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[Sendrien]

Each class of ship should maintain a unique role at all stages in the game. Destroyers currently do not, and the problem is exacerbated in the endgame.

Frigates have the mobility to capture strategic locations as well as harass slower ships. When well-built, they don't have problems surviving and contributing in a large endgame battle.

Cruisers have the durability or long range of capital ships, and sometimes have mobility exceeding that of destroyers.

Capitals, with their durability, range and firepower, obviously have a role in endgame fleet encounters.

Which leaves the destroyer in a very weird spot. If you need mobility, you'd use a frigate for less DP. If you need firepower and range, you'd use a cruiser for slightly more DP, but get a whole lot more durability against tough enemies. The only destroyer that brings something completely unique to the table is the Harbinger, with its ability to leave an enemy ship defenceless for a tiny window. So currently, the best use for a destroyer is to bully frigates in the early game, and even that role is heavily contested by the Pirate Falcon.

I'd love to see destroyers carve out a unique role for themselves, being able to contribute to endgame encounters instead of being a combination of a frigate and a cruiser, while in reality being a worse version of both.

As a thought experiment, think about going up against various endgame fleets. Now, think of any destroyers you'd want in your fleet that you would not prefer having either frigates or cruisers filling that role. For me, I come up blank, except for the Harbinger, in select cases.

I realize this opinion is likely controversial, so if I'm missing something, I'd love to hear your thoughts and reasoning!

[Candesce]

My understanding is that destroyers are a very DP-efficient source of DPS and flux.

You need to give them cover somehow, because they're not fast enough to save their own skins from cruisers and capitals, but e. g. a pair of Hammerheads gets you more gun than an Eradicator.

[Grievous69]

I realize this opinion is likely controversial, so if I'm missing something, I'd love to hear your thoughts and reasoning!

How, this has been one of the most repeated things on this forum. Controversial would be to say that destroys are great in endgame.

Now for the actual topic, currently you either have artillery destroyers (Sunder, Manticore), assassins (Harbinger, Medusa), or a carrier that is straight up obsoleted by the cruiser options. Everything else is a no brained leave it at home situation. And now all these options become "not very optimal" for one specific reason.

Aggressiveness of end game opponents. Imo destroyers are fine and balanced, but what can realistically survive a Radiant or Nova or Brilliant jumping at them? Maybe a Medusa with System Expertise, but AI can't exactly think ahead. This was a slight issue before, now it's even more pronounced when Remnants have ultra jumpy ships up the wazoo. Buffing PPT would be nice as a start, so that destroyers are kinda like cruisers but in a tighter package. And that still wouldn't change much in the current end game since all you can fight are enemies faster and stronger than you, where destroyers are sluggish enough to get caught but not durable enough to survive the alpha strike.

[CapnHector]

Meanwhile...

Mind if I share a build in video form?

Enforcer monofleet vs 3 Remnant Ordos

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more videos

Alright so I did all of Lawrence's challenges just for fun. Here are the results:
- 1. Vs Culann Starforge and Tri-Tachyon ships to total 1000 DP: took out the station, killed most of the fleet, died with 8 enemy ships remaining (I admit I was totally disconnected from the gameplay this fight, I was like they are only human what could they possibly do to my fleet, but it turns out the Enforcer fleet is significantly weaker than my 5 Ordo fleets I am used to by now). I intended this to be the Star Fortress fight but upon killing it I realized it is a battlestation.
- 2. Vs 2 Tesseracts and some extra Omega because it's hard to spawn exactly 2 Tesseracts with Console Commands: Won but lost 10 Enforcers. It's actually impressive how much trouble these things can be for slow poorly shielded destroyers. Also it turns out some of them started fleeing when they lost and they weren't initially hostile when spawned with Console Commands.
- 3. Vs Kazeron Star Fortress and 300 FP Tri-Tachyon fleet which I guess is kind of like a Tri-Tachyon elite bounty because it has 2 capitals and 3 Dooms: Won, lost 9 Enforcers

So, in summary, it turns out humans can be semi-threatening to weak fleets. Seriously though these were actually pretty fun challenges. When the 3000 or whatever DP of Hegemony I spawned to test it failed to do anything to 4 of the 5-Ordo Enforcers I had given up on fighting humans but it turns out Dooms are pretty interesting opponents. Clearly the Enforcer fleet was also making a lot more assumptions about the enemy fleet than the Executor fleet because performance was not great vs humans.

I don't think Enforcer monofleets really do wins without losses, but note that if you were to run this as an Ordo farming fleet it doesn't really care about a few D-mods and the profits will easily cover restoration or even just buying new ships.

I made 1 change to the layout for these fights, namely linked the Breaches with the medium guns, which you generally should do for shorter fights, multi-Ordos are an exception.

Videos (not publishing these because they're just the basic random fights)

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Bit reluctant to share the loadout because I just threw it together without testing, but it was 30 of these lil guys:

Spoiler

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This isn't necessarily the direction I'd take to optimize it but it did work pretty well. In hindsight I would drop at least one Drover for some frigates because I didn't get to deploy all my ships until they started dying at the end lol

Destroyers are the unexplored country, I think it's so commonly accepted that they're bad that people haven't even spent much time with them. They generally have many "most x for your DP" attributes like Condor for hangars, Enforcer for OP and medium mounts, Converted Hangars, etc.

[Grievous69]

I don't count spamming a whole fleet of Converted Hangar Enforcers a valid argument in this thread. That is just drowning the enemy with fighters and missiles, it's hardly about the ship itself.

[CapnHector]

That's fine, but it is something destroyers do that other size categories can't.

That said per OP's argument of course I would still prefer strong capitals to the Enforcer fleet, not frigates though. It's going to be hard to find a destroyer to beat endgame capitals. I imagine Manticore LP spam might be kind of crazy though.

Apparently I misquoted Jang's post, I meant this one where his Drover fleet killed Remnants to running out of PPT.

You could use Support Doctrine + Derelict Operations to make destroyers work for endgame. Here's 1st try with post-nerf Drover spam, managed to clear 1600 DP with just a few losses before CR caught up with me:

Spoiler

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[SafariJohn]

Enforcer has 4 small missiles and reduced DP cost, ergo, being able to drown the enemy in fighters and missiles IS an attribute of the ship itself.

Increasing destroyer PPT to cruiser levels across the board is an interesting idea.

[Grievous69]

I understand what you guys are saying but I'm pretty sure OP is talking about balanced fleets and where do you see yourself picking a destroyer over a frigate or cruiser. The question wasn't "which destroyer monofleet can have success in endgame?". Yes, Enforcer is really good but honestly in a mixed fleet, I'm taking an Eradicator over 2.4 Enforcers if I'm going to fight something strong.

[Cruacious]

The problem I have with destroyers is that I usually can use a cruiser to do what the destroyer does, but better in MANY cases. I can use a Fury to out-do a Medusa and not even for all that much more DP for example. In the endgame I usually find my destroyers getting wrecked every time the enemy does a concentrated push on a sector, which can cause my fleet to crumble from a line breach. Even with careful micromanagement of ships they tend to be easy targets even if they run flux-neutral on weaponry as their total capacitance is usually their major weakness.

That being said, there ARE many valid uses for them even in the endgame. You can use destroyers as rearguards against fleets that use a lot of flanking frigates. The Medusa can specifically be used as an ambush reinforcement ship that can help later in the battle rather than at the start.

To summarize my position: I believe that destroyers are mostly too niche for general fleet compositions but are far from useless and can have some viable endgame uses if you plan around them.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Enforcer has 4 small missiles and reduced DP cost, ergo, being able to drown the enemy in fighters and missiles IS an attribute of the ship itself.

When you field 26 wings because you have 26 destroyers, you drown the enemy. When you field 4 wings because you added 4 destroyers to your fleet for whatever reason, they do absolutely nothing. Even if you do have both carrier skills, and you almost certainly won't.

or a carrier that is straight up obsoleted by the cruiser options

Condor still has best deck/DP ratio(not counting Gemini because)

[Sendrien]

My understanding is that destroyers are a very DP-efficient source of DPS and flux.

You need to give them cover somehow, because they're not fast enough to save their own skins from cruisers and capitals, but e. g. a pair of Hammerheads gets you more gun than an Eradicator.

They generally have many "most x for your DP" attributes like Condor for hangars, Enforcer for OP and medium mounts, Converted Hangars, etc.

It's weird how something that looks good "on paper" can fall so flat in terms of actual gameplay feel for the player.

I think it amounts to this: firepower and stat efficiency is only good as long as the ship survives long enough to bring it to bear. Destroyers tend not to survive at endgame encounters with ease, unless you are a monofleet wizard like CapnHector. For the vast majority of players, it's hard to imagine that destroyers would be brought into endgame content.

Which is sad, because destroyers should play a part in every fleet.

[CapnHector]

By the way, now that we're discussing advanced strategies, Buffalo is likely the best ECM ship in the game, due to being 3 DP so if you fit an ECM package and a Nav Relay on it you would get +2 ECM and +3 top speed. Now vs humans you might deploy 5 Buffalos to make your 225 DP of combat ships have +15% top speed without a skill point and also likely at least even in the ECM war without any other investment. Also you can smuggle with them between fights.

[Igncom1]

To me destroyers are the frigates of the late game. And some frigates are basically the same cost as a destroyer.

A wing of disposable hammerheads or sunders can easily support the flanks of a capital ships fight, and slap away most enemy frigates contesting the capture points.

Their loss in battle means basically nothing to your bottom line.

[Sendrien]

A wing of disposable hammerheads or sunders can easily support the flanks of a capital ships fight, and slap away most enemy frigates contesting the capture points.

SO Brawler TT can do the same job for 5DP and not die in the process.

[Helldiver]

Part of what affects destroyer viability in vanilla are general game mechanics, such as the arbitrary fleet ship limit pushing you to get the best ship for every slot, the completely trivial economy that makes acquiring and running the most expensive ships a non-issue, the ease of reaching high burn levels even with larger ships and so on.

With all of these issues fixed destroyers regain more of a place, though they still need changes to fulfill a stronger role. In my custom build, mainline destroyers have by far the highest concentrated firepower for their size and have a higher speed advantage over cruisers, making them a source of flanking firepower that is not easily overshadowed by frigates. Not all DDs have these characteristics, the Enforcer remains mostly an escort for larger ships and the Manticore sits as a force multiplier for smaller and faster destroyer fleets for instance - something that is now valued because high burn levels are no longer a given.