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I’m thinking all gravity weapons and fighters and arm fighters with 100% point defense to handle the hive swarm

Most of the hive defense seems to be shield

I seemed to do OK with a fleet of cruisers, destroyers and frigates, of about equal strength to the hive. Around tier 3-4 tech. I didn't optimise the fleet with hive in mind, so some of my loadouts were definitely not ideal. About the normal ratio of ships for an attack fleet.

Frigates were primarily PD screen and had a surge blast and small direct fire close in cannon as their main offensive armament. Destroyers had some PD, a Thuon Beam [L] and two Heavy Rail Guns. Cruisers also with some PD and 1 Heavy Rail, 2 Bulwark Missile, 2 Surge Blast and a one small CIW cannon.

Pretty weird mix, which I can't believe was ideal (particularly the Surge Blast) but I don't think I lost a ship, and they took out the hive ship pretty fast. Having fought a few now, I get the impression lots of smaller ships are more efficient for taking them out than the same strength with capital ships.

Going Gravity Weapons most definitely a awesome options. Just cuts right into the defenses.

Ion Weapons + Anti-Armor used to work well, as Ion Damage can skip through and disable the shield generator. But I do not know if the current hive ship model has a Ion Shield.

I didn’t notice the graviton weapons hurting his hall but interestingly enough he didn’t like it and jumped away

I was able to capture one but didn’t notice the graviton weapons bypassing. Shields went down first

A bunch of destroyers with ion cannons and assault pods worked like a charm for me.

The biggest challenge is not having the fleet AI act like a moron and jump in one at a time and then slowly trail behind the hive ship at long range even though they are twice as fast and set to aggressive.

The manual design is a legal cheating.

Llamageddon wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:21 am Having fought a few now, I get the impression lots of smaller ships are more efficient for taking them out than the same strength with capital ships.

This is absolutely true. See discussions about Lanchester's Attrition laws. E.g. this thread.

StormingKiwi wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 10:43 pm

Llamageddon wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:21 am Having fought a few now, I get the impression lots of smaller ships are more efficient for taking them out than the same strength with capital ships.

This is absolutely true. See discussions about Lanchester's Attrition laws. E.g. this thread.

Does this make carriers the best ships in the game?

gravyten wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:13 pm

StormingKiwi wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 10:43 pm

Llamageddon wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:21 am Having fought a few now, I get the impression lots of smaller ships are more efficient for taking them out than the same strength with capital ships.

This is absolutely true. See discussions about Lanchester's Attrition laws. E.g. this thread.

Does this make carriers the best ships in the game?

Not realy. Main weapons will fire on the carrier, not the fighters.
There is dedicated PD.
There is Environmental Effects that will just destroy fighters
And then there is the waiting for fighter retreival before jumping

zgrssd wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:32 pm

gravyten wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:13 pm

StormingKiwi wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 10:43 pm

This is absolutely true. See discussions about Lanchester's Attrition laws. E.g. this thread.

Does this make carriers the best ships in the game?

There is Environmental Effects that will just destroy fighters

A single ion sheath armor should handle that unless some storms damage even that?

Looks like destroyers are good ships then since they are big enough to fit things but small enough you can build a lot

gravyten wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:44 pm

zgrssd wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:32 pm

gravyten wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:13 pm

Does this make carriers the best ships in the game?

There is Environmental Effects that will just destroy fighters

A single ion sheath armor should handle that unless some storms damage even that?

Looks like destroyers are good ships then since they are big enough to fit things but small enough you can build a lot

That armor shields the carrier. Not the fighter.

zgrssd wrote: Fri Mar 25, 2022 12:35 am

gravyten wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:44 pm

zgrssd wrote: Thu Mar 24, 2022 11:32 pm
There is Environmental Effects that will just destroy fighters

A single ion sheath armor should handle that unless some storms damage even that?

Looks like destroyers are good ships then since they are big enough to fit things but small enough you can build a lot

That armor shields the carrier. Not the fighter.

Remove the energy shield from the fighter and put one ion sheath armor (that’s what I did)

Spamming ion weapons + boarding seems to work pretty well for me