Stellaris 3.3 Weapons & Defences Tier List

[@CymbalXL]

I want to see a meme build where you deliberately make the worst species and empire possible. It would be fun watching you try to win with pure F tier stuff.

[@wolfhunter98]

Only point defense lol

[@ferrox8421]

I did that at one point, and it was not even too bad in the end. I still managed to kill the 5x crisis

[@MugwumptheGrand]

Does only using auto-designed ships count?

[@wolfhunter98]

@@MugwumptheGrand I'd have to go with no, auto might make better ones. Hah.

[@thewarhunter5400]

My corvets Are always 3 disturbers with afterburners and 3 armor. And they remove any fleet it meets with almost no losses

[@Monique-iz8lp]

Important note: Make sure you actually have enough weapon range before you put an artillery computer on something. I still remember watching my fleet die of embarrassment as they got picked apart by strike craft while staying too far away to fire their own weapons.

[@alexandererhard2516]

Oh no...

[@alexnorth2452]

If you think that was bad, in one of my old games, I had a carrier cruiser fleet for rapid response, worked pretty great, but ended up redesigning them into general gunboats later on, forgot 1 key thing though and that was swapping the computer off of carrier, fast forward 30 years, my colossus made a nuisance of itself and I'm in a war with half the galaxy, sent them to take on a station a 5th of their fleet power and got side tracked keeping my main fleets moving to intercept the incoming fleets, fast forward again a few months, and I finally noticed the cruisers were still in combat, of the 50+, 3 were left, sitting idle at range while the station pinged them with missiles

[@aishvetorah5704]

@@alexnorth2452 bruhhh lmao

[@LukasJampen]

@@alexnorth2452 yeah I feel that. In my first game when I unlocked cruisers I tried different setups. Had a mixed fleet of carriers and small weapon ships for defence. Worked well against an enemy with almost exclusively corvets. Then when I won that war I wanted to turn the small weapons into artillery with the carriers against missile and strike craft. I didn't swith combat computer from close range to artillery so they flew into the middle of the enemy while the carriers where sitting at long range.

[@mackenziebeeney3764]

Yeah only use that if you have weapon ranges longer than the stand-off distance.

[@MyRedHulk]

I use the carrier combat computers on my Titans and Juggernaut. Not only does it allow my fleets to engage from farther away, stopping enemy fleets from escaping, letting my strike craft spawn sooner, but it prevents them from charging ahead of the battleships and getting destroyed.

[@TheLoneTerran]

Good idea, those captains tend to yolo to the front.

[@thedeadrer1]

This is why I would put the carrier combat computer in c tier and not the f tier at a minimum, as carriers need to stay in the back and keeping your titans and juggernaut back to keep their bonuses up is also worth investigating.

[@magisterrleth3129]

@@thedeadrer1 Having at least one ship with a carrier combat computer is a must. Titan is a great choice, it's damage output is low enough that I don't think missing the RoF buff really hurts. I do that, and put artillery combat computers on my battle carriers. Side note, before I have Titans, I make a full-carrier battleship design as the flagship class.

[@kjj26k]

@@magisterrleth3129 That's what I do too!

[@MrMarinus18]

I usually have a battleship fleet made up of 10% carriers with the carrier combat computer, 30% with carrier but also guns and lighter weapons and 60% all big gun.

[@nasior7546]

One of my biggest gripes with Stellaris, for 6 years game we still have luckluster amount of components/weapons, I'm hoping sooner or later they will do big expansion that will focus on revamping the fleets and whole combat, luckily we have mods for that, but as always the official content is better :)

[@blitz3391]

Thanks the mods for this :) They got you covered.

[@thomaslacroix6011]

Personally, I play Stellaris a lot more for the world-building than the ship warfare, but I wouldn't spit on, let's say, more rare weapons and defences that shake up the meta each game.

[@Darlf_Sevil]

mod is mod they have everything but is not change base game need it and mod not ever work good i play now system and ship scall and cant use wewpon mods bcs scall work on base game weapon and not on others mods

[@Darlf_Sevil]

@@blitz3391 and mods 99% give to much like you want weapons so they give you buldings to build nanits and is destroy balance or dont work in your language

[@lefty59th18]

Good point! Which mods do you prefer? Elaborate - aren't some of them OP? How do you differentiate which one ruins the game?

[@gallyxinioch2102]

I wish devs would give us alternatives to Perdition Beam, feels bad when you have only one choice of huge weapon on your Titans with no variability at all

[@evan316]

Especially for people who like to roleplay what weapons they use, my empire that doesnt use lasers still wants a titan weapon:(

[@Fae-Fey]

Well on paper PB is a single shot weapon so a variation of it might be redundant. Perhaps an exterminatus-like beam for planet siege?

[@MrJustonemorevoice]

I also wish to make a "Compensator" class Titan with a giant kinetic cannon mounted to the front.

[@LNSLateNightSaturday]

@@MrJustonemorevoice lol "Compensator" class

[@mq5731]

You guys don’t have Titanic Lunar batteries?

[@Sanvone]

I really like afterburners because sublight speed contributes hugely to travel speed. So not only you can decide if you will engage or not but also moving across galaxy is quicker which means that fleet can do more for the same cost.

[@robertdavenport7802]

That's my take as well. Fleet speed is a power multiplier in offensive operations. Combined with regenerative armor, you can be much more aggressive.

[@porcuspine2368]

Hyper Relays in overlord are going to make this less meaningful, too.

[@justinowens2077]

exactly, I consider them absolutely essential for every single ship I field, they move so much faster in wars

[@mackenziebeeney3764]

Same. I usually design my fleets around the max speed I can push my battleships to. So titans and battleships will have advanced engines and afterburners and lighter ships usually won’t need afterburners to keep up. I might even downgrade the engines if I wanna cut out some cost.

[@bluesnail5042]

@@porcuspine2368 Only within friendly territory

[@jimmycarburator2012]

the Null void beam is great for dealing with the Unbidden actually, you can snipe their shields down across the system, it actually saved me on one of my playthroughs

[@calvinmirandamoritz4507]

yeah what tier lists do is they flatten the entire experience down to numbers, when obviously the main and almost only point of a game like Stellaris is infinite replayability. Some games Null void beam will be mid-to-pointless but as you rightfully point out, they can save your goddam ass or absolutely wrech an enemy

[@ramezhachicho1777]

@@calvinmirandamoritz4507 I've also had some success with combined arms fleets. I don't play on high difficulty so grain of salt. But even late game I often take a small platoon of corvettes and destroyers set to swarm and kitted out with null void beams and super high evasion. At this point in the game the enemy has mostly shifted to large weapons and ships so they have a lot of trouble targeting these fast little buggers, they waste a lot of shots on them and meanwhile they are raking those shields down. And when the shields go down my battleships go to town hehehe.

[@calvinmirandamoritz4507]

@@ramezhachicho1777 That's exactly what I mean, there are so many ways to play this and so many variables, roleplay being a big one;

[@eyeball6793]

Null beam in theory can out compete kinetic artillery as it is much easier to research energy weapon bonuses versus kinetic but generally kinetic is a better choice

[@ViirinSoftworks]

Yep, Null Void is the best possible weapon, and you're most likely never going to see it in most saves. Null Void & Flak on a corvette swarm means the enemy will have no fighters, no shield, and no missiles. Destroyer swarm is the one with the actual weapons- corvettes are just to disarm and soften.

[@joshuapearl6507]

The worst part about the automatic ship building feature is that the game AI seems to heavily favour Disrupters. Making it really annoying for newer players. When I first started I was confused when my fleet power went down from upgrading my fleet, only to find out the game had added lots of Distrupters to my build.

[@Elyseon]

How about the AI adding upgrades that require special resources you don't have?

[@svartrbrisingr6141]

this. its always confused me how ill turn off automatic ship building and the game will auto upgrade my ships anyway. like just keep them as they are until i go in and build what i want. doubly so since im a roleplayer. ill build mutliple ships of the same class for different uses. like a realistic space empire would have. just to bad i cant build boarding craft to steal ships.

[@veryoriginalname2515]

​@@svartrbrisingr6141 theres a second check in the bottom right of the ship designer menu named "turn on auto-upgrade", have you tried clicking on it?

[@Alpheamus]

​@@Elyseon this is the exact thing that's become a huge problem for me in my latest playthrough

[@infostorm618]

Disruptors are great in defense stations places around LGates. When ships appears they are immediately in range.

[@lukefreeman828]

yup! but only as long as the attacking fleet is coming through a gate and not the edge of the system lol

[@Fae-Fey]

How do you get your stations to engage enemy fleets? In my game, they entered lgates and blink without getting attacked

[@roleplayeranonyme3115]

@@Fae-Fey Install a FTL blocker (The thing that add a "U" to the system), it will stop them from using hyperlane to flee and as such force them to attack the starbase

[@Stforv]

Disruptors are still perfectly imbalanced when used on mass corvette fleets=)

[@Rafael_Fuchs]

@@Stforv That's how I cheese down a problem fallen empire in the early-ish game. Cristal plated, loaded with disruptors, and spam those meme ships till I'm broke and way over my fleet cap. Lol

[@jamesalexandergallagher7822]

It just occurred to me that the cool down of the weapons is measure in days. Like a 7 second cool down weapon takes a week to load and fire again. That's a funny detail to me.

[@TheLostDefender]

It's also comical that jumping to light speed takes DAYS to align

[@Peoplecallmesir]

Imagine a mid-game scientist being hired at 25, put on a science ship, and they have to travel the galaxy, risking their life against space dragons and rock aliens, with no vacation or break, for the next 175 years☠️☠️

[@ultratheman]

it also takes multiple weeks for a weapon to fire, travel across a system, and then miss a target due to being unlucky

[@elrusito5034]

​@@ultratheman >be fleet >spend 2 years traveling to the front line >engage the enemy starbase >spend 5 months fighting >miss every missile >outstanding defeat

[@gregtuff4020]

So this explains why none of your ship designs have PD. I usually put point defense on my destroyers.

[@MontuPlays]

I think I mention it in my Destroyer design video too, but yes, this is why they never have PD

[@jpheitman1]

Original comment: 2 hours ago Montu's reply: 3 hours ago ??? CAUSALITY VIOLATION CONFIRMED

[@gustavpezka1496]

@@jpheitman1WHAT WAS WILL BE

[@dbzfanexwarbrady]

@@gustavpezka1496 WHAT WILL BE WAS

[@dumbidiot5584]

@@dbzfanexwarbrady WHAT WAS WILL BE

[@CrazyVolus]

-Afterburners I suspect will be largely obselete w/ the overlord expansion with the introduction of Hyper Relays -Strike Craft are also very good at clearing fortifications w/ the exception of Ion Cannons, also if the targets are spread out you get the 'dance of the strike craft' where your strike craft fly back and forth between targets doing little damage while they destroy your fleet. Particularly noticable when clearing Marauder systems

[@tanker00v25]

Afterburners on Corvettes or destroyers still increase evasion. Which is the main reason to use them in the first place

[@jamesbaxter5147]

Also, Afterburners do serve a purpose for combat, as you still have to move to a system’s Star-base to take it, and still have to move into a system to attack an enemy fleet. For those situations, movement speed is very useful.

[@shieldmate7444]

I always put afterburners on my battleships and titans so they don't slow down the rest of the fleet, sublight speed is a very important stat and still will be after overlord in the enemy territory.

[@WarleaderCoplann]

@@shieldmate7444 same. speed wins wars.

[@mackenziebeeney3764]

@@shieldmate7444 yeah hyper relays help avoid inter system travel in a manner similar to gateways, but you still need to move at sun light speed in enemy territory and catching enemy fleets is important.

[@gryphonsandspears1632]

I'll be honest the only thing that would make me excited for a stellaris 2 is that they could build the combat and ship designers from the ground up and expand on it. I would love a massive dlc for it now but they've talked about how it would require a lot of work that might not be worth it and that's unfortunate. I'd love more variety in ship design, more weapons, more defenses and modules. That and an expansion of the combat systems would be phenomenal

[@smokinggnu6584]

New Ship Classes 2.0 and Extra Ship Components NEXT, if mods are not out of the question for you.

[@james_90]

Space battles but land battles too.

[@BXot]

If they do I hope we get an X slot missile weapon.

[@Ackalan]

Add the "Better Combat" mod.

[@cosmictreason2242]

Yeah the simple “who has the most army units?” head to head was a little lackluster. Would be nice if you could hold ground better with defensive army emplacements

[@raideurng2508]

The question would be if you're trying to maximize your energy weapon output, you'll always be fitting lances anyways because they'll be upgraded further than mega cannons. Why would you ever try to tech both paths? Also, I'd like to hear your take on sapient vs precog computers....

[@MontuPlays]

The difference between sapient and psionic combat computers is minimal and both have merits in certain situations. I didnt feel it would worth including them because of that. The difference between a picket and line combat computer is wider than sapient and psionic. I would try to tech both paths most of the time, kinetic and energy. However. I would not bother researching any missile technology so the missile repeatables don't come up. It is pretty balanced then

[@a0point0of0view1]

precog is going to get a big buff in overlord with that Scholarium science ship massively debuffs ships with sapient computers

[@SummitFourtyOne]

My main gripe with your titan video is the same as this one. Titans become much more survivable with the carrier combat computer. It keeps them in the back of the fleet and allows battleships to soak up the damage first.

[@TheNN]

*TFW Montu completely trashes your favorite builds on Stellaris because every part you use is F or C-tier* (Which said build is: Energy weps with balanced mixes of shields/armor)

[@selwrynn6702]

I always put afterburners on my cruiser fleets because I need them to catch enemy corvette/destroyer fleets, I just like to go fast.

[@Foil09]

Same, I put afterburners on battleships and titans as well just for the +sublightspeed it gives. I enjoy the tactical advantage of having my ships get to wherever they need to be more quickly, and you can always make up for the slight loss in fleet power on the individual ship by simply building more ships.

[@ДмитрийКотусев-е6х]

Agree. Very often the ability to move your fleets faster than your opponent can help to win the war actually.

[@tyronelannister9922]

My modded titans have 6 slots for afterburners, 400 sped titan is scary as shit

[@ImAdonai]

@@Foil09 Absolutely agree. Tactical advantage of being able to pick your fights and deploy your ships to new locations faster is absolutely worth the cost of 5 accuracy and maybe 5 tracking. You're most likely going to go with artillery only anyway (maybe carriers if you're going against corvettes), you're probably going to one shot most starbases anyway, and with 2x afterburners you add +20% to your speed if you have T4 thrusters and rapid deployment and +16% if you have T5 (dark matter) thrusters and rapid deployment. High evasion ships should be dealt with by carriers anyway, and being able to conquer 20%-16% more systems, outrun stronger ships or catch up to fleeing ships and overall have better experience of not having to wait until your fleets get in position as long is absolutely worth it. +10 accuracy and +10 tracking might help you win a fight, but 2x afterburners will help you win a war and retain sanity, which is something no other components can do. Increase of evasion is just 2.2% - 2.6%, which is very much next to useless and translates to ~3% less hits from 100% accuracy 0% tracking weapons, but hey, it's something.

[@jwfcp]

Yep, I didn't even realize there was evasion on them, they're just there to reduce the overall "loading time" of a won war reaching its inevitable conclusion.

[@dcurdov]

“Orbital trash compactors are bad” *yes but they’re funny*

[@tanker00v25]

SS tier

[@gorantev]

They'd be much more useful if they at least doubled/tripled the damage of Flak cannons. It'd be appropriate too in my opinion, as the very point of flak cannons is to fill the space with so much debris that enemy strike crafts and small to medium ships will have trouble getting close enough to do massive damage.

[@Ackalan]

As someone who plays on 1'5k-2'5k star maps and have to routinely clean out the Scourge from half the galaxy, you're talking shit. I don't want my main fleets being tied down cleaning out space snot-balls, so the fewer actual combat fleets I have to dedicate to that, the better.

[@chrisbalint2662]

They're actually super handy for barbaric despoilers/people using nihilistic acquisition. The faster you devastate a planet the faster you can start scooping up slaves.

[@tanker00v25]

@@chrisbalint2662 that's actually a pretty good point

[@Kaiser282]

Photon torpedoes being an energy weapon and not a torpedo tilts me so hard. Also the fact PD/Flak is useless is also irritating.

[@Ackalan]

It's not useless, it's the fact people don't get critical mass of them to be effective. And the fact that the AI can't properly build ships.

[@cosmictreason2242]

@@Ackalan that’s bad news for me cause I couldn’t figure out how to build them either

[@Ackalan]

@@cosmictreason2242 Effective PD is easy, but it's even easier if you have some mod that make the AI use different weapon types, and you have more ship segments to chose from, but an easy example is a siege ship with long range missiles (usually a destroyer) and a few PD combined with an artillery computer, two or three of these in a group can deal with almost any starbase with 0 losses due to its capability to shoot down the enemy missiles. The Prethoryn swarm is also a good target for PD and Flack, have enough will mean that about 70% of the enemies firepower won't even reach your ships, it's a great way to protect yourself.

[@EyeOfMagnus4E201]

Just like the energy siphon is like a tier 0 auto cannon, the mining laser seems like a predecessor to plasma weapons, at least in the way it’s particularly weak against shields but powerful against armor and hull.

[@parallellia1509]

Wohoo ! So far I tried to listen to your advices and my own ideas in Stellaris while designing my ships, this guide will be helpful for my Universal Union save.

[@TheLordofFury]

made it through most of the vid so far sir, i like how much detail you go into about your opinions, helps me understand things better

[@larentoun8927]

Regenerative hull tissue heals ships which weren't damaged in N days, I believe. I think I saw ships healing in combat because they weren't hit, and certainly have seen disengaged ships heal! Press the Attack!

[@jaredpierce8477]

Ships are absolutely healing in combat.

[@Hamji]

When I see your videos all I can think if is "players will find a way to optimize the fun out if a game"

[@ChazCharlie1]

I think this table was a flawed way of showing the tiers. A graph of tier versus time would have been much better. For example PD are great when taking on stations early on as you will take zero damage, however when long range weapons appear and ships wholly eclipse stations later, they are redundant. Similarly other items can be great when you first get them but then decline in usefulness.

[@legendaryziggs]

Thanks Montu, loved it!

[@Sengyizhe]

I think you really overlooked the fact that Psi Shields cost Zro, in my experience not coming across any zro in a game even close to 2375 can really make them suck in a way since you cannot even use them, similar to the nanite systems, also I personally love strike craft thematically and i like carrier type ships but something that really sucks about them is thier AI, they like to dance around the system retargeting alot making them functionally do nothing. Also wtf is dragon scale armor? ive never seen that before and i have like 1k hours of stellaris

[@tanker00v25]

Dragon armor was added in aquatics. Basically if you take “jere be dragons" origin you get a big dragon, BUT if someone kills and scans the dragon they get the dragon scales which are considered level 6 armor. You won't see them because of how specific the conditions have to be

[@levb258]

@@tanker00v25 It was added in Leviathans actually, it's just hard to get because you have to kill the Ether Drake, build a mining station above the Dragon's Hoard, and wait ~fifty years for the event to trigger.

[@tanker00v25]

@@levb258 really? Thanks for clarifying. I never killed an Ether Drake except for rubricator so this is a big surprise for me. But does killing a dragon work or was my entire comment wrong?

[@EntropicMalevolence]

@@tanker00v25 only the Sky Dragon from the here be dragons origin and Ether Drake give dragonscale armor. Shard, from the Rubricator chain, does not give dragonscale armor

[@tanker00v25]

@@EntropicMalevolence thank you for clarifying I knew that rubricator doesn't give you armor, but after the initial response wasn't sure about here be dragons. Once again thank you

[@ganymedemlem6119]

My physics research tends to be so much more developed over my engineering research that if I can get null void research I'll include it on my vessels with extra laser and plasma weapons over mass drivers. The exception is the giga canon.

[@bodbyss]

I'll often ignore all kinetic and explosive weapons as long as I can. Gotta keep that tech tree clean and pump up more alloy production and reach those megastructures as quick as possible. This pays off since I lean hard into the energy weapon repeatables anyway when I can, so I can ignore the existence of kinetics and explosives. You should probably be hitting energy repeatables by the time you're unlocking some megastructures, and sometimes before the guy who wanted to go for kinetic weapons can get his giga cannons at all. This is because there's so many more good engineering techs than physics techs, and opening the kinetic or explosive subtrees makes that problem even worse. This strat makes your stations a lot weaker unfortunately, but at least I'm balancing that by hitting the next tier of station much earlier.

[@ganymedemlem6119]

@@bodbyss Absolutely. Sadly, I'm very unlucky with tech rolls and don't get mega engineering until I'm getting repeatables, much of the time. Though I'm pretty lucky about getting relic worlds.

[@vocalcynic2953]

I was sitting here and happy with myself that your list mirrors my most common build, and then I remembered where I learned said build. Thanks for another awesome video.

[@Xaphnir]

"Point defense will not destory all incoming missiles" I dunno, in my experience even mass corvette swarms will usually see literally 0% hit rate on their missiles just because the enemy has a little bit of point defense. Though, maybe that was more strike craft than PD.

[@sgtreznov6525]

I always have a few PD destroyers, even in late game, really helps against missile spam

[@Xaphnir]

@@sgtreznov6525 Put your PD on carrier battleships. Unless you have a fuckton of them, destroyers will usually all get wiped before anything's in range of their PD.

[@sgtreznov6525]

@@Xaphnir I also tend to use destroyer swarms, can be more useful than Corvette swarms in some occassions

[@archmagemc3561]

A single strikecraft module can counter 10 torpedo modules, 5-8 marauder missles, or I think 2 swarm modules.

[@pnb328]

Yes, it's the strikecraft. If the enemy fleet of 50+ ships have even one of them set up as a carrier, even if you have 100% missile weapons in your fleet you'll have to enjoy dealing literally zero damage, all missiles are useless and should never be researched.

[@0ptera]

PD should be C. You gave two situations were it becomes extremely useful. Null Voids are decent anti shield until Kinetic Launcher become available. Amoeba are the best strike craft until T3, the low accuracy can easily be countered by target and combat computers. Nanite Repair should be viewed economically and be placed in F tier. I've had several games where either the Scavenger or not a single Nanite resource spawned, making this an unobtainable, useless module.

[@Tentites]

Yeah if a hull section your using for fighters has PD slots, then give it a flag and PD. You can't put small weapons in the slots so you may as well have the point defense capacity.

[@0ptera]

@@Tentites PD is only really useful on corvettes very early on. On Cruiser or Battleship Carriers filling those slots is a waste of resources. Strike craft take care of missiles and other strike craft way more effective.

[@l.a.3680]

@@0ptera Strike craft targets strike craft first, when you encounter strike craft and missiles at the same time, your strike craft ignores the missiles. In this Situation using pd instead of empty slots can be usefull.

[@danielsaliba6490]

You don't need the scavenger to get the nanite repair system. I managed to obtain it from the blockade near the end-game, but acquiring nanites is still a problem.

[@thechloromancer3310]

@@0ptera I've noticed my PD hitting a fair bit of shields. If you have a strong economy, there is no reason to not have PD on: either they help with killing enemy missiles and strike craft, or they take care of enemy shields for you.

[@ironarcana970]

Great video as always. I always get so overwhelmed with all of the options available, so, Tier List aside, it was nice to just have all of them described, pros and cons, clear cut. One thing I love for Stellaris is that, even though there are 'meta' builds, there are options just for flavor. Because why not? It's better to give that choice than to not, and that's why Stellaris is such a good game! :D

[@cosmictreason2242]

I wish they played with more things, like allowing modules to combo

[@TheLoneTerran]

Made it through the whole vid, like usual lol. I always have this disagreement with friends though. I'm a huge, huge proponent of mixed navies. Everyone loves going corvette neutron swarm and frankly, I HATE the mechanics of the neutron launcher. Something that powerful should not strike instantly. Being a proponent of mixed navies, my destroyers are often kitted out in point defense with the +tracking computers. Two flak batteries and a missile PD. People always, always, always go for big ass groups of carrier battleships and neutron corvettes. I bring my own carriers, but usually at a 2-1 or 3-1 arty-carrier ratio. And in fights, I clean up fleets significantly more often than I lose. I know it's anecdotal but the after action reports from large engagements, seeing an enormous amount of fighters/missiles destroyed by proper PD weapons is satisfying as hell and the fact I just took far less damage because I'm not relying on fighters that bypass shields and slow firing, OP neutron launchers. Because of carrier combat computers increased engage range, my corvettes zoom out to meet theirs, and since they're neutron launcher build, I honestly don't know if 0% tracking if they even fire neutron launchers against my corvettes. If they do, it's going to almost be a 100% waste of a shot, if they don't, then no damage taken. My corvettes tie up theirs, our fighters have met and the destroyers are moving ahead tend to back up my fighters, wiping out the enemy fighter group and now sit in the middle, taking shots at corvettes and intercepting missiles, while my 50-50 or 75-25 artillery/neutron battleships with nearby cruiser support to help clean up neutron corvettes. My fighters don't usually survive in high enough numbers to do a really noticeable amount of damage, but they did their job of tying up enemy fighters for my PD to get there and destroy the enemy fighters, while my corvettes are going ham on their empty carrier battleships, and slowly reloading neutron launcher ships. The destroyers and cruisers don't take too long to get stuck in with the boyz, and because of the ship type, destroyers evade a lot of damage, and cruisers jump away much of the time, if they survive the first shot. These kinds of fights can be absolutely brutal vs cruisers. But, in the end, I'm now in control of the system, and when I hit f10 and 'Reinforce All', I'm not rebuilding a bunch of battleships, mostly smaller, far more expendable ships while my battleships tend to survive because other ships soaked so much damage. Not saying it's fool-proof, I get rekt plenty of times like everyone else, but I tend to have my capital ships around longer. Which means more dmg or enough time to manually disengage, meaning my capital ships have a pretty good survival rate. I also tend to go with the Rapid Deployment doctrine for even more sublight speed, letting my corvettes and destroyers get into their proper positions. They tend to favor Hit and Run or go Rapid like I do. Same reasoning that my star fortresses often have cheap defensive platforms full of PD weapons. People love to engage out of range with fighters. But four or five PD platforms with two or three hanger platforms cleans up the fighters, letting mine fly out and harass their ships, which often lack PD. Yeah, I end up investing a bit of alloy into platforms when it could be in a fleet, but the fleet isn't there yet, the platform is actively engaging already. And I'm not implying my starbases will survive against determined late game fleets, just that it buys me extra time and kills off a chunk of their damage before my fleets even engage. Plus, I've watched your videos, I know how to rake in alloys. 😉 Also, I don't know if it's contrarian or not but to me, meta is boring. By its nature it's predictable. I like messing up plans. Though the sensor change is going to mess up my plans a bit, switching the make-up with fleet positioning at high intel. Another bonus, I can make the espionage system work for me. It's not great, or particularly dynamic. But when players actively skip the encryption and decryption techs, I get better intel faster, making better counter ships, and pouncing on unsuspecting fleets. Which is always fun. Also to note, we're nowhere near as good as y'all, so that might be why my fleet comps can still work. Love your stuff, love that you encourage us to leave comments and ideas instead of shutting down with "you can't argue with the math, sorry." Course, even my love for balanced fleets goes out the window when it comes to roleplaying my empire. All balance goes out the window. When RP'ing as an extremely oppressive empire, I'll even take the espionage tradition tree. Though it hurts the soul a little bit still.

[@tanker00v25]

Ah yes. 40 minutes of Montu explaining why Giga cannons are op

[@altejoh]

Meta: armor just isn't worth it compared to shields! Me: *laughs in pulsar chokepoint systems*

[@alexandererhard2516]

XD. I wish stations would also take this into account and not automatically fill their slots with useless shields there.

[@MrSalvarion]

Hehe. Came to see it all. So yea. At A list now and still here. xD Great Tier list. Love it. Had a discussion with a friend about wepons. And you seem to have tested your way to what I thought would be the best anyway (with a few diffs where I see I was wrong now). ;)

[@InquisiteurArax]

If I'm not mistaken, regenerative hull tissues do work during battle. I recently had a fun Crisis run where my Star Eaters had 4 of those and the enemy fleet weren't able to damage my monsters faster than they could heal ^^

[@collin833]

I do not believe you.

[@Mika-ph6ku]

@@collin833 I don't know about healing while getting shot but they definitely do heal the ship during combat. Just yesterday I was fighting space amoeba with hull tanked corvettes using regenerative tissue. I was watching the battle closely on slow speed because the fleet power was pretty evenly matched and I didn't want my ships getting wiped. During the fighting I noticed a bunch of amoeba flagella all pounce on one of my corvettes, shred it to bits, but then re target just before they killed it and green health icons immediately started floating off of the corvette after it survived the attack. So they may just not heal while being shot at but can still heal during combat.

[@auctoritate8254]

I'm a bit late because 3.6 overhauled a lot of combat and I don't know how the functionality was before, but they do currently work in combat- it's just at 20% speed.

[@sin5946]

Anyone with more then 2 digit IQ, who passed elementary level the 1st grade math class can tell that you are lying.

[@allanbarnes6786]

You have forgotten one very important aspect of hull sniping/crystal plates over armor: hull damage reduces fire rate. By going right to hull damage, you will cause enemies to lose some fire rate and warp out sooner. This becomes even more important once repeatables come out and your opponent is researching repeatable armor/shield tech.

[@AnemoneMeer]

Mild disagree on Disruptors. They're pretty atrocious, but they do have their uses unlike the others in F tier. Disruptors are at their best when either used in or against evasion stack fleets and when used in bomber fleets. It takes a *very* small amount of Corvettes armed with Torpedoes and Disruptors to cause actual hell in a war, particularly a Total War situation where their wins claim stars instantly, and Corvettes fly much much faster than main combat fleets. Because torpedoes already disregard shields, you want a weapon that goes directly for either armor or hull, bypassing shields to capture Starbases as quickly as possible. Autocannons also require getting close and would waste a number of shots on the shields. Normal weapons engage from further but also waste shots on the shield. Because *you do not have many corvettes* if you're doing raider squads, since too many eats into your battleships instead of being something you quickly build just before a war starts and send out to take stars and die and too many of them would ramp war exhaustion too much if they get caught, you don't have the killing power to just casually cut through starbase shields. Likewise, 90% evasion Destroyers (thank you psionics) that are acting as a screen for battleships typically want disruptors. In both cases, they're probably of the Menacing flavor instead of standard, as both are meant to be cheap, disposable, and highly annoying. Something you build from your shipyards in the middle of a war and throw into a meatgrinder to protect your valuable assets. Disruptors excel on these sorts of harassment/fodder ships. Hull damage weakens enemy ships, but disruptors can't kill for crap. So stick them on raiders and cannonfodder that exist to harass and frustrate instead of actually fight. Early on or not as crisis, Corvettes with torps and disruptors to raid the enemy backline. Later on, menacing destroyers with torps and disruptors to do the same and also serve as blockers for your main fleets that you just throw in front as a suicide wall.

[@ryanrasey7589]

They're also good against something like high-multiplier Contingency ships, because they'll one-shot anything big enough to have a L/X slot, but corvettes will survive a while by weight of numbers, and their hull is a tiny fraction of their hull+armor+shields

[@MrAbgeBrandt]

Everyone always talks about these 90% evasion destroyers, but I bet few people have actually used them. It requires a lot of lucky stacking on top of a chosen one admiral. You can't guarantee ever getting all the required thing in a particular run.

[@AnemoneMeer]

@@MrAbgeBrandt No, but you can get REALLY close without luck.

[@tyronelannister9922]

Thrusters C tier lol. No one expects a speed battleship catching up and mogging their fleet

[@cyrusol]

No need to catch up if weapon range is half the galaxy.

[@hulmhochberg8129]

personally for "realism balance" i think all missiles need a range buff to have at least as far range as x slots or even higher. and the carrier computer should buff missiles as well.

[@lukefreeman828]

why is increased missile range 'realism'? They have limited fuel right? So why would they have longer range than energy weapons? What 'real' scientific process is making energy or kinetic weapons shorter range than missiles? 'Realism' should mean all projectiles should just keep going until they hit something/leave the system. The only reason a kinetic round would stop i.e. range limit, is when it hits something. For "realism", missiles should have a finite retargeting range (because once the fuel runs out they can't maneuver) but if something is in the way they still hit it and blow up. I have a feeling that by "realism" though you mean game "balance".

[@hulmhochberg8129]

@@lukefreeman828 no missiles dont loose speed in space, so after it gets to its max speed it can use up all its fuel to just redirect its flight path and actually hit the target. theoretically everything has an unlimited range in space but practically after a certain distance the real problem is hitting the target. even a beam at light speed can be easily evaded when its 3 lightminutes away and an energy beam cant change direction mid flight. therefore an energy weopon is limited by an effective range depending on its own speed and the sensors amd manouverability of the enemy vessel. but a missile can change its direction. it will hit the target unless you shoot it down or ,as you say doesnt have any fuel left, but that takes way longer than just a slight coursecorrection to not fly into that laserbeam in 20 seconds. anyway my point is at a certain point in space accuracy is more important for a weapons range than actuall distance it can travel and missiles are the clear winners here.

[@Daelaron]

I agree with most things here, but afterburners are A tier hands down. People tend to forget about guerilla warfare. Speedy bois can be very oppressive against opponents attempting to doomstack. They may slowly creep forward and alphastrike everything in their way, but once they are halfway into your empire, they have no systems left. When opponents forget to get strike craft and FTL inhibitors many small fleets of missile corvettes can be extremely annoying to deal with, especially to wide empires. This may of course change a lot with the new expansion :) Excited to see how things will turn out!

[@alexandererhard2516]

Probably gets WAY more annoying with more hyperlanes too. Imagine trying to block the advance of Corvette/Destroyer Fleets on 5x hyperlane density.

[@Daelaron]

@@alexandererhard2516 Exactly. They will probably lose against the battleship fleet, but when you avoid those and instead split up, those simply can't keep up. It's costly when they do eventually catch and alphastrike them from the other edge of the system though. If you are willing to have the expenditure, you can use the meatgrinder tactic and send fleets just big enough to deal with the enemy starbases, which players usually don't upgrade anyway, and zerg them down horizontally instead of vertically so to speak. It's a longterm losing tactic, but blitzes can work. And if you have enough ground forces prepared and split up to take multiple of their planets, they can't do a thing but recall, or maybe even use jumpdrive, which is always good for you. Won't work well against smart people but against AI for example it's just a cakewalk.

[@daddysempaichan]

Yeah. One of my favorite tactics are these 10 Corvette hit squads that I send in after breaking through a choakpoint or I simply jump drive into the enemy and just start taking systems. Put a few PD on them and they're invincible to outposts. I also sometimes build a big Corvette fleet or two to take down some of the more lightly guarded starbases while my main fleet takes on the more important objectives. And when I'm not at war, I have them patrolling trade routes to protect against piracy. Of course, in a PvP game, the counter would be to just build some defense platforms on the outpost so it takes longer for the hit squads to take the outpost and thus, easier to catch and take out. And big Corvette fleets are expensive to make and takes up a decent amount of fleet cap, but I play Singleplayer, so that don't matter.

[@Daelaron]

@@daddysempaichan Yeah. Chokepoints and system defenses are the big counter, of course. But if you force your opponent to use really subobtimal defensive platforms...is that really a big loss? Those are alloys not flowing into battleships, so it balances out at least somewhat. And if the opponent relies to heavily on chokepoints, jumpdrive is a saviour. Sacrificing a few corvettes to basically kamikaze-jumpdrive is less costly than doing that with the battlefleet directly. Rebuilding them is also just insanely fast in comparison. Really the only time it does not work is against an experienced player, and those will at least get mad at you for it XD edit...and the crisis of course. if you crank those up you can't afford this kind of fun, but i never really do that. why would i limit my fun by restricting myself to HAVE to play super optimized every game.

[@Skorsis]

I find Cloud Lightning useful on Battleships to counter the Contingency, with their huge shield and armour boost, the bypassing of them that CL gives along with the Arc Emitter takes the fleet down pretty effectively. Granted the damage is a bit spikey, but I've found I get less losses with it vs the traditional Giga + Neutron BS loadout.

[@j.vinton4039]

I love Montu, but he’s really underselling some of the weapons on this list. Cloud Lightning being one of them.

[@brianmorin7022]

If you put Carrier Computers on a Titan, they won't take the early hits in engagements and you're more likely to keep your Aura + slow to replace ship through a long campaign. Also Afterburners seem to be under-valued. Early game, speed can allow you to pick favorable fights, avoid bad fights and get defensive fleets to star bases before they fall.

[@MatthewChenault]

It’s nice to see they massively buffed Regenerative Hull Tissue. I was running it even without the buffs, since natural repair is always good on campaign. However, with the new buffs, it has made it comically powerful.

[@ekothesilent9456]

Combine it with an engineer trait on the leader and a defensive carrier screen and combat becomes yawnable on any difficulty

[@JonathanToolonie]

To be honest, I really wish they would buff cloud lightning, considering how much trouble it takes to eliminate those void clouds in the early-mid game (and let's face it, they look bloody cool), they deserve some love.

[@Ecco_The_Dolphin]

Disruptors too

[@N1ghthavvk]

Just add 40 range and they could be passable. Add 10 more if you want them to be competitive.

[@alexandererhard2516]

You know a weapon is bad when its damage per day is less, yes, LESS then 2 medium Level 3 disruptors. Alongside no significant range increase.

[@lukefreeman828]

@@alexandererhard2516 they're really fun to use on BS with Arc Emitters though. Shields and Armor mean nothing to me! Honestly, it melts certain crisis fleets

[@alexandererhard2516]

@@lukefreeman828 Contingency fleets are only 20% Hull I think. Because an Arc Emitter + Cloud Lightning ship deals maybe 20-30% of a regular kinetics + energy artillery Battleship (and because I'm quite sure crisis ships can't disengage, in spite of what the combat screen says, which would otherwise be a slight weakness of the AE+CL Battleship), that's a situation where they are worth it.

[@Mode-Selektor]

While thrusters may not be all that useful in a head to head fight, they are incredibly useful maneuverability. Being able to catch fleets, run away, or get to a system before your enemy can be hugely important.

[@Stevenabled]

Iam really thankful for your Vid on this matter as it is hard to discern for a beginner on what weapons (and technologies) to choose from without having extensive experience in battles.

[@bodbyss]

I feel like 20% sublight speed can still be a really good reason to use afterburners even on battleships. Moving fleets around is ass sometimes.

[@Megan-ii4gf]

Especially true with larger empires that have a lot of territory to cover with their fleets. If you're building a small empire though, I think it makes sense to use only large, brutal ships.

[@n8dogue]

Fleets will begin preparing for FTL jumps the moment a single ship has made it to the hyperlane. So putting some corvettes (with or without afterburners) into a fleet is the best way to boost its speed.

[@shrekeyes2410]

@@n8dogue WHAT

[@n8dogue]

@@shrekeyes2410 Just double checked; I made the travel time of a 2 system jump go from 120 days to 80.

[@hdnfbp]

Big thing you forgot to mention about the crystal plating, the more damage you take in your hull, the lesser your fire rate, if your enemies break your armor and shields faster, they can debuff you causing damage to the hull since they got there faster than you got to theirs

[@the_effect_de]

In the endgame disrupters are superb because shields and armor grow endless over time.

[@hummer3ty]

Watched every minute, great stuff!

[@timcarl5751]

Paradox should balance the missiles so players use point defence and armor

[@codymorrison5906]

Made it to the end thanks so much for all your hard work

[@rob9153]

Oh we are still here. Do you REALLY think WE are going to do all of this testing ourselves? You give the good info

[@ShneekeyTheLost]

My late-game fleet composition consists of two types of battleships: Carrier and Artillery, generally in a 1:2 ratio. This gives me a generally good weapons mix across the board with plenty of punching power no matter what I'm dealing with. Carriers will absolutely rip 'vette swarms and carry enough point defense onboard and in their strike craft to severely blunt the missile spam and also provide long-range support against fixed defenses like Star Fortresses. Arty, of course, is always going to be king in slug-fests, which is why there's generally twice as many of them. Then, once they unlock, a single Titan class ship as the flagship, since the auras don't stack.

[@SilverWillow630]

My greatest wish is that accuracy overflow would start increasing range - could make those modules much more effective/valuable.

[@darkmeta372]

but the modules add chance to hit and not just accuracy so it "overflowes" into or more like compensates tracking too. For more info check the stellaris wiki, but in short: chance to hit = accuracy - (evasion - tracking) without going negative on both calculations of course. So even a 100 accuracy weapon will be below 100 chance to hit, due to evasion most of the time and chance to hit buffs compensate that. Not sure why he did not know that while making the video though...

[@Adidas_der_schwanger_war]

In many of my games I really start building ships only when I have battleships technology and more than enough alloys to spend. So I dont care about armor being expensive. Sometimes I even go full armor when I know my opponent uses kinetic weapons.

[@AK47Uprising]

See the reason why, for me, I disagree with armor and reactor booster placement is because I play single player and I’m usually very near my naval capacity so I need to maximize what each ship can do. I’d have reactor boost in C and armor maybe up one, but it should still be below crystal. But from an MP perspective it makes a lot of sense although I sometimes wonder if it would be good to run armor in MP since everyone is expecting and equipping their ships to counter shields. Also made it to the end ✌🏻I always do though I like your videos.

[@lukefreeman828]

I agree. Also, lets be honest, mid to late game ship expense is no longer a factor either

[@mr.christopher6833]

(New to the channel) Damn, bro -- nearly 400k views on a Stellaris tier listing? WOW! Keep up the quality content and call me a fan

[@jaredcolinrobinson9715]

"If a planet is so heavily defended, its probably better to Crack it anyway", people trying to defend their planet? Well then just blow it up, classic stellaris things.

[@WarleaderCoplann]

I love the aquatic species special colossus weapon for that. flood every enemy planet, then colonize it :)

[@all_pro1237]

I know you have a video on it but empire size… best buildings or whatever everything to make it non existence.

[@p-47thunderbolt57]

I would've put the Enigmatic Encoder in C since the Advanced Afterburners increase speed, which I find to be exceptionally useful for larger ships like Battleships and Titans.

[@misterseventyseven4122]

You should do a series with the new dlc where we learn as you learn about the new content, I think that would boost views. I think many would love to se you do a series

[@thedanelsan]

One consideration for late game is that, at least in my experience, energy weapons and shields can get way more repeatables in than whatever you pick in engineering (though the exact magnitude of the difference likely affected by all the extra techs from mods I use) . So if I had to pick between say, a Giga Cannon with five 5% increases in damage and firing rate, and a Tachion Lance with twice as many increases or more, that might change things.

[@justincronkright5025]

I've been wondering why they don't make JUMP DRIVE Strike Craft a thing. Basically make it that in single player you can use them against enemy fleets of corvettes early on. But then late game, you can use them if you've jumped ahead to high level Strike Craft, but also gotten something like psionic-jump drives. Give Psionic or Regular Jump Drives within a system to strike craft, either allowing them to mitigate enemy weapons fire on them ONCE in a combat or once every '... in game days'. Or just jump closer to their intended targets when the fight begins allowing them to get some usefulness later on.

[@gavinthejanitor]

as someone who mostly ends up fighting ai, i've gotta agree with the take on the carrier combat computers as that's exactly how i use them my typical battleship fleet is artilly/carrier hybrids which i've found to better counter the ai's standard fleet composition and with one ship using the carrier computer it really has changed some battles i've fought by deploying fighters early or catching a fleet as it's fleeing from the direct opposite side of the system

[@theog8891]

Yeah, I agree, I also use a combined Arty/Carrier battleship centered around a Titan, with cruiser and destroyer escorts in case the enemy gets too close.

[@darkmeta372]

I have to correct you on Line Combat Computers and chance to hit. Chance to hit = max(0, accuracy - max(0, evasion - tracking)) Meaning Chance to hit is the already calculated actual percentage chance to hit a ship after all modifiers apply and is not comparable to accuracy alone. For example: lets say you have 70 accuracy and 50 tracking and the enemy has 60 evasion chance to hit = max(0 , 70 - max(0, 60 - 50)) chance to hit = 70 - 10 chance to hit = 60 so a flat +10 to chance to hit compensates for accuracy as well as tracking shortcomings. Even a 100 accuracy weapon with good tracking makes good use of it late game. Lets assume late game: 100 accuracy, 60 tracking and 90 evasion (some L slot maybe) chance to hit = 100 - (90 - 60) chance to hit = 70 chance to hit increases are the strongest buff to weapons beside fire rate and damage, because the latter two only apply when you actually hit something. So since no weapon in the game has 100 accuracy and tracking (not counting strikecraft here, because I am not sure if it even applies to strike craft) it is never wasted, unless you are fighting Battleships, Titans, Starbases and other big ships/stations only +20 chance to hit is effectivly any combination of +20 in sum to either tracking or accuracy and always better than just a buff to one of them, as it is applied after

[@flyingcookie5639]

Minor mistake on the regenerative tissue : it works while in battle. Meaning a fleet at a lower power can win a fight against a much stronger fleet if it knocks out enough fire power. Which is fun to watch, when you aren't the one fighting the immortal :)

[@sanguineaurora8765]

Disruptor corvettes are the most overpowered thing in super-late game. Hull pts cant be increased by repeatables like armor or shield.... But disruptor dmg can be.. It gets to a point where hull is only about %20 of a ships hp and corv. disruptors with high levels of repeatables will just annihilate anything and everything, barring strike-crafts. And i actually believe that Energy Siphon actually "siphons" the energy. Meaning it recharges your shields as they do damage to enemy shields.

[@jackcasebolt1985]

point defense guns are cool. im willing to pay alloys to be cool.

[@calanjameshunt]

love the tier lists montu mate grateful... any chance though you could include your cursor or highlight the icons as it would be useful for newer players seeing these lists that arnt familiar with the subjects being listed...

[@spiderboy43]

With the changes to fleet combat, will we get an updated tier list?

[@kjp24]

I tend to play a lot of techy machines that stay peaceful through bribery. I don't tend to build fleets until i have cruisers and then toss small naked battle groups of them equipped with point defense and strike craft with a science ship in tow to grab space monster techs like cloud lightning. My actual fleets at battleships exclusively, even wiping the cruisers I had to save on navy cap. These battle ships are loaded with focused arc emitters in X slot, III fighters point defense and flak, disruptors and a large slot cloud lightning. For armor they hold all crystal hull plating with regenerative hull tissue. Carrier combat computer and jump drives with highest tier whatever else below fallen empire tech. These fleets are cheep, never need to be parked, engage really far away, kill stations without taking any damage, overwhelm enemy fighters and missiles, effectively negating an entire possible damage source, and ignore all shields and armor. The extra power just goes to more speed, fire rate and damage. They've worked out pretty well, and while there are drawbacks, the fact that I don't tend to care at all about defenses allows me to get more repeatables into just energy weapon damage and speed and likewise for fighters. They're fun, cheap, quick and tend to counter every mid-game or end-game crisis toe to toe. It'd be fun to see how they stand up to the meta builds in multiplayer, but I am a garbage player with a potato computer, so it'll be a while before that ever becomes reality. In the meantime I'll just have fun playing around. I chuckled a little when I saw almost the entirety of my fleet composition lying in squalor in F tier. Keep being chill and keep up the good work on your videos man, they're always a fun watch. Cheers.

[@andrebachmann1475]

Did you forget the Psionic Barriers, the lesser version of Psionic Shields? What do you think of these?

[@kraven4027]

They provide same health points as Shield tech 2 (Improved deflectors) without requiring any power usage on the ship. Is it even possible to get these early enough in the game to be relevant? They are outpaced in usefulness immediately.

[@andrebachmann1475]

@@kraven4027 Psionic Barriers would be useful when you are on a energy generator limited ship... but since the only vessel without enough power is the Star Eater, this is really quite a niche case.

[@jwstrock22]

Your analysis of Giga Cannons and Neutron Launchers supporting each other makes sense, but I find that my engineering research usually lags behind my physics research. So I get the X and L energy weapons first, and my energy repeatables are always well ahead of my kinetic repeatables. So it isn't worth switching to Giga Cannons at that point, unless I run a build where I really push engineering so the gap is smaller.

[@sonemesis7083]

Banger

[@BobHerzog1962]

What a lot of people tend to not get is that picket computer in missle corvetes can make a lot of sense since that gives those missles / torpedoes a really good tracking boost (in particular when you also have a decent level of sensor tech). Depends on whther you need tracking of course.

[@curtisbrockman2682]

I wish they'd allow us more customization with the ships. Let us decide how many components we want in the front, middle and rear of the ship for increasing costs.

[@Slotharne]

Amoeba is really good early to mid game becouse you can get it for 1 tech while only beaten by the tier 3 normal strike craft regardless of accuracy for 3 techs. It is also a society tech while most modules for ships are in engineering or in physics.

[@readingchicken5336]

Weapons not doing enough damage? Just do more damage smh, literally that easy

[@loafofbread9400]

You are a genius

[@specs.weedle]

It seems like the inclusion of swarm strikers and space amoeba wings have caused this video's recommendations list to include "Animal tier lists". It seems like that's a tag now.

[@saravanhorn4982]

when you have weapons that do massive damage against hulls, it is really important to have armor even if it's expensive

[@Cam-sl8ve]

why? Hull != armor, therefore get shields.

[@saravanhorn4982]

@@Cam-sl8ve its best to balance it out, a strike craft/missle fleet can literally ruin your entire game by going only shields

[@CaptainMacOfCalhoun]

@@Cam-sl8ve Because apparently Montu ignores that your ship damage goes down as your hull takes damage. Thats why hull components are generally bad despite the flat numbers.

[@Cam-sl8ve]

@@CaptainMacOfCalhoun interesting, why do you think Montu ignores it? does it matter much in practice?

[@CaptainMacOfCalhoun]

@@Cam-sl8ve Yes, as the comment above mine said, any strike craft your enemy have instantly lower your dps. Especially when the strike craft engage from a longer range than your weapons.

[@LivelyGhost42]

I watch all of your videos to the end Montu. The things you get me to do to that like button...

[@totalamerican9421]

U better have put thr null void beams High up there they are fucking broken I have beat battle ships v battle ships with them having more battle ships with null void beams

[@pyroflame04]

Rip

[@lattekahvi1298]

also another good thing about null beams is that since they are energy weapons and you are probably running mass neutron launchers they are more efficient to research in term of repeatable technologies

[@loafofbread9400]

Hope F is high enough

[@tanker00v25]

@@loafofbread9400 brutal

[@C05597641]

I was ALMOST prepared enough to take on 25X unbidden. I destroyed a few of their fleets with low casualties but one of their stations did way too damage to my fleets then an unbidden fleet popped into the system and finished them off. I knew there was no recovering. I still have an empty accession perk. Might go Become the Crises and see what I can do. I was so close.

[@cosmictreason2242]

How do you know what “x” they are?

[@RuerlKhan]

Finally! Crisis weapons in the list! :D

[@justinsinke2088]

Does the null beam not pair with anything? One of the biggest strikes you made against it was that while it does a lot of shield damage, it's limited damage against anything else means it has to pair with something else, diluting its effectiveness. Yet at the S tier you mention that part of what puts the giga cannon and neutron launcher up there is how they combo well with each other for their damage bonus types. Unless I'm missing a point or two you made, that feels like a double standard in this tier list that Null beams are F because they'd need to be paired with something but the S tier weapons are there partly because they pair so well.

[@paweplaczek2191]

what puts null in lower tier for me is that you have to get lucky to get them, otherwise they can be developed around due to having only one type of repetables and one type of edict to run fleet at max dps.

[@MECHA-WIFE]

I have been using regenerative hull tissue in all of my runs where offensive wars are a thing for as long as I have been playing the game, and honestly it has always served me quite well. My whole fleets are often completely healed by the time they encounter another serious fleet battle, granted I often play on lower difficulties, but still, that bump in hull/armor regen often gives my fleets an edge over enemy fleets and allows me to keep up the momentum of invading enemy territoy and battering fleets as soon as I find them, not having to worry about bringing my ships all the way to a friendly starbase usually means I can get the jump on battered enemy fleets before they've had time to fully recover.

[@deanwilliams433]

You can also just have a Juggernaut follow your fleets and it will be a mobile repair base.

[@chidy9699]

I use regenerative hull tissue on all my ships. This may not be the best in regards to min maxing but I find not having to repair while invading enemy territory to be invaluable. I think it's well worth the price especially with high armor fleets as it saves money on rebuilding ships and saves time not having to return to a shipyard or risk fighting with a damaged fleet. This is just my personal preference but I suggest giving it a try sometime if you don't already use it.

[@flandrescarlet2655]

PD in f tier is in my experience incorrect while yes, i agree they're low priority weapons in most situations, being able to mostly disable 3 gray tempest fleets with only a few Picket destroyers has to be worth something and null void beams are completely fine to replace kinetics early to early mid game also by endgame you should have enough alloys to pay for armor and still pump out constant ships if not you're just badly handling your economy

[@chrisxd146]

I'm over a year late, but I can't express how much this video has helped me to understand the nuances between weapons and auxillary components. Story time: I just finished my first ever playthrough of the game on the easiest settings since this is the first time I've ever played a 4x game. I generally left it up to the AI to determine which components were best to put on my ships and had relatively great success, until the mid-late game... For some reason, the AI absolutely LOVES disrupters and throws them on everything it can, which ended up causing me to lose battles where I should've overpowered the opponent's fleet by 20k. I ended up going with a plasma thrower and gauss cannon hybrid (I only played through the base game for my first playthrough) and saw that I was easily winning battles I used to lose. Your video better explains why that change did end up working as what I essentially had was a basic complementary weapon setup. Complete game changer right here. I also noticed that the AI really struggles with base building as it chooses bizarre modules for starbases and planets. For example - I think the building is called consumer complex, the one that increases housing slots - the AI would build like 4 of them per a planet which meant I had to go through 10+ planets and fix them. They also tend to overvalue agricultural districts which meant I had a 1k+ surplus food income. I guess they really want to make sure their people don't go hungry? I also ran into the issue that one of the opponents in my game shot up in total power just by vassalizing 2 of the strongest empires halfway through the game. I was so confused as to how I couldn't keep up with this empire despite rushing tech, having 17 planets, and 1.3k fleet size. Needless to say I learned a VALUABLE lesson about diplomacy. Finally, I finally came across the fallen empires and one of them ended up awakening prematurely. All I have to say is... HOW ARE YOU MEANT TO TAKE DOWN A NEARLY 500K POWER FLEET??! Like seriously, this one empire wiped out everyone including the Unbidden with just a single fleet. I was so sad watching my empire quickly crumble as nearly 1m+ of military power did nothing to even slow this dude down.

[@erutherford]

Unfortunately a lot of the game has changed so this video isn't as accurate as it used to be in specifics ALTHOUGH the thought processes you use to evaluate weapons are mostly the same. For example Armor & Regenerative Hulls are better than they used to be ... Sprinkling in some type of anti-missile / anti-strike craft techs isn't a bad idea if you're facing an unknown enemy ... Shields aren't as good as they used to be as they don't "instantly recover" and have to recharge.

[@jamiegladwin]

This is why I like to play real space with *5 research. You actually have to have wars with some early level weapons, and getting the next upgrade can be a massive advantage.

[@yassinet5]

the missiles desperately need a rebalance in my opinion, increased range or increased damage. it would be fun to see more specialised ships in fleets like having dedicated missile boats or point defence ships. Also wish they added something like more complex combat manouvering so flanking manouvers would be more effective, letting you get your alpha strike in faster than the enemy can react.

[@6thhistory]

If I have a rival empire obssessed with missiles or fighters I will create defense platforms that are completely point defense and flak, and then just litter a few into the mix on my bastions. In my experience this is the best use for them, it slows their damage to your starbase enough that a starbase with 10k less power than a fleet can hold out, if they are using missiles and fighters.

[@hyperd256]

What I don't see you consider is that some weapons may be more suitable for "fodder" ships (cheap ones you spam) vs other are more suitable for the heavy duty expensive ships.

[@electronerd0]

I got that far! might've been nice to have the usual better/worse over time arrows. Cloud lightning being only good for your reason(early rush), then useless later due to say, arc emitters

[@jakefrykholm866]

On grand admiral with the endgame crisis at 25x, you HAVE to use disrupters and spam corvettes/destroyers inorder to defeat the crisis. I’d argue that due to this, it shows statistically how versatile and useful the weapon is(comparatively speaking). I think disrupters should be ranked probably “b” tier at a minimum.

[@BonesofSmite]

In defense of Flak and PD guns, I always make two corvette designs, one with missiles and the other with flak or PD guns. Useful early game, useful with corvette spam, and as screen for my capital ships in all points of the game.

[@helioferreira6903]

I mostly agree on it, but from my experience about the weapons i'd rather have lasers than the normal kinetic weapon due to a couple of reasons, first is that in engineering research you have many other stuff that have good priority (mainly speaking about weapons), like other ship types, station upgrades and some other stuff, like mega-engineering (also, remember that all ascension path tech requirements are always either in society or in engineering), as in physics you have shields and a little less of the priorities, also in the end game you have many stuff you want prioritized in repeatables (even if we only focus in combat power), as in strike craft bonuses if you want them, armor strength, station bonuses, maybe explosive damage and attack speed, as in physics you have only energy production besides shield strength and energy weapons AS/damage), also, lasers tend to be hitscan instead of having (even if small) a projectile speed, in which if you had lasers instead you may be able to deny the enemy a volley. Because of that i'd probably prioritize basic lasers instead of basic kinetic.