Are fighters and bombers a must?

[Shin Navideño]

So i was fooling around in normal difficulty with non-meta ships and for some reason a bloody bot managed to constantly beat my megabusted anihilation beam crit build which costed hundreds of materials each one. Is it because the bot had fighters and bombers or what? My damage was sky high with modules and everything

[Fulano]

I've never used squadrons, and I usually don't have trouble taking out the hard AI's late game fleets... but also I usually just go with the typical missile boats with flak coordinators. If they hard counter that I'll just switch to the long range energy beams.

[Catalytic]

I've tried both strategies. They both work. You can build a fleet around carriers as major damage dealers and they shred things as long as you can keep the carriers alive. You can also build gunboat-style fleets where you just use a mix of missile boats and laser ships and enough anti-air (flak on the missile boats) to keep enemy squadrons controlled. I should note though, that I wasn't playing on the highest difficulty levels, so maybe there's a spreadsheet-correct answer. But on the middling difficulties, just build a balanced fleet.

[utilityguy]

So i was fooling around in normal difficulty with non-meta ships and for some reason a bloody bot managed to constantly beat my megabusted anihilation beam crit build which costed hundreds of materials each one. Is it because the bot had fighters and bombers or what? My damage was sky high with modules and everything

The game gives a super indepth post-battle annalysis that I recommend you go back to the turn the battle happen and look through it, as it should give you the numbers on whether or not the Annihilation beam was out damaging the other side or not; while also giving you the numbers on what the enemy's best damage dealers were... and how much damage was mitigated on both sides--as Endless Space 2 works with a Rock/Papers/Scizors battle system where mono-builds can be easily countered with a counter-build.

[ninakoru]

In the latest iteration of the combat mechanics, bombers and fighters are NOT a must, can be easily countered, along missiles using one gun on each ship. Guns come with flak, and flak annihilates both missiles and bombers/fighters.

If somehow enemy has bombers and you don't have any flak, indeed you're in trouble, bombers have probably the highest damage if left totally unchecked.

Offensive power is a poor indicator, is inflated the bigger is the ship. And.. many other things could go wrong, from lane placement, to incorrect cards and ranges.

[Warlord Mal]

Agreed with Ninakoru above.

I would make sure you were using the correct tactics card that would maximize your damage while minimizing your opponents for position and total flotilla lanes.

If the enemy was stacked for high shields and or had EMP weapons on top of their bombers, this could have crippled you.

[Selegun]

Originally posted by Shin Navideño:

So i was fooling around in normal difficulty with non-meta ships and for some reason a bloody bot managed to constantly beat my megabusted anihilation beam crit build which costed hundreds of materials each one. Is it because the bot had fighters and bombers or what? My damage was sky high with modules and everything

Just an observation from your post as I do not have any solid info on your fleet comp...

Don't, under any circumstances, put an annihilator beam on your attack ships! This will ensure you don't get your butt handed to you in fights. Between that and the lack of any flak defenses is why your ships died off so easily. Sure your damage was sky high but ALL of that damage was poured into 2, maybe 3 ships before the MASSIVE cooldown kicked in. You overkilled your targets and could do nothing against the rest of the fleet.

[hardy_conrad]

For the longest time I did great using flack / projectile, with squadrons when I get the option. Just recently it stopped working entirely and that caught me off guard. Seems like what's going on is the enemy juggernaut, although based on my admittedly limited understanding of the game bombers ought to be pretty effective against it. Certainly switching to beams did not help at all. Could simply be that I've fallen behind in terms of tech. Does make things interesting so I'm not complaining.

[Selegun]

Originally posted by hardy_conrad:

For the longest time I did great using flack / projectile, with squadrons when I get the option. Just recently it stopped working entirely and that caught me off guard. Seems like what's going on is the enemy juggernaut, although based on my admittedly limited understanding of the game bombers ought to be pretty effective against it. Certainly switching to beams did not help at all. Could simply be that I've fallen behind in terms of tech. Does make things interesting so I'm not complaining.

I've found getting the antimatter interceptors dramatically increases to lifespan of squadrons. Making sure you have plenty of interceptors to soak flak lets your bombers actually cut loose and deal the damage they are capable of. Fielding a ratio of bombers to interceptors around 1:2 or even 1:3 lets them shine quite a bit in my experience.

[hardy_conrad]

It's an interesting game. I feel like the start can be too hard (hence my grumbling elsewhere about too many neighbours) but the end too easy. Things are always just starting to get fun and then it's over because of a conquest or science victory. I should probably turn those off in the settings, heh. And thanks for the suggestions, I'll try paying some attention to those antimatter interceptors.

[Bozobub]

As noted above, squadrons don't deal well with any kind of significant flak defense *at all*. Frankly, just using fleets with beams + ONE flak weapon per ship (or using Coordinators with massed flak, and the rest attack ships with beams) dismantles just about any missile- or squadron-based fleet, even vs. shields/shield defense cards.

It's possible to *partially* address this in the late game, but a) that's rather late to be very useful, and b) by that time, enemies will have late game weapons and support modules, themselves. If you're winning the arms race with squadrons, you'd be winning at that point with just about any reasonably competent loadout, pretty much ^^' .

[Nobukado]

Great advice, Selegun.

I agree with you Bozobub: against the AI, there is never a need for squadrons, tested over a dozen games and not a single time were squadrons necessary. However, squadrons may be necessary in multiplayer against a human player who specs hard into squadrons. The AI simply does not spec hard enough into squadrons to matter. But if I was playing against Selegun here, would be a different story.

In the original ES1, the AI did spec hard into squadrons (it was called aircraft back then), and this did force the human player to counter with squadrons of their own.

[Selegun]

Originally posted by Nobukado:

Great advice, Selegun.

I agree with you Bozobub: against the AI, there is never a need for squadrons, tested over a dozen games and not a single time were squadrons necessary. However, squadrons may be necessary in multiplayer against a human player who specs hard into squadrons. The AI simply does not spec hard enough into squadrons to matter. But if I was playing against Selegun here, would be a different story.

In the original ES1, the AI did spec hard into squadrons (it was called aircraft back then), and this did force the human player to counter with squadrons of their own.

lol, thanks for the shout out, but I'll admit I play the game a bit odd compared to other players. I've taken a frankly silly amount of time studying the aggro mechanics, pros and cons of using turret opposed to broadside mounts and hyper specialized ship designs. I in no way claim to be one of the best players at the game but like to think some of my focus gives my playstyle some amusing edges that my current group has difficulty working around with any flavor of consistency XP

[Bozobub]

Coordinator ships with massed flak has been a standard a looooong time for good reasons ^^' .