Me, with 1,3K hours in the game reading the title: "Finally, some unknown knowledge"

In this episode: "Wait, it's all modifiers?" *loads purifiers with malicious intent* "Always has been..."

All I know is big gun do big shoot

"Armor is just plating" Actual plating components: Am I a joke to you?

nanites are use in a reasonably rare special component, the nanite repair system, better version of regenerative hull

Forreal someone who plays tall you can have hours and hours into this game, and still have no idea about stuff like this. Thank you ASpec

Who remembers when Starfighters and bombers had an infinite attack range and started a battle once two fleets were in the same system.

I’m too lazy with designing all of my ship types for specific things, so I stick with a balanced lasers and mass drivers and shields and armor, later on I upgrade to kinetic artillery and neutron launchers. Although I do change my setup to counter the crisis

In the endgame, I use almost exclusively battleships and Titans. But my flagship fleet is a Corvette swarm with absolutely monstrous evasion. They basically make a physical wall of cannon fodder while my high DPS just chill in the back

The one thing I really wanted to see more of was fleet composition. You touched on it a bit, but I'd like to see some more in-depth stuff on it

I was avoiding trying to design ships because it seemed too complicated, but now I want to give it a try! Thanks for explaining this! :-)

The engines dictate evasion & speed, the hyperdrive core dictates how long it takes to charge up a jump and wind down a jump between systems.

Honestly, I wish Tactical Ship Sections would get integrated into the game. It adds a lot more variety to corvettes, and in a balanced way. EDIT: Just gonna throw in this from my other comment, in case someone might find it useful. Also, holy crap, senpai noticed me! Personally, I use complementary modifiers in my designs. I.E., make sure each ship has as balanced as possible capabilities, and for any designs that can't be as balanced as possible, put in a counterbalanced design in the same fleet. For instance, mounting phase disruptors, plasma cannons, and autocannons on (some) of my corvettes. Torpedo corvs are also good, and throw in a smattering of the two types of PD (one class of ships with sentinels, and another class with flak). Destroyers, I only use Artillery bows and Picket Ship sterns (again, balancing the PD equally between sentinel and flak). There's no point in any other build, IME. Cruisers...exist. Still haven't found a juicy combo for them, other than diet carriers or swarm missile spamming. Also, its interesting to note that Neutron Launchers, Kinetic Artillery, and Cloud Lightning are all basically L-sized versions of the Tachyon Lances, Giga Cannons, and Focused Arc Emitters, respectively, so you can have scaled-down versions of X sized weapons on your destroyers. I also have one of each of the X weapons in my battleship lineup, and the rest of their weapons are generally either carrier-oriented with plasma/disruptor combos, or go for the Neutron/Kinetic/Lightning combo. Oh, and I always distribute shields/armor/crystal plating equally. I know its not optimal for every specific situation, but I find its good enough, especially if you don't want to have to keep redesigning and switching out your fleets every time you face a different enemy. As for Null Void, but I don't always roll that event, so its not something I find I can rely on in designs, but when I do, I definitely make use of them.

The wonders of... the wonders of... the wonders of....

I feel like you missed mentioning something really crucial in the first part of the video: Accuracy and Evasion/Tracking. While a mass driver does have more damage than a laser, it is also really garbage at actually hitting something with only 75% accuracy. An average early corvette has 60% evasion with average early weapons having 50% tracking. This means that lasers hit 81% of the time while mass drivers hit 67.5% of the time. If you compare the damages now, you'll see that a mass driver will do significantly less average damage than a laser. As a result, I would always advise to have 2 lasers & 1 mass driver equipped on an intercepter. Same goes for defense: Since corvettes excel at evading shots and the best way to hit them is with lasers, one should equip 2 shields and 1 armour module. This doesnt even change that much later in the game, depending on the role of your corvettes. Autocannons are a direct upgrade to mass drivers, hitting harder and more often. Disruptors can be useful in a direct damage fleet.

Thanks, ASpec. I'm currently on my third empire with a record of 2-1 victory to defeat. My second empire I was too aggressive in making my species a very unlikable one to the rest of the galaxy and so I ended up getting attacked left, right and bottom. Currently, I'm cruising to victory on my third empire, just waiting for the victory year to arrive. Though it was really touch and go for awhile when The War In Heaven event started. Poor enemy AI is probably the only thing that saved me early on. But I came out of the war much stronger than when I went in. I will have to say that it was a very fun event. The havoc it created was awesome not to mention that the Unbidden arrived not long after it started which cranked it up the chaos even more. Up until now I had relied upon the auto-best feature for ship builds and had only briefly looked at the ship design screen. I was a bit overwhelmed with just how deep the features of Stellaris are and decided to ignore the ship design feature for awhile. Now armed with the knowledge in this video, I think I'll go back as many save games as I can in the second empire to see if I can salvage that game with better ship design. Thanks for the excellent videos!

FINALLY, been playing since, what, 1.2 and still don't know how lol

Ok, serious comment: My favorite setup is to equip all phase disruptors and get tracking to 90. If that's on corvettes, your ships will now never miss, and will totally ignore shields and armor. I find it to be the best overall, and no opposing fleet setup will put me at a significant disadvantage. I pay by having a bit lower DPS than standard, but I'm also eliminating a good portion of need for that damage.

Don't you hate it when you're fighting the end game crisis at times 25 and your federation sends the worst ships against it and ends up losing your 1.4m fleet

We seriously need a video like this one for 3.0 with ship designs and fleet ratio

yes this was exactly what i was looking for. very well structured video, maybe a short index/overview at the beginning would be a great addition as it not only tells me where to scroll to for the info needed, but also if there even are relevant/new topics :) keep it up, great content

I never knew that extra power = bonus damage. This is why I watch these even after many hours in the game!

My first encounter with the Nanite fleet... Me: Oh cool, I opened the L-Gate! First one in, for my first time with this DLC, I hope there’s interesting content behind this wall! Nanite 36K fleet: I’m gonna pull what’s called a “Pro Gamer move”. Nanite fleet: kills my shiny 30K fleet, one of the strongest in the galaxy in that point of the game. Me: *Breaths in* _Looks like a worthy opponent hath finally made themselves known, EAT PLASMA!_ ^Builds 70K fleet in response^ Nanite fleet: T H E R E C A N B E O N L Y O N E ! Me: *THEN YOU SHALL DIE ALONE.*

17:55 The Nanite-Repair-System (duh) uses nanites

I started playing with a couple friends recently, this tutorial has been proving itslef super helpful so far :D

Thanks for making this! Even when im playing (4 playthroughs so far), i have some doubts lol

Thank you ASpec for the video!

This was exactly what I need to know. Thank you for making this.

As a beginner thank you for these videos. I'm definitely going to be referring this video over and over while im trying to wrap my head around the mechanics of this game. A toc with time stamps regarding the topics you're covering would be amazing. It'd be nice to be able to jump to a specific topic once I reach that point in my game play.

Thank you, this was very informative

I like to use 1 titan per fleet (carrier/swiss army knife loadout), A few cruisers (carrier/swiss army knife loadout) and a lot of destroyers to protect the bigger, more important ships (point defense/swiss army knife loadout)

Note: ftl drives only reduce the amount of time in travel between systems, as you need half a month of flat base time to start a jump. The maximal level reduces said jump time by 80%. It doesn't make it faster inside a system, and actually normal thrusters are more important tbh by increasing sunlight speed, especially on late game ships which are rather slow

Thanks your vid's are always a treat.

Awesome guide! Thanks dude!

That was great ! 0 criticism. I'd like to see a video discussing common builds for each ship like you touched on here. Like, what are cruisers used for? Are there certain techs that give a massive power spike? Ive played on and off for years but ive only just gained enough knowledge to say ive cracked the game to a point where i know what im doing but ship designs are my biggest weakness.

Thanks, ASpec!

Balance and Defined Role have been my guiding principles for the last three years of game play. One of my biggest gripes to the developers is their is no missile bow or stern for destroyer class vessels in the game. I use this class as my primary combatants for the mid-game.

i was really proud of my 50k late game fleet but ok, i’ll just go cry in a corner

Auxiliary slots are available on every ship, just that bigger ships after the destroyer have more

I was hoping for a video that goes into more detail about the weapon types. For example the Energy Siphon or Null Void Beam vs the mass driver, what is better against an enemy with shields and armor (of course in combination with a Laser or Plasma Launcher).

I feel you missed the most important part of the Video which in my opinion is Comparison of the non-standard weaponry to lasers and kinetics. I can read the boni myself but i have no Idea if a lvl 3 disruptor or a stormfire cannon are superior to a lvl 5 laser/cannon mix. Are they balanced overall, or is there a right choice against standard AI mixed shield/armor combos?

For cruisers and destroyers I usually have a medium or large slot mass driver then with multiple small lasers or plasma for up close. The idea is that the longer range of the kinetic weapons take down shields at a distance then the lasers burn through the armor once the distance is closed.

Knowing your enemy, esp. in a multi-player game, is very important. On the other hand if you're playing vs. the AI you can usually get by with a balanced set of kinetics + energy. Starting with Mass Accelerators + Lasers ; graduation to better Mass Accelerators + Plasma ; Battleships with Tachyon Lance + 2 Neutron Launchers + 2 Kinetic Artillery works well against most Cruisers & Battleships. If you're ONLY worried about Fallen / Awakened Empires or Crisis going "bypass" with Arc Emitters, Cloud Lightning, Disruptors, and maybe a hangar here & there is plenty fine.

Love the video and if you make a video on the Juggernaut can you talk a bit about how to use it? For me it always seems to be too slow for any engagement to say get to range buff, also if I set my fleets to follow it the ships won't jump with it. Idk I'm probably just doing it wrong lol

To give context from my experience: I typically run just 3 Mass Drivers. In fact, I usually run exclusively kinetic weapons, simply for the raw damage and the absurd range, especially, with the kinetic artillery. Sure, I'm missing out on dealing damage to hull and armor, but so far? I've yet to encounter a problem. Sure, I've not faced a endgame crisis with the new updates yet, but with my build setup? Pure Kinetic has not hindered me, even against an awakened empire. When I play Stellaris, I typically have a minimum of 4 fleets (slowly building up to them of course). One Fleet a corvette fleet. In my experience so far, I've had better wins and ship survival rates with the interceptor build with 3 kinetic weapons, or the picket with PD and kinetic weapons. When say, I swapped to using weapons such as the plasma throwers and the ones that deal 100%-200% shield damage, I've lost more corvettes than before. I then have a Destroyer Fleet, with eventually a Titan with it. The Destroyers before the updates... well... long story short, before the updates, I've outright stopped building corvettes and just destroyers, Cruisers, and Battleships. And then? My destroyers were either Pickets, or artillery. My Cruisers depending on the situation, switched roles as well between pickets and artillery. Now after the updates? Well... with my mass of fking kinetic artillery, I've no need for PD to take out fighters or missiles/torps, since the enemy fleet dies before it gets in range... even so, before the missiles/torps can actually do any significant damage. Since the updates, my once versatile Destroyers have become pure artillery. My Cruisers? Same deal: Artillery. Before the updates, I've build battleships with hangars and artillery... nowadays after the updates, I've no need of hangars... since the enemies die before the fighters leave the bays anyway (if I compared to the artillery only builds I use). Before the updates, I used to utilize torps. Now? Kinetic all the way... :/ no need for explosives. When it came to winning battles? At first I had my corvette fleet follow my battleship fleet, but now I label them as "interceptors" for obvious reasons, since battleships are slow af. Then I adopted building defense fleets, of only battleships. With their kinetic powers, enemies typically die before they get in range. Sure, I lose a couple of battleships, but at that point when I have a maxed fleet of corvettes, destroyers, cruisers and battleships? If I have an extra two fleets of battleships named "defense fleet" then I've got plenty of income to replace the damn things when they do die. Also considering the fact that, once I get my first 4 fleets, I just end up building more battleship fleets, and if possible, with Titians as well. How do I win my battles? If anyone knows the game StarCraft, then you might be familiar how powerful a mass of flying Protoss ships can be, especially if they're void rays. In short? My destroyers, and my cruisers follow my battleship fleet. Any more fleets of battleships I make, I make them follow the first battleship fleet I created. Thus... I've got 3+ fleets following one fleet. Destroyers soak up damage? No problem, spares the costs of repairing/replacing the more expensive ships. Cruisers soak of damage? The enemy fleet usually dies before I lose 1, and no way in heck have I lost a battleship yet with this method, for obvious reasons. I've yet to fight a crisis, though perhaps, that'd be my next goal. :D

Lasers are better than mass drivers for two reasons, one lasers are in the physics science tree, so you can research their upgrade early, as there are few must have techs in that tree, while the technical tree is rich with early game must have techs. Two, starbases have MUCH more armor than shields. A weapon with a nerf against armor is going to underperform when attacking enemy starbases. In early game, corvettes with 3x lasers perform well both against enemy corvettes as well as starbases.

A radar of higher level also increases tracking and/or hit chance. So it has a direct combat function as well

Excellent overview , seems to be obvious but linked together everything is helpfull

My vid' of the week

Personally, I use complementary modifiers in my designs. I.E., make sure each ship has as balanced as possible capabilities, and for any designs that can't be as balanced as possible, put in a counterbalanced design in the same fleet. For instance, mounting phase disruptors, plasma cannons, and autocannons on (some) of my corvettes. Torpedo corvs are also good, and throw in a smattering of the two types of PD (one class of ships with sentinels, and another class with flak). Destroyers, I only use Artillery bows and Picket Ship sterns (again, balancing the PD equally between sentinel and flak). There's no point in any other build, IME. Cruisers...exist. Still haven't found a juicy combo for them, other than diet carriers or swarm missile spamming. Also, its interesting to note that Neutron Launchers, Kinetic Artillery, and Cloud Lightning are all basically L-sized versions of the Tachyon Lances, Giga Cannons, and Focused Arc Emitters, respectively, so you can have scaled-down versions of X sized weapons on your destroyers. I also have one of each of the X weapons in my battleship lineup, and the rest of their weapons are generally either carrier-oriented with plasma/disruptor combos, or go for the Neutron/Kinetic/Lightning combo. Oh, and I always distribute shields/armor/crystal plating equally. I know its not optimal for every specific situation, but I find its good enough, especially if you don't want to have to keep redesigning and switching out your fleets every time you face a different enemy. EDIT: I almost forgot about Null Void, but I don't always roll that event, so its not something I find I can rely on in designs, but when I do, I definitely make use of them.

Very informative

Aspec when someone uses lasers against an all shield fleet: you're gonna have a bad time Sans in the background: *Laughs in megalovania*

God I love the Machine Shipset, it's amazing

Sometimes I think what the fusion bettween ASpec and alathrics(I think that is how lathland owner's name is spelled) would be like. I usually end up in something that is a god in stellaris and the perfect male voice.

Always going full energy weapon since they save engineering slots.

I got a question though.. (and skimmed through the comments section for this) why aren't you using the "Auto-upgrade" tick box? As this will allow your designs to upgrade with every new research you do if it applies to a mounted module, so no need to revisit everytime you have a certain research done. It then also gives you an indication in the overview panel when a fleet has ships that have upgrades waiting. Or don't you do this to keep the costs of designs in check?

Good video... my only complaint on Stellaris (very minor) is that they should have put a small text describing the use of each sections... most are self-explanatory, sure, but it still took me a while to understand the role of the Broadsides... Now I suppose it should be time for a video on the best fleet composition?

Actually, I believe it's better to have lasers than mass drivers. For one, most have better accuracy/tracking, and I'm talking about energy weapons in general here. For the other part, stations have marginal amounts of shield but lots of armor and hull. And one mass driver might as well be enough against shields

What' I've learned from my short time playing this game: it's always better to specialize rather than generalize. I went shields and energy weapons, and absolutely destroyed pretty much every other AI player. Later on in the game I noticed another larger empire had more advanced kinetic weapons so I invested in armor and ballistics and made more ships that specialized in having lots of armor and really powerful kinetic weapons. Rather than having ships that generalize, make mixed fleets with ships that specialize in different things. That's just from my experience. I feel like they perform better.

I’m looking to make artillery or long range platform. Thanks for tips.

What about fleet composition and strategies? Things like not mixing up your battleships with your corvets, alpha strikes, stances, admiral skills etc. Also, do you recommend using any mods to improve the AI?

I just build battleships with tachyon lance, 3 kinetic artillery and a neutron launchers. Also I always use the advanced afterburner in both slots, I like my ships fast so I can chase enemies and run away too. By strategically positioning my fleets I have won many fights that I would not normally have. I use NSC2 most of the time now though so my fleets are mostly Titans and dreadnoughts but when I don't use NSC2 I spam battleships like that. When I know I am fighting a strong enemy I specialize the design like for fallen/awakened empires and the crisis. This has worked for me for 650 hours so far

When the SW mod comes out, any chance of a video about the ships in the mod? Apparently they're overhauling the whole system

Now with that knowledge, I love this game much more than past

Could you make an in depth explanation of the battle system? There are a lot of people out here who don't understand how the different systems really work best against each other. if a weapon for example circumvents armor, do I need a second one which destroys armor or would an enemy ship still be killed if just the hull points are gone? Such a vid would be great. Thanks.

If you keep stacking evasion well past the 90% cap, does that reduce the effectiveness of tracking to reduce it?

I like to go for null void beams and plasma cannons or autocannons with missiles.

Machine ships remind me of B5 Earth's destroyers.

Null Voidbeams + Plasma/Proton Torpedoes melts almost everthing from my experience

Is just bought this game for console. It’s is insane I can’t believe it exists I can’t stop playing it ever lol

1:36 “Your gonna have a bad time.” SSSSAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNSSS!!!!

I like "challenge anyone" types of fleets that can survive multiple engagements with minimal loses. I really don't like having to constantly refit my fleets before every war, with that said over multiple games and difficulties I've developed the following; by end game my fleets consist of... 20 Corvettes: 1 point defense 2 auto cannons 1 armor 2 shields -regenerative hull 20 Destroyers: 1 M rail gun 2 S plasma 2 flak cannon Equal armor and shields -regenerative hull 20 Battleships 1 giga cannon 4 Neutron Launchers Equal armor and shields -regenerative hull and targeting computer 1 Titan 1 perdition beam (obviously) 6 Neutron Launchers Equal armor and shields -regenerative hull and targeting computers This composition has no specific strengths or weaknesses and is a credible threat to anything it comes across. 20 point defense and 40 flak is enough to no sell anything but a dedicated missile or carrier fleet and the Alpha strike from the battleships is brutal. The gauss cannons, giga cannons, and auto cannons strip shields and eat hulls and the plasma and neutron launchers tear right through armor and hulls. I've challenged up to Awakened Empires on multiple difficulties and reliably won with this combination. The only time I spec out a fleet is against the crisis on higher difficulties.

Nanites can be used to build a healing module that is much better than the default one.

If just we can have lets say 2 different style of corvette that will be nice tbh. I always try to make an anti air focused destroyer, and the missile focused one. But when i press upgrade where i want to upgrade my Cruiser, the corvette ended up using only one design.

I'm not so sure about lategame corvettes, in my experience they just get completely dumpstered by strike craft because they have 100% tracking. They still need to close the gap on something like, say, battleships and if they run PD, they lack the firepower to really scratch the paint on a battleship.

Good explanation, but I'm still a bit confused about some weapon types. In what case would one use plasma throwers or phasers? They appear to be incredibly weak compared to lasers or mass drivers

I'm learnding.

My design philosophy: Needs more Daka. If I’m running a race of Hive mind Mushrooms and my diplomacy policy is “I can protect you or destroy you if you refuse my offer” then I need to back that up

Are you sure about that strike craft and missiles bit? I swear T3 fighters always go for missiles and other strike craft first. I've also noticed that using "Artillery" AI isn't very useful when you get to large weapons like Mega Cannons and Proton Launchers, and especially with size X weapons (lances, giga-cannon) as the ships move in way closer than necessary. When I get to that level of tech, all my battleships are pretty much set to "carrier" AI just to keep them from charging into the enemy.

I wish Stellaris had Stardrive's ship design, or that there was a mod for it, I loved that aspect of that game. But in every other way I prefer Stellaris, and it actually has support behind it.

With all things going on in realtime (playing with a friend) I haven't had much time concerning myself with tech. I didn't even know they have alloy upkeep... I just went: they have power 900 - I have power 1000... must be good... I guess I will invest time to refit my ships and not go into a fight blindly.

When are you going to do another stellar is KZfaq war season 1 and 2 where amazing season 3

This is more of a "Ship Designer Interface 101" than "Ship Design 101" tbh...

Read the descriptions? I was elected to lead, not to read. AUTO COMPLETE!

Aspec plsss do some kind of short tutorials.

Okay so this is gonna be heretic talk right here but GO FULL LASER. I've used a build I've refined from my first games on, it has never disappointed. Start with lasers S M L, rush neutron launchers and switch to that (the raw dmg, precision, range and immediacy of hits is what you're after), gradually build only L-equipped ships until you can get the battleships. Equip them with tachyon lances first, then switch to arc emitters asap. Do you best to acquire every possible source of range bonus, maximize accuracy (2 auxiliary fire-controls) and boost up tracking as much as you can. With everything (and a bit of luck) you'll reach 50+, enough to deal even with corvettes (titan buff, tachyon sensors, enigmatic decoder if RNGesus's on your side, etc.). Then, with a Juggernaut and its buff, you can snipe entire fleets and stations the moment you enter a system, but above all, before said fleet can even get in range to retaliate. Focus your tech on energy weapons firerate and you'll get more salvos in before the enemy can even engage. Keep up with energy damage too to get the most out of neutron launchers for these times when things go up close and personal, and to maximize the first arc emitters volleys' casualties. For your defense: only shield and hull, no armor. Headhunt for admirals that boost hull points (Unyielding) and/or range too (Cautious), with battleships you'll get the most out of these percentages. Corvettes won't do enough dmg to take you down, capital ships won't even be allowed to reach you. When you're nearing (very) late game, if your tech's solid, you can even switch to full bypassing L weaponry (cloud lightning). Since energy damage tech scales but hull doesn't, they'll get progressively more efficient than even neutron launchers. How much more so will depend on your research output. 1 titan each fleet for the buff, all battleships, 1 juggernaut that accompanies your main strike force, get on and steamroll.

Any chance we could get a video for achievement friendly mods?

(Bintana) Ganito na ba? Ito na ba ang aking katapusan? Ibinuwis ko ang aking buhay sa isang hating kastila? Mga kastila, sila ang may kasalanan sa lahat. Ngunit isa ring kastila ang lumigtas sa akin, at siya ring aking niligtas sa aking utang na loob. Isang kastilang bulag sa kanyang mga kaaway, isang kastilang paniniwala na edukasyon ang makakapalaya sa amin. Ako na ba ay nabiliw? Sa bagay, parehas nga kami ni Sisa sa aming pinagdaanan. Mahirap kami at nawalan ng mga mahal sa buhay sa kamay ng Espanya. Noong tumakas ako kasama ang aking ama at kapatid, hindi nagtagal bago namatay ang aking ama, sumunod pa ang pagkawala at pagkalunod ng aking kapatid na babae sa Laguna. Talagang sinumpa ako ng trahedya. Noong nagtungo ako sa San Diego, guminhawa ba ang buhay ko roon? Ako ay naging piloto ng bangka ngunit nasa paa pa rin ako ng mga espanyol. Buhay ko’y biglang nagbago noong ako’y muntikang mamatay muli nang ako ay tumalon upang patayin ang buwaya na umuubos ng mga huli. Salamat na lamang iniligtas ako ni Crisostomo. Simula noon ako ay naging kanyang tagababala. Isang malaking utang na loob ang aking binabayaran. Magkaiba man kami ng pagiisip, hindi kakayahin ng konsensya ko makita siya maging bulag na lamang sa kanyang mga kaaway kagaya ng kanyang ama, kanyang ama na tanging may kasalanan sa lahat ng aking mga malas sa buhay. Marahas man ang aking pamamaraan upang matamo ang kalayaan ng bayan, hinding hindi ko siya mapapatay. Maraming beses na ako namatay noon at muling nabuhay, subalit, ngayon, hindi ako ang mabubuhay, sapagkat ang aking bayan, ang aking lupang sinilangan, ang mabubuhay. (Noli me Tangere scene) Manong! Ano po nangyari sa inyo? Iho, sa punong iyon ika’y maghukay. Sapagkat sa ilalim aking ibinaon ang marining kayamanan, gamitin mo ito para sa iyong ikakabuti, pangako mo ito akin. Opo, manong. (Bintana ulit) At, sa aking kamatayan, pangarap na buhayin ang aking bayan aking matatamo. Aking pamilya, aking mahihiganti. Subalit, (tingin sa camera??) Mamamatay ako ng hindi nasisilayan ang pagsapit ng bukang liwayway sa bayan

Video request: How to not get rushed as Inward perfection vs grand admiral + high aggression

Maybe now I can find out why my larger ships like battleships only do 1/10th the damage of an AI vessel with identical armament//equipment. Lopsided RESEARCH disparity maybe? Meaning they are Superior+ to me. The rest of their ships are typically on par though but I've had fleets that outnumber them 10 to 1...fail even when the total Fleet Power of both are similar. Mind the fact this is vs NORMAL empire fleets which end up with FPs similar to some FEs.

I understand the necessary laser vs mass and shield vs hull build based on enemy type, but how do you ascertain your enemy's shipbuilding type?

13:27 now from THERE... i mean from there

Are you going to go back to the game you started with this series and finish it?

Can it support attack craft? If not, use it against corvetts and destroyers until you get something that can.

Sounds like you have some digital clipping / distortion on your mic recording

I'm a big fan of loading up my fleets with missiles, phase distruptors, cloud lightning, and arc emitters. Just bypass that hole shield and armor nonsense!

Something important that is actually incorrect: Around 27:30 you mention scout wings are the only craft that perform PD, but it’s actually all Strike Craft. You will be seriously handicapping yourself if you use scout wings when you have access to high tier Strike Craft. However, this may be confused for what has been discovered as a bug in Stellaris, where missiles are seldom targeted by PD if there are enemy Strike Craft present.: forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/stellaris-strike-craft-in-combat-causes-enemy-point-defense-to-fail-to-target-missiles.1364570/ Even then though, Strike Craft will definitely target enemy Strike Craft.

Is this updated for 2.8? Little late since NEMESIS is almost here, but I'm curious

What does the positioning value in combat computers do?

Question, is 100% armor & shield pen viable? Just straight damage to the hull, is it?