How would you suggest arming/armoring your ships?

[Paragon]

Title really. I would think a mix of both physical and energy damage and protection due to tactics cards occasionally having huge impacts on them. Yet hero skills and other bonuses/buffs also have rather large effects (+40% energy damage, etc) and sticking to one type allows you to spend less time on military techs with better returns.

Adaptively refitting your fleet to counter your enemy seems far too expensive, so I won't be doing much of that. Only newly comissioned ships may be designed to counter them, if they are a significant threat.

What should I go for? And in addition, what is a good fleet composition/battle spread? I am new to ES2, so i'm not very well versed in it yet.

[Lack of Stuff]

Tactics don't boost defense by a flat amount. For instance 55% bonus against projectiles doesn't halve incoming projectile dmg. It just boosts whatever your current armor value is by half (which usually means you take maybe 10-15% less projectile dmg.) At the same time that tactic puts you in closer which can mean taking 20% more hits from slugs.

Early on I'd say go energy weapons and a mix of defense to handle pirates. After that though you are meant to adapt your fleets to your enemies.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Tactics don't boost defense by a flat amount. For instance 55% bonus against projectiles doesn't halve incoming projectile dmg. It just boosts whatever your current armor value is by half (which usually means you take maybe 10-15% less projectile dmg.) At the same time that tactic puts you in closer which can mean taking 20% more hits from slugs.

Early on I'd say go energy weapons and a mix of defense to handle pirates. After that though you are meant to adapt your fleets to your enemies.

Its bloody expensive though. My stratergy game playstyle was never one of a tycoon, so i'm usually scraping the national treasury for whatever cash is in that universe. Same goes here, barely having an economy able to support myself. Rushing buildings is impossible, upgrading only happens to the most obsolete ships, and even routine repairs are difficult to afford.

[DrIstvaan]

Originally posted by Paragon:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Tactics don't boost defense by a flat amount. For instance 55% bonus against projectiles doesn't halve incoming projectile dmg. It just boosts whatever your current armor value is by half (which usually means you take maybe 10-15% less projectile dmg.) At the same time that tactic puts you in closer which can mean taking 20% more hits from slugs.

Early on I'd say go energy weapons and a mix of defense to handle pirates. After that though you are meant to adapt your fleets to your enemies.

Its bloody expensive though. My stratergy game playstyle was never one of a tycoon, so i'm usually scraping the national treasury for whatever cash is in that universe. Same goes here, barely having an economy able to support myself. Rushing buildings is impossible, upgrading only happens to the most obsolete ships, and even routine repairs are difficult to afford.

Just a quick derailing: once you have a few (well-placed) trade company HQs and subsidiaries you'll have more Dust than you know what to do with.
I understand that maybe you didn't plan on building them since you're not playing "tycoon style", but they are very much worth the effort.

[Asuzu]

It really does depend on the race you are playing - some races are biased towards kinetic slugs/torpedoes, while others are biased towards energy.
You can hover race heroes to find out which admirals are good with kinetics, and which are good with lasers.

Until weapons are rebalanced, as of right now, your choice is to go for slugs or lasers.
Using beams or torpedoes is ill-advised, since both have dead ranges where your ships are not shooting at all.

I personally tend to go for slugs, since they also provide defense against torpedoes.
Lasers are a good second option so you can hang out in Long ranges and just snipe whatever is coming to you.
The topmost feature of Lasers are critical hits, which proc A LOT for insane damage.
But if you research premium slugs, they also get critical hit option, and turn into quite fearsome weapon.

Which brings the issue of tactics - you should always stick to Long/Medium range, since right now AI is using Short-ranged weapons mostly.
2 best tactics to use are given right from the start - "Get Lucky" and "Barrage Fire", you can use those to stick in Medium/Short, or Long/Medium ranges depending on enemy fleet weapons.
You can change your tactics in Ship refitting screen.

Never bother with support/defense ships - they are not bringing anything to the table, and by game logic they get targeted first, so they are always first to get blown up.

In general, splitting your weapons is bad, because by the choice of unknown developer of questionable IQ, premium weapon researches are chosen between Kinetic and Energy - e.g. you must take a pick between Titanium Slugs or Hyperium Lasers, and same goes into each era weapons (Adamantian vs Antimatter, etc.)
So, in general, you pick a weapon type and you have to stick to it with selective choices each era.

Also always make sure to research Command Points techs as well - each CP increases your fleet power to the point of insanity.

So, that being said - my common fitting for advanced soldier ship is all weapons (standard or titanium/hyperium) + 2 hyperium engines + 1 shield + 1 armor. Later on I drop armor for additional manpower module
If I feel I tech fast enough, I skip soldier ships and go for t2 hulls right away, so in that case my common fitting for t2 Hunter ship is all weapons + 2 engines + 1 shield +1 armor + 1 siege module for more damage to planet's manpower + 1 additional manpower module

To be honest, if you manage to pack several fleets worth of advanced soldier ships, and upgrade them with at least Titanium/Hyperium weapons, it is curtains for Endless AI, because you will destroy each and every fleet they make, while steadily invading their territory.

To be able to support so much Titanium/Hyperium mining, you must research several mining techs in Industrial tree - "Slug and Sludge center" for +1 on deposits on the planet as planet specialization, "Miners Union" for +1 on strategic resources global on system, "Expanded Mines" for +2 on strategic resources in global on system.

All that being said, I really hope something changes in that department, as of right now, the supremacy/conquest game is ways too easy to achieve and poses 0 challenge at max (Endless) difficulty.

Have fun

[Paragon]

Are defense ships that get targeted first really that bad? I'd imagine having a vanguard or bulwark of ships with heavy defensive power that is able to draw fire from your weaker offensive oriented ships would be useful. Kind of like a screen if you will.

On that note, do you need any special stratergies in fleet composition to succeed? Screen ships, combat roles, deployment order, etc?

But then again i've never even unlocked the tech.

[Asuzu]

Originally posted by Paragon:

Are defense ships that get targeted first really that bad? I'd imagine having a vanguard or bulwark of ships with heavy defensive power that is able to draw fire from your weaker offensive oriented ships would be useful. Kind of like a screen if you will.

On that note, do you need any special stratergies in fleet composition to succeed? Screen ships, combat roles, deployment order, etc?

But then again i've never even unlocked the tech.

Well, as much as I appreciate Aimplitude trying to get players to differentiate their ships in flotilla, there little to no sense in doing so.
A "Defender" type ship gets what, 1-2 more defense/support modules, and 10% defense value bonus? On top of weapon slots reduced to nothing.
That is easily overcome with attacker ships burning through it like no tomorrow.
And if you are using Support/defender ship for fleet-wide buffs, even worse - they get targeted and blown up first.

So, all-in on soldier ships and off we go, poking aliens with sticks.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by Asuzu:

Well, as much as I appreciate Aimplitude trying to get players to differentiate their ships in flotilla, there little to no sense in doing so.
A "Defender" type ship gets what, 1-2 more defense/support modules, and 10% defense value bonus? On top of weapon slots reduced to nothing.
That is easily overcome with attacker ships burning through it like no tomorrow.
And if you are using Support/defender ship for fleet-wide buffs, even worse - they get targeted and blown up first.

So, all-in on soldier ships and off we go, poking aliens with sticks.

So pretty much fill your fleets with attack ships and carriers? Do the smaller classes (corvette, light defense etc.) play any role once obsolete?

I've noticed an evasion module, which seems like it can be put to decent use by small ships. Are small craft viable alternatives to large ships for cost efficient production to firepower?

[JH]

Actually, I would say do bother with defence ships. Maybe not so much when you only have the small attacker/protector ships, unless you're a race with lots of defence slots on the protector.

After building lots of attacker ships look towards reseaching the medium defence ship, the coordinator. One of these in a bunch of attacker ships will protect your glass cannons nicely. It will soak up the fire from all your opponent's attacker ships due to their targeting priority. Keep all your ships in the middle flotilla for now.

When your opponents start having medium hunters, it's time to forget about small attackers and get hunters too. Coordinators are still useful, now you can start using fleet repair and speed modules. Also if you get your CP up you can start making use of the other flotilla lanes.

Another thing I do, as I have two types of ships in a fleet, is make one projectile and the other energy. This allows good use of the 20% damage module if you have a spare support slot. As your fleets have mixed damage your opponent can't counter them so easily.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by JH:

Actually, I would say do bother with defence ships. Maybe not so much when you only have the small attacker/protector ships, unless you're a race with lots of defence slots on the protector.

After building lots of attacker ships look towards reseaching the medium defence ship, the coordinator. One of these in a bunch of attacker ships will protect your glass cannons nicely. It will soak up the fire from all your opponent's attacker ships due to their targeting priority. Keep all your ships in the middle flotilla for now.

When your opponents start having medium hunters, it's time to forget about small attackers and get hunters too. Coordinators are still useful, now you can start using fleet repair and speed modules. Also if you get your CP up you can start making use of the other flotilla lanes.

Another thing I do, as I have two types of ships in a fleet, is make one projectile and the other energy. This allows good use of the 20% damage module if you have a spare support slot. As your fleets have mixed damage your opponent can't counter them so easily.

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait.

Different races have different slots on their ships? ...Is there a way to preview this?

Bloody hell I might need to start a new game.

[Draken]

For me support ships are kind of useful when you can produce them so quickly that loss of a whole fleet is just a matter of wondering how many more should be created. In the early game they are not that useful as mre guns is simply better, but in a later game when you actually have three or more ships per flotilla they kind of make sense as their bonuses help and they are not getting blown up so quickly. For weapons I usually go lasers + slugs, lasers are those premium ones, slugs are to take care of some of the rockets that are loved by many races.

Beams I rarely use them, but they aren't a bad option when you are dealing with fleets having lots and lots of rockets, yo get close and personal and they cause a lot of damage to your enemies as they have the highest dps value in game.

Ship sizes, for me unless you are forced to, you should ignore those small ones and go directly for medium ones, as they easily handle small ones and you have a much better platform to use later on. Properly upgraded medium ship can eat carriers, small one lacks guns do to this and is so fragile that one hit from any carrier and is a wreck. While medium have hull to support enough guns to cause a lot of harm and are tough enough to survive some punishment coming from a carrier.

[Lack of Stuff]

The Riftborn depend on their defense ships due to the fact that their attacker starts out with almost no defense module (it's got like 1 slot.) They make up for it with alot of attack modules. So I'd say you need to weigh which species you are playing before deciding to use defense ships or not.

[Paragon]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

The Riftborn depend on their defense ships due to the fact that their attacker starts out with almost no defense module (it's got like 1 slot.) They make up for it with alot of attack modules. So I'd say you need to weigh which species you are playing before deciding to use defense ships or not.

What about the other species? Does anyone know what species has what on their ships?

[Draken]

Horatio is the most versatile when it come sto ships and according to many the nicest, UE is balanced between armor and weaponry, Sophons are honestly speaking awesome when it comes to military as te best scientist law gives +50% to damage and you always have this party in power. Their ships are well balanced and have a decent amount of support modules, which makes a huge difference, also if i remember correctly they have a bonus to wrfare in one of their quests.

Important are heroes as they can boost your navy power by quite a lot and sophons and UE have pretty decent heroes when it comes to boostng their militaries. While they won't outnuber Cravers they have easily chance to eat them as their ships when properly designed have a lot of firepower and are tough, not to mention neat looking, especially Sophons.

[Balalaika]

Go 50/50. Kinetic guns and beams. Same with shields and add shield recharger. Have support ships with repair, shield boost, and crew damage. Stick to 25% more long range defense. And wipe out everything on or before mid stage. That is assuming you stay ahead of the enemy in military tech.

[Draken]

Beams are useless, especially when you try to deal with the enemy in long or medium range, they are just a lot of wasted resources and space. Crew damage is pretty useless as if you destroy the ship you also murder the crew, so better for me is damage booster, shield recgarger as above, looks fancy, but useless.