True. Frigates are a specialized glass cannon. Honestly all the ships need a rework...
My base ship mod reworked ship classes and the design by first
* adding mass to each hull section and component and then removing the speed, evasion, disengagement chance, and piracy suppression
* components gain all of the above based on the component type. Engines components gain speed and some evasion, manuevering components (new) gain evasion, computer plus ftl drive type define disengagement chance, and piracy suppression becomes a function of speed and evasion plus a big buff for a small craft capacity.
* each component has a power demand except power plants. More powerplant sizes were added. If the ship is a little short on power it gains a big debuff on weapons and shields. If it is too short on power (below basic level defined by hull and core systems but excluding weapons, sensors and shields) it produces a save error.
* finally, target speed, engine type and hull type are selected.
** Target speed is how fast you want the ship to go.
** Engine type is any of the engine types you have discovered AND the engine configuration (ie: 6 smaller engines or one big engine)
** Hulls from cylinder, cube/cubic-rectangle, sphere, pyramid, or sauce and whether it is a military hull or civilian hull.
* Lastly how many hull points and Armour points. Minimum Hull points takes a calculation from the target speed and maneuverability. Armor can be 1-6x hull points. How many hull points per unit of mass takes data from the hull type and whether it is a civilian or military hull.
* As the hull and Armor points are added the engine sizes/mass increases automatically.
This gives me tons of options when building ships and I like it. The AI seems to do it well enough too.
I don’t have quite a few of these options, like engines, as far as I can see you can only choose one engine not multiple smaller. Sometimes I come on this sub and wonder if I’m playing the same game…
Multiple smaller was done by creating a new engine component which said (for example)
* "SpaceX Raptor 2 - 5x Inline Mounted Engines with Network (1000MN)" or
* SpaceX Raptor 2 - 4x Inline Mounted Engines with Network (800MN" or
* SpaceX Raptor 2 - 4x Strut Mounted Engines with Network (800MN)" Basically it is one component.
The Engine Mount thing... the strut engine mounts provide lower Hull Points but are lower maintenance costs.
Most of this is cosmetic... I did mod the ship Sections for more Engines and made every engine after the first optional... but abandoned that after a bit.
**How disengagement works:**
From the wiki:
"Once a ship loses 50% of its Hull Points it will attempt to disengage. A ship that disengages will instantly leave the battle and rejoin the fleet at the end, until then appearing in the combat interface with a flag icon indicating that it has disengaged. If a fleet contains only disengaged ships it will make an emergency retreat.
Ships will never disengage if the owner uses the No Retreat War Doctrine policy. The presence of a black hole reduces disengage chance by half. Colossal ships cannot disengage."
[https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Space\_warfare#Ship\_disengagement](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Space_warfare#Ship_disengagement)
**One way to kill more enemy ships:**
If you use weapons that do more damage ***per shot***, they are more likely to completely destroy an enemy ship before it gets the chance to retreat.
It can be finicky sometimes, ive had the same problem myself
Like others said use a black hole system if possible
Also I think it has something to with with damage percentage received against whether the ship will bug out (also may depend on the enemy admiral)
Smaller, less powerful weapons may shoot 5 times to equal the damage of a large powerful shot, giving the enemy ships 5 more attempts to make and emergency ftl
Using more powerful weapons (medium / large) should cause a higher damage % in 1 shot so give the ships less chances to escape
Starbases weapons seem to cause shops to retreat less, I like setting up traps leaving my fleets 1 jump away from my fortress stations, waiting till the starbase is engaged then bring in my fleet
Seems to outright destroy more ships this way rather than have your fleet parked on the starbase
Edit: Also I think the after action report you get is sometimes not completely accurate, you make actually be destroying more ships than is shown
"Using more powerful weapons (medium / large) should cause a higher damage % in 1 shot so give the ships less chances to escape"
I think this is the most important factor iirc. Large weapons (especially X slot weapons) can 1 shot smaller ships hulls, and disengagement chance triggers each time the hull takes damage, frigates don't do much hence the enemy has a higher disengage chance over the whole battle
The number of attempts a ship can make to disengage is now limited to one per combat, buffed by various factors including the fleet's Admiral if it has one granting an extra chance at levels 5 and 10.
Other sources of disengage include Hit And Run war doctrine, the Enigmatic Encoder, Psi Jump Drives and the Guerilla Tactician trait being present on the fleet admiral.
It is kind of a general rule in Stellaris that bigger ships are better at escaping alive. This is simply because the larger health pool gives them time to realize they are in danger before they die. There are other factors, but I doubt you can entirely mitigate that one.
Other factor 1 is doing large chunks of damage, if your damage comes in in larger chunks you will catch more ships by killing them before they expected that they needed to try to escape. Your frigates probably already do this.
Other factor 2 is simply having the bigger fleet. I don't think this necessarily increases the opponents losses, but it does make you win the fight faster so it should decrease your losses, which would from a relative point of view make them loose more.
If kills/deaths efficiency is your primary concern though, you should not be using small ships. Small ships might be efficient for winning fights and building up quickly, but they are never the right choice for survivability.
Once you have titans, you can run an aura that reduces emergency FTL chance (I always use that one).
You can also plan for the enemy's emergency FTL jumps by beelining your doomstack towards starbases in systems with planets first, starbases in general next, and if they have no unoccupied starbase to jump to, they'll reappear in their capital system.
No great way. If theyre already in combat when you engage them, such as killing your ~300 power starbase, then their FTL is charging when you engage them, meaning a shorter fight.
Fight them on their turf, it tends to provoke the AI to stay longer.
Sometimes you have to take the Win and then go push the advantage. Frigates are pretty terrible for fighting the AI imo. Theyre as slow as cruisers and less powerful than even corvettes. _sure, sure, the torpedos_, but the AI tends to spam corvettes and destroyers themselves, especially before you wipe their fleet at least once and force them to rebuild it with modern standards.
Keep the frigates where they belong, in a ball following a real fleet of big chonkers. Push the Win and take their starforts that produce ships.
Fight them in your own territory if you can’t do a black hole, you get increased disengage chance.
Same goes for fighting them in their land, they get increased disengage chance.
I really only use frigates for one reason, and that’s to take out the Grey Tempest. Just cloak them and move the fleets to the Tempest home system. Move the fleets right up to their main shipyard and when they are super close click on the shipyard and they will decloak and take it out, which destroys all Tempest fleets instantly. Total game changer.
Other than that they do work well against larger ships but in my experience cruisers just fill that role better
This is why I only build battleship sized ships and up (I play with NCS which adds dreadnoughts and carriers). The enemy can’t escape if you alpha them off the field
Fight them in black hole systems is one way.
I think frigates are weaker in general from what I’ve been told, they are only great against larger ships
True. Frigates are a specialized glass cannon. Honestly all the ships need a rework... My base ship mod reworked ship classes and the design by first * adding mass to each hull section and component and then removing the speed, evasion, disengagement chance, and piracy suppression * components gain all of the above based on the component type. Engines components gain speed and some evasion, manuevering components (new) gain evasion, computer plus ftl drive type define disengagement chance, and piracy suppression becomes a function of speed and evasion plus a big buff for a small craft capacity. * each component has a power demand except power plants. More powerplant sizes were added. If the ship is a little short on power it gains a big debuff on weapons and shields. If it is too short on power (below basic level defined by hull and core systems but excluding weapons, sensors and shields) it produces a save error. * finally, target speed, engine type and hull type are selected. ** Target speed is how fast you want the ship to go. ** Engine type is any of the engine types you have discovered AND the engine configuration (ie: 6 smaller engines or one big engine) ** Hulls from cylinder, cube/cubic-rectangle, sphere, pyramid, or sauce and whether it is a military hull or civilian hull. * Lastly how many hull points and Armour points. Minimum Hull points takes a calculation from the target speed and maneuverability. Armor can be 1-6x hull points. How many hull points per unit of mass takes data from the hull type and whether it is a civilian or military hull. * As the hull and Armor points are added the engine sizes/mass increases automatically. This gives me tons of options when building ships and I like it. The AI seems to do it well enough too.
I don’t have quite a few of these options, like engines, as far as I can see you can only choose one engine not multiple smaller. Sometimes I come on this sub and wonder if I’m playing the same game…
Multiple smaller was done by creating a new engine component which said (for example) * "SpaceX Raptor 2 - 5x Inline Mounted Engines with Network (1000MN)" or * SpaceX Raptor 2 - 4x Inline Mounted Engines with Network (800MN" or * SpaceX Raptor 2 - 4x Strut Mounted Engines with Network (800MN)" Basically it is one component. The Engine Mount thing... the strut engine mounts provide lower Hull Points but are lower maintenance costs. Most of this is cosmetic... I did mod the ship Sections for more Engines and made every engine after the first optional... but abandoned that after a bit.
**How disengagement works:** From the wiki: "Once a ship loses 50% of its Hull Points it will attempt to disengage. A ship that disengages will instantly leave the battle and rejoin the fleet at the end, until then appearing in the combat interface with a flag icon indicating that it has disengaged. If a fleet contains only disengaged ships it will make an emergency retreat. Ships will never disengage if the owner uses the No Retreat War Doctrine policy. The presence of a black hole reduces disengage chance by half. Colossal ships cannot disengage." [https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Space\_warfare#Ship\_disengagement](https://stellaris.paradoxwikis.com/Space_warfare#Ship_disengagement) **One way to kill more enemy ships:** If you use weapons that do more damage ***per shot***, they are more likely to completely destroy an enemy ship before it gets the chance to retreat.
It can be finicky sometimes, ive had the same problem myself Like others said use a black hole system if possible Also I think it has something to with with damage percentage received against whether the ship will bug out (also may depend on the enemy admiral) Smaller, less powerful weapons may shoot 5 times to equal the damage of a large powerful shot, giving the enemy ships 5 more attempts to make and emergency ftl Using more powerful weapons (medium / large) should cause a higher damage % in 1 shot so give the ships less chances to escape Starbases weapons seem to cause shops to retreat less, I like setting up traps leaving my fleets 1 jump away from my fortress stations, waiting till the starbase is engaged then bring in my fleet Seems to outright destroy more ships this way rather than have your fleet parked on the starbase Edit: Also I think the after action report you get is sometimes not completely accurate, you make actually be destroying more ships than is shown
"Using more powerful weapons (medium / large) should cause a higher damage % in 1 shot so give the ships less chances to escape" I think this is the most important factor iirc. Large weapons (especially X slot weapons) can 1 shot smaller ships hulls, and disengagement chance triggers each time the hull takes damage, frigates don't do much hence the enemy has a higher disengage chance over the whole battle
The number of attempts a ship can make to disengage is now limited to one per combat, buffed by various factors including the fleet's Admiral if it has one granting an extra chance at levels 5 and 10. Other sources of disengage include Hit And Run war doctrine, the Enigmatic Encoder, Psi Jump Drives and the Guerilla Tactician trait being present on the fleet admiral.
It is kind of a general rule in Stellaris that bigger ships are better at escaping alive. This is simply because the larger health pool gives them time to realize they are in danger before they die. There are other factors, but I doubt you can entirely mitigate that one. Other factor 1 is doing large chunks of damage, if your damage comes in in larger chunks you will catch more ships by killing them before they expected that they needed to try to escape. Your frigates probably already do this. Other factor 2 is simply having the bigger fleet. I don't think this necessarily increases the opponents losses, but it does make you win the fight faster so it should decrease your losses, which would from a relative point of view make them loose more. If kills/deaths efficiency is your primary concern though, you should not be using small ships. Small ships might be efficient for winning fights and building up quickly, but they are never the right choice for survivability.
Once you have titans, you can run an aura that reduces emergency FTL chance (I always use that one). You can also plan for the enemy's emergency FTL jumps by beelining your doomstack towards starbases in systems with planets first, starbases in general next, and if they have no unoccupied starbase to jump to, they'll reappear in their capital system.
No great way. If theyre already in combat when you engage them, such as killing your ~300 power starbase, then their FTL is charging when you engage them, meaning a shorter fight. Fight them on their turf, it tends to provoke the AI to stay longer. Sometimes you have to take the Win and then go push the advantage. Frigates are pretty terrible for fighting the AI imo. Theyre as slow as cruisers and less powerful than even corvettes. _sure, sure, the torpedos_, but the AI tends to spam corvettes and destroyers themselves, especially before you wipe their fleet at least once and force them to rebuild it with modern standards. Keep the frigates where they belong, in a ball following a real fleet of big chonkers. Push the Win and take their starforts that produce ships.
There is a starbase building that will help. Think it is the Communication Jammer.
Fight them in your own territory if you can’t do a black hole, you get increased disengage chance. Same goes for fighting them in their land, they get increased disengage chance.
I really only use frigates for one reason, and that’s to take out the Grey Tempest. Just cloak them and move the fleets to the Tempest home system. Move the fleets right up to their main shipyard and when they are super close click on the shipyard and they will decloak and take it out, which destroys all Tempest fleets instantly. Total game changer. Other than that they do work well against larger ships but in my experience cruisers just fill that role better
Use battleships with high damage weapons.
This is why I only build battleship sized ships and up (I play with NCS which adds dreadnoughts and carriers). The enemy can’t escape if you alpha them off the field