You're Using These Wrong in EaWX! 

You don't use corvettes because you don't understand strategy. I don't use corvettes because I can't be bothered to individually drag each one onto the battlefield. We are not the same.

In my experience, there's almost never a good reason not to have at least ten CR90s in any given fleet.

The best Imperial fleet I’ve ever used was 5 ISD 2’s, 10 VSD 2,s, 1 interdictor, and 15 lancers. It works against just about anything you’ll come across, including SSD’s, and small and big ships alike will melt from the sheer amount of green dakka.

I think what throws people is how small a single CR90 is next to the scale of battles in EaWX. In base EAW you could get away with using three or four corvettes to provide anti-fighter coverage, but especially in Thrawn's Revenge you need like 15-20 pop cap worth to get the same effect. And if your best anti-fighter ship is pop size 1, that can get pretty tedious to manage. Honestly with factions like the Republic and New Republic, I'd recommend delegating some anti-fighter/point-defense duties to your light frigates and just keeping a small group of CR90s to respond to areas with high missile/bomber concentration. Other factions can rely on larger corvettes like the Lancer and Tartan, thereby reducing repetitive strain injury.

I was in the 5x corvette camp, it's time to change my ways

Another thing with corvettes is to keep in mind their position in your formations. I try to keep mine slightly back but next to my main battle line. If the enemy is mainly attacking with fighters then the corvettes will stay near or slightly ahead of the line but if it is mostly capital ships then they will hang back and cruisers will take the lead. Always try to minimize casualties by forcing your enemy to attack your toughest ship.

Greatly appreciate this video, I'm definitely in the group of players who "understand that anti-fighter and point defense is important, but brings way too few". Currently I'm using closer to 5 corvettes than 15, and I can imagine that adding tenders probably makes anti fighter screens more effective. Love the content!

I absolutely understand the utility of corvettes and smaller ships, but dragging them in individually over the course of a longer campaign can be tedious.

I think it's worth mentioning that if you are willing to micro, you can do a lot in carrier v carrier battles. You don't even really need to direct every squadron, just make sure that you give a good few of your fighters different attack orders. I've had some amazingly fun battles by focusing on fighters. One I had was basically inspired by some of the battles in the NJO books, where I had my bombers and proton torpedo equipped fighters like X and E-wings fly through the enemy fly from side to side, never stopping at any one ship. I did this the whole way while the advanced on my space stations, and by the time they got there, half their fleet was shieldless and several cruisers lagging behind because I blew their engines.

To be fair, having the fleet made of the biggest ships(ISD II's, Allegiance's) with Lancers/Crusaders as screens(If you remember to put one in the slot) works pretty well. Maybe not the most well balanced/cost-effective method, but it works. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I always use a lot of corvettes and anti-fighter frigates for this, approximately 10-15% of my fleet which in TR would be about 30 pop of corvettes and frigates. I find the most versatile of corvettes that I have used to be CR90s, easy to spread through a fleet, have good range on their point defense, and are very fast. It's also great when larger battlecruisers come equipped with anti-fighter weapons as well to help pick up the pace along with corvettes, for the New Republic this would be the case for the Starhawk with its heavy lasers. Another note I would like to make is the possible prevalence of bias, some might say their corvettes aren't doing much but that may be because they do no see it happen, but they will do a lot to help keep fighter attacks down. In TR for example Parnell, who has the slaver trait, provides 1 credit for each fighter killed among other ships, using him and seeing fighters come at my corvette-protected fleets made it very visible just how much a good screen can do

My minimum for non-carrier-centric factions has always been one antifighter corvette for every capital ship in the fleet, but more often a pair of them per capital. I may have to up that count a bit.

I only have 500ish hr in EaWX and other mods but in everyone of them I always use antifighter corvette screens, it's just soo good.

grand admiral thrawn would be proud of you

Oh, I thought you were talking about Lancers specifically lol. I do feel like I need better Lancer specific tactics due to how slow they are, and how hard it is for them to keep up with the rest of the fleet in time sensitive strikes (meaning: there is an enemy ground to space weapon in the battle). Positioning, as you said, is also very important. At the start of an engagement, before the capital ships even begin firing at each other, I like having my point defense escort right in front, anticipating the wave of bombers that the enemy is likely to send, most of the time they won't immediately crash and burn upon coming into contact with the escort, but the important part is that the escort will intercept all of the bombs. As the battle among the capitals starts, I tend to move the escort back to keep them safe, generally sandwiched between what I have, pretending to not be there so as to increase their chances of survival, but if they do shoot them that can also be benefitial, if the enemy decides that they really want to target the escort, then that means that it's time to be a bit more aggressive with my capitals instead, since the enemy is not paying enough attention to them.

This is why I love systems like Homeworlds fleet formations. You can select a group and then have them arrange into a series of premade formations, and you can organize who takes lead or screening positions to limited degrees. I doubt there is code to accommodate this in empire at war but in the theoretical world of a sequel (the dream), having this kind of function where ships I assign to groups can also have formations selected for them would be incredibly useful for proper fleet management and ship use. The guard command just frequently does nothing (and regularly makes me question its existence), and really just isn’t enough to accomplish what is needed

This is something I really need to take into consideration when I play TR and FotR as I'm one of those crazies that like to play FTGU more than any other mode but I usually find that I try not to go over the pop cap of the forces I'm next to too much or it seems too easy to just wipe out the defensive fleets. I've tried to look up some guides to good fleet building but not many exist and the few videos that cover making fleet are usually ones for the Canon/Legends lore more so than anything else. I should make more use of Instant Action.

I sometimes use fleets of corvettes and fleet tenders. It’s surprisingly deadly given you manage at least two tenders per group of corvettes to keep them alive.

I always have corvettes guarding my carriers while my fighters are closer to my capital ships. I also like using peltas instead of the CR corvette. Also an important unit for fights would be the arcs because they can jam incoming missiles I using keep them in front of capital ships and then send out the rest of my fighters against incoming bombers. I kind of wish tho that the corvettes were as effective as they are AWOTR because on admiral difficulty it feels like all my fighters and bombers are paper weight to the enemies.

One thing I have learned while playing through FoTR is the importance of anti-fighter ships with point defense in defending heavy battleships from bombers. One time in FoTR, I went up against a Subjugator-class and 6 Bulwark Mk. 2 battleships, and their loss against my fleet was mainly contributed to their lack of anti-fighter support, allowing my bombers to rip through the heavy cruisers with ease.

its important to note that if you position your fleet together a la school of fish. You can increase the effectiveness of your anti starfighter as well as your other ships.

Tartan Patrol Cruisers under the PA are literally the best Point defence corvette, and they’re even better when supported by tenders. 8-10 in a fleet really could nullify NR bomber spam completely when positioned well. My last PA game pretty much solidified them as my favourite anti-fighter ship. Excellent video too, really enjoyed learning more about the components of determining ship pop cap and combat power.

for countering fighters it is also important to have your ships closer together to effectively act like a bigger ship. This increases the effectiveness of anti starfighter while essentially making your fleet act like a bigger ship a la school of fish.

What I struggle with in your mods is the economies of scale. Right at that 3hr mark in a Republic or Empire campaign the enemy just outproduces me. Thats using solid tactics and defending well with a decent amount of thought given to building up infrastructure. I can beat any of the fleets that come at me - but not 4 are the same time. Its really enjoyably hard. Its an inbuilt faction mechanic that presents an insurmountable hurdle. Playing as NR or CIS is wayyyyy easier to figure out. Thank you for all the work you've done on these, its killer.

This guide was really helpful in understanding how point defense works, hope you make more.

OR you send in a waves of 40 C-9979s and play a slide show of thousands of strike craft and just jump them out if the enemy gets close

My last hand of EAWX I was playing as Zsinj and was pretty routinely dropping in like 12-15 Lancers abs a fair few tenders to try and help keep up the small boys a little longer.

The enemy cannot attack you with fighters if you kill their carriers .... My favorite is a Allegence class dropped first after the pathfinder immediately followed by a line of ISD 2 - its not the most subtle fleet but my God does shred opponents you literally can't lose if you are imperial and have Kuat - well you could if you are playing cruel admiral or if you are an idiot but still.... And before anyone tells me this is broken according to old canon this is what Thrawn literally did!

Hey Corey, have you guys ever considered making corvettes be bought in groups rather than singular ships? I know one of the biggest pains of deploying corvettes is dragging and dropping so many tiny ships into battle one at a time and it sometimes can dissuade from using them as much as I should.

Loved this video, hoping there's more!

I usually use 10 anti fighters deployed ahead of the fleet, supported by tenders. With carriers guarding the rear. It works out for me nearly all of the time. 5 lancers 5 IPVs

I’m just getting into Awakening of the Rebellion mod and this info helps a ton. I’ll have to start messing with fleet comp a bit more

I never had a great deal of problems with fighters when I was playing as Greater Maldrood, and I think that's because the core of my fleet was 15/15 imperial customs corvettes and tartan cruisers. I used the tartans as "close escorts" for my various capital ships to weaken/eliminate missile volleys and the ICCs when the goal was to kill fighters. Because my corvettes were so dispersed - 2 to 4 per capital ship - we weren't good at killing enemy starfighters. But we did a great job of denying them damage while I focused on micro-ing the fleet to prevent those starfighters from having a home base to return to. It was instrumental to conquering the Hapes cluster when the time came to stick my hand in that beehive. 10% of your fleet shouldn't necessarily be corvettes in every battle, but I think every fleet should be prepared to deploy 15% as corvettes against certain kinds of opponents. Corvettes are cheap so I don't think that's a big ask for an offensive fleet.

Spamming corvettes has single handedly improved my enjoyment of the game

I wish you could drop in 2 or 4 corvettes at once. Its so annoying dropping in 1 at a time

Great video! I think a lot of people tend to avoid using point defense in adequate numbers because of their love of larger ships however using ships like the lancer and watching it save my ISD’s and allowing them to pelt the new republics carriers is great.

Personally, it feels like the issue is just that dropping that many little ships on the map is a huge pain in my ass. They feel like units made for a game where the max pop cap is 25, because they are. Maybe you could make a “flotilla” of 4 of these little 1x1 lego-esque ships so that it’s less of a pain in the nards to use them.

Can't just throw Corvettes into a formation and expect them to fix your opposing fighter/bomber problem. The more fighters your fleet has, the fewer corvettes you need. If you have lots of fighters that can intercept enemy bombers and fighters, you need fewer corvettes to protect the fleet. If your fleet is mainly composed of anti-ship assets, deploying more corvettes will help keep the fleet covered while the ships themselves do their work. Also and more importantly, pay CLOSE attention to the fire rate of the point defense weapons of the corvettes. Having a low rate of fire could be life or death for your fleet!

Shack needs to watch something like this for his new EAW campaign.

I'd love to use more fighter screening, but I get tired to placing them in each battle very quickly.

I used to micromanage my fighters so hard down to telling individual squadrons which groups of enemies to attack. The ingame pause function was helpful for this. I ususally bring in 8 or 9 corvettes every batttle and i try to spread them out. What id like is for them to keep formation with capital ships as they advance. But when i use the guard command they stay too far behind to be effective. I end up grouping my frigates and corvettes together and my capitals in a different group.

I’ve always been reluctant to use corvettes, at least early game, on cruel admiral because I simply can’t afford the attrition. Whereas if I pick my engagements wisely, I can prevent losing any of capital ships despite having minimal point defense present.

You genuinely opened my eyes man. Thank you for this.

I never bother building or bringing in dedicated carriers in EaWX. Fighters and bombers just seem so weak due to no shield penetration and shield generators being untargetable/hardpoint over saturation. I just build a large number of capital ships with 20-ish screeners. Works extremely well.

I don't tend to use CR90s and such because in Eawx they almost always get immediately targeted by bigger ships and destroyed and having to move all these ships away from bigger ships can be a pain due to bad path finding. AOTR is good in the fact that bigger ships find it much harder to target much smaller ships. It means you don't need to keep replacing all your tinier ships every battle.

If you just micro your battleships to hunt hangars, and group your 5 corvettes along the enemy bomber's main approach vector the battleships are much stronger. Plus you can weakly micro your fighters against their bombers and come put on top. Only in large protracted battles do bombers matter, and in the campaign you will usually attack where the enemy is weak. That said, I consider carriers to be defensive units, and brawlers to be big fighters built to take down the carriers. In other words, playing to the strength of your fleet is way more important than composition.

And here I thought staggering and spreading out my corvettes helped with just antifighter duties. I didn't realize they'd target the same bombs and missiles when bunched

I have tested this: 10 Lancers can kill an MC80B with 5 losses, given no micro

Its so hard to constantly check all the stats

I usually have 30 Corvettes (I don't use all of them in battle) and 6-10 Tenders (same as the corvette) for an Anti fighter duty. However, I find it annoying when I'm trying to protect an Capture Star Destroyer cause they're lower than my Corvettes trying to intercept bombers.

my naval doctrine has always been heavily supported by anti fighter battle group, works wonder for me so far

So it's basically a rock paper scissors but we have to have enough scissors. Or paper. Or Rock...

Tried this out woth zinsj and it is highly effective against the factions around him its just a shame its so difficult to play him now feels like every faction around him target's him straight away and it's annoying with the low credit amount you get and lack of fire power

To add to this: Keep your corvette wolf packs moving when you need. If they stay on the bombers, they are a flexible option.

Someone please send this to shack ffs XD

It looks like you also used victories not just the ships you listed

Okay, but how do you calculate the popcap cost to my wrist in dropping one capital ship vs 30 corvettes?

I think more people would use large amounts of corvettes if you could deploy multiple at once, dragging 15+ corvettes into every battle is very tedious

I've only ever played Empire (in like 400 hours of the game) and I always bring like 20 Lancers and pepper them just ahead of my lines. I think I've done this because Empire fighters are worthless and the Lancer is a great counter. Almost never have enemy fighters or bombers in my lines except for the nutcases that decide to flank my missile boats

I don't normally have a ton of anti-fighter corvettes in my fleets, normally around 5, but I do always try to have a good hunk of fighters myself and it seems to work

So In short: bring 40 pop cap of aa in every fleet to seal club cis and rebels.

hey man getting crashes (exception on read access) during space battles on certain planets. (IE Corellia.) Any idea why?

Ah yes science

I know corvettes are important, I just can't be bothered to micro them

Is it possible to include DPS/POP information in FotR and TR?

8:21 where is the art from? I want this as a screen saver legit

So i'm not using it wrong.

When is next hutt video comming out?

I swear my biggest complaint about EaWX and other mods is the stupid amount of ships the ai builds if i see any fleet with more than 5+ ships of any one type i just get annoyed

but corey some people mald an cry when their 5 cr90s die and call the units useless do you expect them to learn?!?! To add to what corey showed without your units given micromanagement and smart comand it makes the battle be much more leveled with the ai's units so it gives a better more controlled showcase of how even a stronger ship to ship fleet gets almost folded by small carriers

After a disappointing display from just two Lancers, I’m going to give them another shot and bring more of them. -Currently playing Awakening of the Rebellion.

This vid is about 2 years later for me. I still remember that time when I played FotR and my fleet was composed of only venators and Victory I & II, the process looked like the battle of coruscant but the results were like the battle of geonosis for CIS. Actually, allow me to call you out, Corey. I'm pretty sure I've seen a stream where you said fighters and bombers don't play such a relevant role. This is all good for min/max fleet composition, but your mods def downplay small craft compared to other mods around. I can only say there should be a way to mass deploy corvettes, doing that by hand can be a handful through repeated battles. Cheers!

Why use corvette when there are massive ships star wars isnt real life we can use big stuff even if fighters will ravage them

Dude I had 16 cr90's in one battle and lost 12 of them and still got bombers coming through. Best thing I found was just spam fighters, fighters, and more fighters.

Wait... so are you trying to tell me that I should use ships other than Star Destroyers? lol

Bold of you to assume i dont know how to use corvettes I am different than you all I play IMPEREAL AND OUR FIGHTERS DONT NEED SUPPORT WE NEED MORE STAR DESTROYERS

And then i go in and modify all your files because I like munificents and think they look neat, Fuck your math. :D the tyranny of maths and builds is what kills every genre of gaming but rts specifically :D

do not care! spamming big ships forever

The only thing you're doing wrong is not playing AOTR

Bro, eawx is a point and click game. Whoever brings the most turbolasers to a fight wins. Tripled if you have a dreadnought. Fighters dont matter, small ships dont matter because they get chewed instantly, regardless of fleet tenders. Go play AOTR

All my homies spam Nebulon Bs for support

Echoing all the others that the most important thing in fleet comping is how much closer to an RSI clicking and dragging them all onto the field brings you. Seriously though, there are a couple of key things that combine well with corvettes to increase their effectiveness: 1. Logistics ships (especially the star galleon). When you're the side with less fighters the ability to keep your fighters alive and in the fight is crucial. Your fighters can then pin down the enemy fighter ball while your corvettes kill it. 2. Fleet positioning. There's no AoE weapons, so stack your fleet close together so your corvettes have flack coverage of most of it and need to move as little as possible. Especially important with lancers because they're so slow. I tend to deploy my fleets in a compact triangle shape: -Tip of the triangle is the heaviest ship in the fleet, usually a Home One Type or Allegiance/Sorannan -All ships small enough not to have hardpoints are stacked in a ball on top of the big ship, at about the midpoint. They're close enough to protect all its hardpoints with flak, but far enough back that the AI will prioritise shooting the big ship. -High defence ships form the next line, slightly to the side and behind the big ship. Typically ISD's or MC80b's/MC90s. -High damage, low defence ships form the third line, behind the second. Typically VSD's or Dauntless/BAC/Nebula. This can typically kill a maxed out fleet on Admiral with little to no losses.