mods such as extra ship components. it makes the juggernaught a massive beast capable of taking down most crisis fleets. plus I always see it as a bit of a vanity project
About the speed issue, use (t5) dark matter thrusters on the juggernaut, and (t4) impulse thrusters on the battleships and titans. This will make the juggernaut slightly faster than the battleships, allowing it to easily keep up with them. Juggernauts with the range boost aura are a vital part of my line of battle, and something I always build asap.
Best use of this thing is parking it in Terminal Egress with +40% range aura and full upgraded starbase with defence platforms to catch enemy fleets trying use L-gates to teleport around galaxy.
This strategy sounds great to me. A lot of times I just turn off the L gates because I find them annoying. Most of the time I don't even build the jug, but if I do, I'll park it in terminal egress.
I would use the jugg a whole lot more if you could disable it's shipyard. Whenever I build a new fleet of battleships from the fleet manager, the jugg always tries to build at least 2 even though it's on a different quadrant than the rest of the shipyard
ah this is so annoying fleet manager should prioritize closest shipyards, also they are super slow for no reason i mean mass won't matter much, larger ships, larger engines right?
just limiting juggs to corvettes and destroyers, also merging them into a small fleet with it would be good too. It also dies far to quick no matter how you set it up.
@@goldenhate6649 Bigger does not mean necessary slower, but I am unsure if your example translates well into stellaris. The aircraft carriers have a nuclear plant, which most other ships do not. In stallaris, I think the implications are that you can use the same techs to move all ships. For example if you compare same era ships with nuclear reactors and you believe the Kirov class stats, the cruiser has top speed 32 knots, while the Nimitz has 30. about 6% speed difference, for one ship being quarter the mass of the other. In the same time I must admit I do not trust the Soviet naval tradition too much. The subs seem good, but there is something fishy with their surface ships.
Jugs are so useful as a forward operating station for my playstyle. Far from my empire borders, the ability to pull fleets back for refitting, repairing, and quick reinforcement is amazing. Jugs are also good for taking down small system stations while the main attack fleets tackle the citadels & enemy fleets. Also, they are cool looking!
The second thing could as well be done by a smaller auxiliary fleet, which will be faster anyway. The fact that it can take on stations is rather a lack of a flaw than a bonus.
Juggernauts wouldn't be to bad if they could actually join fleets. Maybe allow you to make a few of them up to a cap. Plus one for the federation and custodian fleets. Maybe add a couple more shipyards to them. A juggernaut should be like bringing one of your strongest fortresses you have into battle with you. Yeah if you had it in a fleet might slow down your advance on a fleet but having it there to support your fleet would more than make up for being slow. As it stands I only tend to use them to give a bit of extra firepower to my defenses in my territory where needed. Then after the battle is done can help the local shipyards rebuild any ships I lost. Makes a fine addition to any defense if you have a fully built up fortress in a system and are moving in more fleets to deal with the issue. Other than that just never have it in a position where it would make any difference.
Adding them to a fleet would help a lot. Carrier BSs and Destroyers are a must to protect the juggernaut. All to often the Juggernauts is lagging behind the main fleet and gets ambushed by a swarm of corvettes.
Then click away to deal with something else. Forget what you were doing. So juggernaut falls behind fleet a because fleet a is much faster than the juggernaut. Fleet b just flies off somewhere because hell if I know how the AI thinks. Juggernaut gets picked off while it is passing though a system trying to keep up with fleet a and dies. Rage quit game and wonder why the hell Paradox can't just have juggernauts and colossus be part of fleets. Repeat next time you try to use a juggernaut as part of a strike force into enemy territory. Cry sadly and whine about it to random people on the internet.
Juggernauts do feel like they need some love, but I have found the perfect use for them: use them against the Grey Tempest, mainly to hop into a system before your real fleets, so they soak up the beam attacks that will 1-shot your battleships and/or kill your titans. (This would also work when assaulting a fallen empire system). A single juggernaut will keep a grey tempest fleet busy for quite a long time, allowing your fleet to hop in and finish them off with zero losses, something that is nearly (or entirely) impossible to do without one.
@@piotrrywczak I tend to open the L-gates late, but it is definitely possible to be on repeatables by 2090 (not that I always achieve this, but that I have done so). I tend to play Grand Admiral with mid-game set 25 years early and late game 50 years early. My most effective build in the current version of the game was a fanatic pacifist shattered ring. Fanatic pacifist + egalitarian lets you also take the civic that reduces empire size from pops by a further 15%, for -75% empire size once you stack everything. This means you can have a huge population and barely be paying more for techs than someone a quarter your size. On a shattered ring, if you micromanage everything you can end up with a mega-powerful trade segment (outputting thousands of trade value that you can convert to consumer goods) and a couple of 3000+ science research segments. This is in addition to the rest of your empire. You can be making so much trade that you can constantly buy out the slave market even at the high prices egalitarians have to pay, for a steady stream of pops. (This works best as an empire that accepts robots, since there tend to be a lot of those on the market). With all of this you can rush late-game engineering techs pretty early.
One time my Juggernaut absolutely trolled an entire Unbidden fleet single-handedly since the Unbidden’s ships are programmed to chase and my Juggernaut was programmed to keep distance, so it just circled around the system and picked off each interdimensional ship one by one.
One small note about the weird aura modules. If you don't mind the micro, the juggernaut can refit itself. Fleet doing some bombardment? Refit to bombardment bonus until you're satisfied and then change back.
Honestly after listening to the vid I think that a juggernaut is best used as a lynchpin of a serious defensive system that needs to be held no matter the cost. And you just park,it at the edge to help one buff up the citadel plus station u got going on and whatever fleets warp in to help the fight etc. and to help reinforce rebuild ships in fleets in those massive fortress systems with pesky shipyards on the death station batteries.
It would add a lot of value to a system that has to be held as a chokepoint, but then again, if you're a player with a defensive playstyle (like me), your Bastions will already be crossing 60k by the time you get a Jugg.
Depending on where l gates are I like to hold the terminal egress system with one juggernaut in the back and a couple of fleets at the l gate. Goal is to limit the movement of the enemy through l gates whilst keeping it ourself. This becomes more important later with multiple parties to a war or multiple wars at the same time
Placing it at Terminal Egress allows you, along with the other range modifiers from the Citadel, to have a fleet sitting parked at the Citadel and still manage to catch enemy fleets moving through the L-gates before they get to jump out. That is quite literally the only thing that I build it for.
Juggernaut will probably be pretty good(in terms of its alloy cost) with 3.6's combat rework since in current test build the most efficient monofleet is mass carrier and juggernaut is essentially equivalent to 3 carrier battleships Also 2 built-in shipyards is thematically pretty weak that I agree, with a more realistic approach for its cost it should instead have full 6 shipyards Also a juggernaut doesn't cost any naval capacity so it's like 50 free naval cap worth of power at least it's useful at playing the diplomatic weight game which coincidentally suits aspec's "giant white elephant" analogy
I would think a shipyard subset that's only good for repair or upgrade would be a good thing to have on a Juggernaut. Particularly if you could build say 6 or 10 of them on a single Juggernaut.
Niche strategy here: queue up a pair of battleships on the Jugg wait until just before they're finished then Quantum catapult the Jugg to the enemy's rear, It's a good move to draw away enemy fleets from the frontline Or cause some chaos for an enemy's ally that's too far to reach conventionally
Weird choice of the developers to add M slots instead of L slots on a ship which is clearly meant for extremely long range. This is a ship which is supposed to hang back and deal lots of damage from afar, while supporting its fleet by building new ships and providing a crap ton of strike craft. It just doesn't make sense to use medium range weapons for this ship, as it alone won't be able to utilize them from its position. Edit: Especially when it has an aura effect that increases range by 40%. A long range weapon benefits a lot more from a percentage-based modifier than a short range weapon. Edit 2: I think that the juggernaut can be an incredible asset to fleets, but only if it has reworks done to it, such as increased speed and L slots, as well as better aura effects, because only the range modifier is actually worth getting at this point.
Doubt provided a good suggestion but I would like to add that with the new minimum range mechanic on larger slots having mediums is excellent for helping it not take excessive damage from picket ships that slip past the large weapons minimum range. Also strike craft are better with this patch and picket (point defense) ships are actually mildly useful now as missiles are a lot more spammable on different ship types, such as destroyers with a bunch of small slots or upgraded missile cruisers, and point blank torpedo boats with a few picket ships are terrifying for the older battleship only fleet comps even if they go carriers. Juggernauts are slightly better now too but still are more of a very luxury option that you should only do if you have an excellent economy.
I always tell myself to not make a Jugernoaut in every game i play because of how slow, cumbersome and inconvenient when invading enemy territories but the urge to build one for no reason and not use it at all always get to me.
I say you can't have a colossus without a juggernaut. They should go everywhere together. The juggernaut can provide a degree of protection should the colossus ever be "caught with its pants down". Also has the invaluable effect of letting you switch colossus weapons on the fly.
@@zeocamo There should always be a fleet within jump range, I've never seen an enemy juggenaut go down in one fight though anyway. It's always Emergency FTL jumped before I could kill it.
It's still bullshit that Colossi can't at least partially defend themselves. They're death stars for Pete's sake. You should be able to deck them out in a massive amount of Strike Craft and A good chunk of L slot weapons so they can go on the defensive and fight back against immediate slaughter while nuking a planet. It doesn't need XL or any capital class ship weapons since its purpose is planet destruction not wiping fleets. But it should at least have weapons. Look at The Death Star with with its fleets upon fleets of Tie Fighters, some 15000 lasers and a ton of Turbolaser Arrays. Not to mention it had dry docks for repairing and refitting Star Destoryers. The Colossus is pathetically weak in comparison to what inspired it.
I always build one and always regret it. Once you get jump drives having a mobile shipyard is way less of a boon and the aura effects of the Titan is usually sufficient enough.
My juggernaut usually follows my main fleets without actually engaging in combat, providing quick corvette replacements and such. Usually when I get a juggernaut I'm already rolling over the entire galaxy, so it's more of a convenience thing than a necessary addition to the fleet
I use a juggernaut exclusively as mobile forward base for my fleets for repairs and refits in mid game. For this role it is quite good. In late game it is about as durable as a chocolate hammer though, loosing most of it's usefulness. In addition you have other ways to get your fleet around fast by then. At that point I usually place it alongside the weakest point in my defence line alongside a built up starbase just to buy a few more days should an enemy come this way.
A juggernaut can solo most stations including end game crisis stations. That's what I use them for. I can send one solo to take out a string of stations while my main fleet goes after their fleets. Very useful in that capacity.
I mostly play single player, just putting that out there. The Juggernaut is amazing when you’re on the defense. If you’re not using it to project force, you can use it to defend key choke points in your home systems, or at other key choke points. It’s great for taking the L Cluster as well. It’s not going to be your entire strategy, but backed up my another fleet it can help you not need to worry about defense as you go offensive with the rest of your fleets. When using it as a checkpoint, you do need to micro your other fleets but I fight wars that way anyway. You need to be mindful of where the enemy fleets are, as well as what hyper lanes are between your fleets and the juggernaught. It’s like defending any other starbase.
Hear me out. They could fix The Jug with 3 small changes. 1. switching out its rotating XL slots by replacing them with 2 rotating Titan Gun slots. 2. Allowing you to build 1 every 500 fleet capacity instead of 1 per empire. That way you will be able to have multiple mobile star bases for all fronts on which you wage your wars and not be boned the second your only one dies. 3. Increase its speed drastically. From base 80 to the 100 Titans and Battleships share. This would allow it to roll around with its protection squad without falling behind your main fleets. Bonus round. 1. Have its strike craft aura buff be always active ontop of allowing you to run one of the other buffs you selected. 2. Add The Dreadnought in as another Colossal ship that actually acts as the offensive twin of The Juggernaut where the both of them grant massive buffs to each other if in the same system.
The only use I have found for a Juggernaut is against the Crises, where it can serve as a repair station for the actual combat fleets in the territory scoured by the crisis.
The juggernaut makes me think of the Fast Fleet Auxiliaries from _The Lost Fleet_ books (great series, highly recommend it). The Fast Fleet Auxiliaries are mobile fleet factories that are anything but fast and are a constant source of stress for the protagonist, the fleet commander, as they are threat magnets for the enemy. Given that the titular fleet is trapped deep in enemy territory, the Fast Fleet Auxiliaries are the reason they can keep fighting condition, repairing battle damage and churning out ammunition. If the auxiliaries are destroyed, it's a slow but certain doom for the fleet. I agree that the juggernaut is currently not all that good offensively. It's too slow to keep up with the main battle fleet to make the best use of its aura, meaning you need jump drives to make it at all useful as an offensive tool. Defensively, however, it can be very powerful in conjunction with gateways and/or hyper relays, which negate its plodding sublight speed issue.
Juggnaught only comes in handy when defending, very useful for L-Gateway or galactic wonders, and building science/construction ships during them times.
If you are defending it's kind of redundant as you can use your starbases. Also the 2 ship building slots just isn't strong enough to accomplish much when it becomes available. I also have no idea what you mean with the L-gateway. That comes up long before the juggernaught becomes available and since it's such a bottleneck you can just make it an invincible fortress.
I wish there was an option to build a "combat" juggernaut, scrap the 2 (useless) shipyards and give it much better weaponry. In my opinion it should have large weapon slots and more medium slots. Something like 2 X slots, 4 L slots, and 8 M slots.
I have a feeling like the upcoming cloaking tech might make juggernauts useful... It appears like that would make it slower, but perhaps having a cloaked juggernaut in enemy territorry would give you a mobile homebase you can put anywhere - and once your first fleets are defeated, you can repair them at the juggernaut, which gives away its location, but the fleets being repaired are being repaired and protect it while the opponent has to move their fleets to you, and by the time that's all set and done you might be able to cloak the juggernaut again (if it can't repair while cloaked anyways) and move it somewhere else... Edit: this highly depends on how cloaking VS revealing works - if cloaking modules are in the only one module slot, that's useless. If they can replace shields though you could possibly stack enough cloaking to make revealing impossible.
If it had one titan weapon along with the two x slots I'd be happy I used juggernauts for decisive battles that I've set the stage for where even a powerful enemy has no choice to to hide behind their fortresses.
I think you are right ASpec. The only 3 usages I see are: - the homebase (as you said) - escort for the colossus and the option to change its weapon fast - my personal favorite but also very rare and niche is to combine the homebase with jumpdrive cooldown aura and go for a commando operation behind the enemy lines
I tend to use them on the opposite side of my empire while I'm in war. They can typically handle smaller systems/empires and keep them off my back while I tend to my real fleet. (I also never actually build them, but tend to get one or two that I can repair up, and will keep them around.)
ASpec: The Juggernaut is terrible if you do not micromanage it's movement with your fleets! Me: This is Stellaris, dear boy. Micromanaging is what we do!
I find that by the time I can field one of these things, my fleets are USUALLY strong enough to go toe-to-toe with over Empires at a similar tech level, especially if I lucked out and managed to pull out ahead with my economy. And while yes I’ve noticed - and even remember from some of your older videos when you broke down the different ship classes as full comparisons - that the Juggernaut is much slower, I find that just having one trailing along behind my fleets is typically a bigger help than a hinderance. Most of what gets churned through in my forward attack fleets are my picket corvettes, and the two shipyards can build those quickly enough that I can replenish a fleet of whatever losses it incurred in the small ships, and if I got my nose particularly bloodied and don’t yet have a captured shipyard station OR I need to hold a particular system - such as one with a wormhole that leads into my or an allies territory, and so I can’t easily leave it unguarded, parking the Juggernaut there or having it catch up to the fleet protecting the wormhole is handy. Caveat, I don’t have the Overlords DLC so the hyperjump slingshot thingy isn’t a factor in my games as yet.
I can see the Juggernaut being good against the End Game Crisis which likes to eradicate whole swaths of space and leaves nothing behind. Then it's repair capacity in deep space starts to make more sense.
I think part of why you dislike it is personal preference. Your main problem with it is that it is too slow, but I personally don't buy into the 'war is about mobility' idea. The Juggernaut can work very well as part of a huge but slow strike fleet. The one you just send straight for their capital and watch as they cannot stop you. Its aura bonuses can make a battleship fleet much more effective, so really those bonuses are what you are investing in.
The thing I don't like about juggernauts is it messes with the reinforce button. Its been a while since I used one, but I feel like I remember the reinforce button queuing just as many ships there as my mega shipyard.
I’m a juggernaut fan. I use it exactly as you described: mothership behind enemy lines that is keeping my fleets healthy. You could be right that I should instead have those alloys in battleships and cruisers, but I’ve really liked how a juggernaut can support a fleet group and keep them in the fight. I have no hard data to prove either way.
2:40 It's actually the thing I put on it the most often. I have it stay back from the main fleet to help orbital bombardment and to help protect the armies.
If the Juggernaut functioned as a mobile Gateway (while retaining the ability to travel through static Gateways), I would be much happier about its place in the game. You can generally capture enough starbases to do in-field repairs, but fighting in territory far from any Gateway can be a bit annoying, especially in a multi-front war. By the time you can actually build this thing, 2 shipyards is a joke; what I want is a fast connection between my dozens of existing shipyards and the front line.
That, or they should just merge the Colossus and the Juggernaut into one ship. The Jugg isn't a great "fleet unto itself" but a planet cracker that doesn't get scared off by two corvettes would be nice.
I thought I wasn't getting it with the Juggernaut because it never keeps up with my offensive fleets. I've only found it effective sitting at a choke point system helping to prevent a counter attack through an alternate route, or holding systems from an end game crisis fleet advance. That's the only time the aura gets used, and in that case can be very effective. Don't try moving one deep into enemy territory.
I very much agree. I usually just build one to look at it and then never use it. I can't even set my fleets to follow it because I encounter this weird bug where the ships never jump to the next system they just sit on the edge forever and never move.
I always saw the juggernaut more as a defensive tool, given its status as an effective mobile starbase. You can use it to bolster your fleet production, you can jump it on top of any enemy fleets that enter your territory, and combined with an actual starbase backing it up, it should be more than capable of repelling an enemy advance that would've otherwise taken that part of your territory.
ive always seen it as a mobile operations base, go into enemy territory, sit down somewhere that the would like to pass through, and block the route with maybe 1 supporting fleet
I use Juggernauts in two scenarios, mainly. One is mid-late game L-System exploration. Churn out those builders and scientists as they go suicide-scouting, while repairing fleets without having to wait the impossible time until you build and upgrade a starbase. The other one is with the +40% range aura, baiting massive crisis fleets while my main murder-blob is one jump away sitting on the hyperlane entry point. Not much use in regular empire vs empire scenarios though.
i usually get it when i'm out of normal techss. It can be useful against big crisis fleets because of that 40% range alfa strike bonus, but requires a lot of micro
Two simple changes that would make this thing way more viable - Remove its two shipyards and give it 5 special repair/refit-only slots, and make its base speed that of a battleship.
I don’t build them unless really necessary. But they do have some great uses. That “mobile forward operating base” is the best one I can think of. Being able reconfigure my Fleet on the fly is a really handy tool.
For Terminal Egress defense fleet it is good and 2 extra shipyards for the region if you like. Also the aura helps. SO park it in your L-Cluster door system.
The only time I’ve used a juggernaut was when I had two fallen empires on my border getting ready to awaken. So I preemptively attacked both individually. I would gather all my fleets with the juggernaut and attack the home system to wipe out fallen empire fleet. But once I won both wars. I haven’t done anything with it
Personally, I only deploy it when I'm invading a distant empire and keep it a jump or two away from the front lines to repair my fleets and protect any invading armies I've deployed. Probably not the most efficient strategy for invasions, but it's the one I've settled on for this particular ship.
About the speed issue, use (t5) dark matter thrusters on the juggernaut, and (t4) impulse thrusters on the battleships and titans. This will make the juggernaut slightly faster than the battleships, allowing it to easily keep up with them. Juggernauts with the range boost aura are a vital part of my line of battle, and something I always build asap.
I've never built a Juggernaut in Stellaris. Not in thousands of hours of gameplay. I've frequently wondered if I should but.. not enough shipyard capacity to be worth it and the only other reason would be roleplaying as a nation's flagship.
I always build them... but I can't say I have ever used it. It's too fragile to be useful on its own, and since it can't join a fleet, it's just one more thing to manage. I usually can't be bothered, so it just sits there. A giant power-projecting white elephant.
I've found with some amoeba regenerating hull augments, the Jugg can literally tank a fleet almost its own size infinitely and like others said, its great for absorbing alpha strikes because it can survive them and by default your fleets which jump in after will still end up closer to the front taking pressure off the Jugg in the middle of combat.
i've tried using a juggernaut with all my fleets following it, sadly they don't keep up and the juggernaut will jump into a system and get taken out before the other fleets arrive as backup
The only case where a juggernaut makes sense is if the hyperlanes randomly line up in one main avenue. You use it as a mobile fortification. Push you fleets forward, and fall back to it when the enemy force arrives. On a single path engagement it works well. Otherwise, there will be 5 warfronts that it can't keep up with.
My juggernaut pretty much saved one of my games once. I played with (maybe) 5x crisis and they spawned pretty early and right next to my empire. I was building the Aetherophasic Engine, so all I had to do was hold out. I parked my juggernaut on the opposite side of a choke point system with my fleets and they were able to annihilate the crisis fleets from across the system, while they were busy with my space station and get repaired, without me having to micro my fleets back and forth from the station to the edge of the system. But even than I was barely able to finish the Engine and blow up the galaxy, but they held out just long enough.
It's twofold. On the one hand it's a huge Distraction Carnifex because the enemy WILL try to take down the Juggernaut, which can normally emergency FTL out before it's destroyed, doubly so with an escort of corvettes to screen it. On the other, it's got a jump drive; you send it in so it's threatening the target you know the pivotal battle will happen at, and drop it onto your enemy's fleet either as an alpha strike a day or so before or after your main fleet arrives to give the aura buff and add a pretty spectacular amount of fleet power. When it's not doing either of those 2 things it can be bombarding planets you don't want to waste your main fleets' time on, or just holding a choke point or potential backdoor and denying the area behind it to the enemy. It is a little more situational than just pumping out a lot of battleships, yes, but the strategic uses mean I never regret building one, especially as I normally have a mega shipyard up before Juggernauts anyway
There's two things I find help the juggernaut quite a bit. Jump drives, and not playing multiplayer. In a normal single player game it's very useful to have this guy sitting behind cleaning up the mess your main fleets left while also being in jump range for quick repairs. Basically I treat it more like a mobile base than a capital ship. I agree completely that it's too slow. That's what kills it.
I still think they need to add alternate weapons technology once you unlock Titans, so you can make Titan guns in different weapons technology, but you have to research them first. The Juggernaut should also have more modular fitting like other ships, so you can customize the makeup of what weapon sizes you want to equip. The Juggernaut should have a special module in the "A" slots that speed up the build and repair/refit time of the two hangars by ... like 20% so you can really turn the Juggernaut into a useful remote shipyards.
Ok so I have been playing on the test patch with the combat update. I have a juggernaut with 3 assigned fleets that never leave its side. I also have 2 other groupings of 4 fleets each that I use to push the front in war. All of these fleets have there own titan and an assortment of other ships to have total combat coverage. Now with all the context done this is the job of my juggernaut: 1. replace lost corvettes and frigates in the other fleets by being the closest shipyard. 2. Be a mobile station the AI loves to toss single fleets at while it sits on a choke point as far from the hostile ship warp in as possible. At one point I was at war with 6 other empires and the juggernaut group was able to hold off 2 of the stronger empires by themselves when stacked on top of my station while I worked to reduce the weaker empires to fully occupied wastelands. They have a single major role that the "spam neutron battleship" meta we have had for so long is going to make it hard for some players to use. Its not an attack ship, its a mobile command center and station on a warfront. Park it on a chokepoint you cant push just yet with some support fleets and let them toss ships at it.
Its good for creating the initial beach head for invasions - push it into enemy territory and capture a station. That station instantly becomes a citadel for as long as the Juggernaut is located in system, providing a stable point for fleet repairs and replenishment and a hard target to neutralise. As it is already a high priority target for defenders you can use defensive fleets and the auras to their maximum capability, and it also provides urgent ship refitting if they change ship loadout to counter yours - switching to laser/armor to counter your kinetic/armor.
The way I like to use them is basically parking it in some strategic system in an invasion so my fleets will regroup there as well as basically being an additional starbase in that system
I use the juggernaut with success in one way: jump all my fleets (jug included) into the enemy main fleet. The extra range means I get the first shot, dramatically reducing my losses. Then their fleet is damaged and scattered, so I can split my fleets and grab a bunch of their stations before they can react. Kind of a one-trick pony. I build it when I'm at peace and I'm out of room for storing alloys.
That's right: there is no doctrinal hole which these ships fill. Paradoxically the worst aura (bombardment) is probably the only one you'll be able to make use of, because by the time the juggernaut arrives you'll probably be finished space combat and onto the invasion phase. The only other role I can see is parking it in a system you want to defend, so it just ends up being a starbase anyway
I have to agree offensively the juggernaut is a rare niche thing, its sometimes good to let it jump into a system and support but offensively it will almost always have the jump de buff on it because there is no other way to get it where it has to go in time. The fleet base / return point is a good thing though and can help in larger or far away wars at least partially. Overall i rarely utilize them since they are just annoying to handle, but i have to agree that they can be nice for defensive support. of key some key areas. Offensively it really just takes all momentum out of your fleet.
The only thing I use it for is as an advanced repair base when I don't have any other options and just have to repair ships without allowing them to leave the system.
Didn't we get a speed increase for the Juggernauts with 3.6, so that they're now as fast as a Titan? I'm pretty sure that was in the patch notes, or maybe it was 3.7. Also, the time it takes for newly built ships to join your fleet gets longer, the further you are away from home.
I love the jugg with arty battleships. Best way to take out stronger fleets, or repeatedly take on multiple similarly sized fleets back to back, with minimal casualties.
I typically only use the juggernaut if I'm going full crisis. It's surprisingly useful when your fleet has to slow down for the star eaters anyway and you find yourself in the middle of the massive dead space you've made
I use my Juggernaut for 2 main reasons : 1)If the threat level necessite a complete annihilation of the ennemy, i'll usually send it alongside my Deluge Colossus, building an entire fleet of corvets and fregates continuously to rampage the "B" or "C" area while my Spear-head fleet focuses on ennemy fleets or Heavily guarded systems. That strategy as it's default ofc, as it basically require you to carefuly plan your invasion in order to greatly and efficiently reduce your ennemy's economy to minimize its potential reinforcement and instantly destroy his colony without removing the planets from the game. (By the shield or just destruction, the effect are essentially the same) That particular strategy can work with invasion force but the result are a lot slower and that alone can put the entire operation in jeopardy. 2) If the threat level require to take a somewhat defensive position, i will usually set the Jugger' in my buffer zone, most of the time Terminal Egress, as i generally add a portal next to the L-portal. That +40% range can be very handy on extending the Citadel protection together with my defensives fleets to cover the portals. (I also usually put my Mega shipyard on a L-system so there's that for reinforcement) PS: Edited, typo
Alternate options for the Jugg would be cool. Like replacing the shipyards with repair yards and a mini version of the quantum catapult or a gateway instead.
10:45 for the record, the damage boost from torpedoes is capped at +800% for 8 size ships. Basically juggernauts (and titans and colossi) are counted the same as battleships for the purposes of the new size based damage boosts. But with no point defense juggs will definitely die to torps without a screening fleet
I think it is best for holding valuable territory and choke points while your fleets and armies do the heavy lifting. If you drop one on an enemy capital early in a fight then it can kneecap their economy and even fleet production while giving you aura bonuses, repair bays, and a respawn point.
I use the Juggernaut in combination with a Colossus and a semi-small fleet, jumping behind the frontlines from planet to planet, to either simply disrupt the enemies war efforts, or to slowly annihilate an empire while the main fleets simply hold the line. In one session, my fleet was severely underpowered compared to my opponents, with two examples, my ships had jumpdrive (it also was psionic), my opponents not, and I had a Jugggernaut and Colossus. This hit and run warfare actually forced my opponent into a white peace, which in actuality wasn't that white, considering it cost him half a dozen planets.
Juggernaut is useful for infinitely agroing an enemy death stack by spawning in ships for your incomplete fleet, sending them right into their death in the enemy ai death stack which will happily destroy them over and over for no reason while your invasion fleets take their planets
I for one, like to use it to paint the enemy map and collect claims, while the actual fleets get around to fighint the enemy fleets and starbases. And by setting it as the home base of your fleets, they can come back relativelly close to the battle already with a Jump!
So far the only application I have found for juggernauts is treating it as a mobile star base that can delve deep into enemy territory. When I conquer too much and the supply line becomes too long, juggernaut can be useful. However, it cannot and should not go into any combat despite how big of a ship it is.
I mostly use my Juggernaut to hold a choke point with a battleship fleet to help defend it in case it gets attacked, once the rest of my fleets have taken territory leading to the next choke point I move it to that one.
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You are totally right! What always annoys me in this thing, it's that it doesn't have a fleet academy in it and you just get weak ships out of its yards.
The juggernaut is essentially a parade float, looks awesome, but yeah, by late game, it's particularly defenseless by itself. I have used it as a trailing fleet behind my vanguard to overtake outposts and small planets with an accompanying fleet of armies to storm the planets. All in all I was really hopeful that the juggernaut becomes more powerful in future updates bc it's still a cool show piece, but if it becomes a standalone power house on the battlefield, I'd be ecstatic. What would probably be overkill and awesome would be if the juggernaut could be a world destroyer/ pacifier/ assimilating war machine.
The main thing I used a Juggernaut for is reinforcing my fleets that are in the middle of nowhere and no convenient gateways to utilise. The only other thing that comes to mind is in one recent game a neighbouring empire decided to attack one of my weaker bottlenecks and the Juggernaut was the only ship I had close enough to intervene - it added enough firepower to save the system and made a couple of battleships by the time they attacked again.
I rmemeber using this as the crisis to spam menacing corvettes endlessly through every war so it was always surrounded by it's own swarm, i think it was very useful.
Juggernauts are useful with the jumping upgrade to hop into one of the less defended systems far from the front and where the enemy fleet is holding, and holding there for the jump malice to go away. Then it follows along for when you need to bounce your fleet again
I like the Juggernaut not for it's own merits, but because it's design is what allowed the Ancient Cache of Technologies mod to make the Herculean, which is basically a super Colossus/Juggernaut mix, and can be upgraded to have resource and science generation too. But it's more expensive in time and resources than some mega/gigastructures. But without the Juggernaught being a thing, there'd be no mobile shipyard framework for mods to play with.
I really dislike thing, prove me wrong.
same i just build it just to build it or use it to patrol around my empire
mods such as extra ship components.
it makes the juggernaught a massive beast capable of taking down most crisis fleets.
plus I always see it as a bit of a vanity project
It's a mobile ship yard. Can repair. Use it as a logistic tool and not a war fighting tool and you'll get more use out it. Did I do good ASPEC-Senpai?
Artillery/X weapon/T weapon battleship and titan fleet plus 40% range modifier.(Also, don't fill M slots) Do I need to say any more?
About the speed issue, use (t5) dark matter thrusters on the juggernaut, and (t4) impulse thrusters on the battleships and titans. This will make the juggernaut slightly faster than the battleships, allowing it to easily keep up with them. Juggernauts with the range boost aura are a vital part of my line of battle, and something I always build asap.
I want an origin where your empire is just a wandering Juggernaut with all kinds of unique upgrades to actually produce things
This was an origin for last years Mod Jam.
you basically play caravaners
Karak....is burning.. *adagio in strings intensifies*
@@A_Spec what’s the mods name?
@@A_Spec basically Homeworld
Best use of this thing is parking it in Terminal Egress with +40% range aura and full upgraded starbase with defence platforms to catch enemy fleets trying use L-gates to teleport around galaxy.
Yup 100% that’s my move too
L gate is super hard to defend if you have high level crisis coming
Was coming in the comments just to type this lol
This strategy sounds great to me. A lot of times I just turn off the L gates because I find them annoying. Most of the time I don't even build the jug, but if I do, I'll park it in terminal egress.
Use it same way
I would use the jugg a whole lot more if you could disable it's shipyard. Whenever I build a new fleet of battleships from the fleet manager, the jugg always tries to build at least 2 even though it's on a different quadrant than the rest of the shipyard
ah this is so annoying fleet manager should prioritize closest shipyards, also they are super slow for no reason i mean mass won't matter much, larger ships, larger engines right?
just limiting juggs to corvettes and destroyers, also merging them into a small fleet with it would be good too. It also dies far to quick no matter how you set it up.
That would be an improvement over what I see. I build a Jugg and anything queued just stacks up in its two ship queue ignoring all other options.
Exactly. US aircraft carriers are actually one of the fastest ships in the US fleet even though they weigh more than 100 thousand tons.
@@goldenhate6649 Bigger does not mean necessary slower, but I am unsure if your example translates well into stellaris. The aircraft carriers have a nuclear plant, which most other ships do not. In stallaris, I think the implications are that you can use the same techs to move all ships.
For example if you compare same era ships with nuclear reactors and you believe the Kirov class stats, the cruiser has top speed 32 knots, while the Nimitz has 30. about 6% speed difference, for one ship being quarter the mass of the other. In the same time I must admit I do not trust the Soviet naval tradition too much. The subs seem good, but there is something fishy with their surface ships.
Jugs are so useful as a forward operating station for my playstyle. Far from my empire borders, the ability to pull fleets back for refitting, repairing, and quick reinforcement is amazing. Jugs are also good for taking down small system stations while the main attack fleets tackle the citadels & enemy fleets. Also, they are cool looking!
The second thing could as well be done by a smaller auxiliary fleet, which will be faster anyway.
The fact that it can take on stations is rather a lack of a flaw than a bonus.
Repair is good, but I find burning a slot on repair tissue anyhow. Upgrades and reinforcements take too long with only 2 build slots.
Juggernauts wouldn't be to bad if they could actually join fleets. Maybe allow you to make a few of them up to a cap. Plus one for the federation and custodian fleets. Maybe add a couple more shipyards to them. A juggernaut should be like bringing one of your strongest fortresses you have into battle with you. Yeah if you had it in a fleet might slow down your advance on a fleet but having it there to support your fleet would more than make up for being slow. As it stands I only tend to use them to give a bit of extra firepower to my defenses in my territory where needed. Then after the battle is done can help the local shipyards rebuild any ships I lost. Makes a fine addition to any defense if you have a fully built up fortress in a system and are moving in more fleets to deal with the issue. Other than that just never have it in a position where it would make any difference.
Adding them to a fleet would help a lot. Carrier BSs and Destroyers are a must to protect the juggernaut. All to often the Juggernauts is lagging behind the main fleet and gets ambushed by a swarm of corvettes.
You could just have a fleet follow the juggernaut around
Isn't quite the same thing
Set your position like this fleet b follows juggernaut, juggernaut follows fleet a, fleet a takes point.
Then click away to deal with something else. Forget what you were doing. So juggernaut falls behind fleet a because fleet a is much faster than the juggernaut. Fleet b just flies off somewhere because hell if I know how the AI thinks. Juggernaut gets picked off while it is passing though a system trying to keep up with fleet a and dies. Rage quit game and wonder why the hell Paradox can't just have juggernauts and colossus be part of fleets. Repeat next time you try to use a juggernaut as part of a strike force into enemy territory. Cry sadly and whine about it to random people on the internet.
Juggernauts do feel like they need some love, but I have found the perfect use for them: use them against the Grey Tempest, mainly to hop into a system before your real fleets, so they soak up the beam attacks that will 1-shot your battleships and/or kill your titans. (This would also work when assaulting a fallen empire system). A single juggernaut will keep a grey tempest fleet busy for quite a long time, allowing your fleet to hop in and finish them off with zero losses, something that is nearly (or entirely) impossible to do without one.
You need to share your secrets for having Juggernauts during the Grey Tempest.
In the year of our lord 2290 I had a fleet of 30k, not a Juggernaut.
@@piotrrywczak you should probably have about 3x depending on what you're playing. But you won't have a juggernaut for another 50 years for sure.
@@piotrrywczak I tend to open the L-gates late, but it is definitely possible to be on repeatables by 2090 (not that I always achieve this, but that I have done so). I tend to play Grand Admiral with mid-game set 25 years early and late game 50 years early.
My most effective build in the current version of the game was a fanatic pacifist shattered ring. Fanatic pacifist + egalitarian lets you also take the civic that reduces empire size from pops by a further 15%, for -75% empire size once you stack everything. This means you can have a huge population and barely be paying more for techs than someone a quarter your size. On a shattered ring, if you micromanage everything you can end up with a mega-powerful trade segment (outputting thousands of trade value that you can convert to consumer goods) and a couple of 3000+ science research segments. This is in addition to the rest of your empire. You can be making so much trade that you can constantly buy out the slave market even at the high prices egalitarians have to pay, for a steady stream of pops. (This works best as an empire that accepts robots, since there tend to be a lot of those on the market).
With all of this you can rush late-game engineering techs pretty early.
One time my Juggernaut absolutely trolled an entire Unbidden fleet single-handedly since the Unbidden’s ships are programmed to chase and my Juggernaut was programmed to keep distance, so it just circled around the system and picked off each interdimensional ship one by one.
One small note about the weird aura modules. If you don't mind the micro, the juggernaut can refit itself.
Fleet doing some bombardment? Refit to bombardment bonus until you're satisfied and then change back.
This helps in m opinion if ou have those nasty infected worlds but no kolossus
I just want to form a fleet around them
Honestly after listening to the vid I think that a juggernaut is best used as a lynchpin of a serious defensive system that needs to be held no matter the cost. And you just park,it at the edge to help one buff up the citadel plus station u got going on and whatever fleets warp in to help the fight etc. and to help reinforce rebuild ships in fleets in those massive fortress systems with pesky shipyards on the death station batteries.
It would add a lot of value to a system that has to be held as a chokepoint, but then again, if you're a player with a defensive playstyle (like me), your Bastions will already be crossing 60k by the time you get a Jugg.
Depending on where l gates are I like to hold the terminal egress system with one juggernaut in the back and a couple of fleets at the l gate. Goal is to limit the movement of the enemy through l gates whilst keeping it ourself. This becomes more important later with multiple parties to a war or multiple wars at the same time
Placing it at Terminal Egress allows you, along with the other range modifiers from the Citadel, to have a fleet sitting parked at the Citadel and still manage to catch enemy fleets moving through the L-gates before they get to jump out. That is quite literally the only thing that I build it for.
Yeah this. Jugg is a star fortress that can reposition itself and can stack with existing citadel. It's terrible on offense due to slowness.
Juggernaut will probably be pretty good(in terms of its alloy cost) with 3.6's combat rework since in current test build the most efficient monofleet is mass carrier and juggernaut is essentially equivalent to 3 carrier battleships
Also 2 built-in shipyards is thematically pretty weak that I agree, with a more realistic approach for its cost it should instead have full 6 shipyards
Also a juggernaut doesn't cost any naval capacity so it's like 50 free naval cap worth of power at least it's useful at playing the diplomatic weight game which coincidentally suits aspec's "giant white elephant" analogy
I would think a shipyard subset that's only good for repair or upgrade would be a good thing to have on a Juggernaut. Particularly if you could build say 6 or 10 of them on a single Juggernaut.
Niche strategy here: queue up a pair of battleships on the Jugg wait until just before they're finished then Quantum catapult the Jugg to the enemy's rear,
It's a good move to draw away enemy fleets from the frontline
Or cause some chaos for an enemy's ally that's too far to reach conventionally
Weird choice of the developers to add M slots instead of L slots on a ship which is clearly meant for extremely long range. This is a ship which is supposed to hang back and deal lots of damage from afar, while supporting its fleet by building new ships and providing a crap ton of strike craft. It just doesn't make sense to use medium range weapons for this ship, as it alone won't be able to utilize them from its position.
Edit: Especially when it has an aura effect that increases range by 40%. A long range weapon benefits a lot more from a percentage-based modifier than a short range weapon.
Edit 2: I think that the juggernaut can be an incredible asset to fleets, but only if it has reworks done to it, such as increased speed and L slots, as well as better aura effects, because only the range modifier is actually worth getting at this point.
You can use a swarm of missiles in a new patch in these slots now with 120 range. Not that bad now.
Doubt provided a good suggestion but I would like to add that with the new minimum range mechanic on larger slots having mediums is excellent for helping it not take excessive damage from picket ships that slip past the large weapons minimum range. Also strike craft are better with this patch and picket (point defense) ships are actually mildly useful now as missiles are a lot more spammable on different ship types, such as destroyers with a bunch of small slots or upgraded missile cruisers, and point blank torpedo boats with a few picket ships are terrifying for the older battleship only fleet comps even if they go carriers. Juggernauts are slightly better now too but still are more of a very luxury option that you should only do if you have an excellent economy.
I always tell myself to not make a Jugernoaut in every game i play because of how slow, cumbersome and inconvenient when invading enemy territories but the urge to build one for no reason and not use it at all always get to me.
I say you can't have a colossus without a juggernaut. They should go everywhere together. The juggernaut can provide a degree of protection should the colossus ever be "caught with its pants down". Also has the invaluable effect of letting you switch colossus weapons on the fly.
useful for swapping out its main weapon too if you want to crack some but sweep others.
together with the colossus and it is just a bigger target, if you can kill both then you win 25% of the war. they don't be alone
@@zeocamo There should always be a fleet within jump range, I've never seen an enemy juggenaut go down in one fight though anyway. It's always Emergency FTL jumped before I could kill it.
It's still bullshit that Colossi can't at least partially defend themselves. They're death stars for Pete's sake. You should be able to deck them out in a massive amount of Strike Craft and A good chunk of L slot weapons so they can go on the defensive and fight back against immediate slaughter while nuking a planet. It doesn't need XL or any capital class ship weapons since its purpose is planet destruction not wiping fleets. But it should at least have weapons. Look at The Death Star with with its fleets upon fleets of Tie Fighters, some 15000 lasers and a ton of Turbolaser Arrays. Not to mention it had dry docks for repairing and refitting Star Destoryers.
The Colossus is pathetically weak in comparison to what inspired it.
Straight up but I always have 2 - 3 fleets within a couple systems
I always build one and always regret it. Once you get jump drives having a mobile shipyard is way less of a boon and the aura effects of the Titan is usually sufficient enough.
Yeah but jump drives push you into unbidden territory, and those guys suck.
My juggernaut usually follows my main fleets without actually engaging in combat, providing quick corvette replacements and such. Usually when I get a juggernaut I'm already rolling over the entire galaxy, so it's more of a convenience thing than a necessary addition to the fleet
I use a juggernaut exclusively as mobile forward base for my fleets for repairs and refits in mid game.
For this role it is quite good. In late game it is about as durable as a chocolate hammer though, loosing most of it's usefulness. In addition you have other ways to get your fleet around fast by then. At that point I usually place it alongside the weakest point in my defence line alongside a built up starbase just to buy a few more days should an enemy come this way.
A juggernaut can solo most stations including end game crisis stations. That's what I use them for. I can send one solo to take out a string of stations while my main fleet goes after their fleets. Very useful in that capacity.
I mostly play single player, just putting that out there. The Juggernaut is amazing when you’re on the defense. If you’re not using it to project force, you can use it to defend key choke points in your home systems, or at other key choke points. It’s great for taking the L Cluster as well. It’s not going to be your entire strategy, but backed up my another fleet it can help you not need to worry about defense as you go offensive with the rest of your fleets.
When using it as a checkpoint, you do need to micro your other fleets but I fight wars that way anyway. You need to be mindful of where the enemy fleets are, as well as what hyper lanes are between your fleets and the juggernaught. It’s like defending any other starbase.
It also takes build slots when trying to reinforce a fleet. It will queue up 10 battleships at the juggernaut while your megashipyard is empty.
Hear me out. They could fix The Jug with 3 small changes.
1. switching out its rotating XL slots by replacing them with 2 rotating Titan Gun slots.
2. Allowing you to build 1 every 500 fleet capacity instead of 1 per empire. That way you will be able to have multiple mobile star bases for all fronts on which you wage your wars and not be boned the second your only one dies.
3. Increase its speed drastically. From base 80 to the 100 Titans and Battleships share. This would allow it to roll around with its protection squad without falling behind your main fleets.
Bonus round.
1. Have its strike craft aura buff be always active ontop of allowing you to run one of the other buffs you selected.
2. Add The Dreadnought in as another Colossal ship that actually acts as the offensive twin of The Juggernaut where the both of them grant massive buffs to each other if in the same system.
Ultimate Counter Argument: It looks cool next to my actually competent fleet.
I like to use it for boosting bastions range. But I HATE the lack of an option to turn off it's shipyards
The only use I have found for a Juggernaut is against the Crises, where it can serve as a repair station for the actual combat fleets in the territory scoured by the crisis.
The juggernaut makes me think of the Fast Fleet Auxiliaries from _The Lost Fleet_ books (great series, highly recommend it). The Fast Fleet Auxiliaries are mobile fleet factories that are anything but fast and are a constant source of stress for the protagonist, the fleet commander, as they are threat magnets for the enemy. Given that the titular fleet is trapped deep in enemy territory, the Fast Fleet Auxiliaries are the reason they can keep fighting condition, repairing battle damage and churning out ammunition. If the auxiliaries are destroyed, it's a slow but certain doom for the fleet.
I agree that the juggernaut is currently not all that good offensively. It's too slow to keep up with the main battle fleet to make the best use of its aura, meaning you need jump drives to make it at all useful as an offensive tool. Defensively, however, it can be very powerful in conjunction with gateways and/or hyper relays, which negate its plodding sublight speed issue.
Juggnaught only comes in handy when defending, very useful for L-Gateway or galactic wonders, and building science/construction ships during them times.
If you are defending it's kind of redundant as you can use your starbases.
Also the 2 ship building slots just isn't strong enough to accomplish much when it becomes available.
I also have no idea what you mean with the L-gateway. That comes up long before the juggernaught becomes available and since it's such a bottleneck you can just make it an invincible fortress.
I wish there was an option to build a "combat" juggernaut, scrap the 2 (useless) shipyards and give it much better weaponry.
In my opinion it should have large weapon slots and more medium slots. Something like 2 X slots, 4 L slots, and 8 M slots.
FP's juggernaught Super Carrier gives the juggernaught about 22 hangars and a few torpedoes slots.
Can you disable their shipyards? They always start building when I crank out a new fleet, and seem to take precedence over my mega shipyard.
Only through mods.
I have a feeling like the upcoming cloaking tech might make juggernauts useful... It appears like that would make it slower, but perhaps having a cloaked juggernaut in enemy territorry would give you a mobile homebase you can put anywhere - and once your first fleets are defeated, you can repair them at the juggernaut, which gives away its location, but the fleets being repaired are being repaired and protect it while the opponent has to move their fleets to you, and by the time that's all set and done you might be able to cloak the juggernaut again (if it can't repair while cloaked anyways) and move it somewhere else...
Edit: this highly depends on how cloaking VS revealing works - if cloaking modules are in the only one module slot, that's useless. If they can replace shields though you could possibly stack enough cloaking to make revealing impossible.
If it had one titan weapon along with the two x slots I'd be happy
I used juggernauts for decisive battles that I've set the stage for where even a powerful enemy has no choice to to hide behind their fortresses.
I wish they could be integrated into fleets.
I think you are right ASpec. The only 3 usages I see are:
- the homebase (as you said)
- escort for the colossus and the option to change its weapon fast
- my personal favorite but also very rare and niche is to combine the homebase with jumpdrive cooldown aura and go for a commando operation behind the enemy lines
They're also mandatory to 1 system habitat playthroughs for extra aura stacking
I tend to use them on the opposite side of my empire while I'm in war. They can typically handle smaller systems/empires and keep them off my back while I tend to my real fleet.
(I also never actually build them, but tend to get one or two that I can repair up, and will keep them around.)
ASpec: The Juggernaut is terrible if you do not micromanage it's movement with your fleets!
Me: This is Stellaris, dear boy. Micromanaging is what we do!
I find that by the time I can field one of these things, my fleets are USUALLY strong enough to go toe-to-toe with over Empires at a similar tech level, especially if I lucked out and managed to pull out ahead with my economy. And while yes I’ve noticed - and even remember from some of your older videos when you broke down the different ship classes as full comparisons - that the Juggernaut is much slower, I find that just having one trailing along behind my fleets is typically a bigger help than a hinderance. Most of what gets churned through in my forward attack fleets are my picket corvettes, and the two shipyards can build those quickly enough that I can replenish a fleet of whatever losses it incurred in the small ships, and if I got my nose particularly bloodied and don’t yet have a captured shipyard station OR I need to hold a particular system - such as one with a wormhole that leads into my or an allies territory, and so I can’t easily leave it unguarded, parking the Juggernaut there or having it catch up to the fleet protecting the wormhole is handy.
Caveat, I don’t have the Overlords DLC so the hyperjump slingshot thingy isn’t a factor in my games as yet.
Would love this as an origin, eldar cosplay of having only Craftworlds, barely controlling space, only taking resources then moving somewhere else.
I can see the Juggernaut being good against the End Game Crisis which likes to eradicate whole swaths of space and leaves nothing behind. Then it's repair capacity in deep space starts to make more sense.
I think part of why you dislike it is personal preference. Your main problem with it is that it is too slow, but I personally don't buy into the 'war is about mobility' idea. The Juggernaut can work very well as part of a huge but slow strike fleet. The one you just send straight for their capital and watch as they cannot stop you. Its aura bonuses can make a battleship fleet much more effective, so really those bonuses are what you are investing in.
The thing I don't like about juggernauts is it messes with the reinforce button. Its been a while since I used one, but I feel like I remember the reinforce button queuing just as many ships there as my mega shipyard.
In my experience it still does. I don't build juggernauts entirely for this reason
I’m a juggernaut fan. I use it exactly as you described: mothership behind enemy lines that is keeping my fleets healthy. You could be right that I should instead have those alloys in battleships and cruisers, but I’ve really liked how a juggernaut can support a fleet group and keep them in the fight. I have no hard data to prove either way.
At a certain point you have so many alloys and so much naval cap that it's like, why not?
If I have it I usually put the two 'worst' aura's on it, either the self-repair or the bombardment assist cause that is what I mostly use it for.
2:40
It's actually the thing I put on it the most often. I have it stay back from the main fleet to help orbital bombardment and to help protect the armies.
If the Juggernaut functioned as a mobile Gateway (while retaining the ability to travel through static Gateways), I would be much happier about its place in the game. You can generally capture enough starbases to do in-field repairs, but fighting in territory far from any Gateway can be a bit annoying, especially in a multi-front war. By the time you can actually build this thing, 2 shipyards is a joke; what I want is a fast connection between my dozens of existing shipyards and the front line.
That, or they should just merge the Colossus and the Juggernaut into one ship. The Jugg isn't a great "fleet unto itself" but a planet cracker that doesn't get scared off by two corvettes would be nice.
@@AdmiralKarelia Actually, yes, but there is easy solution.
They just must let Juggy to join your fleet.
I thought I wasn't getting it with the Juggernaut because it never keeps up with my offensive fleets. I've only found it effective sitting at a choke point system helping to prevent a counter attack through an alternate route, or holding systems from an end game crisis fleet advance. That's the only time the aura gets used, and in that case can be very effective. Don't try moving one deep into enemy territory.
I very much agree. I usually just build one to look at it and then never use it. I can't even set my fleets to follow it because I encounter this weird bug where the ships never jump to the next system they just sit on the edge forever and never move.
I always saw the juggernaut more as a defensive tool, given its status as an effective mobile starbase. You can use it to bolster your fleet production, you can jump it on top of any enemy fleets that enter your territory, and combined with an actual starbase backing it up, it should be more than capable of repelling an enemy advance that would've otherwise taken that part of your territory.
ive always seen it as a mobile operations base, go into enemy territory, sit down somewhere that the would like to pass through, and block the route with maybe 1 supporting fleet
I use Juggernauts in two scenarios, mainly. One is mid-late game L-System exploration. Churn out those builders and scientists as they go suicide-scouting, while repairing fleets without having to wait the impossible time until you build and upgrade a starbase. The other one is with the +40% range aura, baiting massive crisis fleets while my main murder-blob is one jump away sitting on the hyperlane entry point. Not much use in regular empire vs empire scenarios though.
i usually get it when i'm out of normal techss. It can be useful against big crisis fleets because of that 40% range alfa strike bonus, but requires a lot of micro
Two simple changes that would make this thing way more viable - Remove its two shipyards and give it 5 special repair/refit-only slots, and make its base speed that of a battleship.
Hey they just made the juggernaut same speed as titan and battleship
The juggernaut would only be a good ship if you couldn't repair at captured stations
I don’t build them unless really necessary. But they do have some great uses. That “mobile forward operating base” is the best one I can think of. Being able reconfigure my
Fleet on the fly is a really handy tool.
For Terminal Egress defense fleet it is good and 2 extra shipyards for the region if you like. Also the aura helps. SO park it in your L-Cluster door system.
The only time I’ve used a juggernaut was when I had two fallen empires on my border getting ready to awaken. So I preemptively attacked both individually. I would gather all my fleets with the juggernaut and attack the home system to wipe out fallen empire fleet. But once I won both wars. I haven’t done anything with it
Personally, I only deploy it when I'm invading a distant empire and keep it a jump or two away from the front lines to repair my fleets and protect any invading armies I've deployed.
Probably not the most efficient strategy for invasions, but it's the one I've settled on for this particular ship.
About the speed issue, use (t5) dark matter thrusters on the juggernaut, and (t4) impulse thrusters on the battleships and titans. This will make the juggernaut slightly faster than the battleships, allowing it to easily keep up with them. Juggernauts with the range boost aura are a vital part of my line of battle, and something I always build asap.
Interesting
I've never built a Juggernaut in Stellaris. Not in thousands of hours of gameplay.
I've frequently wondered if I should but.. not enough shipyard capacity to be worth it and the only other reason would be roleplaying as a nation's flagship.
You forgot the most important argument in favour of the Juggernauts.
They're cool.
"more strike craft than a Battlestar"
I think that's my favorite line yet from you
Does not right now Juggernaut have the same speed as battleships and titans?
Ye, they patched it after this video came out.
I would love to see you talk about the new meat for ship designs and fleet managments. Since we just got a new overhall for it
I always build them... but I can't say I have ever used it. It's too fragile to be useful on its own, and since it can't join a fleet, it's just one more thing to manage. I usually can't be bothered, so it just sits there. A giant power-projecting white elephant.
I've found with some amoeba regenerating hull augments, the Jugg can literally tank a fleet almost its own size infinitely and like others said, its great for absorbing alpha strikes because it can survive them and by default your fleets which jump in after will still end up closer to the front taking pressure off the Jugg in the middle of combat.
i've tried using a juggernaut with all my fleets following it, sadly they don't keep up and the juggernaut will jump into a system and get taken out before the other fleets arrive as backup
The only case where a juggernaut makes sense is if the hyperlanes randomly line up in one main avenue. You use it as a mobile fortification. Push you fleets forward, and fall back to it when the enemy force arrives. On a single path engagement it works well. Otherwise, there will be 5 warfronts that it can't keep up with.
My juggernaut pretty much saved one of my games once. I played with (maybe) 5x crisis and they spawned pretty early and right next to my empire. I was building the Aetherophasic Engine, so all I had to do was hold out. I parked my juggernaut on the opposite side of a choke point system with my fleets and they were able to annihilate the crisis fleets from across the system, while they were busy with my space station and get repaired, without me having to micro my fleets back and forth from the station to the edge of the system. But even than I was barely able to finish the Engine and blow up the galaxy, but they held out just long enough.
It's twofold. On the one hand it's a huge Distraction Carnifex because the enemy WILL try to take down the Juggernaut, which can normally emergency FTL out before it's destroyed, doubly so with an escort of corvettes to screen it. On the other, it's got a jump drive; you send it in so it's threatening the target you know the pivotal battle will happen at, and drop it onto your enemy's fleet either as an alpha strike a day or so before or after your main fleet arrives to give the aura buff and add a pretty spectacular amount of fleet power. When it's not doing either of those 2 things it can be bombarding planets you don't want to waste your main fleets' time on, or just holding a choke point or potential backdoor and denying the area behind it to the enemy. It is a little more situational than just pumping out a lot of battleships, yes, but the strategic uses mean I never regret building one, especially as I normally have a mega shipyard up before Juggernauts anyway
There's two things I find help the juggernaut quite a bit. Jump drives, and not playing multiplayer. In a normal single player game it's very useful to have this guy sitting behind cleaning up the mess your main fleets left while also being in jump range for quick repairs.
Basically I treat it more like a mobile base than a capital ship. I agree completely that it's too slow. That's what kills it.
I still think they need to add alternate weapons technology once you unlock Titans, so you can make Titan guns in different weapons technology, but you have to research them first. The Juggernaut should also have more modular fitting like other ships, so you can customize the makeup of what weapon sizes you want to equip. The Juggernaut should have a special module in the "A" slots that speed up the build and repair/refit time of the two hangars by ... like 20% so you can really turn the Juggernaut into a useful remote shipyards.
Ok so I have been playing on the test patch with the combat update. I have a juggernaut with 3 assigned fleets that never leave its side. I also have 2 other groupings of 4 fleets each that I use to push the front in war. All of these fleets have there own titan and an assortment of other ships to have total combat coverage.
Now with all the context done this is the job of my juggernaut:
1. replace lost corvettes and frigates in the other fleets by being the closest shipyard.
2. Be a mobile station the AI loves to toss single fleets at while it sits on a choke point as far from the hostile ship warp in as possible.
At one point I was at war with 6 other empires and the juggernaut group was able to hold off 2 of the stronger empires by themselves when stacked on top of my station while I worked to reduce the weaker empires to fully occupied wastelands.
They have a single major role that the "spam neutron battleship" meta we have had for so long is going to make it hard for some players to use. Its not an attack ship, its a mobile command center and station on a warfront. Park it on a chokepoint you cant push just yet with some support fleets and let them toss ships at it.
I usually use it to hold down Eternal Egress together with the Star Based. I just park it there in case I need its Aura for defense.
Same, or raiding fallen empires
Its good for creating the initial beach head for invasions - push it into enemy territory and capture a station. That station instantly becomes a citadel for as long as the Juggernaut is located in system, providing a stable point for fleet repairs and replenishment and a hard target to neutralise. As it is already a high priority target for defenders you can use defensive fleets and the auras to their maximum capability, and it also provides urgent ship refitting if they change ship loadout to counter yours - switching to laser/armor to counter your kinetic/armor.
The Juggernaut is an essential part of my anti-Tempest bulwark when I decide to crack open the cluster to weaken my rivals.
The way I like to use them is basically parking it in some strategic system in an invasion so my fleets will regroup there as well as basically being an additional starbase in that system
I use the juggernaut with success in one way: jump all my fleets (jug included) into the enemy main fleet. The extra range means I get the first shot, dramatically reducing my losses. Then their fleet is damaged and scattered, so I can split my fleets and grab a bunch of their stations before they can react.
Kind of a one-trick pony. I build it when I'm at peace and I'm out of room for storing alloys.
That's right: there is no doctrinal hole which these ships fill. Paradoxically the worst aura (bombardment) is probably the only one you'll be able to make use of, because by the time the juggernaut arrives you'll probably be finished space combat and onto the invasion phase. The only other role I can see is parking it in a system you want to defend, so it just ends up being a starbase anyway
I have to agree offensively the juggernaut is a rare niche thing, its sometimes good to let it jump into a system and support but offensively it will almost always have the jump de buff on it because there is no other way to get it where it has to go in time. The fleet base / return point is a good thing though and can help in larger or far away wars at least partially.
Overall i rarely utilize them since they are just annoying to handle, but i have to agree that they can be nice for defensive support. of key some key areas.
Offensively it really just takes all momentum out of your fleet.
The only thing I use it for is as an advanced repair base when I don't have any other options and just have to repair ships without allowing them to leave the system.
Didn't we get a speed increase for the Juggernauts with 3.6, so that they're now as fast as a Titan? I'm pretty sure that was in the patch notes, or maybe it was 3.7. Also, the time it takes for newly built ships to join your fleet gets longer, the further you are away from home.
I love the jugg with arty battleships. Best way to take out stronger fleets, or repeatedly take on multiple similarly sized fleets back to back, with minimal casualties.
I typically only use the juggernaut if I'm going full crisis. It's surprisingly useful when your fleet has to slow down for the star eaters anyway and you find yourself in the middle of the massive dead space you've made
I use my Juggernaut for 2 main reasons :
1)If the threat level necessite a complete annihilation of the ennemy, i'll usually send it alongside my Deluge Colossus, building an entire fleet of corvets and fregates continuously to rampage the "B" or "C" area while my Spear-head fleet focuses on ennemy fleets or Heavily guarded systems.
That strategy as it's default ofc, as it basically require you to carefuly plan your invasion in order to greatly and efficiently reduce your ennemy's economy to minimize its potential reinforcement and instantly destroy his colony without removing the planets from the game. (By the shield or just destruction, the effect are essentially the same) That particular strategy can work with invasion force but the result are a lot slower and that alone can put the entire operation in jeopardy.
2) If the threat level require to take a somewhat defensive position, i will usually set the Jugger' in my buffer zone, most of the time Terminal Egress, as i generally add a portal next to the L-portal. That +40% range can be very handy on extending the Citadel protection together with my defensives fleets to cover the portals. (I also usually put my Mega shipyard on a L-system so there's that for reinforcement)
PS: Edited, typo
Alternate options for the Jugg would be cool.
Like replacing the shipyards with repair yards and a mini version of the quantum catapult or a gateway instead.
Counter point:
*Big ship*
Point taken
10:45 for the record, the damage boost from torpedoes is capped at +800% for 8 size ships. Basically juggernauts (and titans and colossi) are counted the same as battleships for the purposes of the new size based damage boosts. But with no point defense juggs will definitely die to torps without a screening fleet
I think it is best for holding valuable territory and choke points while your fleets and armies do the heavy lifting. If you drop one on an enemy capital early in a fight then it can kneecap their economy and even fleet production while giving you aura bonuses, repair bays, and a respawn point.
I use the Juggernaut in combination with a Colossus and a semi-small fleet, jumping behind the frontlines from planet to planet, to either simply disrupt the enemies war efforts, or to slowly annihilate an empire while the main fleets simply hold the line.
In one session, my fleet was severely underpowered compared to my opponents, with two examples, my ships had jumpdrive (it also was psionic), my opponents not, and I had a Jugggernaut and Colossus. This hit and run warfare actually forced my opponent into a white peace, which in actuality wasn't that white, considering it cost him half a dozen planets.
I usually just park my juggernaut in a strategic chokepoint like a wormhole to block enemies from using it while my fleets do the actual fighting.
Juggernaut is useful for infinitely agroing an enemy death stack by spawning in ships for your incomplete fleet, sending them right into their death in the enemy ai death stack which will happily destroy them over and over for no reason while your invasion fleets take their planets
I for one, like to use it to paint the enemy map and collect claims, while the actual fleets get around to fighint the enemy fleets and starbases.
And by setting it as the home base of your fleets, they can come back relativelly close to the battle already with a Jump!
So far the only application I have found for juggernauts is treating it as a mobile star base that can delve deep into enemy territory. When I conquer too much and the supply line becomes too long, juggernaut can be useful. However, it cannot and should not go into any combat despite how big of a ship it is.
I only build that thing when I have a Megashipyard, but then the reduced travel time for reinforcements is helpful.
I mostly use my Juggernaut to hold a choke point with a battleship fleet to help defend it in case it gets attacked, once the rest of my fleets have taken territory leading to the next choke point I move it to that one.
You are totally right!
What always annoys me in this thing, it's that it doesn't have a fleet academy in it and you just get weak ships out of its yards.
The juggernaut is essentially a parade float, looks awesome, but yeah, by late game, it's particularly defenseless by itself. I have used it as a trailing fleet behind my vanguard to overtake outposts and small planets with an accompanying fleet of armies to storm the planets. All in all I was really hopeful that the juggernaut becomes more powerful in future updates bc it's still a cool show piece, but if it becomes a standalone power house on the battlefield, I'd be ecstatic. What would probably be overkill and awesome would be if the juggernaut could be a world destroyer/ pacifier/ assimilating war machine.
As someone who used to play Machine Empires and usually spawn with a Spiritualist Empire nearby, the Juggernaut helped with my Defense
The main thing I used a Juggernaut for is reinforcing my fleets that are in the middle of nowhere and no convenient gateways to utilise.
The only other thing that comes to mind is in one recent game a neighbouring empire decided to attack one of my weaker bottlenecks and the Juggernaut was the only ship I had close enough to intervene - it added enough firepower to save the system and made a couple of battleships by the time they attacked again.
Except the shipyards are never used in favor of station ones...
@@A_Spec - even if set as the fleet's home and it's closer? seems a bit silly.. lol
I rmemeber using this as the crisis to spam menacing corvettes endlessly through every war so it was always surrounded by it's own swarm, i think it was very useful.
Juggernauts are useful with the jumping upgrade to hop into one of the less defended systems far from the front and where the enemy fleet is holding, and holding there for the jump malice to go away. Then it follows along for when you need to bounce your fleet again
I like to use the Juggernaut to heal my fleets when the closest shipyard is too far away. Also when the enemy is blocking the routes to my shipyards.
I like the Juggernaut not for it's own merits, but because it's design is what allowed the Ancient Cache of Technologies mod to make the Herculean, which is basically a super Colossus/Juggernaut mix, and can be upgraded to have resource and science generation too. But it's more expensive in time and resources than some mega/gigastructures.
But without the Juggernaught being a thing, there'd be no mobile shipyard framework for mods to play with.