Spire Corvettes

[Faulty Logic]

I dunno. i already feel fairly railroaded when I am doing FS.. because no ships are useful at all.

I find fleetships are instrumental until the second city is fully up and running. And useful until you research battleships. Some ships are useful even alongside the capital fleet:

Stealth Battleships for eliminating out-of-the-way targets.
Polarizers/IREs for big nasty stuff.
Sheild bearers to protect the fleet.

And everything else at least helps defend.

[Lancefighter]

Given, as I employed last game, a healthy amount of fancy nebula ships... I could literally blitz my way to two cities without incident.

I would grant you that every little bit of firepower helps at defense, but I found that a 3+ city fleet on its own was more than enough to deal with basically everything in the galaxy. Except 2k zbombards. (at ~400 aip)

[Wanderer]

I dunno. i already feel fairly railroaded when I am doing FS.. because no ships are useful at all.

It depends on how deep into the game you get.  Besides that, the main fleet usually ends up on defense to deal with the exos, at least in my experience with FS.  If they're not needed, they're a secondary team taking on secondary objectives.

This has been a problem for me for quite a while - I simply do not like any of the bonus ships. The only ships i could see being useful at all are munitions boosters, and even then the flagship fills mostly the same role

Munitions boosters boost to a huge level of difference compared to the flagships, so there's value there. 

In general though, I agree.  The fleet eventually becomes irrelevant.  That's kind of the point of that campaign.  The Spire patted the AI on the head when it showed up and blew them out of the stars.  Then the AI got serious.  If you don't want the superships, the ones that make the human fleet look like the tinkertoys they are, don't play FS.

The Spire Corvette itself strikes a nice balance to me, it's a workhorse in my current AAR game.  It's got some reasonable firepower, and can mount sniper cannons for some reach out and touch someone.  For anti-FF work they're 2x as fast as a siege and can mount siege cannons, duals if you really need the firepower.  From a starship perspective, if you invest in the module upgrades, they're on par with the 50% better than the equivalent mark of starship that bonus fleetships get.

I'm not convinced in any way there's a problem with the corvettes as they stand, though I wouldn't mind that beam-upgrade to get them out of knife-fight range.

[Hearteater]

I have no idea what would be a good solution.  Only thing I can think of is have some AI response to the Spire Fleet that is immune to the Spire Fleet and requires normal ships to defeat.  Some kind of saboteur ship or something.  Then you need to screen your SF with normal ships to protect them from that.

[pheonix89]

I have no idea what would be a good solution.  Only thing I can think of is have some AI response to the Spire Fleet that is immune to the Spire Fleet and requires normal ships to defeat.  Some kind of saboteur ship or something.  Then you need to screen your SF with normal ships to protect them from that.

How on earth would that work? I mean, it could have beam weapon immunity, but that won't help vs the railguns, plasma cannon, or lasers. And if you give it immunity to the plasma cannon and lasers then it no-sells a ton of bonus ships and BOMBERS.

BTW, there are a couple fleet ships that are still useful in FS endgame, almost all in support roles. Off the top of my head, blade spawners and tackle drone launchers, just because they have nigh infinite range without being snipers and some things will engage the blades and drones. Zbombards, for the wtf alpha strike. Z med frigates, for field repair.  IREs and polarizers because even if the go down it one hit, anything that can threaten the FS fleet will be taking max damage from at least one of them. Enclaves are starships, yes, but keeping your screen and useful ships up and running on the move is nice. Reprocessors can help with getting the resources for the above. Bombers, because the new superfortresses from hell are a threat even to the FS fleet. Railclusters are great for murdering the hell out of the chaff, plus having hitscan weapons means the FS fleet won't target stuff they engage.

[TechSY730]

I dunno. i already feel fairly railroaded when I am doing FS.. because no ships are useful at all.

This has been a problem for me for quite a while - I simply do not like any of the bonus ships. The only ships i could see being useful at all are munitions boosters, and even then the flagship fills mostly the same role

Yea, I have felt (and mentioned here a few times) for quite some time (ever since the FS betas actually) that the Spire captial ships are OP, to the point of trivializing almost everything else in the game, to the point where often times you feel no need to build them (aka, it may be fun at first being able to curb-stomp everything, but after a few playthroughs after the initial "high" wears off, it just feels wrong; one of the "bad" forms of OP). This is a bit much, even if you consider the extreme cost of the higher level capital ships. In fact, I am thinking of nominating them in the next "what needs a nerf" poll, though their costs would need to be toned down somewhat, and the AI responce will need to be toned down a tad as well, to prevent the FS finish from becoming impossible.

[Faulty Logic]

I dunno. i already feel fairly railroaded when I am doing FS.. because no ships are useful at all.

This has been a problem for me for quite a while - I simply do not like any of the bonus ships. The only ships i could see being useful at all are munitions boosters, and even then the flagship fills mostly the same role

Yea, I have felt (and mentioned here a few times) for quite some time (ever since the FS betas actually) that the Spire captial ships are OP, to the point of trivializing almost everything else in the game, to the point where often times you feel no need to build them (aka, it may be fun at first being able to curb-stomp everything, but after a few playthroughs after the initial "high" wears off, it just feels wrong; one of the "bad" forms of OP). This is a bit much, even if you consider the extreme cost of the higher level capital ships. In fact, I am thinking of nominating them in the next "what needs a nerf" poll, though their costs would need to be toned down somewhat, and the AI responce will need to be toned down a tad as well, to prevent the FS finish from becoming impossible.

But that is the whole purpose of FS capital ships. If you want a game where FS ships and fleetships fight alongside each other, only build one or two cities.

[Cinth]

I'm guessing you have never seen the Imperial Fleet gloriously fail at actually finishing the AI.

[Faulty Logic]

I assume that was a bug, which is likely fixed now. Albeit a hilarious one.

[Cinth]

I assume that was a bug, which is likely fixed now. Albeit a hilarious one.

Nope. I've played the save on 6.005 and the fleet still cannot reach a homeworld.

[wyvern83]

Is the Imperial Fleet sending reinforcements to replace loses? I'm curious how that would work out.

What are the AI types and settings you are using, if you don't mind my asking?

[Cinth]

I'd have to load it up and check to see the specifics. It was a 10/10 16 HW start 120 planet map. I had 7 hubs built and ~40 planets controlled. I think each FS Exo was close to a mil in FP.

Yes, new Imperial ships warp in but it is more a stalemate at this point. If I let it keep running, the AI actually will over run me.

[Hearteater]

Only ways I can think of for saboteurs to work is give them a specific immunity to the Spire capital ships.  That would be a completely new immunity.  Not very pretty, but nothing else is coming to mind.

[Cinth]

But the AI has a response for FS. If you want the response to curb stomp those ships, then increase your AIP

[Hearteater]

This would be in addition to the existing response, and specifically to give non-FS ships something to do.  You can increase AIP all you want, FS ships will just erase it.  And if the AIP gets too high for even them, your non-FS ships aren't going to do anything.  I'm also not saying it is a great solution.  Just a thought.