Battleships are tremendously powerful and expensive ships that can be the pride of any fleet. They can dominate almost any battlefield, especially when taking advantage of their unique ability to conduct warfare at an extreme distance, giving them excellent first strike capability. They make excellent late mid-game to late-game ships. Their primary purpose is to wipe out or heavily damage an enemy fleet before it gets into range.

Although expensive Battleships are worthwhile. They have the most L and Specialized weapons slots and, with an artillery battle computer, can conduct combat from a safe distance, inflicting heavy losses on an enemy fleet while staying out of range of most of their weapons. There main drawbacks are low evasion ratings and slow speed.

There are also Corvettes, Titans, Destroyers, Cruisers and Colossus. You can read the latest info about them by clicking on their links, which will take you to their pages on my website. You can also get some tips about managing fleets and how to merge them at this page on my website.

Good Battleship Builds

There are several “good” battleship designs, some of which existed prior to the 2.0 update but are still viable in the present game.

One of the better designs is the long-range combat ship. Its sections consist of an Artillery Bow, Core, and Stern. Equipping them with large Kinetic Batteries, six in all, plus an Artillery Combat Computer, makes them lethal long-range ship killers. Unless countering a specific threat mix the defenses up evenly between shields and armor. The auxiliary slots should have Auxiliary Fire Control computers added for increased accuracy. For an added range bonus assign an Admiral with additional weapons range as a trait. Assigning a fleet of destroyers as a defensive screen for a Battleship fleet of this type, providing such things as point defense, is always an excellent choice.

Another interesting and effective design is a Broadside Bow, Hangar Core, and Artillery Stern combination. This versatile design allows small, medium, and large ships to be engaged effectively by allowing the ship to carry an array of different weapon sizes. This configuration can be loaded with large, medium and small weapons that allows for better tracking and accuracy of all enemy ship types while still delivering a significant punch to larger vessels.

As with all ship designs in Stellaris, weapons and defenses should be well-balanced with a healthy mix of all types unless countering a specific enemy. Adding an auxiliary fire control computer will help target those smaller enemy ships a little better and an afterburner will give Battleships a little bit of a speed boost, but it’s probably better to install another auxiliary fire control computer instead since any speed increase will be negligible. Use an Advanced Line Computer for this design as the Battle computer. This is an excellent video that give several excellent Battleship designs.

An Artillery Bow, Broadside Core, and Artillery Stern is another effective combination since this gives 5 large weapon slots and 2 medium weapon slots. Load it up with the biggest weapons that are available and add an Auxiliary Fire Control computer and an Afterburner, or two Auxiliary Fire Control computers.  Use the Artillery Fire Control battle computer since the ship is loaded out with long range weapons. There is also an excellent design where battleships can get “up close and personal” in the late game if that’s your thing. Probably not an optimal tactic but one that might be okay if you can sustain the losses.

How to Get Battleships

The preceding ship, the Cruiser, must be unlocked before the technology for Battleships becomes available for research. Battleships are a tier 4 research item, meaning that you also need to unlock 6 (unless modified) tier 3 technologies.

There is no easy way to determine what tier a research item belongs to in the game, even some of the weapon icons can be misleading. The easiest way, at least for some players, is to visit the Stellaris Wiki page about Engineering Research. A little cumbersome during the game but accurate.

Need more tips? Check out the 101 tips page on our website.

Upkeep Costs

The bigger the ship the higher the upkeep costs. Ship maintenance costs an empire energy credits and alloys every month. Costs can be modified and decreased by docking a fleet at a starport with a Crew Quarters, but they are always there, presenting a drain on an empire’s economy. A basic explanation about upkeep cost can be found on the page about destroyers or at this Stellaris Wiki page.

As an example, the upkeep costs for a Battleship with 2 large Mass Drivers, 2 medium Mass Drivers, 1 small Red Laser, 2 large Plasma Cannons, 1 small Mass Driver, an Antimatter Reactor, Psi Jump Drive, Dark Matter Thrusters, Tachyon Sensors, Sapient Artillery Combat Computer, 3 large Dark Matter Deflectors, 3 Large Neutronium Armor, and 2 Auxiliary Fire Control combat computers costs 11.27 energy credits per month and 2.45 alloys per month.

Ship Sections

Battleships have the highest number of large weapon slots available and have a Bow, Core, and Stern section. If designing a fleet with the most long-range firepower a battleship constructed exclusively of Artillery sections is the basic design of choice. This allows the Battleship to be outfitted with large, long-range weapons like Kinetic Artillery, which is highly effective against shields and hulls, or Neutron Launchers, which are highly effective against armor and even more effective against ship hulls than Kinetic Artillery.