Dread Lords are killing me (campaign)

One of the better tactics against the DL is to swarm them. For this you need a high Logistics ability and Miniaturization. Use a tiny or small hull, and fit it out with as many weapons as you can, nothing else. Then, build them non-stop and put them all in a fleet. The most important part now is to get the first strike against the DL. If the DL attack first, your ships are toast, so keep a close eye on their movement. You will probably need several fleets to destroy a DL, but they should be quicker to replace than the Battle Axes.

If I build no engines into them, how will I be able to first strike? The DL can just outrun me.

Researching certain engine-techs will increase the base-speed of your ships. You can also use another ship as bait to lure the DL right into a trap. For the most part, though, just take a look at the DL ships and see how fast they are. Then position your fleets, so they can reach the DL in the next turn.

Duck and then strike hard with the appropriate tech. Early on, use a few really fast ships trying to take ot their transports. Large ships can hold an engine and enough plasmas to take out first DL fighters - later frigates with a single salvo. It is pleasing to see a Destroyer taking out ship after ship. On normal the DLs are quite late with logistics.

There is always the 9-ship corral approach.

What approach?

I have a follow up question:

How exactly do military resources work? I built a full mining starbase (+19) on one resource and my ships gained 25% attack (from 18 to 24). I then built another base on another resource, but that didn't change anything.

On your mining base Q, I have a few thoughts:

1) Are you sure the second base is on a red mining anomaly?

2) One way to test the effects is to jot down attack/defense #s, save the game, destroy the bases, save it again, and reload the destroyed base one and compare the #s.

The corral approach is an well-known AI exploit.  Are you sure you want to know it?

Galactic resources work by increasing your Ability bonuses. Economics, Influence and Research are self-explanatory. Military resources, however, increase both your Weapons and Defenses abilities. All of those bonuses work as a percentage. So, if you have no base Weapons and Defense abilities, and your Military Mining Starbase grants a +19, the weapons and defenses of your ships will be 19% more effective. I don't know how rounding works in this case, though.

In regards to the second Mining Base not doing anything, it is very likely as LTJim said. So, make sure it really is on a Military resource (double-click on the base and see what kind of bonus it provides). Another possibility is, that the bonus from the second base is just too low to make a noticeable change. Especially if the base strength of the weapons on your ships is also low.

I am interested in the corral approach. So, what is it?

Okay, remember that I did warn you!

REPEAT!  SPOILER EXPLOIT WARNING!

Before I start, be advised that it works best if you have high intel level, though it is not strictly necessary.

The corral approach is based on the AI near-inability to change target so long as the existing target continues to exist.

You get an AI ship or fleet chasing (or seen to be targeting) a ship or something.  Next, you bring 8 ships -ultra cheap is fine! - into its path and englobe it.  It cannot move until it re-targets one of the 8 posts in its "corral."  Meanwhile, ship #9 loiters nearby thumbing it pixel nose.

The same principle can be used in reverse to protect mining starbases.  That is, put your own base in a corral of 8 ships.  The AI cannot target the base until it removes a corral post.  Again, a 9th ship is handy (along with high intel) because if the AI targets a fence post, you rotate the targeted ship onto the mining base square and put a new ship in its "post hole."  Again, the AI cannot retarget.

IIRC, one can also englobe/corral a target planet.  Again, IIRC, no ship can be built/launched when there is no free square into which it can be launched.  This makes invasion easier and, when you finally capture it, the planet will have gobs and gobs of shields ready to be used instantly as a present!

Note that if you do not have the 8 ships, as long as the AI speed is fairly low, you can make a wall of 5 or 6 and frustrate the AI ship/fleet indefinitely by playing keep-away with your ship going "through" the wall and the AI condemned to forever be going around it, unable to catch it.

Once, as a test, I walled off half the map with cheap ships, kept a few post-replacements handy in case a post got targeted, and the AI never crossed it.

Another time, I "herded" a particularly nasty AI fleet via parallel lines straight to the planet of another AI with which it was also at war (but I was not).  The second AI put together a fleet and I graciously "opened the gate" and watched the battle!

Interesting exploit, but I don't think I'm going to take advantage of that.

On another terribly frustrating matter:

I managed to kill 2 or 3 DL ships with large fleets comprised of small fighters armed with beam weapons. Then the DL got shields and I switched to projectile weapons. Result? Nothing! A fleet of 7 ships with an attack rating of 14 against a DL ship with 13 HP and 0 armor rating and it doesn't lose a single HP! How is that possible???

IIRC, the defense value of the "wrong" defense is the square root.  That is, a 100 shield rating = 10 armor or 10 anti-missile.  Meanwhile, each attack is "rolled" separately and is a random value between 0 and the max weapon rating.  The fleet is not a combined roll.  Since one ship can kill multiple others in one battle "turn" even each individual ship may not lump all its weapons into one combined attack.  There have been multiple threads on this over the years, so you could look or ask about this.

Thus, if your individual gun values were small enough per gun or per ship, each separate attack might not have gotten a die roll to exceed the DL's adjusted "armor" defense rating

As I know, all defenses are "depleted" by the attacks within a combat round. If you are playing the DL campaign with ToA your fleet had statistically no chance of winning. But not even a single HP damage is strange, 13 HP suggests a small ship, it should not have had a shield of 50. If you are not too deep in projectile weapon research you might consider missiles: for the same research cost and same size as a 2 damage projectile weapon, you could get 3 damage with harpoon. If you switch to larger frames, you might think about using extra components, I think the Arceans develop a component that adds +25% damage in your influence and is smaller than a single weapon. My lone Destroyer V2s with ten Harpoon 3s, that extra component and an ion engine (and the luck ability) hunted down the lone DL Tiny and small ships but stopping the DL frigates fell to their successors ...