Fortress worlds on your border systems for everything but the unbidden. I have been told the Unbidden can ignore the FTL Inhibitors since the last patch. Though I just finished a game and they insisted on bombarding my border fortress worlds allowing me to refit and send in my fleets. I do not know if the AI has been updated to the fact they can ignore FTL inhibitors.
I think both the Fallen Empire and how to fight the crisis strategically, the way to set up ships is tactical, are both good videos, especially since I will get Stellaris at Christmas and will need some help to deal with them.
From a strategic level, your main focus should be on building up your economy to support your fleets. One thing I found useful was the production of exotic materials. Exotic gasses, rare crystals, volatile motes, and other rare items can be traded with other empires for an absurd amount of alloys. I also would recommend using the galactic market to sell off excess minerals and food in order to purchase alloys. Inflation will be bad for the resources, but it will always reach a maximum cap of 24 energy per alloy. By the late game, energy won’t be much of an issue, meaning that you’ll be able to purchase large quantities of alloys for a resource you get fairly easily.
As for strategical warfare, I’d always design my ships with regenerative hull tissue for the sole reason of not having to travel back to a friendly star base in order to repair. It will cut down on your tactical advantage, but it will help out strategically during intense campaigns where retreat is not an option or you’re simply too far away from a friendly port to do repairs.
It’s also a game of choke points, if you aren’t strong enough to drive into crisis territory, try slowing them as much as possible, like for example a fortress world versus the scourge is paramount, for example if the Scrounge can be defeated on the ground planet side, it will slow them down immensely
Tactical guide sounds interesting. Also, it seems like bypass weapons are only really useful when repeatables have been stacked like mad is that correct?
@@grahamturner2640 FE ships are primarily shields/armor, so you benefit more from directly hitting the hull, despite the lower average damage from penetrating weapons.
Montu it would have been great if you could have included the Grey Tempest in this - I definitely count them as a Crisis. I second calls for Fallen Empires.
The grey tempest seems to be weak against tachion lances. Take one cruiser with a hangar for each battleship or a big carrier for 2 battleships and they are no problem.
The GT have titan mother ships and smaller ones. The best way to deal with them is at range artillery/carrier, but as your tech level may not have reached that point, corvettes with mix torps and point defence are another option. They take more than losses but can swarm the larger ships and counter much of the nanite fire power. Unfortunately defeating the nanite factory system, requires the kind of fp which causes an upstart awakening. Building ships without weapons, then upgrading and downgrading might help on higher difficulty levels, to gain time to beat an FE.
@@molybdaen11 Gray Tempest have equal shield/armour, have a kind of missile and nanite fighters, plus a titan class mother ship which can kill large ships. It's easy to fall between 2 stools against them. I don't think their hulls are strong, I've found bypass weapons very effective.
@@RobBCactive I encountered them yesterday for the first time. My answer were 50 destroyers with neutron launchers in the front and flak in the back. They attacked as a seperate group before my main fleet. And I only lost a few dozens destroyers over the campaign.
Great presentation. You don't need 20+ minutes to explain ship designs as in other videos. Straight to the point, explained how, explained why; job done. Good stuff!
Man, I really wish that smaller ships had more of a role outside the early game and *maybe* in pvp games. Not a fan of just ignoring and possibly dismantling all the ships you already built in favor of going almost exclusively Battleships, but as long as they remain as powerful as they are, I don’t see that changing anytime soon
Torpvettes work vs Unbidden and a fleet of fast ships can still have useful roles, covering jump points and secondary roles like bases, armies and constructors. However they will suffer larger losses in fleet action. That applies on high difficulty boosted crisis games, where you cannot simply overwhelm with superior fp. In general I find using some sacrificial destroyers limits my losses as they are in range first. It's the part of Montu's testing I found doesn't work for me.
I use Corvette swarms to quickly take enemy territory if they don't have heavy system defenses. You can have a hundred ships in a fleet, and constantly peel off a dozen at every route branch and turn 1 fleet into 10, all running amok in an enemy empire's backline while your main combat fleets smash apart their fleets and fortresses
I think dropping the accuracy would be a good one. Maybe also have a significant penalty on the very first shot of engagement. The big issue is that with a large number of guns at 100% accuracy and the tracking from sensors the first burst will just make so many retreat that you can't win. Smaller ships should be able to avoid heavy fire. Also I would like kinetic artillery to have it's alpha damage increased so that each of the two artillery has it's pro's and cons instead of neutron launcher just being the best. Kinetic artillery could have the higher alpha damage and neutron launchers the higher DPS.
@@johndunn1625 Though "running amok" really isn't doing much. I wish you could perhaps damage megastructures. Maybe they have several stages where they increasingly lose effectiveness and when they are "destroyed" they become a ruined megastructure that functions the same way as the ones you find.
@@RobBCactive I have tried that though and with me that just doesn't work. Those small ships usually just hang around and never get to do anything because they will just get instantly obliterated if they engage anything at all. So they really are a waste since they don't do much.
You touch on bypass weapons in this video in the context applicable. This was very informative; I'd been using them against Unbidden with middling success, thinking it wise to ignore the Unbidden's very high shield values. I would greatly appreciate a math breakdown on those kinds of weapons versus established 'meta' weapons like neutron launchers, determining at what point, if at all, repeatable energy techs will make running bypass weapons better than the conventional sort. It stands to reason that, /eventually/, the extreme amount of Shields and/or Armor that your enemy's fleets have could make bypass weapons more viable, as there are no Hull repeatables.
Montu I have a question, after you defeat the “home system” of the crystal entities you gain a new technology that is better then the crystal infused plating, how would you say this technology compares (economically and strength wise) to the regular crystal infused plating? Have a great day, also I absolutely love your videos! They are so helpful!
I don't know the full details but shouldn't it just be an upgraded version at a slightly higher cost? I normally immediately upgrade to it once I unlock it
It’s just better crystal plating (I think 1100 instead of 660 for L), but whereas everyone can get crystal plating only one empire can get crystal forged plating. Similar to how only one empire can get dragon scale armor. Basically, if you have crystal forged, use it. If you don’t, don’t worry about it.
I would like a tactical guide to these endgame crisises please. Your insights into the game are very interesting to a newer player like myself and you do a good job explaining the logic behind your reasoning.
Solid layouts, definitely going to shore up my fronts with these new units. Interested in fallen empire counters for sure, as well as tactical advise since its better to know what's coming
Since I play with the crisis on random I have extensive eperience with the Unbidden and I found your design to be actually the second best choice. The reason is that with your idea of putting your defences against their offences and the other way around you are asking to lose a hand full of ships in each engagement. In a lot of cases when playing with higher research cost I found myself unable to support a fleet that loses 2-4 ships with each engagement when the attack waves come faster than I can reinforce them aka more than once a year. (Because first just losing 2 then losing 4 then 8 snowballs into whipe real fast). In that case it really helps to go for a design that allows the highest alpha strike possible and to stay out of reach as much as possible. In other words X-Slot weapons and Strike Craft. But also having as many as possible. So I came up with the design: Ark-Emitter, because I don't build any other weapon as support that hits the shields. In this case I ignore the shields altogether and it's like fighting in a space storm. 2x Stike Craft, ignore shields and hit hull directly. Work well with Ark-Emitter against Unbidden. No other weapons. Every other weapon either hits the shield or needs to be too close for comfort and are therefore waste of alloys. No defences, or for cowards the Crysal plating. But really it's not needed: once the Unbidden are in range to damage my ships they are strong enough to destroy them anyway. The combat computer depends on the situation. If I have to hunt them I need the best thrusters or I wont catch them. In that case I will need to the combat computer to stay out of range in combat, meaning Carrier Compat Computer. If I am in a defensive position and the unbidden are coming to me taking slow thrusters will keep me at range during combat so I can take the Artillery Combat Computer with just a single ship with the Carrier Compiter to have the long range engage. (I call those my ENGAGE-class Ships and if the fleet size isn't devisible by 8 and leaves 4 or 6 than it actually makes sense to have that ship to be a Cruiser.) The goal with that design is to go glass canon. Reducing alloy requirements at the cost of defensive capability, those ships can cost 800-900 Alloy. This way I can build a good amount more ships meaning a good amount more X-Slots. It makes for nerve wrecking gameplay however as being caught close to a system entry by a waiting fleet or by a fleet that enters just before you could exit, leaves you with immediate death, even with a _Trickster_ and _Hit and Run_ most ships will just die. So _Cautious_ is the name of the game (if I have no other choice I go _Unyielding_.) For the Doctrine it again depends on the question if I am chasing the enemy (_Rapid Deployment_ for the range and speed) or are defending (_No Retreat_ if I can). Tl;dr: Offence is the best defence so I don't need defence if I have enough offence. More ships = more x-slots = more damage while outside of range, therefore I use naked ships with Ark-Emitter + Strike Craft.
For the unbidden artillery one you mentioned, i think it would work well on normal level crysis, but if you add some multipliers to their strenght their shield becomes too much to handle, then i would change towards cloud lightning and arc emmiter. But i'm loving your guide, very good. And i think what i said was a little dumb because that goes for any crysis multiplier you add.
Thanks Montu, I think im the stage where i need to increase crisis strength, last time the unbidden appeared in my system, I sent all my fleets and killed like in a year or two. I am up for the FE builds as well as tactics against crisis. A video about when (repeatble tech speaking) armor becomes worth it. Especially considering the dragon armor and the upgraded crystal plating
Last night I've defeated the scourge on 25x grand admiral without mods. One thing I've noticed is that they've got really low range. So I tried to engage with them while they were at the opposite of a system, trying to pass through. I had around 7mil fleet power and by doing that I was able to destroy a combined force of 15mil without any Iosses. I was using the same designs you've showed but all with dragonscale armor instead of hull points and enigmatic decoders (definetly go crystal infused plating or empty it's not worth it). One difference is I've used only 1 carrier ship for each fleet (so around 1/27 ratio :P) and that was just to increase the engagement range. I was the president of a level 5 fed, galactic custodian with all the custodian resolutions passed (such as increased galactic defence force), had defender of the galaxy ascension perk, and further increased my chances of winning by using minor artifacts for military applications and passing some strategic resource edicts. Anyways I cleansed the scourge in 4 years and didn't even waited for their fleets to scatter. Yesterday I learned that 2400 end game starting date is too high even with 25x crisis, will try 2300 for my next run and see how it goes.
A small point on Unbidden, they actually give you a useful long range matter disintegrator weapon for S/M slots if you scan. Neutron launchers are still better in L slot when you have enough long range kinetic. As Focused Arc Emitters do 2/3rd dps at same range and avoid > 1/2 defence points, I think many under-rate them against weak hulled opponents. You reliably kill the largest most dangerous ships at range and a mix of L slot kinetic batteries & neutron launchers deals with the rest as their damage is dealt in small doses. Since 3.0 I've always had early Unbidden, which can mean playing on defence and picking spots to amass the fleet power. They tend to leave the dimensional portal unguarded however, so if you have mobility can be nipped in the bud, often with the help of the Guardians of Galaxy.
i should make mention for the unbidden carrier you made, do actually add pd to that, pd now attacks ships directly so while they may not be needed as no fighters are against you. they still contribute constant damage.
I would love to see a video with you breaking down your tactics to tale down each crisis. In addition, what kind of empires do you think are idea to take down the various crisis? Driven Assimilater comes to mind
In any Crisis, Range is your friend. Prethoyrn is the easiest crisis because Neutron Launcher go brr. Unbidden actually has a really really hard time dealing with Missle Corvettes and Cloud Lightning Destroyers until they start being on Crisis x4+, then they are really weak to corvette/destroyer screens (ship power goes up, tracking, chance to hit and numbers do not). Contingency is really a game about containment and building a critical mass, they are the most annoying for sure, but they dont build more machine worlds and have a habit of spawning in the middle of an empire where most of their ships are. Otherwise you just run the 7:3 Artillery: Carrier ratio with about 10-20 corvettes/transport ships to screen and generally you can fight most Contingency fleets.
Montu please do a video about how to defeat the end game crisis. Additionally can you do a video about best ship designs to defeat fallen/awakened empires?
you should make a viedo on fallen empires and midgame crises. and maybe defense platform/juggernaught/menacing ship designs and maybe even some modded ship designs(that is probably pushing it). Also tactical guide and maybe weird creature/event component/weapon guide. Sorry if this is a bit much. Love ur vids.
I would love to see ship designs for the fallen empires and tactical ways to deal with the crisis for sure. I know the resource is out there but no to in one place and as well as you handle these videos!! Love this video and it's saved in a playlist for future reference. I will be using it to answer questions on the FB page as well! Really great video!!
This is where my 20/80 fleet composition works best. When fighting enemies with fighters/missiles, such as the Pethoryn Scourge or the contingency, I have 20% of my fleet composition consisting of picket ships. Their only job is to intercept and neutralize those weaponry while acting as potential damage sponges for the fleet. The battleships, which I always go for kinetic artillery and tachyon Lance, then deliver the majority of the damage and neutralize the enemy ships as quickly as possible. When I was dealing with the unbidden with this strategy, my fleets suffered only a few battleship losses while taking on fleets of equivalent power.
Sounds like a good all-round design, but fine-tuning to the (known) configuration of the specific crisis you are facing will likely yield even better results, unless you expect to be back-stabbed by one of the other empires. The Prethoryn have zero shields, so shield-focused kinetic weapons are a bit of a waste, while anti-missile/anti-strike craft tech and armor-focused energy weapons are suboptimal against the shield-only Unbidden.
@@TheRealWormbo, it’s an all-rounder fleet design that doesn’t need reconfiguration all the time. In the end, a retrofit for a fleet design costs resources and, most importantly, _time._ When you find out about what crisis is coming in, you’re not likely fully done with changing your fleet over to the optimal design. This is why I go for a singular fleet design that is designed to be an all-rounder. It’s simply more efficient and less time-consuming than switching over your fleet designs. From a strategic standpoint, the best option is not changing fleet designs to optimize tactical supremacy, but optimizing ship designs for strategic gain and eventual victory.
Unbidden in a very high crisis setting, e.g. x5 to x25 (with that brutal 8.47 million fleet power main fleet) depending on when the random spawn occurs, it is often a good idea to plan to lure them into a Pulsar, this eliminates their shield advantage, I also use whole fleets of corvettes to act as cannon fodder to swarm and prevent the titans and battleships getting hit (basically one shot for Battleships and 2 or 3 for Titans...). Personally, I find Stellaris is rock hard to win on x25 in the 2400s, unless you really have a min-maxed choice of empire, several abandoned games where they ignored everyone else and just made a beeline for me and my goose was cooked. My favourite game of Stellaris ever, was on x5 at the regular time, early on in my learning, I swear it took me 2 weeks of playing to win and I thought I was doomed many times, ironman mode makes it very hard. The RNG does not seem to want to give me the other two crises despite always having random set. I might edit an old save game and force having the Contingency as that looks a lot of fun.
All of your vids are very informative and carried out in an entertaining way, I'm Pretty new to the game and youve helped me learn about it a lot. Do you have a vid on how to do specialist worlds? Im still very foggy on those
Edit2: Tactical sounds good :) All good, but: Unbidden are mostly spawn (in my 1200h) after fallen empire awakes, means: Use Darkmatter Shields and energy. Without % research u get 5500-6000 shieldpower
Prethoryns are going to spawn soon in my current run. My fleet power isn't even above 100k and I don't have a mega shipyard. I'm gonna need to start pumping out a bunch of anti prethoryn battleships.
For X25 crises I usually only use arc emitter only battleship, with only a warp drive and aircraft carrier computer. Arc emitter I believe has 100% accuracy, so the sensor is not useful, and the aircraft carrier computer allows ships to stop charging. The point is to have as many volleys as possible and disengage once the crises ship starts firing. Totally abandon the others as they get one-shotted anyway, and dropping the other modules allows you to build 2 battleships instead of 1 at the same cost.
I wanna note that the contingency signal does not affect autonomous ship intellects used by machine empires, only the sapient combat computers of the organics. You do need to still block the signal ASAP but this vulnerability is not there.
Arc Emitters are a bit of a gamble, so in order increase your odds you got to bring lots of battleships. I once battled 2 fallen empire fleets at a Starbase (it had tech buffs) with 40 Arc emitter battleships and they completely demolished their ships in 20 seconds, no casualties on my side.
You could also make a video dedicated to all the "aquirable" tech. We all know how much you love crystal plating by now but what about all the other stuff.
Against the unbidden it seems preferable to run carrier computers on both designs to prevent your ships from closing quickly, as you already have a large weapon range advantage In a multiplayer game I had with friends this significantly reduced our casualties
Dear Montu, at contingency segment you say to not use bypass weapons unless we've a ton of repeatables. Can I suggest a video about that? When the repeatables make it better? Like I've stacked 20 repeatables into speed and damage both from kinect and energy, should I change to bypass?
In most cases I see your argument against bypass weaponry. But when I'm RP'ing as my all Energy empire I DO reach repeatables faster as well as acquire anti-energy secret energy tech.(Void weapons) Using this method I think an argument could be made for almost any weapon if you focus it.
Definitely in need of some crisis videos :p Went to kill the unbidden that swarmed my Beloved Rocky AI buddies...than the Fallen Empires start a war between them and recruit my friends while i am leading the Federation against them xD now they declared war with me... my entire Fleet is stuck in Rock Territory because they closed their Gateways for me :) And the Unbidden keep spreading over the LGates... So i kinda take what ever knowledge i can get xD
Good video, as always. Fallen Empire guide sounds interesting too
Ye
This.
more of this please :)
How to defeat: rush megastructures, pump up the economics, print fleets...? Profit!
Fortress worlds on your border systems for everything but the unbidden. I have been told the Unbidden can ignore the FTL Inhibitors since the last patch. Though I just finished a game and they insisted on bombarding my border fortress worlds allowing me to refit and send in my fleets. I do not know if the AI has been updated to the fact they can ignore FTL inhibitors.
You're doing wonders for the community, Montu
Thank you
I think both the Fallen Empire and how to fight the crisis strategically, the way to set up ships is tactical, are both good videos, especially since I will get Stellaris at Christmas and will need some help to deal with them.
From a strategic level, your main focus should be on building up your economy to support your fleets. One thing I found useful was the production of exotic materials. Exotic gasses, rare crystals, volatile motes, and other rare items can be traded with other empires for an absurd amount of alloys.
I also would recommend using the galactic market to sell off excess minerals and food in order to purchase alloys. Inflation will be bad for the resources, but it will always reach a maximum cap of 24 energy per alloy. By the late game, energy won’t be much of an issue, meaning that you’ll be able to purchase large quantities of alloys for a resource you get fairly easily.
As for strategical warfare, I’d always design my ships with regenerative hull tissue for the sole reason of not having to travel back to a friendly star base in order to repair. It will cut down on your tactical advantage, but it will help out strategically during intense campaigns where retreat is not an option or you’re simply too far away from a friendly port to do repairs.
It’s also a game of choke points, if you aren’t strong enough to drive into crisis territory, try slowing them as much as possible, like for example a fortress world versus the scourge is paramount, for example if the Scrounge can be defeated on the ground planet side, it will slow them down immensely
@@MatthewChenault take your enemies starbases most have a shipyard then park and repair.
@@TheReal_birbwizard, because I’ll definitely be able to capture a Pethoryn scourge outpost and repair there…
Tactical guide sounds interesting.
Also, it seems like bypass weapons are only really useful when repeatables have been stacked like mad is that correct?
From my testing yes.
Unless you are facing a fallen empire, that is a different story!
@@MontuPlays I wonder how dealing with an FE is a different story.
It really do seem like bypass weapons are only really useful when repeatables have been stacked like mad if I'm not incorrect.
@@grahamturner2640 I recall the Wiki saying FE's start with 10 levels of each repeatable. So the stacked repeatables condition applies by default.
@@grahamturner2640 FE ships are primarily shields/armor, so you benefit more from directly hitting the hull, despite the lower average damage from penetrating weapons.
Montu it would have been great if you could have included the Grey Tempest in this - I definitely count them as a Crisis. I second calls for Fallen Empires.
The grey tempest seems to be weak against tachion lances.
Take one cruiser with a hangar for each battleship or a big carrier for 2 battleships and they are no problem.
Isn't grey tempest purely carriers? Just get some anti-fighter blue prints and some artillery to take out the big ships
The GT have titan mother ships and smaller ones.
The best way to deal with them is at range artillery/carrier, but as your tech level may not have reached that point, corvettes with mix torps and point defence are another option. They take more than losses but can swarm the larger ships and counter much of the nanite fire power.
Unfortunately defeating the nanite factory system, requires the kind of fp which causes an upstart awakening.
Building ships without weapons, then upgrading and downgrading might help on higher difficulty levels, to gain time to beat an FE.
@@molybdaen11 Gray Tempest have equal shield/armour, have a kind of missile and nanite fighters, plus a titan class mother ship which can kill large ships.
It's easy to fall between 2 stools against them.
I don't think their hulls are strong, I've found bypass weapons very effective.
@@RobBCactive I encountered them yesterday for the first time.
My answer were 50 destroyers with neutron launchers in the front and flak in the back.
They attacked as a seperate group before my main fleet.
And I only lost a few dozens destroyers over the campaign.
Great presentation. You don't need 20+ minutes to explain ship designs as in other videos. Straight to the point, explained how, explained why; job done. Good stuff!
The time of the battleship, is over. The time of the Whirlwind Missile Carrier Cruiser spam, has arrived.
I'd also like to see anti FE designs. Same with the minor crisis like the khan and the L-gates.
Love your content, so I’m commenting for the algorithm. Keep up the good work!
thank you, thank you very much... I was struggling to find a counter to the scourge and this helped a lot.
Man, I really wish that smaller ships had more of a role outside the early game and *maybe* in pvp games. Not a fan of just ignoring and possibly dismantling all the ships you already built in favor of going almost exclusively Battleships, but as long as they remain as powerful as they are, I don’t see that changing anytime soon
Torpvettes work vs Unbidden and a fleet of fast ships can still have useful roles, covering jump points and secondary roles like bases, armies and constructors. However they will suffer larger losses in fleet action.
That applies on high difficulty boosted crisis games, where you cannot simply overwhelm with superior fp.
In general I find using some sacrificial destroyers limits my losses as they are in range first. It's the part of Montu's testing I found doesn't work for me.
I use Corvette swarms to quickly take enemy territory if they don't have heavy system defenses. You can have a hundred ships in a fleet, and constantly peel off a dozen at every route branch and turn 1 fleet into 10, all running amok in an enemy empire's backline while your main combat fleets smash apart their fleets and fortresses
I think dropping the accuracy would be a good one. Maybe also have a significant penalty on the very first shot of engagement. The big issue is that with a large number of guns at 100% accuracy and the tracking from sensors the first burst will just make so many retreat that you can't win.
Smaller ships should be able to avoid heavy fire.
Also I would like kinetic artillery to have it's alpha damage increased so that each of the two artillery has it's pro's and cons instead of neutron launcher just being the best. Kinetic artillery could have the higher alpha damage and neutron launchers the higher DPS.
@@johndunn1625 Though "running amok" really isn't doing much. I wish you could perhaps damage megastructures. Maybe they have several stages where they increasingly lose effectiveness and when they are "destroyed" they become a ruined megastructure that functions the same way as the ones you find.
@@RobBCactive I have tried that though and with me that just doesn't work. Those small ships usually just hang around and never get to do anything because they will just get instantly obliterated if they engage anything at all. So they really are a waste since they don't do much.
The Intro was the perfect meme to Use. Did you know that one of the sci fi games that stellaris is based of is argubaly Mass effect.
I needed this thanks
Honestly I have more trouble with the Gray Tempest appearing before I'm ready than the end game crises. I'd love to see that analysed as well.
You touch on bypass weapons in this video in the context applicable. This was very informative; I'd been using them against Unbidden with middling success, thinking it wise to ignore the Unbidden's very high shield values.
I would greatly appreciate a math breakdown on those kinds of weapons versus established 'meta' weapons like neutron launchers, determining at what point, if at all, repeatable energy techs will make running bypass weapons better than the conventional sort. It stands to reason that, /eventually/, the extreme amount of Shields and/or Armor that your enemy's fleets have could make bypass weapons more viable, as there are no Hull repeatables.
Montu I have a question, after you defeat the “home system” of the crystal entities you gain a new technology that is better then the crystal infused plating, how would you say this technology compares (economically and strength wise) to the regular crystal infused plating? Have a great day, also I absolutely love your videos! They are so helpful!
I don't know the full details but shouldn't it just be an upgraded version at a slightly higher cost? I normally immediately upgrade to it once I unlock it
Yeah I've been wondering too
Crystal forged plating is ridiculously powerful, especially compared to the cost.
It’s just better crystal plating (I think 1100 instead of 660 for L), but whereas everyone can get crystal plating only one empire can get crystal forged plating. Similar to how only one empire can get dragon scale armor.
Basically, if you have crystal forged, use it. If you don’t, don’t worry about it.
@@52flyingbicycles players can salvage it from your debris or steal it using spies, fyi
A tactical guide would be extremely helpful as well, loved the video as always.
0:42 I'm glad that you also think that the Fallen Empires = the Vorlons
I would like a tactical guide to these endgame crisises please. Your insights into the game are very interesting to a newer player like myself and you do a good job explaining the logic behind your reasoning.
Solid layouts, definitely going to shore up my fronts with these new units.
Interested in fallen empire counters for sure, as well as tactical advise since its better to know what's coming
Thanks for the guide this has really helped 😁 also first one
Edit: thanks montu
All 3 videos ( countering fallen, regural empires and strategic guide to crisis ) sounds interesting!
As others have said a Fallen Empire counter ship design would be AMAZING! Thanks for your videos! They really help a lot!!
A fallen/ awakened empire, war in heaven guide would be super useful!! Great video as always!!
Could do a followup about building fleets for dealing with galactic bosses like the Ether Drake as early as possible
This was SO helpful, THANK YOU
Great video as always. These battleship designs really help.
Thanks Montu!!
Love your content!
Both a fallen empire ship build and a tactical crisis guide sound great. Maybe even a tactics guide for fighting fallen empires.
Yess a fallen empire guide would be useful too thank you :)
yes please explain awakened empires sire we welcome this info and will watch with great enthusiasm
Would definitely like a technical guide to the crisis. Currently the contingency popped up as I was finishing a war in heaven and is eating my worlds
i never beat any crisis yet but with this build i might finally beat them thank you Montu
I just got the ghost signal, and understood what is going to happen, and came to this video.
Since I play with the crisis on random I have extensive eperience with the Unbidden and I found your design to be actually the second best choice.
The reason is that with your idea of putting your defences against their offences and the other way around you are asking to lose a hand full of ships in each engagement. In a lot of cases when playing with higher research cost I found myself unable to support a fleet that loses 2-4 ships with each engagement when the attack waves come faster than I can reinforce them aka more than once a year. (Because first just losing 2 then losing 4 then 8 snowballs into whipe real fast). In that case it really helps to go for a design that allows the highest alpha strike possible and to stay out of reach as much as possible. In other words X-Slot weapons and Strike Craft. But also having as many as possible.
So I came up with the design:
Ark-Emitter, because I don't build any other weapon as support that hits the shields. In this case I ignore the shields altogether and it's like fighting in a space storm.
2x Stike Craft, ignore shields and hit hull directly. Work well with Ark-Emitter against Unbidden.
No other weapons. Every other weapon either hits the shield or needs to be too close for comfort and are therefore waste of alloys.
No defences, or for cowards the Crysal plating. But really it's not needed: once the Unbidden are in range to damage my ships they are strong enough to destroy them anyway.
The combat computer depends on the situation. If I have to hunt them I need the best thrusters or I wont catch them. In that case I will need to the combat computer to stay out of range in combat, meaning Carrier Compat Computer. If I am in a defensive position and the unbidden are coming to me taking slow thrusters will keep me at range during combat so I can take the Artillery Combat Computer with just a single ship with the Carrier Compiter to have the long range engage. (I call those my ENGAGE-class Ships and if the fleet size isn't devisible by 8 and leaves 4 or 6 than it actually makes sense to have that ship to be a Cruiser.)
The goal with that design is to go glass canon. Reducing alloy requirements at the cost of defensive capability, those ships can cost 800-900 Alloy. This way I can build a good amount more ships meaning a good amount more X-Slots. It makes for nerve wrecking gameplay however as being caught close to a system entry by a waiting fleet or by a fleet that enters just before you could exit, leaves you with immediate death, even with a _Trickster_ and _Hit and Run_ most ships will just die. So _Cautious_ is the name of the game (if I have no other choice I go _Unyielding_.) For the Doctrine it again depends on the question if I am chasing the enemy (_Rapid Deployment_ for the range and speed) or are defending (_No Retreat_ if I can).
Tl;dr: Offence is the best defence so I don't need defence if I have enough offence. More ships = more x-slots = more damage while outside of range, therefore I use naked ships with Ark-Emitter + Strike Craft.
Keep up the good work.
Besides the fallen empire video, any chance of getting a very late game guide?
One thing you can do against the unbidden I find that missile boat corvettes and carriers work pretty well too. Not perfect, but they work
For the unbidden artillery one you mentioned, i think it would work well on normal level crysis, but if you add some multipliers to their strenght their shield becomes too much to handle, then i would change towards cloud lightning and arc emmiter. But i'm loving your guide, very good. And i think what i said was a little dumb because that goes for any crysis multiplier you add.
Thanks Montu, I think im the stage where i need to increase crisis strength, last time the unbidden appeared in my system, I sent all my fleets and killed like in a year or two. I am up for the FE builds as well as tactics against crisis. A video about when (repeatble tech speaking) armor becomes worth it. Especially considering the dragon armor and the upgraded crystal plating
Last night I've defeated the scourge on 25x grand admiral without mods. One thing I've noticed is that they've got really low range. So I tried to engage with them while they were at the opposite of a system, trying to pass through. I had around 7mil fleet power and by doing that I was able to destroy a combined force of 15mil without any Iosses. I was using the same designs you've showed but all with dragonscale armor instead of hull points and enigmatic decoders (definetly go crystal infused plating or empty it's not worth it). One difference is I've used only 1 carrier ship for each fleet (so around 1/27 ratio :P) and that was just to increase the engagement range. I was the president of a level 5 fed, galactic custodian with all the custodian resolutions passed (such as increased galactic defence force), had defender of the galaxy ascension perk, and further increased my chances of winning by using minor artifacts for military applications and passing some strategic resource edicts. Anyways I cleansed the scourge in 4 years and didn't even waited for their fleets to scatter. Yesterday I learned that 2400 end game starting date is too high even with 25x crisis, will try 2300 for my next run and see how it goes.
A small point on Unbidden, they actually give you a useful long range matter disintegrator weapon for S/M slots if you scan. Neutron launchers are still better in L slot when you have enough long range kinetic.
As Focused Arc Emitters do 2/3rd dps at same range and avoid > 1/2 defence points, I think many under-rate them against weak hulled opponents. You reliably kill the largest most dangerous ships at range and a mix of L slot kinetic batteries & neutron launchers deals with the rest as their damage is dealt in small doses.
Since 3.0 I've always had early Unbidden, which can mean playing on defence and picking spots to amass the fleet power. They tend to leave the dimensional portal unguarded however, so if you have mobility can be nipped in the bud, often with the help of the Guardians of Galaxy.
Montu for the first minute of this video: yeah I'm a sci-fi fan.
Damn, youve caught me!
You got caught in 40k with the Babylon 5 plug
Please more of this!
i should make mention for the unbidden carrier you made, do actually add pd to that,
pd now attacks ships directly so while they may not be needed as no fighters are against you.
they still contribute constant damage.
I would love to see a video with you breaking down your tactics to tale down each crisis. In addition, what kind of empires do you think are idea to take down the various crisis? Driven Assimilater comes to mind
Good information, and definitely vote in favor of a tactical guide.
Fallen Empire guide is a good idea!
In any Crisis, Range is your friend. Prethoyrn is the easiest crisis because Neutron Launcher go brr. Unbidden actually has a really really hard time dealing with Missle Corvettes and Cloud Lightning Destroyers until they start being on Crisis x4+, then they are really weak to corvette/destroyer screens (ship power goes up, tracking, chance to hit and numbers do not). Contingency is really a game about containment and building a critical mass, they are the most annoying for sure, but they dont build more machine worlds and have a habit of spawning in the middle of an empire where most of their ships are. Otherwise you just run the 7:3 Artillery: Carrier ratio with about 10-20 corvettes/transport ships to screen and generally you can fight most Contingency fleets.
Wow this popped into me my feed he perfect time playing a game and got an event that gave me a dmg bonus to prethoryn craft today.
Please make a video for defeating Fallen Empires, and maybe another for defeating Robot Uprisings and Marauders.
PLEASE DO A VIDEO FOR THE FALLEN EMPIRES, I’m barely hanging on against fleets five times my size
Just the fallen empires, I think. That guide'd be nice.
Love the videos, would enjoy tactical advice against FE and crisis. While I am able to overwhelm both, it’s quite costly, irreverent of what I do.
Thank you very much for this guide. I was waiting for this one because I spawned a 25x scourge and I'm losing.
I'd like to see a tactical video about the Fallen Empires
Montu please do a video about how to defeat the end game crisis. Additionally can you do a video about best ship designs to defeat fallen/awakened empires?
you should make a viedo on fallen empires and midgame crises. and maybe defense platform/juggernaught/menacing ship designs and maybe even some modded ship designs(that is probably pushing it). Also tactical guide and maybe weird creature/event component/weapon guide. Sorry if this is a bit much. Love ur vids.
We have always called the scourge Preh-Thor-an.
I’d be down for a fallen empire video
BRING ON THE FALLEN!!!
I would love to see ship designs for the fallen empires and tactical ways to deal with the crisis for sure. I know the resource is out there but no to in one place and as well as you handle these videos!! Love this video and it's saved in a playlist for future reference. I will be using it to answer questions on the FB page as well! Really great video!!
My Renegade Femshep clenching her fists at the intro
video on fallen empire would be nice
midgame crisis too
Leaving a comment down below, so I can get more of you´re amazing content
Great Video, please make a video on how to deal with those disgusting crisis xenos
Honestly, against the unbidden and contingency, I build bypass carrier monofleets. Arc emitters, disruptors, and lightning to compliment strike craft.
This is where my 20/80 fleet composition works best.
When fighting enemies with fighters/missiles, such as the Pethoryn Scourge or the contingency, I have 20% of my fleet composition consisting of picket ships. Their only job is to intercept and neutralize those weaponry while acting as potential damage sponges for the fleet.
The battleships, which I always go for kinetic artillery and tachyon Lance, then deliver the majority of the damage and neutralize the enemy ships as quickly as possible.
When I was dealing with the unbidden with this strategy, my fleets suffered only a few battleship losses while taking on fleets of equivalent power.
Sounds like a good all-round design, but fine-tuning to the (known) configuration of the specific crisis you are facing will likely yield even better results, unless you expect to be back-stabbed by one of the other empires. The Prethoryn have zero shields, so shield-focused kinetic weapons are a bit of a waste, while anti-missile/anti-strike craft tech and armor-focused energy weapons are suboptimal against the shield-only Unbidden.
@@TheRealWormbo, it’s an all-rounder fleet design that doesn’t need reconfiguration all the time. In the end, a retrofit for a fleet design costs resources and, most importantly, _time._ When you find out about what crisis is coming in, you’re not likely fully done with changing your fleet over to the optimal design.
This is why I go for a singular fleet design that is designed to be an all-rounder. It’s simply more efficient and less time-consuming than switching over your fleet designs. From a strategic standpoint, the best option is not changing fleet designs to optimize tactical supremacy, but optimizing ship designs for strategic gain and eventual victory.
yeah Fallen empire video!
Yes. Please...do a Tactical guide for the crisis.
Unbidden in a very high crisis setting, e.g. x5 to x25 (with that brutal 8.47 million fleet power main fleet) depending on when the random spawn occurs, it is often a good idea to plan to lure them into a Pulsar, this eliminates their shield advantage, I also use whole fleets of corvettes to act as cannon fodder to swarm and prevent the titans and battleships getting hit (basically one shot for Battleships and 2 or 3 for Titans...).
Personally, I find Stellaris is rock hard to win on x25 in the 2400s, unless you really have a min-maxed choice of empire, several abandoned games where they ignored everyone else and just made a beeline for me and my goose was cooked. My favourite game of Stellaris ever, was on x5 at the regular time, early on in my learning, I swear it took me 2 weeks of playing to win and I thought I was doomed many times, ironman mode makes it very hard. The RNG does not seem to want to give me the other two crises despite always having random set. I might edit an old save game and force having the Contingency as that looks a lot of fun.
All of your vids are very informative and carried out in an entertaining way, I'm Pretty new to the game and youve helped me learn about it a lot. Do you have a vid on how to do specialist worlds? Im still very foggy on those
The funny thing is that my endgame crisis tried to invade a fallen empire and consequently got wiped out because of that.
Edit2: Tactical sounds good :)
All good, but: Unbidden are mostly spawn (in my 1200h) after fallen empire awakes, means: Use Darkmatter Shields and energy. Without % research u get 5500-6000 shieldpower
Prethoryns are going to spawn soon in my current run. My fleet power isn't even above 100k and I don't have a mega shipyard. I'm gonna need to start pumping out a bunch of anti prethoryn battleships.
any tipps for grey tempest too maybe?
For X25 crises I usually only use arc emitter only battleship, with only a warp drive and aircraft carrier computer. Arc emitter I believe has 100% accuracy, so the sensor is not useful, and the aircraft carrier computer allows ships to stop charging. The point is to have as many volleys as possible and disengage once the crises ship starts firing. Totally abandon the others as they get one-shotted anyway, and dropping the other modules allows you to build 2 battleships instead of 1 at the same cost.
Commenting for the fallen empire vid
Montu please do that video on the fallen empire's it would help greatly to know how to deal with them
I wanna note that the contingency signal does not affect autonomous ship intellects used by machine empires, only the sapient combat computers of the organics. You do need to still block the signal ASAP but this vulnerability is not there.
Arc Emitters are a bit of a gamble, so in order increase your odds you got to bring lots of battleships. I once battled 2 fallen empire fleets at a Starbase (it had tech buffs) with 40 Arc emitter battleships and they completely demolished their ships in 20 seconds, no casualties on my side.
I definitely like to see how to beat the crisis tactics And the best way to fight them when they control the third of the galaxy
please make more videos!
I would like to see a video on how to beat the crisis
Please update this. The Unbidden bulid didn't change, but I'm getting shredded by the Contingency
These Strats would destroy you in post First Contact Stellaris
You could also make a video dedicated to all the "aquirable" tech. We all know how much you love crystal plating by now but what about all the other stuff.
Nice
I would love a vid about the fallen empires
damn sometimes I forget that NSC2 is basically a whole new game
Please give us the guides for the FEs. One for the leviathans would be great as well.
I want the next video on tactics. I'm doing my part, for the next video
Against the unbidden it seems preferable to run carrier computers on both designs to prevent your ships from closing quickly, as you already have a large weapon range advantage
In a multiplayer game I had with friends this significantly reduced our casualties
One day ill be able to play organic technology empires.
Dear Montu, at contingency segment you say to not use bypass weapons unless we've a ton of repeatables. Can I suggest a video about that? When the repeatables make it better? Like I've stacked 20 repeatables into speed and damage both from kinect and energy, should I change to bypass?
In most cases I see your argument against bypass weaponry. But when I'm RP'ing as my all Energy empire I DO reach repeatables faster as well as acquire anti-energy secret energy tech.(Void weapons) Using this method I think an argument could be made for almost any weapon if you focus it.
Awakened Empires usually wipe them out before they can do anything
You can break the ghost signal too.
We need a new one for the 3.8!!
Definitely in need of some crisis videos :p
Went to kill the unbidden that swarmed my Beloved Rocky AI buddies...than the Fallen Empires start a war between them and recruit my friends while i am leading the Federation against them xD now they declared war with me...
my entire Fleet is stuck in Rock Territory because they closed their Gateways for me :)
And the Unbidden keep spreading over the LGates...
So i kinda take what ever knowledge i can get xD
Fallen empire sounds interesting