Flex Your Empire's Muscles
Stellaris offers a buffet table of different weapons and ship classes, from small corvettes up to massive titans.
How do you optimize the ships in your fleet to crush your enemies? This guide will go over the best weapons and components you can use to kit out your fleet for maximum firepower and combat effectiveness.
Whether you’re a silly pacifist or a clever xenophobe you’ll need the best ship designs to fight off would-be aggressors and evict squatters from your soon-to-be planets.
Starting with…
5. Corvette Missile Boat Stellaris Corvette Design - The Fundamental Class
Video by Montu Plays
Corvettes are quick, cheap to build, and smaller but have high evasion. Their sole purpose is to tie the enemy up and distract attention away from your bigger, more valuable ships. Think of corvettes as an expandable screen.
It doesn’t matter if you lose a few because you can quickly replace them. They are great harassers but generally speaking, don’t do that much damage.
Why the Corvette Missile Boat is great:
- Having a huge missile salvo from your corvettes gives you high first-strike potential
- The Corvette's high evasion gives it survivability against bigger, more powerful weapons that would otherwise devastate it
- Biggest bang for your buck, this a quick, cheap harasser to send right at your enemy
- You can use a fleet of these to buy time or act as a very mobile raiding force
Corvette Missile Boat details:
- For weaponry, you’ll be using a kinetic and missile weapon
- Afterburners max out your evasion
- Shields are the most cost-effective defense, armour just makes these corvettes cost more alloys than they need to
- Use a picket computer setting, as you gain no bonus evasion from a swarm computer
4. Artillery Destroyer Stellaris Destroyer Design - The Hit & Run Masters
Video by Montu Plays
Destroyers are the second tier of ships you’ll unlock in Stellaris. They can equip more guns than corvettes and are generally more adaptable. They aren’t as quick as corvettes but combine decent evasion with much higher max damage potential.
Destroyers should be the backbone of your fleet in the early game. A higher disengagement chance also makes destroyers much more survivable than corvettes, many more will escape rather than being blown to smithereens.
Why the Artillery Destroyer is great:
- Using a large slot weapon gives destroyers maximum firepower, allowing you to take out other destroyers and starbases faster
- Your large weapons will be more effective because destroyers receive a bonus in weapon tracking
- Once your technology allows it, upgrading to a neutron launcher will give you the highest possible damage on a destroyer
Artillery Destroyer details:
- For weapons, use a plasma launcher in the early game, combine this with a kinetic weapon
- Fill your defense slots with shields and use no more than 2 slots on armor
- Put a tracking booster in your auxiliary slot to boost the destroyer's lethality
- An artillery computer system will give you the maximum engagement range, but you can get some use out of a line computer in the early game
3. Heavy Artillery Cruiser Stellaris Cruiser Design - The Twilight Class
Video by Montu Plays
Cruisers are the first heavy-hitting ship you’ll gain access to in a playthrough, they’re much more expensive but they’re orders of magnitude tankier than corvettes and destroyers. You use cruisers as early-game flagships, they have the highest destructive power in the mid-game.
However, your cruisers need some protection and they need a little bit of support. A screen of corvettes and destroyers ensures you minimize your losers plus maximize your destructive power.
Why the Heavy Artillery Cruiser is great:
- 2 Large weapons bring the max possible destructive power a mid-game fleet can equip
- This design decimates destroyer swarms, but it does struggle against corvettes, make sure to support it
- High burst damage eliminates ships before they can escape, wipe them out… all of them
- Large slot weapons also deal a heavy chunk of damage to enemy cruisers and battleships
Heavy Artillery Cruiser details:
- For weapons equip 1 large energy weapon, 1 large kinetic weapon, and a medium energy weapon (best technology you have available, obviously)
- Use shields, then leave at least 2 slots for armor, using more armor is expensive but might be worth it to enable your cruiser to survive longer (especially if the enemy is using lots of anti shield weaponry)
- 2 Tracking boosters in the auxiliary slot will maximize the designs lethality
- An artillery computer gives your cruisers an enormous first strike range, they can wipe out chunks of the enemy fleet before the mid-range engagement weaponry can kick in
2. Neutron Battleship Stellaris Battleship Design - The Final Class You Need
Video by Montu Plays
Battleships are the sledgehammers of your fleet, they are the last of the standard spacecraft you unlock in a playthrough. They can be armed to the teeth with weapons and deal enormous damage.
You’ll want to have a decent amount of battleships in late-game fleets, you can begin phasing out cruisers and replacing them with battleships.
Everything a cruiser does, a battleship can do it much better. The only edge a cruiser has on a battleship is cost, but by the late game that won’t matter as you’ll be swimming in alloys.
Why the Neutron Battleship is great:
- Lots of neutron launchers have a massive range and earth-shattering damage
- This high burst takes ships out before they have the chance to disengage, it’s always better to destroy your enemy outright, rather than allow them to retreat and continue fighting
- Battleships are incredibly tanky and take a lot of hits before blowing up, your losses will be low because they’ll most likely disengage before the battleship blows up
Neutron Battleship details:
- For Weaponry use a spinal Giga cannon and 4 Neutron launchers, this will utterly devastate the enemy fleet
- For defense slots, 4 shields and 2 armor will allow your battleship to withstand serious punishment
- A carrier computer gives your battleship the highest range advantage
- 2 Auxillary tracking boosters further enhance the lethality
Carrier Battleship Stellaris Battleship Design - The Final Class You Need
Video by Montu Plays
Carrier Battleships are a great addition to fill in the gaps left by Neutron Battleships. They act as a more defensive line, helping support the rest of the fleet by taking out smaller more nimble targets like corvettes and strike craft.
Having some of your battleships in a more supportive role will enable the rest of your fleet to minimize casualties. If the enemy has hordes of smaller ships then your big heavy-hitting weapons will struggle to destroy the enemy, and your fleet could be overwhelmed and take far more damage than it would otherwise need to.
Why the Carrier Battleship is great:
- Having some extra strike craft support enables you to easily attack smaller ships and take out some missile salvos before they hit your other ships
- Smaller weapons on this battleship give you some versatility, players and ai factions don't always use the same weapons, sometimes the AI factions will build to counter you, having this battleship means you won’t take as many losses from unexpected loadouts
Carrier Battleship details:
- For weapons use a Giga cannon spinal weapon, 2 autocannons, 2 point defense weapons, and a neutron launcher
- For defense slots use 4 shiels and 2 armor
- A carrier computer for maximum range
- 2 Auxillary tracking boosters for maximum lethality
It goes without saying that on all these designs you should use the best technology you have researched.
Exterminatus
There you have it, these are some of the best ship designs available in Stellaris. Check out more of Montu Plays' videos, he has some of the most well-researched and comprehensive tips on Stellaris, this side of the information web way.
Stellaris is a game of much complexity, beginners especially find it overwhelming with all the information that the game interface throws at you from the get-go. Fear not, we have your back, fellow space ruler, below are more goodies for you to browse.
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