Simple question...I hope.

Well, I play DA, but I think it's similar enough here that I might offer some comments.

First of all, look at the Yor ships/fleets in the viewer and see what their offense, defense, and hitpoints are.  If the Off/Def stats greatly exceed the "nameplate" values the ship(s) has(ve), then the Yor may have some Red bases somewhere.  They may also have put race points into offense/defense, and may have harvested some anomalies to boost their stats a little more.  If the Yor have Red bases, go after them, destroy them, and try to build your own there, with extra modules.

Second, even if the Yor have a little of the "wrong" defense, it will seriously reduce the damage one gun ships can inflict.  Say, for example, your one gunner has a nameplate rating of 10.  Say the enemy has 9 points of the wrong deense.  That still give the Yor ship a defense of 3 against your gun (square root of 9).  The 10 point shot will be modified by a die roll each shot, with the max hit being 10, in the absence of other modifiers (like Red bases). Then it will be compared to the 3 defense.  So, your average shot will be 5, before defenses.  Your ship will take a LOT of combat rounds to kill a Yor at that rate, especially if the Yor has lots of hit points to be whittled down to zero.  Even if your missile is 25 points, that is its max hit, so it's average will be about 12, then there is the 3 points of defense.  If you have taken "luck" and/or Universalist, this will change the math some in your favor, but with a one gun ship it will not help much.

Third, since fleets concentrate on one target at a time, even very serious defense ships cannot survive a fleet engagement if they are targeted.  There is simply too much firepower in the late game.  As a general rule, defenses start out stonger than offensive weapons and lose ground steadily all game after just a few generations of tech.

I am no expert on this game, so maybe others will have better advice.  With that disclaimer, I try to have enough offense on my late game ships to at least exceed the hitpoints of the enemy's largest ships.  A typical design might be 240 offense and 120 defense, though I have gone to 400 - 100 designs sometimes.  It may depend on if I am beams or missiles or guns, as I vary by what I see the enemy building.

Also, I take Luck always, and think long and hard before choosing other than Universalists.  Having Red bases, denying the enemy Red bases, and targeting them first thing are important, very important.

Thanks for the reply LTjim,

I cant see if they have any red bases...although of course ALL the usefull resources were taken by the time I had colonized my third planet. (I know, I know...I could just rush buy colony ships and build only factories or whatever...just seems to take away from the gameplay for me).

Also, by the time I'm ready to go to war...my fully upgraded starbases are blown away in 2 or three shots by the enemy. (after spending a fortune in time and money getting them all maxed out). I almost never waste time maxing them out anymore...at least the offence and defenceive capacitys.

I understand ONE of my capital ships shouldnt be able to hold up against a fleet of any later game tech weapons...however they are blowing away entire fleets of my ships...3 to 5 capital ships maxed out with beam defence and each with a maxed out missle gun of its own. ONE shot good-bye! If I understand the math behind this...its probably because they have capital ships maxed out with Doom rays and are concentrating on one ship at a time and therefore are causing hundreds of hit points in dammage on the first shot and then moving on to the next ship. I am taking a few of them out...but not enough to seriously curtail their offencive.

Should I go for masive fleets of smaller (cheaper) ships maxed out with missles?...so that while Im taking dammage and losing ships I could be doing significant damage to them...I guess? Of course with the "They will be God's" mega-event already in play...Every turn just makes it harder and harder...kinda like spitting in the wind at this  point I guess.

I have read hundreds of post on how to win at this game...if you just do it mathmaticly...but I dont know, it just seems to ruin the game for me if I just sit here and crank out points/credits or whatnot.

I tried to not use the "See all" cheat...so this seriously hurt my colonizing effort and my resorce collection efforts as well. Of course the other races can see all and know all without cheating so again...stupid me...just wanted to play a game normaly and Im getting my Butt handed to me on "Normal". I dont play on Metaverse so points are not an issue with me...but I cant for the life of me get this game. I cant even win CHEATING...unless I just attack everybody on week one. Which of course is pointless as far as game enjoyment is concerned.

thanks again for your help. It really did get me thinking...next game I'll have a better chance....unless they get the "become god's" mega-event again.

The primary thing screwing you over is the defence stacking. You need some defence yes, but never to the exclusion of almost all your offence and heres why. Defence degrades in battle. It can only abosorb so many of its type of damage before it becomes 0 armor. And the thing is it degrades as you fight, I don't have the math for it handy but the point I am making is that your super defence ships are nothing but a detrement to you. You can go heavy in defence early in the game and it sokay, but by the time you are even halfway down the weapons tech tree you shouldn't be doing that anymore. Also don't neglect your miniturization, its extremely important imo.

My advise would be, take your biggest hull, fill it up with the strongest weapons you've researched.

As dragoaskani mentioned, make sure you've researched enough miniaturization techs.

Also, make sure you have researched enough logistics techs so you can stack a big fleet. If it turns out your new fleets are strong enough to fight the Yor, you may want to go on the offensive and capture some of their planets (or their capital).

Otterbear -

Look at the enemy ships in the viewscreen, maybe write down their stats, then look at your own ships in the viewscreen, then compare the stats.  If you post those numbers here in this thread, you may get some more suggestions, especially if you add the weapons and defense types. 

In case I made a wrong assumption, when I said "nameplate" value for, say, offense, I meant the stats from the design.  For example, if an enemy ship had four 25-point missile mounts, then the "nameplate" rating would be 100 for offense.  However, if the enemy had a 20% racial attack bonus, 39% in bonuses from each of two Red bases (78% total), and had harvested 2% in anomalies, the ship rating would be +100%, or 200 on offense.

So, if you picked out an enemy ship, went to the details page of the viewscreen, and then counted up the doom rays, you could compare that claculated number with the actual viewscreen number.  That delta (above, the ship would have 100 in offense in the details screen but 200 on the viewscreen page) would show you the attack bonus the enemy has.  The higher that apparent bonus is, the more likely the enemy has one or more Red bases somewhere.

On protecting mining starbases, the starbase modules are recognized as inadequate for self-defense.  They mainly serve to require an enemy to send a fleet rather than a singleton.  The way to protect such bases is to place a fleet of your own on the base set for "Guard".  Then, when the enemy gets adjacent and tries to enter the starbase square, you are given the opportunity to defend/attack first with that fleet.  I always fleet protect Red bases and Green bases, and sometimes fleet protect Blue and Yellow ones.  By the late game, the Purple bases have long lost their value.  However, if you still have significant research to be done, they are still worth protecting.

(EDIT - You can sometimes short-cut the above math exercise by using espionage and consulting the enemy's numbers on the race report for that enemy.  That page will provide lots of stats, and that info might be elsewhere, as well.  I often use the math exercise simply because I don't trust the info in those other places as much as the viewscreen.)

Exellent answer,

I took a look at a save I made prior to the onset of war and checked their stats screen, (my espionage level for them is maxed). As suggested their weapons have a 75% boost and their defences an 80% boost. I also checked and they have at least one Millitary resorce being mined. I'm not very good with math but it looks as though this is part of my problem.

I do have miniturazation maxed out on the tech tree, as well as Mass Driver weapons (almost) and Missle weapons. Also, logistics as well as the Hyperion logistics super project and the Hyperion shrinker super project built...I could be wrong have to check that...or they have one also(?). They may have beaten me to the punch on that one.

Although this scenario seems to be a loss, I have learned how to deal with it ...all things being equal of course, and no "god" mega-event.

I've also learned not to play a race that gets no engine upgrades. I realized early on that I could trade for engine upgrades but the AI hasn't really researched much of that.

Also, to attack any known AI millitary starbases FIRST before EVER going for the all out assualt on their ships.

Thanks again for the very helpfull advice.

PS: I've also learned not to play a civ that gets no engine upgrades against the YOR with their "all ships move slower in your territory" ability..lol