill it before it kills you.
Havent played in a bit but i always used menacing corvettes with ancient nano missile cloud launcher. Are those still good or should i play something like this instead?
if you saw the other videos on corvettes and destroyers. you should know, you switch to the next "tonnage" class as you unlock it. and build only that until cruisers show up. And as in this video explained, PvE, you go all rounders only and watch everything, other then crisis, cry as you keeel them xD With that said, sure. i would also like to see a video on it, since a literally never saw Montu's "all rounder" class anywhere before. Hence, i'm certain he can come up with something i've never seen before xD
I'm playing like 3.3 because i haven't had internet in my apartment for a year. Can you explain why I would ever want swarmer missiles as opposed to devastator torpedoes?
@@cosmictreason2242 New version of Stellaris did a combat update. Devastator torpedoes have a max range of 30, Whirlwind missiles are 100 or 120. Missiles with Artillery combat computers create kiting behavior in the missile ships, so the torpedo ships never get into range to fire before taking so much missile damage they blow up or disengage.
@@cosmictreason2242they massively outrange any M or S slot weapon. Combined with afterburners, you can create cruisers that in the mid game can kite down other ships, like torpedo cruisers, without problems. And before Battleships, hardly any ship design will have L slot weapons, so you will nearly always have a range advantage
were they ever a meme ship...? I mean, sure, they wer enot max evasion destroyers or the evergreen battleship, but all laser cruiser would make you able to take on any enemy starbases with no losses, and they where pretty good with hangars and such. I don't think they were ever bad
they were just worse battleships. both destroyers and corvettes had benefits over battleships in certain areas, but cruisers were basically useless as soon as you unlocked battleships
@@AndrewTheUltraBoss99 Nobody used cruisers back in my days in 2.6. I just came back after i finally upgraded my pc to give this lategamelag game another try (so far so good with mit 7800x3d) and was like "what? Cruisers are usefull? the fuck happend?"
I'd love an anti-crisis build video; I've been trying to wrap my head around the shipbuilding system, but frankly on the level of play I do, it's really just the crises and Fallen Empires that it really matters for at the moment.
I will say, Stellaris has hit very close to how modern navies since WW1 have operated with the ship classes. Corvettes very quickly became patrol boats/mine tenders and dont have a place in battle lines, frigates were specialty ships and are rarely seen. Cruisers are the most versatile class and in WW2 there were some that could go hold their own against a Battleship. Battleships are vulnerable without a support fleet, but deadly and terrifying when supported. The missile and aircraft era has changed the dynamic drastically but that is reflected well in Stellaris as well. Without PD you are asking to get slapped around
I really prefer this meta for that reason. Space combat realistically would not be anything like naval combat but most people are familiar with the basics of naval combat and most sci-fi media just grants that space combat is like naval combat. Ironically space combat in Stellaris used to be more realistic in the bad (but very funny) old days of naked corvettes.
@zhadowmoon5811 I tend to like my BBs as giant missile boats, but I build my fleets to be fast and have lots of long range missiles keep everything at max range, and use DDs as my flak screen since usually only enemy missiles can reach me. I don't use Frigates once I unlock Cruisers, and again they are usually just fast missile boats with some attack craft. My BBs are just bigger versions of them, and I usually build a lot more cruisers than BBs... I almost use my BBs as shields for my fleet. I'd rather all the fire hit them since they can take it, and collectively my Cruisers do more damage than my BBs, and usually die much quicker. The BBs can take a massive beating especially if you have a lot of Point Defense DDs with them
@@IntusMortuum Basically the same. I like carriers but Missiles are generally the way to go in this meta. Frigates are really fragile and tend to take the brunt of casualties in the late game.
You gotta be real careful with your combat computer on anything with a firing arc because if they are always retreating to long range then they cant shoot with enemies approaching them
Firing arc doesn't really matter, since in stellaris ships have almost instant turn rates. Battleships can pivot on their axis a full 180 degrees instantly and take aim to shoot their x-slot weapon for example. Minimum range is the only problem, as for kiting, if your ship is faster and there is enough space, they can always retreat successfully to stay at range, turn to shoot instantly on a dime and have no issues.
@@lostbutfreesoul as said before, if they are faster, they will outrun the enemy, turn, shoot, then turn again and keep running. If they are slower, well, you're dead :)
@@lostbutfreesoul You can't micro manage fights in stellaris, the ships just behave as they do. You can see this behavior as you view the fight in game, or on some of the combats featured on Montu's channel for example.
Best ship class? Either your first additional science ship or your first colony ship. Don't recall as much excitement, hope and pain invested into any other ships in this game. Or any other loss being as painful and impactful.
Are these builds still valid? Especially the torpedo cruiser and all around cruisers? I've just started playing and this video is really helpful, but want to make sure that the game hasn't changed too much since it was made! Thanks!
In pve you can build literally whatever you want , but Ive would say battleships is most comfortable ships ( but if you dealing with strong crisis build small ships as meat shield for them )
Torpedo cruisers with swarm missiles are my standard starbase-killers and leviathan-hunters. Im not sure exactly what the multipliers are for those, but they're certainly high enough to make a hell of a difference.
So I have spent too much time delving into ship designs after the 3.9 rework, and especially after your SHIP WEAPONS TIER LIST video. I'd like to submit a 2-part Battleship design that I think does what the All-rounder Cruiser can do, but better. The first is the Mothership class Battleship: X-slot: Tachyon Lance Hangers: 2x Driller Drones M-slots: 2x Whirlwind Missiles S-slots: 2x Small Missiles The second is the Artillery class Battleship: X-slot: Tachyon Lance L slots: 4x Kinetic Artillery The purpose here, as you'll quickly see, is to use the Artillery battleship to help remove the shields of your opponents while the Driller Drones eviscerate them. The Driller Drones are naturally good against smaller ships, doing ~35 avg dmg per tick with perfect accuracy and good tracking. The Tachyon Lances are good vs larger ships, taking them out at the start of the battle and doing increased damage vs armor. The Kinetic Artillery is good against Cruisers and Battleships, since as Montu says in this video, artillery tends to be better against them since they have low evasion. I focus on the strike craft, running a ratio of around 7:3 Motherships to Artillery. If you want, you can also swap the Mothership X slot for another Driller Drone and more PD. These two designs struggle a lot vs lots of Torpedos, because nothing you do with a battleship will ever prevent them from being weak to that. They require ships to screen for them still. I made a full reddit post going over the numbers for these designs, plus their defensive and aux slots; as well as good designs for the early and late game if anyone is interested.
I would love a shipbuilding for beginners or how to build ships during the game as I usually just play with auto on I would love to learn to strategize some more but it feels so overwhelming and I don’t know what works better for what situations
Genuinely surprised the torpedo/disruptor cruiser didn't come up as a generalist. I find AI tends to build very little PD, so you don't have to worry about overwhelming them. Even if they do, sprinkle in a few swarmer/carrier battleships to work that side.
There is one build missing that I'd like to see, Carrier/Whirlwind missle cruiser without torpedos. It may not be as effective vs battleships, but how about other cruisers?
Like others have said in other posts whirlwind and quantum missile spam is massively effective when combined with artillery computer and triple afterburners. You outrange and kite anything other than battleships. With so many missiles being fired any PD the enemy has is overwhelmed and totally ineffective. The AI hardly ever build anything to counter these Cruisers. I also take increased range picks for my Admirals whenever available and it really helps. Using a single weapon type also helps with the research repeatables as well. Struggles with fallen empires but they just sit around until you are ready to pluck them like a ripe cherry so can refit if needed.
Thank you for this video! A question: why aren't you using the artillery CC for the disruptor cruisers? Since the maximum weapons range is defined by the M disruptors (40), this CC will also try to stay always in range. And it doesn't grant you unnecessary tracking, but instead weapons range and fire rate.
I always have 6-8 cruiser designs by the time I get bored of the save file, a main battle cruiser, a light carriar, artillery, energy artillery, half carriar half battle carriar, autocannon cruiser, stealth cruiser, I might've missed 1 or 2
Spliting weapon types means in the endgame, you're splitting your tech bonuses. How can you tech your armor while you're teching torps? Same with strike craft vs armor. I don't buy it. Tech the CRAP out of disruptors or ideally lasers so they are SUPERIOR to torps or strike craft, while improving your armor.
What's so bad about making an unfuckwithable battleship covered in small and medium guns, that just charges into the fray tanking every bit of damage these food can throw at you?
That one guy who made a response video to this reminded me of something I'd meant to ask. All the videos I see are mono-ship fleets. Do people not use mixed fleets with screening vessels anymore? I still tend to build like the old battleship meta, arty battleships with fast, screening ships.
Been playing on Admiral difficulty and ive experienced that whirlwind missile+speed cruiser rushes against the ai are really powerful. Is that still the case or do they now know how to counter it?
all Swarm missiles with 2 normal missiles cruisers with 3x speed at max range will beat all the builds you shown here. Also the full disruptor build with 1 torpedo in it will beat all the close quarters builds.
Hey montu, i'm suggesting a high all-crisis guide video (for 10x and 25x). I feel like there's barely any guide content on all-crisis, and especially high/max all-crisis mechanics.
There's a channel on youtube, Tachyon lance, who has playthroughs where they beat a 50x contingency on grand admiral (In a game with 3 crisis back to back, the first one 25x crisis, each stronger than the last, with contingency being the last to spawn, spawning at around 50x lol). Generally, with enough scaling tech, you can beat any crisis, it just depends how much time you give yourself to prepare (And how well you manage to scale your economy, or how long you bother before going on autopilot mode lol). For anything over 5x, short range weapons are bad as the crisis gets so much extra damage they will one shot your ships, so long range weapons and carriers tend to do really well against them. 25x crisis can even one shot battleships (Less likely with repeatables on your armor and shield health), so your best bet is to outrange them and use carriers with lots of repeatables. For 5x and below crisis, disruptors work fine, even against contingency (Generally the most challenging crisis). Disruptor cruisers with 1 torpedo slot on the bow for extra punch against stations, otherwise they won't be able to defeat the purification hubs (Or other starbases the other crisis make). I tested swarmer missiles as well, but they actually did worse than disruptors against 5x contingency with a similar amount of repeatables (Around 5 for both energy and explosive damage). To make them work, you need a big system with lots of space so the ships can kite and you need a lot of repeatables to have them deal enough damage, as they need to chew through the armor first and thus need to deal with almost 10 times the HP, but against stronger crisis the range is critical.
The All-Around Cruiser will get zero value against AI that has bulk of corvettes and destroyers. Their PD will literally make you do zero damage. I had a game against devouring swarm (grand admiral). Their 20K fleet took on my 40K of those cruisers and they got DELETED. Be careful with missile and strike craft one trick fleets. They can get hard countered real fast even in PvE (AI loves PD).
Aside from the artillery cruiser build, I have been using builds almost identical to these ever since I found Stellaris early last year. Edit: Some slight variations from here on what I use: 1) Carrier Cruiser - swap the torpedo for neutron launcher if you get the Zroni Storm Caster and put up a few Zroni Bastion's in key choke points. Then reinforce them with all armor cruisers with the carrier build and neutron launchers instead. Use Carrier computer. 2) Carrier Cruiser 2 - all rounder variant - swap the torpedo bow for broad side bow and go with Whirlwind Missiles. Their max range is 120, before modifiers, which is almost equal to that of your hangars at 125. Their missiles will also help further swamp enemy point defense.
I absolutely love my cloaked missile cruiser build. Max speed, psionic cloak, psionic shields, swarmer/marauder missiles, kiting etc. They may be real imperfect, but i like the idea do deal a first devastating blow from nowhere P. S. I like how Montu turns the classes of cruisers into rock-paper-scissors.
one thing about art. cruiser is the range of the combat computer is determined by your weapon median range meaning that it is not your smallest weapon max range nor its your average range rather its your median range meaning if you fill the slots with 120 120 120 100 100 100 100 then your median is 100 still far away (this is MEDIAN RANGE) and this works only with pickit, Line and Artillery computers only. and thank you for a great video
For the all rounder torp computers are much better than artilery computers. The majorty of your damage will come from torps, then either missle or strike craft depending how long the fight goes on and shield hardening.
If you come up against torpedo's you will be in trouble though! As they will out torpedo your torpedoes. That is less of an issue in single player or vs mixed fleets though ofc
With the way the artillery computer range works, you can actually put on a few missiles with shorter range without it affecting the range your ship will stay at, at all. Most combat computers (those that say medium range) will take the median (not average), of your weapons' ranges, and stay at that one. The artillery computer takes the highest instead. So if you had a ship with a single range 120 weapon, and then full on disruptors, it would still sit at range 120.
Median is an average. Mean is what you’re conflating with average. There are 3 main measures of central tendency all of which can be called average which isn’t a mathematical term.
So are Swarmer Missiles not king? I thought nothing beats them as they have 120 range so they kite everything but artillery which they out damage, ignore shields and don't get countered by PD as there are too many missiles In my PvP games they are THE meta, aside from just building them myself I don't know what beats that design please help : )
Yeah I dunno why Montu ignored Swarmer missiles, they are dope. I wish my starbases would equip them more often, I've had games where my defensive points had red lasers but I have whirlwind missiles researched and updating the starbase by rebuilding a module didn't do anything.
@@MasterElements I don't think that base starbase weapons ever really do anything, if you edited your defense platform designs and added them to your starbase then that would do something...
So are battleships out of vogue now? I've been wondering what other ship classes are worth building. I barely see frigates get mentioned. Corvette spam is not the worst to counter anymore. Keep a ring of PD destroyers around cruisers and maybe battleships?
That disruptor cruiser/destroyer comboed with torpedo cruisers really saved my bacon the other day when 4 player federation fleet tried to subjugate me. Their fleet strength went from "overwhelming" to "equilivant" in record time.
One of the reason why I do not actively play Stellaris anymore (I want to return but...I only see problem swaping each patch not problem solving), is that often just one ship class dominates everything (maybe when we are lucky two classes are useful within a patch), which in turn makes the game more boring. Its a prime example of where balance would be important, just for the mere reason to make parts of a game (like other ship classes) not basically obsolete.
So the last few games I had been playing pve mind you. The ai spams launcher Frigates. They wiped any cruiser build I had. Just my cruisers. So I stopped playing them. The ai does this every time with mixed fleets. I don't see anyone talking about this.
Can you make a video about ship behaviors, like carriers, how does components effects ship position or firing ranges, and does scoutwing still better at taking down other strikecrafts ect, i am really confused on these mechanics?
Ideal ships should be a blend of different builds. The Jack of Trades should be the ideal view of implementation. And as for ships, it should be a mix of ships. You need some corvettes, some destroyers, some frigates, some cruisers, a couple of battleships, a few titans and a dreadnaught. That would be and should be the best built. If you go too far one way, you will leave yourself vulnerable in another way, either in how a single ship is built or how many if a certain class.
The artillery crusier shoud add a swarm missle in the tail. Since you don't actually need that extra A slot for another afterburner, and swarm missle also have the range of 120.
I've already been using the allrounder for a while against AI. They are just a dream to work with. And then I build specialized fleets to deal with whatever crisis I get.
3 to 4 mil Corvettes with disruptor 3 or half/half Point Defence/Flak mix with two disrupter 3 will deal with 10x Crisis ships no worries. Just pure corvettes. No ancient weaponry just stock. 1 shield two armour. Afterburner. Picket computer. In a space storm these just melt crisis. Note: If a crisis admiral has Jury-Rigger III, don't even bother. You're just going to lose all your fleet and barely kill half a mil if lucky.
Genuine question, if we are using artillery cruisers, why not artillery battleships? Aren't battleships better at being artillery with giga cannon? Is it because of the sublight speed?
I can follow your reasoning and maths, and agree with it, but... What about mixed fleets? My current fleets are picket cruisers (distuptors, with torpedoes added if the enemy has larger ships), mixed with carrier/artillery/hybrid battleships at the back, and the role of the cruisers is to say "Shoot me! Shoot me!". So it doesn't matter that the battleships would take more damage from torpedoes, because they aren't getting shot at, but they are bringing a higher density of damage-per-fleet-point.
I've been manually building ships ever since I first started watching your vids a year ago. However, I will now do all my future playthroughs with autobuild only, just to make you sad.
My biggest gripe with these videos is they dont account for tech. The way repeatables are set up you are very strongly incentivized to put all your eggs in one basket. You can either go energy weapons and armor or kinetic / missiles and shields. Due to the energy restrictions shields are inferior so its almost always better to go energy + armor. I dont care what the AI or opponent do. Its better to have 150 % energy dmg and 150% armor than 75% energy dmg and 75 missile. Unless we are strictly talking pre endgame. But i find you are normally dewp into repeatables within the first century so...
Cruiser the best ship class in the game? Oh, how the turns tables... I mean.. that All Rounder design looks a lot like the original best cruiser design from back in the old days ^^
Overall good example builds but some odd choices for the all rounder cruiser imo. 1) No whirlwinds on anything? Why? There's no valid reason to not use the M missile stern on the all round cruiser, you don't need a 3rd utility slot for boosters since your intent with them is to stay at range. 1 M slot of missiles does more damage than 2 S slot missiles, on top of that each individual missile is tougher the kill and they fire more frequently to overwhelm enemy PD easily. And a missile cruiser is as much an all rounder cruiser build as the one showcased here, if not better (against AI). 2) The torp on the all around cruiser here is counter intuitive to its purpose: To stay and kill at long range. It can't fire on ships on approach due to its very short range, and when ships do get within range it won't be able to reliably fire because the combat computer will make the ship turn around to try to maintain distance. And even when it does fire on the ships that got in close range, these ships are in most cases small ships (because fast). Aka the ship types that the torps are not very effective against and kinda waste their damage multiplier. I don't see a reason why you wouldn't use a neutron launcher on this ship build in stead: -Its a long range torpedo that still shreds large ships -Can actually fire on enemies at range & on approach to close range -It complements the other weapons, in that if the enemy builds more shields against your neutron launcher that means less armor to chew through for your missiles/strike craft. And if they don't that means fewer shields for your neutron launcher to chew through before getting to apply those juicy damage bonuses.
Are you absolutely sure that the FTL chance works like that? Because unless it was changed again very recently, when the changes to FTL occured they made it so that the biiger the hit the smaller the chance to FTL is. I could confirm this very easily because I had a fleet consisting entirely of battleships with nothing but strike craft and missiles and every time I engaged the enemy entire fleet always managed to FTL. I'd win the combat, but there would be 0 losses on the enemy side. This was with me also bringing a titan with the abillity to lower the enemy FTL chance. This has actually been the major reason I stopped playing stellaris, because I only play ME and using big weapons doesn't works because of tracking and weapons that deal low damage means the enemy FTLs and it becomes a war of attrition that I'll always lose (I'll still win the war just cause my fleet is overwelmingly massive but each war will end with no losses for the enemy and losses for me which I dislike). Following that up and looking towards PVE exclusively, cruisers are not really the best ship class. I understand why they are considered so in PVP, but in PVE what matters the most is to destroy the enemy fleets while lossing as little as possible and for that only battleships get the job done because battleships will just naturally have high enough overall health pools so that you don't lose much. Another thing that needs to be paid attention is repeatable tech and the more repeatable tech is placed on one of the 3 tech trees, the slower it is to improve it. That is why I innitially based my battleship designs on strike craft + missiles + shields, they are separated in 3 different trees so they all grow at the same rate which easily makes me able to keep outscaling the enemy in how powerful my ships are, however when they introduced the FTL changes, not only there was no real solution for MEs ships, the abillity to properly destroy entire enemy fleets disapeared. Anyway, metas are all very cool but PVP metas are pointless in stellaris as the majority of it's players play PVE and to this date I have yet to seen anyone doing a meta guide for ships whose focus was on that and which gave some very serious though as to how to solve the current issues that stellaris combat has.
why no torp/disruptor cruiser ? i always play with 10 disruptor destroyer 20 torp/disruptor cruiser (sometimes 15 torp/disruptor cruiser and 5 hangar cruiser) 1 titan and the rest battleships (1/3 with hangars 2/3 as x slot arty and 2 swarmer missle on it)
I'm sorry I make you sad Montu, sometimes I'm just lazy and am playing a peaceful race. The auto design's are good enough and caveman brain no need think hard.
one question i have to ask is this who the hell is so lazy as to leave auto generated designs on? like seriously how hard is it to make a ship?............. wait must those weird hivemind humans again!!!!!!!!! and as an interesting story, i actually encountered this weird unholy abomination once in my stellaris play and they was utterly terrorfying! when i discovered them they had a quarter of the galaxy and when they declared war upon me they had a third of it! sadly the hivemind horror humans bit the dust and my space fox empire was in ruins however not defeated took me another 10 years to fully repair and rebuild the conquered worlds......... i was defeated by the prothoryn swarm! and to this day i blame the hivemind horror humans for doing a wierd death ritual that summoned them lol.
The key thing I get confused about is what the combat computers actually do. I keep ending up with ships that stay out of range of most of their guns, or that get *too* close and can't fire the big guns.
Use artillery or carrier combat computer for ships that use long range weapons. Use picket or torpedo combat computer for ships with short range weapons.
@@louiswinterhoff334 : I've designed battleships with the arty computer that spent the entire battle staying out of range of their main guns, so ... I'm confused with the mechanics.
@@benoithudson7235 It stays at its HIGHEST weapon range. So if you have one single weapon that is 120 range, and then 4 100 range weapons, it will stay at 120 range and rarely use those 100 range weapons.
How to build fleets? Meaning do you have only one class of ship or a mix, etc.? Will a mix of computers ruin their range effects or will the ships in the fleet split up based on their computers?
