"Depends"
They do different things.
ISD II is stronger, but it also costs more and takes up more pop. It also lacks ions, which have an important role in ship-to-ship battles.

Originally posted by xanofar:

"Depends"
They do different things.
ISD II is stronger, but it also costs more and takes up more pop. It also lacks ions, which have an important role in ship-to-ship battles.

Right, I feel like the ISD-II can easily destroy hard points but struggles against shields, while the ISD-I breaks shields easily but takes slightly longer to take out a hard point. While the ISD-II does take on a different tactical role, the ISD-I can do much the same at a lower cost, albeit slower. I think I'll try experimenting with the ISD-II some. Having a mix of ISD-I and ISD-IIs could be the way to go, thanks.

It really depends on what you need/want them for.

Thrawn's Revenge and the other EAWX mods are balanced around fleet building. This means that different ships are gonna play different roles in your fleets.

While both ISD models serve similar roles their weapons loadouts means they bring different capabilities to the field.

The ISD-I brings a substantial amount of ions making it an excellent fire support ship if you want to focus on other ships dealing hull damage or if you're going up against the New Republic fielding shield heavy Mon Cal ships on your doorstep. It's also cheaper to build and costs less popcap to deploy.

The ISD-II has more overall hull damage and is slightly more tanky. It's a great option for brawling with enemy capitals or punching out heavy frigates. But it's a damage beat stick and lacks even the ISD-I's minimal anti-fighter armament.

both are pretty bad in this mod but thats just becase this mod is poorly balanced

Originally posted by MadnessX789:

both are pretty bad in this mod but thats just becase this mod is poorly balanced

They're not bad at all, but sure, let's talk about your skill issue.

Unpopular opinion. The tector.

From looking at the damage tables, it looks like the medium octuple turbolasers actually do slightly more damage and the Heavy Dual Ion cannons to shields, even with the damage reduction for shields. With that in consideration, in a head-to-head fight an ISD II should beat and ISD I

Originally posted by Amethyst613:

From looking at the damage tables, it looks like the medium octuple turbolasers actually do slightly more damage and the Heavy Dual Ion cannons to shields, even with the damage reduction for shields. With that in consideration, in a head-to-head fight an ISD II should beat and ISD I

It does, because it has 8 pop more. the ISD I is definitely the more cost-effective version in most cases. Like the Octuple Turbolasers are crazy powerful, but also crazy expensive and prone to overkill. So you end up paying a large premium for the ISD II that isn't always worth it when you're on a shoestring budget, but if you can the ISD II it will never be a bad choice to bring.

Originally posted by MadnessX789:

both are pretty bad in this mod but thats just becase this mod is poorly balanced

Corey's Empire at War Expanded mods are among the most balanced mods there are. There's always little gripes here and there, but if you state the ISD, the yardstick of balance against which nearly everything is measured, is bad, you're just playing the mod wrong I suspect.

im not really sure to be honest
i usually go for ISD-2s because lancers or other small frigates can cover point-defense and fighter support

ISD-II is a Cadillac, ISD-I is a Buick. Whether that extra 10% is worth it to you is up to you but ISD-I's are absolutely very strong

im a NR main so i couldnt tell ya well but from my PA zsinj and IR experience tector and ISD2 are great with shield stripping support while ISD1 is the all rounder

The ISD1 does a lot more ion damage, while the ISD2 does more turbolaser damage - especially at long-range. Neither is "better" but each requires different ships supporting them to function well in your navy. The key to winning fleet battles in TR is to play to your ships' strengths while having a good answer to whatever the enemy might have.

When using carrier tactics as the Empire, I prefer the ISD2 since my bombers will do most of the initial damage to enemy shields, meaning ion's are less useful once the those ships close distance. Having more long-range turbo's also means you can sometimes pick off their hardpoints before they can fire.

On the other hand if I'm throwing my ships right up against the enemy and trying to out-tank them, then I prefer the ISD1's ion damage and slightly better defenses for its pop size. The ISD1 is actually over-spec in ion's so it complements larger, bulkier ships like the Allegiance and Tector that are excellent tanks but lack efficient anti-shield damage.

I'm sure there are unit stat tables somewhere online, but if you ever want to calculate a ship's weapon output for yourself, you can find base damage values for weapons under "AI Modifiers, Hero and unit tooltip overview" in galactic view and plug those into the stats on the unit popup.

I tend to use ISD-2's offensively only at very early or very late game.
Very early, they are a fleet center-point, as larger ships are too expensive, and primary attack or defense fleets are mostly small ships supporting each other.

When ISD's in general become out-classed in tonnage availability, I use ISD-1's for pop cap, cost, and build speed reasons. They do less overall damage than ISD-2's, but it's not drastic enough to make them obsolete in how I use them at that point.

During that time, existing ISD-2's are rounded up and put in defensive positions to cover my other fronts while I focus on a particular sector.

Late game, when the snowball has become a snow monument, I take them off defense(and build a few more if necessary), and divide up my existing fleets, using them to fill in the gaps. This way I have a lot of attack angles to quickly mop up any leftovers, and by that point, any enemies remaining rarely demands a heavy dedicated assault force, depending on my approach(but usually I focus on conquering one specific faction at a time, in order of most beneficial integrations/planets/territory to least.)