On the defensive I don’t count on starbases to provide anything more than a speed bump - unless you’ve gone out of your way to prepare a defensive starbase build.

In fleet to fleet combat MOST of the time raw fleet power wins. The closer the fleets are to parity the more damage you take. I avoid battles where I don’t outnumber the enemy at least 2:1 at all costs. Even a win can easily turn pyrrhic.

The situations where raw fleet power can be deceptive generally revolve around corvettes fighting high hp targets - leviathans, massive starbases, etc. they can die very quickly in those cases and having cruisers/battleships around is often needed.

I just stick to one long range fleet. Cruiser or battleship. Have them follow a mixed close range fleet of corvette. Hasn't failed me yet. Never mix close range and long range ships in the same fleet.

Don’t use autogenerated. Choose either armor OR shields.

Energy weapons melt armor

Kinetic weapons shred shields

Choose one or the other. The AI uses auto generated. For weapons on your ships a mix of both is a good baseline. However, if you face an enemy that has a particular build (mining fleets like to run energy beams and armor) you should build ships to counter it (in the case of the mining fleets build ships with shields and energy weapons).

When choosing your weapons you’ll see percentages. Such as shield penetration 100% or shield penetration -50% (might be in red text)

I'll post my two cents and say Ive been able to play up to admiral/GA with using auto design, excluding crisis/Fallen empires. This was in 3.xx vs 4.0. So you can definitely play without much design but they definitely help.

1) 14k star base vs 10k ships, more often than not the ships will win. If you have specific components and other factors not always the case but fleets generally punch above their weight.

2) unfortunately in Stellaris 7k vs 10k seems close in power but that's a 40% power disparity. So your fleet would have been crushed in a 1-1 fight and the 10k would've been weaken but not significantly so.

I think your fleet moved to engage further away from the star base,.got beat and disengaged then the enemy fleet finished off the starbase. If you bait the enemy fleet to engage the starbase first and move your fleet into combat shortly thereafter.

Starbase will absorb a ton of damage, which helps your survivability which leads to more kills and may have won the fight.

Lasers early game > swarm missiles mid game > mix of missiles, torpedos and kinetic artillery late game

This always works for me

Ships i always go for the bigger ones but i stop at cruisers, BBs are too expensive and the build time is also bad compared to cruisers for me

Can someone please point me to an idiots guide to fleet building in Stellaris? Specifically, current edition with no mods and DLC added.

What weapons were you using?

Some general tips

Shields die first, then armor, then hull. If hull is gone then the ship dies. Reducing FTL escape chance is usually critical to inflict losses and not just retreats on the enemy.

Good weapons are Autocannons and Kinetic artillery, All X weapons, torpedoes and whirlwind missiles. Torpedoes do more damage to big ships so switch your corvs around once tech hits cruiser/Battleship tier.

Point defence is feast or famine. If there are more fighters, torpedoes and missiles than PD you might as well not have PD. If there is more PD then fighters/torpedoes/missiles are useless and you might as well not have them.

When it comes to penetration you check enemy Hull/armor/shield value. If they are 50% shield/hull pen equal 200% damage. If they are 75% armor/shields then pen equals 400% damage. If they have hardening pen is worthless.

A Normal 1+1-2-4-8 Ratio of Titan, Battleship, Cruiser, Destroyer, Corv is a fine start. More experienced players can give you the 200 niche builds they use in a 3h video.

The important thing is to divide enemy fleets into AI - FE and Crisis fleets. Normal fleets run the same stuff as you. FE fleets are built differen and you should retrofit your ships to beat each archtype. Crisis fleets are also Unique and you should retrofit to beat them. Unbidden is all shields for example so dont bring anti armor.

If your 15k lost to a 10k its usually cause the autofitter gave you random weapons that dont work toghter. Having artillery and shotguns on the same ship doesnt work. Your fleet should follow a tactic, long range bombardment, short rang ambush, Prolonged hangar kiting ect.

Unfortunately, the concept of an "Idiot's Guide to Fleet Building" in Stellaris isn't really valid since the meta changes about every four months. The upcoming switch from Beta 4.2 (or is it 4.3), for example, is going to radically, RADICALLY overhaul the entire fleet and ship system.

For now, however, some advice.

1) Avoid using auto-constructed ships. The game tends towards max DPS designs, which sounds like a good approach. But, the mix 'n match of various guns across sizes & ranges results in ships which are OK at every range, but also poor at specifics.

2) Weapons have weaknesses. Beam weapons are bad at breaking shields; so, if your enemy sports heavy shielding, your beam weapons will be far less effective. Kinetic weapons have lower accuracy than beam weapons and are blocked rather well by armor. Missiles and fighters ignore shields (and even armor, in some cases), but take time to hit, can be shot down fairly easily, and have low rates of fire. Penetration weapons (disruptors) can bypass defenses entirely, but are short-ranged and have low actual damage, resulting in lots of chances for the enemy ships to flee.

3) Defenses have weaknesses. Shields are good against beams & plasma, but bad against everything else, and need power. Often lots of power. Armor is good against most weapons, but costs a LOT of alloys / materials to mount. Point defenses are really effective, but you can only mount them on specific hull forms.

4) Some gear is resource intensive. Ancient Archaeology weapons & defenses are almost always better than stock technology -- but, they eat up ancient artifact remnants. A big fleet build can exhaust your supply faster than you can say Rubricator. Some later shields need gas, armor needs crystal and/or motes. If you're low on something, you can have all the alloys in the universe and still not be able to build. And, trust me, you can NEVER have enough alloys.

The trick is to build fleets to a common theme, but be able to pivot if needs be. Use espionage, get data on the enemy. If they're a carrier / missile build, bring lots of point defense. If they're shield-heavy, bring railguns. If they're slow, bring ships with afterburners and long-ranged guns. If they're fast, bring lots n' lots of little weapons since the big ones will have trouble hitting.

Don't mix cloakable ships with non-cloaking ones. Cloakers get an advantage on their first shot, especially if using torpedoes. But, once that cloak drops, well, they're fairly weak.

Early game, Corvettes and Destroyers are going to be your friends. Corvettes with 2x missile and a point-defense, if they have good engines and afterburners, along with the artillery targeting computer, can dance around enemies. Destroyers can mount a Large-mount weapon for "reach out and touch" direct fire and lots of point defense.

Mid-game is the lair of the cruiser. Missile cruisers. Gun cruisers. Carriers. Mix and match as needed.

Late game is the domain of the battleship. Bring as many as you can build. Smatter in some 'vettes, destroyers, and cruisers all designed around defense & support. It's the battleships that are gonna do the killing.

But, no matter what, ALWAYS design your own vessels. Never let the computer do it.

Sureeee your playing against the ai so all you really need to do is use disruptors and missiles on your Corvetts give em swarm computers make em fast when you can. Destroyers I pretty much just do the same cruisers I make into carriers until I get battle ships then I stop using all those and just spam battleships make one a carrier with long distance shield eating weapons another artillery version that focuses on shields again and a closer range version that focuses on armor/hull. Works great I play ga and win most fights

That’s a little odd. Usually the AI fleets aren’t well designed either so I’d usually feel confident with those odds.

However, if you do finesse your own builds, you can usually beat equal stacks with minimal losses or defeat enemies with superior fleet power.

At least you could—I have no idea how 4.3 has changed the math. ep30 is my go to YouTuber. I’m sure he’ll crack the new version when it gets locked in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg0jL9wehak corvette spam is meta right now so this should do for you, if not quick tips for designing are that range is king and setting your armour to shield ratio 2:1 if they are similar tiers.