Test Series I

C4-TB-2KA2P "Old 422"

C4-TB-1K1KA2P

SteveRaptor's Fleet

C5-C-4M3T1W

R0/7-C-1K4P

C3/2-AB-2B2M2W "A-242"

Conclusion of Series I

For my first test series I used designs that had excelled in the player fleet versus player fleet tests of previous testers. Unless otherwise stated, each fleet fought twice from range and twice from point blank. The setups are as follows: This is the battleship design that was once considered to be the best at beating FE/AE a few patches ago. It fell out of favor up until 1.8. It is quite solid now for general purpose and a max armor variant of it actually turned out to be the best.220 of those were unable to beat the doomfleet, while 250 were able to win. The ranged fights had 136 and 134 ships remaining, the point blank one 71. The other point blank fight was actually lost - I'm still not sure why, but this design is meant to engage at range so I still took the 406,500 minerals and 2,000 naval capacity this fleet costs as my benchmark for the other fleets. Someone suggested to replace one Kinetic Artillery with a Gauss Cannon, so I tried that. 252 ships at 407,232 minerals and 2,016 naval capacity. Won with 143 and 124 ships remaining at range, 83 and 97 at close range.I think SteveRaptor's fleet setup is pretty well known - I used to build it myself so of course I had to test it. The designs I used based on his are:Plasmavette (C2-V-3P) Torpedoboat (C1-V-1ET1P) Plasmadestroyer (C3-D-2P) Artillery (C3-D-1KA) Plasmacruiser (CR5/1-C-6P) Torpedocruiser (CR2/3-C-2ET5P) Some of these have regenerative hull because of power constraints and I wanted to keep the first tests general by avoiding tech that is not always available like crystal hulls (except I used psi jumpdrives and Precog Interfaces anyway and I've also been inconsistent with those, though the results can certainly not be explained by this).Based on SteveRaptor's recommended ratio I build a fleet of 376 Plasmavettes, 94 Torpedoboats, 157 Plasmadestroyers, 157 Artilleries, 125 Plasmacruiser and 47 Torpedocruiser at the cost of 407,929 minerals and 1,786 naval capacity.This fleet lost, leaving about half of the Doomfleet alive in both the ranged and point blank engagements. The cruisers always died out first, then the destroyers, last the corvettes. Damage output of this fleet dropped noticeably once the cruisers were gone and after the destroyers died the corvettes managed to take at most a handful escorts with them before they got taken out as well. I made these observation too in actual games I played in which I used this setup. One of the more successfull designs against regular AI empires and players. 454 of these for 406,784 minerals and 1,816 naval capacity. Not so successful against the Doomfleet, leaving the majority of it alive in all four fights. A torpedo focused cruiser design. Meant to overwhelm enemy point defense to get the torpedos through. 455 ships at 406,770 minerals and 1,820 naval capacity. I tested them only once because they lost even worse than the Pocket Knife Cruiser. Having watched the previous cruiser fights (and several other designs I didn't bother to document because they all lost) I got the impression that the good'ol plasma cruiser isn't that bad and that the shields didn't seem to help much. So I tried a full armor design where I put on a L Gauss for shield stripping. 517 of those for 406,362 minerals and 2,068 naval capacity. This fleet had a single fight as well which it surprisingly won with 266 ships remaining. Running further minerals:minerals comparisons with designs where I swapped armor with shields and power showed that the full armor setup was the only one that could consistently win. I wasn't sure at this point whether this was due to the armor itself or due to the ships being cheaper, allowing for more ships within the mineral benchmark. The last design that I tested in this series; a battleship that has been dubbed the A-242 within a new naming convention for 1.8. It's quite successfull against regular AI and players and has emerged as the best design in a test series by Torakka against the Doomfleet before. I pitched 260 of those for 406,120 minerals and 2,080 naval capacity against the Doomfleet once at range. They won with 134 ships remaining.I think the most interesting test has been the one with SteveRaptor's fleet. It shows that you should not use corvettes. The damage output of corvettes is pathetic and they do not evasion tank in a mixed fleet because nothing actually fires at them. In 1.6 destroyers were decent because they stayed at range, so they were cheap alternatives to battleships. In 1.8 they fly right into the middle of the fight where they neither have the evasion nor the tankyness to survive once bigger hulls are down. There does not seem to be any reason to use destroyers when you can bring cruisers and battleships instead.Battleships seem to be the most mineral efficient way to kill FE/AE fleets and armor seems to provide better defense than shields. The fully armored cruiser design won with a similar mineral loss than the battleships, however the battleships ran with a full shield setup.I also want to mention that I did several tests involving battleships and cruisers with picket destroyers (full PD destroyers) that I unfortunately did not document. The general idea was to see whether bringing a few dedicated point defense ships was worth it and might enable PDless cruiser designs to win. From the fights I saw I got the impression that unless the ship designs of your choice already offer PD slots, you should not bring PD, at least against FE/AE.