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[tseikk1]

late game fleet action consists mostly of three things: fighting ordos, battlestations and large endurance battles against targets much bigger than you (pirates, faction fleets). To handle everything at once, I've mostly relied on a flagship such as doom, paragon or astral controlled by me and my overpowered character with all the good combat perks. For the AI I mainly focused on durability, so that they could better distract the enemy. Although the power trip was great, This made the game pretty easy. Next playthrough I will try out this build:

https://fpdk.github.io/?s=0000102030405060708090x13031323334350607081x23001023334353x33031320334353

The idea behind it is that for my own ship I will only ever have a valkyrie with command center, nav buoy and ecm package phaeton tanker with ecm package and command center or a kite(a) with command center. I will have literally no firepower at all and thus no way to influence the battle directly. Instead, I will have ALL the fleetwide buffs, 10 officers, and lots of command points so I can order them around.
This should hopefully 1. make me pay more attention to my whole fleet instead of just a single ultra-ship 2. teach me to play around officer personalities, ship builds, skills, orders and command points 3. make the game more difficult. Last playthrough I could stomp pretty much everything the game threw at me. With AI vs AI, everything should be harder and I will have to choose my battles.

For this kind of playthrough I will need some help with ship builds. I have little clue on what the AI is actually capable of piloting well or what skills or personalities are good on officers. I am not interested in playing any kinds of monofleets, so no mass tempests or drovers. Everything else is welcome.
I will also be playing with tahlan shipworks and ship/weapon pack mods, so if you've got builds that utilize weapons or ships from those mods, I want to hear them too.

[goduranus]

I would recommend a phaeton command ship, while not as many OP as the Valkyrie, you need some tankers anyway, so it saves a ships slot, handy for when you capture enemy ships.

[tseikk1]

I would recommend a phaeton command ship, while not as many OP as the Valkyrie, you need some tankers anyway, so it saves a ships slot, handy for when you capture enemy ships.

Phaeton doesn't have enough OP to fit command center, nav buoy and ecm package. Which one is the least important in your opinion? it also has worse peak performance and CR/deployment stats. Although saving a ship slot does seem good

[SafariJohn]

Valkyrie command ship? You would be much better off in a luxurious Kite (O), watching the battle unfold from your executive-class viewing dome!

[goduranus]

You usually don’t need a nav bouy, as unlike ECM, the enemy’s nav rating doesn’t decrease yours, you can max out the nav rating easily.

You don’t need peak time duration as the timer doesn’t tick down if you are behind the front lines.

[Plantissue]

Been doing that since fleets have gotten larger. Makes a nice change from all the combat skills. I call it combatless or no personal piloted skills character. Be a real commander and not pilot a ship. Though I suppose Operation Centre will help a lot, when they are so precious, it forces you to be efficient with the command points.

Valkyrie command ship? You would be much better off in a luxurious Kite (O), watching the battle unfold from your executive-class viewing dome!

Did you mean the Kite (S)? It doesn't have the 30OP to fit a command centre. If you want to use Kite you need to use Kite (A).

[SafariJohn]

Did you mean the Kite (S)?

Damn, you're right.


More seriously, if you are willing to play a technically weaponless flagship, tseikk1, I would suggest flying a carrier. Drover, Heron, and Astral should all be able to mount the hullmods you want while still being able to intervene when needed with their fighters. And the carrier skills are in Leadership, anyways.

For ship choices, I suggest fast ships like midline stuff since you will probably need to run away frequently. Avoid carriers you aren't piloting yourself since they will set their fighters to engage during a retreat (losing the zero-flux bonus) and die meaninglessly.

[tseikk1]

Did you mean the Kite (S)?

Damn, you're right.


More seriously, if you are willing to play a technically weaponless flagship, tseikk1, I would suggest flying a carrier. Drover, Heron, and Astral should all be able to mount the hullmods you want while still being able to intervene when needed with their fighters. And the carrier skills are in Leadership, anyways.

For ship choices, I suggest fast ships like midline stuff since you will probably need to run away frequently. Avoid carriers you aren't piloting yourself since they will set their fighters to engage during a retreat (losing the zero-flux bonus) and die meaninglessly.

If I wanted the carrier skills I would have to give up some of the fleet buff skills, and also player piloted carriers are quite strong. That is not what I want to do this time.
About the ships, what kind of builds should I go for? Is the ai better with longer or shorter ranged weapons? For escaping, should I avoid aggressive and reckless personalities on officers?

[Lucky33]

Nice try. The main challenge will be not to succumb to Drover spam.

[Arcagnello]

Nice try. The main challenge will be not to succumb to Drover spam.

Don't remind me, the Stormhawk Republic in my last campaign was spamming spark/hornet Drovers, Longbow Condors, Dagger/Squall Astrals and Railguns/Squall Conquests. I had to stuff every capital with 5 dual flak AND Integrated Point Defence AI  to aggro it all togheder with my broadswords while my fast SO units dealt the damage.

12 alstral, 2 Conquest, 5 Condor 4 Drover fleets took multiple consecutive battles to completely wipe out 

[SafariJohn]

Should have brought a couple Dooms, Arcagnello. Mine Strike obliterates fighters.

[Tackywheat1]

Should have brought a couple Dooms, Arcagnello. Mine Strike obliterates fighters.

Sparks are pretty resistant to Mines but yes Doom would have been a very good choice vs fighter spam. Cathedral too

[Igncom1]

Deserter PL fleets are often the hardest to deal with due to the effect of carrier based warfare. A fleet specialised towards dealing with the Remnants simply suffers under the cloud of fighters that the PL can field.

Which in of it's self is actually really cool. Until you realise the best counter strat is to just go full carrier yourself.

[Plantissue]

No care for Tri-Tachyon deserter fleets and their multiple Astrals, Herons and Drovers? Which coupled with the Dooms can make for a fleet where it can be very difficult to not take losses due to the sheer potential damage spike?

[Igncom1]

Not generally, no. They will often have just as many gunboats as carriers in my experience, which while nice isn't nearly as deadly. I can't even remember the last time I fought a doom. Not that I fight TT deserters very often anyway.

Where as the PL will often have fleets that might have a few gunboats to support their massive carrier spams. But this is anecdotal however.